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MORNING REPORT

Monday, May 15

by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch

Debt talks to resume this week as clock ticks

Another week, another debt ceiling meeting. 

After a Friday talk between President Biden and congressional leaders about the nation's $31.4 billion deficit was canceled, the lawmakers are set to meet again Tuesday, just a day before Biden jets off to the Indo-Pacific. The White House and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both said staff talks had been productive after their meeting last week, but neither side saw a concrete solution on the horizon (Bloomberg News). 

With the predicted "X-date" — the day the U.S. runs out of money to pay the bills — looming in early June, Democrats and Republicans are at an impasse. McCarthy and House Republicans want to tie a debt limit increase to budget cuts, while the White House insists on a "clean" increase, without strings. Whether this week's meeting will bring either side closer to concessions remains unclear, but over the weekend, a top economic advisor poured cold water on the idea that the White House could be looking for a short term debt ceiling extension (The Hill).

"Short-term is not a fix," White House National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said on CBS's "Face The Nation." "It's just really important to take default and address it, and Congress has the tools to do that."

CNN: A top Treasury official says debt limit talks have been "constructive."
The Hill: The debt ceiling fight holds reminders of 2011 — except maybe worse.

Senate Democrats are encouraging Biden to employ the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally if Republicans refuse to pass a clean debt-ceiling increase, writes The Hill's Alexander Bolton, while Republicans are criticizing the possibility as pure partisanship and a defiance of recent history, noting that seven of the past debt-limit increases were attached to budget deals.  

Senators say they have consulted with constitutional scholars about the option, and that Biden should test it if McCarthy does not waver in his demands.

The 14th Amendment is not anyone's first choice," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). "The first choice is that the Republicans raise the debt ceiling because the United States government never, ever, ever, ever defaults on its legal obligations. But if Kevin McCarthy is going to push the United States over a cliff, then it becomes the president's responsibility to find an alternative path."

But questions about the strategy loom, and some worry that if Biden were to pull the trigger, legal challenges would swiftly follow. As The Hill's Alex Gangitano and Karl Evers-Hillstrom explain, the legal argument hinges on language in a clause stating that U.S. sovereign debt "shall not be questioned." Lawmakers adopted the amendment after the Civil War, and the section in question relates to quelling future insurrections. But some legal scholars believe it also gives the president power to order the Treasury to keep borrowing money and ignore the debt limit.

Biden told reporters last Tuesday there have been discussions about whether or not the 14th Amendment can be invoked, but cautioned the approach, adding, "I don't think that solves our problem now. I think that only solves your problem if, once the court has ruled that it does apply for future endeavors." 

Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo dismissed the idea Sunday, telling CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" that "the only thing that can solve our problems now is for Congress to lift the debt limit, which they've done, by the way, 78 times."

Politico: How the Supreme Court might view the debt limit fight.
The Washington Post: Seven doomsday scenarios if the U.S. crashes through the debt ceiling.
The Hill: Here's what could happen to the military if the U.S. defaults on its debt.

The Hill: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company owns ChatGPT, is heading to Congress as lawmakers face an explosion of artificial intelligence.
The Associated Press: AI presents political peril for 2024 with a threat to mislead voters.
The Hill: Democrats signal growing frustration with globalization, sounding notes of economic nationalism and domestic renewal ahead of the 2024 election.
The Wall Street Journal: Assault weapons bans gain momentum in Democratic-controlled states.

Leading the Day

➤ POLITICS

The 2024 Republican presidential primary is heating up in the Midwest, but only one of the two likely frontrunners — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — made it to Iowa this weekend. Former President Trump, who was also scheduled to hold events in the Hawkeye State, canceled his outdoor rally due to tornado threats. The unexpected lack of direct competition gave DeSantis, who has yet to officially declare his candidacy, all the attention as he traversed the state. 

After this weekend, DeSantis has visited four times as many cities in Iowa as Trump, in a sign of how important the state will be to him as he prepares to announce his bid, likely next month (The Wall Street Journal). But rather than attack Trump directly, DeSantis repeatedly took subtle shots at his soon-to-be opponent, who was once a close ally (NBC News).

