The Hill’s Morning Report — Expectations low for today’s big White House meeting

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 05/09/23 6:30 AM ET

President Joe Biden talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif., as they walk down the House steps as they leave after attending an annual St. Patrick’s Day luncheon gathering at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, March 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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A barrage of finger-pointing from the White House and House Republicans today might sound like background Muzak to those who aren’t in the Oval Office for this afternoon’s big-stakes debt discussion.

President Biden, taking aim at Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and a bill the Speaker and his conservative colleagues passed to lift the debt ceiling if paired with spending cuts, wants to reiterate that House Republicans are extreme.

The White House is poised to assert that the GOP plan would worsen the fentanyl crisis by slashing federal law enforcement funds, according to a memo reported by Politico and Axios. And the president on Wednesday is scheduled to deliver a debt-ceiling speech in New York’s Hudson Valley to explain “why Congress must avoid default immediately and without conditions,” and how the House GOP bill would “cut veterans’ health care visits, teachers and school support staffs and Meals on Wheels for seniors,” according to the White House. House Republicans deny the critiques (lohud.com).

But Biden is under pressure to rapidly identify a plan that could get 60 Senate votes and 218 in the House, which would require some Republican buy-in. Biden’s refusal to budge on demands that an increase in the debt ceiling be devoid of other business is widely viewed as in the past.

Without a deal, a Hail Mary fallback strategy to prevent default is necessary. Some suggest a short-term extension of borrowing authority to enable more wrangling and to leave room for discussions about lowering federal spending over 10 years. It’s unclear whether McCarthy could corral votes for even a temporary debt ceiling hike.

▪ The Hill: Pressure on the president to bend.

▪ The Hill: Financial markets brace for default.

▪ The New York Times: Biden, Republicans start far apart in debt limit talks.

▪ The Hill: Five potential outcomes for debt limit battle.

▪ The Associated Press: How the debt ceiling standoff might end.

▪ Roll Call: Debt-limit veterans look for hopeful signs from today’s meeting and game out possible scenarios for a deal.

“What will really be disturbing, I think, to markets and to others is if it’s not clear when or if they’re going to meet again,” said Neil Bradley, a former top aide to leadership during the 2011 debt ceiling fight.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, said Sunday that what he’s searching for is what the administration would accept. “We have to have something that can pass, that addresses our fiscal house at a time where we have record inflation and record federal spending, and we need to have something that can both pass with Republicans and Democrats,” he said.

Politico: Why McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) locked arms on a debt crisis.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: A bipartisan rail safety bill, with former President Trump’s Monday endorsement, could clear the Senate and perhaps secure support among House Republicans. Senate sponsors JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are hopeful.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Something Congress might agree on: tackling drug costs.

▪ Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) used a Wall Street Journal opinion piece to call for reform of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to bar purchases of soda and snack foods with federal benefits. … Iowa GOP state legislators made similar arguments in January, but dropped the soda-and-snacks restriction from a state measure that tightens SNAP and Medicaid spending. It went to the governor’s desk last month (Des Moines Register).

LEADING THE DAY

➤ ADMINISTRATION

The president on Monday, with help from the Transportation Department, endorsed tougher requirements on airlines to compensate or accommodate passengers for the effects of flight delays and cancellations. A federal rulemaking process, which can be lengthy, began on Monday (The Associated Press).

Airlines say delays and cancellations are usually beyond their control. Airlines for America, which represents the biggest carriers, said in a statement that airlines have no incentive to delay or cancel flights. The trade group said more than half of cancellations in 2022 and 2023 have been caused by “extreme weather” or air traffic control outages.

Currently, when an airline cancels a flight for any reason, consumers can demand a refund of the unused part of their ticket and certain extras that they might have paid to the airline, such as fees for checking a bag or getting a seat assignment. Airlines often try to persuade consumers to accept a travel voucher instead of a refund.

In a Monday statement, the Office of Management and Budget said Biden would veto HR 2, a House Republican border security bill unlikely to reach the president’s desk. “This bill does very little to actually increase border security while doing a great deal to trample on the nation’s core values and international obligations,” the administration said.

The Transportation Department headquarters in Washington today at 1 p.m. will be renamed the “William T. Coleman Jr. and Norman Y. Mineta Federal Building” to honor two former secretaries, as a result of bipartisan legislation signed by the president. Leading the event will be Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, joined by other federal officials, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), former Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and relatives of the building’s new namesakes. Coleman, who was an attorney and became the second African American Cabinet member in 1975, died in 2017. Mineta served as DOT secretary in the Cabinets of two presidents after leading San Jose as mayor and then serving as a Democratic California congressman for two decades. He died last year (Railway Age).

➤ POLITICS

After a narrow loss of the Senate majority to Democrats in the 2022 midterms, McConnell is strategizing for 2024. In an interview with CNN, McConnell said he has been working behind the scenes for months to find his preferred candidates in key races in an attempt to prevent a repeat of last November, when a predicted red wave turned into a GOP collapse at the polls. He said his main focus for now is on flipping four states: Montana, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and that Republicans are still assessing two swing states with Democratic incumbents: Wisconsin and Nevada.

