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MORNING REPORT

PRESENTED BY

Wednesday, October 18

by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch

Two weeks without a Speaker

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) failed Tuesday in his bid for Speaker on the first ballot, falling 17 short of the 217 votes required.

The vote was 200 for Jordan, 212 for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — who got the backing of the full Democratic caucus — and 20 for other members, including six for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and seven for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was nominated for the gavel ahead of Jordan.

After Jordan told reporters early in the day that the House would elect a Speaker on Tuesday no matter how long it took, the next vote won't take place until 11 a.m. today. Jordan's Tuesday defeat sets the stage for another protracted race to win the gavel. In January, it took McCarthy 15 ballots over the course of four days to be elected to the top spot (The Hill). Asked if there will be a second vote today, Jordan told The Hill: "Oh, yeah." Next steps, he said, include "listening to members."

Tuesday's vote proves that Jordan, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee who was endorsed by former President Trump, still has work to do in persuading holdouts. His allies went into the vote recognizing they may need multiple ballots to secure victory, but with an air of confidence that enough Republicans would eventually come around. The 20-vote defeat may upend that sense of confidence as the conference regroups ahead of today's scheduled vote (NBC News).

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said Tuesday that the GOP's weekend pressure campaign to elect Jordan backfired after the first ballot.

"I believe it was. I've talked to a couple of members where they felt that — that's just not what they needed," Donalds said on Fox News when asked if some GOP members were turned off by the online pressure campaign. "I don't think that's what we should be doing right now."

One of the notable holdouts Tuesday was Rep. Kay Granger (Texas), the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. Granger, alongside other senior appropriators, voted against Jordan. In the past, she and other appropriators, known for their bipartisan work, have clashed with Jordan and like-minded conservative hardliners over spending cuts and threats of a shutdown (The Hill and Roll Call).

Here are the 20 Republicans who voted against Jordan for Speaker.

The Washington Post analysis: Why Jordan's bid for Speaker failed — for now.
Politico magazine: "Everything is just stuck." No matter what happens to Jordan, the next Speaker is in for a world of trouble.
NBC News: What to know about Jordan's record, including his actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

EXPANDING POWERS: Jordan's first failed bid to secure the Speakership has renewed calls for increasing the limited powers of Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). Jordan's loss of 20 GOP votes — one more than McCarthy in his first of 15 votes to secure the gavel — has left the GOP even more uncertain of when it can reach consensus over who should lead the party.

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Penn.), who declined to back Jordan, introduced a resolution that would force a vote to elect McHenry as speaker pro temp until the government funding deadline of Nov. 17 or until a new Speaker is elected – giving him more authority than in his current status as an appointee to the role (The Hill).

"This is another distraction from us getting the work done that we need to get done," Kelly said Monday of McCarthy's ouster. "This gives us the ability to take the curse off of what we're doing right now."

The bottom line: Many House Republicans are exasperated and frustrated. If Jordan doesn't show progress today by reducing the amount of defections by a decent amount, his Speaker bid could be doomed. And if that happens, it's likely the idea to install a caretaker Speaker — like McHenry — will gain traction. 

Axios: Led by the Problem Solvers Caucus, bipartisan talks are gaining steam as Jordan struggles with the Speaker vote.

ZOOMING OUT: A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that Americans increasingly blame House Republicans more than Democrats for the dysfunction on Capitol Hill. The survey found that 66 percent now say conservative Republicans deserve at least "some" blame for "the current gridlock in Washington," while 64 percent say the same about moderate Republicans.

A ROCKY HISTORY: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Jordan have been frequent antagonists over the past decade, raising questions about their ability to work together if Jordan manages to clinch the gavel. As The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports, Jordan led opposition to McConnell's effort to avoid a national default in 2011, and he also squared off against McConnell and other mainstream Republicans during the October 2013 shutdown over Obamacare. McConnell recently warned that impeachments are "bad for the country," while Jordan has led the push to impeach President Biden. If Jordan wins the Speakership, the two men will have to put aside their differences to coordinate their strategy ahead of the Nov. 17 government funding deadline and other major issues heading into the 2024 presidential election.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

Biden will ask Congress for $100 billion supplemental aid for Ukraine and Israel.
Ukraine on Tuesday used secretly shipped U.S. missiles to launch a surprise long-range strike against Russian helicopters. The delivery of the missiles marks a major ramp-up of the administration's defense of Ukraine.
McConnell and some GOP colleagues on Tuesday unveiled a measure that would re-freeze the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian assets. The Iranian funds for humanitarian purposes already were transferred with U.S. approval from South Korea to Qatar but have not been spent, the administration says.

