Morning Report — A pivotal debate tonight as Iowa looms 

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 12/06/23 7:00 AM ET

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Four GOP presidential candidates will debate tonight in Tuscaloosa, Ala., each chasing the conservative who keeps skipping the jousting, in part because none of his rivals has threatened his frontrunner status.

Former President Trump bowed out of three previous debates and plans tonight to headline a fundraiser in Florida. During a freewheeling, prerecorded town hall interview from Iowa with Fox News’s Sean Hannity Tuesday, Trump predicted he will win in Iowa, sidestepped questions about seeking retribution against perceived foes if he’s elected, attacked President Biden’s cognitive abilities and suggested Democrats will wind up with a different nominee next year.

Tonight’s Republican National Committee faceoff features Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Trump critic Chris Christie, the former GOP governor of New Jersey. Presidential aspirants Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) and North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum previously quit the race. 

CABLE BROADCASTER NewsNation, owned by Nexstar Media, which also owns The Hill, will carry the event live beginning at 8 p.m. EST. Here’s how to watch and what to anticipate.

The Hill: Can Haley or DeSantis break from the trailing pack? 

The former South Carolina governor and DeSantis, who are close in polls but lagging behind Trump, want to shake up the contest ahead of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire GOP primary early next year.

Haley, who previously attracted voter attention with solid debate performances, climbed from single to double digits among Republicans and now leads Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup, according to a Messenger/Harris poll released Tuesday. Trump leads Biden by a 7-point margin in the same survey.

DeSantis, once viewed by anti-Trump Republicans as a promising challenger in the GOP primary based on his decisive reelection as governor, has seen his early national momentum slide. Last week, he debated Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat who supports Biden for reelection. But DeSantis has shied from attacking Trump this year beyond mild barbs and veiled critiques. Once endorsed by Trump, the governor on Tuesday told the former president to “stop being a keyboard warrior” (The Hill).

How big is Trump’s lead over DeSantis and Haley? At least 50 points, according to a NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll published Monday. Six in 10 Republicans identify the former president as their top choice. Christie, who relishes bashing Trump and touts his accomplishments as a Republican who governed in a blue state, barely registers in the NewsNation poll at 3 percent. He has been encouraged to withdraw from the contest to throw more support behind Haley or DeSantis.

Bottom line: Are audiences watching these primary debates without Trump? The first RNC faceoff attracted 13 million viewers on Fox News, while about 9.5 million tuned in for the second candidate battle aired on Fox Business Network, Fox News and Univision. NBC News broadcast the third debate, which drew an audience of about 7.5 million.  

CNN next week will host presidential town halls in Iowa with DeSantis and Ramaswamy. 

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ The Hill’s Top Lobbyists 2023 edition, describing those who demonstrated a track record of success in the halls of Congress and the administration during a critical year for policy, is HERE.

▪ A Biden administration proposal to safeguard swaths of public land from future mineral and fossil fuel extraction has set off a battle in southwestern Wyoming. 

▪ In a sign of instability in Beijing’s top ranks, foreign policy and defense officials are vanishing as Chinese President Xi Jinping roots out perceived enemies.

Younger voters at the moment say they’re less likely to vote in 2024 than in 2020, according to a new poll from Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Of respondents aged 18-29 who said they voted in the 2020 election, 49 percent said they “definitely” will be voting in the next presidential election; 17 percent said they will “probably” vote in the 2024 election. 

The president suggested Tuesday that he might have opted to serve one term if not for the stakes in the election.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden told Democrats at a campaign fundraiser in the Boston area. “But we cannot let him win.”

LEADING THE DAY

CONGRESS

THE SENATE IS SET TO VOTE TODAY on whether to move ahead with $106 billion in emergency foreign aid — but Republicans are balking in the absence of a deal with Democrats to curtail migration and crack down on border security. for Ukraine because the package does not include immigration and asylum reforms. 

Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a roughly $111 billion national security package to provide aid to Ukraine and Israel, along with provisions focused on immigration and the southern border. A classified briefing devolved into a screaming match and it became clear that U.S. help to allies abroad would falter because of domestic partisan flashpoints. Senate Republican leaders, ahead of a key procedural vote, are urging their GOP colleagues to block the legislation to provide more than $61 billion in military and foreign aid (The Hill).

In a statement Tuesday, Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said it’s “imperative” to help Ukraine to demonstrate to “Putin and other dictators that they cannot simply wait out the United States” (The Hill). 

“It’s past time for Senators to stop tying partisan and extreme immigration proposals to a broadly bipartisan supplemental,” she wrote.

Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, met with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) Tuesday, and based on their meeting, Stefanchuk told Punchbowl News Johnson was “positive about getting aid to Ukraine before Christmas” and “fully understands” the domestic political issues at play.

▪ The Hill: Ukrainian, European leaders descend on Capitol Hill to press for funding.

▪ The Hill: Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), 48, who briefly served as Speaker pro tempore and is the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, on Tuesday said he won’t seek reelection next year. His decision continues a retirement trend in the Capitol.

