Politics

(WASHINGTON) — The director of President Joe Biden’s Domestic Policy Council, Susan Rice, has divested herself of millions of dollars’ worth of holdings in a company that’s leading a contentious pipeline project supported by the Biden administration.

According to newly released financial disclosure reports and a White House official, Rice has liquidated nearly $2.7 million worth of shares she and her husband owned in Enbridge, a Canadian company building the Line 3 pipeline, which would carry hundreds of thousands of barrels of Canadian oil through Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Last month, the Biden administration gave a public boost to the Trump-era pipeline project, calling for the dismissal of a court challenge brought by environmental groups seeking to protect Minnesota watershed and tribal lands from the pipeline.

The Enbridge stock sale is part of a series of large divestments that Rice, one of the wealthiest members of the Biden White House, has recently made or is planning to make in the coming days. Divesting is a common measure that newly appointed public officials take to ensure that their government duties don’t overlap with their personal interests.

A certificate of divestiture issued by the Office of Government Ethics last week shows Rice’s plans to sell holdings in more than three dozen companies and several investment funds that she and her family own — assets currently worth a total of more than $30 million.

Enbridge’s stock price has been on an upward trend since November, and the value of Rice’s holdings in the company has increased from roughly $2.4 million when she joined the Biden administration earlier this year to nearly $2.7 million as of Friday.

It’s unclear if Rice netted any capital gains from the sale of her Enbridge shares, but those who divest assets under a certificate of divestiture are allowed to defer taxes on capital gains.

A White House official told ABC News that during the transition period leading up to Biden’s inauguration, Rice had agreed to divest from all of the listed assets. In the meantime, while waiting for her certificate of divestiture to be issued, she recused herself from matters involving companies in which she had investments.

The official said that as of early this week Rice had divested all of her Canadian assets, including the Enbridge holdings and more than $14 million worth of shares in Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., as well as many U.S. assets.

Her remaining U.S. stocks are in the process of being divested, a process that will be finished before July 27, the official said.

Among the other assets she is divesting, according to her disclosure reports, are $1 million worth of shares in Johnson & Johnson, more than $823,000 worth of shares in Apple, and nearly $289,000 worth of shares in Comcast.

She will retain major holdings in Canadian banks, including $5 million to $25 million each in the Royal Bank of Canada and the Toronto-Dominion Bank, according to her disclosure reports.

Rice’s certificate of divestiture was first reported by the Daily Poster.

As ABC News previously reported, several other senior members of the Biden administration similarly divested themselves of their assets to comply with ethics rules earlier this year.

Biden’s White House climate envoy John Kerry was issued a certificate of divestiture in March for liquidating $4 million to $15 million in assets from more than 400 companies, including energy-sector interests. In May, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm divested $1.6 million worth of shares in electric vehicle producer Proterra.

Kedric Payne, general counsel and Senior Director of Ethics at the good-government group Campaign Legal Center, said that considering the large number of diverse stocks that Rice is divesting, it’s difficult to say whether the timing of the Biden administration’s support for the Line 3 pipeline project and Rice’s divestiture raises any questions.

But he said that Rice’s divestment from those assets shows the highest level of effort to avoid a conflict of interest.

“Ethics laws allow an official to resolve conflicts of interest with recusals, waivers, and blind trusts, but divesting assets is typically the most extreme remedy,” Payne said. “When officials are transparent about conflicts and sell their relevant assets to avoid such conflicts, the ethics laws are working as intended.”

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(WASHINGTON) — One day after the surgeon general warned Americans about what he called the “urgent threat of health misinformation,” President Joe Biden didn’t mince words when asked for his message to platforms like Facebook about COVID-19 misinformation.

“They’re killing people,” he said.

As the president was leaving the White House for Camp David on Friday afternoon, he was asked, specifically, “On COVID misinformation, what’s your message to platforms like Facebook?”

Biden answered, “They’re killing people. I mean, it really — look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people.”

It was the only question Biden took before boarding Marine One to leave town for the weekend and follows comments by other Biden administration officials warning of the dangers of misinformation in combatting COVID-19.

