The Hill’s Morning Report — Biden to test midterm message in key states

by Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver - 08/30/22 6:23 AM ET

President Biden plans this week to hit the road with hopes he can boost the political fortunes of key Democratic candidates while persuading voters in swing states that they shouldn’t back Republicans just 70 days from now.

Pennsylvania is on his mind, and not just because he hails from Scranton. The president plans events in Wilkes Barre, Pa., today, Philadelphia on Thursday for a prime-time address about defending democracy and Pittsburgh on Labor Day with a nod to unions.

Biden would like to make the midterms a referendum on what he describes as the hazards for democratic governance because of the Republican Party’s dominant personality, former President Trump, and the “ultra-MAGA” hold Trump wields over elected officials and his base of supporters.

His remarks in Philadelphia are likely to reprise themes woven into his 2020 campaign and repeated at the White House.

“It’s up to all of us to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the right to equal justice under the law; the right to vote and have that vote counted; the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and know that our children and grandchildren will be safe on this planet for generations to come; the right to rise in the world as far as your God-given talent can take you, unlimited by barriers of privilege or power,” he said a year ago from the South Lawn on Independence Day.

Since this summer’s Supreme Court decision sending abortion rights to the 50 states, the president also warns Americans that conservatives want to erase constitutional protections beyond abortion to perhaps include contraception, LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage.

The president began the political season last week in Democrat-friendly Maryland. Biden also plans a Labor Day stop in Wisconsin, followed by Ohio on Sept. 9 to tout jobs and semiconductor manufacturing at a new Intel Corp. plant. He’ll headline at least one political fundraising event a week later in New York City during his official stayover to speak to the United Nations General Assembly.

On Biden’s autumn agenda: raise money, pitch Democratic policies and new laws, contrast his party with the GOP, and lend a hand to specific candidates who want to share his stage.

The president, whose job approval numbers have inched up to the mid-40s, today will be in Wilkes Barre to promote crime prevention ideas that have largely been blocked in a divided Congress. He’ll tout his ideas for community policing, curbing violent crime and getting guns off the streets. Biden, who narrowly beat Trump in the Keystone State in 2020, will say Congress should approve $37 billion for his policing and gun safety ideas, proposed for the fiscal year that begins in October.

In Pennsylvania’s hotly contested Senate race, Democratic nominee John Fetterman, still recovering from a life-threatening stroke and surgery, is outpacing Republican Senate nominee Mehmet Oz, who is struggling to overcome negative headlines about his multiple domiciles and a much-mocked “crudité” video aimed at Biden and inflation, which his campaign posted months ago to his social media account. Oz, who has disappointed GOP leaders with lagging poll numbers in an open seat held by retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), wants to get on offense, The Hill’s Julia Manchester reports.

Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.), whose 8th Congressional District race is rated a toss-up by Inside Elections, is expected to appear with Biden. Cartwright is facing a rematch against Republican Jim Bognet, a former Trump administration appointee who lost to Cartwright by 4 points in 2020 even as Trump carried the district by 4 points, Roll Call reports.

Fetterman will not be with Biden today but plans to meet with the president on Labor Day, according to his campaign (The Hill).

Some Democratic candidates in competitive races are tiptoeing around Biden’s official visits, making case-by-case decisions about whether to appear with him (NBC News).

Biden on Sept. 5 will also appear in Milwaukee (future swing-state site of the GOP presidential nominating convention) to salute working Americans and organized labor (The Washington Times).

Related Articles

▪ The Philadelphia Inquirer: Biden to give a prime-time speech about democracy from outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on Thursday.

▪ The Hill: Democratic Senate candidate Fetterman, ahead of Biden’s visit to the state today, called on the president to move toward decriminalizing marijuana.

▪ Bloomberg News and The New York Times: In a letter Monday, 18 House lawmakers told Credova Financial, a small Montana financial firm that has emerged as a major player providing no-interest financing to online gun buyers for weapons and ammunition, that Congress wants answers about its business practices.

