Morning Report — Vulnerable Senate Democrats break with Biden

Six months out from Election Day, some vulnerable Democrats are looking at President Biden’s poll numbers with concern.

Some Senate Democrats are distancing themselves from Biden’s ailing brand after polls show him trailing former President Trump in several battleground states, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports. It’s injecting fresh alarm as they scramble to keep their majority in the upper chamber. Democrats in tough races are breaking with Biden over border security, liquified natural gas exports, campus protests and the war in Israel, and tariffs on Chinese goods.

The candidates remain competitive in polls despite Biden’s low approval ratings and lagging position relative to Trump, but they worry the president’s political brand will weigh on their campaigns as Election Day nears.

“If you go out there and do a focus group, the focus groups all say, ‘He’s 200 years old. You got to be kidding me,’” said one Democratic senator. “And the worst part about it is for unaffiliated voters or people that haven’t made up their mind, they look at this and say: ‘You have to be kidding us. These are our choices?’ And they indict us for not taking it seriously.”

One stress test facing the group this week: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will bring the bipartisan border deal that was negotiated early this year back up on the floor for a standalone vote. The original bill found support among Democratic senators vying for reelection in tough districts, but was blocked in February in the Senate amid attacks by top House Republicans and Trump, who is making the border a central campaign issue in his race for the White House.

SUPERPAC WOES: Biden’s allies are also concerned that Future Forward, the superPAC backing the president’s reelection bid, isn’t doing enough to help secure a victory in November. The Hill’s Amie Parnes writes that allies say the superPAC is sitting on a massive campaign war-chest but since their historic $250 million ad-buy in January has done little to make the case for Biden, amid a rash of polling that shows Trump leading in key battleground states. 

The concerns about the president’s polling performance come as he gears up for a week of campaign travel to New England and a state visit from Kenyan President William Ruto, capped off by a Thursday state dinner at the White House.

On Saturday, Biden will deliver his second commencement address at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. Biden delivered a high-stakes commencement address Sunday at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, telling graduates of the historically Black men’s college that he is determined to “root out systemic racism” while fighting the “extremist forces aligned against the meaning and message” of the school.

But the speech exposed the president’s election-year political problems: the uproar over his unpopular foreign policy on Israel among Democrats coupled with his struggles to retain young and Black voters, who will be key to his reelection, write The Hill’s Julia Mueller and Brett Samuels.

Biden used the speech to say that manhood was not about “tough talk” and “bigotry” but about calling out hate.

“Their idea of being a man is toxic,” Biden told the graduates, a reference to unnamed political rivals — chiefly Trump. “That is not you. That is not us. Being a man is about strength and respect and dignity…. Insurrectionists who storm the Capitol with Confederate flags are called “patriots” by some. Not in my house.” 

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ From Congress to City Hall, public officials are now regularly subjected to threats of violence. It’s changing how they do their jobs.

▪ Computer-science majors graduate into a world of fewer opportunities.

▪ Ready for another federal funding battle in the Congress? Republicans, who ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in October, want to chip away at a government funding deal the California conservative cut with Biden.

LEADING THE DAY

© The Associated Press / LM Otero | Former President Trump at the National Rifle Association Convention in Dallas on Saturday.

POLITICS

As Biden spoke to Morehouse graduates in Atlanta this weekend, Trump was preparing for his hush money trial to resume in New York City. After last week’s testimony by his erstwhile fixer, Michael Cohen, court will be back in session today as the Manhattan district attorney’s office winds down its case-in-chief against Trump.

It is unclear whether Trump will take the stand in his own defense. Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s defense attorneys, said last week that a decision would be reached by the team, The Hill’s Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld report. Experts say it’s unlikely Trump will testify, although he said he would be open to it. With a felony conviction and possible jail time on the line, any decision could have far-reaching consequences for the former president. 

“Taking the stand to testify in your own defense is a high-stakes gambit that generally does not end well for the defendant,” Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor, told The Washington Post. “While it provides an opportunity for the defendant to look the jury in the eye and tell their side of the story, it also essentially allows prosecutors to retry their entire case on cross examination.”

