Travel Pool Reports of March 16, 2021

Travel Pool Report #1 - Background On PA Trip

Good morning from the White House. Forwarding this memo from the White House on the president's trip to Pennsylvania today.

BACKGROUND MEMORANDUM

The Need for the American Rescue Plan in Pennsylvania

The pandemic and the associated economic crisis have had a severe impact on Pennsylvania:

• Since the pandemic began, more than 966,210 people have been infected with COVID-19 and more than 24,586 people have died in Pennsylvania.
• The unemployment rate in Pennsylvania is 7.3%, up from 5% before the pandemic.
• Since February 2020, more than 367,249 fewer people are employed in Pennsylvania.
• 701,000 adults – 9% of all adults in the Commonwealth – report not having enough food to eat. This includes 381,000 adults living with children (14% of all adults living with children) who report that the children in their households do not have enough to eat.
• An estimated 489,000 renters (20% of renters statewide), are not caught up on rent.
• An estimated 2,747,000 adults (30% of all adults statewide) report having difficulty covering normal household expenses.

Impact of the American Rescue Plan in Pennsylvania

The American Rescue Plan will provide Pennsylvania with:

• $7.4 billion in state fiscal relief.
• $4.9 billion in local fiscal relief.
• More than $5.1 billion in relief for K-12 schools.
• Economic impact payments of up to $1,400 per person (above the $600 per person provided in December) for more than 8.1 million adults and 2.8 million children. This reflects 86% of all adults and 84% of all children in the Commonwealth.
• Additional relief of up to $1,600 per child through the Child Tax Credit to the families of 2,368,000 children, lifting 140,000 children out of poverty.
• Deliver additional relief of up to nearly $1,000 to 700,000 childless workers in Pennsylvania through the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, supporting many frontline essential workers.
• Marketplace health insurance premiums that are $1,402 lower per month for a 60-year old couple earning $75,000 per year.

Small Businesses

• The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have left more than 400,000 small businesses permanently shuttered, and millions more have lost substantial revenue.
• More than 70% of small business owners (and three quarters of small business owners in Pennsylvania) report that they have been negatively impacted by the pandemic.
• Approximately one in five small business owners (and 21% of small business owners in Pennsylvania) report that they will need additional financial assistance or capital in the next six months.

The American Rescue Plan and Small Businesses

The American Rescue Plan will provide emergency grants, lending, and investment to hard-hit small businesses so they can rehire and retain workers, and purchase the health and sanitation equipment they need to keep workers safe. Specifically, the American Rescue Plan will:

• Deploy community navigators to increase awareness of and participation in COVID-19 relief programs among small business owners who currently lack access – especially underserved entrepreneurs without banking relationships, lawyers, and accountants.
• Launch a $75 million outreach and education program, which will promote community navigator services and establish a telephone hotline to offer information about small business relief programs.
• Allocate $15 billion in flexible grants to help the smallest, most severely impacted businesses persevere through the pandemic.
• Provide $28 billion for a new grant program to support hard-hit small restaurants and other food and drinking establishments.
• Bolster the Paycheck Protection Program with an additional $7.25 billion in funding to support small businesses and non-profits that were previously excluded.
• Devote $1.25 billion in funding to support live venue operators, theatrical producers, live performing arts organization operators, museum operators, motion picture theatre operators, and talent representatives that are struggling to make ends meet.
• Invest $10 billion in a Small Business Opportunity Fund, which supports successful state, local, and tribal small business financing programs to help small businesses innovate, create and maintain jobs, and provide the essential goods and services that communities depend on.
• Help small businesses rehire and retain workers by extending the Employee Retention Credit (covering up to $7,000 in payroll per employee, per quarter for eligible firms) through the end of 2021.

Pennsylvania Vaccinations Update

• 2,862,957 Pennsylvania residents have at least one dose (22.4% of the total population)
• 1,422,010 Pennsylvania residents are fully vaccinated (11.1% of the total population)

Federal Support for Pennsylvania Vaccinations

Pharmacies: Through the Biden-Harris Administration’s program, vaccines are available in over 700 pharmacies in Pennsylvania to date, primarily in Rite Aid, Topco, and CVS locations.

Community Health Centers: The Biden-Harris Administration is partnering with 29 Health Centers to provide them with direct vaccine allocations. Four were onboarded in the first phase of the program, in Philadelphia and Williamsport, and 25 will be onboarded over the next six weeks, in Allentown, Bethlehem, Chester, Erie, Fredericktown, Greensboro, Harrisburg, Lancaster, New Holland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Pottstown, Reading, Scranton, and York. Combined they have sites at over 150 different locations across the Commonwealth.

Federal Funding: As of March 12, the Administration has provided over $198 million to the Commonwealth to support vaccination operations. There are nearly 400 federal personnel deployed to Pennsylvania to support vaccination efforts, in addition to nearly 300 federally-funded National Guard members supporting COVID-19 operations. Additionally, a federally-run vaccination site is operating at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, with a capacity to administer 6,000 shots per day and over 56,000 shots administered since opening.

