Morning Report — Hur takes heat from both sides of aisle

The question on Capitol Hill Tuesday was not where special counsel Robert Hur came down during public testimony about President Biden and classified records, but whether any of his investigation has changed the arc of politics or government practice.

House Republicans who hoped for a slam-dunk from Hur against Biden were frustrated. So, too, were Democrats, who tried to paint as distinctly more serious the criminal charges against former President Trump because he retained a vast collection of classified materials at his club in Florida and allegedly fought the government’s efforts to get them back.

Hur, at times a defensive witness about his February findings, was lashed by lawmakers from both parties about his assessments of Biden. 

“I could have written my report in a way that omitted references to the president’s memory, but that would have been an incomplete and improper report,” the special counsel testified.

Are too many federal records classified? Yes. Does Biden, 81, have a memory for details as well as occasionally foggier recollections? Yes. Was he permitted to keep materials marked as classified in his home garage and private offices after leaving office? No. Did Hur’s report “exonerate” the president while stating no charges would be filed? Hur said no.

But the upshot, according to some research, is that while Hur’s findings kept Biden out of a courtroom, his references to the president’s age, memory and disposition, while unflattering, simply reinforced existing public opinion, according to Marquette Law School national surveys.

Trump’s defense against criminal charges that he stored cartons of classified White House documents at Mar-a-Lago and allegedly obstructed a Justice Department investigation is still in limbo. 

The committee released a transcript of the special counsel’s two-day interview with Biden. It showed the president stumbling over certain dates and facts, but it also showed Biden cracking jokes with Hur and other lawyers present while repeatedly maintaining he did not intend to take classified materials when he left office.

By the end of day, Biden and Trump gathered sufficient delegates coming out of Tuesday’s primaries in Georgia, Mississippi, Washington and Hawaii (GOP) to be assured of their party nominations (The New York Times). What was true in the morning was true at midnight: The 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be a lengthy, ferocious rematch. 

“Voters representing the rich diversity of the Democratic Party across the country have put their faith in me once again to lead our party — and our country — in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever,” Biden said in a statement that marked his status as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Trump thanked supporters in a social media message and predicted that Nov. 5, following his contest against what he described as the “Worst, Most Incompetent, Corrupt, and Destructive President,” will be “the most important day in the history of our Country!” 

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LEADING THE DAY

ADMINISTRATION

BIDEN PLEDGED an “ironclad” commitment to America’s allies Tuesday while he hosted Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the White House. During the meeting, which marked Poland’s 25-year anniversary of joining NATO, Biden sought to reassure members of the military alliance that the U.S. would not abandon its international obligations. The meeting showed defiance not only against Russian President Vladimir Putin, but also, implicitly at least, against Trump, who has said he would “encourage” Russia to attack NATO members that do not spend enough on their militaries (The New York Times).

THE U.S. WILL PROVIDE UKRAINE with an additional $300 million in weapons, enough to last a few more weeks, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday. Biden has repeatedly called on Congress to approve his supplemental request of $60 billion to help the Ukrainian military defend against Russian forces. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) says he will not bring such a measure to the floor ahead of legislation favored by conservatives to restrict migration at the U.S. southern border. Biden says he favors a Senate bipartisan border deal that was deep-sixed under the weight of Trump’s public opposition (The Hill and NBC News).

Biden launched a tax war with the Republican Party, proposing a slate of hikes on wealthy individuals and big businesses ahead of a likely rematch with Trump. In an ambitious budget proposal released Monday, the president called for a wealth tax on individuals worth more than $100 million and restoring the corporate income tax rate to its pre-Trump level (The Hill).

“There is no way these proposals can pass a divided Congress — especially in an election year,” wrote Brian Gardner, chief Washington policy strategist at Stifel Investment Bank, in an analysis. Even so, Gardner added, “2025 will be the year of the tax debate regardless of which candidate wins the presidency since several provisions of the Jobs and Tax Cuts Act of 2017 expire next year.”

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POLITICS 

Biden already landed a campaign endorsement from the United Auto Workers and Tuesday he sought to win over the Teamsters, one of the largest unions in the country.

During a closed-door meeting in Washington, Biden met with Teamster leaders and talked with rank-and-file workers from various industries and workplaces. An endorsement from Big Labor would mean important organizational advantages in all-important swing states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin (where Biden will be today) and Michigan (where the president will appear Thursday). 

Trump in January met with Teamsters to try to compete with Biden’s union backing. The president boasts he’s the most pro-labor president in U.S. history, and he has already won an important 2024 endorsement from the AFL-CIO. More than two dozen other national unions back him for a second term, including the National Education Association; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; and the Laborers International Union.

THIRD RAIL: No presidential election year would be complete without public arm-wrestling over deficits, debt, Social Security and Medicare. The Hill’s Al Weaver reports those familiar debates are back in the headlines. 

Trump during an interview Monday said there’s “a lot” that can be done on entitlements “in terms of cutting,” a pitch that Biden was ready to hit. The president’s campaign instantly released a political ad that contrasted the former president’s comments with Biden’s rhetoric during his State of the Union speech last week. The clash marks the second time in as many campaign cycles that Democrats pounced on Republican remarks that particularly animated senior voters. Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) call in 2022 to sunset all federal legislation, including Social Security, haunted Republicans through that campaign cycle and animated Biden’s State of the Union performance last year.

