The Hill’s Morning Report — Speaker limbo; Biden seeks Israel, Ukraine aid

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 10/20/23 6:28 AM ET

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The House of Representatives is caught in an endless loop.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — who has already lost two attempts to secure the Speakership — said Thursday that he would push for another vote to become Speaker this morning, even in the face of mounting GOP opposition. No member of the conference currently has the support to capture the gavel, prolonging unprecedented turmoil in Congress.

Jordan’s announcement comes just hours after he said he would pause his candidacy and support elevating interim Speaker Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) to temporarily lead the chamber, but he reversed course yet again and said he would move ahead with his bid to win the post.

“We made the pitch to members on the resolution as the way to lower the temperature and get back to work,” Jordan said of the option to elevate McHenry’s authority. “We decided that wasn’t where we’re going to go. I’m still running for Speaker. I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.”

Without a Speaker, the House has been unable to take up legislative business on the floor for 17 days — including spending measures. Without spending legislation, the government shuts down in a month.

The forecast for the coming days in the House? More bedlam.

This Congress, the House Republican Conference is marked by its fractious nature, and the small group of far-right conservatives who have, at times, paralyzed the whole chamber by objecting to any kind of bipartisan work. Leading them is Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who initially called for the vote that ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.), and much of the GOP’s frustration is aimed at him and the seven other Republicans who voted with Democrats to oust the Speaker.

“If you are going to blow a bridge, you better have another one to cross. And those eight clearly didn’t have another one to cross before they blew this bridge,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) said Thursday.

Some holdouts have said privately that Jordan could have acted like “a statesman” and either backed out of the race or supported the resolution to empower McHenry. They said that his inability to unite the conference and his delayed reaction to condemning threats toward holdouts by his supporters have only ensured that the group will continue to vote against him.

ADDING TO THE UNCERTAINTY, McHenry told GOP colleagues at a closed-door meeting Thursday that he might resign as Speaker pro tempore if Republicans push him to try to move legislation on the floor without an explicit vote to expand his powers, NBC News reports. If that happens, “you’ll figure out who the next person on Kevin’s list is,” McHenry told the room, referring to McCarthy’s secret list of lawmakers who would serve in case of a vacancy.

Democrats, meanwhile, are waiting for Republicans to make their next move.

“Have you ever played poker?” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) retorted when asked about any plans from Democrats to negotiate with Republicans. “For a change, we are actually, I think, playing our hand pretty well,” he said — and that means knowing when to wait. “You have to hold back. I mean, what are we going to go chase a deal with them in a circular firing squad? That makes no sense.”

▪ Politico: Four ways the Speaker mess could be sorted out.

▪ The New York Times: “Squishes” no more. Mainstream Republicans dig in against Jordan.

▪ The Washington Post analysis: Three speakers at once, yet House Republicans lack one with real power.

President Biden, during a 15-minute primetime Oval Office address Thursday, underscored national security imperatives as the U.S. stands with allies during a period of global unrest. He said he will send Congress “an urgent budget request to support our critical partners, including Israel and Ukraine.” And he encouraged Americans to put aside “petty politics,” which he said “get in our way.”

The president urged lawmakers to support replenishing Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defenses and to continue to back Ukraine with weapons and ammunition in its war against Russia. He argued that President Vladimir Putin is failing, while Ukraine is succeeding. “What would happen if we walked away?” he asked. “All that Ukraine is asking for is help.”

The Hill: Biden in his speech drew parallels, saying, “Hamas and Putin represent different threats. But they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.”

The New York Times transcript is HERE.

ACROSS THE CAPITOL, Senators on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution stating the chamber stands firmly with Israel and firmly against Hamas. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said before the vote that the resolution shows the Senate speaks “in one voice that Israel is our friend, that Hamas’s attack is reprehensible, and that we will stand with our friends to defend themselves.”

Schumer, during an interview with Punchbowl News, and recently returned from Israel, said, “The threat of Hamas has to be eliminated. This idea of a ceasefire — and let Hamas continue to exist so they can do it again? Nuh-uh. No one in Israel is for that.”

