strained relationship between china and the united states. and on capitol hill, kyrsten sinema is in the spotlight. the arizona senator is staying sigh leapt on whether she will support a major bill for her own party. good morning and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, august 3rd. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for being with us. we re going to begin with that major victory for abortion rights. voters in kansas have rejected an effort to remove the right to the procedure from the state s constitution. this marks the first time abortion rights was put to a vote since the supreme court overturned roe v. wade back in june. with the november midterms coming up, the kansas vote signals that abortion could be an energizing issue. according to an associated press estimate, turnout for yesterday s primary far exceeded other recent contests with about 900,000 kansas voters casting a ballot. president biden celebrated the win, writing in part, this vote makes clear what
the federal safety net and will cost nearly $2 trillion. plus the new york governor digs in. two former aides say andrew cuomo harassed them. the top two democrats in new york s legislature say he should quit. but the governor says no. legislators who suggest that i resign because of accusations that are made against me, the i was elected by the people of the state. i wasn t elected by politicians. i am not going to resign because of allegations. no. there is no way i resign. up first, though, major new information in the covid pandemic fight. just last hour the cdc offering a public health playbook for americans who have received their covid vaccine. a list u might say, of what they can do safely and what they can t. we would like to give the opportunity for vaccinated grandparents to visit their children and grandchildren who are healthy and who are a local. but our travel guidance currently has been unchanged. dr. wallenski there laying out the guidelines and try
this, but it looks like not enough republicans are the ten needs to pass the phil buster in the senate would be able to get the bill over the finish line. so, we have some reporting, my colleague found out that senator susan collins is working with democrats, specifically, tenny baldwin, about how to change it to get another republicans on board. one of the key things they re looking at is making sure they clarify the language around potential religious liberty. and it kind of goes into, you know, we saw that case at the supreme where there was a baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple. things like that ensuring that, you know, individuals have the right to exercise their religious liberties, that could potentially be a new takeoff and also if they do change that senate bill, they ll likely have to go back to the house. all of this shows that this bill doesn t look like it s going to pass by the august recess. and as you know, jonathan,
last night that is going to fundamentally change what you see happen in the next several months leading to the midterm. this has upended the discussions that are going to be happening amid democrats and republicans what this looks like going forward. of course, this infuriates democrats. this will likely animate them. this is something that republicans have long thought. and could change the conversation what people thought potentially could be imminent and now is 100% imminent. democratic voters are going to say, you have a majority in congress, what are you going to do about this? what is going to happen or not happen? we ve seen attempts to codify this, into law, by locks on capitol hill. there s no path for it, basically right now. it s a 50/50 senate. if they want to get rid of the filibuster, that s one path to take. they don t have a 60-vote majority. going after the phil buster is what senator bernie sanders called for after this was reported seems very unlikely,
stalled in the senate. but as you also said, it does remain to be seen whether what he said yesterday will change the calculus of any democrat in the senate. and that right now, that doesn t seem to be the case with both senators manchin and sinema there are much changes for debate. there s the ground rules pressure on the white house between democrats and republicans. we know that civil rights groups didn t even show up yesterday, explaining there s too much talk and not enough action. but if the phil buster is not going anywhere, darlene, what more can the president do? we saw him embrace the bully pulpit yesterday. i know you and your colleagues at the ap have reported he s not done as many interviews as other