Meet the Biden-loving Democrat tired of talking about his cognitive fitness
CAPAC Chair Grace Meng tells Congress Nerd that Democrats should stop second-guessing Biden and start focusing on GOP threats and recent wins.
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to the Sunday bonus edition of Congress Nerd, Once Upon a Hill’s flagship weekly newsletter, where I break down the biggest stories in legislative politics, federal policy and the Democratic Party—all through my sharp lens of race, gender and power.
I wrote and scheduled this edition of the newsletter earlier today before Joe Biden’s personal office announced the former president was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. Wishes for a speedy recovered have poured in from congressional Democrats, President Donald Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
I’m also thinking about everyone impacted by the explosion outside of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs on Saturday afternoon and the Mexican Navy training ship that collided with the Brooklyn Bridge last night.
Keep reading for the rest of tonight’s issue.
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CAPAC chair urges focus on GOP threats, not Biden critiques
First in Congress Nerd: Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) is uninterested in relitigating the circumstances of former President Joe Biden’s decision to forgo re-election last year—especially as Original Sin, a new book alleging his inner circle concealed signs of cognitive decline, hits shelves this week.
Instead, the seven-term Queens lawmaker and chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus told me Democrats should keep their focus on the Republican megabill’s proposed cuts to the social safety net—and recent Democratic wins, like John Ewing Jr.’s upset in the Omaha mayoral race, where he unseated a three-term Republican incumbent to become the city’s first Black mayor and the first Democrat elected to the post since the Obama era—a sign that voters may still favor Democratic candidates in the early months of Trump 2.0, even if the party’s national image remains bruised.