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MORNING REPORT

Monday, April 17

by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch

McCarthy to spotlight debt ceiling on Wall St. today

Three months into a year of conservative House dominance and many budget promises, the GOP still has no consensus spending blueprint to wield against Democrats and President Biden.

It's a problem for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and a test of his leadership as the House and Senate resume work in Washington after a lengthy spring break.

McCarthy is expected today to propose restricting with new work requirements federal food assistance to low-income people as part of debt limit negotiating ingredients (Politico). Republicans in the House insist there's progress; Republican senators, however, are tamping down expectations. And Senate Democrats say negotiating a debt limit increase with rollbacks to families' food assistance is a nonstarter.

Some key groups involved in the House talks, such as the Main Street Caucus, have proposed their own deficit-reduction plans. Others, including the Republican Study Committee, are set to follow with proposals in the coming weeks.

McCarthy and other top House Republicans in a series of calls into the weekend briefed most of the caucus on their plans, avoiding key defections thus far by staying away from too much detail, Politico reported.

MarketWatch: McCarthy will speak at 10 a.m. at the New York Stock Exchange about "the need for a responsible debt ceiling increase," aiming the GOP perspective at a Wall Street audience. He and colleagues are circling a tentative proposal for a House vote in late May to suspend the debt limit for a year into 2024, according to recent reports.

We have some issues in terms of, where are we going from a policy standpoint," Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) told CNN this month. "We've got to show the American people that we have ideas that … are supported by folks on both sides of the aisle."

But Republicans have been roiled by internal sniping and GOP leaders are scrambling to unite the restive conference behind a list of specific deficit-reduction demands to take into the debt ceiling talks, The Hill's Mike Lillis explains.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) says Biden introduced his 10-year budget plan in March and the GOP has not countered it with specifics. "I really can't blame the president for saying, 'I'll talk, but I put out a budget. And if you want to have a conversation, what is in your budget? What are we going to talk about?'" she said. "I can't picture how they actually get this done."

In the view of House Democrats, the House majority party advertised a bold assault on federal spending, threatened to leverage the nations' debt ceiling to get their way, then retreated when Biden and fellow Democrats demonstrated two facts about public opinion: Americans don't like government shutdowns and they don't favor lawmakers who toy with cutting Social Security or Medicare.

"President Biden's position is unequivocal, and I think it's right," Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), a senior member of the Budget Committee, told The Hill. "He's not going to debate against himself; he's not going to deal with hypotheticals; he's not going to take the bait until they do their job. They claim certain objectives with the budget, and they ought to produce a budget that shows them."

Roll Call: Congress missed its April 15 deadline for a budget resolution. In fact, that's not unusual.
Axios: House Republicans are weighing whether to extend their projected budget outlook from 10 years to 15 years to make spending cuts appear mathematically easier on paper. They are also considering whether to create a panel to explore changes to Social Security and Medicare.

House conservatives will be busy this week with committee and subcommittee hearings, plus a field hearing today in Manhattan designed to pressure District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who helped indict Trump this month on 34 criminal charges, about violent crime in New York City. Democrats on the panel are expected to counter House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other conservatives today with calls for tougher gun restrictions in the wake of mass shootings, a painful national trend that continued into the weekend.

The New York Times: How Jordan, a fighter aligned with former President Trump, wrestled his way to power.

Other hot-button committee business to watch this week: House Intelligence on the origins of COVID-19; Senate Foreign Relations on Ukraine; and the Senate Judiciary Committee on nominations, but without Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has been ill since February and last week temporarily stepped down from her committee seat. She will be replaced temporarily on the Judiciary panel by a successor Democrat if the Senate votes to approve the move.