Travel Pool Report #2 - JBA

Good afternoon from Andrews Air Force Base. Marine One touched down at 1:59 PM. President Biden exited a few minutes later wearing a dark suit.

He walked to the plane and boarded without stopping to talk to press, pausing briefly to wave at the top of the steps.

He was accompanied by aides including senior adviser Anita Dunn, deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed and Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

We expect to be wheels up shortly.

Note: Jen Psaki is expected to gaggle during the flight. If the audio is piped back to the briefing room the in-town pooler will try to provide a pool report. I will also try to file a report when we land.

Travel Pool #3 - Philadelphia/gaggle

Air Force One landed at Philadelphia International Airport at 2:36 PM.

Jen Psaki gaggled briefly. Here are a few notes. Will get more out shortly.

Mr. Biden will be visiting a flooring business in Chester.

Covid: Covid 19 coordinator Jeff Zients held a call with governors today and announced an increase in vaccine allotments. She said that

"We have over 22 million doses going out the door just this week."

North Korea: "I don't have a direct comment or response to the comments made from North Korea. ... Our focus right now is working and coordinating with our partners and allies on a range of issues including security."

"Our objective is always going to be focused on diplomacy and denuclearization."

Filibuster: Biden's preference is to keep Senate rules.

On travel she said they would be going to redder states. Did not answer a Q on Ohio.

On a press conference she said she may have an update later today and that they were working on finalizing a date. She said it would not be this week.

Travel Pool #4 - Leaving airport

President Biden exited Air Force One at 2:47 PM under grey skies and sleet. He immediately got in the motorcade. We are rolling for next stop.

Travel Pool Report #5 - Still at airport/More gaggle

The president's motorcade started moving but has been idled for about 10 minutes at the airport. The White House says he is greeting elected officials from Pennsylvania.

Here is some more from the gaggle.

Please check quotes against playback or official transcript.

Covid:
"Today, our COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff science held this weekly Governor call, he announced an increase in vaccine allotments to jurisdictions to over 16 million, including alignments for all pre authorized vaccines. When you add that to the doses going out, federal channels including directly to pharmacies and community health centers. We have over 22 million doses going out the door."

NK:
"we don't have a direct comment or response to the comments made from North Korea. I will say, a note, did you give me the opportunity that, obviously, the Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense, are currently on their way or they're traveling to South Korea, where they'll be meeting with their Japanese and South Korean counterparts. Certainly, the security of the region, we have topic of discussion, obviously also, our Secretary of State and our national security adviser are headed to Anchorage, later this week to meet with their Chinese counterparts where of course security in the region will be part of the discussion. So our focus right now is on working with and coordinating with our partners and allies on on a range of issues."

Filibuster/infrastructure: "Well, firstly, I would say the President's preference as you alluded to is not to make changes. He's also open to hearing ideas and those discussions happen in Congress. This is of course the Senate Rule. It's not a law that he would change or sign into law, it's a Senate Rule, as it relates to infrastructure. The President has long been a proponent of investing in infrastructure rebuilding our roads, railways, and bridges, and he also is, he was in the Senate for 36 years and believes this is a policy where there can be and should be bipartisan support."

PPP extension? "We certainly know that this is a program where there's an interest in an extension I don't have anything to preview for you on that. Obviously the implementation of our the PPP loans and ensuring that we are getting those loans students mom and pop businesses to smaller businesses to addressing some of the challenges that happened the first time around is our current focus but I don't have anything to preview on an extension."

Republican lawmakers not getting vaccinated: "I would say, our focus is on using every resource at our disposal to communicate directly with the American people, what we've seen in our data is that the most trusted sources of information or doctors clergy, local, local civic leaders, and we are working through our efforts at HHS and through programs in the administration to empower support and ensure that they can get information out to the communities that they have the funding they need."

"I would say, our focus is on using every resource at our disposal to communicate directly with the American people, what we've seen in our data is that the most trusted sources of information or doctors clergy, local, local civic leaders, and we are working through our efforts at HHS and through programs in the administration to empower support and ensure that they can get information out to the communities that they have the funding they need."

Travel Pool # 6 - Moving again

The motorcade left the airport at 3:04 PM.

Travel Pool # 7 - More gaggle

More details on the gaggle. Again check all quotes against playback/transcript.

Alaska meeting: "was important to us that meeting happened on oil, which of course it is what's happening with soil in Alaska. We believe it's an opportunity to talk about the relationship.

Certainly, there will be issues raised we expect there are parts of the conversation that could be difficult. There are issues that the President has not held back on voicing concerns about whether it's human rights, whether its economic or technology issues. Certainly many of those topics can be discussed during this meeting."

On appointing a National Cyber Director: "is a priority for the President, and something that he feels there's a federal government to play. So we're going to pursue that role and ensure that we're approaching it in the right way"

Said Solar Winds review continues.

