Good Morning DC: No News

Good Morning DC.

Conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh passed away yesterday, and Donald Trump is back in the media, hinting at running again. The former president was invited on Fox, Newsmax, and OAN to talk about Rush but instead ended up making the news about himself. "I won't say yet, but we have tremendous support. And I'm looking at poll numbers that are through the roof."

Lewandowski’s "Let Trump be Trump" continues to be about using any opportunity for free publicity and self-promotion. The former president said that typically when somebody gets impeached, "your numbers would go down, they would go down like a lead balloon." In his case, Trump said, "the numbers are very good, they're very high." 

Progressives are upset that Biden won't write off $50,000 in student loans per borrower. He offered Warren and Schumer a reduction of $10,000, but AOC is not pleased. 

"Who cares what school someone went to?" the New York Democrat wrote on Twitter. "Entire generations of working-class kids were encouraged to go into more debt under the guise of elitism. This is wrong. Nowhere does it say we must trade-off early childhood education for student loan forgiveness. We can have both."

Across the pond, 99-year-old Duke of Edinburgh was taken to the hospital in central London yesterday.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock will chair a virtual G7 meeting today. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke by phone with Stephen Lovegrove, Boris Johnson's incoming National Security Advisor. They agreed on the need for continued coordination on shared foreign policy priorities, including Afghanistan, Burma, China, and Iran.

British Independent Film Awards hosted by Tom Felton are taking place virtually this year. 

The European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to release Navalny or be in breach of the European human rights convention. Historically, it did not happen before for the European Court of Human Rights to be involved in this type of ruling. Russia's justice minister Konstantin Chuychenko said, "there are no legal grounds for the release of this person [Navalney] from custody." 

Google and Australian publisher News Corp have reached the deal on digital distribution of news content. Google's News Showcase will be paying for the news content they will include inside Google News. Negotiations between Facebook and Australia did not go well, as unlike Google, Zuckerberg was not willing to pay for journalism. Facebook will be banning users from sharing content from Australian news publishers due to a new proposed law that requires Facebook to pay for the journalism they post on their platform. 

As the BBC continues to be banned in China, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), CBC-Radio Canada, DW, France Medias Monde, and VOA issued a statement. 

"All of us who believe freedom of expression is a fundamental human right will be deeply concerned that BBC has been banned in China."

What will Biden do today? President was set to visit the Pfitzer manufacturing site in Michigan, but he rescheduled his visit for tomorrow.

This morning at 9:45 AM EST, the President and VP Harris will have a briefing in the Oval Office. At 10:30 AM EST, the President and the Vice President will receive a briefing from members of their COVID-19 team on the COVID-19 response and the state of vaccinations. It’s been 28 days since the President launched his strategy to beat the COVID-19 pandemic, but his team says that when they came in, there were enough vaccines but not enough vaccinators and places to get vaccinated. 

CDC insists on wearing masks with two or more layers to protect the spread but it does not recommend routine use of N95 respirators for protection against COVID-19 by the general public. 

At 12:30 PM, Press Secretary Jen Psaki will brief the press. 

And that's a wrap for this Thursday morning, February 18, 2021. Good Morning DC will be here tomorrow to bring you the latest first. 

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