Good morning. I'm Arjun Singh from the Washington Post and this is the Daily

202 for Tuesday, February 2nd. In today's news, former President Trump hires a new legal team for his second impeachment,

and a federal study finds that race and ethnicity data is missing for nearly half a vaccine recipients.

But first, the big idea.

A group of Republican senators emerged from a meeting at the White House

with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris upbeat on Monday

after having what Republican Senator Susan Collins described as a quote

frank and very useful meeting unquote about a bipartisan coronavirus relief package.

The post Felicia Sán-Mez reports that despite failing to reach an agreement, and Senate

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gearing up to pass a 1.9 trillion dollar relief package without the need for Republican support.

Collins expressed gratitude for the President's

willingness to sit down with her and nine other Republican senators.

But while Collins struck an optimistic note, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin,

the incoming chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee,

ramped up pressure on Republicans

to schedule a vote on Biden's nomination

for Attorney General Merrick Garland, along with three other Justice Department positions.

As my colleague Matt Zapatowski reports, since Senators have yet to agree to an organizing resolution on how the new Senate should function,

control of the Senate has yet to be handed off to the Democratic majority.

This means the fate of Biden's nominations currently lies in the hands of Republicans, such as

outgoing Judiciary Chairman Lindsay Graham, who Durbin alleges is objecting to

holding a hearing on February 8th. And in the House, some Democrats have focused their ire on Georgia Representative

...