Morning Report — Congress’s return complicated by internal politics, overseas events

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 04/08/24 6:30 AM ET

Congress is back in session this week, but what lawmakers can accomplish will be complicated by internal politics and events overseas.

The House is increasingly chaotic, as Republicans juggle a razor-thin majority and lawmakers struggle to find consensus on issues from spending to international aid.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faces a moment of truth on Ukraine aid this week as he prepares to decide on how to address long-requested assistance for the embattled U.S. ally — a question that has bedeviled his tenure in the job, and one that could spark a challenge to his gavel. For months, Johnson has said the House would consider foreign aid in due time, pushing back the timeline for other must-pass matters, like government funding. But The Hill’s Mychael Schnell reports the Speaker narrowed in on a schedule last weekend, announcing that the House would consider Ukraine aid “right after” the two-week Easter recess.

But what the bill will look like — and who will support it — remains unsettled due to fractures among Republicans and Democrats over both aid for Kyiv and related assistance for Israel (The Wall Street Journal).

THE ISSUE FOR JOHNSON is that any Ukraine aid will need many Democratic votes to pass the House, and creating legislation that could attract enough Democratic support to get Ukraine across the finish line and included funding for Israel could be difficult. Following an Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza, more Democrats have signaled they are open to attaching conditions to aid, a dynamic that could complicate future efforts to approve Israel aid through Congress (CNN).

Johnson’s tiny majority is shrinking, as more and more lawmakers are heading for the exits. Forty-three members, almost evenly split between both parties, won’t return to the House next year. While the retirements are on par with previous years, examining which Republicans are retiring and how soon tells a more complex story (The Washington Post).

“This is a dysfunctional place, and I’m not making an observation that others haven’t made,” said Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who resigned after condemning how unserious his party has become.

▪ The Hill: House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told CNN Sunday that it’s “absolutely true” that Russian propaganda has infected the U.S. Congress.

▪ The Hill: Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday” that the U.S. is “not abandoning Israel” as U.S. leaders increase pressure on Israel to do more to protect civilians in Gaza.

OVER IN THE SENATE, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is staring down a tricky to-do list as he looks to navigate the political winds of the November elections and secure bipartisan wins on several key items that have proven elusive.

With government funding for fiscal 2024 out of the way, the Democratic leader is turning his attention to what he hopes will be some bipartisan work and to the ongoing churn of executive and judicial nominations. The Hill’s Al Weaver writes that Schumer’s bipartisan wish-list is extensive and ambitious, with much of it carrying over from the year-end agenda he released in August. Complicating completion of that work is a series of must-pass items — including renewal this month of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization in May — and an expected supplemental package to deal with the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month.

“It’s about that time in the cycle when everything is filtered through the prism of what’s best for those up in 2024,” said Jim Manley, who served as a top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). “How it all plays out, I don’t know yet. But I can assure you that’s what the leadership is spending a lot of time trying to work through.”

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ 🏀 The South Carolina Gamecocks on Sunday became NCAA champions for a third time by beating fellow top-seed rival Iowa and its star Caitlin Clark 87-75. The president posted his congratulations for a perfect season. The NCAA men’s championship game will be played tonight.

▪ ⚾️ Many of the best pitchers are sidelined with injuries. Major League Baseball and the players union are trading blame.

▪ 🚨 Shant Soghomonian, 35, was arrested Sunday and charged with starting a fire outside the Burlington office of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) after security cameras recorded him spraying liquid near an office door and setting it alight.

LEADING THE DAY

ADMINISTRATION

With the House and Senate returning this week, Biden feels the heat to defend his Israel and Ukraine policies, navigate around the Speaker’s intra-GOP travails and prepare for the Trump effect when it comes to everything from abortion and courtroom dramas to border security and tackling online disinformation.

To try to win in November, Biden will return repeatedly to Michigan and Wisconsin (along with his surrogates), hoping to rebuild a voter coalition that helped him reclaim the Midwestern “blue wall” in 2020. Today he’ll be in Madison, Wis., to broadly appeal to college students and their families while pitching incremental efforts to deliver on his 2020 promise to achieve student loan debt relief.

At Madison Area Technical College, the president is expected to explain a proposed regulation to help more than 30 million borrowers qualify for debt relief under categories such as financial hardship (The Wall Street Journal).

PBS Wisconsin: Biden to unveil student loan debt plan in Madison.

After the Supreme Court in 2023 rejected his first student loan forgiveness plan, Biden searched for alternative legal authority to try again. The Education Department crafted regulations specific to circumstances under which the federal government can “waive,” or eliminate, federal student debt. The administration is basing the regulations on the Higher Education Act of 1965.

The focus on college debt is an attempt to shore up a portion of the electorate that is sliding away from the president toward challengers or feeling generally uninspired about participating. Young voters, Latinos and independents in the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll are moving away from Biden while older voters and college-educated white voters — men in particular — are moving in his direction (NPR).