CNN and The Associated Press: Officials briefed Biden about a Daleville, Ala., mass shooting that occurred Saturday during a birthday party, killing four and injuring at least 28 people. On Sunday, police provided no information about the assailant or a possible motive but asked witnesses to come forward. Biden, reacting to the shooting deaths in Alabama and Kentucky, slammed the GOP as "outrageous and unacceptable" for standing with the National Rifle Association (The Hill).
The Washington Post: Former White House aide Gabe Amo, 35, will seek a Rhode Island open House seat.
CNN and The Washington Post: The Post reports that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has for years claimed income from a defunct real estate firm. Separately, CNN reports the justice will amend financial disclosure forms to reflect a 2014 real estate sale to a GOP donor. Thomas's sale to billionaire Harlan Crow was first reported by ProPublica.

Leading the Day

➤ POLITICS

As California Democrats dispute whether Feinstein's extended absence from the Senate warrants her resignation, observers expect that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will keep his distance from what could be a sticky situation politically. As The Hill's Sharon Udasin and Amie Parnes report, further complicating these circumstances is that three rival candidates are already competing to take her seat in 2024, and a show of support for any of them from the governor could have significant impacts on his own future prospects.

"I don't think Newsom will get anywhere near this and will not weigh in at all," Daniel Schnur, who teaches political communications at several California universities, told The Hill.

Nationally, Republican leaders are doubling down on abortion issues, despite mounting evidence of the political dangers of doing so. On Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — who would represent Trump's chief rival if he enters the 2024 race — signed a bill that would ban most abortions in his state after six weeks. On Friday, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) told NBC News, "If I were president of the United States, I would literally sign the most conservative, pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress."

But, as The Hill's Niall Stanage notes in The Memo, these views run counter to the general public's stance on abortion access and reproductive rights, with several ballot measures in key states protecting abortion access passing since the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. Abortion also played a role in the Republicans' disappointing performance in last November's midterms, when exit polls showed the issue was a priority for many voters, and that those voters broke heavily for the Democrats. Even the Supreme Court on Friday issued a temporary stay on a lower court ruling that restricts access to the abortion drug mifepristone until Wednesday night (NPR). Now, watching Republicans barrel past the warning signs, Democrats are convinced their opponents are over-reaching.

In the administration, Vice President Harris has become the leading voice rallying for abortion access and gun control. The Hill's Brett Samuels reports that Harris has found herself at the center of multiple key policy pushes and national debates in recent weeks, giving her a significant platform as she and Biden ready a reelection campaign.

"I've been thrilled to see her in the spotlight on these two issues in particular over the past couple of weeks here. And it makes sense as we're really starting to focus on the reelection campaign here," David Thomas, a Democratic strategist who was an aide to then-Vice President Al Gore, told The Hill. "These are two issues, guns and abortion, that are really such stark contrasts between Democrats and Republicans, and the fact she's out there being really active on these outside of Washington, D.C., is exactly where she should be."

The Associated Press: Harris rallies as high court eyes abortion pill rules.
The New York Times: How a campaign against transgender rights mobilized conservatives. Defeated on same-sex marriage, the religious right went searching for an issue that would re-energize supporters and donors — and the campaign that followed has stunned political leaders across the spectrum.
Axios: Dramatic realignment swings working-class districts toward GOP.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, by Joshua Green: Why former President Trump might never go away. "Trump is like the star of a 1980s horror movie franchise. Like Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street or Michael Myers from Halloween, it's impossible to do away with him. And there's always another sequel in the works, eagerly anticipated by legions of fans. Impeach him, he comes back. Impeach him again — still here. Vote him out of office? He launched an insurrection and attempted to stay put by force."

Meanwhile, Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News was delayed on the eve of its scheduled start date, an official for the court said Sunday. The conclusion of the jury selection process and the start of opening statements, which were set for Monday morning, have been pushed to Tuesday.

Dominion is suing Fox over its coverage of the 2020 presidential election and Trump's false claims about its software, which the company alleges the network aired even though it knew they were false (The Hill and CNBC).

➤ ECONOMY

Following the latest rescues of big banks at the same time the Federal Reserve is warning of a recession that could put more than a million Americans out of work, writes The Hill's Tobias Burns, economists, historians and market commentators are drawing comparisons to previous eras of global capitalism when the government and the banking sector were more officially entwined. As the Fed responds to the current wave of profit-led inflation by punishing not firms and their managers but workers and employees through the labor market, some are even saying that the age of capitalism is dwindling.

