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Presented by Mastercard: Tomorrow’s conversation, tonight. Know where the news is going next. | | | | | |  | | By Joanne Kenen | | | With help from Renuka Rayasam, Chris Suellentrop, Myah Ward and Tyler Weyant
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Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Perry, Ga., on Sept. 25, 2021. | Ben Gray/AP Photo | ‘I CAME UP WITH A VACCINE’ — At least twice this week, Donald Trump touted the vaccines that he has both taken and taken credit for. And even President Joe Biden — who sometimes goes out of his way to refer to his predecessor as a nameless “former guy” — gave “President Trump” props in his big Omicron speech this week, both for encouraging vaccination and for his administration’s role in the rapid development of the shots. On Twitter this morning, Press Secretary Jen Psaki made a point of elevating the remarks of the former guy by writing, “Just going to echo former President Trump here on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Merry Christmas eve eve. go get boosted.” Promoting the vaccine to skeptical, or militantly, anti-vax followers is something some of Trump’s supporters and public health experts asked him to do months ago, privately or publicly, as my colleague Meridith McGraw and I reported earlier this year. But he was focused on pushing the conspiracy of The Stolen Election. Now, twice in the past week — once at an event with former Fox host Bill O’Reilly on Sunday where both men revealed they had gotten vaccine boosters, and then more extensively and quite assertively in an interview at Mar-a-Lago with conservative commentator Candace Owens — Trump spoke up about the power and effectiveness of the vaccines as Omicron starts to swamp U.S. hospitals. “I came up with a vaccine, with three vaccines,” Trump told Owens. “All are very, very good.” He also hit back at suggestions that the vaccines are harmful or ineffective, saying that vaccinated people who got breakthrough infections had mild illness. The vaccinated, he said, were not the ones dying. “The ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take the vaccine,” he said. “People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.” Trump reiterated his opposition to vaccine mandates, and, to Owens, to mask requirements for kids in school. But his endorsement of the vaccines themselves was hearty and unequivocal. During the final year of his presidency and his 2020 campaign against Biden, Trump frequently boasted of the vaccines and of Operation Warp Speed, his administration’s program that sped up their development and manufacturing. He often spoke as though he himself had donned a white lab coat to create them. He tried, but failed, to get at least one vaccine approved before Election Day. But he’s seldom spoken of them since, and on the few occasions he has, he’s stepped on the message by putting so much stress on personal choice and freedom. To the public health world, his shift this week was better late than never. “Fighting disinformation and encouraging vaccination are critical to our response to Covid-19, so I welcome anyone who shares those goals — even former President Trump,” said Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, which has done a lot of work on combating vaccine hesitancy, including through research and focus groups led by Republican strategist Frank Luntz. “Of course, it would have been better had former President Trump gave this same full-throated support to the vaccines earlier in the pandemic and resisted the politicization of Covid-19, but it’s not too late,” Castrucci said, adding that maybe Trump would even consider doing a national unity, pro-vaccine message with Biden. What made Trump do this now is anyone’s guess. Hospitals have been swamped before, and the death toll is now past 800,000. For the past year, the unvaccinated have died in disproportionate numbers. His sudden jab-advocacy also comes shortly before his planned news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 6, the anniversary of the assault on the Capitol. One former aide, who did not want to be named talking about the former boss and who had urged Trump to speak out earlier, downplayed the new tone, saying Trump had talked about vaccines “whenever he was asked.” Another ex-White House aide, who also requested anonymity, said O’Reilly is someone Trump respects who “doesn’t have an agenda or ax to grind in this space.” So when O’Reilly asked Trump if he had received a booster “his answer was clear and straightforward.” “His follow up” — his restated opposition to vaccine mandates — “gave everyone a window into his thinking,” the second former aide said. “Beyond that, I wouldn’t speculate.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Thanks so much for reading this year. Happy Holidays and stay safe out there. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author on Twitter at @JoanneKenen. A programming note: Nightly won’t publish from Friday, Dec. 24 to Friday, Dec. 31. But don’t fret: We’ll be back and better than ever on Monday, Jan. 3.