“No, no — I’m not,” McConnell said when asked if he were confident his party will take back the majority next year. “I just spent 10 minutes explaining to you how we could screw this up, and we’re working very hard to not let that happen. Let’s put it that way.”

▪ Business Insider: McConnell says he “would love to have had” Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) caucus with Republicans.

▪ Roll Call: The list of the most vulnerable House seats runs through New York and California.

▪ The Hill: Maryland Del. Joe Vogel announces run to be second Gen Z Congress member.

Also looking to 2024 is Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who might be the most endangered member of his party heading into the next election. But Republicans still see the contest against him — with candidate Gov. Jim Justice — as treacherous. Manchin is a state institution who has repeatedly defied the odds in deep-red West Virginia, and in preparation for the race, a GOP group tied to McConnell launched a $2-million ad campaign bashing him a year-and-a-half before the election (Politico).

▪ The New York Times: Under the radar, a right-wing push to tighten voting laws persists.

▪ Vox: The rising Republican movement to defund public libraries.

▪ Politico: “Really weak option”: Wall Street sours on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a Republican challenger to Trump.

▪ ABC News: In closing argument of her civil rape trial, an attorney for E. Jean Carroll says the journalist was “exactly” Trump’s type.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Today marks Russia’s Victory Day — which traditionally celebrates the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany, but has become emblematic of the current war against Ukraine — the Kremlin’s line to its citizens is that Moscow is battling an enemy as powerful as it is evil, a narrative meant to account for the absence of success on the battlefront after 14 months of fighting. But a series of mysterious incidents and the cancellation of some of the Victory Day festivities is another sign that appearances are beginning to slip (Politico EU). Even as Russia launched its biggest swarm of drones in months against Ukraine on Monday, Ukraine commemorated the holiday a day early in a symbolic break with Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky compared the Ukrainian troops with those who battled the Nazis (Reuters).

“Just as evil rushed into our towns and villages then, so it does now. As it killed our people then, so it does now,” he said. “And all the old evil that modern Russia is bringing back will be defeated, just as Nazism was defeated.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin today thundered against “western global elites” and said Russia again faced an existential threat during his Red Square speech, saying a “real war has been unleashed on the motherland” as his troops fired cruise missiles at Kyiv (Reuters and The Washington Post).

▪ The Associated Press: War overshadows holiday integral to Russian identity.

▪ The New York Times: Chaos and shortages in parts of occupied Ukraine among Russian evacuation orders.

The death toll of last week’s deadly floods and landslides in the Democratic Republic of Congo climbed to more than 400 people Monday, as rescue workers and family members searched through debris and mud for victims and survivors. The flooding began Thursday, as heavy rains pushed rivers to overflow their banks, washing away homes and ravaging farmland.

“The situation is catastrophic,” Remy Kasindi, a representative for a civil society group in South Kivu, the province where the floods took place, told The New York Times. “It’s a humanitarian crisis that troubles our consciences.”

Meanwhile in Sudan, residents are hoping talks in Saudi Arabia between envoys of the warring factions can end weeks of bloodshed that killed hundreds and triggered a mass exodus. But there has been no word on the progress of the talks between the Sudanese Army and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which began Saturday, and there is no sign lasting relief will come anytime soon (Reuters).

▪ The Associated Press: What’s behind Syria’s return to the Arab League?

▪ The Washington Post: Why Turkey’s upcoming elections matter so much for the world.

▪ Politico EU: The European Commission president’s likely bid for a second term is looking more like a coronation than a democratic deliberation.

➤ STATE WATCH & TRENDS

Following weekend events, we’re watching state action dealing with guns:

▪ The Associated Press: Stalled gun bill advances in Texas after new mass shooting.

▪ The Associated Press: Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee on Monday scheduled a special legislative session in August to address guns.

After-school Satan Clubs have become more popular since their launch in 2020 and have gained media attention while advocating for free speech, writes The Hill’s Lexi Lonas. The clubs, associated with The Satanic Temple and only offered in primary schools, attracted parents’ attention while searching for alternatives to religious clubs, according to the Campaign Director of the After School Satan Club June Everett. Activities include science and community service projects, as well as nature activities. “That’s kind of when things started blowing up,” she said. “And I anticipate that every year moving forward is going to get busier and busier.”

▪ NewsNation: What is an after-school Satan Club?

▪ The Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania gets its first after-school Satan Club this week. In Hellertown.

Over the past few decades, birds’ bodies have been shrinking, but their wings may be bigger. The smallest birds are getting smaller, shrinking faster than larger ones, The Hill’s Saul Elbein reports. One theory, supported by a UCLA study, is that climate change is accounting for the rapid evolutionary changes; small bodies provide a higher surface-area-to-volume ratio, helping animals shed heat and cope with higher temperatures.

The magnitude of the changes were subtle enough to have been easily missed. “It’s a matter of millimeters, tenths of millimeters,” said Chicago Field Museum scientist Dave Willard. “It’s not something you know is happening until the analysis.”

▪ The New York Times: The “devil bird” lands in New York, with more likely to come.

