Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Democrats are leaving Washington for the holidays having fallen short on a slew of President Joe Biden’s top domestic priorities and staring down the barrel of a politically-contentious 2022 in which the balance of power in Congress is up for grabs and trending red.

After months of intra-party gridlock, the Senate is closing out its first session without voting on the president’s cornerstone social spending package with no clear path forward on how the bill might progress to the floor in the new year.

“The president requested more time to continue his negotiations. So we will keep working with him, hand in hand,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor amid a rare Friday session, acknowledging for the first time that Biden’s Build Back Better bill will not come to the floor before the holidays.

West Virginia moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin has proven to be the most intransigent of obstacles for Democrats who hoped to quickly expedite the social spending bill, which includes funding for in-home care, universal pre-K, an extension of the Child Tax Credit and Medicare expansion.

Manchin has for months opposed the cost of the $1.75 trillion bill, citing concerns that the real cost of the programs over time would plunge the nation trillions further in debt and spike inflation rates at a time when the cost of consumer goods is skyrocketing.

In particular, Manchin has insisted on extending the expanded Child Tax Credit for the full 10 years of the overall plan — a $1 trillion proposal — while also demanding that the price tag remain under $2 trillion, a dilemma that could only result in deeper cuts elsewhere among prized programs.

Despite ongoing negotiations with Schumer and Biden, Manchin hasn’t been persuaded to come off his position. His vote, and that of every Democrat in the Senate, is necessary to both start debate on and pass the final package.

Biden acknowledged as much in a separate statement released Thursday evening.

“My team and I are having ongoing discussions with Senator Manchin; that work will continue next week. It takes time to finalize these agreements, prepare the legislative changes, and finish all the parliamentary and procedural steps needed to enable a Senate vote. We will advance this work together over the days and weeks ahead; Leader Schumer and I are determined to see the bill successfully on the floor as early as possible,” Biden said.

Immigration reform, another key Biden campaign promise, has also hit snag. Democrats had hoped to work a pathway to citizenship into the proposal, but the Senate parliamentarian, who must assess whether certain items are admissible under the rules governing passage of the package, has ruled against multiple efforts.

On Thursday, the parliamentarian dealt Democrats yet another blow, ruling against their latest effort that sought to provide five-year work permits and deportation protection to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for at least a decade.

Other December priorities also fell by the wayside as the Senate spent the month grappling with government funding, a must-pass defense authorization bill and a hike to the federal debt limit. All of these issues had to be attended to before the Senate left, and stalls on each priority ate valuable floor time.

Lawmakers will leave Washington this week also failing to address election reform after Republicans mounted a near-unanimous blockade on multiple legislative efforts. Under the current Senate filibuster rules, at least 60 lawmakers must consent to passage of federal voting rights legislation, and GOP opposition has all but doomed the reform efforts.

Democrats made a last-minute push for voting rights earlier this week, convening calls with Biden aimed at pushing moderate holdouts to consider reforming Senate rules to bust the GOP filibuster.

But Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., aren’t prepared to make exceptions to the Senate rules, even for voting rights.

Sinema “continues to support the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, to protect the country from repeated radical reversals in federal policy which would cement uncertainty, deepen divisions, and further erode Americans’ confidence in our government,” her office said in a statement Wednesday.

During Friday’s policy lunch, Democrats drilled down on the Senate rules, hearing from two former Senate rules experts. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said that there are somewhere “between five and nine different plans or permutations of plans, some extremely complex, some pretty straightforward and simple” on getting voting rights passed through the chamber. But so far, there’s no obvious path forward.

“We’re talking about 50 very strong-minded, extremely independent elected officials, each with a separate constituency who are really looking into their consciences,” Blumenthal told reporters. “I think we’re very close, because I think that voting rights is so absolutely critical. I’m hopeful that the New Year will bring us closer together.”

Many Democratic lawmakers see substantive action before the November midterms as necessary to shore up their razor-thin majorities in both chambers of Congress. But Republicans are using the intraparty squabbling among Democrats as an opportunity.

They’ve painted Biden’s social spending agenda as an all but certain increase in inflation.

“I think the big story of the year is inflation,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell Thursday. “The single biggest thing we could do for the American people is to kill the reckless tax and spending spree.”

McConnell said he thought 2022 would be “a good environment” for Republicans looking to retake the majority, adding, “The places that will be making this decision are Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada and Arizona, and we’ll be out there doing battle. And I think we’ll have the wind at our back.”