"We all came together," JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon told CNN last week, referring to his bank's ostensibly civic-minded bailout of rival bank First Republic at the behest of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. "I may have been the first phone call but everyone was on every call talking about ideas and what works, and they're all patriots and want to help."

The Washington Post: Economy stumbled after banking crisis, stirring renewed recession fears.
The Wall Street Journal: Inflation tests a global economy that has weathered COVID-19, Ukraine war.

Meanwhile, The Hill's Daniel de Visé breaks down what it takes to be middle class based on the low and high end of middle-class salaries in 100 large cities and every state.

In Focus / Sharp Takes

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Gunfire and explosions hit Sudan's capital and other cities this weekend, and the civilian death toll from the conflict between the military and a heavily armed paramilitary force rose to 97 overnight, with "dozens" more deaths among the military, and the World Health Organization estimated more than 1,000 have been wounded. Fighting broke out Saturday morning after weeks of rising tensions between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a major paramilitary group led by Vice President Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — universally referred to as Hemedti — and the military, headed by the president, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

"We can't sleep; I don't know what's happening. From what I read online, it's the same in all the districts," Khartoum resident Dallia Mohamed Abdelmoniem told The Washington Post. "From around 4:30, the jet planes were nonstop, but it's lessened now, so it's just gunfire and artillery. … There's whistling sounds like rockets are being launched, but where exactly we don't know. I can't even poke my head out to look for smoke. … We've filled empty containers with water, but we're moving into 36 hours with no electricity."

Reuters: Sudan's army pounds paramilitary bases with air strikes in power struggle.
The Washington Post: Veterans of violence, Sudan's weary doctors brave another crisis.
The Hill: Secretary of State Antony Blinken calls for an immediate end to hostilities in Sudan.

The European Union over the weekend said unilateral bans by Poland and Hungary on imports of Ukrainian grain and other foods were "unacceptable." The EU lifted tariffs on Ukrainian grain last year to help transport it to the rest of the world amid Russia's invasion, but the exports have led to a surplus of produce in Europe, and farmers in Poland, Hungary and other nations have seen their incomes plummet as a result.

A spokesperson for the European Commission said in a Sunday statement that such a trade policy was a matter of "EU exclusive competence," meaning that only the group could adopt legally binding decisions. "Unilateral actions are not acceptable," the statement said (The New York Times and Politico EU). Kyiv, meanwhile, will aim to secure the re-opening of food and grain transit via Poland as "a first step" at talks in Warsaw today, Ukraine's agriculture minister said (Reuters).

"The first step, in our opinion, should be the opening of transit, because it is quite important and it is the thing that should be done unconditionally and after that we will talk about other things," said Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky. "In terms of figures, everything that crossed the Polish border [from Ukraine]... is about 10 percent of everything [of food goods] Ukraine exported."

NBC News: As Ukraine's LGBTQ soldiers fight on the front line, acceptance grows in the conservative country.
The Washington Post: Russians boasted that just 1 percent of fake social profiles are caught, leak shows.
The Wall Street Journal: A social media account overseen by a former Navy noncommissioned officer helped spread secrets.
CNN: Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza sentenced to 25 years in prison for condemning war in Ukraine.

Singapore is wrestling with the death penalty. The city-state has traditionally executed people for drug offenses, but cracks in the national consensus are appearing (The Atlantic).

The New York Times: A killing on live television renews alarm about India's slide toward extrajudicial violence.
The Guardian: Will Turkey's elections finally spell the end of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan?

➤ SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT

🌪️ Tornadoes are becoming more frequent in populated parts of the United States and often occurring as damaging clusters — a development seen in recent deadly outbreaks from Alabama to Michigan. As The Hill's Saul Elbein reports, the number, damage and deadliness of individual tornadoes have held roughly steady over the past 50 years, according to federal experts with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. But broad shifts in the patterns of how tornadoes occur will pose serious challenges to policymakers and emergency managers across the South and Midwest — and the changes in tornado behavior overall represent a major meteorological mystery.

