It's Monday, May 4th. I'm Achila Hughes.

And I'm Gideon Ressik and this is What a Day, where we're celebrating Star Wars Day

by swinging our microphones like their lightsabers.

Yeah, and I'm yelling at my toaster like C3PO yells at RGD2.

And I'm screaming, I am your father at the sofa.

I have nothing left.

On today's show, former Vice President Joe Biden responds to an allegation of sexual assault,

then some headlines.

But first, the latest. The theme of the past week and this week is likely to be how the United

States is reopening, even as that happens the health and economic crises are far from over.

Even President Trump now concedes that the coronavirus death toll could reach 100,000,

higher than this past estimate of 65,000, which we've already crossed.

In Congress, negotiations haven't really begun for what a new relief package will look like,

but the Republican-led Senate returns to work today.

And they are already focused on something else.

So Gideon, do you want to walk us through what they're talking about?

Yeah, so we had mentioned it before, but their big focus right now is on liability protections

for businesses. Now, broadly speaking, the Republican argument has been,

these kinds of protections need to be passed so that employers can feel safe reopening and not

face financial ruin from lawsuits if employees get COVID-19 and want to, I don't know, hold

their employers liable in such a situation. That's what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants,

and it appears much of the White House is on board with that too.

...