• President walks back ‘Facebook is killing people’ comment
  • White House reiterates: ‘This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated’

2.40pm BST

In case you missed it, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer filed cloture yesterday on the bipartisan infrastructure plan, meaning that the Senate will vote Wednesday on whether to begin debate on the deal negotiated between Republicans, Democrats and Joe Biden to bolster the country’s roads, bridges, public transit and broadband.

A quick recap because let’s face it, this is very confusing: we currently have two infrastructure bills before us: the bipartisan bill and the $3.5tn reconciliation bill that focuses on “human infrastructure” like social services and environmental measures.

GOP senators have appealed to WH to urge Schumer to back off his plans for Wednesday procedural vote on infrastructure, per source.

Others made clear they need more time to negotiate.

“We are going to be hard-pressed to be ready to vote,” Murkowski said

Schumer takes steps to set up Wednesday procedural vote on bipartisan infrastructure deal, rejecting GOP pleas to delay vote. “If we don’t have a bill agreed to, I have a hard time understanding why we would proceed to a bill,” Romney said

Schumer: “They will continue to have more time to debate, amend and perfect the bill once the Senate votes to take up this crucial issue. But they have been working on this bipartisan framework for more than a month already, and it’s time to begin the debate.”

We are grateful to @SenSchumer for continuing to push for progress in the Senate on bi-partisan legislation that will rebuild our nation’s infrastructure

2.23pm BST

Ahoy there, liveblog readers. Happy Tuesday.

Yesterday Joe Biden walked back some of his criticism of Facebook, saying he never meant to say “Facebook is killing people” when it came to the spread of misinformation around Covid vaccines.

President Biden clarifies his statement about Facebook: “My hope is, that Facebook instead of taking it personally, that somehow I’m saying ‘Facebook is killing people’, that they would do something about the misinformation.” pic.twitter.com/GXfZOHxWKl

.@morningmika: Should social media companies be legally “liable for publishing” misinformation about vaccines and “open to lawsuits?”

.@WHCommsDir: “We’re reviewing that, and certainly they should be held accountable.” pic.twitter.com/txXUWzmqRO

Continue reading…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/joebiden

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