WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House began highlighting the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill immediately after it gained final congressional approval on Wednesday, wasting no time in selling the public on President Joe Biden’s first legislative victory.

The West Wing began an ambitious campaign to showcase the bill’s contents while looking to build momentum for the next, perhaps thornier, parts of the president’s sweeping agenda. Biden will sign the bill into law on Friday, but the White House didn’t wait, turning the bill signing into a three-day event.

The president tweeted moments after the House of Representatives passed the bill that “Help is here — and brighter days lie ahead.” He later told reporters that “This bill represents a historic victory for the American people,” while the White House also released a slickly produced video touting the passage, and Democrats on Capitol Hill staged an elaborate signing ceremony.

Biden will make the first prime-time address of his presidency on Thursday to mark the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 lockdowns and will use the moment to pitch toward the future and how prospects will be improved by the nearly $2 trillion aid package.

Animating the public relations outreach is a determination to avoid repeating the mistakes from more than a decade earlier, when President Barack Obama’s administration did not fully educate the public about the benefits of its own economic recovery plan.

“Barack was so modest, he didn’t want to take, as he said, a ‘victory lap,’” Biden, who was Obama’s vice president, said last week. “I kept saying, ‘Tell people what we did.’ He said, ‘We don’t have time. I’m not going to take a victory lap.’ And we paid a price for it, ironically, for that humility.”

As the White House works to get out its message, expect an uptick in travel by the president, first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, as well as Cabinet secretaries and others, according to a memo by deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon. The document was circulated among West Wing senior staff members on Wednesday and was obtained by The Associated Press.

“He will be hitting the road, the vice president will be hitting the road, the first lady will be hitting the road,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki, adding that the administration would also make officials available for local news interviews and other virtual events from Washington.

A blitz of interviews and events with more than 400 mayors and governors, including Republicans, will begin in earnest next week; the local officials will discuss what the plan means for their communities. There also will be an effort to plainly spell out the benefits of the plan and how it could affect each American.

O’Malley Dillon wrote that overall pitch is that the country “can be confident in knowing that the help they need will be there for them: to make it through financial difficulties, to get vaccinated so they can see their loved ones again, and to safely send their kids back to school and get back to work themselves.”

There will also be an effort to produce a steady stream of vaccination headlines, with the nation’s economic recovery intrinsically linked to inoculating Americans and getting them back to work.

Biden on Wednesday announced that his administration is aiming to secure an additional 100 million doses of the single-shot vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson. He appeared at an event with executives from Johnson & Johnson and Merck, rival companies both producing doses of the new vaccine.

Many of those working in Biden’s West Wing are veterans of the Obama administration and they acknowledge that not enough was done to sell the 2009 recovery act — to the public or to Congress, with whom the White House had a shaky relationship — and highlight how it helped stabilize a battered economy during the Great Recession.

“I was here during that period of time,” said Psaki, “and I would say that any of my colleagues at the time would say that we didn’t do enough to explain to the American people what the benefits were of the rescue plan, and we didn’t do enough to do it in terms that people would be talking about at their dinner tables.”

The Obama bill faced headwinds because it followed the bailout of the banks, engineered under President George W. Bush, and came as the economy remained stagnant. This time, economic forecasts project a robust recovery by year’s end, and Biden should be able to point to concrete job growth.

The administration is not shying away from the enormity of the bill, which some in the West Wing have jokingly called a “BFD,” an echo of Biden’s famed off-color description of the Obama-era health care law. Harris, appearing at an afternoon event to promote the plan, called it simply “a big deal.”

The virus aid package is one of the largest enhancements to the social safety net in decades. Besides aiming to stop the pandemic and jump-starting hiring, money in the bill is supposed to start fixing income inequality, halve child poverty, feed the hungry, save pensions, sustain public transit, let schools reopen with confidence and help repair state and local government finances.

The White House has repeatedly pointed to polling that suggests that the relief bill enjoys broad support among Democratic and Republican voters, even though not one GOP lawmaker signed on to support it. Biden wooed GOP senators to no avail, but some Republicans feel the White House’s lack of compromise could hurt the administration down the road.

“I just really think they made a mistake. It takes serious work to make COVID relief a partisan exercise,” said Josh Holmes, a former aide to Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Republicans, who have largely turned their attention to culture war issues, believe there will be opportunities to better push back when the White House moves on to more polarizing issues such as immigration, voting rights legislation and a potentially massive infrastructure and jobs bill that could also include climate change measures.

In Obama’s first term, it was the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, which came after the economic rescue package, that truly galvanized Republican opposition. The Obama White House secured its passage, but then the Democratic Party took a big hit in the midterm elections.

President Donald Trump ran away from his signature first-year accomplishment, the 2017 tax cut, which was unpopular and nearly unmentioned before Republicans took losses in the following year’s midterms.

