Morning Report — DeSantis, Haley clash in Iowa; Trump chats on Fox

It was a split-screen night in Iowa. 

Former President Trump spent a relaxed Wednesday evening in Iowa during a Fox News town hall in front of a friendly crowd, while a few miles down the road, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slugged it out during a two-hour GOP presidential debate in which they accused one another of lying. 

Trump, polling as the indisputable front-runner, walked onstage to cheers and chants of “USA,” remained to sign autographs and smiled as a questioner enthused “love you” as he listened to her question during the live telecast. 

It was unclear that the state of the race changed much when the candidates finished an evening of political counterprogramming.  

Haley and DeSantis traded attacks in a battle for second place ahead of Monday’s caucuses. While each criticized Trump, they spent the bulk of the time focused on calling each other liars while emphasizing policy differences — from how to counter China to the government’s role in business and border policy. Haley, whose campaign launched a website called “DeSantisLies.com,” repeatedly encouraged viewers to read its contents following DeSantis’s answers. 

“You’re so desperate, Ron,” Haley said after DeSantis attacked her for saying she favors a higher retirement age for Social Security and Medicare. “You’re just so desperate.” 

In turn, DeSantis accused Haley of offering voters “warmed-over corporatism” adding, “We don’t need another mealy-mouthed politician who just tells you what she thinks you want to hear.” 

While Haley and DeSantis criticized Trump for his continued insistence the 2020 election was “stolen,” they saved their attacks for one another.  

“I wish Donald Trump was on this stage. He’s the one I’m running against,” Haley said at one point. 

DeSantis is trying to pull ahead of Haley in Iowa by Monday or face a third-place finish. Haley, meanwhile, is hoping for a strong showing heading into New Hampshire on Jan. 23, where she polls closer to Trump (The Washington Post and The Hill).  

Before Wednesday’s debate, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who pegged his longshot GOP presidential strategy on a desire to slow Trump’s bid for the GOP nomination, dropped out of the presidential race without endorsing a candidate. Speaking in Windham, N.H., Christie said, “It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination.” 

Christie’s decision is seen as a boost for Haley’s efforts (The Hill). But in a hot mic moment, the former governor was overheard predicting that Haley will get “smoked” in the primary, an aside Trump eagerly repeated on Truth Social.  

---

---

Hunter Biden and his lawyer went on offense Wednesday with a surprise appearance for 20 minutes at a House committee hearing as Republicans discussed holding the president’s son in contempt of subpoenas. They want him to testify privately. Through his attorney, he has told lawmakers he wants to answer questions about past business practices in a public setting (The Hill). Two House panels voted Wednesday to advance a contempt of Congress resolution, teeing up a full House vote on asserted criminal charges. Today, the younger Biden will be in a Los Angeles courtroom to enter a plea to nine tax-related charges. He previously expected to plead guilty to misdemeanors as part of a plea deal with prosecutors that fell apart last year. 

Fox News: Trump slams Hunter Biden Wednesday while defending his own business revenues from foreign governments, including China, while serving as president: “I put everything in trust. And if I have a hotel and somebody comes in from China, that’s a small amount of money. And it sounds like a lot of money. … But I was doing services for that,” he said when questioned during a town hall in Iowa. “People were staying in these massive hotels, these beautiful hotels, because I have the best hotels, I have the best clubs, I have the best clubs, I have great stuff and they stay there and they pay.” 

---

LEADING THE DAY 

POLITICS 

DEFENDANT TRUMP: The former president is still expected today to appear at the New York civil fraud trial focused on his past business practices, although the presiding judge barred Trump from speaking (The Hill). New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) seeks to block Trump for life from New York real estate business and proposed a penalty of nearly $370 million.  

The Hill: Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis (D), who brought election interference charges against Trump and 18 co-defendants, was subpoenaed in a divorce case involving a special prosecutor she hired in the case. 

Evangelical voters are set to play a pivotal role in next week’s Iowa caucuses amid signs they’re firmly behind Trump, write The Hill’s Julia Manchester and Caroline Vakil. An NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll released last month showed Trump had 51 percent of evangelical Christian support among likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers, while DeSantis received 26 percent and Haley received 12 percent. Top faith leaders point to Trump’s presidential record and fighter persona as why many evangelicals are largely aligning with Trump in the Republican race.  

---

---

WHERE AND WHEN: 

The House meets at 10 a.m.  

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m.  

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 11:30 a.m. 

Vice President Harris will travel to Charlotte for a roundtable at Eastway Middle School at 1:50 p.m. to discuss administration efforts to reduce gun violence and to announce new funding to help North Carolina and U.S. schools increase access to mental health resources for students. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona will participate. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Egypt this morning where he will meet President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo. 

Economic indicators: The government at 8:30 a.m. will release the consumer price index and real earnings reports for December. The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report filings for unemployment claims in the week ending Jan. 6.   

First lady Jill Biden will travel to Chicago to visit the University of Illinois campus to talk about women’s health, accompanied by actress Halle Berry at 1:30 p.m. local time. The first lady will travel in the evening to Groton, Conn., to attend a holiday gathering at the Submarine Force Museum with crew and family members of the USS Delaware. 