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A person wearing a festive new year’s hat and glasses poses at the 2022 New Year’s Eve numerals as they arrive in Times Square in New York City. | Rob Kim/Getty Images | AULD LANG SYNE — A year that started with lines of fencing wrapped around the U.S. Capitol, and ended with lines of people looking for Covid tests wrapped around buildings nationwide, comes to a close soon. It was a year of waiting, of hoping and wishing and patience and running out of patience. We waited for Covid results or vaccine appointments, and the end of shortages. You went to order something online and shuddered at the times it would take for it to get there, or went to the grocery store and randomly found a thing that was available last week now long gone. We saw people get on airplanes and promptly lose their civility, only to be broadcast across the world on social media. But here comes 2022, something new. We’ve already made some Covid-specific predictions about the new year. So for our final edition of 2021, we asked some of the notable names we’ve chatted with throughout the year for their resolutions for 2022, a year that most hope will be a fresh slate. The following have been lightly edited. “I’m hopeful and determined for 2022 to show what’s possible in delivering a brighter, bolder future for all of us. After a pandemic year on the campaign trail, my New Year’s resolutions are to go on family bike rides once my younger son learns how to ride, enjoy concerts and shows around town to see our creative economy thriving, and take action to make Boston a Green New Deal city.” — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, as told to Lisa Kashinsky “My 2022 New Year’s Resolution is to meet Mary Trump.” — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) “My resolution is to go back to my morning Peloton ride! Another long winter of Covid ahead.” — Mary Kate Cary, former White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush “To do everything I can so that Covid doesn’t dominate my life or the lives of others, and to do all I can so that nothing as deadly and disruptive as Covid ever happens again.” — Tom Frieden, former CDC director and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives “Return to normal by reorganizing my personal space. It’s time to declutter my life and remove all my classroom materials from taking up space in my living room, dining room, basement and home office.” — Donna Brazile, former DNC chair “To carve out more personal time for myself, which is always much easier said than done for us all.” — Padma Lakshmi, host of “Taste the Nation” “I’ve never made New Year’s resolutions, but I make decisions along the way and this is what I’m seeing happening and mean to continue: More music, more theater, more walking, more reading. I do these a lot but want more, especially music. In the past five years cable news was usually on in the background when I worked. That’s not good, little chips of flat sound. Music is better.” — Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal columnist and former White House speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan
| | | | POLITICO TECH AT CES 2022 - We are bringing a special edition of the POLITICO Tech newsletter to CES 2022. Written by Alexandra Levine and John Hendel, the newsletter will take you inside the most influential technology event on the planet, featuring every major and emerging industry in the technology ecosystem gathered together in one place. The newsletter runs from Jan. 5-7 and will focus on the public policy related aspects of the gathering. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage of the Summit. | | | | | “To see our Texas Children’s Hospital-Baylor College of Medicine recombinant protein Covid vaccine for global health adopted by low- and middle-income countries across the Southern Hemisphere and to vaccinate the world.” — Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development “In 2022, I resolve to be less risk averse in my defense of commonsense election reform at the state level, i.e., photo ID requirements, the cleaning up of voter rolls and the banning of private money to conduct elections. I further resolve to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. “The core expression of our people’s liberty is the ability to vote in free and fair elections. Safeguarding the integrity of our elections is paramount to the preservation of our republic!” — Ken Blackwell, chairman of the Center For Election Integrity America First Policy Institute “This 2022, I want to get back to doing yoga.” — Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) “As I move forward, I will focus on my work, even as I place greater value on spending time with my family and friends. I recognize you cannot solve every problem, so I intend to celebrate our significant wins in Houston and continue to make a meaningful difference by focusing on what we can do for the greater good.” — Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who ends 2021 battling a mild case of Covid “The pandemic reminds us there is nothing more important than spending time with the people we love because that time is both precious and fleeting. It also reminds us that our decisions — individually and collectively — can gravely impact those very people. My resolution for 2022 and beyond is to work tirelessly until we patch the gaping holes in our social safety net that the pandemic has exposed. Our foundation will redouble efforts to create a fairer and more just society that provides opportunities for every person in the United States to thrive. I am hopeful that better times are ahead, and I am resolved to do all that is possible in my life and in my work to ensure that the lessons of this pandemic lead us, together, to a better place.” — Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
| | | |   | | | | | | — FDA authorizes Merck-Ridgeback Covid-19 pill: The Food and Drug Administration authorized a second antiviral pill for people infected with Covid today as the Biden administration works to ease the burden on hospitals swamped with patients. The agency is only authorizing Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’ pill, called molnupiravir, for people who test positive, are at high risk for severe disease and are at least 18 years old. FDA said the pill can’t be used by patients younger than 18 because it “may affect bone and cartilage growth.” — Trump asks Supreme Court to shield records from Jan. 6 committee: Trump petitioned the Supreme Court today to delay efforts by the Jan. 6 select committee to access his White House records, his last attempt at blocking investigators from accessing a massive trove of documents from the highest levels of his administration. Trump moved for an emergency injunction to block a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington D.C. earlier this month, which sharply rejected Trump’s bid to prevent the committee from obtaining his files. He also filed a petition for full consideration by the court. — 7 Pentagon staffers test positive for Covid after official trip: Seven staffers who traveled with Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks last week have tested positive for Covid , the Pentagon’s top spokesperson said today. Hicks and members of her immediate staff have continued to test negative, however. Spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement that the department has begun contact tracing, and is also “contacting hotels, bases and support personnel who may have come in contact with the traveling party.” — DCCC launching partnership to boost campaign staff diversity: House Democrats’ campaign arm is moving to boost diversity among its membership’s senior campaign staff, teaming up with a training program to place staffers at top posts on campaigns. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Blue Leadership Collaborative announced today that the two organizations would partner for the 2022 cycle. The goal of the program is to recruit and retain people of color, women and people who identify as queer as senior staff.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | PUTIN’S PRE-CHRISTMAS WISH LIST — Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the West today to move quickly to meet Russia’s demand for security guarantees precluding NATO’s expansion to Ukraine and the deployment of the military alliance’s weapons there. Speaking during a marathon annual news conference, the Russian leader welcomed talks with the U.S. that are set to start in Geneva next month, but warned the discussion focused on Moscow’s demand needs to produce quick results. “We want to ensure our security,” Putin said. “We put it straight: There must be no further expansion of NATO eastward.” Last week, Moscow submitted draft security documents demanding that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back the alliance’s military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.