The Hill: Meanwhile today, the president announced a multi-million-dollar preliminary agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to support the construction of facilities in the United States, including a location in Arizona. The deal helps train and develop the local workforce. The Commerce Department says its deal with TSMC Arizona Corporation, a subsidiary of the Taiwan-based company, would provide up to $6.6 billion in direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act. The proposed funding would support the subsidiary’s investment of more than $65 billion in three greenfield leading-edge fabrication facilities in Phoenix, which “will manufacture the world’s most advanced semiconductors.”

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet Tuesday at noon.

The Senate will convene at 3 p.m.

The president will begin his day in Wilmington, Del., where he will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Biden heads to Madison, Wis., for a 1:15 p.m. event at Madison Area Technical College to discuss a federal regulatory proposal to help reduce student loan debt. He will fly from Wisconsin to Chicago to headline a fundraiser at 5:45 p.m. The president will depart the Windy City and arrive at the White House at 10:20 p.m.

Vice President Harris heads to Philadelphia to host a roundtable at 4:55 p.m. about federal actions to lower costs for Americans. Pennsylvania holds a primary on April 23.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid at the State Department at 11 a.m.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Beijing where she met Sunday at 9 p.m. ET with former Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and held a working lunch at 11 p.m. ET with People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng. Yellen held a press conference at 2:30 a.m. ET today, livestreamed here.

First lady Jill Biden will fly to St. Louis to headline a fundraiser at 5 p.m. local time.

ZOOM IN

POLITICS

TOP DEMOCRATS ACKNOWLEDGE that Biden won’t win in November with the same Electoral College landslide he secured in 2020, and they concede that winning in Arizona and Georgia will be tough given Biden’s low approval rating. But The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports Democrats are counting on the so-called “blue wall” in the Midwest: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Biden has seen an uptick in polling numbers and where his effort to rebuild domestic manufacturing is most likely to pay off.

The ”blue wall” once referred to 18 states and the nation’s capital, which Democrats won from 1992 to 2012. In 2016, Donald Trump pierced the wall and ever since, Democrats have focused on three key states that Biden reclaimed in 2020, winning against Trump in tight margins.

Democrats say their top issue — abortion rights — also resonates especially strongly in those three states, adding to what they see as Biden’s advantage there. “It was critical in 2020, it was critical in ’16,” said Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) of the Democrats’ blue wall in the upper Midwest, adding Biden’s focus on “onshoring,” or bringing back American manufacturing jobs, will be a top selling point of his re-election campaign in her home state.

“President Biden is aiming right at the middle class: Particularly, bringing jobs home,” she said. “Rebuild America. You tackle costs, you take on the drug companies. Made in America.”

CNN: Biden could face obstacles to get on Ohio’s ballot.

WOMEN VOTERS WILL PLAY a pivotal role in November’s general election as both parties court the key demographic and as reproductive rights emerge as a major motivating issue on both sides of the aisle. Millions more women than men have registered to vote in recent cycles, and they’ve bested men in turnout numbers in every presidential election since 1964. The Hill’s Julia Manchester and Julia Mueller examine where their priorities stand as the race heats up.

2024 ROUNDUP

▪ Trump says he will deliver a statement about abortion this morning. While previewing a position, he wrote on social media: “Republicans, and all others, must follow their hearts and minds, but remember that, like Ronald Reagan before me, I, and most other Republicans, believe in EXCEPTIONS for Rape, Incest, and Life of the Mother.”

▪ Did Montana Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy sustain a combat gunshot wound while serving in Afghanistan in 2012, as he claims? His explanations about a bullet in his right arm are inconsistent. In 2015, while being cited for illegally discharging a firearm in a national park while being treated at a Minnesota hospital, he told a National Park Service ranger he accidentally discharged his Colt .45 revolver and was wounded while he loaded his vehicle. Sheehy told The Washington Post he lied to the ranger.

▪ “We need four seats to win back the majority. That’s it,” Mike Smith, president of House Majority PAC, explained to CNN while unveiling a targeted ad strategy for Democrats. “It’s a very tough four seats. Every single one of those is going to be trench warfare. We’re going have to invest a lot of money, hence the $186 million, but there’s a clear path to doing it.”

▪ Fake news: Social media accounts that shield the identities of the people or groups behind them through clever slogans and cartoon avatars have come to dominate right-wing political discussion online even as they spread false information. It is difficult to correct in real time.

▪ Democratic tensions over Israel threaten to boil over during this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

▪ The Republican National Committee rehired many of the 60 employees it shed last month when the former president’s new leadership, chair Michael Whatley and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, the new vice-chair, took the reins.

▪ Democrats scored a victory with the decision last week by third-party No Labels to call it quits in 2024.

▪ A Tennessee legal challenge heard last week would upend the state’s near-total abortion ban: Three takeaways from the arguments.

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press / Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters | Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, pictured in January with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said Sunday that Israeli troops are being withdrawn from southern Gaza.

INTERNATIONAL

ISRAEL HAS WITHDRAWN more soldiers from southern Gaza, leaving just one brigade, as Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt for new talks about a potential cease-fire in the six-month conflict. Israel has been reducing troop numbers in the enclave since the start of the year to relieve reservists and is under growing pressure from Washington to improve the humanitarian situation, especially after the killing of seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen.