"We must reject the culture of losing that has infected our party in recent years," DeSantis said in Sioux Center, alluding to Trump's effect on GOP candidates in recent years. "If we get distracted, if we focus the election on the past or on other side issues, then I think the Democrats are going to beat us again, and I think it'll be very difficult to recover from that defeat."

As DeSantis pitches himself to Midwestern voters, his track record at home shows why Florida has become the nerve center of the modern Republican Party. As The Hill's Max Greenwood reports in the first of a series of dispatches about the Sunshine State, Florida has lurched to the right in recent years, becoming a haven for the GOP's most influential luminaries and wealthiest donors. 

The state's transition from coveted political battleground to the premier example of modern conservatism has been decades in the making, owing to a perfect storm of demographic changes, Republican power plays, pandemic politics and Democratic missteps.

"Florida is now mecca for MAGA," Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster, told The Hill. "It is the one safe space and lighthouse for Republican MAGA voters across the United States."

Politico: Ron — not Don — and an act of God descended on Iowa.
The New York Times: It's been a week. What does it tell us about 2024?

But while Trump increasingly looks like the favorite to win the GOP's presidential nomination, that strength masks what many Republicans see as a huge weakness against Biden: the former president's problems with suburban women. As The Hill's Julia Manchester reports, all of his vulnerabilities with the key demographic were on high display during a rowdy town hall last week with CNN, where at one point the former president called moderator Kaitlan Collins a "nasty person." Trump also mocked writer E. Jean Carroll, who won a civil lawsuit against him for sexual battery and defamation, and dodged questions on abortion.

"It's incredibly misogynistic and damaging, but it's also old news," said Jennifer Horn, former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee and co-founder of the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project. "This is who Trump has always been, and the Republican Party has embraced it." 

Meanwhile, as The Hill's Niall Stanage notes in the Memo, the ramifications of Trump's CNN town hall are still being felt, and amid liberal outrage and conservative gloating sits the bizarre irony that with the event, CNN might have gifted Trump his best moment of his campaign to date. 

New York magazine's Intelligencer: Immigration is still fueling Trump's political future.
The Hill: "He is the God that they worship": Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said a crowded GOP primary only helps Trump.
The New York Times: How to raise $89 million in small donations — and make it disappear.

Across the aisle, as Biden grapples with possible default, he's also facing a headache in the Senate in the form of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who represents a state where Trump won by one of his biggest margins in 2020. As The Hill's Alex Gangitano and Al Weaver report, Manchin has criticized the president and Democrats publicly, opposed various nominees and, this week, said he would oppose every one of Biden's nominations to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The shots from inside the party are exactly what Biden doesn't want as he tries to unify Democrats ahead of the 2024 race. 

"He is giving the administration fits, and I think … he probably feels like they have it coming," said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW). "They threw him under the bus with the [Inflation Reduction Act] and permitting stuff, and it looks to me he's demonstrating a pretty serious effort to point that out."

➤ ADMINISTRATION

Biden is embarking on an eight-day trip to the Indo-Pacific on Wednesday, where he'll look to tighten bonds with longtime allies and demonstrate his administration's commitment to the region. The president will first head to Hiroshima, Japan, for the Group of Seven summit, followed by a historic visit to the tiny island state of Papua New Guinea — making him the first sitting U.S. President to travel there — and finally, meetings in Australia (The Associated Press). The White House has said Biden's trip is set to go forward as planned even though talks over a looming government default have yet to bear fruit (Kyodo News).

The Washington Post: From Rahmbo to Rahm-bassador: How an unlikely diplomat has wooed Japan.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday that the Border Patrol has seen a 50 percent drop in encounters at the southern border in the days following the expiration of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allowed the rapid expulsions of asylum-seekers.

"In fact, over the past two days, the United States Border Patrol has seen an approximately 50 percent drop in the number of people encountered at our southern border as compared to the numbers earlier this week before Title 42 came to an end midnight on Thursday," Mayorkas told ABC's Jonathan Karl on "This Week."