Asked about the wildest of wild cards for Republicans — former President Donald Trump, who has consistently attacked McConnell’s leadership — the Kentucky Republican dodged. “Good try,” he told ABC News.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Friday dug into Republican opposition to advancing federal voting rights legislation during a commencement address at South Carolina State University.

His remarks came ahead of a renewed push on voting rights, even as he acknowledged Thursday night that another major legislative priority of his administration, the Build Back Better social spending bill, will need to wait until 2022.

“I’ve never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote. Never,” Biden said Friday during his address to the graduates.

Showing some clear frustration, Biden said, “We have to protect that sacred right to vote, for God’s sake.”

The president mentioned his key role in getting an extension of the original Voting Rights Act passed with bipartisan support in 1982, saying that at the time he thought the nation was “finally beginning to move.”

“But this new sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion, it’s un-American, it’s undemocratic, and sadly, it is unprecedented since Reconstruction,” he said.

He said his administration has supported Democratic efforts to reform voting rights since “day one” and that there is “unanimous support” within the party, but with the filibuster in Congress blocking its efforts, Biden again criticized Republicans for not even wanting to debate voting rights legislation.

“But each and every time it gets to be brought up, that other team blocks the ability even to start to discuss it. That other team — it used to be called the Republican Party. But this battle is not over. We must pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We must!” Biden said.

Earlier this year, Biden expressed support for altering filibuster rules to pass voting rights legislation, but he did not make the same call Friday.

The president also focused on “hate and racism” in his remarks.

There is currently a “reckoning on race not seen since the 50s and 60s,” he said, adding that the graduates are entering a “tumultuous and consequential moment in modern American history.”

He pointed to the Orangeburg, South Carolina, massacre of 1968 and the mass shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. He said there was a “through-line” of hate and racism that extended to the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Those marchers were “carrying torches and Nazi banners, screeching [the] most antisemitic and anti-Black rhetoric in history,” Biden said.

Referencing former President Donald Trump, he said that “when asked what he thought about it, Trump said, ‘well there’s some very good people there.'”

“Hell very good people! They’re racist, they’re fascist,” Biden said.

Biden also invoked the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, saying that he gets asked by world leaders, “Is America going to be alright” after witnessing those scenes play out.

After his speech, Biden was presented with an honorary doctorate from the university.

The university also gave a degree to Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Democrat representing South Carolina. Clyburn graduated from South Carolina State University in December 1961 but only received his diploma by mail and did not walk across the aisle until Friday’s ceremony.

In remarks before Biden spoke, Clyburn told the audience about how his late wife, Emily Clyburn, who he met after they were both jailed for civil rights demonstrations while students at the university, encouraged him to support President Joe Biden in the 2016 Democratic primary.

“Not long before she passed away a little over two years ago, she said to me: If we want to succeed in this upcoming election, we’d better nominate Joe Biden,” Clyburn said.

“She passed away before the South Carolina primary, but what she said to me in that night stayed on my mind… And I followed her directions, just I had for the fifty-eight years that we were married.”

Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden in 2020 is credited as a deciding factor in helping him clinch the presidency.

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(WASHINGTON) — Roger Stone, longtime adviser to former President Donald Trump, appeared Friday before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, where he said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to every question asked of him.

“I did invoke my Fifth Amendment rights to every question, not because I have done anything wrong, but because I am fully aware of the House Democrats’ long history of fabricating perjury charges on the basis of comments that are innocuous, immaterial, or irrelevant,” Stone said after emerging from his hour-long session with the committee.

The committee on Nov. 22 subpoenaed Stone for records and testimony, along with four other people linked to the planning of pro-Trump rallies in Washington on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, prior to the Capitol attack.

Investigators are interested in Stone’s involvement planning and attending the events, as well as his soliciting of donations to pay for security at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally, the committee said.

Stone was also seen outside Washington’s Willard Hotel on the morning of Jan. 6 with members of the Oath Keepers militia group, including some members who were later at the riot on Capitol Hill.

Stone has denied any involvement in the attack on the Capitol and has said he had no “advance knowledge” of the march on the Capitol or efforts to disrupt the counting of electoral votes.

“I stress yet again that I was not on the Ellipse [at the rally preceding the Capital attack],” Stone said following his appearance Friday. “I did not march to the Capitol. I was not at the Capitol, and any claims, assertion or even implication that I knew about or was involved in any way whatsoever, with the illegal and politically counterproductive activities of Jan. 6 is categorically false.”