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ 🎂It’s Vice President Kamala Harris’s birthday. Happy 5-9!

▪ 🚨An intelligence bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and National Counterterrorism Center warns law enforcement nationwide of potential domestic attacks tied to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The State Department issued a global caution alert for all U.S. citizens overseas.

▪ Dozens of senators unveiled a resolution in solidarity with the United Auto Workers union Thursday. The union is approaching its fifth week striking against three major automakers.

LEADING THE DAY

ADMINISTRATION

Biden Thursday night sought to counter “America first” political reluctance about investing in conflicts that appear disconnected from everyday U.S. life. The ideal of the United States as the indispensable nation and a beacon around the world has been tested for decades and it’s a theme Biden has returned to many times in his political career.

The president sat down in the Oval Office for only the second time to deliver a nighttime speech to answer a question he said Americans were asking: “Why does this matter?”

Biden said backing Ukraine and Israel is “vital for national security” because autocrats and terrorists “keep going” if they “don’t pay a price.” Putin might be tempted next to march Russian fighters into Poland, he suggested, referencing NATO. Hamas and Iran-backed Hezbollah could try to spread terror beyond Israel, a democratic ally.

“AMERICAN LEADERSHIP is what holds the world together,” Biden asserted, adding that Congress should approve a significant administration funding request, which he did not specify, to assist U.S. allies Ukraine and Israel.

▪ The Hill’s Niall Stanage: Five takeaways from Biden’s address.

▪ The Hill: Voters are souring on U.S. support for Ukraine’s war against Russia, while a majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s initial response to the Middle East conflict, according to polls.

▪ The Hill: Lawmakers react to Biden’s speech.

Biden made an emotionally impassioned commitment to Israel and flatly stated that Israel was not responsible for a blast this week at a crowded hospital in Gaza that reportedly killed hundreds of Palestinians, including children.

The president described his agreement with Egypt to get humanitarian aid into Gaza as a way to respond to critics who say he’s taken sides and shown little compassion for thousands of Palestinians killed and injured by Israeli air strikes since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Biden denounced antisemitism and what he called Islamophobia. “We reject all forms of hate,” he added.

WHAT WASN’T IN THE SPEECH: Biden did not call for a ceasefire, nor did he indicate any reservations about Israel’s promised ground campaign into Gaza to kill Hamas leaders. He said he had reminded Israel about heeding the “laws” of war. Biden did not explicitly pledge to Americans that U.S. troops would not be drawn into the Middle East conflict, but he reiterated he would not send American troops to help Kyiv.

U.S. officials have privately and publicly warned Hezbollah and Iran not to open a war on Israel’s northern front. They indicated that the U.S. military would join Israel if Hezbollah opens a new front, according to The Times of Israel. The Biden administration has cautioned Israel to be careful in its military responses to Hezbollah fire, explaining that a mistake by the Israeli military in Lebanon could spark a much larger war, according to the Times.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday following his trip to Tel Aviv, Biden denied the report as “not true,” adding, “That was never said.”

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told a reporter moments later aboard Air Force One that there was “no intention to put U.S. boots on the ground in combat” but that the U.S. has its “national security interests” and “we’ll protect them if we need to.”

The New York Times: A U.S. Navy ship in the Red Sea on Thursday shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched by pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen and possibly aimed at Israel.

In Congress, the Senate voted unanimously Thursday for a resolution that declares solidarity with Israel. House progressives want a cease-fire. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a Muslim of Palestinian descent, took aim at Biden, warning “we will remember where you stood.”

MIDDLE EAST

Early today, Israel bombarded Gaza, striking areas in the south where Palestinians had been told to seek safety, and it began evacuating a sizable Israeli town in the north near the Lebanese border, The Associated Press reported.

While U.S. and European leaders flew in and out of Israel this week with words of support as well as caution, it remained unclear when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned ground offensive would begin with the stated goal of “eradicating” Hamas in Gaza.