The end of the policy last week sparked concerns among lawmakers and officials about a surge of migrants at the border, but officials said they had yet to see a change in migrant levels in the immediate hours after the rule expired. Mayorkas also denied on Sunday that the Biden administration's immigration policy is equivalent to Trump's. He said those immigrants who have not tried to seek relief in other countries would need a "higher threshold of proof" to qualify for asylum in the U.S., and reiterated that the Biden administration's policy is "not an asylum ban."

The Washington Post: Crossing jungle and desert, migrants navigate a sea of misinformation.
Al Jazeera: What now? Scenes from the U.S.-Mexico border. 
The Washington Post: Mexico faces a humanitarian crisis as Biden's migration policy kicks in.
The New York Times: Before Title 42, Congress failed to overhaul immigration.

In Focus / Sharp Takes

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan faced the strongest challenge to his 20-year rule today, failing to win enough votes in Sunday's election to stop a runoff with his opponent. Erdoğan, who has ruled Turkey with a strongman bent since 2003, has lost popularity for his economic policies in the wake of rising inflation and this year's devastating earthquakes. Unified opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has promised to return the country to a more democratic path.

Sunday's vote was being closely watched by Western countries, as well as Moscow and Beijing; though Turkey is a NATO ally and holds elections, the country of 84 million has slipped further toward authoritarianism under Erdoğan and kept close ties with Russia (NBC News and Bloomberg News).

"We will absolutely win the second round ... and bring democracy," Kılıçdaroğlu said, maintaining that Erdoğan had lost the trust of a nation now demanding change. The two candidates will face off in a second-round runoff on May 28.

The New York Times: An Erdoğan loss in Turkey would stir relief in the West and anxiety in Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is in the United Kingdom today, visiting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in a surprise visit extending a multi-stop tour that has elicited fresh pledges of military support (BBC). He made a similar visit to French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Sunday (The Associated Press). Zelensky flew in from Germany, where he praised Berlin's weapons pledge — and new aid package — and detailed his military's upcoming counteroffensive against Russia. 

Ukraine has no plans to hit targets in Russia, Zelensky said after talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, describing the new slate of attacks as "the largest since the beginning of the full-scale aggression" by Moscow in February 2022 (BBC and The New York Times).

"We are not attacking Russian territory," he said. "We are preparing a counterattack to de-occupy the illegitimately conquered territories." 

The Washington Post: NATO races to bridge divisions over Ukraine membership.
Reuters: G-7 leaders to target Russian energy, trade in new sanctions steps.
Politico EU: How Zelensky got Luke Skywalker and Bear Grylls to fight Russia: The inside story.
Reuters: Russia says two of its commanders killed as Kyiv wages Bakhmut offensive.

Israel and the Islamic Jihad militant group in the Gaza Strip agreed to a cease-fire brokered by Egypt on Saturday in an effort to halt days of intense fighting that killed 33 Palestinians, including at least 13 civilians. Two people in Israel were killed by rocket fire (CBS News). As of Sunday, the truce appears to have held, with life in Gaza quickly appeared to be returning to normal (CNN).

The Associated Press: Family with disabled children among hundreds of Gaza's homeless after latest fighting with Israel.

In Thailand, opposition parties swept the board in Sunday's elections as voters rebuked the military-backed establishment that has ruled the country since a 2014 coup, which was led by incumbent Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (CNN). The two main opposition parties agreed today to form a ruling coalition, but they could face challenges in mustering enough support, with parliamentary rules drafted by the military after the coup skewed in favor of its allies (Reuters).

BBC: In Thail elections, voters deliver a stunning win for reform.

Opinion

When the rule of law fails us, by David French, columnist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3pz4F1f 
Where's the focus on women's health beyond motherhood? by Saralyn Mark, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/41QSw5z

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 noon. 

The Senate will meet at 3 p.m. and will resume consideration of the nomination of Bradley Garcia to be a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge for the District of Columbia Circuit. 

The president will travel from Rehoboth Beach, Del. to Philadelphia with first lady Jill Biden. The president and the first lady will depart Philadelphia at 3 p.m. to return to the White House.

