Morning Report — Can Biden straddle border battle?

View Online  MORNING REPORT Thursday, June 20  by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch Thursday, June 20  by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch © The Associated Press / Gregory Bull | A pregnant asylum seeker from Guatemala walked with a Border Patrol agent and a volunteer toward a van for transport to be processed near in San Diego early this month. Can Biden straddle border battle? President Biden's restrictive new order on asylum-seekers, combined with tougher immigration enforcement by Mexico, appears to be constraining crossings at the southern border, Reuters reports.   Migrant apprehensions fell just below 2,500 on Sunday, the lowest daily figure since February 2021, according to a senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection official. The detentions outpaced 1,450 available interview appointments through a mobile phone app promoted by the administration as a lawful approach to a port of entry daily at eight border crossings, officials said.   The general questions inside the administration are many, but here are two: Will the number of undocumented asylum-seekers fall, as intended? And will Biden's election-year efforts to use his executive powers to tackle the immigration crisis boost his reelection chances?   The six states with the largest undocumented immigrant populations during Biden's first year in office, according to the Pew Research Center, included some he expects to win again in November, including California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. Trump is expected to repeat his 2016 and 2020 victories in the other two, Texas and Florida.   Republicans in a survey conducted last fall said immigration was among the top threats on their lists. Democrats, however, said immigration was one of the least concerning among their tallies of key threats.    The president's midyear approach to a divisive challenge he's weighed since he was a senator and then vice president is twofold: Lock up the border to migrants who haven't made it into the U.S. and help some of those already here.   On Tuesday, Biden paired his asylum restrictions with an announcement of legal protections for undocumented spouses of American citizens who've lived in the U.S. for a decade or longer. He expects to spar during a debate next week with former President Trump, who has made border security a centerpiece of his bid to return to the White House. Democrats want to see Biden dig out from his reelection policy vulnerabilities.   Matt Barreto, a Biden campaign pollster focusing on Latino politics, told The New York Times that Americans draw a distinction between "long term, undocumented immigrants" and "new arrivals." We see them, and most Americans see them, as totally different," Barreto said. Voters support immigrants whom they see as "my friend or my uncle who's been here a long time and is even working or paying taxes and is just trying to get a work permit," he added.   More Democrats now endorse the types of border security measures their party denounced during the Trump presidency. The previous administration helped sour public opinion on undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. for reasons of personal safety, jobs, public support and to pursue legal status. Biden early in his term was quick to criticize Trump and his border wall and slow to recognize evolving public angst — including in Europe. The results are mixed from moves right on immigration among centrists from the U.S. to Germany.   "I've been clear from the very beginning, the system is broken," Biden said early this year while encouraging Congress to send him bipartisan reform legislation that soon stalled. "I'm ready to act."  3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY When it comes to gun control, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett may be poised to split conservatives on the Supreme Court. What's a new antidote to distracting, time-consuming smartphones? Retro flip phones. They're having a moment. The U.S. military is hunting for clean tech power for its bases.   🪖 Draft registration for women? As if this year's authorization measure for the Defense Department isn't controversial enough, senators from both parties inserted language into a must-pass measure that would require women to sign up for the draft. Republicans want to erase that language, The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports.   Leading the Day © The Associated Press / J. Scott Applewhite | The winner of Virginia's GOP primary Tuesday between House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, pictured in January, and state Sen. John McGuire could take weeks to determine. POLITICS ONE DAY AFTER POLLS CLOSED, House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) is still fighting for his political life. The bitter race between Good and his primary challenger, John McGuire — a state senator who won the coveted endorsement from Trump — remains too close to call. McGuire holds a razor-thin edge over Good, leading by just 310 votes — or 0.4 percent — with 95 percent of the vote in, according to results from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ. The contest is more than certainly headed to a recount, but McGuire, encouraged by his late — yet little — lead Tuesday night, went ahead and declared victory in a room full of supporters, mimicking the game plan utilized by Trump in 2020.   With bitter anger about Good's vote to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) stoking opposition, those who worked against Good say the race should serve as a warning against the kind of tactics, style and demeanor that contributed to discord in the House.   "He represented, for many of us, what was wrong with this Congress, the dysfunction. And he was sort of part of the soul of it — the seed of all this dysfunction," said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who endorsed McGuire. "Is it conservative to shut down government? I don't think it is. What does conservative mean? I think the way he went about it by trying to dethrone, you know, McCarthy — he did — and all the other shenanigans this year, I don't think that's conservative."   2024 ROUNDUP Maryland Republican Senate candidate Larry Hogan, a Trump antagonist competing in a blue state, was endorsed by the former president but sought this week to assert his independence from his party and its leader with a 30-second ad that concludes with a quote from President John F. Kennedy: "Sometimes party loyalty demands too much." Maryland Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks (D) wants voters to know about Trump's endorsement of her opponent and the Democratic Party in Maryland paid for billboards to spread the endorsement news.  Trump and Biden are lashed to the abortion debate in 2024, in part thanks to last week's Supreme Court procedural ruling rejecting a challenge to mifepristone, the abortion pill long approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In Pennsylvania's Senate race, Democrat Sen. Bob Casey, challenged by Republican David McCormick, has evolved with his party to campaign on abortion rights. He once called himself a "pro-life Democrat." Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. won't be on the debate stage in Atlanta next week, a blow to his bid for the White House. … Don't miss coverage of the candidate's wild pet ravens and his former emu (The New York Times). House Republicans are thinking BIG with symbolic gestures to propose honorifics for Trump while also getting his attention. Mentions: a Congressional Gold Medal, a renamed Trump international airport and the former president's likeness on a $500 bill. Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (I), also a former presidential candidate, was a Democrat before becoming an independent. Now she's viewed by some as a possible Cabinet pick in a Trump administration. Where and When The House will meet Friday at 9 a.m. for a pro forma session.   The Senate will convene at 10 a.m.   The president will receive the President's Daily Brief at 10 a.m. in Rehoboth Beach, Del. He will travel to Camp David in Maryland, arriving late tonight.   Vice President Harris will headline a campaign call at 8 p.m. to endorse abortion rights and mark the date in 2022 of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. She'll speak to volunteers and invited celebrities.   Economic indicator: The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on claims for unemployment benefits filed in the week ending June 15. Zoom In © The Associated Press / Mark Schiefelbein | High temperatures blanket much of the Midwest and Northeast, including Washington, D.C., this week. STATE WATCH THE EXTREME HEAT affecting the eastern U.S. this week may be a sign of things to come as monthly temperature records continue to give way. A broad swath of the country is currently under a heat dome, caused by a high-pressure system in the Earth's upper atmosphere that compresses the air beneath it. More than 76 million people were under some form of heat advisory Tuesday morning in the U.S., and about twice that number faced temperatures of more than 90 degrees (The Hill).   "Every summer we get heat waves, and heat waves are getting more extreme and they're getting more frequent and they're lasting longer," said Jonathan Overpeck, the dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. "If it keeps rocketing up, we'll have to think about why climate change [is] accelerating." The Washington Post: Pollution from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment in February 2023 rained down in 16 states, according to a new study. Politico: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has vowed to severely restrict the use of smartphones during the school day, a dramatic move amid dire warnings from the Biden administration that social media harms children. Louisiana became the first state in the nation to require the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms starting in 2025 after Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed the Republican-led bill Wednesday. The move has already sparked legal challenges; the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced its intent to sue, arguing the law violates the First Amendment (The Hill).   "The First Amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government," the ACLU said Wednesday. "Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools." Elsewhere © The Associated Press / Leo Correa | Israel and Hezbollah stoked fears of a wider regional conflict with attacks across the border in Lebanon. INTERNATIONAL TENSIONS ARE HEATING UP along Israel's border with Lebanon as the Israeli military approved a plan for a possible invasion of its northern neighbor — should a larger-scale conflict break out — and Hezbollah showed off what it said was drone surveillance of northern Israeli cities (The Wall Street Journal). Meanwhile, the Israeli military's chief spokesperson said Wednesday that Israel cannot defeat Hamas without installing a new administration in Gaza, reflecting frustration over the government's failure to advance a postwar alternative in the enclave and deepening rifts between the armed forces and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (The New York Times).   "The idea that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish — that is throwing sand in the eyes of the public," Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a local television interview. "If we do not bring something else to Gaza, at the end of the day, we will get Hamas." The Hill: Biden is running out of time in his goal to end Israel's war against Hamas and implement a mega-deal to reshape the Middle East toward a position of peace. Politico: Biden administration officials increasingly doubt that Israel and Hamas will reach a comprehensive cease-fire deal under the current framework. IN A BLOW TO THE U.S., Russia and North Korea strengthened their alliance this week. Russian President Vladimir Putin's treaty with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is the largest pact that Moscow has signed in years. The U.S. has tried to isolate both countries, but they have continued to deepen an alliance that was forged after Pyongyang began supplying Russia with artillery shells to use in Ukraine (The Hill). NPR: Russia sentenced U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Gordon Black to nearly four years in a penal colony Wednesday for allegedly stealing 10,000 rubles ($120) from his Russian girlfriend and threatening to kill her. He plans to appeal. NBC News: In Ukraine, Kharkiv is taking a breath after the White House allowed the use of its arms inside Russia. But the northeastern city is still in Putin's sights. The Washington Post: A major expansion underway inside Iran's most heavily protected nuclear facility could soon triple the site's production of enriched uranium. Opinion In 1858, Lincoln made a mistake. President Biden, don't make the same one, by Francis S. Barry, guest essayist, The Washington Post. Political scientists want to know why we hate one another this much, by Thomas B. Edsall, columnist, The New York Times. The Closer © The Associated Press / Christophe Ena | Summer Olympics begin next month in host city Paris, pictured Monday. Take Our Morning Report Quiz   And finally … It's Thursday, which means it's time for this week's Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by the July 26-Aug. 11 summer Olympics in beautiful host city Paris, we're puzzling over some of France's challenges as it prepares to celebrate athletic prowess.   Be sure to email your responses to asimendinger@thehill.com and kkarisch@thehill.com — please add "Quiz" to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.   It's been a while since France hosted the summer Olympic games. Name the last time. Year 1900 Year 1924 Year 1968 Year 1972   Olympic swimmers in Paris are concerned about contracting E. coli from _____? Bedbug infestation Evian Les W.C. portables The Seine   France got creative by locating which summer Olympic competition 9,000 miles away from the French capital? Bonus point: Can you name the location? Platform diving Surfing Track and field Skateboarding   What controversy ahead of the Paris Olympics put China into headlines? President Xi Jinping wanted his granddaughter to compete in Olympic pickleball Alleged illegal doping by China's 2020 Olympic swimmers impacts 2024 competition Beijing decided to pull its athletes out of Olympic soccer planned in Paris A Taiwanese fashion designer created the official uniforms for the Chinese Olympic team Stay Engaged We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on social media platform X: (@asimendinger & @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends! Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  Sign Up for Other Newsletters 1625 K Street NW, 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20006 © 1998 - 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved.