pressure. joe biden has this supreme court commission that s established and they re almost done with the process and probably going to be releasing their findings in the next month. i m not sure on that timing exactly. it s already been delayed a bit but progressives are eagerly waiting on some of the findings, whether they might further help with this public pressure campaign to urge breyer to retire early so as not to repeat what we saw happen with ruth bader ginsburg which allowed president trump to ultimately push through republican scotus. so that is all very much in the air but yet it is another i think tough point that biden has to deal with here going into the new year and illuminates just how many priorities he has left with democrats right now that he has yet to follow through on. he was very vocal on throughout the democratic campaign for the president. jackie, mara, thank you both
very much. check out both of your twitter feeds. mara has a nice tweet or two on the covid situation in new york city that i think people would be instructive it would be to people, so check it out this morning. a group of third graders at a washington, d.c., public school were allegedly instructed by a staff member to re-enact incidents from the holocaust. the school has launched an investigation. jean casarez joins us with details on this. explain, jean. , if of all, d.c. schools has told cnn this was not an approved project at all. it did involve as you just said third graders at the watkins elementary school. now the washington post is saying that this actually occurred in library class, that one student was cast as adolph hitler, that others were tasked or cast to shoot their fellow students and other students had the responsibility of simulating digging mass graves. there are also allegations that hate speech was said during this
ultimately sign on to something. in terms of what s on the line here, it s not just build back better, and all those programs, mara. there s a lot more at stake for democrats. another pr headache they don t want or need. it speaks to problems with. biden s entire legislative agenda. what does that mean for voting rights and it s significant in the midterms as well. if democrats are going into the mid terms without a big legislative win and without something that has changed and touched people s lives swiftly and tangibly, then that really is going to affect a lot of democrats that are vulnerable and when you look at joe manchin and his motivation here, i think it s really important to remember that this is the lone democratic senator from a state trump won by 40 points twice and take cues he made his announcement on fox news and he is citing in his decision concerns about things like inflation, but when you look at that logic, it really doesn t stand up to scrutiny because the
economic analysis suggests these measures in the short term would not contribute to inflation and the net benefit is to low income americans and this is a senator who represents one of the poorest states in the country. and when it comes to the way forward for democrats, they have the option to potentially break this up and to focus on some of the more popular measures to isolate those and try to get them through, but short of that, it s really hard to see how they re going to move forward with this and with voting rights. mara, it is interesting, one more question for you. there are people who complain to progressives there isn t enough focus on what s in the bill. there s focus on the gamesmanship. it has to pass in order to count but why isn t what s in the bill enough for joe manchin, given the perceived need in west virginia? you know, john, that s a great question and it s not one that i think senator manchin has provided an adequate response to, because the things that he
senator joe manchin s stunning announcement he is a no vote, that may have doomed president biden s build back better bill. can the white house hand out a compromise to bring this over the finish line? jackie alameny author of the washington post the early 202 newsletter and journalist mara schiavacampo. jackie, this is a tough moment for the white house this morning. they were surprised by this, caught off guard by this and issued this scathing reaction saying that manchin broke a commitment to this. where do things stand this morning? that s exactly right, john. i don t think you need me to tell you how frustrated the white house and all of joe manchin s democratic colleagues are. the frustration is palpable. it was very clear in the statement released by white house press secretary jen psaki yesterday and from many of the