On Child Tax credit: " You should not see it as shakiness. The president wants to make the child tax credit permanent.
"He believes there's a lot of proposals out there including from Senator Romney to work to make sure there's longer term assistance through the child tax credit and he believes it's also one of the ways that we can address the number of women working women who've moved out of the workforce."

Ahead of meeting with Irish Prime Minister said that there will be "Some traditional exchanges of gifts and such things."

Travel Pool Report #8 - Smith Flooring

We have arrived at Smith Flooring Inc in Chester Pa. at 3:21 PM. Some background from the White House below.
Fact Sheet: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ARP-Fact-Sheet-Small-Buisnesses.pdf

Today the President will visit Smith Flooring, Inc. in Chester, PA. Smith Flooring is a Black-owned union shop (Carpenters Local 251) that supplies and installs flooring. During peak times they have 22 employees but currently they have 12 employees, 6 in the office and 6 in the field.

Smith Flooring has received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, and also qualifies for additional programs such as the community navigator services and the employee retention tax credit under the American Rescue Plan (ARP). Although Smith Flooring lost around 20% of revenue in 2020, it was deemed essential and survived because of the PPP loans and a few key contracts. Smith Flooring received the original installment of PPP in April of 2020 and their second installment in March of 2021. It is using the second PPP loan, which it received during the Biden-Harris Administration’s two-week exclusivity period for small businesses with 20 or fewer employees, to retain workers and upgrade technology.

Attendees

• Kristin Smith, Owner
• James Smith, Owner
• Congresswoman Houlahan (D-PA-06)
• Congresswoman Scanlon (D-PA-05)

Travel Pool Report #9 - Elected officials at the airport

From the White House:

The President greeted the following key elected officials from Pennsylvania:

Participants Governor Tom Wolf (D-PA)
Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D-PA)
Jim Kenney, Mayor of Philadelphia
Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA-03)
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA-02)
Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA-04)
Bob Brady, Former Congressman
Ed Rendell, Former Governor of Pennsylvania
Brian Zidek, Chair of Delaware County Commissioners
Thaddeus Kirkland, Mayor of Chester

Travel Pool Report #10 - Biden remarks at Smith Flooring

President Biden gave brief remarks inside Smith Flooring Inc at about 3:30 PM. He was joined by the owners and Congresswomen Chrissy Houlahan and Mary Gay Scanlon and owners Kristin Smith and James Smith.

Here are some notes and color. Please check against playback. The entire event can be seen on CSpan here:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?509925-1/president-biden-visits-small-busi...

"This is a great outfit. This is a union shop," Mr. Biden said. "You can make a decent wage, a living wage."

Then he stressed how many Pennsylvanians lost jobs.

He repeated yesterday's pledge that within ten days his administration would get out 100 million checks and reach 100 million shots since he took office.

"More help is on the way," he said.

The owners thanked him for helping a small business, saying it meant a lot that he was there.

"Not many people come and stop here in Chester," Kristin smith said.

"Is there anything else we can be doing?" Biden asked.

He spoke for just over five minutes. Pool was escorted out at 3:35 PM.

They spoke in a warehouse style room lined with shelves stacked with boxes and buckets. There are vacuums and equipment on one sides Flooring samples are propped up against one wall.

One wall has these words printed on it; "Vision Statement: we are building a company where innovation and creativity is the norm."

The White House said that the business has "22 employees at their peak as their business is construction-based and their busier season is during the summer."

Travel Pool Report #11 - Rolling

At 3:55 PM the president's motorcade is leaving the flooring company.

Travel Pool Report #11 - Darby and Press Conference News
[APP Note: This report is numbered #11, although the previous report was #11. The APP reproduces reports exactly as they are written by the reporter.]

The motorcade stopped at 4:15 PM in Darby Pa. Pool is currently holding in the vans outside the Darby Borough Recreation Center.

Also the White House sends this from Press Secretary Jen Psaki:

President Biden will hold a formal press conference on the afternoon of Thursday, March 25th.

Travel Pool Report #12 - Haaland

From the White House:

Statement from Press Secretary Jen Psaki:

Before departing AF1, President Biden signed the commission of appointment making former Congresswoman Deb Haaland the next Secretary of Interior.

Travel Pool Report #13

At 5:41 PM the motorcade left the Darby recreation center.

Travel Pool Report #14 - Back at Airport/Leaving

The president’s motorcade arrived at the Philadelphia International Airport at 5:48 PM. He boarded Marine One at 5:52 PM.

We are boarding Ospreys for the trip to Wilmington.

Travel Pool Report #15 - Wilmington Arrival

Pool landed in Wilmington at 6:06 PM after a roughly ten minute flight. Marine One landed at 6:13 PM. President Biden exited at 6:19 PM and got in the motorcade.

Per the White House he was met by: Delaware Air National Guard Greeter: Colonel Joseph Cook, Delaware National Guard.

At 6:20 PM the motorcade is rolling.

Travel Pool Report #16 - Lid

President Biden’s motorcade arrived at his Wilmington home at about 6:30 PM.

At 6:35 PM we have a travel/photo lid. Big thanks to co-pooler Emily Goodin. Night all.