Stone also criticized the committee’s probe into the Jan. 5 rally where he spoke.

“What disturbed me is an investigation into my activities on Jan. 5, which is constitutionally protected free speech, the constitutional right of free assembly, and the constitutional right to redress the government regarding grievances,” he said. “I don’t like to see the criminalization of constitutionally protected political activity. I think it is a slippery slope.”

In February 2020, Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison after he was found guilty of obstructing justice, witness tampering and five counts of lying to Congress in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. However his sentence was commuted in July of 2020 by then-President Trump.

Also questioned this week by the Jan. 6 committee were Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence, two activists involved in planning the rallies in Washington ahead of the riot.

In an interview with CNN, Stockton said “the buck’s got to stop at President Trump” and that he “knew better” than to rally supporters about the election results and encourage them to march on the Capitol.

Other witnesses, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich had their sessions postponed as they “engage” with the committee over subpoenas for records and testimony, the committee said.

On Thursday, the committee subpoenaed Phil Waldron, a retired colonel linked to a controversial 36-page PowerPoint presentation titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan,” that was prepared prior to Jan. 6.

A 38-page presentation with the same title that is available online includes several proposals for challenging and overturning the election results, including recommendations to declare a “national security emergency” or declare all electronic ballots “invalid.”

The document also recommends that Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6, reject electors from states “where fraud occurred,” and that he recognize alternate electors sent to Washington by GOP legislators, or that he delay the certification of the election.

A committee aide declined to comment on the document, which the committee obtained from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, including whether it resembled the presentation with the same name available online.

The committee has issued more than 50 subpoenas and conducted more than 300 interviews as part of its inquiry, and is expected to begin “weeks” of hearings in the new year, according to committee members.

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(WASHINGTON) — Intelligence dispatches, memoranda, and cables between U.S. government agencies in the years leading up to and after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination nearly 60 years ago have been released by the National Archives.

Fifty-eight years ago in Dallas, Texas, Kennedy was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, but since Oswald himself was killed shortly after the assassination, questions lingered about whether anyone else was involved, feeding conspiracy theories.

President Joe Biden ordered the release of the documents in October but it’s being done in stages, with thousands remaining secret amid intelligence agency concerns about what they could reveal.

While there appeared to be no explosive revelations, among the documents released on Wednesday were CIA memos discussing Lee Harvey Oswald’s previously disclosed trips to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City months before President Kennedy was killed.

One of those CIA memos — written the day after the assassination — says Oswald communicated with a KGB officer while at the Soviet embassy that September.

“According to an intercepted phone call in Mexico City, Lee Oswald was in the Soviet Embassy there on 23 September and spoke with Consul Valeriy Vladimirovich,” the document said.

“Oswald called the Soviet Embassy in 1 October, identifying himself by name and speaking broken Russian, stating the above and asking the guard who answered the phone whether there was ‘anything concerning the telegram to Washington,'” read the memo from a high-ranking CIA official.

Oswald — who was married to a Russian woman — was trying to get visas to move to the Soviet Union, according to the documents.

Another newly released document shows a tip from a U.S. official in Australia two days after the assassination — an anonymous call to the embassy from a man claiming to be a chauffeur for Soviet diplomats who said the Soviets had “probably” financed the assassination.

That, U.S. officials asserted, was a crank call.

Biden has ordered the review of the remaining 14,000 documents and the National Archives is required to release those by December 2022 — unless intelligence agencies raise issues.

The National Archives says the vast majority of documents related to the assassination have been made publicly available.

ABC News’ Jack Date, Quinn Owen and Lucien Bruggeman contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has dealt another blow to Texas abortion providers waging war against SB8 in order to restore a constitutional right for millions across the state.

After a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled last week that a very narrow challenge to the law, which is a near-total ban on abortion, could proceed, the providers asked the justices to expeditiously return the case to a lower court so the litigation could get underway.

Normally, there’s a 25-day delay between when the Court issues a decision and it’s formally registered.

Gorsuch, who authored the majority opinion in the case, granted the request on Thursday. But instead of directing the matter to a U.S. District Court where the proceedings began, he returned the case to the highly conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals — a move that could both slow things down and make it even more difficult for providers to prevail.

