And now, a message from Google. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America,

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This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at g.co slash American Innovation. Good morning. I'm Jake Sherman and

welcome to the Daily Punch, brought to you by Punch Bowl News. It's Thursday, July 22nd,

2021. Let's get into the mix.

Here are your Washington headlines for the day. Police reform talks are on life support.

Number two, is Congress going to be in all of August? And McCarthy versus Cheney round one million.

You're stuck with just me this morning, Anna Palmer has today off. We like you and like many people who listen to this podcast and read Punchball News are very focused on the president's top legislative item and infrastructure and social safety net bill. But in the last day or so, we hear that another priority, police reform talks have all but broken down. So after months of talking about police reform

and months of deadlines, we were told by multiple people in the negotiation that the process is on

life support. Practically, everybody that we spoke to agreed with that characterization,

and that is not great for the police reform process. And here's why.

Corey Booker, the Democrat from New Jersey and Tim Scott, the Republican from South Carolina,

who have been leading these talks, have basically been meeting regularly. But now it seems

like those talks are on ice. We heard from Cory Booker the other day. I spoke to Cory Booker the

other day and he said he was looking for some of the unions that were involved, the sheriff's union, specifically, that has been involved with these talks to start leaning in and start getting stuff done and start putting pressure on people to get a deal together. And that's a big deal. I would say this. I mean, this is a, I've been watching these

kinds of debates and these kinds of talks for a long time. This is a historic opportunity for all

parties involved for police reform because police reform is tough. It's tough enough to even just

get people in the same room, let alone get close to a deal. And they are close to a deal. They have

Cory Booker. They have Tim Scott.

They have Karen Bass of California, Democrat in the House of Representatives who's close to her party's

leadership. They have the ability and they have the leeway from their leadership to get a deal.

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