The Beltway & Beyond

Public Strategies’ Howard Schweitzer and Mark Alderman discuss the current state of the 2020 presidential race and the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s candidates for Vice President. N.B. Shortly after today’s podcast concluded, former Vice President Joe Biden announced that he has chosen Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), as his running mate. Harris, who previously served as San Francisco di...

In a matter of months, the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped our society and changed our entire way of life. President Trump has said over the weekend that the virus is “under control as much as you can control it” in the U.S., yet infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths have been soaring in recent weeks. So far, more than 152,000 U.S. deaths and more than 4.72 million coronavirus cases have bee...

99 days before the 2020 Voting Day, the public health and economic crises are emphatically far from over and political rifts are intensifying. How President Trump and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Biden plan on handling pressing issues will become emblematic of their values and priorities and will ultimately determine who becomes President-elect on Nov. 3. Public Strategies’ Howa...

As coronavirus cases climb, Trump’s poll numbers, stagnant for the first three years of his presidency, have largely evaporated. A double-digit advantage in numerous national polls, solid leads in a number of battleground states, and competitive showings in states Trump carried handily in 2016, suggest Biden is the favorite to win on November 3. Even the Trump campaign’s efforts to define the pres...

Amidst the dramatic changes that the U.S has undergone in the last four months, the 2020 presidential election remains ongoing. How the two presidential candidates plan on handling pressing issues will become emblematic of their values and priorities and will ultimately determine who becomes President-elect on Nov. 4. Will it be Mr. Biden, whose key message is that the election is a fight for “the...

After three months of little public activity, and on the heels of a blockbuster week at the Supreme Court, both presidential candidates have launched their campaigns in earnest. Amid widespread civil unrest and ongoing public health and economic crises, the opening stage of what is likely to be one of the most divisive, intensely personal, and anything-but-typical general election campaigns in con...

142 days before the 2020 Voting Day, the public health crisis is emphatically far from over, demonstrations against racial injustice continue to spread, political rifts intensify, and the pandemic patchwork nation seems unable to understand the direction it is going as it braces for its most divisive presidential election. Public Strategies’ Howard Schweitzer, Mark Alderman, and Jim Schultz discus...

For the past eight days, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that has so far claimed more than 100,000 U.S. lives and left more than 40 million Americans unemployed in its wake, protests have been held in all 50 U.S. states and spread to countries around the world, in an all-out rebuke of aggressive police tactics and racism. A wave of epic changes and profound events seen in more than 100 citie...

The twin health and economic crises have reached a tragic new milestone, as the pandemic death toll has surpassed 100,000 and the American economy has shed more than 30 million jobs. Meanwhile, a police killing of a black American has once again sparked outrage and violent protests across the country, laying bare the country’s political dysfunction and racial inequalities. As a grim tableau of a u...

House Democrats on Friday passed a $3 trillion relief package, named HEROES Act in honor of the front-line workers and designed to assuage the health and economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The mammoth bill, approved largely along the party lines, seeks to add pressure on Senate Republicans to start negotiations on a new round of emergency aid and avoid making the process yet another...

After weeks of stay-at-home orders, millions of lost jobs, and trillions in emergency government spending, President Trump is calling for state and local governments to reopen their economies. Governors, for their part, are moving ahead with their own plans for how to safely resume normal activity, as they face the same competing pressures between keeping people safe in a pandemic and reviving som...

After more than a month under pandemic-related shutdown, and a resulting economic nosedive, the reopening of America is happening with little consensus on how it should proceed. Is testing really the deus ex machina that many claim? Several governors have issued a joint call for Congress to approve extra money in direct aid to states, depicting an increasingly dire financial strain on states strug...

President Trump last week signed the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, freeing up almost half-a-trillion dollars in additional relief funds to deal with the pandemic and its blow to the American economy. Less than three months since the first known COVID-19 death in the U.S., the country's reported fatalities make up a quarter of the world's known coronavirus death toll....

Less than seven months before the November election, the issue of reopening the country in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is a high-wire act for the president. The politics of the situation is hanging over the health data, as a swift economic restart could backfire politically for Trump if it causes a flare up. Meanwhile, governors across the political spectrum are also facing growing pressure...

In a matter of months, the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped our society and changed our entire way of life. As hospitals across the country have become overwhelmed, and industries, transport networks and businesses have closed down, the macroeconomic consequences seem dire. The public health and economic crises caused by pandemic will test our political institutions and our willingness to sacrifice...

The COVID-19 pandemic has quickly evolved from a health crisis to a financial and economic one, shuttering businesses, upending entire industries, and resulting in staggering unemployment filings. The Democratic Party announced on Thursday that it will postpone the Democratic National Convention because of the coronavirus. As the scope and scale of the pandemic and its impact remains unknown, Howa...

Exactly one week after The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, “phase three” legislative response to the COVID-19 crisis, was passed, members of Cozen O'Connor's Coronavirus Task Force – including Howard Schweitzer, Mark Alderman, Steven Dickinson, Robert Magovern, Michael Schmidt, Christopher Raphaely, and Jeff Vogel, analyze the impact of the CARES Act on specific industr...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Senate voted on Wednesday to adopt a massive economic-stimulus package. The bipartisan bill would offer some $2 trillion to help many sectors weather the expected physical and economic toll from the coronavirus. House passed the bill today. Howard Schweitzer, the CEO of Public Strategies who served as COO of the Treasury’s TARP program during the 2008 financia...

The coronavirus crisis has challenged all levels of government. Understandably, government action has so far centered on the public health crisis and protecting workers and lower income Americans. At the same time, the government is beginning to focus on the vast financial and economic implications of this pandemic. Work has already begun on a stimulus package to address such implications. Howard...

The coronavirus crisis has escalated in the U.S. and all levels of government must respond. But how? And can our elected officials mesh crisis management with the divisive political climate? Howard Schweitzer, Jim Schultz, and Mark Alderman break it all down, based on Howard’s experience with managing the 2008-09 financial crisis as Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Treasury’s TARP program and J...

Super Tuesday is over and, although the Democratic contest is far from over, former vice president Biden is, for today, the front–runner. Can Bernie Sanders, who benefited from a fractured field in early contests but suffered from the moderate consolidation on Tuesday, still close the gap? Howard Schweitzer, CEO of Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies, is joined by Patrick Martin, CPS Midwest Director...

Less than a week before Super Tuesday, the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination remains fluid, yet the 78-year old Senator already looks like the favorite to clinch the nomination. Bernie’s ascendancy is forcing a sudden reckoning among the Democrats, as they wonder if he is equipped to beat Trump in November: are his opponents devoid of any ideas on how to stop him? Is Biden still a player? An...

Is it “the economy, stupid” again? Consumer confidence is high and the underlying economic data is relatively sound. So if history is any guide, President Trump’s re-election chances are good, as incumbency is a proven advantage in presidential elections. How does that mesh with reality and what to make of Trump tweeting at the DOJ? Howard Schweitzer and Mark Alderman, respectively CEO and Chairma...

The good news for Democrats is that turnout was up in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary over 2016. But the bad news is that Democrats now find themselves in a challenging place, as they are no closer to agreeing on the right person to beat President Trump in November. No candidate exceeded 30% of the vote. Sen. Sanders and former mayor Buttigieg, the two leading candidates from Iowa's caucuses, rema...

The New Hampshire primary - the second party contest of the presidential primary season, is less than a week away, yet delayed results from the first major contest have yet to be fully counted. And despite historic enthusiasm among Democrats for defeating President Trump, turnout in Iowa’s presidential caucus was far off the record set in the 2008 contest. The early numbers, following a day of cha...