The Hill’s Morning Report — 2024 GOP hopefuls already jockeying for position

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 02/28/23 6:25 AM ET

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks about President Donald Trump during a campaign rally Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2019, in Sunrise, Fla. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

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Rivalries among GOP presidential aspirants in 2024 will be war, or maybe at this point, more like high school.

Republican political donors attending an event this week in Florida at the invitation of Club for Growth will hear from potential presidential contenders and GOP celebrities including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But former President Trump, a declared presidential candidate, has not been invited (The Hill).

Also this week, the Conservative Political Action Conference plans a large gathering near Washington, D.C., where Trump will speak while DeSantis sits it out (The Hill).

Declared presidential candidate Nikki Haley is scheduled to appear at both events. Former Vice President Mike Pence is on both guest lists and will also speak Thursday at South Carolina’s Bob Jones University, where conservative Christians may be eyeing an alternative to Trump ahead of 2024 (The Washington Post).

The former president, taking an early measure of the field, bashed DeSantis as well as Fox News on Monday in a fit of social media pique about the Florida governor (The Hill). Trump renewed his attacks on the network, accusing it of underplaying a new poll showing him with a 15-point lead over DeSantis in a hypothetical match-up.

Trump complained that Fox is “promoting” DeSantis “so hard and so much that there’s not much time left for Real News.”

The Hill: Trump’s persistent polling strength defies GOP critics.

The Florida governor has largely chosen to ignore Trump’s public barbs while courting the former president’s base of support. DeSantis has attracted national attention, much of it sought by the ambitious governor ahead of an expected presidential campaign by late spring. With an expanding national fan base and favorable polls, DeSantis appears to believe GOP donors would follow.

On Monday, the governor was in the headlines as he took over a Walt Disney Co. tax district near Orlando, punishing the company over its opposition to Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which DeSantis signed into law (ABC News/AP).

“He’s using Disney to school other companies he’ll punch back if they criticize him,” said Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican operative in Florida who quit the party when Trump took over. “It’s all a performance and will only get louder if he runs for president”(Bloomberg News).

The self-professed anti-”woke” governor also attracted national news coverage this month while engineering what detractors call a “hostile takeover” of the left-leaning New College of Florida, a respected public liberal arts college in Sarasota, Fla., which the governor said he envisions as a conservative Christian institution to be led by a generously compensated former member of the Florida legislature, a friend (The New Yorker).

Today, the governor has a new memoir for sale in bookstores, accompanied by promotional book excerpts and interviews, including a lengthy Sunday discussion with Mark Levin on Fox’s “Life, Liberty & Levin.”

Across the partisan divide, President Biden hopes this week to reassure and strategize among House and Senate Democrats. He’ll speak on Wednesday in Baltimore at a House Democratic retreat and meet with Senate Democrats at a luncheon on Thursday as his party prepares for prominent legislative and oversight clashes with the GOP (The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post).

In Chicago today, it’s primary day in the Windy City’s nine-candidate mayoral contest (ABC7Chicago). The Hill’s Caroline Vakil reports on five things to watch as incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot seeks reelection.

In Michigan on Monday, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D) jumped into the race to succeed Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D), who previously announced she will retire at the end of her term. The Senate contest is expected to be one of the most competitive in 2024 (CNN).

Related Articles

▪ The Washington Post: Former President Obama is launching “Change Collective,” to focus on improving communities. An initial group of 25 participants will be selected for pilot programs in Chicago, Detroit and Jackson, Miss.

▪ The Hill: Documents show that Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News Channel, acknowledged during a deposition in a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems that several top Fox hosts “endorsed” Trump’s election fraud claims in 2020.

▪ The Hill: Republicans retool their crime message for 2024.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ ADMINISTRATION

The White House on Monday gave government agencies 30 days to ensure they do not have Chinese-owned app TikTok on federal devices and systems. The ban, included in legislation last year, follows similar actions from Canada, the EU, Taiwan and more than half of U.S. states.

Federal government devices are a small portion of TikTok’s U.S. user base, but a ban adds fuel to calls for an outright prohibition of the video-sharing app with Chinese ownership (Reuters). A House panel, meanwhile, today is marking up a bill that would allow the president to ban TikTok nationally for private and commercial users (The Hill).

