The Hill’s Morning Report — GOP pauses to gauge Trump’s legal jeopardy

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 07/20/23 6:46 AM ET

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Former GOP presidential nominee Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah tweeted a video homage about hot dogs. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) went deep into objections about “Chinese propaganda” in the movie “Barbie.” And GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is trying to defeat former President Trump to win his party’s nomination, leaned into an equivocal script in reaction to news of the former president’s mounting legal jeopardy (The Hill).

What the three men have in common: past or current misgivings about Trump.

“He should have come out more forcefully,” DeSantis conceded, referring to Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, before and during the insurrection at the Capitol. 

Asked by a reporter whether Trump’s behavior and potential conviction should be disqualifying as he seeks a White House return, the governor declined to answer.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a Trump critic-turned-ally, joined DeSantis in saying any potential criminal charges against the former president for allegedly seeking to overturn the 2020 election would be evidence of political bias at the Justice Department

“I think the American public is tired of this,” McCarthy said Tuesday. “They want to have equal justice, and the idea that they utilize this to go after those who politically disagree with them is wrong.”

Is Trump on a slippery slope after receiving a target letter from prosecutors suggesting he may be criminally indicted — again? Some GOP strategists say the former president’s legal troubles could kneecap him against President Biden, if both are nominees for their respective parties next year (The Hill). 

The Associated Press: Jan. 6 charges against Trump would add to his mounting legal peril as he campaigns for the presidency.

Some Republicans warn that potential criminal charges for the third time in 2023 could take a toll on the leading Republican in the race. While Trump’s standing rose in polls after each of two previous criminal arraignments this year, some GOP rivals are more willing to criticize Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, which has been the subject of hearings, video evidence and witness statements about Jan. 6, an impeachment trial and Senate acquittal, plus hundreds of successful Justice Department prosecutions of defendants who played roles in the Jan. 6 riots. 

The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

The New York Times, citing multiple sources, reports the Justice Department cited three statutes in its recent target letter to Trump, including a Civil War-era law enacted to take aim at whites who tried to prevent Blacks from voting in the South. It is now used more broadly to prosecute voting fraud conspiracies. That statute makes it a crime to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person” in the “free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Two other laws noted by the government in the letter to Trump and his lawyers: conspiracy to defraud the government and obstruction of an official proceeding.

GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and former prosecutor, predicted “short-term gain, long-term pain” for Trump as a result of the allegations he already faces and may confront in the days ahead.  

“[What] we should be focused on here is Donald Trump’s conduct and whether or not that conduct is appropriate for somebody to be sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office,” Christie said Wednesday during a CNN interview. “I say it’s not.”   

The Hill’s Niall Stanage unpacks Trump’s most significant legal tripwires. 

The Washington Post: Need a reminder of the facts behind charges against Trump, and what comes next? In New York, Fulton County, Ga., and Washington, D.C., he’s the focus of criminal investigations.

2024 roundup: New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu announced Wednesday he will not seek reelection next year. Sununu, a Trump critic, briefly considered and opted not to make a 2024 White House bid (The Hill). …DeSantis has a plan to rip “wokeness” out of the U.S. military (The Hill). …  Candidate Christie told Bloomberg’s “Sound On” program during an interview on Wednesday that if elected president, he would not seek to roll back the state and local tax deduction limit known as SALT, which has been much criticized in high-tax states such as New York and New Jersey. … DeSantis initially hired campaign manager Generra Peck to help him win his gubernatorial reelection and she’s steering his presidential bid (Miami Herald). Why are some DeSantis donors urging the governor to bring on a new campaign chief (NBC News)? … The Hill’s Brooke Migdon reports on Texas House candidate Julie Johnson, who could become the first openly LGBTQ person elected to Congress from the Lone Star state. 

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: A federal judge denied Trump’s request for a new trial in the E. Jean Carroll civil defamation case. Trump has been ordered to pay $5 million in damages. The presidential candidate also faces another lawsuit filed by Carroll — set to go to trial in January — in which he is accused of defaming the writer when she initially came forward with her story.

▪ Arizona Republic/AZ Central: Arizona’s fake electors and the Arizona Senate’s hand recount of 2.1 million ballots are under investigation by the state attorney general’s office, which is looking at a range of Republican-led efforts to overturn results of the 2020 election.

▪ The Hill: Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), during a GOP-led hearing on Wednesday, displayed posters with graphic sexual images from Hunter Biden’s former laptop as she asked questions about potential tax crimes. The Hill has five takeaways from that hearing.