▪ The Associated Press: A bipartisan gun law enacted in June includes a quiet breakthrough for victims of domestic aggression and abuse.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ MORE POLITICS & COURTS

The Department of Justice finalized its initial review of potentially privileged materials seized at Trump’sMar-a-Lago estate, the agency informed the court Monday.

The news comes amid an effort by the former president to prevent the department from examining evidence collected during the Aug. 8 search at his West Palm Beach, Fla., residence. As The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch points out, the government’s acknowledgment of the review and that it has already set aside items that could be covered by attorney-client privilege could undermine Trump’s push to stall the probe.

Trump’s latest push has involved attempting to bring a “special master” into the mix. The third party would review the materials collected by investigators to screen for privileged material or personal property that may have been taken during the search. The former president complained days after the search that his passports were among the items collected.

The department’s examination started two weeks before Trump and his legal team filed a lawsuit seeking an independent special master.

Politico: Justice Department indicates Trump’s demand for special master may be too late.

In Georgia, a superior court judge on Monday rejected a request from Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to quash a subpoena for his testimony from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) in the investigation into possible 2020 election interference by Trump and his allies.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, however, said the incumbent governor’s testimony can wait until after the Nov. 8 election. Kemp requested the delay, having argued that the probe is politically motivated and could unfairly influence the election. Kemp is considered a witness, according to prosecutors, not a target of the investigation.

Kemp is seeking a second term against Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams (The Washington Post and The Associated Press).

▪ Bloomberg News: Trump “entanglement” weakens Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) push against testifying in a Georgia criminal probe into the 2020 presidential election, Atlanta’s district attorney says.

▪ The New York Times “The Daily” podcast with Atlanta correspondent Richard Fausset: Is a local prosecutor making the strongest case against Trump?

▪ Mike Lillis, The Hill: House conservatives prep plans to impeach Biden.

▪ The Hill: California seeks to build on federal climate advances.

On the 2022 scene, fresh off a week featuring red flags galore, Republican candidates are tempering their messaging on abortion rights as their chances to create a “red wave” in November have fallen.

Following key losses in Kansas and a New York swing district, Republican candidates are scrambling to tweak abortion messaging ahead of Election Day, reports The Hill’s Caroline Vakil.

▪ The Washington Post: Pennsylvania governor hopeful Doug Mastriano (R) bets he can win by not moderating Trumpian stances.

▪ The Associated Press: Supreme Court security fencing removed, but building remains closed.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ ADMINISTRATION

NASA’s planned lunar launch of its unmanned Orion capsule atop the Artemis I rocket will be delayed until Friday at the earliest because of problems Monday with several systems. It could be September before the test flight happens, all part of the U.S.’s goals to return astronauts to the moon by 2025 and perhaps one day send a manned mission to Mars.

One of the rocket’s engines failed Monday to settle on the correct temperature, and in the predawn darkness at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA repeatedly stopped and started the fueling of the Space Launch System rocket because of a leak of highly explosive hydrogen, eventually succeeding in reducing the seepage. The leak happened in the same place that saw seepage during a dress rehearsal in the spring (The Hill and The Associated Press).

The Hill’s special Afghanistan report one year after the departure of U.S. forces: Veterans battle a “moral injury,” Jordan Williams reports. … America’s Afghan allies hiding from the Taliban in Afghanistan have hit dead ends in their quests to reach the United States, Rebecca Beitsch reports.

OPINION

■ I’m a Ukrainian soldier and I’ve accepted my death, guest essay by Artem Chekh, an author and volunteer patrolling the Chernobyl exclusion zone, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3TConUC

■ Latest COVID-19 conundrum is when to get yet another shot, by Faye Flam, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion. https://bloom.bg/3CJBHQT

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at noon for a pro forma session and return to work in the Capitol on Sept. 13.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session during its summer recess, which ends Sept. 6.

The president and Vice President Harris will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10:15 a.m. Biden will travel to Wilkes Barre to speak at 3:15 p.m. about gun safety, crime, law enforcement and his proposed Safer America Plan. He will return to the White House by 5:40 p.m.