Texas has said it will ask the Appeals Court to seek clarification on SB8 from the Texas Supreme Court before moving the case forward. The abortion providers opposed that move as an unnecessary delay.

The Gorsuch decision is also striking in that it breaks with what appears to be Chief Justice John Roberts’ expectation that the case would have returned to the U.S. District Court for immediate relief. Roberts, in his opinion in the case, said that “the District Court should resolve this litigation and enter appropriate relief without delay.”

The federal judge who would have picked up the case was Robert Pittman, the same judge who ruled against SB8 in a sweeping opinion earlier this year.

Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a comment, “The Supreme Court left only a small sliver of our case intact, and it’s clear that this part of the case will not block vigilante lawsuits from being filed. It’s also clear that Texas is determined to stop the plaintiffs from getting any relief in even the sliver of the case that is left.”

“Meanwhile,” he continued, “Texans have been without abortion access for more than 100 days, and there is no end in sight. The Supreme Court has let Texas nullify constitutional rights and upend our system of justice.”

The Texas law, which was allowed to go into effect this fall, bans physicians from providing abortions “if the physician detects a fetal heartbeat,” including embryonic cardiac activity, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

While this has reportedly banned a majority of abortions that would’ve previously been performed, doctors in Texas are still providing abortions in accordance with the law.

Whole Woman’s Health, the independent provider organization with several locations in Texas that is fighting SB8, is now providing abortion care — in accordance with the law — for free. The clinic is able to do so because of grant funding, Whole Woman’s Health confirmed to ABC News.

ABC News’ Alexandra Svokos contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday permanently lifted its restriction on the abortion pill mifepristone that required providers to dispense the drug in person, allowing it to be delivered by mail.

The decision is subject to state laws that can criminalize the practice. But the FDA move could still have significant consequences for women, particularly in rural areas where it might be harder for women to find a clinic or doctor that will administer the drug in person.

In its updated guidance online, the FDA cited the need to “reduce burden on patient access and the health care delivery system.”

Abortion rights groups cheered the move but said more needs to be done to ease access.

“While the action today will go a long way for people seeking care, other barriers remain and must be lifted once and for all,” said Destiny Lopez, co-president of All* Above All.

Mifepristone, which blocks the hormone progesterone needed to support a pregnancy, is given to women within the first 10 weeks. The pill is taken with another drug called misoprostol, which causes cramping and bleeding to empty the uterus.

The FDA had stopped enforcing the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone last spring, citing the risks of COVID and noting the drug’s strong safety record since it hit the market more than two decades ago.

Women still must obtain the pill through a certified health care provider.

While abortion-rights advocates say the decision protects a woman’s right to privacy in obtaining a legal abortion, opponents insist the practice is dangerous and puts women’s lives at risk.

“The Biden administration’s reckless move puts countless women and unborn children in danger. Abortion activists’ longtime wish has been to turn every post office and pharmacy into an abortion center,” said Sue Liebel, state policy director for the antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony List.

Thursday’s decision doesn’t mean that every woman will be able to get the pill through the mail.

According to The Guttmacher Institute, which tracks state policies on the abortion pill, 19 states already require a provider to be physically present when administering the pill and prohibit telemedicine when prescribing it.

ABC News’ Alexandra Svokos contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — One hundred three Marines have been discharged for refusing to take the COVID vaccine, the Marine Corps said Thursday, as the military services have begun to discharge a pool of possibly as many as 30,000 active duty service members who still refuse to be vaccinated — even after multiple opportunities to do so past vaccination deadlines.

In late August, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered mandatory COVID vaccines for all U.S. military personnel.

Shortly after Austin made the COVID vaccine mandatory, the military services quickly set up its own deadline dates and warned service members that they could face discharge unless they were vaccinated, which is in line with the Pentagon’s stance that choosing to remain unvaccinated is a violation of a lawful order from Austin.

While the percentage of vaccinated active duty personnel in each service is at 95% or higher, the number of unvaccinated personnel is close to 30,000.

Earlier this week, the Air Force became the first to make public that it had followed through on the warning, announcing that 27 airmen had received administrative discharges.

According to the latest numbers provided by the Air Force and the Navy, 7,365 airmen and 5,472 sailors are unvaccinated, either refusing the vaccine outright or awaiting the processing of requests for administrative, medical, or religious exemptions.