The New York Times: Bellyflops, booms and big rockets: A recap of SpaceX's starship tests.
The Atlantic: Either fish are self-aware, or scientists need to rethink how they study animal cognition.

🔋 The Biden administration's plan to steer car makers to predominantly electric vehicle sales would strike a major blow against global warming — but only if officials can successfully execute it. The initiative is being launched at the same time the nation's electricity grid — which would fuel all these new EVs — is struggling, with major power outages and developers of wind and solar projects often stuck waiting years to connect to transmission lines (The Washington Post). And experts say a lot needs to be done both technically and in terms of consumer mindset to make the administration's sales goals a reality — but many also say it's possible.

Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Cox Automotive, said "making this successful is all about the consumer and changing consumer behavior. When we ask consumers what are the obstacles to buying EVs, cost is one and then range and the charging infrastructure" is another (The Hill).

Nerd Wallet: Electric vehicle tax credit: Rules and qualifications for clean vehicle purchases.
Axios: Biden's green gamble.

Opinion

Speaker McCarthy is feeling the heat, by Michelle Cottle, editorial board member The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/41sRw7E
The wrong track to rail safety, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board. https://on.wsj.com/43EGQow

Where and When

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist's insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will convene at 2 p.m. McCarthy will speak at 10 a.m. at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City about "the need for a responsible debt ceiling increase."

The Senate meets at 3 p.m. to resume consideration of the nomination of Radha Plumb to be a deputy under secretary of Defense.

The president will receive the President's Daily Brief at 9:30 a.m.

The vice president, on the West Coast today, will tape at 1:15 p.m. PT an episode of "The Jennifer Hudson Show." Later, Harris will tour a Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator and speak about clean energy at 4:05 p.m. PT.

Secretary Blinken is in Karuizawa, Japan, to attend two more days of meetings among the Group of Seven foreign ministers (The Associated Press). He participates in a welcome photo this morning, then the first and second sessions of the G7 gathering, including a discussion about Ukraine. Blinken joins the midday working lunch, followed by a group photo at 2 p.m. local time. The secretary will meet with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at 2:25 p.m. local, followed by the third G7 session, focused on Iran and the Middle East. The fourth session in the afternoon is about Afghanistan and Central Asia. This evening, Blinken meets with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, followed by a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will speak about investing in conservation at noon during the Outdoor Industry Association's conference in Washington.

First lady Jill Biden will welcome Kishida Yuko, spouse of the prime minister of Japan, to the White House where she will host a luncheon for her. Biden and Kishida will participate in a tree planting ceremony for a new cherry tree on the White House South Grounds (Reuters).

Elsewhere

➤ HEALTH & PANDEMIC

While federal health officials say that COVID-19 remains one of the leading causes of death in the United States, tied to about 250 deaths daily, on average, few Americans are treating it as a leading concern — in part because they are not hearing about those numbers, don't trust them or don't see them as relevant to their own lives.

"If anything, [the death toll] could even be an undercount," Debra Houry, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's chief medical officer, told The Washington Post. "Maybe COVID [testing] wasn't done on the autopsy, so that's something that's going to be missed."

NPR: Long COVID-19 may be due to the virus sticking around after infection, some researchers say.
The New York Times: Pregnant women who are Black are tested more frequently for drug use, a new study suggests. Researchers said racial bias was the only explanation for excessive testing of Black mothers at a Pennsylvania health system.
The Associated Press: Hospital sues Missouri's top prosecutor over transgender care data.

The Closer

And finally … 💬 We noticed that today's date lays claim to a mélange of holidays, including National Cheeseball Day, Blah, Blah, Blah Day, Bat Appreciation Day and International Haiku Poetry Day.

Morning Report was quick to see the potential, poetically speaking. Happy Monday!

Lawmakers are back

Working on Blah, Blah, Blah Day

Washington awaits.

Stay Engaged

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Monday, April 17, 2023

The Hill's Morning Report — McCarthy to spotlight debt ceiling on Wall St. today