▪ The Hill: A No Labels third-party drive into the electorate’s political middle would likely hurt Biden’s reelection chances, say some GOP senators and Democrats. A new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday underscored that possibility: nearly half of those surveyed said they would consider voting for a third-party presidential candidate in 2024 (The Hill).  

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS

© The Associated Press / Jacquelyn Martin | Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.

Addressing a joint meeting of Congress, Israeli President Isaac Herzog promised Wednesday to “protect and defend” his country’s democracy as it faces a crisis over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pursuit of a judicial overhaul that has drawn unprecedented criticism from the U.S. In a speech marking Israel’s 75th anniversary, Herzog called Israeli protests against Netanyahu and his government “painful, and deeply unnerving, because it highlights the cracks within the whole.”

“As head of state, I will continue doing everything to reach a broad public consensus, and to preserve, protect and defend the state of Israel’s democracy,” Herzog told lawmakers.

Biden has urged Netanyahu to work with Herzog to reach an agreement with the political opposition to abandon some of the most controversial measures of the government’s judicial overhaul plan, which critics say would neuter the country’s Supreme Court and undermine its democracy. Herzog’s visit to Washington, and his address to Congress, served as an attempt by the Biden administration to bridge the divides in his party — reinforcing Democratic support for Israel without legitimizing Netanyahu’s controversial, right-wing government. Democratic divisions were apparent Wednesday, when at least seven progressives skipped the Israeli president’s speech. Some of those lawmakers have denounced Israel as an apartheid state and condemned Netanyahu’s government as racist; they are critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, its settlement activity in the West Bank and saying that the judicial overhaul will worsen the situation (The Hill and The New York Times).

Meanwhile, Senate lawmakers are taking up their version of the annual defense policy bill less than a week after the House pushed through a controversial version of a must-pass piece of legislation, The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell and Al Weaver report. By the end of September, the Senate and House are supposed to approve a compromise defense authorization blueprint, but the gulf between the chambers includes controversial cuts promoted by House Republicans, such as those targeting abortion access for troops, Pentagon diversity training efforts and medical care for transgender service members. 

The Senate’s rules mean its version will likely be less partisan, but Republicans are still expected to try to slip in some of the same conservative measures during floor debate. That expectation had Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) pressing both parties Tuesday to work together and rebuff amendments to the bill that could make it unpassable. 

“I certainly hope we do not see the kind of controversy that severely hindered the NDAA process over in the House,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Both sides should defeat potentially toxic amendments and refrain from delaying the NDAA’s passage. So far, we have thankfully avoided all of that.” 

Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is in a standoff with the White House over drug pricing, frustrating and confusing public health experts who worry his demands will stymie the Biden administration’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health. As The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel reports, Monica Bertagnolli was nominated for the post in May, but Sanders has said he won’t hold a hearing on any nominee until he sees a concrete plan from the White House about lowering drug prices. Health advocates and allies of Bertagnolli say they think the White House should exert more pressure on the Vermont Independent and are concerned Sanders’s move could set a trend to politicize future noncontroversial health nominees. 

▪ CNN: Senators introduce a bipartisan ban on stock ownership for executive and legislative branch office holders and their families.

▪ Roll Call: A federal court on Wednesday granted Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who is under indictment, some additional freedom of movement in the Washington, D.C., area without needing to give the government a heads-up. His lawyer had cited his client’s need to shop, attend dinners and use local airports.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend a summit of the BRICS nations in Johannesburg in August, South Africa confirmed Wednesday, ending months of speculation about whether the country would arrest him on an international warrant. As a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that issued the warrant in March, South Africa would have been obligated to arrest Putin for alleged war crimes by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine.

The Kremlin said Putin would dial into the BRICS summit by video call, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will attend in his place (Reuters and The Hill).

Meanwhile, Russia continues to pound the southern Ukrainian port of Odesa; Wednesday marked the second overnight attack since Moscow terminated an agreement that allowed Ukraine to export its grain from its Black Sea ports. Additionally, the Kremlin announced Russian forces will deem any ship in the Black Sea bound for a Ukrainian port to be a potential carrier of military cargo and their home countries to be “involved” in the conflict, the Ministry of Defense said Wednesday — a significant escalation of tension in the Black Sea and a blow to Ukraine’s ability to export its grain, which has already seen prices skyrocketing (The New York Times). Ukraine said Wednesday it was setting up a temporary shipping route via Romania (Reuters).