▪ Boston.com: Although turkeys were once eradicated from Massachusetts, they are now seemingly everywhere in Greater Boston. How did they bounce back?

▪ The Washington Post: Songbirds, dusk and clear skies: Scientists explore migratory flights.

OPINION

■ How the debt standoff might end, by Steven Pearlstein, columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3B8iIxA

■ Here’s how Wall Street is preparing for a U.S. debt default, by Peter Coy, columnist and newsletter author, The New York Times: “There is a Plan B. But Plan A — raising the debt ceiling — is a thousand times better.” https://nyti.ms/44IhiHq

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 meets at 3 p.m. to resume consideration of the nomination of L. Felice Gorordo to be the U.S. alternate executive director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will meet at 4 p.m. in the Oval Office with McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and McConnell.

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

Secretary of State Antony Blinken at 11 a.m. will meet with British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly at the State Department. The secretary and Cleverly will hold a press conference at 12:15 p.m. Blinken will host a reception at Blair House and speak at 4:30 p.m. to celebrate Eid Al-Fitr. He will deliver remarks at the Freedom House 2023 Annual Awards Ceremony at 7:30 p.m. at the Conrad Hotel in Washington.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to Niigata, Japan, where she will participate in the Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors meeting.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ NEWS MEDIA

The news business writ large may be experiencing a rugged business year, but the 2023 Pulitzer Prize awards for excellence in journalism Monday showcased deep reporting and investigations, impactful storytelling, standout writing, photography and the grit and humanity in news coverage that brings clarity to events, including war.

The Associated Press won two Pulitzers for journalism, in public service and breaking news photography, for coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the siege of Mariupol.

The New York Times was honored with an international reporting award for its investigative coverage of Russian killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha and the Russian unit responsible for the killings.

The Los Angeles Times captured two Pulitzers, one for breaking news about a secretly recorded conversation among city officials that included racist comments, and for feature photography by Christina House, showing the life of a 22-year-old woman living in a tent on the street.

The Wall Street Journal staff won for investigative reporting about stock and financial conflicts among officials at 50 federal agencies. The Washington Post’s Caroline Kitchener won the national reporting award for coverage of a Texas teenager who gave birth to twins after restrictions prevented her from obtaining an abortion. The Washington Post’s Eli Saslow captured the feature writing award.

In the category of explanatory reporting, The Atlantic’s staff writer Caitlin Dickerson was honored for her cover story, “‘We Need to Take Away Children,’” an investigation of the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents.

In local reporting, where financial strains are apparent at many news outlets, Anna Wolfe of Mississippi Today in Ridgeland, Miss., won for a bombshell about the former Mississippi governor. And John Archibald, Ashley Remkus, Ramsey Archibald and Challen Stephens of AL.com, based in Birmingham, Ala., won for a series exposing a police force that preyed on residents to drive up revenue.

The complete list of 2023 awards in all Pulitzer categories, including in literature, history and the arts, is HERE.

The Wall Street Journal: Jewish communities rally around Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, to advocate for his release following his detention in Russia.

➤ HEALTH & WELLBEING

Measles has been circulating in the U.S. for a while among the unvaccinated and under-vaccinated, particularly travelers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A positive measles case in a child in Maine this week underscored that the virus is rare in the United States, but not extinct. The CDC has documented 10 cases of measles in eight states this year (CNN).

▪ The New York Times: Multibillion-dollar corporations, particularly giant health insurers are gobbling up primary care practices.

▪ The Hill: Lawmakers ask for data on maternal mental health program’s effectiveness.

Rhode Island recently announced a proposed location for the second supervised injection site in the country — a place where people could safely use illegal drugs under supervision by staff trained to reverse overdoses. Visitors would also be able to get meals, showers, tests for various diseases and access to support groups for addiction treatment. Colleen Daley Ndoye, executive director of Project Weber/Renew, the nonprofit tasked with running the Providence site slated to open next year, told The Washington Post, “We know people’s lives are going to be saved.”

The concept of injection sites for supervised illegal drug use are a tough sell around the country. The federal government will, for the first time, fund a large study measuring whether overdoses can be prevented by such sites, and it hopes to enroll 1,000 adult drug users for the research (The Associated Press).

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🥜 ✈️ Cans of hairspray, bottles of water, full-sized shampoos and conditioners: Most travelers know these items are commonly confiscated at TSA checkpoints in airports across the country, most often because they exceed the 3.4-ounce liquids rule. But peanut butter?

When agents recently confiscated a jar of Jif under this rule, nut-butter enthusiasts were up in arms, but the TSA contends that peanut butter is a liquid — and a full-size jar of Jif is over the 3.4-ounce limit. Scratching your head yet? Mechanical engineer Ted Heindel sheds some light on the nutty dilemma in The Atlantic, and — spoiler alert — he agrees with the feds. Next time you go to the airport, we at Morning Report suggest assembling the PB&J ahead of time.

For tales of other airport security misadventures and odd confiscations, look no further: USA Today has a list of the weirdest items TSA seized in 2022.

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