Morning Report — Primaries test GOP claims of unity

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 06/17/24 6:25 AM ET

FILE – A vote here sign is seen outside a polling place during the South Carolina primary, Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Amid a presidential election described as a “coin-toss,” political analysts are assessing the heft of incumbency. Tuesday’s GOP primaries in Virginia, red state Oklahoma and Georgia could offer revealing clues.

Republican voters in Virginia could opt to replace House Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Bob Good, first elected in 2020, whose primary challenger, state Sen. John McGuire, has been endorsed by former President Trump in one of the most expensive primaries in the nation.

The contest in Virginia’s 5^th Congressional District is described as one of the most viciously fought GOP primary battles in the country, showcasing a Trump-promoted state candidate and the head of the ultra-conservative House GOP conference who helped purge former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the top role and eventually from Congress, ostensibly for cutting deals with Democrats.

If Good loses, he would be the first House incumbent defeated in a 2024 primary (outside of a contest between two incumbents who squared off because of redistricting). Good early in the GOP presidential primary endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a choice Trump noted.

The former president’s theme last week when he visited Republicans in Congress was party unity. It’s a boast that was echoed by GOP pundits and officials over the weekend. But the Good-McGuire contest puts Republican party fractures on display.

In Oklahoma, Republican Rep. Tom Cole, who was appointed chair of the House Appropriations Committee in April, is on defense in his state’s 4^th Congressional District as one of the last remaining members of the Republican Party’s establishment wing.

The lawmaker, first elected in 2002 and favored to win, faces Paul Bondar, a self-funded, first-time candidate who vows to cut wasteful federal spending. He’s a wealthy insurance broker and conservative who lived in Texas before registering to vote in Oklahoma in April, one day before he filed to challenge Cole, who is endorsed by Trump.

▪ The New York Times: The House GOP’s spending chief faces a primary from the right.

▪ The Associated Press: Here’s what to expect in Georgia’s primary runoffs Tuesday.

“It’s like an old-fashioned bar fight,” Cole told Roll Call. “The guy who wins a bar fight isn’t the guy with the most money, it’s the guy with the most friends. And I have a lot of friends in that district.”

The Hill: The Democratic primary June 25 between Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Westchester County Executive George Latimer in New York’s 16^th Congressional District has reignited a civil war. Each candidate spoke with ABC7’s “Up Close” program for broadcast Sunday (audio HERE).

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wants Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms geared to possible harm to teenagers’ health, he announced today.

▪ Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, a Democrat, speaking to Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week” Friday, bashed Trump’s reported enthusiasm for replacing income taxes with trade tariff revenues. It “would be the worst macroeconomic proposal in U.S. history,” he said. “I don’t think it’s likely to happen even if Donald Trump is elected.”

▪ In golf, Bryson DeChambeau edged Rory McIlroy to win Sunday’s U.S. Open.

📺 Sunday talk shows: The Supreme Court was a hot topic ahead of major pending rulings expected by July as justices wrap up their term. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday he will bring legislation to the floor this week to restore a ban on gun bump stocks following a Supreme Court decision Friday that rejected such a prohibition on the devices that increase the rate of fire. … Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on CNN criticized the high court as “brazenly corrupt and political” and defended the president’s reported weekend dig at the court’s conservative majority. … Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said the Trump-era prohibition on gun bump stocks rejected by the high court came close to being unconstitutional. … Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a Trump ally and possible choice to be his running mate, told ABC’s “This Week” he backs the Supreme Court’s decision. “We trust and believe and respect the decision of the Supreme Court,” he said.

LEADING THE DAY

MORE IN POLITICS

SENATE CONTROL: Trump taking aim at vulnerable incumbent Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) as Senate Republicans stand on the precipice of winning back the upper chamber’s majority. The GOP only needs to defeat one, in addition to West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s (R) widely expected Senate win in the fall, to recapture the upper chamber. But defeating Tester and Brown is no simple feat for the GOP, which is relying on candidates Tim Sheehy and Bernie Moreno, respectively. Both incumbents are considered battle-tested lawmakers who have been through tough reelection fights, including during a presidential year, and have emerged on the other side (The Hill).

“We realize that his success is our success,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters as Trump visited the Capitol last week. “I said, ‘Mr. President, you’re doing better than every Republican Senate candidate in all the states that matter to us in terms of us becoming the majority. We’re in this together.’ The road to the Senate majority is also the road to the White House.”

AS THEY WORK TO REGAIN the Senate majority, GOP candidates must face a political minefield: in vitro fertilization (IVF). Protecting IVF has become a top campaign issue for Democrats after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling froze access to the treatment in the state, and the party wants to force GOP candidates across the country to answer uncomfortable questions about the full impact of fetal personhood.