The trial is expected to wrap up this week, giving way to jury deliberation and a potentially historic first criminal trial conviction of a former president.

D.C. NONCITIZEN VOTING: Some House Democrats could split from their leadership this week as Republicans in the lower chamber advance a bill that would block a Washington, D.C. law allowing non-citizen voting in local elections. Democratic leadership is formally pushing its members to vote against the law, setting up a dynamic that has played out repeatedly in the 118th Congress – House Republicans using their majority to try to overturn progressive D.C. laws and squeeze vulnerable Democrats in the process (Axios).

2024 ROUNDUP

▪ Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said Sunday he is skeptical about polls indicating that Biden has a slight lead over Trump in his state.Citing past state-wide polls that proved incorrect when ballots were counted, Johnson told NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday,” “Wisconsin is going to be a very close state. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.”

▪ Seven decades after school integration, Black Americans have mixed views: Nearly 7 in 10 Americans say more should be done to integrate schools across the nation — a figure that has steadily climbed from 30 percent in 1973 and is now at its apex. But a deeper look into the views of both Black and White people shows skepticism about the success of Brown and mixed messages about how to move forward.

▪ Here are the seven states most likely to flip in the Biden-Trump race.

▪ Senate Republicans believe the party’s chances of retaining its slim House majority will sink or swim with Trump in November.

▪ Some lawmakers wonder why Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — a devout evangelical who fashioned his professional and political standing around the fight for Christian conservatism and moral virtue — injected himself last week into the Trump trial, which includes allegations of an affair with a porn star and an illicit financial coverup. 

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at noon on Tuesday.

The Senate will convene at 3 p.m.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will depart Wilmington, Del., to return to the White House at 1:50 p.m. Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will speak at 5:15 p.m. in the Rose Garden to mark Jewish American Heritage Month at the White House.

Vice President Harris will participate in the White House Jewish American Heritage Month event this evening.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet in Frankfurt, Germany, with advisers and staff before an event to bolster clean energy supply chains across the Atlantic and meetings with private-sector leaders and her counterparts to discuss economic trends, including sanctions on Russia.

ZOOM IN

INTERNATIONAL

HELICOPTER CRASH: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash Sunday, state media confirmed this morning. Raisi, 63, was flying with a government delegation when their helicopter crashed in the country’s northwest while flying through foggy weather conditions. The exact nature of the crash remains unclear. There were no survivors among the nine people on board, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, a hard-liner close to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. State media reported First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber has been named the interim president (NBC News).

▪ The New York Times: Raisi, a hard-line Shiite cleric, was seen as a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader, and his death comes at a moment of turbulence for a country facing a deepening conflict with Israel.

▪ The Washington Post: Who is Mokhber?

▪ The Atlantic: Who would benefit from Raisi’s death?

© The Associated Press / Abir Sultan, European Pressphoto Agency | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz in Tel Aviv in October.

FRUSTRATION IS GROWING IN ISRAEL with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war against Hamas and confrontations with Biden. Alarms are being raised over never-ending fighting in Gaza and that public tensions between the U.S. and Israel will invite increased attacks from Iran and its proxies. Israeli Defense Minister and war cabinet member Yoav Gallant on Thursday called out Netanyahu, demanding that he decide on a plan for a day-after scenario for Gaza, echoing concerns that Netanyahu is bucking hard decisions to conclude the war against Hamas. Gallant’s comments were followed by an ultimatum from Benny Gantz, a former army chief and the other minister in Israel’s three-member war cabinet — which leads Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Gantz said Saturday he would quit the government in three weeks if Netanyahu does not put forward a plan for Gaza (NPR).

“So far, he seems to be defiant,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Hill’s Laura Kelly about his view of Netanyahu’s actions in the face of demands from Biden.

Meanwhile, Israeli planes and tanks pounded areas across Gaza as White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Netanyahu on Sunday amid U.S. calls for a more focused military campaign. Sullivan pressed Israel to go after Hamas in a targeted way, not with a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah (Reuters).