Leading the Day

Administration & Middle East

Biden arrived in Israel today seeking to deter a wider war by standing firmly beside Israel and its leaders ahead of Israel's ground assault against Hamas. By any definition, it's a high-risk trip and the agenda was upended before he left Washington.

The president said he made the journey at the invitation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try to do everything possible to support Israel, help free American hostages from Gaza and persuade Israel and Egypt to allow Americans and dual citizens to get out of Gaza and let humanitarian provisions in. The United States wants to keep Iran and Hezbollah from storming to the defense of Hamas and the Palestinians with attacks against Israel on what could be two fronts.  

On Tuesday, events made it more complicated when a massive blast rocked a Gaza City hospital. The structure was packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter and more than 500 people were killed, according to Palestinian authorities, including many children. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike, and Israel, in turn, asserted that the hospital was struck during a misfire by Palestinian Islamic Jihad members. 

"I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday," Biden said, seated across from Netanyahu at a hotel setting soon after arriving in Tel Aviv. "Based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, but there's a lot of people out there not sure, so we've got a lot — we've got to overcome a lot of things."

"Your visit is the first here by an American president during a time of war," the prime minister told Biden without commenting on the hospital blast. "We will defeat Hamas and remove this terrible threat from our life."

Netanyahu on Tuesday, joined by visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, emphasized to reporters his view of the brutality of the terrorist attackers.

"HAMAS ARE THE NEW NAZIS," he said. "Hamas is ISIS, in some instances, worse than ISIS. And just as the world united to defeat the Nazis, just as the world united to defeat ISIS, the world has to stand united behind Israel to defeat Hamas."

Biden was forced to scratch his plans to also travel to Amman to meet with Jordan's king and the leaders of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, with whom he's spoken by phone, because of the hospital carnage. 

The Hill's Niall Stanage: Five questions that loom over Biden's trip to Israel

PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas canceled his participation and Jordan canceled the summit because of the rocket strike at the al-Alhi Hospital. 

It was Gaza's deadliest day since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, with more carnage expected in the days and weeks to come. The accounts of what Hamas called "a horrific massacre" triggered protests in the occupied West Bank, Istanbul and Amman.

Before the hospital destruction, Israeli strikes into Gaza took the lives of at least 2,778 people and wounded 9,700, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Another 1,200 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under rubble and are in unknown conditions, health authorities said. At least 1,400 Israelis have died since the Oct. 7 attacks. An estimated 200 hostages were taken into Gaza, according to Israeli accounts.

One of those is Mia Shem, 21, a French-Israeli woman injured and pictured in a Hamas video. Her mother has pleaded for her daughter's release.  

Where and When

The House convenes at 11 a.m. for a second vote for Speaker nominee Jordan.

The Senate meets at 10:30 a.m.

The president is in Tel Aviv, Israel, and has met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At Ben Gurion Airport, Biden greeted Netanyahu with a hug. Today, the two met to discuss Israel's plans. The president will confer with victims' families and relatives of those who have been taken hostage by Hamas and first responders. 

Vice President Harris will deliver remarks at 5 p.m.at a White House reception to mark Hispanic Heritage Month.  

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel with the president. NBC News profiled him HERE.

First lady Jill Biden will deliver remarks at 2:30 p.m. at the Pentagon's Military Spouse Employment Partnership New Partner Induction Ceremony in Alexandria, Va. She will host a White House reception at 5 p.m. for Hispanic Heritage Month. The vice president will attend. The first lady will deliver remarks at 6:30 p.m. at the reopening of the National Museum of Women in Arts in Washington.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will speak at noon to the Economic Club of New York about the current outlook.

