President Joe Biden met with Senate Democrats on Tuesday to discuss the details of his $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill that passed the House over the weekend and that must now pass the Senate, with a deadline of March 14th looming—the date when currently authorized unemployment benefits will run out. Centrist Democrats have added amendments to the bill to narrow the eligibility for $1,400 stimulus checks from the government. And, the House bill includes an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, which Senators are choosing to exclude in line with the Senate Parliamentarian’s view. Senator Bernie Sanders, head of the Budget committee, issued a statement saying, “I regard it as absurd that the parliamentarian, a Senate staffer elected by no one, can prevent a wage increase for 32 million workers.” Sanders is urging Senators to overrule the Parliamentarian. 

The Vermont independent has joined other 9 Senate Democrats in writing a letter to the Biden Administration to consider backing, “recurring direct payments and automatic unemployment insurance extensions tied to economic conditions,” in a new bill that the President wants to pass, focused on a jobs program to revive American infrastructure called Build Back Better. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who was among the signatories on the letter, says she wants to introduce a wealth tax to fund Biden’s infrastructure bill. Her legislation is called the “Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act of 2021.” Meanwhile millions of Americans are struggling during the pandemic and new analysis shows that even those benefits that are technically available are not reaching a majority of the unemployed. 

In other news, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to the Senate Judiciary committee on Tuesday where he did not mince words in referring to the January 6th Capitol riot as “domestic terrorism.” Prosecutors have continued to unearth new information about the siege including that members of the Proud Boys group had planned to break into the Capitol building from multiple points that day. Still, a new report shows that the majority of people arrested in connection to the attack were not involved in specific groups, suggesting that they were instead buoyed by the common motivations repeatedly fed to them by former President Donald Trump. According to the George Washington University study about 142 of those arrested were, “inspired by a range of extremist narratives, conspiracy theories, and personal motivations.” In fact