Morning Report — Biden’s unfinished business

President Biden sought this week to tackle time and his critics during his bid for reelection.

He waited until five months before Election Day to exercise his own presidential powers Tuesday to restrict asylum policy and block surges of undocumented migrants from entering the country. Biden is vulnerable on the issue with voters, on thin ice with his own party, will be challenged in court and pummeled by former President Trump and Republican leaders for what they say is a crisis of Biden’s making. 

The president spent eight minutes explaining his new border policy Tuesday before flying to France for D-Day commemorations. In Normandy today, Biden will spotlight a pillar of his reelection platform — preserving democracy — and contrast his Democratic world view with Trump’s isolationist instincts by aligning himself with former President Reagan’s message 40 years ago at Pointe du Hoc on the French coast.

The New York Times, Peter Baker: “When it comes to international relations, the 46th president essentially is arguing that he has more in common with the 40th president than the current head of the Republican Party does.”

In the Middle East, the U.S. one week ago unveiled what became known as the “Biden peace plan” for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. It prompted U.S. analysts to ask Thursday whether the plan’s public unveiling had taken place too soon. Hamas’s leader in Gaza told Arab negotiators in a message received Thursday that he would accept a peace deal only if Israel commits to a permanent cease-fire. The message arrived as an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed 40 people, including children, Palestinians reported (The Wall Street Journal).

Next week, Biden will be in Italy with his counterparts at the annual Group of Seven summit of leading economies for discussions ranging from Ukraine’s war with Russia to global inflation. The president tells Americans that the U.S. economy is the envy of the world, but polls show that many voters don’t share his confidence. Biden is running out of time to persuade voters they’re better off economically than they say they were underTrump.

This morning’s federal employment report for May is expected to indicate modest job growth. The Federal Reserve is trying to cool the economy, meaning interest rates may remain higher for longer even as consumers complain about high prices for rent, food and gasoline. Democratic candidates have been saying for months they want Biden to use his megaphone to try to ease Americans’ kitchen table anxieties with a narrative about what his policies would mean to families in 2025 and beyond.

▪ The New York Times: Liberals want Biden to blame big business.

▪ The New York Times: NAACP formally lobbied Biden Thursday to halt weapons shipments to Israel because of civilian deaths in Gaza, underscoring a policy rift amid an election-year domestic focus on Black voters.

▪ The Hill: Biden faces warning signs from the “uncommitted” vote.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address a joint meeting of Congress on July 24.

▪ The European Central Bank cut interest rates Thursday for the first time in five years, confident that its inflation fighting strategy is working.

▪ The massive SpaceX Starship launched Thursday and returned to Earth without exploding. The photos were half the story.

LEADING THE DAY

© The Associated Press / J. Scott Applewhite | Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday.

MORE IN POLITICS

THE LEADERSHIP RACE in the Senate GOP is heating up as members remain divided over how to counter Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) messaging offensive on reproductive rights, a top issue in the 2024 election. The debate over floor strategy has become an opportunity for the Republican senators running to replace outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to showcase their leadership and strategic skills, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. Key players are two of the “Three Johns” in the upper chamber — Senate GOP Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) — as well as Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.). The third John, Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), is running to replace Thune as GOP Whip.

Thune has argued to colleagues that Republicans should block the Democratic bills from even coming up for debate on the floor. But Scott is criticizing GOP leadership for not putting together a plan to give senators the option of voting to begin floor debate armed with a clearly defined strategy and message.

“We know [Schumer] is going to have these show votes. We know he’s going to do contraception, we know he’s going to do [in vitro fertilization]. What I think’s important is we all get on page on what our message is,” Scott told The Hill. “It’s important not just to say they’re wrong, we should say what are we for… We ought to get out in front of it and do it in a unified manner, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

2024 ROUNDUP

▪ Trump requested financial and other documents from eight potential vice presidential picks as he formalizes his vetting. His list, subject to change, includes one woman and seven men.

▪ Meet Naomi Goldberg, the executive director of Movement Advancement Project, who is fighting to protect LGBTQ rights secured over the last decade and prevent the nation from backsliding as anti-LGBTQ policies gain ground in state legislatures.

▪ Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) waded into one of the nation’s most contentious House primaries on Thursday, extending a lifeline to an endangered ally on the left, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).

▪ Trump on Thursday endorsed retiring Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), who is running for an election post in the state’s Maricopa County.

▪ Ahead of the first presidential debate, Biden told ABC News: “All I have to do is hear what [Trump] says, and remind people what he says and what I believe and what he believes. He’s about him. I’m about the country.”

▪ A group aligned with Biden is challenging Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s New York ballot petition, saying his campaign lied about his New York residency.

▪ Conservative policymakers influential with Trump are discussing how to use a little-known labor law to impose sweeping restrictions on private-employer-covered abortions.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 2 p.m.