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European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde leaves a press conference in Germany waving goodbye, just like Nightly is waving goodbye to 2021. | Ronald Wittek - Pool/Getty Images | SEE YOU IN 2022 — As we close out the last edition of 2021, here are New Year’s resolutions from the team that brings you Nightly every day. My mom’s Facebook memory from 2019 popped up this month, showing me in my blue cap and gown, no mask. Pre-Covid. My LinkedIn in January will say two years at POLITICO. That means year three of the pandemic is approaching. To think we’ve spent two years of our lives with Covid is overwhelming. We’ve all begun to talk about life the same way, categorizing time by a virus: Pre-Covid, Pandemic and Post-Pandemic, whatever that really means. As an expert told Nightly, we used to mark time by standout events. It’s true Covid has warped our sense of time but scroll through your camera roll. This year wasn’t as blurry as I thought. In 2021, I was vaccinated and boosted. I became a breaking news reporter. I hugged some of my best friends I hadn’t hugged since college. I watched my little brother graduate. My pandemic puppy turned 1 and now has a pandemic kitten to keep him company (whoops). I moved to D.C. I saw my grandparents. I ran a marathon. I saw people I love get married. Then there was a year of news: To name a few, Biden was inaugurated, and Vice President Kamala Harris made history. The Capitol was invaded. We saw the end of America’s longest war. When I remember 2021, I hope I don’t just write it off as another year of Covid. And in 2022, I hope to soak it all in — the days, the months, the defining moments. Because Covid doesn’t stop time. — Myah Ward I want to try and get even further out of my D.C. bubble in 2022. To head folks off at the pass, this will not involve me visiting diners or even a Golden Corral in Youngstown. Particularly in the era of Covid, people I know who have visited D.C. continue to be stunned at things little and big about how folks live here compared to the rest of the country. We’ve tried our best in Nightly to expand the stories POLITICO tells and to report on how some of the less-than-usual suspects affect our country. (This can be seen in pieces on portable toilets, buffets and Christmas trees.) I want to expand my understanding of the country and those who live in it because I want to be a more well-rounded person, someone who travels and talks to folks outside the Beltway. But it is also an imperative for those trying to cover U.S. politics. If we don’t understand the lives of the people who elect our leaders, how can we understand what’s happening when those leaders get here? — Tyler Weyant 2021 was the first year in nearly two decades that I haven’t stepped into a yoga studio. The recent realization crystalized how, even though I threw birthday parties for my kids, traveled and went to restaurants, the pandemic has kept life from returning to anything resembling the semblance of normal. I’ve regularly attended yoga classes since my mid-20s as I moved from city to city and even to a different country. It’s gotten me through breakups and pregnancies. But in the pandemic, I’ve had to resort to online classes usually interrupted by a toddler trying to join me in downward-facing dog. With Omicron I’m not yet ready to spend an hour breathing deeply with a bunch of strangers in an enclosed space. But I hope that sometime in 2022 I will. — Renuka Rayasam Twenty-one months ago, when I was asked to move from POLITICO Magazine to edit a new pop-up pandemic newsletter, a colleague reassured me, Don’t worry. No one expects you to be editing a coronavirus newsletter a year from now. Well, here we are, about to start Season Three. At this point, no one expects me not to be editing this newsletter ever again. Or if they do, they haven’t told me about it yet. I guess we’ll see what happens at my next annual review. Anyway, I’m not going to pretend to know what Team Nightly should be resolved to confront in the year ahead, with Omicron looming, a midterm election on the way, and new revelations about exactly what happened on Jan. 6 a near certainty. But I’m not worried about it, either. Beyond, you know, everyone’s tail-risk, black-swan concerns about this moment in time, like will my family members die and am I witnessing an in-plain-sight attempt to end the American experiment? The normal stuff. My point is, I’m not worried about whether this newsletter will still be here, or whether we’re equipped to cover whatever comes next. We will be, and we are. There’s an intimacy to newslettering that makes it different from writing for the home page. The inbox on your phone or desktop is a little like the living rooms the first TV broadcasters visited — a private, personal space you invite us into each night. Thanks for having us, and happy holidays. Don’t forget to write. — Chris Suellentrop
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