On Thursday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued the first public health advisory of the Biden administration to addresses an epidemic of misinformation and disinformation and its harmful impact on public health. The Biden administration is now calling on social media companies to take further action to combat misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccine.

Ahead of Biden’s departure, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was pressed Friday by ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott over whether Facebook was doing enough to combat the issue.

“Clearly not,” Psaki said, “because we’re talking about additional steps that should be taken.”

“We’re dealing with a life-or-death issue here. And so, everybody has a role to play in making sure there’s accurate information,” she added. “It’s clear there are more that can be taken.”

The decision to elevate misinformation comes as some Republicans have used the government’s coronavirus response and vaccine messaging as a political wedge.

It also comes amid the government’s current push to boost stalling vaccination rates while the delta variant takes hold of the country’s unvaccinated, in what Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky called “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” on Friday.

The Biden administration has doubled down on their efforts to get more people vaccinated — particularly after the country missed the president’s goal of getting 70% of adults with at least one dose by July 4.

The surgeon general’s new advisory specifically digs into social media platforms as having greatly contributed to the “unprecedented speed and scale” of misinformation’s spread and Murthy calls on technology and social media companies to “take more responsibility to stop online spread of health misinformation.”

It argues that misinformation, particularly on social media websites like Facebook, has hindered vaccination efforts, sown mistrust, caused people to reject public health measures, use unproven treatments, prolonged the pandemic and put lives at risk.

“Simply put, health misinformation has cost us lives,” Murthy said from the White House Thursday.

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(WASHINGTON) — The group of 10 bipartisan infrastructure bill negotiators was already having trouble coming up with ways to pay for nearly $600 billion in planned new spending, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer setting a Wednesday deadline for a key test vote on their bill turned up the heat and pressure significantly.

“That’s pretty aggressive. That means we have a lot of work to do,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, a key GOP negotiator, announcing that she and her colleagues would be working through the weekend to try to finish up the details of their $1.2 trillion plan.

ABC News has learned that one of the key components that negotiators had been relying on to finance the package — a boost in IRS tax enforcement to go after unpaid taxes — is out, leaving negotiators scrambling to come up with a replacement for a proposal that was expected to generate around $100 billion in estimated revenue to help offset the $579 billion in new spending in the legislation.

“I think we’re all trying to think about other ways to get there,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., emerging from a nearly four-hour marathon negotiating session behind closed doors Thursday night. About halfway through that meeting, senior White House officials joined the bipartisan group, including senior counselor Steve Recchetti and Biden’s Legislative Affairs Director Louisa Terrell — a sign of just how important the measure is to the president’s agenda.

According to an aide to a negotiator who requested anonymity to discuss the state of play, wary Republicans wanted to put so many guardrails on the IRS in exchange for getting the money to increase enforcement that “it was untenable.”

Conservative groups have railed against the proposal to empower an agency that they claim once targeted their ranks based on political leanings starting in 2010, as they sought tax-exempt status. The IRS in a 2017 settlement apologized for failing to provide controls and guidance to its employees, though a 2014 House GOP investigation found no connection to or coordination with the Obama administration.

And getting an official amount for that finance option from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which prices out legislation for lawmakers, was also not possible because the government already assumes it will get all of the annual taxes it is owed.

This further exacerbated the problem for negotiators, who admitted that they were only ever going to get an estimate — perhaps in the neighborhood of $70 billion to $100 billion, according to sources close to the matter. That would not be enough for some Republicans, including in leadership, who demanded a hard “score” or price tag to show the spending was fully offset.

Negotiators said they plan to work through weekend, but they are under the gun to publish final legislative text as soon as possible so that they can prevail in the vote on Wednesday.

And some GOP sponsors of the bipartisan plan — including its lead author, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio — made clear Thursday that they will not vote to proceed if it is not yet complete.

Others have tried to argue that the vote on Wednesday, a procedural move to start debate on a shell of the bill which will require the support of 60 senators, is simply the start of a week-long process before final passage. Anyone wanting to support the bill could simply vote “aye” on Wednesday, start debate and substitute in the final text when it is ready.