“My bill empowers the administration to ban TikTok or any software applications that threaten U.S. national security. And make no mistake — TikTok is a security threat,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who introduced the bill, said in a statement. “Anyone with TikTok downloaded on their device has given the CCP a backdoor to all their personal information. It’s a spy balloon into your phone.”

▪ Reuters: ACLU urges US lawmakers not to ban TikTok, citing free speech.

▪ BBC: China hits out at U.S. over TikTok ban on federal devices.

▪ The Guardian: Canada bans TikTok on government devices over security risks.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited Kyiv on Monday, the latest high-profile trip aimed at sending a message of American commitment to supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion, including with financial aid. The rare trip to a war zone by a U.S. Treasury secretary came a week after Biden’s own surprise visit, and three days after Ukrainians commemorated the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale assault on their country (The Wall Street Journal).

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a Monday statement, pledged $444 million in assistance to Yemen as it faces what the secretary called “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” of conflict, economic instability, food insecurity and other issues (The Hill).

The New York Times: Blinken is making the first trip by a Biden administration Cabinet official to the former Soviet republics this week, where he’ll urge senior Central Asian officials convening in Kazakhstan to maintain independence from Russia and China.

The administration plans to announce today that semiconductor manufacturers seeking a slice of nearly $40 billion in new federal subsidies will need to ensure affordable child care for their workers, limit stock buybacks and share certain excess profits with the government (The New York Times).

The administration on Monday announced a crackdown on the labor exploitation of migrant children around the United States, including more aggressive investigations of companies benefiting from their work (The New York Times). The action followed a Times investigation published on Saturday about the explosive growth of migrant child labor throughout the United States, as children are ending up in punishing jobs that violate child labor laws after crossing the southern border without their parents in record numbers.

The Department of Labor, which enforces child labor laws, will target federal investigations in geographical areas where it rarely receives tips, according to senior administration officials. Migrant children are among the least likely workers to reach out to labor inspectors for help with workplace issues. The department also will explore using a “hot goods” provision of law that allows it to stop the interstate transport of goods where child labor has been found in the supply chain. Major brands and retailers, including J. Crew, Walmart, Target, Ben & Jerry’s, Fruit of the Loom, Ford and General Motors, were found by the Times to have products made with child labor in the American supply chain.

▪ Politico: “We can’t find people to work.” Companies trying to advance a new generation of clean-energy technologies face a struggle: Finding enough people to hire.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will hold a hearing today to examine the administration’s COVID-19 policy decisions. Republicans are returning to a probe they initiated last year into the virus’s origins. On Monday, they expanded the inquiry to include the Department of Energy, the Department of State and FBI.

A U.S. intelligence assessment that a lab leak was the likely origin of COVID-19 is animating House Republicans, writes The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel, although the White House, scientists and the intelligence community say the conclusive origin of the virus in humans remains unresolved.

“There’s not been a definitive conclusion, so it’s difficult for me to say, nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said during a Monday press briefing.

▪ The Hill: White House: No government consensus on COVID-19 lab leak theory.

▪ USA Today: The COVID-19 lab leak theory from the Energy Department, explained.

▪ The Guardian: How seriously should we take the lab leak theory?

In The Memo, The Hill’s Niall Stanage looks at five key takeaways from new “lab leak” COVID-19 reporting this week.

West Wing moves: Biden on Monday appointed former Columbia, S.C., Mayor Stephen Benjamin (D) as a senior adviser and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, succeeding outgoing director Keisha Lance Bottoms, former Democratic mayor of Atlanta, who is returning to Georgia (The Hill).

The U.S. Marshals Service suffered a “major” security breach of sensitive information more than a week ago (NBC News).

➤ CONGRESS

Congressional leaders and top Intelligence Committee members will receive a briefing today about the classified documents found at the homes of Biden, Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, two sources familiar with the planned meeting told The Hill.

The group of lawmakers, also known as the “Gang of Eight,” will learn more about what was included in the various batches of documents. The discovery of the documents raised questions about the handling of classified papers within the executive branch. The briefing comes after months of sparring between the Justice Department and congressional leaders, including top intelligence panel members who have been clamoring for access to those documents (Bloomberg News).