In the meantime, Israeli air strikes add to the civilian death toll in Gaza, which encourages Arab nations to isolate Israel as protests backing Palestinians spread amid calls Thursday from Egypt’s defense minister and the United Nations for humanitarian aid and a ceasefire.

A tragic blast this week at a Gaza hospital, where casualties were reported to be in the hundreds, including children, hardened Arab opposition to Israel, despite efforts by Israeli officials and Biden to share evidence they said pointed to an errant rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad as the cause of the carnage.

FORCES INTO GAZA: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops gathered at the Gaza border on Thursday they would soon see the Palestinian territory “from inside,” suggesting an expected ground invasion with the aim of annihilating Hamas could be nearing, Reuters reported.

At least 369 Palestinians were killed between Wednesday and Thursday, including 81 in the southern territory, the Gazan government press office said. Total reported casualties rose to 3,785 with more than 12,000 wounded since Oct. 7. The figures are believed to include casualties from the hospital explosion, according to Reuters.

Gazan photographers Yousef Masoud and Samar Abu Elouf on Tuesday shared with The New York Times photos taken in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The graphic images HERE were published Thursday.

European Union officials were optimistic that trucks carrying humanitarian aid and supplies would be able to cross into Gaza today under an agreement Biden described Wednesday after his whirlwind trip to Tel Aviv and telephone negotiation with Egypt’s president. If Hamas confiscates the trucks or their contents, humanitarian shipments through the Rafah gate will cease, Egypt insists. U.N. personnel are to inspect the trucks and distribute supplies on the other side of the border.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met with Netanyahu in Israel Thursday, then flew to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

BRITAIN AND SAUDI ARABIA agreed to coordinate action to avoid “any further escalation in the region,” the British government said, following the meeting between Sunak and bin Salman. In a joint statement, the two leaders described civilian deaths over the past two weeks as “horrific” and recognized the “pressing need for humanitarian access into Gaza.”

Members of the British parliament urged Sunak to call for an immediate cease-fire.

While in Riyadh, Sunak announced about $12.15 million in additional aid and “encouraged the crown prince to use Saudi’s leadership in the region to support stability.”

WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets at 10 a.m. Jordan scheduled an 8 a.m. press conference.

The Senate convenes for a pro forma session Monday at 10 a.m.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9:30 a.m. Biden will welcome President Charles Michel of the European Council and President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission to the White House at noon for a second U.S.-EU summit. Biden will headline a campaign reception in Washington at 6 p.m. He and first lady Jill Biden will arrive in Rehoboth Beach, Del., at 8:35 p.m. for the weekend.

The vice president is in Washington and has no public events.

The first lady will deliver remarks in Washington at 3:30 p.m. in Arlington, Va., at the nonprofit “Learning with Love” PFLAG national convention.

ZOOM IN

POLITICS & CAMPAIGNS

Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell on Thursday pleaded guilty in Georgia in the 2020 election subversion case. She is the second defendant to accept a plea deal, which in her case includes six years of probation for conspiracy to commit intentional interference of election duties. She was also fined $6,000 and agreed to pay $2,700 restitution to the state of Georgia and to write an apology letter to its citizens. Powell, 68, agreed to testify against any of the 17 remaining defendants, including Trump, and agreed to turn over documents in her possession related to the case (The Hill and The New York Times).

▪ CNN: Why Powell’s guilty plea is potentially “devastating” for Trump.

▪ Reuters analysis: Trump could gain an edge from his former lawyer’s Georgia election tampering trial.

▪ New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is demanding an evidence review after a top Trump executive was accused of lying in his fraud trial.

Trumpholds a narrow lead over Biden among voters in seven key battleground states that will likely determine the 2024 election, according to a Thursday Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll of voters from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump leads Biden by 4 percentage points, thanks largely to negative views around Biden’s handling of the economy.