“My goal this weekend is to make sure that we can all get there, that we’ve got not only the agreement but we’ve got text that people can look at so that we’re not in a situation where we [say], ‘I don’t know what I’m voting on, I just hope that it’s good,'” said Murkowski, referring to Wednesday as “just the beginning.”

The deadine set by Schumer is undoubtedly a high-stakes gamble as he tries to get infrastructure legislation well on its way before the August recess, including a related $3.5 trillion budget resolution that contains the remainder of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure priorities. Schumer also demanded that his caucus reach a final agreement by Wednesday on that product, so that it can move soon after the bipartisan legislation.

Under special, fast-track budget rules, Democrats plan to pass their $3.5 trillion blueprint legislation without a single Republican vote but only if the caucus remains united behind the sweeping outline that includes everything from Medicare coverage expansion to universal child care, climate change and immigration reform.

Still, even though the budget resolution — which Schumer and House Democrats have demanded must be linked to the bipartisan infrastructure deal — is merely a blueprint to be fleshed out later by multiple committees, some Democratic senators are insisting on more details in advance of any vote in the coming weeks.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told Roll Call that he wants to see the details behind his colleagues’ plan to wring revenue out of the pharmaceutical industry to help pay for about $600 billion of their massive plan.

Democrats have for years sought to have Medicare negotiate drug prices to bring them on par with prices paid by other countries. Menendez told Roll Call: “The only industry that gets directly, I’ll call taxed, mostly is the pharmaceutical industry. You have to show me that you’re reducing the cost of prescription drugs to the consumers.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said he would be looking for adequate funding to modernize the dilapidated northeast corridor rail, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said she would be “fighting to make sure universal child care and enough money to attack the climate crisis head on” are in the bill.

“And that we make sure that billionaires and giant corporations pay a fair share,” she said, a reference to key sources of revenue Democrats plan to use to finance the $3.5 trillion in new spending over the next 10 years.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a key moderate negotiating the bipartisan plan who has also signaled that he won’t derail this bigger budget measure, told reporters that he is very concerned about inflation and protecting his coal state from Washington climate mandates.

“I’m concerned about inflation. I want to see more of the details of what’s going on,” Manchin said, noting that he had not had one conversation with the broader budget deal’s lead author, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

“I’m concerned also about maintaining the energy independence the United States of America has. And with that, you cannot be moving towards eliminating the fossil. You should be innovating and using more technology. And we should be leading the rest of the world with the technology that you can use all the above energy sources, and I told (Schumer) that I was concerned about some of the language I’d seen that moves us away from fossil,” Manchin said.

It is that kind of concern from Manchin that also raises eyebrows among progressives in the House where Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a slim majority and has pledged to hold onto any Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill until the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint — also called a “reconciliation” bill after the procedure used to fast-track it — is approved.

“The bipartisan infrastructure bill is much smaller, and it does not meet the same needs that the overall proposal for what frankly the Biden administration has outlined is necessary,” influential progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a virtual town hall Thursday night, calling the group of 10 plan “way too small.”

“We do not need a bipartisan deal in order to pass this bill,” she claimed, pushing back on the argument from the White House and Democratic moderates about the importance of trying to working with Republicans. “It’s great that Republicans are wanting to join some Democrats, that’s wonderful. But this country and people across this country elected Democratic majorities … Republicans are not in charge of dictating what policies we pass and what policies we don’t pass.”

“We will tank the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless we also pass the reconciliation bill,” she threatened.

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(WASHINGTON) — As Texas House Democrats close the first week of their quorum break in Washington, D.C., to stall Republican-backed voting bills, their colleagues across the aisle are escalating efforts to compel them to return to the Lone Star State.

On Thursday, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan announced he would charter a plane on Saturday to fly the absent Democrats from the nation’s capital back to Austin.

“I am demanding all of our colleagues in D.C. to contact my staff immediately in order to secure their seat on the plane and return to Austin in order to do the state’s business. The State of Texas is waiting,” Phelan said in a statement.

In response, the Texas Democrats said they have no intention of taking up Phelan on the request.

