Morning Report — Senators may press Israel on Gaza using weapons sales

President Biden’s escalating messages of frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over events in Gaza are pointed and apparently partially persuasive. There has been no change in U.S. policy or arms sales. There are warnings without specifics. There is no set timetable.

But Thursday presented the first signal that Biden would reassess backing Israel’s war. And Israel responded.

Israeli officials have reiterated that the aim in Gaza is to wipe Hamas, the attacker on Oct. 7, “off the face of the earth.” Biden, who continues to back Israel’s right to defend itself, is reminded of his vow to an ally on that day: “My administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.”

The president told Netanyahu during a Thursday phone call that Israeli airstrikes that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, and the continued blockades against humanitarian help for civilians in Gaza, are “unacceptable.” Biden called for an immediate cease-fire, pushed for more aid to be allowed to safely reach Gaza, urged Israel to reach a deal with Hamas to free hostages and reprised the U.S. warning against an Israeli offensive in Rafah that could displace up to a million people.

Hours after the call and nearly six months after the start of the war, Israel announced commitments to open a port and a key northern crossing to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza and to increase deliveries of aid from Jordan directly into the enclave. The White House said it welcomed the response, adding such steps “must now be fully and rapidly implemented.” 

▪ Axios: CIA director Bill Burns is expected to travel to Cairo this weekend for talks among counterparts from Israel, Egypt and Qatar to seek release of hostages held by Hamas. 

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Biden warns Netanyahu of conditions on U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza war.

▪ The New York Times: Biden tells Netanyahu that U.S. support hinges on treatment of Gaza civilians.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking from Brussels, welcomed Israel’s response to get more aid into Gaza, adding “the proof is in the results.” He said the U.S. will gauge Israel’s implementation by the number of trucks getting into the Gaza Strip and improvement in the risks of famine. The secretary said Israel should be “maximizing every effort to protect civilians,” adding, “We just can’t have so many people caught in the crossfire killed, injured going forward.”

SENATE DEMOCRATS EYE LEVERAGE: While there was no immediate anticipation that the administration is ready to impose restrictions on providing Israel weapons or place limitations on how Israel uses them, critics in the Senate have opened that door, elevating pressure in Congress from the left. 

Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Peter Welch (Vt.) asked Biden Wednesday to “drastically increase” the supply of medicine and medical equipment going into Gaza to “address the medical crisis” there (The Hill).

Warren says she was prepared to move to block the sale of additional F-15s to Israel (The Hill).

“I think it is clear that Congress has a responsibility to act,” Warren told CNN Thursday. “We have legal tools here. And as I said, we cannot approve the sale of arms to a country that is in violation of our own laws on this. And that includes access to humanitarian relief.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a close Biden ally, said Thursday that adding conditions to U.S. military support for Israel is a next step. “I think we’re at that point,” he told CNN, explaining that his own red line would be crossed if Israel launches a full-scale offensive in Rafah without first making adequate humanitarian provisions for civilians.

“I think we can move forward,” Coons continued, “if we see real seriousness about addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as well as the security crisis that Israel continues to face.”

Van Hollen has been urging the White House for months to use U.S. leverage with Netanyahu and the Israeli government. Last week he told ABC News before the World Central Kitchen tragedy Monday that it was time for Congress to hold Biden’s feet to the fire with Israel.

The president wants more humanitarian aid to reach civilians in Gaza and has told Netanyahu that an Israeli military offensive in Rafah is a “red line” for the U.S., Van Hollen said. “It’s my view that as part of a partnership, we should get those assurances from the Netanyahu government up front rather than just send weapons now and ask questions later.”

In contrast, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) hammered Biden from the right Thursday over the call with Netanyahu, arguing the administration should pressure Hamas, not Israel, an ally.

When it comes to U.S. assistance for Israel and Ukraine, Johnson is on the verge of being boxed in by House Democrats, who recognize their conference could become a political lifeline this spring for the Speaker as he navigates divisions within his party. Eight House Democrats now say they want to add Sudan, Haiti, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Lebanon to an aid measure when Congress returns to Washington next week.

▪ The New York Times: Netanyahu faces political pressure in Israel.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Biden’s approach to the Israel-Gaza conflict angers both sides at home.

▪ The Hill: Israel is on high alert amid Iran threats.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ 🌉 Biden heads to Baltimore today for an update on the aftermath of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and to outline federal response efforts to aid the reopening of the port and the construction of the bridge.

▪ More than three years after the attack on Congress, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) offered a series of baseless and disproved claims about Jan. 6. House GOP leaders back him.

▪ 🚘 Tesla EVs are not a raging success for Hertz (except with Uber drivers). Two finance veterans bought the bankrupt car rental company and went all-in on electric. They got almost everything wrong.

LEADING THE DAY

© The Associated Press / Johanna Geron, Reuters | NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels on Thursday.

INTERNATIONAL

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is putting his legacy behind a final push to shore up international support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The secretary-general, who steps down later this year after a decade leading the alliance, is pitching to the 32-NATO member countries a plan to establish a five-year, 100 billion-euro fund for Ukraine, and for NATO to assume leadership of the U.S.-led Ramstein group, the monthly gathering of more than 50 countries coordinating weapons deliveries for Kyiv.

“My main responsibility is to ensure that NATO allies, also the United States, are committed to our collective defense,” Stoltenberg told Foreign Policy. “The best way of doing that is not to speculate and not to be a kind of pundit. But it’s about ensuring that I do what I can to keep this family together.”

NATO ALLIES are reining in expectations about the viability of the proposed fund to support Ukraine. At a gathering of the alliance’s foreign ministers in Brussels, some countries raised doubts about the prospects of finding fresh funding for Stoltenberg’s plan to pool allied contributions over five years. Several ministers suggested it would be better to pledge a smaller amount that allies can more clearly back, Bloomberg News reports.

Blinken, meanwhile, expressed optimism that Ukraine will join the military alliance but held back commitments ahead of the alliance’s annual summit, which will take place in Washington in July (The Hill).

“Ukraine will become a member of NATO,” Blinken told reporters Thursday in Brussels. “Our purpose at the summit is to help build a bridge to that membership.”

RUSSIA HAS DOWNED 53 Ukrainian drones, the Ministry of Defense said Friday, as the Kremlin warned that Russia and NATO are now in “direct confrontation” over Ukraine (Al Jazeera).

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in China for four days. Here’s who she’s meeting (CNBC). She chided the country’s “coercive” moves with U.S. firms and urged reforms during remarks Friday (Bloomberg News).

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet for a pro forma session at 9 a.m.

The Senate will convene Monday at 3 p.m.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will travel to Baltimore to outline the federal response to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge, which was struck March 26 by a cargo ship. He plans an aerial tour of the Patapsco River at 12:30 p.m. and an operational briefing at the Maryland Transportation Authority at 1:35 p.m. before meeting with state and local officials at 1:55 p.m. Biden will give a speech before meeting at 3:15 p.m. with relatives of workers killed in the bridge collapse. The president will depart Baltimore this afternoon for Delaware, where he will spend the weekend.

Vice President Harris has no public events.

The Secretary of State is in Belgium and began the day in Leuven to participate in U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council meetings. Blinken will take reporters’ questions, then attend a forum about mineral security. The secretary will meet midday in Brussels with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The Treasury secretary is in Guangzhou, China, to meet with Vice Premier He Lifeng.

Economic indicator: The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on March employment.

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press / Jacquelyn Martin | On Thursday, No Labels said it ended its 2024 unity presidential ticket endeavor.

POLITICS

NO LABELS NO MORE: The bipartisan group No Labels won’t put forward a third-party presidential ticket after failing to find a candidate. The announcement marked an implosion of the group’s plans to use a budget of $70 million for ballot access and then establish a ticket that could serve as an alternative to Biden and former President Trump in November.

Joe Cunningham, the national director for No Labels, said Thursday that the hero candidate the group was looking for “never emerged” (The Hill).

“Let me say, it’s not for lack of trying, that’s for sure,” Cunningham said. “And the shorter answer is that to field this ticket, No Labels was looking for a hero, and a hero never emerged.”

But even as No Labels cited polling showing public dissatisfaction with the two expected candidates and broad support for a generic third-party candidate, the group couldn’t persuade any prominent politicians to mount a challenge to the two major parties. No Labels had aimed to become the first substantial third-party effort since Independent Ross Perot won nearly 19 percent of voters in the 1992 election. Since then, other third-party groups have tried and failed to gain traction — including 2012’s Americans Elect, which akin to No Labels raised substantial amounts of money but failed to locate a willing candidate.

Democrats initially kept close tabs on No Labels. But as time passed with no candidate, some in the party turned their attention to independent presidential aspirant Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose selection of wealthy running mate and lawyer Nicole Shanahan stirred additional worries on the left about his impact on the Biden-Harris ticket (The Wall Street Journal and The Hill).

TRUMP’S CRITICISM OF ISRAEL and its war against Hamas signaled a major break from GOP-party talking points backing Israel’s right to self-defense.

“Every night, they’re releasing tapes of a building falling down. They shouldn’t be releasing tapes like that. That’s why they’re losing the PR war. They, Israel, is absolutely losing the PR war,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview Thursday.

The Hill’s Laura Kelly and Brett Samuels report the comments have raised questions about a potential second Trump administration and relations with Netanyahu in the interim. Trump’s advice to “end” the war in Gaza while also describing Israel’s military operation as poor public relations showed that nothing foreign or domestic is off-limits for the GOP challenger as he seeks another term.