The Biden White House believes that a Republican Party consumed with culture wars and in-fighting may not be able to organize opposition to other measures that poll well with the public, and it plans to stay on the offensive.

“You’ve got to create an echo chamber and amplify it,” said Adrienne Elrod, a Democratic strategist close to the White House. “We know that this administration for the next two years is going to pass a lot of legislation they need to pass, even without Republicans. They need to portray the Republicans as being on the wrong side of things people want.”

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ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Not waiting for more federal help, states have been approving their own coronavirus aid packages, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to help residents and business owners devastated by the the pandemic’s economic fallout.

Maryland and California recently moved forward with help for the poor, the jobless, small businesses and those needing child care. New Mexico and Pennsylvania are funneling grants directly to cash-starved businesses. North Carolina’s governor wants additional state aid for such things as bonus pay for teachers and boosting rural internet speeds.

The spending also provides fuel for critics who say states don’t need another massive infusion of cash from Congress. The Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan calls for sending $350 billion to state and local governments. Directing federal money to state governments has been so contentious that the idea was stripped from the previous congressional aid package passed in December.

Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida has frequently criticized proposals to send more money to state governments, calling it a bailout for Democratic-run states he accuses of overspending.

“It’s great news that states are doing well, many seeing revenues higher than projected, and are able to help their citizens during this pandemic,” he said in a statement to The Associated Press. “House and Senate Democrats should follow the facts and ditch their radical efforts to award wasteful bailouts for failed politicians in states like New York and California.”

Many governors say continued uncertainty about the ongoing effects of the pandemic on their economies justifies the need for more federal spending. They say their state aid initiatives are targeted at people who remain desperate for help nearly a year after the pandemic began shuttering businesses.

In Maryland, where direct stimulus checks were being distributed as part of more than $1 billion in relief, Catrina Garrett said the boost from the state was crucial. Garrett, a 35-year-old single mother with a part-time job, said it will help her pay rent and catch up on bills.

“A lot of people will need this, and it will help families that have not been able to provide for their children,” said Garrett, who lives in Baltimore with her three kids.

Other states are considering significant spending to provide more relief to residents. Governors and lawmakers have said they are concerned the economy and job prospects will deteriorate even further before Congress acts on the Biden plan. A slow start to the nationwide vaccination program also has tempered expectations that inoculations will be widespread soon enough to rescue businesses that have struggled with shutdown orders.

Under a bill awaiting the governor’s signature, New Mexico would provide $200 million in direct grants to businesses, which could use them to pay rent and mortgages. It’s part of a proposed state pandemic relief package that also would provide a $600 tax rebate to low-wage workers, a four-month tax holiday for restaurants as they recover from indoor-dining restrictions and a waiver on liquor store license fees.

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said aggressive action is needed to ward off business closures and evictions as Congress deliberates.

“The cascading effect, it’s actually a problem that most states are grappling with … waiting for the relief money out of the feds,” she said. “We need to be able to hold up, to shore up businesses moving forward, and we want them to have security to hold their current employees and potentially hire more.”

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom this week signed a $7.6 billion relief package that includes $600 in one-time payments for about 5.7 million residents, including immigrants who were left out of previous relief initiatives. Another $2 billon is going to struggling businesses.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, signed legislation last week with bipartisan support in the Democratic-controlled legislature for one-time stimulus payments of $300 for certain individuals and $500 for families. It also provides up to $9,000 in sales tax relief for small businesses.

“Absent of a federal response, the states are having to step up,” said Robin McKinney, co-founder and CEO of the CASH Campaign of Maryland, a nonprofit organization that helps low-income residents file taxes.

The spending also shows that many states have proved unexpectedly resilient during the pandemic, with better-than-projected tax revenue and healthy budgets. In California, revenue for the current fiscal year through January was running more than $10 billion ahead of the governor’s initial projections.

Critics say the stronger-than-expected state finances undermine the Biden administration’s plan to direct billions more to state and local governments. Some governors are facing pushback from their own legislatures.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, unveiled a $695 million emergency budget proposal that would use state money on bonuses for educators and school staff, hazard pay for state law enforcement officers, rural broadband and small businesses.

While Republicans in charge of the Legislature haven’t dismissed his ideas, they are unlikely to pass such a sweeping package. They approved a COVID-19 relief package earlier this month that distributed more than $2.2 billion in federal money for vaccine preparations, to schools and to prevent evictions. They also are still figuring out how to spend another $1.8 billion in federal money that Congress approved in December.

“We are addressing the needs,” said Republican state Sen. Brent Jackson.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, earlier this month signed legislation using $145 million in reserves from a worker’s compensation fund for grants of up to $50,000 to owners of hard-hit bars, restaurants and hotels. The money is expected to be available next month.