“The Speaker should save his money. We won’t be needing a plane anytime soon, as our work to save democracy from the Trump Republicans is just getting started,” they said in a joint statement, adding, “We’re not going anywhere and suggest instead the speaker end this charade of a session, which is nothing more than a month long campaign commercial for Gov. Abbott’s re-election. The speaker should adjourn the House Sine Die.”

Beyond making the open request, the Texas House Speaker cannot further compel the Democrats to return to Texas. The state’s law enforcement officials similarly do not have jurisdiction across state lines to force the lawmakers back.

A group of Democrats left Texas on Monday to break quorum and wait out the end of their ongoing special legislative session in an effort to block the advancement of dual Republican-backed bills that would revise the state’s voting and election laws. Voting rights advocates say, if enacted, those bills would make it harder for Texans to have ballot access. By breaking quorum, the legislators also stalled the advancement of a slate of other bills the state’s Republican Gov. Greg Abbott deemed as priorities for the legislature, of which his party holds as a majority.

While it remains unclear what comes next for the Democrats in the nation’s capital, Abbott says the end of the current special legislative session will not wipe the slate clean of his priority items.

“Whenever the current special session ends, I will immediately call another special session, and I will continue calling additional special sessions so we can address issues,” Abbott said in an interview with CBS Dallas-Ft. Worth on Thursday.

In an attempt to terminate the possibility of another round of walkouts, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who heads the Texas Senate, wrote to Abbott on Thursday asking him to add an item to the next session that would change quorum rules to be based on a simple majority attendance.

“Texans expect their legislature to work and not be held hostage by a few legislators who are exploiting the quorum requirement. The majority of other state legislatures require a simple majority plus one,” Patrick wrote in the letter.

The current rules stipulate that two-thirds of elected members in each chamber must be present to conduct business. Abbott has not yet indicated if he plans to make the addition.

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will be questioned on Saturday by investigators with the New York State Attorney General’s office related to the probe into sexual harassment allegations made against him, according to reports.

The independent probe into these accusations, ranging from alleged unwanted hugs to alleged inappropriate comments, has stretched into its fourth month.

The three-term Democrat, up for re-election next year, will be grilled in Albany by two outside lawyers, Joon H. Kim and Anne L. Clark, hired to lead the probe overseen by Attorney General Letitia James, The New York Times first reported.

Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Cuomo, told ABC News: “We have said repeatedly that the governor doesn’t want to comment on this review until he has cooperated, but the continued leaks are more evidence of the transparent political motivation of the attorney general’s review.”

The attorney general’s office had no comment on the matter when reached by ABC News.

The eventual findings of the investigation will be released in a public report.

A number of women, including former Cuomo aides, have accused the governor of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior. Accusations first emerged in December when a former aide, Lindsey Boylan, alleged harassment in a series of tweets.

The governor has shared several public apologies in press conferences for “making people feel uncomfortable” but has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly said he would “fully cooperate” with the investigation.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Thursday night unsealed an indictment against two California men who allegedly conspired to blow up Democratic headquarters in Sacramento, California.

Ian Rogers and Jarrod Copeland were allegedly inspired by the unfounded belief that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, the court documents say.

When investigators searched Rogers’ house in January, he allegedly had five pipe bombs, which court documents say were live. They also allegedly seized between 45 and 50 firearms, including at least three fully automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

In text messages obtained by investigators and included in the federal indictment, Rogers and Copeland allegedly laid out their plan to bomb the building.

“I want to blow up a Democrat building bad,” Rogers wrote, according to the indictment.

They then discussed their target and Rogers said he was “thinking sac office first target,” to which Copeland agreed.

“I agree. Plan attack,” Copeland said, according to the court documents.

As the exchange concluded, Rogers allegedly wrote: “Let’s see what happens after the 20th we go to war.”

Shortly after Rogers was arrested in January, court documents say that Copeland contacted a militia group that Rogers allegedly belonged to, and the group instructed Copeland to destroy his phone.

Rogers and Copeland were previously charged federally via criminal complaint for allegedly possessing explosive devices and wanting to go after Democrats, but the complaint did not mention a planned attack on the Sacramento Democratic headquarters.

