| POLITICS: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday in a note to her colleagues described the challenge within her caucus to chisel the president’s legislative agenda to a smaller size that could clear both chambers this fall: “Overwhelmingly, the guidance I am receiving from Members is to do fewer things well so that we can still have a transformative impact on families in the workplace and responsibly address the climate crisis,” she wrote (Politico). For Biden, his vow to transform government services and policies through multi trillion-dollar measures remains a high hurdle within his pledge to unite his party, come to agreement with Republicans where possible, and pull voters together with shared aims. As The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Morgan Chalfant point out, Biden spoke throughout his campaign of bringing the country together and “breaking the fever” with Republicans. “You’re going to be surprised,” he told grassroots supporters on a call weeks before taking office in December, predicting a coming “epiphany” by the GOP over their feelings for former President Trump. However, Biden’s rhetoric and actions have been unable to make a dent in the pervasive divisiveness in Washington or with a polarized voting electorate. Although he secured a deal on the bipartisan infrastructure package, which passed the Senate in August, the bill remains hung up by an ongoing tug of war in the House. “He’s been able to move the needle a bit, but I think the expectation was that he’d be able to reset the mood of the Congress and lessen the tension around the nation,” said one Democratic strategist. “I do think he’s been able to normalize some things after the Trump era, but a lot remains unchanged.” Politico: Democrats thought giving voters cash was the key to success. So what happened? Additionally, Biden’s wish for a GOP epiphany concerning Trump not only did not come true, but most Republicans have reverted back to their pre-Jan. 6 stance and are all in with him. Nowhere was that more evident than over the weekend in Iowa, where Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) appeared alongside him at a rally in Des Moines, confirming that Trump’s hold on the party remains firm (The Hill). “If I didn’t accept the endorsement of a person that’s got 91 percent of the Republican voters in Iowa, I wouldn’t be too smart. I’m smart enough to accept that endorsement,” Grassley said after Trump threw his support behind the longtime GOP senator. Niall Stanage: The Memo: Anti-democratic fears rise as GOP stokes election doubts. David M. Drucker, Vanity Fair: How Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plotted to undermine Trump’s stolen election claims. > 2022 watch: After months of speculation, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) (pictured below) is finally making his intentions known and will officially announce plans to run for the governor’s mansion on Wednesday. For years, Shapiro has sought to increase his national visibility, especially in recent memory as Trump and his GOP allies attempted to overturn the state’s electoral results. Shapiro, who is in his second term as attorney general, also made waves with an investigation into sexual abuse by clergymen. His entrance in the race all but clears the field for the Democratic nomination to replace outgoing Gov. Tom Wolf (D), whose favorability ratings have tanked over the past year and a half, due in part to his handling of COVID-19 in the state. The GOP primary is expected to be hotly contested (The Associated Press). The Philadelphia Inquirer: How Shapiro locked down the Democratic nomination for governor without even announcing he would run. Tal Axelrod, The Hill: Democrats brace for tough election year in Nevada. 
© Getty Images ***** ADMINISTRATION: The Justice Department on Monday night again pressed courts to step in and block a restrictive new Texas abortion law. “If Texas’s scheme is permissible, no constitutional right is safe from state-sanctioned sabotage of this kind,” the Justice Department told the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In wording that seemed to be a message to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department raised the specter that if allowed to stand, the legal structure created in enacting the law could be used to circumvent even the Supreme Court’s rulings in 2008 and 2010 on gun rights and campaign financing. It is not clear when the appeals court will decide whether to extend what is currently a temporary order allowing the Texas law to stand (The Associated Press). Attorney General Merrick Garland, wary of being dragged into openly partisan skirmishes, could be thrust into the center of a debate over whether the Justice Department should pursue former White House strategist Stephen Bannon over his decision to buck a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. The committee, which is exploring how the planned Jan. 6 demonstrations were conceived and organized, could refer Bannon to the department for criminal prosecution if he defies a Thursday deadline to provide a deposition to lawmakers (The Hill). > Officials in the U.S. Indian Health Services were complicit while a colleague, government physician Stanley Patrick Weber, preyed on Native American boys as a pedophile and retaliated against whistleblowers. The agency, which knew of suspicions about the pediatrician that spanned more than two decades, is now trying to protect those managers, according to an internal investigation by The Wall Street Journal and Frontline. > The Agriculture Department’s Wildlife Services branch killed eight wolf pups in Idaho’s Boise National Forest that belonged to the Timberline wolf pack, which has been tracked by high school students since 2003. The students said they were shocked. Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) in May signed a law allowing private contractors to kill 90 percent of the state’s wolf population, which officials estimate is about 1,500. The government shot eight Timberline “juvenile wolves” in their den because they were accused of killing ranchers’ livestock, an Agriculture Department official confirmed in an Oct. 1 letter. The government has declined requests from wolf conservationist groups to suspend the killing of wolf pups on all public lands (The Washington Post). The Trump administration stripped gray wolves of Endangered Species Act protections in the lower 48 states days before the 2020 election, leaving individual states to decide how to manage their wolf populations. The Biden administration is considering whether to reinstate the protections. The federal government owns 62 percent of Idaho’s land. 
© Getty Images The Hill: Biden’s nephew, Cuffe Owens, 42, wed Meghan King, 37, on Monday in Pennsylvania. The president and first lady attended the ceremony. Owens is the son of the president’s sister, Valerie Owens, and her husband, Jack Owens. King is a former cast member of the “Real Housewives of Orange County.” The bridegroom is a California attorney. | 
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