The Marine Corps said Thursday that 95% of its active-duty force of 182,500 Marines had received at least one COVID vaccine shot, the lowest percentage among the military services. The Marine Corps has approved 1,007 medical and administrative exemptions and is still processing 2,863 of the 3,144 requests made for a religious exemption.

Military personnel serving in the United States had already been required to receive 12 vaccines, including those for measles, polio, anthrax, chickenpox and flu, in order to serve. Service members assigned overseas were required to receive up to five others, like those for yellow fever or encephalitis, depending on which global region they are assigned to.

While the Army announced Thursday that nearly 98% of its 478,000 active-duty soldiers had been vaccinated, that means close to 10,000 soldiers are not.

The Army said 3,864 soldiers have refused the vaccine outright while an additional 6,263 are awaiting the processing of their requests for an exemption.

The majority of service members who remain unvaccinated have sought religious exemptions, but none of the services has yet to approve an exemption on religious grounds.

The defense authorization bill passed by Congress this week guarantees that service members who are kicked out of the military for refusing the vaccine will receive either an honorable discharge or a “general discharge under honorable conditions.”

Unlike the other services, the Army has decided that it will not discharge soldiers who refuse to be vaccinated. Instead, they will be “flagged,” cannot be promoted and will have to leave the Army when their enlistment contracts expire.

Flagged soldiers who have refused to get the vaccine will have to submit to regular COVID testing, Lt. Col. Terence Kelley, an Army spokesman told ABC News.

A soldier reporting daily to the same job location will be tested weekly, while those who are teleworking and have to visit their job location will be tested within 72 hours of the meeting or job activity, Kelley said.

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(WASHINGTON) — When Sarah Hutchinson, mom of a 5-year-old son, saw her $300 child tax credit payment deposited into her bank account Wednesday, she said she felt a sense of both relief and fear.

Hutchinson said she was thankful for the payment, which, as a single mom, she uses to pay for her son’s child care, but she also knew it could be the last one she receives under the child tax credit expansion, which went into effect in July after Congress passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March.

The program is set to expire on Dec. 31, meaning the payments that Hutchinson and millions of other parents across the country received on Wednesday will be their last unless Congress votes to renew the program.

“I’m not looking forward to January,” said Hutchinson, 45, a librarian in Fredericksburg, Virginia, who is also facing more than $120,000 in student loans and thousands of dollars in medical bills accrued by her husband, who died in August. “I’m not sure how I’m going to work it out financially, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

Since July, around 35 million families each month have received the enhanced tax credit of up to $300 for each child under age 6 and up to $250 for each child ages 6 to 17, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

The families have primarily spent the money on kids’ school and child care expenses and essentials like food, rent, mortgage and utilities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Losing that extra financial aid would put nearly 10 million children at risk of falling back into poverty, according to a recent analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research and policy institute focused on reducing poverty.

That is the worry that keeps Torie Miesko, a single mom of two sons, up at night.

“I’m afraid,” said Miesko, 28, of Swissvale, Pennsylvania. “I’m trying to keep my sons out of poverty.”

Miesko works full time as an office administrator for a medical clinic while raising her two sons, ages 3 and 18 months. She said the $600 per month she has received since July helps her pay some of her rent and leftover bills and helps to cover her car insurance, which is necessary so that she can get to work.

“It has changed my life,” she said of the monthly child tax credit payments. “I have a little bit of a better job but still everything costs so much money and [the $600 monthly payment] is almost a whole other paycheck.”

Miesko shared her story with several U.S. senators this week in a Zoom call organized by MomsRising, an advocacy organization founded by moms.

The fate of extending the child tax credit expansion in 2022 lies with the Senate, which has yet to vote on the Build Back Better Act, legislation that passed the House of Representatives in November and includes a one-year extension of the monthly payments.

Miesko said she told senators she hopes the Senate stops “messing around” with the financial well-being of parents and passes the legislation.

“I really hope that they take it seriously and know that this really does impact everyday Americans greatly,” she said. “It’s sad how much regular Americans have to struggle and now they want to give [the monthly payments] for a couple of months and then take it back.”

Democratic leaders in Congress had hoped to pass the Build Back Better Act by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s self-imposed Christmas deadline, a timeline the White House said it supported. But that goal is slipping away, in large part due to the objections of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.

The House-passed $1.75 trillion bill extends the monthly child tax credit for one year, through 2022, but Manchin has always said he objects to programs in the 10-year legislation that last for a shorter period of time, under the concern that those programs, like the enhanced child tax credit, could be made permanent and thereby more costly.