According to the complaint, investigators found a Three Percenters sticker on Rogers’ truck. The FBI has said the Three Percenters is a “radical militia group” with ties to the Capitol siege. Investigators also said they found a “White Privilege Card.”

A lawyer for Rogers declined to comment, and Copeland’s lawyer could also not be reached.

“Sad it’s come to this but I’m not going down without a fight,” Rogers allegedly texted, adding, “These commies need to be told what’s up.”

The special agent who authored the complaint wrote that he believes the messages show an intent to cause violence to prevent now-President Joe Biden from assuming office.

Rogers also discussed plans to attack Twitter and Facebook for banning Trump and possibly California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

He faces additional weapons and explosives charges in Napa County.

“I hope 45 goes to war if he doesn’t I will,” Rogers allegedly wrote.

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(WASHINGTON) — As Rep. Matt Gaetz faces an ongoing federal investigation into alleged sex trafficking, a new campaign finance report reveals how the Florida congressman is spending the funds that he’s raised amid the scandal.

Since news broke in late March that the Justice Department was investigating whether Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, the congressman has launched a nationwide rally tour and has fundraised off the allegations.

From March 30 through the end of June, his campaign has brought in roughly $1.4 million, a drop from $1.8 million that the campaign took in over the first three months of this year, the filing shows. But the campaign’s spending has jumped since the probe was made public, with $1.9 million in expenditures from April through June, compared to $1.3 million in the first three months of this year, according to the filing.

As the investigation has ramped up, Gaetz has beefed up his legal spending, with his campaign paying $50,000 to law firms in June alone.

Half of that went to the law office of New York criminal defense attorney Marc Fernich, who lists on his website “notable clients” that include convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Mexican drug lord El Chapo, former mobster John A. “Junior” Gotti, and “alleged propagandist in Nazi Hungary” Ferenc Koreh.

Fernich did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

The other $25,000 went to the Baltimore office of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, according to the filing, though it doesn’t say who specifically from the firm was representing the campaign.

The latest legal expenditures bring the Gaetz campaign’s legal spending to $135,000 in just the past year. Between 2016 and 2019, the campaign had spent less than $10,000 on legal bills.

Gaetz has also continued to pay political operative Roger Stone amid the ongoing investigation. The congressman first paid Drake Ventures, an LLC connected to Stone, $5,000 on March 24 of this year for “strategic campaign consulting,” and since then has made three subsequent payments totaling $20,000.

In April, the Department of Justice sued Stone and his wife for using Drake Ventures to avoid reporting taxable income to the federal government and for failing to pay $2 million in taxes from 2007, 2011 and 2018. Stone has denied any wrongdoing and said that the lawsuit is “politically motivated.”

Former President Donald Trump commuted Stone’s prison sentence in December 2020 after Stone was charged and convicted on a seven-count indictment of obstructing justice, witness tampering and multiple counts of lying to Congress in the course of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. ABC News previously reported that Gaetz sought a blanket presidential pardon from the Trump White House, which was ultimately not granted. A spokesperson for Gaetz, who has denied any wrongdoing, said at the time that the congressman’s request was conflated with a general push for pardons.

“Our FEC filings speak for themselves,” a Gaetz spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News when asked about the new financial filing. “Despite an endless stream of lies from the media, Congressman Gaetz continues to be among the most prodigious fundraisers in Congress and is the only Republican who doesn’t accept donations from federal lobbyists or PACs. He thanks his tens of thousands of donors and promises to always fight for them.”

During the three months after news broke of the scandal, the Gaetz campaign’s biggest payments — more than $825,000 for advertising and strategic consulting — went to a firm named Logan Circle Group, a newly-hired PR group led by Harlan Hill, the filing showed.

Another big chunk went to fundraising consulting, with $120,000 being paid to a new vendor named Trishul LLC and just under $100,000 paid to Red Rock Strategies, according to the filing.

The Gaetz campaign also spent a total of $800 at the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C., for “meal expenses” and a “parking fee” in April and May, the campaign reported in its filing.

Multiple sources have confirmed to ABC News that the DOJ’s ongoing investigation involves Gaetz and former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, who in June pled guilty to crimes including sex trafficking a minor, and agreed to help prosecutors in the probe.