Vice President Harris is in Washington and has no public schedule.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will speak about the 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom at 11 a.m. At 3:30 p.m., Blinken will meet with United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg at the State Department.

Elsewhere

➤ COST OF LIVING

🎓 The sticker price at America's priciest colleges is approaching $90,000, a milestone that has inspired fresh debate about whether college is worth the cost. But as The Hill's Daniel de Visé and Lexi Lonas report, the numbers tell a different story. 

The "net" price of college, the amount students and their families actually pay, is going down, and almost no one is paying the full amount. According to the College Board, the average student at a private, four-year college paid $32,800 in tuition and fees, room and board last fall, meaning that, adjusted for inflation, the net price for private college fell by 11 percent in five years. It's even starker at public colleges, where the net price of attendance now averages $19,250, a 13 percent drop in five years.

ABC News: Historically Black medical schools urge more spending in hearing with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The Conversation: It's important to rethink the purpose of university education — a philosopher of education explains why.

🏠 Home buyers and renters alike could feel relief later this year as home prices stabilize, mortgage rates decline and rent price growth continues to slow. Economists expect the Federal Reserve to pause rate hikes for a time while it observes incoming economic data, which could allow mortgage rates to fall even further from their high point last fall and give buyers a little breathing room to take advantage of lower home prices. The Hill's Adam Barnes breaks down what to watch for in the coming months.

USA Today: As mortgage rates dip, the housing market ticks up. Are home buyers back?
Fortune: The housing market correction would regain new life if the U.S. defaults, says Moody's chief economist.
Yahoo Finance: Gen Z homebuyers turn to social media to win in the competitive housing market.

➤ HEALTH & WELLBEING

💊 The legal battle over the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the abortion pill mifepristone could undermine a drug approval process considered to be the "gold standard" around the world, write The Hill's Joseph Choi and Colin Meyn. With oral arguments in the Texas lawsuit that sought to reverse the drug's approval set to begin this week, the implications of how the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rules are far-reaching. 

"The doors would be open for all sorts of plaintiffs to assert standing and could really make it very hard for the drug manufacturers who rely on the FDA's final word on drugs," Laurie Sobel, associate director of women's health policy at the nonprofit KFF, told The Hill.

According to the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, if the appeals court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, its effects will extend beyond abortion access: A constant barrage of legal challenges to federal approval could discourage drugmakers from bringing new medications of all kinds to market.

USA Today: FDA approves new menopause drug for hot flashes, sweating and chills.
The Washington Post: Progress on reducing infant and maternal deaths has stalled, the World Health Organization warns.
The New York Times: As the COVID-19 emergency ends, surveillance shifts to the sewers.

The Closer

And finally … 🎤 Swedish singer Loreen belted her way past 25 other acts to a second Eurovision Song Contest victory on Saturday in Liverpool, England, winning the Grand Final of one of the world's biggest — and most wacky — singing competitions. 

For the uninitiated, Eurovision is a decades-old mainstay in Europe, drawing crowds in the millions to a weekend of competition where each participating European nation — as well as Israel and Australia — sends a musical act to compete for the trophy, and next year's hosting duties. (Ukraine won in 2022; due to the ongoing war, runner-up Great Britain hosted the competition in Liverpool in a broadcast that featured a number of tributes to the country) (NPR and The Washington Post).

Winner Loreen captured audiences (and the national juries) with her anthem, Tattoo, while crowd favorites included Finland's Käärijä "Cha Cha Cha"-ing in neon pink and green and Italy's Marco Mengoni's soulful ballad. With Loreen's victory, the song contest heads to Sweden next year, where it will coincide with the 50th anniversary of legendary pop group ABBA's win in 1974 (video HERE). 

One half of Morning Report was particularly invested in the weekend's festivities, cheering for her home country Austria's ode to Edgar Allen Poe.

The New York Times: At Eurovision, Ukrainians find community far from home.
BuzzFeed: We ranked every single song in Eurovision 2023.
Vulture: The most outrageous performances in Eurovision history.