For the first time, Congress’s powerful Appropriations Committees are led by four women. But one of them, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), has the toughest job of all, Politico reports. Once a storied prize on Capitol Hill, Granger’s appropriations panel gavel is lately as much a political burden as a gift thanks to endless partisan wars over government funding. She must not only lead House Republican appropriators in drafting a dozen annual spending bills, but also sell those proposals to the rest of a GOP conference that often can’t agree on far more basic fiscal issues.

▪ The Washington Post: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) remains hospitalized for depression, but is “on path to recovery,” his office says.

▪ The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Fetterman is getting briefings, but his staff has no updates to report on his condition.

▪ Roll Call: Rep. Joaquin Castro’s (D-Texas) prognosis is described as “good” after surgery to remove cancerous gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors. The 48-year-old lawmaker said he will recover in Texas for several weeks before returning to Washington.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ SUPREME COURT

Justices on Monday agreed to hear a case challenging the legality of the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), once the brainchild of now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and enacted by Congress and former President Obama in response to the financial crisis of 2008-2009. The CFPB was created as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

The order taking the case came four months after a federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled that the CFPB’s funding mechanism was unconstitutional. The CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve, not Congress, a funding choice that was adopted by a Democratic-controlled Congress to help safeguard the bureau from political pressure. But Republicans have expressed opposition to the agency, which oversees consumer markets such as credit cards and home mortgages (CNBC).

The New York Times: A Supreme Court decision overturning century-old New York gun regulations has produced scores of new lawsuits as jurists and citizens sort out what’s legal.

👉 This judicial decision could change the lives of 26 million people who applied as of last year to erase their student loan debts under a Biden administration program. As the Supreme Court justices convene today to weigh the cases, The Hill’s Lexi Lonas and Zach Schonfeld have rounded up five key things to watch.

Although a ruling is likely months away, thousands of borrowers want to be heard, write The Hill’s Lexi Lonas and Zach Schonfeld. Groups are busing protesters to Washington, D.C., with some having planned to camp out outside overnight. And as oral arguments begin, organizers expect a crowd of 3,000 at a rally outside the courthouse with members of Congress, student loan borrowers and activists in the lineup. The demonstration, called the “People’s Rally,” was planned by more than 20 national organizations, including the NAACP, Debt Collective and New Georgia Project.

▪ CNN: Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan goes before the Supreme Court today. Here’s what borrowers need to know.

▪ The New York Times: The student loan case before the Supreme Court poses a pressing question: Who can sue?

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Britain and the European Union have reached an agreement on new trade rules in Northern Ireland in an attempt to resolve a thorny issue that has fueled post-Brexit tensions. The deal could potentially resolve the issue of imports and border checks in Northern Ireland, one of the most challenging and controversial aspects of the United Kingdom’s split from the EU.

Speaking at a Monday press conference, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the new deal will deliver “smooth flowing trade” within the U.K., “protects Northern Ireland’s place” in the U.K. and “safeguards” its sovereignty. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that in order for the two parties to “make the most of our partnership” amid a tense post-Brexit era, new solutions were needed (CNN and Reuters).

▪ BBC: The Northern Ireland Brexit deal, at a glance.

▪ The Washington Post: Why are the U.K. and EU still fighting over Brexit and Northern Ireland?

▪ The Hill: Biden said the U.K., EU trade agreement over Northern Ireland is an “essential step” to maintaining the Good Friday Agreement.

For months, military analysts have been anticipating that the Russian military, under pressure from President Vladimir Putin, would seek to regain momentum in the war against Ukraine, and a recent series of attacks along the front lines in the eastern Donbas region were at first regarded as exploratory thrusts. But increasingly, they are seen as the best the exhausted Russian forces can manage (The New York Times).

“Russia’s big new offensive is underway,” Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said in an interview last week with the Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine. “But going in a way that not everyone can even notice it.”

Still, Moscow on Monday threw cold water on China’s peace plan for the Ukraine war, after the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday thanked Beijing for the new proposal but underscored that any peace deal would need to recognize “new territorial realities” in Ukraine. “We paid a lot of attention to our Chinese friends’ plan,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday, according to the Moscow Times. “For now, we don’t see any of the conditions that are needed to bring this whole story towards peace” (Business Insider).