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ZOOM IN

CONGRESS

BUCK TO BOLT: Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado is expediting his timeline to retire from Congress and will exit at the end of next week, further narrowing his party’s razor-thin majority. The lawmaker, who has broken with far-right Republicans on issues and lamented obstruction tactics while also voting to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), did not say what his next steps will be after serving nine years in Congress. In an interview with Axios, Buck denied rumors that he is joining No Labels, the centrist group planning a third-party presidential ticket, but said Americans “are upset about Trump as a candidate and Biden as a candidate.”

Twenty-one House Republicans, including Buck, are retiring from this Congress or seeking other offices, according to a roster maintained by the House Press Gallery. A similar list for Democrats numbered 23 as of Tuesday. 

A DWINDLING HOUSE MAJORITY will surely be a priority topic for GOP leaders at their annual issues conference in West Virginia this week. Congressional Republican leaders face a daunting task: uniting their warring factions ahead of a series of high-stakes legislative battles at the very root of the party’s infighting. The Hill’s Mychael Schnell and Mike Lillis report that the annual retreat, held at the swanky Greenbrier resort in remote White Sulphur Springs, will offer Republicans a chance to reset after a chaotic year marked by internal bickering — and the first ouster of their Speaker in history — while sharpening their strategy ahead of November.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House majority leader, acknowledged the internal divisions heading into the conference, but also voiced confidence that Republicans will come out more united on the other side. 

“The main focus will be making sure we stay united through the rest of this year and get done the things we want to achieve in these next few months,” Scalise said.

SHUTDOWN WATCH: Meanwhile, Senators in both parties are warning that a political food fight over funding for the Department of Homeland Security could cause a partisan government shutdown this month, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. Congress came within hours of a partial shutdown last week before it managed to pass a package of six largely noncontroversial spending bills before the Friday deadline. But lawmakers say the next package of bills, which would fund the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), State and Homeland Security (DHS) as well as foreign operations, will be a much heavier lift because of deep partisan divisions over Biden’s immigration policy.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said that “Homeland is absolutely the toughest” of the bunch but pointed out all of them are getting weighed down by fights over additions being pushed by House conservatives.

“You got Defense in there,” she noted. “Labor, HHS is not an easy account either, but nobody’s talking about that. We’re all talking about Homeland and how challenging that’s going to be.”

House Republicans recently subpoenaed AT&T seeking 15 years of Hunter Biden’s phone records, the latest sign that GOP lawmakers are plowing ahead with their impeachment inquiry aimed at the president. They say they want to find out if the elder Biden phoned his son’s business associates while serving in government.

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ELSEWHERE

INTERNATIONAL

RESIGNATION BY HAITI’S prime minister is a watershed moment for U.S. diplomacy, which for the past 32 months focused on keeping Ariel Henry in power against the warnings from experts and Haitian civil society. The Hill’s Rafael Bernal and Nick Robertson report that under Henry, who served as acting prime minister and acting president, armed gangs grew stronger as the government’s footprint retracted, becoming more and more reliant on U.S. support and the promise of an international police mission. 

Henry’s resignation announcement came just hours after officials, including Caribbean leaders and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, met in Jamaica to discuss a solution to Haiti’s spiraling crisis, but international efforts to send help have gone nowhere so far. Haiti scrambled Tuesday to meet a 24-hour deadline to set up a panel that will lead the deteriorating country to a new government. A senior State Department official said the transitional presidential council would select an interim prime minister and government in “the very near future” and the mission should “go forward without delay” (CBS News and The Washington Post).

FOOD FOR GAZA left Cyprus by sea Tuesday, marking the start of an untested maritime corridor to transport shipments of aid to Palestinians, who are described by the United Nations as on the brink of starvation. The ship was pulling a barge loaded with nearly 200 metric tons of rice, flour and other food from World Central Kitchen, a charity group. The ship is the first authorized to deliver supplies to Gaza by sea since 2005, according to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, which has supported the effort.

Hunger is especially dire in the north of Gaza, where U.N. agencies have mostly suspended aid operations, citing Israeli restrictions on convoys, security issues and poor road conditions. Too little aid is getting into the enclave by land, aid groups have said, prompting multinational efforts to deliver it by sea and air — from the maritime corridor originating in Cyprus to the U.S. military’s announcement to build a floating pier to facilitate deliveries (The New York Times).

A convoy of trucks carrying food was also permitted to directly enter northern Gaza from Israel Tuesday as global pressure intensifies for Israel to allow more aid into the enclave. It marked the first time Israel had allowed aid trucks to use the route since the start of the war (Reuters).

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THE CLOSER

And finally … 🥚 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) would like to overhaul the annual White House Easter Egg Roll by doing away with the main ingredient, reports The Hill’s ITK observer Judy Kurtz. 

In a pun-heavy letter to first lady Jill Biden this week, the animal rights organization said it wants to “respectfully suggest an appeeling way to modernize the White House Easter Egg Roll,” which is set for April 1 on the South Lawn.

The idea: Swap the eggs for the humble potato. 🥔

“Instead of promoting the deleterious factory farming and slaughter industries, will you please initiate the annual White House Potato Roll?” the letter from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk asks, adding that a “potato roll” wouldn’t “exploit any sentient beings and would encourage empathy and kindness to animals while supporting potato farmers in the U.S.”

Last year, the American Egg Board donated 30,000 eggs for the White House Easter Egg Roll and another 30,000 to food banks in the Washington area.

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