UKRAINE’S STRUGGLE TO FEND OFF Russia’s massive offensive in the Kharkiv region has underscored a pressing issue: a ban on firing U.S. weapons to hit inside of Russia. A delegation of five Ukrainian members of parliament traveled to Washington this week to meet with Biden administration officials and congressional lawmakers in a bid to push the U.S. to reverse the ban, but the Ukrainian lawmakers expressed palpable frustration that the U.S. is still against the policy (The Hill). 

“It’s like if somebody were to attack Washington, D.C., from the Virginia state, and you say we’re not going to hit Virginia for some reason,” said David Arahamiya, head of a Ukrainian parliamentary group on U.S. relations. “It’s crazy. Military people, like generals, they don’t understand. So, they are pushing us as politicians, like stop [the policy] this is insane.”

ELSEWHERE

ADMINISTRATION

Environment: What’s the price of Biden’s decision to shadow his predecessor’s protectionist posture toward Beijing with tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, solar panels and battery technologies? Answer: Perhaps the president’s far-reaching climate agenda.

Cannabis: Experts do not expect a boon for marijuana business owners who hope to benefit from the administration’s regulatory decision to soften the legal categorization and treatment of marijuana as a controlled substance. “I think the reason that the impact won’t be as great as many people might otherwise anticipate … is that this drug is still going to be regulated under the Controlled Substances Act. And those regulations are going to be really hard for the companies now in the industry to satisfy,” Vanderbilt University law professor Robert Mikos told The Hill.

Investment advice: The administration’s recent retirement savings rule has encountered pushback in Congress and among professional investment businesses and trade groups. Here are five things to know about how the fiduciary rule works, who supports the stated aim of investor protection and why retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Republicans in Congress joined with some industry representatives to object.

© The Associated Press / David Zalubowski | Child care costs can cost twice as much as rent in some states.

STATE WATCH

🧸 Child care costs: Amid high prices and the sticker shock of inflation, families complain about rent increases. But in some states (see the list), child care can cost twice as much as rental housing for parents with two children, according to a recent study.

🩺 Abortion access: Telemedicine shield laws in blue states are about to clash with anti-abortion red states. A legal challenge is predicted. Novel laws passed by six states offer protection for doctors, nurses and other practitioners who prescribe and send abortion pills to people living in states that ban or severely restrict abortion. But the laws have only been in existence for about a year and have never been tested in court.

🏞️ Colorado water: A sprawling water district that serves residents, ranchers and recreators on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains is preparing to invest a mammoth $98.5 million on a tiny hydropower plant — in a bipartisan, multi-sectorial effort to secure the Colorado River’s future. In the coming weeks, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) is expected to sign into law a comprehensive water conservation bill. “Providing security for the Colorado River in western Colorado really brings multiple benefits,” Andy Mueller, general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, told The Hill.

OPINION

■ The big decision before the Trump verdict, by Ethan Greenberg, opinion contributor, The Wall Street Journal.

■ Higher education needs more Socrates and Plato, by Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Harun Küçük, guest essayists, The New York Times.

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / Rob Franklin-Vermont State University | Vermont State University will honor Max the Cat with an honorary doctorate this month.

And finally … 🐈 Max the cat is not a mascot and not a student pet. But at Vermont State University’s Castleton campus, he earned an honorary degree for friendliness as part of graduation festivities Saturday, to be physically gifted to the tabby at a future date.

For being a beloved comfort cat, the student body created a “doctor of litter-ature.”

“Max the Cat has been an affectionate member of the Castleton family for years,” the school said in a Facebook post.

Max for four years has been an enthusiastic greeter, a campus tour-mate, as well as an Instagram and selfie celeb. He has a home of his own with his human family on the street that leads to the university’s Castleton entrance. “He decided he would go up on campus and he just started hanging out with the college students,” explained owner Ashley Dow last week. “And they love him.” 

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