Congress passes $1.9trn Covid relief bill as Trump tries to take credit for vaccine – follow live

A little more from Trump before we let him get back to muttering incoherently under his breath in front of the embers of a log fire at Mar-a-Lago.

The Wall Street Journal has got hold of fresh audio of the ex-president harassing Georgia officials to “find” him enough votes to overturn his election defeat in the key state, following on from the leaking of January’s damning call with local secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, which this time finds him assuring chief investigator Frances Watson that he really did win the Peach State but that “something bad happened.”

“When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” he is heard to tell Watson.

“I can assure you that our team and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are only interested in the truth and finding the information that is based on the facts,” she replies, greatly to her credit.

Namita Singh has the full story.

While genuine progress was finally being made towards helping out the beleaguered American public, Biden’s predecessor, a certain Donald Trump (whom you may dimly recall), was busy issuing a statement seeking to take credit for the success of the “China Virus” vaccine rollout, despite almost half a million Americans dying on his watch and his bungled response to the pandemic attracting widespread criticism.

Utterly tragic, entirely wrong, irrelevant and arguably even further divorced from reality than usual.

Graeme Massie braves the crazy.

There was plenty of bickering in the House yesterday as not a single Republican voted to approve the bailout package, many complaining instead the bill amounted to “an expensive partisan wish list” as Democrats threw up their hands in exasperation.

But it passed comfortably nonetheless thanks to the latter’s majority.

Here’s how that $1.9trn will be spent to get the country back on its feet again.

The US House of Representatives has passed the final version of Joe Biden’s signature Covid relief legislation, sending the $1.9trn package to the president’s desk and meaning American citizens will begin receiving monthly $1,400 stimulus cheques as part of the administration’s efforts to kickstart the economy.

Biden’s so-called American Rescue Plan Act is estimated to be the second most expensive in US history, behind last March’s initial coronavirus response bill, and is more than twice as expensive as the stimulus package passed by the Obama administration in 2009 in response to the Great Recession.

Here’s a breakdown of the voting:

The reaction from the Biden administration was naturally jubilant, with the president expected to sign the bill into law on Friday afternoon, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

Griffin Connolly has a full report.