“Russian terrorists absolutely deliberately targeted the infrastructure of the grain deal,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram. “Every Russian missile — is a strike not only on Ukraine but on everyone in the world who wants normal and safe life.”

A video released Wednesday appears to show Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin for the first time since leading a short-lived rebellion last month. He is seen telling his troops they will spend some time in Belarus training its military before deploying to Africa. Prigozhin said his mutiny, which posed the most serious threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 23-year rule, was aimed at ousting Russia’s top military leaders — whom he accused of incompetence (The Associated Press).

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Putin has been humiliated, put under pressure, U.K. spy chief says.

▪ Time magazine: Ukraine’s foreign minister says “we don’t need Russia” to resume grain shipments.

© The Associated Press / Vadim Ghirda | Grain handling operator Comvex and its workers oversee the unloading of Ukrainian cereals in the Black Sea port of Constanta, Romania, in 2022.

Violence continued in Kenya Wednesday, which marked the start of a three-day protest over tax hikes and rising prices. Unrest was initially confined to just a few areas; in the capital of Nairobi, police shut off roads leading to the presidency, businesses closed in the city center, and commuter trains were suspended. Opposition leaders in the country, led by veteran politician Raila Odinga, organized the protests partly because of skyrocketing prices of basic commodities, partly over last month’s tax hikes and partly because they allege the last elections were stolen — although foreign observers generally agreed the elections were fair (The Washington Post).

▪ The Wall Street Journal: The world bakes under extreme heat.

▪ Reuters: Europe battles heat wave and fires, record temperatures scorch China.

▪ The New York Times: John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, emerged from talks in Beijing without a new agreement. But just talking is progress, he said.

▪ The Associated Press: Cracks are emerging in Israel’s military. Reservists threaten not to serve if the government plan passes.

▪ CNN: Gunman kills two in New Zealand hours before the Women’s World Cup opening ceremony.

➤ ADMINISTRATION 

© The Associated Press / Dake Kang | China maintained the coronavirus likely leaped to humans from an infected animal sold in a marketplace and not from a virology lab. Pictured was a shuttered Wuhan seafood market in 2020.

🦠 Viral matters: The Biden administration has formally halted U.S. funding sent to a virology lab in Wuhan, China. Searching for the origins of COVID-19 launched investigations but not full cooperation from the Chinese government. Virologists have hypothesized that the highly infectious coronavirus initially leaped from bats to humans in China. The Wuhan lab has not received any U.S. funding from the National Institutes of Health since July 2020, according to the Health and Human Services Department (Bloomberg News).

▪ The New Yorker (from 2021): The mysterious case of the COVID-19 lab-leak theory. Did the virus spring from nature or from human error?

▪ The Hill: Just 3 in 10 in a new poll say the U.S. post-pandemic recovery is better than in the rest of the world.

▪ Politico: The Biden administration lays out a plan to squeeze mergers.

▪ The Associated Press: Biden pushes a strong role for unions in tech jobs, even as potential strikes are on the horizon.

OPINION

■ Biden needs to deal with China’s ever-closer ties to Iran, by Arona Baigal and Kiana Alirezaie, opinion contributors, The Hill. 

■ The Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision also closes the door on race-based reparations, by Horace Cooper, opinion contributor, The Hill.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 9 a.m. A House Judiciary subcommittee will hear testimony at 9 a.m. from Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about censorship (The Associated Press).

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. and resume consideration of the nomination of David Uhlmann to be an assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Biden will travel to Philadelphia to deliver an economic speech at 1 p.m. at the Philly Shipyard. Biden will return to the White House at 3:30 p.m.           

Vice President Harris will travel to Indianapolis to address the national convention of the historically Black Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. at 1:45 p.m. She will return to Washington this afternoon.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Hanoi, Vietnam, where she has a packed schedule that includes a bilateral meeting with the State Bank of Vietnam Governor Nguyen Thi Hong, a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, a lunch with female economists and entrepreneurs, a bilateral meeting with Communist Party of Vietnam Central Economic Commission Chair Tran Tuan Anh, and a clean energy event  at Selex, a Vietnamese electric scooter and battery manufacturer that has received support through multilateral development banks. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet in Washington with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani.

First lady Jill Biden will travel to Boston to speak at 2:45 p.m. to Home Base, a program that helps military families and is supported by the Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital. The first lady at 4:45 p.m. will headline a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Andover, Mass.   