Gaetz has not been charged with any crime and has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. He has repeatedly denied ever paying for sex or having sex with a minor, and has at times joked about the allegations.

“Today is my birthday […] I already know how CNN is gonna report it: ‘Matt Gaetz has wild party surrounded by beautiful women in The Villages,'” the congressman said at a rally at a Florida retirement community in early May.

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(WASHINGTON) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the White House Thursday for talks with President Joe Biden.

The two leaders held a meeting in the Oval Office before participating in a joint press conference in which they addressed COVID-19 travel bans, relations with China and Russia, protests in Cuba, Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda and more.

On Cuba, Biden said, “Communism is a failed system, a universally failed system. And I don’t see socialism as a very useful substitute, but that’s another story.”

Following the press conference, Biden and Merkel were having dinner with a variety of leaders. Vice President Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Democratic nominee for president Hillary Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy were slated to attend.

After deciding not to seek another term in office, her trip likely marks a farewell to Biden and served as a chance for the longtime acquaintances and partners to reaffirm the strong U.S.-Germany bond in the face of global challenges, such as the coronavirus pandemic and rising autocratic influences.

“Chancellor Merkel has been a true friend to the United States, a strong advocate for the transatlantic partnership for multilateral cooperation, as well as for our shared priorities,” a senior administration official said ahead of the meeting. “In their meeting, I expect that President Biden will convey gratitude for her leadership role, in Europe and around the world, as she prepares to depart the German political stage, following their elections this September.”

The visit has also been an opportunity for the pair to hash out some areas of concern before Merkel’s tenure ends.

Merkel kicked off her day in Washington having breakfast with the vice president and then attending both a one-on-one and a larger group meeting at the White House with Biden. And invited to the dinner for her were “a range of individuals who have long been strong supporters of Germany and the bilateral relationship, which will further demonstrate the close and continuing ties between our countries,” a senior administration official said ahead of the chancellor’s visit.

Despite the warm welcome, challenges remain.

One sticking point between the two countries is Nord Stream 2, a pipeline to move gas directly from Russia, under the Baltic Sea and into Germany. Biden is opposed to the pipeline, as are many Republicans in Congress, because it could give Russia increased influence in Europe and more control over energy reserves. The pipeline will likely deprive other countries, such as Ukraine, of badly-needed oil revenues and some experts fear Russia could shut off the gas supply to certain countries in retaliatory moves.

Biden lifted U.S. sanctions on companies helping to build the pipeline in May as a goodwill gesture to European allies, as he worked to get them on board with his tough-on-Russia policies and in a tacit admission that U.S. sanctions ultimately failed to halt construction. That was a move some Republicans, including Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, criticized.

“Instead of treating Putin like a gangster who fears his own people, we’re giving him his treasured Nord Stream 2 pipeline and legitimizing his actions with a summit,” Sasse said.

It’s a topic Biden was expected to bring up with Merkel on Thursday.

“I do expect that President Biden will raise his long-standing concerns with Chancellor Merkel during their meeting about Russia’s geopolitical project and about the importance of developing concrete mechanisms to ensure that energy is not used as a coercive tool against Ukraine, our eastern flank allies or any other country. We believe that the sanctions waivers that we announced in May have given us diplomatic space to be able to work with Germany to have these conversations to try and find ways to address the negative impacts of the pipeline,” the official said.

However, there was no formal announcement on Nord Stream following the meeting.

The official did preview that Biden and Merkel would release a so-called Washington Declaration, “which will outline their common vision for cooperation to confront policy challenges,” and provide guiding principles for years ahead, even as Merkel’s successor takes the helm. The official also anticipated a climate and energy partnership to be announced, though they provided no further details on what that will look like.

Another area of difference between the two leaders is China’s rising global influence. While Biden has seen China as a competitor that must be curtailed, Merkel is friendlier towards a rising China, believing their success and a balanced trade relationship between the two countries, will benefit Germany.

Other agenda items included the pandemic and security challenges in Afghanistan.