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will be in Beaufort, S.C., for a Biden reelection event at noon and speak at 12:45 p.m. at Old Grace AME Church. He’ll speak at another political event at a Jewish living center in Mount Pleasant, S.C., at 4:15 p.m., then address a donor group on behalf of the Biden-Harris campaign at Lamar’s Sporting Club in Charleston in the evening.   

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

---

ZOOM IN 

CONGRESS 

House conservatives began to revolt Wednesday amid a congressional shift toward a likely stopgap spending measure before Jan. 19 that would keep the government funded, perhaps into March. With a miniscule majority, insufficient time to clear pending appropriations measures by next week and a Speaker who says Republicans must show they can govern, the handwriting is on the Capitol walls. The firebrands on the right blocked procedural business (The Hill). 

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), interviewed Wednesday by conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, explained that he’s dealing with “reality.” 

“With a one-vote majority, one-vote margin, we can’t throw a Hail Mary pass on every play, right? … I believe that if we can demonstrate we govern well, we are going to grow and expand this majority in the upcoming election cycle.”   

To avert a shutdown within days — which Senate Republicans believe will require a continuing resolution — House Republicans will have to rely on Democratic votes. Johnson’s conservative Freedom Caucus colleagues are asked by reporters daily whether they might try to boot the Speaker as a turncoat, which happened with predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) (The Hill). Johnson says he’s not worried. “We’re leading,” he says. 

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has not ruled out forcing a motion to vacate the chair to make a point about enacting deep budget cuts and eschewing short-term spending fallbacks.

“I’m leaving it on the table,” he told podcast host Steve Deace on Tuesday. “I think the Speaker needs to know that we’re angry about it.”  

But House moderates are exasperated by conservative colleagues’ tactics. “If they try it, they are … idiots,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told Semafor. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) agreed. “It would be the dumbest move ever. And the counter-reaction from the 95 percent of our conference who want to govern, and who know the realities of our constitutional system and divided government, would be fierce.” 

Johnson said he’s “cautiously optimistic” when asked by Hewitt about the state of play with border security proposals he and his colleagues demanded in exchange for supplemental funding sought by Biden and bipartisan lawmakers to back Ukraine and Israel. 

The Speaker, in a nod to the de facto leader of his party, told Hewitt he planned to phone Trump to “talk him through the details” of the proposed $1.66 trillion budget framework he announced Sunday with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). That outline, which includes trade-offs by each party, relies on passage of a dozen appropriations measures to enact funding for the government this year. That legislation won’t be wrapped up by pending deadlines on Jan. 19 and Feb. 2.  

Johnson wants to persuade Trump, who in 2018 flirted with what he called “a good shutdown,” that to shutter parts of the government in 2024 would hurt GOP candidates in an election year. 

House GOP target: Republican efforts Wednesday to denounce Biden’s immigration policies by beginning impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas resulted in fiery partisan clashes. Legal experts, both progressive and conservative, have indicated that legislative disagreements over policy and management fall short of legal evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors to support impeachment.  

---

ELSEWHERE 

INTERNATIONAL 

South Africa and Israel will take the stand before the International Court of Justice today in a case that could shape the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The two-day proceedings in The Hague, Netherlands, come after South Africa filed a case against Israel in late December for its “genocidal acts” against Palestinians in Gaza (Time magazine). Israel has rejected the allegations — as has the U.S., its most important ally. 

The ICJ case adds to international pressure on Israel to scale back or end its war against Hamas, which health officials in Gaza say has killed more than 23,000 people — many of them women and children (The Washington Post). While it could take the court years to make a ruling, the ICJ could also issue “provisional measures” requiring actions, like a ceasefire, to mitigate the risk of genocide (The Guardian). 

Reuters: The genocide case against Israel at the top United Nations court, explained. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken restated Washington’s commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state during a brief trip to the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, a visit dismissed by many residents as “theater.” Blinken told Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, that the U.S. position was that a Palestinian state must stand alongside Israel, “with both living in peace and security,” a spokesperson said (The Guardian). 

The Washington Post: Settlers killed a Palestinian teen. Israeli forces didn’t stop it. 

As carriers divert ships from the Red Sea to avoid Houthi rebel attacks, Western importers are reporting a steep rise in ocean-shipping rates and weeks-long delays. Ocean carriers are imposing higher fees for the higher cost of routing containerships on longer voyages around the Horn of Africa following drone and missile attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen. London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants said the average worldwide costs to ship 40-foot-long containers have nearly doubled since late November (The Wall Street Journal).  

---

FEDERAL FLASHBACK  

🚬 On this day in 1964, then-U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry warned for the first time in an official government report about a scientific link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Lifesaving, public health interventions continued, changing Americans’ tobacco habits and health. In the 1940s and 1950s, close to 4 in 10 Americans smoked a pack of cigarettes daily and about 20 percent smoked even more. Today, the percentage is about 11.5 percent. More men than women smoke — and men are more likely to suffer the health consequences. 

In 1965, the government began requiring warning labels on cigarette packaging and advertisements: “Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.” By 1970, the government banned television and radio advertisements for tobacco products. And in 1994, a federal ban on the sale of then-traditional tobacco products to those under age 18 went into effect.  

---

---

THE CLOSER 

---

Stay Engaged 

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger (asimendinger@digital-stage.thehill.com) and Kristina Karisch (kkarisch@digital-stage.thehill.com). Follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter: (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!