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff is in Auckland, New Zealand, with a U.S. delegation. The itinerary includes a meeting with the U.S. women’s national soccer team and later a Pōwhiri, a traditional Māori welcome ceremony. Emhoff will speak about gender equity and sports at Epsom Girls Grammar School in the afternoon. The second gentleman and the entire U.S. delegation this evening attend the opening ceremony of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and then the soccer match between New Zealand and Norway. 

Economic indicator: The Labor Department reports at 8:30 a.m. on claims for unemployment benefits in the week ending July 15.

ELSEWHERE

➤ SUMMER OF STRIKES?

🎬 With both writers and actors on strike, Hollywood productions have been ground to a halt. Actors have walked off sets, and writers haven’t been working for months. At the center of it all are two types of technology that have had a major impact on the way content is made: artificial intelligence (AI) and streaming. Fighting for better contracts in Hollywood are the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), who went on strike after their contracts expired with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the association that represents media companies like Netflix, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and others. 

While the WGA has been striking since May 2, SAG-AFTRA joined the writers at the picket lines on July 14, marking the first time since 1960 that both unions have gone on strike at the same time (The Verge).

▪ CBS News: How the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes could immediately affect box office revenue.

▪ NPR: Three lessons past Hollywood strikes can teach us about the current moment.

▪ The Washington Post: Nanny in charge: Fran Drescher’s SAG-AFTRA presidency is the role of her lifetime.

📦 In a bid to avert a strike on Aug. 1, UPS said Wednesday it would return to the bargaining table with a better offer for roughly 340,000 Teamsters-represented U.S. workers. The union said UPS contacted it Wednesday with an offer to resume talks next week. Talks initially broke down on July 5, with each side blaming the other. A strike could have economically dire consequences; a disruption to UPS’s business would be broadly felt because the company handles about 20 million packages a day — about quarter of the parcel shipments in the United States, including deliveries for online retailers and high-value prescription drugs for doctors and hospitals (Reuters).

✈️ American Airlines flight attendants pushing for better pay and schedules are being asked to vote on whether they’ll allow the union to call a strike. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the union that represents American Airlines’s roughly 24,000 flight attendants, approved a strike authorization vote Tuesday morning. If the vote passes, it does not mean a strike is imminent or that a strike will happen, only that the members approve of the union calling a strike should negotiations stall (NBCDFW).

🚛 The Teamsters union is threatening a strike against trucking giant Yellow after the company missed healthcare and pension payments, putting new pressure on one of the country’s biggest trucking companies, which is seeking to avoid bankruptcy. The union said Monday that a board overseeing pension and welfare funds for unionized workers will suspend healthcare benefits and pension accruals from July 23 unless the company makes the needed payments by the end of this week; if the payments aren’t made, workers could strike as soon as July 24 (The Wall Street Journal).

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / Evan Agostini, Invision, AP | Tom Cruise in New York City on July 10 while promoting “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.”

Take Our Morning Report Quiz

And finally …  ⭐ It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Alert to new sports and entertainment headlines, we’re eager for some guesses or Googling about the latest feats and record-setting.

Be sure to email your responses to asimendinger@digital-stage.thehill.com and kkarisch@digital-stage.thehill.com — please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

Which songstress achieved four of the Top 10 billboard albums on the July 22 Billboard 200 chart, marking the first time in nearly 60 years that a living artist has at least four albums at the same time in the Top 10?

Taylor Swift

Beyoncé

Barbra Streisand

Miley Cyrus

Which tennis player on Saturday triumphed as the first unseeded Wimbledon women’s singles champion?

Madison Keys

Mayar Sherif

Maria Sakkari

Marketa Vondrousova

Which tennis player on Saturday triumphed as the first unseeded Wimbledon women’s singles champion?

Madison Keys

Mayar Sherif

Maria Sakkari

Marketa Vondrousova

Tom Cruise performed 500 practice dives and around 13,000 rehearsed jumps to prepare for “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” which recently opened in theaters featuring which stunt by the star?

He held his breath underwater for six-and-a-half minutes inside a circular, submerged safe

Drove a motorcycle off a mountain, leaped off the bike midair and parachuted to a speeding train

Sprinted to a cargo plane, leaped onto its wing and dangled by fingertips from the exterior door as the aircraft flew over the runway

Jumped out a window in the world’s tallest skyscraper at a height of 1,700 feet to run down the side of the building

How many teams set a modern-era baseball record on Tuesday by scoring 10+ home runs, one of the highest-scoring days in Major League Baseball history?

Twelve

Fifteen

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