Yasmin Radjy, executive director of Swing Left, which supports battleground Democrats, said Republicans know they ought to show support for IVF, contraception and reproductive rights, but they’re responding to pressure from “far right interest groups” instead. Notably, the Southern Baptists — the country’s largest denomination of Protestants largely seen as a bellwether for evangelicals — recently voted to oppose the use of IVF (The Hill).

“The attempt to moderate that some of these Republican candidates are doing, is a signal in and of itself that they know they’re on the wrong side,” said Democratic pollster Angela Kuefler. “And thus far we have not seen people believe it.”

The Washington Post: Trump said he will support longtime critic and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who is running for Senate — delighting Democrats eager to keep the must-win seat in their hands. Hogan responded to the former president’s support by saying he won’t vote for him.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) will be among elected officials and celebrities to rally for abortion rights on behalf of the Biden-Harris campaign this month during some 35 events planned in battleground states, the campaign announced Sunday. Ballots in Arizona, Nevada and Florida will include abortion issues in November (NBC News).

2024 ROUNDUP

▪ GOP convention planners are preparing just in case Trump cannot attend in August in Milwaukee.

▪ The Biden-Harris campaign today disclosed a $50 million paid media campaign for June ahead of the first presidential debate. It includes “seven-figure” spending to reach Black, Latino and Asian American and Pacific Islander voters with an anti-Trump message about his status as a convicted felon using a 30-second ad, “Character Matters.”

▪ An emerging coalition that views Trump’s agenda as a threat to democracy is laying the groundwork to push back now and if he wins in November.

▪ The majority of voters in battleground House districts said they support the government passing laws aimed at improving safety for kids and teens online, according to a new poll.

▪ Voter turnout, according to The New York Times’s Nate Cohn, is an unusual dynamic in the 2024 election. Trump, not Biden, would stand to gain if everyone in the country turned out and voted, which of course they will not. The former president has a lead among registered voters overall, while Biden holds a wide lead over Trump among regular primary and midterm voters.

▪ The Trump campaign has done nothing specific to mark Pride Month. Instead, it has focused on economic and border issues that could benefit LGBTQ Americans.

▪ In 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) made headlines by sparring with Trump during the GOP presidential primary. Eight years later, he’s viewed as a potential Trump VP.

▪ Will the 12th Amendment figure in Trump’s choice of a running mate? State-based diversity on the GOP ticket is a constitutional consideration, especially if the Electoral College tally turns out to be close.

▪ Here are five big political events to watch this summer.

▪ Senior citizens, long a reliable voting bloc for Republicans, are showing signs of turning into an election-year swing group, potentially giving Biden an unlikely boost.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet Tuesday at 11 a.m.

The Senate will convene at 3 p.m.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will meet at 3:30 p.m. with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the Oval Office.

Vice President Harris will deliver White House remarks at 4:35 p.m. about conflict-related sexual violence.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet at 10:30 a.m. with Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos of Cyprus at the State Department. The secretary at 4 p.m. will join the president for his meeting with the NATO secretary general in the Oval Office.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 2 p.m.

ZOOM IN

CONGRESS

DEMOCRATIC SENATORS are alarmedby conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s sympathy for basing government on Christian principles, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. At a Supreme Court gala, Alito said he endorsed the idea of returning the nation to a place of “godliness,” and Democratic senators, including several Jewish lawmakers, fear Alito’s majority opinions in several high-profile cases were driven by his religious views.

“I don’t think there’s really any doubt,” a Jewish Democratic senator said, adding Alito is pushing a sectarian religious agenda on the court. “I don’t think Alito and [conservative Justice Clarence] Thomas are being shy. They have a view of the world and they’re trying to establish an official religion, and a specific denomination.”

▪ The Washington Post: The House on Friday passed a mammoth defense bill. Initially hailed by those who drafted it as a feat of bipartisanship, the legislation is loaded with amendments targeting abortion access, diversity programs and other initiatives opposed by Democrats.

▪ The Hill : Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has fanned the flames of the internal Democratic battle over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to Congress, questioning the wisdom of the invitation just days after it was endorsed by Democratic leaders in both chambers.

ETHICS BILL: When House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) joined forces on a White House ethics bill last month, they made sure to line up an equal, bipartisan number of cosponsors. Soon after, three Democrats backed out of their previous commitments to support the bill — vanishing, Porter said, after the White House reached out to her colleagues.

The episode sheds new light on the unraveling of an effort to secure bipartisan backing for a bill that would mark a major legislative achievement for Comer — the Republican leading the charge to investigate the Biden family. Sources told The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch that the three Democrats changed course over concerns about both the bill’s content and the way it could be used against the Biden family going into the campaign.