It was not clear if the move signaled a turning point in Israel’s military strategy, but Michael Horowitz, the head of intelligence at Le Beck International, a security and risk management consultancy, said it could mean “the Gaza war is entering a new phase, one that will still last long, but may be of lesser intensity” (Reuters and NBC News).

But Israel does not appear to be backing down from a planned invasion of Rafah. The Biden administration has warned that a ground invasion would be catastrophic and has pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pursue alternatives, but Netanyahu insisted on Sunday that Israel was determined to “complete the elimination of Hamas in all of the Gaza Strip, including Rafah.”

Rafah had been designated as a safe zone for civilians fleeing widespread destruction in densely inhabited areas further north. An estimated 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced in the six months since the start of the war, and United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned in February that an assault on Rafah would “put the final nail in the coffin” of humanitarian aid operations and leave civilians without support (The New York Times and Politico).

▪ The Hill: White House spokesperson John Kirby said Sunday the United States is looking to set an in-person meeting with Israeli officials in the “next week or so” after a virtual meeting took place this past week.

▪ The Washington Post: Six months of the Israel-Hamas war: A timeline of key moments.

▪ USA Today: More than 30,000 lives lost: Visualizing the death and destruction of Israel’s war in Gaza.

▪ The Times of Israel: Israel exhumed the remains of hostage Elad Katzir, 47, captured Oct. 7 and held in Gaza until his death in January. Katzir’s sister blamed the Israeli government for failing to secure a hostage release deal in time to save her brother.

UKRAINE IS RAMPING UP ATTACKS on Russian oil refineries in a campaign that has damaged Moscow’s most important source of revenue. Kyiv has struck oil refineries deep inside Russia at least 12 times during the war, disrupting at least 10 percent of Russian refining capacity, according to the British Defense Ministry.

The attacks underscore how Ukraine is continuing to wield relatively cheap technology to conduct savvy strikes that damage Russia — as it has also done with naval drones against Russia’s Black Sea fleet (The Hill).

▪ The Washington Post: Inside Trump’s secret, long-shot plan to end the war in Ukraine.

▪ Reuters: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit China today to discuss the Ukraine war.

▪ Bloomberg News: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen advanced U.S.-China ties during her four-day trip, despite tough criticism about exports. In a statement this morning, she welcomed a new Treasury-People’s Bank of China exchange to counter money laundering and other financial crimes and pending announcements about “operational resilience in the finance services sector and on financial stability implications from the insurance sector.”

▪ The Hill: Guatemala’s election of a new president is sparking a renewed focus from the Biden administration, which is placing dual pressure on the Central American nation to limit migration and strengthen its borders.

TRENDS

Artificial intelligence: OpenAI, Google and Meta ignored corporate policies and altered their own rules as they sought information to train their latest artificial intelligence systems (The New York Times). … AI depends on online data. A race is on to get it (The New York Times). … As tech company developers run out of data to train their AI models, they are turning to “synthetic data” — made by artificial intelligence itself (The New York Times). … AI risks creating a “black box” at the heart of the U.S. legal system (The Hill).

Immigration: Work permits grow, but undocumented immigrants are left hungry for access (The Hill). … Individual migrants now make up 25 percent to 30 percent of the people staying in Boston shelters, according to city officials. They say shelters in general are filling beyond their capacity amid an ongoing housing crisis.

Education: The U.S. is experiencing a boom in micro-schools. What are they? (The Hill).

Environment: 🐝 Beekeepers are saving the embattled honeybee even as environmental factors are reducing native pollinators. It’s a good-news, bad-news story for the bee industry (The Washington Post).

OPINION

■ The labor market keeps on truckin’, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

■ It’s Biden’s booming economy, stupid! by Tobin Harshaw, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🌚 ECLIPSE NOTES: For many, today’s “path of totality” will be a once-in-a-lifetime event across a sweep of North America in which a total solar eclipse won’t be seen for another two decades. The phenomenon occurs in a matter of minutes and weather may not cooperate everywhere. The anticipatory hype and safety warnings persist for a few more hours today, then the post-eclipse commentary begins.

The moon will pass between the sun and Earth at 1:40 p.m. CDT and darken the sky in Dallas while moving in an arc across the nation to Caribou, Maine, by 3:32 p.m. EDT, exiting in Canada. In between are prime viewing locales Idabel, Okla.; Little Rock, Ark.; Polar Bluff, Mo.; Paducah, Ky.; Carbondale, Ill.; Evansville, Ind.; Cleveland, Ohio; Erie, Pa.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Burlington, Vt., and Lancaster, N.H.

Washington, D.C., falls in a partial eclipse zone with an expected blackout of 89 percent.

🕶 Don’t expect to be protected by donning your regular sunglasses. Wear or borrow special safety glasses for eclipse viewing, available at many nationwide retail locations, including drug stores and 7-Elevens.

Smithsonian Magazine: What indigenous Americans believe about the eclipses. Example: “Our prayers must be focused on the birth and renewal that will arrive when the eclipse ends. Moreover, prayers must be about a better future.

Stay Engaged

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–Updated at 7:04 a.m.

Tags Chuck Schumer Jim Manley Ken Buck Mike Johnson