First lady Jill Biden, who has been in Delaware, will return to the Washington, D.C., “area” today after testing negative for COVID-19 after a rebound infection, according to her office.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky will speak from 4 to 5 p.m. ET about preparing for the next pandemic during an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Livestream HERE.

🖥 Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features news and interviews at http://digital-stage.thehill.com/hilltv, on YouTube and on Facebook at 10:30 a.m. ET. Also, check out the “Rising” podcast here.

ELSEWHERE

➤ INTERNATIONAL

An inspection team from the United Nations’s nuclear watchdog is heading to the Zaporizhzhia power plant in southern Ukraine in an attempt to ward off any possibility of a nuclear disaster. The plant is under Russian control, having been overtaken shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the team is expected to arrive at the plant later this week. They reportedly arrived in Ukraine on Tuesday. “We must protect the safety and security of Ukraine’s and Europe’s biggest nuclear facility,” Grossi tweeted. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba added that the team’s mission “will be the hardest in the history of IAEA” (The Associated Press). IAEA inspectors arrived in Ukraine.

The New York Times: The first shipment of Iranian military drones arrives in Russia.

Great Britain’s defense office suggested in updates published on Twitter on Monday that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu may have been “side-lined within the Russian leadership” more than six months into Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. According to British officials, the move is likely “due to the problems Russia is facing” in the ongoing war with Kyiv (The Hill). … British intelligence information on Tuesday focused on evidence of possible “significant” reorganization of Russian forces in Ukraine.

➤ POX, PANDEMIC & BACK TO SCHOOL

The Health and Human Services Department on Monday said the government will spend $11 million on domestic production in Michigan of Jynneos monkeypox vaccine doses during a period of U.S. vaccine shortage to get ahead of outbreaks of the virus, first detected in May (The Hill).

The Washington Post: Student vaccinations slowed during COVID-19. Can schools catch them up?

The academic year kicked off in parts of the country this week as many school districts have moved on from COVID-19 restrictions. In Portland, Ore.-area school districts, masking is now optional, infection quarantines are shorter and more students have received COVID-19 jabs than at the start of last school year (Oregon Live).

In Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, schools have ended almost all restrictions and have even ended some COVID-19-era practices. Allentown School District discontinued the operation of a dashboard showing how many COVID-19 cases are in the district (The Morning Call).

ABC-6 (Philadelphia): School District of Philadelphia students will need to bring masks as they head back to school.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,044,332. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 396, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

➤ TECH

Lawyers for Elon Musk issued a subpoena to Peiter Zatko, Twitter’s former security chief, who came forward as a whistleblower over his claims that the social media giant deceived regulators, according to a Monday court filing. Zatko said in his whistleblower complaint to the Justice Department and regulatory agencies that Twitter misled the public and the Tesla CEO about its security practices. Musk’s move comes as he tries to break off his agreement to buy the company for $44 billion after Twitter allegedly “misled” him about bot and spam accounts on the platform. Twitter has rejected Zatko’s claims (The New York Times).

➤ SPORTS

The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) announced on Monday that it is launching a campaign to unionize Minor League Baseball players. The MLBPA sent out authorization cards allowing minor league players to vote for an election that could make them members of the union. “Minor Leaguers represent our game’s future and deserve wages and working conditions that befit elite athletes who entertain millions of baseball fans nationwide,” MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark said in a statement (ESPN).

THE CLOSER

And finally … Serena Williams is back in the tennis spotlight, for a few more days at least.

The tennis legend handily won her first round matchup at the U.S. Open on Monday night, defeating unranked Danka Kovinic in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, to open the Grand Slam event that is widely expected to be the swan song of her career.

The celebrities were out in force at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadow, N.Y., to catch her in action, including former President Clinton, Spike Lee, Lindsey Vonn, Mike Tyson, Gladys Knight and Martina Navratilova.

However, the 23-time Grand Slam champion’s tournament might not last too much longer as she is set to face No. 2-ranked Anett Kontaveit in the second round. The match is slated for Wednesday night.

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