Morning Report — Super Tuesday, State of the Union mark general election combat

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 03/04/24 6:32 AM ET

This week will add details to an expected rematch ahead in the presidential general election.

Does President Biden have a persuasive vision for four more years? His Thursday State of the Union address, his chance to speak to the largest live media audience he will likely have for many months, adds a bit of suspense to Biden’s performative vulnerability with voters: his age.

Former President Trump, who leads Biden in battleground polls, is expected to continue his sweep of early Republican primary states on Super Tuesday this week. Trump’s challenger, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, vowed to remain in the presidential contest and then reassess her options after voters in 15 states and one territory have their say on Tuesday.

She said Sunday in an NBC “Meet the Press” interview that she no longer feels bound to her Republican Party pledge to vote for Trump if he’s the nominee.

The question among most Republicans is not whether Haley is likely to defeat Trump in the primaries, but rather her strategy and influence while presenting jittery voters with a conservative alternative.

The former president accused Biden over the weekend of engaging in a “conspiracy to overthrow the United States” through allegedly lax security policies that permitted millions of migrants to enter the country.

The Biden campaign has begun to call into question Trump’s mental acuity, in addition to what they call his autocratic tendencies, blatant untruths and boundless self-regard.

Haley’s pitch is that Trump has a long record of losing and is doomed to do it again in November if he’s the party’s standard-bearer. On the flip side, even some Trump critics insist he is lucky.

His list of criminal indictments is long, but he may not go to trial before Election Day. His supporters are cheered by that forecast. Trump’s base is as enthusiastic as ever.

▪ NewsNation: How Trump’s court appearances are used in his campaign messages.

▪ The Hill: Haley spurs growing speculation about a third-party run.

The former South Carolina governor, eyeing Tuesday’s primary contests, wants to beat expectations against Trump in purple-hued Virginia. Conservatives dominate in the southern portion of the state while Northern Virginia near the District of Columbia is decidedly more moderate (The Hill).

The Hill: Haley won the D.C. GOP primary.

“If she were the nominee in the general election, I think she would win Virginia,” said Tucker Martin, a Virginia-based Republican strategist. “The problem is we’re talking about a Tuesday in March and not a Tuesday in November, and that’s going to come down to the electorate that shows up.”

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ Labor groups representing Norfolk Southern freight rail workers may have threatened to strike in the past, but more recently they offered favorable comments about Chief Executive Alan Shaw, whose leadership is under pressure from an activist investor.

▪ The fallout from the hack of a little-known but pivotal health-care company is inflicting pain on hospitals, doctor offices, pharmacies and millions of patients across the nation.

▪ Here’s how Biden gathers ideas from personal phone calls and impromptu in-person conversations and injects what he hears into governance. … Here’s how speechwriters delve into a president’s mind to listen, study and channel his thinking.

Sunday’s talk shows: NewsNation, The Hill’s sister media outlet owned by Nexstar, premiered “The Hill Sunday” with political editor Chris Stirewalt. Haley told the show during an interview that as long as “70 percent of Americans say they don’t want Joe Biden or Donald Trump” in the Oval Office, she will stay in the presidential race. …Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told “Fox News Sunday” it’s a “reality” that Ukraine’s size is a disadvantage amid the war, but predicted there’s “no way” Russia can militarily capture “all of Ukraine, half of Ukraine.” …Biden ally Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) dismissed the president’s low ratings in numerous voter surveys and told “Fox News Sunday” that Democrats often exceed expectations on Election Day compared with polls’ snapshots. …The Alabama Supreme Court’s recent ruling that frozen embryos are children is not the Republican Party’s position, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) told CNN’s “State of the Union.” He predicted the Alabama legislature will “fix” confusion. …Comparing the mental fitness of Trump, 77, and Biden, 81, “is not a close call,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) told CBS’s “Face the Nation,” voicing a defense of the former president.

LEADING THE DAY

Let’s pause for some updates about polling, campaign cash and delegates in the presidential contest as Super Tuesday arrives this week. Biden and Trump each remain marginally popular with likely voters nationwide, but the president’s big reelection problem is the one he can’t do anything about: being 81.

A majority of voters, 61 percent, who supported Biden in 2020 say he’s too old to lead the country effectively, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Siena College. The survey pointed to a fundamental shift from 2020, when Biden was a former vice president seeking to defeat Trump. These views are echoed in battleground state surveys.

“With the exception of Trump, every president seems to age a lot during their presidency,” Otto Abad, 50, an independent voter from Scott, La., told The New York Times. “Trump, one of the few things I would say good about him, is that nothing seems to bother him,” he added. “He seems like he’s in the same mental shape he was 10 years ago, 12 years ago, 15 years ago. He’s like a cockroach.”

Biden’s campaign advantage at the moment is cash. His allies have committed $700 million to help the president defeat frontrunner Trump, the likely GOP nominee. The president’s reelection team last month had $130 million in the bank and must report February’s haul by March 20. Trump’s legal fees have been draining his coffers and prominent GOP donors continued to bankroll Haley. The question for those contributors is whether they will stick around beyond the primary cycle’s largest single-day tally of votes on Tuesday, when Trump’s delegate count is expected to surge.

