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- Meghan Markle is working the phones trying to sell US senators on paid family leave.
- Once a central component of Biden's agenda, it could be left out of his social spending bill.
- Moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has been a key holdout.
Meghan Markle has been calling US senators to encourage them to pass paid leave, Politico reported on Wednesday.
The Duchess of Sussex is targeting senators from both sides of the aisle, urging them to include funding for paid leave in Congress' social spending bill that has been a hot debate topic in recent months.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday that paid family leave has made its way back into the Build Back Better bill after initially being left on the cutting room floor to bring down the overall cost of the package, which started at $3.5 trillion.
As the provision became increasingly in flux over the past few weeks, Markle began working the phones.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia told Politico she got a call from a blocked number. When she picked up the phone, the voice on the other line said, "Sen. Capito? This is Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex."
The royal also called Sen. Susan Collins of Maine to discuss the issue, Politico reported.
Last month, Markle wrote a letter to Congress to advocate for paid family and medical leave.
"I'm not an elected official, and I'm not a politician," Markle wrote. "I am, like many, an engaged citizen and a parent. And because you and your congressional colleagues have a role in shaping family outcomes for generations to come, that's why I'm writing to you at this deeply important time-as a mom-to advocate for paid leave."
The $3.5 trillion social spending plan that President Joe Biden originally proposed included 12 weeks of paid leave. In Pelosi's Wednesday announcement, its scope was lowered to 4 weeks.
Markle is a polarizing figure on the right
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While Markle is a global celebrity, her polarizing status has bled over from across the pond into US conservative media.
Following her mostly one-way feud with British TV personality Piers Morgan, the former CNN host went on Tucker Carlson's FOX Nation streaming show in his first appearance since walking off the set of "Good Morning Britain" over pushback from colleagues over how he was treating the duchess.
In coverage of Markle's split from the Royal Family elsewhere on the conservative cable network, she was portrayed as an example of out of touch liberal celebrities engaging in "cancel culture." The wall-to-wall coverage from months ago could give Markle more of an uphill battle when trying to make her pitch to other Republican lawmakers.
Carlson, the most-watched cable news host in the US, framed Morgan as the victim of a "scam" concocted by those in power to silence a dissenting opinion on "Western" traditions.
"Why in the nation that gave the rest of the world the freedom of speech - which is Great Britain, that's where that right came from, they were the first to enshrine it - why is a small percentage of the population able to impose this un-English, un-Western idea on everybody else?" Carlson asked Morgan.
Since then, Morgan inked a "global deal" with Fox News Media following his return to public life on the coattails of his grievances against Markle.
Meghan Markle is calling US senators and encouraging them to pass paid leave
Source: Kalayaan News
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