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Zoom In

Politics & Campaigns

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) met at the White House on Tuesday with Biden chief of staff Jeff Zients to discuss support for Israel and the U.S. migrant crisis before flying to Israel, where she will meet with officials today in Tel Aviv (New York Daily News). She plans to return Friday (The New York Times). New York is home to the largest population of Jews outside of Israel.

Kari Lake is seeking support from the GOP establishment in Washington as she looks to rehabilitate her image in the Senate race for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's (I) seat in Arizona. As The Hill's Caroline Vakil reports, Lake has met with the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee as well Senate Republicans, including members of leadership. She also notched an early and notable endorsement from the No. 3 Senate Republican, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). But Arizona Republicans are unsure if that interest will ultimately translate into concrete support in what is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate races next year. And some are expressing skepticism of her early efforts to distance herself from the conservative firebrand image she cultivated last cycle, when she lost the gubernatorial race to Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs, a defeat she refused to concede.

2024 ROUNDUP

Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) announced Tuesday she will not seek reelection. "Washington is broken," she said in a statement.
Trailing Trump by huge margins in the GOP presidential primary and running out of time to close the gap, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken an increasingly aggressive approach against his top rival.
"There's just no excitement": Retail politics is taking a nosedive in a Trump-dominated Republican campaign. Operatives and activists can't recall a recent cycle with so little grassroots campaigning. The numbers back them up.
The fall of a Jim Crow-era election law and a restoration of felons' voting rights have given Black voters new sway in Mississippi. The Democrats' underdog nominee for governor is looking to capitalize.
New Mexico state agencies must switch to electric vehicles by 2035, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) said during a Monday symposium.

Elsewhere

Education & Health

Biden's new income-driven repayment student loan plan hit snags, writes The Hill's Lexi Lonas. The plan has been given incorrect calculations with student loan servicers unable to handle the number of calls placed to fix it. Additionally, experts say borrowers are having to take on second jobs or are skipping Thanksgiving travel to afford their student loan payments. 

Forbes: How much is too much student loan debt?
The New York Times: More than 40,000 student loan borrowers had wrong monthly payments.

🏥 Primary care saves lives. Every 10 additional primary care physicians per 100,000 people correlates with a 51.5-day increase in life expectancy, according to a 2019 study based on U.S. population data and published in JAMA Internal Medicine. That finding comes after decades of research — and mounting frustration — from health system experts who have argued for more investment in the accessible, comprehensive, community-based services that allow countries with far fewer resources to make gains in increasing life expectancy while the United States founders in the survival stakes (The Washington Post). 

Vox: Fixing health insurance open enrollment starts with staying mad about it.
NPR: Medicare Advantage keeps growing. Tiny, rural hospitals say that's a huge problem.

Opinion

Netanyahu led us to catastrophe. He must go, by Gershom Gorenberg, guest essayist, The New York Times.
Palestinians deserve a state despite Hamas, not because of it, by Harry William Baumgarten, opinion contributor, The Hill.

The Closer

And finally …  🫂 On this day in 2012, which wasn't really that long ago, gay marriage was a legal controversy that took a dramatic turn.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, based in New York, ruled that a federal law was unconstitutional when it defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. And eight months later, the Supreme Court used that 2012 decision to strike down provisions that kept legally married same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits that other married couples claimed.

Flashback: 2012 was an election year. Recall that Biden got ahead of former President Obama when he said during an NBC News interview in May of that year that he was comfortable with same-sex marriage. Considered politically risky for the Democratic ticket at the time, the dust settled while Biden hastily apologized privately to Obama, who quickly told ABC News that his thinking, too, evolved to support marriage for same-sex partners.

"I think Joe is an extremely generous, loving person. And I think he was responding honestly in terms of how he felt," Obama said. "Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way? In my own terms without there being a lot of notice to everybody that this is where we were going? Sure. But all's well that ends well."

Flash forward to Census data from two years ago, when there were 1.2 million same-sex couple households in the country and 59 percent of them were married.