“The former president still remains by far favorably inclined toward Israel and the nature of the strategic alliance, I don’t think that’s going anywhere,” a former senior Trump administration official said. What could change, the official pointed out, is whether the influence of Republican isolationists could shift U.S. policy to withdrawing in the Middle East specifically and the world in general.

2024 ROUNDUP

▪ Hillary Clinton sees a dividing line between Democrats who believe the 2024 election choice is plain even for voters who have dissatisfactions with Biden, and others who insist the president needs to do more to enthuse his base, The Hill’s Niall Stanage notes.

▪ Most Americans say democracy is important to the United States’s identity, but that the nation’s democratic system is not functioning well, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

▪ Kennedy’s campaign on Thursday disowned a fundraising email calling Jan. 6 rioters “activists.” His campaign blamed the email, which said the “activists” had been “stripped of their Constitutional liberties,” on an “error” inserted by a “marketing contractor.”

▪ More than 400 lawmakers, activists, civil rights leaders, musicians and actors have written a joint letter to Biden calling on him to support a list of congressional bills on racial equity and reparative justice through executive actions and orders.

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press / Jacquelyn Martin | Abortion demonstrators in June gathered near the Supreme Court.

HEALTH CARE

THE POTENTIAL FALLOUT from Florida’s looming six-week abortion ban is likely to reverberate across the entire country, writes The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel, and abortion access groups are preparing for an imminent crisis. The state Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday to uphold the current 15-week ban and allow a six-week ban to take effect on May 1 will effectively shut off abortion access in the South, where neighboring states already enforce abortion bans or severe restrictions.

There were 84,000 abortions performed in the state last year, including thousands for women who needed to travel from out of state. Advocates warn the law will shutter Florida clinics and force women to travel hundreds of miles across state lines, to receive needed care. 

▪ NBC News: “Confusion and terror” set in for pregnant women after ruling upholds the Florida abortion ban.

▪ The New York Times: Florida’s abortion rulings pose risks for House Republicans on abortion. The twin decisions have all but guaranteed that voters will have the issue on their minds in November, bringing potential risks for two anti-abortion Republicans in the state whose districts aren’t solidly red.

“HEALTH OVER WEALTH ACT”: Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wants increased transparency around private equity investment in health care services companies. Draft legislation of the new bill is aimed at both private equity and other for-profit health services providers. The biggest change would be a vast expansion in powers for the Department of Health and Human Services. Private equity firms would need to “obtain a license” from HHS to invest, either directly or indirectly, in a health care services firm (Axios).

TRUMP WORLD

A FEDERAL JUDGE DENIED Trump’s efforts to toss his Mar-a-Lago documents case Thursday, arguing that the more than 300 classified records recovered from his property could have been considered personal records.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon comes after special counsel Jack Smith urged her to promptly reject Trump’s claims that the Presidential Records Act allowed him to deem the national security records his personal property (The Hill).

▪ CNN: Fulton County, Ga., Judge Scott McAfee on Thursday upheld the criminal indictment against Trump in Georgia, rejecting the argument that Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were protected under the First Amendment.

▪ The Hill: The D.C. Bar’s three-member board of responsibility panel found Thursday that former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark likely violated at least one ethics rule in his efforts to help Trump stay in office after losing the 2020 presidential election.

THE $175 MILLION BOND in Trump’s civil fraud trial is at risk after New York Attorney General’s Letitia James’s (D) office questioned the qualifications of the California-based company that posted it. State lawyers wrote in a brief court notice Thursday that they take “exception to the sufficiency of the surety,” secured from Knight Specialty Insurance Co.

The notice requires Trump or the insurance company to demonstrate that the company is financially capable of paying the bond amount if Trump loses on appeal and that the bond is appropriately collateralized (The Hill).

OPINION

■ How Biden must show Netanyahu that enough is enough, by Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

■ “A lot of grim realism”: What our columnists heard in Ukraine, by David Ignatius, Jim Geraghty and Charles Lane, The Washington Post.

■ Welcome to Chicago, Democrats, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / AP Photo | Parts of the continental U.S. will experience a few minutes of darkness during Monday’s total solar eclipse.

And finally … 👏👏👏 Congrats to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! We asked about eclipse trivia and readers aced it.

Here’s who demonstrated their solar flair: Patrick Kavanagh, Tom Chabot, Jack Barshay, Pam Manges and Bart Schoenfeld.

They knew that a new moon is required for a solar eclipse.

Star gazers in the continental U.S. will have to wait 20 years after April 8 to view another total solar eclipse.

Comets are made of ice coated with dark organic material. Ick.

Uranus, among planets listed in our quiz, is not easily visible in April.

P.S. Time keeps on slipping, slipping, into the future. 🕰 The White House has asked NASA to establish a unified standard time for the moon and other celestial bodies by 2026.

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