“Manchin has been clear that he wants the bill to stay at $1.75 trillion,” a source familiar with the matter told ABC News. “[Manchin] isn’t explicitly telling Biden to remove any specific policy, but he has made clear that expensive provisions are not going to fit to keep the bill at $1.75 trillion.”

A White House spokesperson said Wednesday they want the bill passed “as soon as possible.”

“It’s our longstanding rule not to discuss the specifics of private discussions with lawmakers, but the president and Sen. Manchin have had productive and friendly conversations,” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told ABC News. “The president wants to pass Build Back Better as soon as possible so that it can cut the biggest costs families face, get more Americans into the workforce, reduce the deficit and fight inflation for the long haul.”

If lawmakers do not extend the program ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline, the advance child tax credit payment that parents have been receiving for the past six months would stop. At tax filing time, parents would still receive the remaining half of the credit they are eligible for that wasn’t paid out in advance, according to Erica York, an economist with Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy.

“If lawmakers don’t ever extend the expansion, the child tax credit for 2022 would revert to its current law levels, a maximum credit of $2,000 per child under age 17 that phases in with earned income for lower-income households and that is largely received at tax-filing time, rather than through advance payments from the IRS,” said York. “This could mean many parents would go from receiving a very large child tax credit, to a slimmed down version, or even zero.”

Family policy experts say the potential lost income would devastate many families at a time when inflation concerns are mounting and the coronavirus pandemic is still ongoing.

Losing the monthly child tax credit payments would also impact the families that need it most, including families of color and households led by mothers, according to Amber Wallin, deputy director of New Mexico Voices for Children, a research and advocacy organization focused on improving the lives of children in New Mexico, which has one of the country’s highest child poverty rates.

“Data shows these types of programs disproportionately benefit families that are headed by mothers, and that’s really important right now because the data also shows that mothers have really disproportionately been harmed by the economic impacts of the pandemic,” said Wallin. “Mothers more than fathers have lost wages, have decreased work hours and have exited the labor force since the pandemic began, especially mothers of young children.”

Calling programs like the child tax credit “crucial,” Wallin added, “It’s about more than just providing relief to families. It’s about providing targeted relief that gets exactly to the families that need it, and that’s what the child tax credit does.”

ABC News’ Trish Turner and Justin Gomez contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday is set to award the Medal of Honor — the nation’s highest military award for valor — to three U.S. soldiers for their service during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, the first Black service member to be honored for heroic actions during the war on terror launched after the 9/11 attacks.

Cashe suffered fatal injuries while serving in Iraq on Oct. 17, 2005, after rescuing fellow soldiers from a burning vehicle during Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Salah Ad Din Province, according to the White House. He will be honored posthumously.

Cashe died 16 years ago at the age of 35 and his widow, Tamara Cashe, is set to accept the award on his behalf during a ceremony at the White House.

Cashe’s sister Kasinal Cashe-White recalled her brother as “very rambunctious,” a “daredevil” and “a good kid all around.”

She told ABC News in an interview on Wednesday that receiving the Medal of Honor “means everything” to the family.

“We lost our brother. He can’t be replaced. But this award means that his name his legacy will go down in history,” she said.

Cashe grew up in Oviedo, Florida, and enlisted in the U.S. Army in July 1989 after graduating from Oviedo High School. He was deployed in the 1991 Gulf War and served in Korea and Germany before being deployed to Iraq in 2005 while serving as a a platoon sergeant in the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Asked how she feels about Cashe being the first Black soldier to receive the highest award for valor for service during the war on terror, Cashe-White said her brother “earned” the honor through his actions.

Biden will also posthumously honor Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Celiz, an Army Ranger who died at 32 years old during a 2018 firefight in Afghanistan, as well as Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee, a Special Forces soldier who fought off Taliban suicide bombers in Afghanistan in 2013 and is set to attend the ceremony, according to the White House.

Each of the service members demonstrated courage and gallantry by putting their own lives on the lines to aid their comrades and the actions that led them to receive the honor, a White House press release said.

When the vehicle that Cashe was commanding became engulfed in flames during an attack, his uniform caught fire and he sustained severe burns while extinguishing the flames and rescuing his fellow soldiers, according to the White House. Even after sufering injuries, he repeatedly approached the vehicle and helped four soldiers escape while being targeted by live fire.

