GameStop populism | Dems push relief | Meet Frank Biden
| EDITOR'S NOTE
Hello,
So much for things settling down in the post-Trump era. President Biden's first full week in the Oval Office was full of developments.
Here are some key stories we've been covering at the CNBC Politics desk:
What's next for Covid relief? It looks less likely by the day that Biden will score the grand bipartisan bargain he had hoped for. His $1.9 trillion aid package, which includes extended enhanced unemployment benefits and $1,400 stimulus checks, not to mention money to speed up vaccine distribution, hasn't even attracted moderate Republican support. Indeed, moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia isn't quite keen on some of it, particularly how widely the government would distribute the stimulus checks.
And so Democrats are starting to work on passing a relief package without GOP help. It's difficult, sure, but it's still doable, given their thin majorities in Congress.
Biden's executive order blitz. The White House stresses that Biden's early flurry of executive action isn't a substitute for legislation, and that the president is simply trying to "fix" problems left behind by the Trump administration. It's clear, though, that Biden is trying to make a point. This week alone, he signed orders geared toward scaling back the production of fossil fuels, extending the Obamacare enrollment period and rolling back a Trump ban on funds for international groups that provide abortion counseling.
The GameStop uprising. Wall Street freaked out as a giddy swarm of retail investors jacked up the share prices of companies such as mall video game retailer GameStop, movie theater operator AMC and even American Airlines, putting the squeeze on hedge funds' short positions in those stocks.
The consumer trading service Robinhood stepped in to suspend trading in some of these stocks, prompting swift backlash from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Meanwhile, the GameStop frenzy gave them some flashbacks of how Donald Trump and the populist MAGA movement took over their party.
Biden family business. If it wasn't already clear from the campaign, when Hunter Biden's dealings in Ukraine and China were at the center of Trump's attacks, the business entanglements of the president's family will be a key theme of his administration. This week, we learned that Frank Biden, the president's younger brother, touted his family ties in an law firm ad in a daily Florida business newspaper – on Inauguration Day. In comments to CNBC, Frank Biden said he never used his brother's name to win clients.
The revelation about the ad resulted in a public rebuke from the White House. "It is this White House's policy that the President's name should not be used in connection with any commercial activities to suggest, or in any way that could reasonably understood to imply, his endorsement or support," an official told CNBC's Brian Schwartz.
Thoughts? Email Politics Editor Mike Calia at CNBCPolitics@nbcuni.com.
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