© The Associated Press / Mariam Zuhaib | Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) Tuesday lifted most of his nine-month blockade that prevented Senate confirmations of military nominees. 

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) Tuesday lifted his hold on Biden’s military nominations, but only those below the rank of four-star generals. The senator’s decision partially ended a blockade he launched in February to protest a Defense Department expense reimbursement policy that covers travel for abortion services. Within hours, the Senate cleared 425 stalled nominations.

Biden criticized the senator after his about-face. “Senator Tuberville, and the Republicans who stood with him, needlessly hurt hundreds of servicemembers and military families and threatened our national security — all to push a partisan agenda. I hope no one forgets what he did,” the president wrote.

“Hundreds of military families across the country can breathe a sigh of relief,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said after the confirmations were complete. “Thank God. These military officers will now get the promotions they so rightfully earned. I’m happy that after so much unnecessary delay by one senator, we have finally moved forward.”

The deal struck by Tuberville with Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) allowed all promotions for officers at the three-star level to be confirmed en bloc. The hold remains in place on those at the four-star level, which applies to nearly a dozen officers. Tuberville was under pressure to relent on his holds, as they went public with their complaints over the past month on the Senate floor in an attempt to advance nominees one at a time (The Hill and NBC News).

IMPEACHMENT WATCH: House Republicans, pushing through the last stages of their impeachment inquiry into Biden, are creating political risk for their more moderate and vulnerable members, writes The Hill’s Emily Brooks. Those leading the inquiry say that they expect the House GOP to unify around an official vote to open an impeachment inquiry. Johnson said Tuesday that the plan is for the House to vote to authorize the inquiry next week, the last scheduled week in session before lawmakers leave for a holiday recess. 

A vote to investigate suspicions is different from a vote on actual articles, which are likely to center on long-disputed shaky allegations of bribery involving the president’s son Hunter Biden and Ukrainian energy company Burisma — claims that were intertwined with Trump’s first impeachment. The move to a formal vote comes months after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declared a swath of House GOP investigations to be an impeachment inquiry in September — a reverse of the stance he took during the first Trump-era impeachment when he said it needed to be kicked off with a formal vote (The Hill).

The White House is stepping up its criticism of the impeachment inquiry, putting pressure on those moderate Republicans whose seats may be in jeopardy. The White House has spent the last few days on a concerted effort to tie the conference to its more far-right members, including casting Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as the sole lawmaker calling the shots. It has also painted Johnson as caving to certain lawmakers by calling for a vote on the matter (The Hill).

“This is probably a smart approach by the White House given that most House Republicans in competitive districts are now trying to build their own brands and to distinguish themselves from the more radical elements in the GOP conference that pushed the chamber into chaos this fall,” former Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R) told The Hill.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets at 10 a.m.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. and expects to vote on whether to begin work on legislation providing emergency aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Biden will address the White House Tribal Nations Summit at 1:45 p.m., taking place at the Department of the Interior. He will headline a campaign reception at a Washington hotel at 5:30 p.m. and will return to the White House.

Vice President Harris will address the White House Tribal Nations Summit at 3:30 p.m. She will host a holiday reception at the Naval Observatory at 5 p.m. accompanied by second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Mexico City with a full schedule today that includes a speech this morning about U.S. efforts with Mexico to counter illicit financing tied to fentanyl, a roundtable with Mexican business executives and a bilateral meeting in the afternoon with Central Bank of Mexico Governor Victoria Rodriguez Ceja.  

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Washington where he will host a holiday event at the State Department at 1 p.m. for “unaccompanied tour families.” The secretary will meet at 2 p.m. with Andriy Yermak, who represents the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, along with others. Blinken at 6 p.m. will host a reception at the department for the diplomatic corps.

First lady Jill Biden, working with the Joining Forces initiative, will speak at 11:20 a.m. at an event hosted by Hiring our Heroes and Blue Star Families, at the Chamber of Commerce building. Later, she will host a Toys for Tots event at 3 p.m. at the White House with Marine Corps Reserve and local Marine Corps representatives, and military-connected families.

Emhoff at 2 p.m. joins Attorney General Merrick Garland and White House Counsel Ed Siskel for an interagency legal aid roundtable discussion and will talk about expanding such services. The second gentleman at 8 p.m. will address the Newtown Action Alliance Foundation’s annual vigil for all gun violence victims, taking place at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Washington.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 2:45 p.m.

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press / Hatem Ali | Palestinians trying to escape the Israeli ground offensive crowded into Rafah at Gaza’s border Tuesday.

MIDDLE EAST 

U.S. officials said Israel has assembled a system of large pumps it could use to flood Hamas’s vast network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip with seawater, a tactic that could destroy the tunnels and drive the fighters from their underground refuge but also threaten the enclave’s water supply. The Israel Defense Forces finished assembling large seawater pumps roughly a mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp around the middle of November. Each of at least five pumps can draw water from the Mediterranean Sea and move thousands of cubic meters of water per hour into the tunnels, flooding them within weeks (The Wall Street Journal).

Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is deteriorating by the hour as a result of increased fighting, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday, appealing for protection of civilians as tens of thousands of people in southern Gaza moved further south looking for safety and hospitals suffered further casualties. International pressure has grown on Israel not to repeat the level of civilian deaths and physical destruction inflicted in the north, but reports from Gaza show no change in the intensity of Israeli operations (The New York Times). The assault on the south threatens further mass displacement, where the U.N. says some 1.87 million people — over 80 percent of the population — have already fled their homes.

“The situation is getting worse by the hour,” Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in Gaza, told reporters via video. “There’s intensified bombing going on all around, including here in the southern area, Khan Younis and even in Rafah.”

The U.N.’s humanitarian aid office said that for the past three days, aid distribution — mainly supplies of flour and water — has been possible only in and around Rafah, on the southern border with Egypt, because of fighting and road closures by Israeli forces. Meanwhile Doctors Without Borders said fuel and medical supplies have reached “critically low levels” at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, north of Khan Younis (The Associated Press).

Biden, speaking Tuesday at a Washington fundraiser, opened with comments about Hamas’s violent treatment of women and girls attacked in Israel (The Associated Press). 

“Hamas terrorists inflicted as much pain and suffering in women and girls as possible,” Biden said. “The world can’t just look away at what’s going on. It’s on all of us… to forcibly condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation.”

The Hill: Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), leader of progressives in the House, issued a statement to clean up her comments during a CNN interview over the weekend about Hamas attacks against women and girls to say her answers were “not intended to minimize rape” or sexual violence used as a weapon of war.

FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of an increased threat of terrorism stemming from the Israel-Hamas war, saying at a hearing Tuesday that the FBI was working around the clock to prevent potential attacks inspired by Hamas (The Hill).

“Given the steady drumbeat of calls for attacks by foreign terrorist organizations since Oct. 7, we’re working around the clock to identify and disrupt potential attacks by those inspired by Hamas’s horrific terrorist attacks in Israel,” Wray said in an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press / Nam Y. Huh | A Deerfield, Ill., grocery store in October.

ECONOMY, INFRASTRUCTURE & TAXES

A social science, not a science: The field of economics has been flat-footed, too political, backward focused, without consensus and just plain wrong in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. What happened?

Betting on an economic driver: The Biden administration announced $3 billion in funding Tuesday for a high-speed rail line that would connect Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

The high court and the tax code: A Supreme Court opinion dealing with a GOP tax code provision could have ripple effects and render unconstitutional a proposed federal wealth tax championed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

TRUMP WORLD

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team on Tuesday outlined the evidence it has collected against Trump, walking through information prosecutors say will showcase his motive and knowledge of a plan to block the transfer of power. The breakdown comes in a request to introduce evidence of events both before and after the conspiracy outlined in Trump’s indictment, an effort to “establish his motive, intent, preparation, knowledge” and plans related to his efforts to stay in power.

The filing shows prosecutors plan to showcase an array of Trump comments dating as far back as 2012, when he sought to cast into doubt the legitimacy of elections whose results he did not favor. That includes the multiple instances when Trump refused to commit to accept the results of either the 2016 or 2020 election. “They demonstrate the defendant’s common plan of falsely blaming fraud for election results he does not like,” senior assistant special counsel Molly Gaston wrote in a nine-page court filing.

Smith is seeking permission from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to introduce evidence that isn’t specifically charged in the criminal indictment but may be relevant to the jury’s consideration of the alleged crimes (The Hill and Politico).

▪ The Hill: Judge rips Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer for ex-mayor’s absence at Georgia poll worker pretrial hearing.

▪ CNN: Eric Trump is no longer testifying as part of the defense case in the former president’s New York civil fraud trial.

Prosecutors in the Georgia election subversion case against Trump have officially listed former Vice President Mike Pence as one of the witnesses who could be called to testify at trial, CNN reports. Pence, who has appeared before a federal grand jury as part of Smith’s probe into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has not been considered a major part of criminal proceedings in Georgia.

OPINION:

■ Hoping for peace in Gaza? Don’t look to Europe, by Pankaj Mishra, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion.

■ The Supreme Court and a wealth tax, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

THE CLOSER

 © The Associated Press / Stephanie Scarbrough | Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) presented Vice President Harris with a golden gavel after she cast a historic 32nd tie-breaking vote in the Senate on Tuesday.

And finally … Vice President Harris set the record Tuesday for breaking ties in the narrowly divided Senate. The vice president went to the Capitol to tip the scales once again and helped move Loren AliKhan to the federal bench as U.S. District Court judge for the District of Columbia. 

The previous vice-presidential record holder known for breaking Senate ties was John Calhoun, who did it 31 times and entered the history books in 1832. Schumer presented Harris with a commemorative golden gavel, which she clasped with a wry expression as Schumer marked the occasion. 

“Today is historic,” Schumer enthused, noting that Harris made it possible for the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan to make it to Biden’s desk for his signature. 

“I join all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, thanking the vice president for her leadership and for making the work of the Senate possible,” he added.

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