STATE WATCH

🥵 HEAT WAVE: Americans are bracing for a boiling heat wave this week that could see the mercury hit triple digits with high humidity. Dangerously hot temperatures have sparked warnings from weather and health officials across the country, as concerns rise for heat exhaustion and dehydration. An “extreme” heat risk, defined as long-term heat with “little-to-no overnight relief,” will start in Iowa and Missouri today and move east over the course of the week, the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast. The NWS recommended people in the affected regions be careful to stay well hydrated and limit time in the sun (The Hill).

As residents and businesses in South Florida assessed the damage from this week’s historic rainfall and floods, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his administration pushed back against assertions that the storm had anything to do with climate change. No storm-related fatalities were reported, but some communities experienced waist-deep flooding and residents needed to be rescued (The Washington Post).

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who was lobbied by Jewish advocates to consider banning masks on the New York City subway system because of antisemitic hate incidents by masked protesters, last week said she’s considering such a mask ban (The New York Post).

ELSEWHERE

INTERNATIONAL

NETANYAHU DISBANDED Israel’s war cabinet on Monday, rebuffing his far-right allies who were seeking seats in the group that had been overseeing the conflict in Gaza and moving to solidify his grasp on decision-making over the fighting with Hamas. Netanyahu’s decision comes after opposition leader Benny Gantz announced his withdrawal from the body last week. Netanyahu is now expected to hold consultations about the Gaza war with a small group of ministers, including the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — a member of the war cabinet. While the war cabinet’s dissolution is unlikely to have policy impacts, its political ramifications may be more significant (CNN and The Guardian).

The Israeli military announcedSunday that it would pause fighting during the daytime hours along a route in southern Gaza to allow the flow of humanitarian aid. The “tactical pause” applies to about 7 miles of road near Rafah, the southern Gaza city where hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering. Netanyahu criticized the plan on Sunday, underlining political tensions over the issue of aid coming into Gaza, where international organizations have described a growing humanitarian crisis (Reuters). Despite the whipsaw nature of the announcements and Netanyahu’s criticism, analysts said it was likely that the prime minister was aware of the plan and that each announcement was tailored to different audiences.

“He has a mask for every occasion,” Amos Harel, the military analyst for Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, told The New York Times. “For the Americans, he needs to show he is doing more to get aid in. For the Israeli audience he can say ‘I didn’t know’ and go for plausible deniability.”

NPR: Muslims in Gaza pass a somber Eid al-Adha on the brink of famine.

UKRAINE PEACE SUMMIT: A two-day meeting in Switzerland dedicated to forging a path forward to end Russia’s war in Ukraine concluded with key powers detailing a joint communique agreed to by more than 80 other countries and international organizations. The document reaffirmed the signatories’ commitment to “refraining from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, the principles of sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of all states, including Ukraine, within their internationally recognized borders.” Vice President Harris used the occasion to announce a $1.5 billion aid package that would go toward humanitarian expenditures and help Kyiv rebuild its battered infrastructure.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists at a news conference alongside the world leaders that it was “important that all participants of this summit support this Ukraine’s territorial integrity because there will be no lasting peace without territorial integrity.” The 10-point peace plan includes demands for the end of hostilities, the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s pre-war borders — terms Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to ever agree to (The Hill and CNN).

▪ The Hill: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday reaffirmed the legality of the G7 $50 billion loan to Ukraine and touted the strong alliance between the western countries.

▪ The Associated Press: Russia’s espionage trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich will begin June 26. The United States says he is wrongfully detained, and The Wall Street Journal joined the U.S. government in refuting the charges.

OPINION

■ Biden should assume the polls are right, not wrong, by The Washington Post editorial board.

■ How John Roberts lost his court, by Linda Greenhouse, guest essayist, The New York Times.

THE CLOSER

And finally … Loneliness experienced at any age is painful, unhealthy, even crippling. The elderly often live in circumstances and with conditions that exacerbate their isolation. Enter robotic pets, a high-tech antidote in cases where a real pet is not safe or permitted as a companion.

Helen Macura, 101, has lived for several years with “Friendly,” a battery-powered toy puppy that resembles a golden retriever, a donation from the New York State Office for Aging. He barks, turns his head and raises a paw. New York gave away 31,500 robotic pets, including cats and even birds, to seniors in its first wave and will follow up with another 4,725, paid for with general funds (ABC News).

The toy companions are so popular, some counties have waiting lists.

“I recommend that every home should have one,” Macura said, confiding that she talks to “Friendly” some nights when she has trouble sleeping. “I’m talking to somebody. I do have companionship. There’s somebody here listening to me,” she added. “He’s warm and he’s comfort.”

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