The former president today has 192 delegates and Haley has 24, according to The Hill and Decision Desk HQ tracker. A GOP presidential candidate needs 1,215 to be nominated. Trump has won every state contest so far in a landslide and expects to clinch the nomination by mid-March.

Biden’s nomination is expected; he has 206 pledged delegates and needs 2,330. “Uncommitted,” a Democratic protest movement against the president based on his policies in Gaza, landed two delegates.

2024 POLITICS ROUNDUP

▪ To retain a majority in the Senate, Democrats look to voters who might split their tickets.

▪ Team Biden hopes Trump undermines his presidential chances among independent voters.

▪ Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott leads an effort to purge opponents in his state’s Republican Party.

▪ “He couldn’t be more wrong,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN Sunday, referring to Abbott’s assertion that Biden only needs executive “spine” rather than new legislation to federally enforce the U.S. southern border.

▪ In California’s Senate primary race, Rep. Katie Porter’s prospects are now down to the wire. The latest polls indicate Rep. Adam Schiff is a frontrunner.

▪ In New York, here’s what to know about the latest House congressional map.

▪ “I am not dumb,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) told The Washington Post in an interview. “I knew all the attacks that would come my way.”

▪ Among many political debates over higher education, Republicans are ramping up criticism of tenure for professors.

INTERNATIONAL

Vice President Harris today will meet with Benny Gantz, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war Cabinet, as the U.S. continues to push Israel for a cease-fire agreement. Hamas officials arrived in Cairo Sunday for talks on a possible deal to pause the war and swap hostages. Israel agreed to a framework in late February.

👉 Harris on Sunday while traveling used prepared remarks to call for an “immediate cease-fire” in Gaza, describing the situation as a “humanitarian catastrophe.” It was her most forceful assessment to date of Israel’s war against Hamas, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan health authorities (The New York Times).

“What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating,” Harris said in Selma, Ala. “We have seen reports of families eating leaves or animal feed. Women giving birth to malnourished babies with little or no medical care. And children dying from malnutrition and dehydration. As I have said many times, too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”

Netanyahu reportedly is unhappy about Gantz’s decision to confer with top U.S. officials and told him so (The Times of Israel). NBC News reports there was intense U.S. pressure on all sides to reach an agreement by the start of Ramadan, on March 10. Israel has essentially accepted the proposed framework of a Gaza cease-fire if Hamas agrees to release sick, elderly and women hostages, and the proposed six-week deal “has the potential to extend from there.”

THE U.S. MADE ITS FIRST AIRDROPS of humanitarian aid into Gaza on Saturday. Three U.S. Air Force cargo planes airdropped 38,000 ready-to-eat meals, in a joint operation with the Jordanian Air Force. The airdrops, which some aid experts criticized as insufficient and largely symbolic, contribute “to ongoing U.S. government efforts to provide lifesaving humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza,” according to U.S. officials. “We are conducting planning for potential follow-on airborne aid delivery missions.”

One U.S. official briefing reporters on the operation on Saturday said that 66 pallets had been dropped over Gaza, and that drop sites had been chosen in relatively safe areas where people are sheltering and in need. The U.S. did not coordinate its operation with Hamas or any other group on the ground (The New York Times).

▪ The New York Times analysis: Israel has no clear plan for governing Gaza. That’s a particular problem in the north where the fighting has ebbed and where a deadly stampede occurred surrounding a humanitarian aid convoy on Thursday.

▪ Reuters: Israel’s military said Sunday that most of the Palestinians killed last week near an aid convoy died in a stampede, but local health officials said casualties brought into hospitals had been hit by large-caliber ammunition.

▪ NPR: Destruction from the war with Israel has cut Gaza off from the outside world.

MORE THAN TWO MONTHS of direct fighting with the Houthis has heavily taxed the U.S. military, which is spending a significant amount of money to take down cheap drones, launch retaliatory strikes and defend against rebels who are, in turn, shooting down pricey American equipment. The U.S. has been launching $2 million defense missiles to stop $2,000 drones belonging to the Yemeni rebel group — and the defiant fighters show no signs of stopping their attacks (The Hill).

“North Yemen is becoming like North Korea when it comes to firing rockets over the seas,” said Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen and Middle East expert at Navanti Group. “It’s going to be a long-term issue for not just us, but for the world.”

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will convene at noon Tuesday.

The Senate will meet Tuesday at 3 p.m.

The president is at Camp David this morning.

Vice President Harris will meet with Israel’s Gantzat the White House at 3 p.m. She will record two political radio interviews at 4:30 p.m. for unidentified media outlets.

First lady Jill Biden, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will honor women selected for the Department of State’s International Women of Courage (IWOC) Award at 11:30 a.m. at the White House.

The secretary of State will speak at 11:30 a.m.at the White House award ceremony with the first lady.

ZOOM IN

CONGRESS

SUCCESSION: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) announcement that he will step down from his leadership position in November has rocked the upper chamber.