The Biden campaign was largely dismissive of the findings, arguing that polls are not predictive and pointing to the midterm and special elections over the past two years in which Democrats beat expectations (The Hill).

“Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: last year, Bloomberg, who published today’s poll, predicted a ‘100 percent’ likelihood of a recession only to say days ago that the U.S. economy is strong and “defying the odds,’” Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said in a statement. “Or a year out from the 2022 midterms when they similarly predicted a grim forecast for President Biden.”

2024 ROUNDUP

▪ Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), who was appointed less than three weeks ago to fill the seat left vacant by Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s death, said Thursday that she would not run for a full term next year, adding, “This is not the greatest use of my voice.”

▪ Biden’s reelection campaign, based in Wilmington, Del., has new communications hires.

▪ FGS Global, a combination of the Glover Park Group, Finsbury and Sard Verbinnen, is acquiring Próspero Latino, a Hispanic-focused public affairs shop, to expand outreach among Latinos, The Hill’s Rafael Bernal reports. Próspero Latino CEO José Parra will become a partner at FGS and head the new unit, known as FGS Próspero. Parra was a top adviser to the late Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and was in former President Obama’s Latino advisory board.

▪ Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces a high hurdle: getting on ballots in 50 states and Washington, D.C.

▪ Cornel West, also an independent White House aspirant, defended himself Thursday against criticism for accepting a donation from Harlan Crow — the conservative billionaire whose long ties with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas recently came under scrutiny.

▪ The Supreme Court denied two emergency requests to restart the redrawing of Louisiana’s congressional map, a process that was likely to add a second majority-Black district.

▪ Which states could get new congressional maps in 2024? Here’s an interactive tracker of developments in midcycle redistricting.

ELSEWHERE

DANGEROUS WORK

Russian-American reporter Alsu Kurmasheva, employed with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty based in Prague, was detained Wednesday in the Russian city of Kazan charged with failure to register as a foreign agent, her employer said. She had not been able to leave Russia since June, when her passports were seized. Her detention followed the March arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who awaits trial on charges of espionage while imprisoned in Moscow (NBC News).

At least 21 journalists have been killed during Israel’s war in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Some died with family members during air strikes that destroyed their homes. Others are missing or have been injured, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Issam Abdallah, a photographer for Reuters, was killed last week during fighting in Lebanon. He was part of the Reuters crew that was providing a live signal and images from the ground. Eyewitnesses at the scene said the shell that killed Abdallah came from Israel, Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni said, noting the Israeli authorities have said they are investigating the incident (The Hill).

At least 17 journalists have lost their lives in Ukraine since 2022 while reporting on Russia’s invasion, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

OPINION

■ Biden lights the beacon, for Israel, Ukraine and the world, by Andreas Kluth, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion.

■ Let the antisemites speak freely, byNewsNation’sSteve Krakauer, opinion contributor, The Hill (Nexstar owns NewsNation and The Hill).

THE CLOSER

And finally … 👏👟👏👟👏 Congratulations to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! They vogued their trivia skills with a puzzle about dress codes in Congress.

These are the victorious readers who went 4/4: Richard E. Baznik, Don Evans, Patrick Kavanagh, Lynn Gardner, Harry Strulovici, Jaina Mehta Buck, Ki Harvey, Luther Berg, Stan Wasser, Robert Bradley, Randall S. Patrick, Lori Benso, Steve James, Pam Manges and Lou Tisler.

They knew that former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.) became the first woman to wear trousers on the Senate floor in 1993.

While covering Tuesday’s House vote for a Speaker, some female journalists were asked to leave the Speaker’s lobby because they wore sneakers.

The Senate made headlines and stirred controversy recently when Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced he would stop enforcing the chamber’s unwritten formal dress code.

Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) and Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) launched a Congressional Sneaker Caucus earlier this year. (Fun fact: They said it was to promote “social interaction” among lawmakers).

Stay Engaged

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Updated: 12:08 p.m.

Tags Jim Jordan Joe Biden Kevin McCarthy Matt Gaetz