I’m not going to sugarcoat it: The news is grim. Last night, government scientists predicted that 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die as a result of the coronavirus — and that’s the best-case projection. New reporting today says that the economic recession from the virus could last into next year, or even longer. In the middle of all that worry, we have to keep muddling through our suddenly is... Read more »

Katie Porter would like a word. The California Congress member has emerged as an influential voice on Capitol Hill amid the coronavirus crisis — she is leading the (thus far failed) charge to push for remote voting, and in a five-minute viral exchange she got the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to concede that the authority already exists for Covid-19 testing to be free.... Read more »

Whether or not they realized it, lawmakers just passed a $2 trillion stimulus bill that lets Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin give $500 billion to corporations without any particularly meaningful oversight on how it gets spent, which sectors will be treated as a bigger priority for getting financial help, or when the money will be repaid. Billions of those dollars could begin flowing within an ho... Read more »

When I called Katie Porter on Tuesday afternoon, she was fixing lunch. “Apologies if you hear banging in the background,” the 46-year-old congresswoman told me when she answered the phone. She chuckled as she began to chop something—zucchini, I would later learn. “Three meals a day here! We’re gettin’ three squares.” Porter left Washington, D.C., and returned to her Orange County, California, home... Read more »

Katie Porter, a freshman Democrat in Congress, couldn’t have known when she wore a batgirl Halloween costume to Donald Trump’s impeachment vote in October that she would soon have the chance to help rescue millions of Americans during a global pandemic. But as Trump’s administration badly mishandles the deadly coronavirus outbreak, Porter has unexpectedly emerged as a true hero in a spiraling cris... Read more »

On Thursday, through a line of skillful and at times ruthless questioning, California Congresswoman Katie Porter got the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to commit to free testing for all Americans who may be carrying the coronavirus. Porter first filleted Health and Human Services (HHS) official Dr. Robert Kadlec on his apparent lack of knowledge about what the out-of-... Read more »

Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) did the math. Like a host of “The Price Is Right,” Porter asked a Department of Health and Human Services official to guess what it would cost for an uninsured American to receive a coronavirus test, itemizing everything from the initial flu test to the expensive emergency room visit. She tallied up the total cost on a whiteboard: an estimated $1,331 out of pocket. Sh... Read more »

Democratic Rep. Katie Porter successfully pressed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief during a congressional hearing on Thursday to agree that the agency will pay for testing for the novel coronavirus. The exchange came after President Donald Trump, while addressing the nation on Wednesday night, incorrectly implied that coronavirus patients could access free treatment. Many insur... Read more »

Congresswoman Katie Porter on Tuesday rebuked Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for attending a party thrown by Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos in late January. The freshman Democratic lawmaker from California pressed Powell on whether those who attended the black-tie event in Washington could have benefited financially by gaining access to Powell and pressuring him to change how the Fed sets in... Read more »

Representative Katie Porter, a single mother of three children 8 to 14 years old, hopes for the day when no one asks her or anyone else, “How do you do it?” Porter is the first single mother in Congress raising young children. Her most significant opponent today may be the calendar. The morning we met, her flight back to DC was canceled. And she has to coordinate her congressional schedule with sc... Read more »