Senate conservatives now want to play a major role in shaping the future direction of the Senate GOP conference — particularly in what they hope will be a Senate majority. One Republican strategist familiar with the deliberations of Senate conservatives say they are looking to act as a decisive swing bloc of votes in the race for Senate Republican leader, which is expected to boil down to a contest between Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), former Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn (Texas) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

“From the perspective of the conservatives, this is something they’ve been preparing for since McConnell said I’m going to serve the remainder of my term, and that was it. That’s the mindset they’re in,” the strategist told The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. “There’s going to have to be conversations between the candidates and the conservatives, and I don’t think John Thune or John Cornyn can take their support for granted.”

While Cornyn and Thune announced their bids for leader last week, Barrasso has not made a public decision on his plans and seems truly undecided. The current No. 3 Senate Republican could eschew a run to McConnell and instead pursue the party’s whip job this fall, elevating him to the No. 2 role (Politico). Here’s how the “Three Johns” are working the phones with their colleagues (Axios).

LEADERSHIP CONTEST: Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines earns kudos as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. … Trump encouraged Daines to jump into the Senate GOP leadership race to succeed McConnell. … An Oklahoma senator who supports Thune for that role urged Trump to stay out of the leadership contest. … Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) says a McConnell successor needs to stand “his own ground” with Trump. … Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is leaving the door open to competing in the Senate contest to become the GOP leader.

GOVERNMENT FUNDING: Congress on Sunday finally revealed long-awaited bipartisan bills to fund parts of the government for most of the year, setting off a bicameral sprint to avert looming shutdown threat in less than a week. The weekend rollout entails six full-year spending bills to fund a slew of agencies until early fall, including the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs, Justice, Commerce and Energy (The Hill).

The rollout comes as Congress falls behind in finishing up its funding work for fiscal year 2024, which began five months ago. Biden on Friday signed a separate stopgap bill into law to avert a partial government shutdown at the end of the week. To provide additional time for full-year funding bills to be finalized and passed, the stopgap measure extended funding on a short-term basis and set up two deadlines on March 8 and March 22 (CNN).

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Sunday hailed the package of six government funding bills as “good news” that prevents a government shutdown “without cuts or poison pill riders.”

The sprint to stave off a partial government shutdown is set to collide with Biden’s State of the Union address this week, as the president prepares to go face-to-face with some of his fiercest GOP opponents — who have sharply criticized his handling of spending matters — one day before the funding deadline (The Hill).

HOUSE CONSERVATIVES find themselves increasingly sidelined and frustrated as Congress barrels toward a bipartisan funding deal without the steep cuts the far right has demanded. Hard-liners so far have had enough leverage to prevent a long-term budget agreement from being struck, partly because any one of them could launch a vote to remove Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — sworn into power less than five months ago — if they’re unhappy with the outcome. Yet Johnson has dismissed that threat, joining the other top congressional leaders this week in endorsing the bipartisan bills — showing a clear sign of the right’s diminished powers in this year’s appropriations process (The Hill).

“Honestly, I think we’re gonna continue to…be loud, but at the end of the day, I think you’re gonna continue to see the same with this Congress,” said Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

ELSEWHERE

COURTS

THE SUPREME COURT will issue at least one decision today, it announced, a strong signal that it may rule on Trump’s eligibility for Colorado’s primary ballot (The Hill and The New York Times). Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Sunday criticized the Supreme Court’s decision last week to take up Trump’s immunity appeal because it delays the start of the former president’s federal Jan. 6 trial. “Their delay in considering this critical issue, this timely issue, is going to delay the resolution of these cases, by months at least,” Durbin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The court will hear the case in late April.

Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, told The Washington Post the court “is in the middle of just about every significant contemporary public policy, political and cultural debate.”

In Georgia, Judge Scott McAfee will issue a decision within two weeks after hearing arguments Friday to determine whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) and special prosecutor Nathan Wade should be removed from a racketeering case tied to the 2020 election with criminal charges against Trump and other defendants. If Willis is removed because of a personal relationship with Wade, her prosecutorial team would be disqualified and a new prosecutor would take over, resulting in judicial delays (The Hill).

The Hill: ObamaCare faces a key hearing after a Texas ruling.

OPINION

■ Give ’em hell, Joe – and keep the State of the Union shorter, by The Washington Post editorial board.

■ The Fed’s latest problem: A strong economy, by Mickey D. Levy, columnist, The Wall Street Journal.

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / Chuck Burton | Krispy Kreme is offering all comers nationwide two free glazed doughnuts on Tuesday to encourage voting, which takes place in 15 states and a territory March 5. The company calls it “Super TWOsday.”

And finally … 🍩 Making election participation sweeter on Tuesday, March 5, Krispy Kreme is giving away free glazed doughnuts to patrons on “Super TWOsday.” Consumers don’t have to buy anything to receive up to two confections as 15 states and one territory hold primaries (USA Today).

The company says the offer is available nationwide, not just in states conducting primary elections. The offer is available to doughnut lovers who come into stores or drive through.

“While encouraging everyone to vote, our primary role on Super TWOsday will be to sweeten your day,” Dave Skena, global chief brand officer for Krispy Kreme, said about the company’s media-savvy promotion.

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