Industry representatives said the aid is helpful but won’t reach many who work in Pennsylvania’s 30,000 such businesses. And for some of those who do receive it, the extra state money represents just a fraction of the financial hit they have taken during the pandemic.

Susan Williams, who with her sister owns a bar in Pittsburgh and another just outside the city, plans to apply for the grants.

Her businesses remain under restrictions that include serving at 25% capacity, no seating at the bar and 11 p.m. last calls. The bars are closed part of the week to keep from losing money, and there’s nothing left over to pay tax bills that arrived this week.

“They know damn well we haven’t been open,” Williams said. “They basically choked our income, but they’re still sending our tax bills. It’s insane.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to salvage a few priority items lost in the rubble of COVID-19 relief talks that he blew up, pressing for $1,200 stimulus checks and new aid for airlines and other businesses hard hit by the pandemic.

In a series of tweets, Trump pressed for passage of these chunks of assistance, an about-face from his abrupt and puzzling move Tuesday afternoon to abandon talks with a longtime rival, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The California Democrat has rejected such piecemeal entreaties all along. But Pelosi did talk with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Wednesday evening, her spokesman said, about stand-alone airline rescue legislation as the industry is shedding tens of thousands of jobs.

Trump’s tweets amounted to him demanding his way in negotiations that he himself had ended. Trump, who absorbed much political heat for abandoning the talks, is the steward of an economy whose continued recovery may hinge on significant new steps such as pandemic unemployment benefits. His tweets seemed to move the financial markets into positive territory, though it was far from certain whether they would impress voters demanding more relief.

He called on Congress to send him a “Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200)” — a reference to a preelection batch of direct payments to most Americans that had been a central piece of negotiations between Pelosi and the White House.

“I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?” Trump said on Twitter on Tuesday evening. He also urged Congress to immediately approve $25 billion for airlines and $135 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses.

The stock market fell precipitously after Trump pulled the plug on the talks but was recovering Wednesday after he floated the idea of piecemeal aid.

Trump’s decision to scuttle talks between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Pelosi came after the president was briefed on the landscape for the negotiations — and on the blowback that any Pelosi-Mnuchin deal probably would have received from his GOP allies in Congress.

“It became very obvious over the last couple of days that a comprehensive bill was just going to get to a point where it didn’t have really much Republican support at all,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Wednesday on Fox News. “It was more of a Democrat-led bill, which would have been problematic, more so in the Senate than in the House.”

Pelosi told reporters that “all the president wants is his name on a check” for direct aid payments.

The unexpected turn could be a blow to Trump’s reelection prospects and comes as his administration and campaign are in turmoil. Trump is quarantining in the White House with a case of the coronavirus, and the latest batch of polls shows him significantly behind Democrat Joe Biden with the election four weeks away.

Trump’s withdrawal from the talks came immediately after he spoke with GOP leaders in Congress. Many Republican senators had signaled they would not be willing to go along with any measure that topped $1 trillion, and GOP aides had been privately dismissive of the prospects for a deal. Any Pelosi-sponsored agreement of close to $2 trillion raised the potential of a GOP revolt if such a plan came to a vote.

Pelosi and Mnuchin talked briefly on Wednesday morning about the chances for a stand-alone airline rescue, Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill tweeted. Pelosi directed Mnuchin to a measure she had attempted to pass on Friday on short notice under fast-track procedures, but only after Democrats made a number of changes Republicans did not like.

The talks have been troubled from their start in July and never appeared to close in on an agreement both sides could embrace.

Pelosi had been demanding a host of Democratic priorities on food aid, unemployment benefits, help for renters and homeowners, and aid to state and local governments. Republicans charged that she was dragging out the talks to deny Trump a political victory before the Nov. 3 election.

Early rounds of virus aid passed by overwhelming margins as the economy went into lockdown in March. After that, Trump and many of his GOP allies focused on loosening social and economic restrictions as the key to recovery instead of more taxpayer-funded help.

Still, the decision to halt negotiations now could be politically perilous. While the stock market has clawed much of its way back after cratering in the early weeks of the crisis, unemployment stands at 7.9%, and the nearly 11 million jobs that remain lost since the start of the pandemic exceed the number that the nation shed during the entire 2008-09 Great Recession.

The economy has recovered more quickly than most economists had expected, largely because of the aid Congress approved in a $2 trillion package in March. The $1,200 stimulus checks, supplemental $600 unemployment benefits each week and aid to small businesses boosted household incomes and enabled many low-income Americans to pay bills and rent and maintain their overall spending, according to data from Opportunity Insights.

But the recovery has slowed, and certain sectors such as restaurants, hotels, theaters and airlines remain in bad shape, shedding jobs and risking permanent realignment. Without more stimulus, economists expect growth will slow significantly in the final three months of the year.

“You’re going to see quite a significant drag on growth,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm. It “would really risk a double-dip recession.”

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