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(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus was among nine protesters who were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police after leading a peaceful demonstration to advocate for voting rights inside the Hart Senate Office Building.

At least 20 Black women activists joined Thursday to rally against legislation across the country which Democrats argue is restricting Americans’ right to vote. They called for federal intervention and specifically the end to the filibuster rule, so the U.S. Senate may pass the For The People Act.

Protesters walked hand in hand into the Senate office building Thursday, singing and chanting, “Let the people vote!”

“This afternoon, nine people were arrested for demonstrating in a prohibited area on Capitol Grounds. At approximately 3:30pm, the United States Capitol Police responded to the Atrium in the Hart Senate Office Building for reports of illegal demonstration activity,” a U.S. Capitol Police statement said.

“After officers arrived on the scene, they warned the demonstrators three times to stop. Those who refused were arrested for D.C. Code §22-1307. Two males and seven females were transported to USCP Headquarters for processing,” the statement continued.

Leading the demonstration was LaTosha Brown, cofounder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, Tamika Mallory, founder of Unit Freedom, Dr. Johnetta Cole, national chair and president of the National Council of Negro Women, Cora Masters Barry, CEO of the Recreation Wishlist Committee, Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, CEO and co-founder of the Skinner Institute, and Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation.

The demonstration comes just two days before the one-year anniversary of the death of the late Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon who marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, on “Bloody Sunday” in the Civil Rights movement.

Following her arrest, Beatty tweeted in Lewis’ honor with the caption, “#goodtrouble.”

ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel and Libby Cathey contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Roughly a dozen Texas Democrats who fled their state to come to Washington met Thursday in a Capitol Hill basement with the Senate Democrat who holds the key vote in Congress on voting rights legislation, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin.

But apparently, the subject of Manchin making an exception to the Senate’s filibuster rule for voting rights never came up.

Emerging from the hour-long meeting, Manchin told reporters, “It was a very good meeting. It was a very informative meeting, and basically, we’ve all come to a total agreement that what we want is basically to protect voting rights. That’s it. A voting rights bill with guardrails. That’s all.”

The centrist Democratic senator, who has refused to support an exception to the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to move forward on most legislation in the 50-50 Senate, said that hot topic pushed by many voting rights activists wasn’t even discussed.

“A filibuster doesn’t need to (happen),” Manchin insisted after the meeting, claiming, “There shouldn’t be a Democrat or a Republican that wouldn’t or couldn’t or shouldn’t vote for something that truly just only deals with voting and the rights of voters.”

Later, the Texas Democrats confirmed to reporters that the filibuster indeed wasn’t mentioned, saying that was by design.

“I think enough people have discussed the filibuster with Joe Manchin. That’s the elephant sitting in the room. Everybody knows what the deal is,” said state Rep. Joe Moody of El Paso, the now-former speaker pro tempore of the Texas House after Republicans voted to strip him of that title.

The meeting comes a day after President Joe Biden made an impassioned speech calling Republican efforts to restrict voting rights an “assault on democracy” but didn’t mention Manchin or the Senate filibuster rule.

Manchin said he is working on legislation, but it is not clear if that would be a new effort, or if it would be the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, designed to restore and modernize the 1960s era- process of “pre-clearance” by the Justice Department that protected minority populations from discriminatory laws in states with a history of discrimination.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down a section of the federal Voting Rights Act that voided that pre-clearance process as outdated.

And Texas Democrats said they are “100%” confident that what Manchin is trying to do will protect what they want to accomplish.

“We were encouraged by his comments and I think we know what his path is and it’s to focus on something a lot more narrower than S.1 and to focus on something that specifically addresses voting rights and pre-clearance,” said state Sen. Carol Alvarado, referencing the sweeping election reform bill — calling for expanded mail-in and absentee voting, requiring automatic voter registration, and major campaign finance and ethics reforms — that the Senate voted down last month.

But whether there is sufficient bipartisan support for narrower legislation is also unclear, though Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski has said she will help rally her conference to back the effort.

Getting legislation through the Senate at this time would be extraordinarily difficult with infrastructure and budget bills expected to consume months of floor time starting next week.

ABC News’ Alisa Wiersama contributed to this report.

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