“Despite the severe second and third degree burns covering the majority of his body, Sergeant First Class Cashe persevered through the pain to encourage his fellow Soldiers and ensure they received needed medical care,” the White House said. “When medical evacuation helicopters began to arrive, he selflessly refused evacuation until all of the other wounded Soldiers were first evacuated.”

Celiz, who died of wounds he received in combat on July 12, 2018, in Afghanistan’s Paktia Province, was attacked while leading an operation to disrupt attacks against the U.S. and allied forces and saved six live through his actions, the White House said.

His wife, Katie Celiz, told ABC News in an interview Wednesday that her husband was a “family man” who had an “amazing relationship” with their daughter.

“Chris believed in putting his men and his mission first,” she said. “Chris believed that we should always do good, whether it was the easy thing to do or not.”

During the operation he “voluntarily exposed himself to intense enemy machine gun and small arms fire” to help the U.S. and its allies reach safety and to administer aid to a wounded soldier, the White House said.

After he was hit himself, he signaled for the aircraft to depart without him.

“His selfless actions saved the life of the evacuated partnered force member and almost certainly prevented further casualties among other members of his team and the aircrew,” the White House said.

Plumlee, who spoke with ABC News on Wednesday, is also being honored for his heroic actions while serving in Afghanistan.

While responding to an explosion on the U.S. base, he fought off 10 Taliban suicide bombers dressed in Afghan National Army uniforms and came under fire several times, according to the White House. He placed himself in harms way by leaving cover to protect his base and helped render first aid to a wounded soldier, carrying him to safety.

“Without cover and with complete disregard for his own safety, he advanced on the superior enemy force engaging multiple insurgents with only his pistol,” the White House said.

ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

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(MAYFIELD, Ky.) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday surveyed damage in Kentucky he described as “beyond belief” and met with families in neighborhoods ravaged by deadly tornadoes last weekend.

After Biden surveyed the destruction in Mayfield by air and then on the ground, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear later choked up when thanking Biden publicly and introducing him in Dawson Springs, where Biden had stopped and talked to families whose homes were destroyed, including a 12-year-old girl carrying an American flag in a neighborhood where nearly every tree had been uprooted.

Biden opened his remarks by reminding people used to travel to Dawson Springs for the city’s healing waters, but, Biden said, “Now it’s our turn to help the entire town to heal.”

“I intend to do whatever it takes, as long as it takes to support your state and local leaders, and as you recover and rebuild because you will recover and you will rebuild,” Biden said, surrounded by storm damage. “The scope and scale of this destruction is almost beyond belief. When you look around here, it’s almost beyond belief. These tornadoes devoured everything in their path.”

He also offered condolences for those who lost someone and insisted “something good must happen” from the tragedy.

“I met one couple on the way up, said they’re still looking for four of their friends. They don’t know where they are. And those who have lost someone, there’s no words for the pain of losing someone. A lot of us know it.” Biden said.

“Keep the faith,” Biden added. “No one is walking away. We are in this for the long haul.”

Ahead of his remarks, Biden updated a presidential disaster declaration to boost federal disaster funds from 75% to 100% coverage for debris removal and emergency protective measures in Kentucky for a 30-day period.

Earlier, before receiving a briefing from state and local officials in Kentucky “on the impacts of the tornadoes and extreme weather,” according to the White House, Biden vowed all the federal support he can provide to the area, both now and in the months to come.

“Immediately after a disaster is a time when people are really, really moving, and trying to help each other and trying to get things done. But after a month, after six weeks, after two months, people can get themselves to a point where they get fairly depressed about what’s going on, particularly young kids, particularly people who’ve lost somebody. And so I just want you to know, the help that we’re able to offer at the federal level, is not just now,” Biden said.

“I’ve instructed my team to make you all aware of everything that is available from a federal level,” Biden added later on. “And some of it has to do outside of FEMA, outside of Homeland Security, there’s other programs, including education, there’s a whole range of things, but I’m here to listen.”

The president seemed struck by the scale of the damage he saw on his aerial tour.

“As you fly over here, as I’ve done in the past, I’ve not seen this tornado, this much damage from a tornado. You know, you think, but for the grace of God, why was I not 100 yards outside that line? Which makes it so different,” he noted.

Biden was joined for the visit by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who were on the ground there on Sunday.

At least 88 people have been confirmed dead across five states, 74 in western Kentucky alone, and the death toll could rise “significantly,” Beshear said on Tuesday.

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