▪ The Hill: United Nations chief: Russia unleashed “widespread death, destruction and displacement” with Ukraine invasion.

▪ The Guardian: Belarus partisans say they blew up a Russian plane near Minsk.

Hours after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis, dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank on Sunday night, torching cars and homes and killing a man. Though isolated incidents of settler violence are still common, and have increased recently, residents said this was the worst attack they had experienced in years and blamed the Israeli military for not intervening (The Washington Post).

▪ Reuters: Far-right Israeli minister says “no” to West Bank settlement freeze.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Indonesia shows it’s possible to tame rainforest destruction.

OPINION

■ U.S. Treasury secretary in Kyiv: Economic aid to Ukraine is vital, by Janet Yellen, guest essayist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3kuLio5

■ What to expect from the Supreme Court on Biden’s student loan cancellation, by Beth Akers, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3xVNJ5Y

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 10 a.m.

The Senate meets at 10 a.m. before proceeding to executive session to consider the nomination of Jamar Walker to be a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Biden will travel to Virginia Beach, Va., to deliver a speech at 3 p.m. about administration efforts to lower health care and related costs, including his warnings about GOP policies affecting health care. He’s expected back at the White House by 5:35 p.m.

The vice president will be in Washington and has no public events scheduled.

State’s Blinken is in Astana, Kazakhstan, where he will meet with officials and participate in a C5+1 ministerial gathering with representatives of each of the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). Blinken will meet separately with senior government officials from the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Economic indicator: The Conference Board at 10 a.m. will release its report on consumer confidence in February.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel holds public hearings today and Wednesday to weigh applications from Pfizer and rival drugmaker GSK as they seek approval of vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

ELSEWHERE

➤ HEALTH & PANDEMIC

Urszula Tanouye and concerned community members in Illinois banded together to shut down a local medical plant, calling their group “Stop Sterigenics” to take aim at a company operating a facility that emitted a carcinogenic chemical, ethylene oxide, into the air. Initially, Tayouye had no idea that she was breathing toxic air pollution until a friend sent her a link to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, The Hill’s Rachel Frazin reports. That link, to the EPA’s National Air Toxics Assessment, showed that her area around Willowbrook, Ill., was a hotspot for cancer risk. “It seemed like, within a couple of days, the whole village found out pretty much that way,” she said. Ethylene oxide is linked to brain cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The doctors who championed ivermectin as a COVID-19 cure — despite no evidence that it works — are now promoting the anti-parasitic to prevent and treat the flu and RSV. The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, formed in 2020 to “prevent and treat covid,” is touting ivermectin for common respiratory infections. There is no clinical data in humans to support using ivermectin for flu or RSV, according to the CDC and other medical experts. And yet, the alliance publishes “treatment protocols” promoting the use of ivermectin that it says have been downloaded more than a million times (The Washington Post).

“Profiting from bunk and nonsense has no place in ethical medicine,” said Arthur Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine who called the alliance’s promotion of ivermectin for COVID-19, flu and RSV “fraud during a pandemic on a significant scale.”

▪ The New York Times: Rural hospitals are shuttering their maternity units.

▪ The Washington Post: Is swapping pasta for a plant-based, grain-free version healthier?

▪ Time magazine: Patient burnout is a simmering public health crisis.

Information about the availability of COVID-19 vaccine and booster shots can be found at Vaccines.gov.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,119,550. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,407 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🌸 It’s time to obsess about cherry blossoms that create a fragile pink canopy around the nation’s capital in spring, especially surrounding the Tidal Basin. Too hot and early buds risk brief blooming. Too cold and the trees can suffer the whims of inhospitable weather.

The National Park Service will make a peak bloom prediction on Wednesday. All signs currently point to the word “early.”

“We’ve seen a much-warmer-than-normal January and February,” the official forecasters noted (CherryBlossomWatch).

▪ The Washington Post: Spring is awakening weeks early in the D.C. area. This could be a problem.

▪ Axios: D.C. cherry blossom trees face climate change threats.

▪ WUSA9: A guide to D.C.’s 2023 cherry blossoms.

▪ ABC News: D.C.’s cherry blossoms might make an early appearance.

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