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m.

The president is in France with first lady Jill Biden. He received the President’s Daily Brief this morning. The president will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at his Paris hotel at midday. Biden will travel from Paris to Normandy to deliver a speech about democracy and freedom at Pointe du Hoc at 4 p.m. CEST and return to Paris.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is with Biden in France.

Economic indicator: The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will release the employment report for May. Economists have forecasted the U.S. added 190,000 jobs last month.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will mark National Gun Violence Awareness Day at 7:30 p.m. He will attend the Washington Mystics’ annual “Wear Orange” game against the Indiana Fever at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press / J. Scott Applewhite | The Supreme Court.

COURTS

⚖️ Ahead of financial disclosure reports required of Supreme Court justices, nonprofit group Fix the Court did the math. The valuation of gifts accepted by justices since 2004 detailed on a list is at least $3 million, according to the group’s tally. Justice Clarence Thomas alone may have exceeded that aggregate in gifts nearing 200 and worth more than $4 million (The Hill). The high court’s voluntary code of conduct, compiled and released last year, includes guidelines about gifts but does not have enforcement mechanisms. Note: Associate justices are paid $298,500 in 2024, and Chief Justice John Roberts is compensated $312,200 by the taxpayers this year.

The president says he would not pardon his son Hunter Biden if he’s convicted on gun or tax charges pending in two states. The younger Biden is a criminal defendant in a Delaware courtroom this week. ABC’s David Muir asked Biden if he would accept the outcome of his son’s trial, to which the president said, “Yes.” Biden also said “yes” when asked by Muir if he would rule out a pardon (ABC News).

Hallie Biden, the widow of the late Beau Biden, took the witness stand Thursday in the Delaware trial of the president’s surviving son. She was in a romantic relationship with Hunter Biden during the time he purchased a firearm. She detailed the defendant’s drug use during the period, telling the jury that the president’s son introduced her to crack cocaine. The younger Biden is charged with lying on federal gun purchase forms in 2018 about his drug addiction (The Hill).

▪ The Hill’s The Memo: Five key takeaways from the first few days of Hunter Biden’s trial.

▪ The Hill: A former federal prosecutor said there is an “appreciable chance” Trump could be in prison until the end of his life if he loses the 2024 election, remarking on the number and scope of criminal prosecutions against him.

A federal judge ordered Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally and former White House adviser, to report to prison by July 1 for a four-month sentence following his conviction for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6, 2021, congressional committee (The Hill and Politico). … Currently in prison following a similar conviction: Peter Navarro, another former Trump White House adviser who defied Congress. … The former president turned to social media Thursday to defend Bannon and Navarro, calling their convictions and imprisonment a “tragedy” while urging that bipartisan members of Congress who conducted an investigation after the attack on the Capitol be indicted.

Trump told voters he would use his powers, if elected, to exact revenge. “Look, when this election is over, based on what they have done, I would have every right to go after them,” he said.

In California, the home invader who bludgeoned the husband of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) with a hammer in 2022 and last month was sentenced in federal court to 30 years in prison escaped attempted murder and some additional state charges, which were dismissed by a judge Thursday based on double jeopardy (The Associated Press).

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press / Ariel Schalit | As attacks intensify between Israel and Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon, world leaders are warning of a potential regional escalation.

INTERNATIONAL

CEASE-FIRE TALKS: Biden raised hopes for a cease-fire in Gaza last week when he endorsed a plan that he said could lead to a “cessation of hostilities permanently.” But neither Israel nor Hamas has said definitively whether they would accept or reject a truce proposal, and sizable gaps between the two sides appear to remain. Here is an overview of the three-stage plan, and the divisions between the two sides.

As the Biden administration renews its push for a cease-fire, Netanyahu is threatening “very intense” military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Cross-border attacks from Lebanon led to large fires blazing through Israel’s northern region this week, where Hezbollah said it had launched drones at Israeli military sites (CNN). The White House has cautioned Israel in recent weeks against the notion of “a limited war” in Lebanon and warned it could push Iran to intervene, Axios reports. Preventing an all-out war that could lead to wide-ranging destruction in Israel and Lebanon has been a key objective for the Biden administration in its efforts to avoid a much wider regional conflict.

Russia and China, which hold veto powers in the U.N. Security Council, raised concerns Thursday with a U.S. draft resolution that would back Biden’s cease-fire proposal (Reuters).

The Israeli military launched an airstrike on a school operated by the United Nations agency for refugees in central Gaza overnight, saying it was targeting Hamas. Local health officials said dozens of displaced civilians, including children, were killed in the attack (NBC News). Current and former U.S. defense officials who analyzed an image of the bomb remnants told NPR the Israeli military made improper use of a U.S.-made bomb in the deadly airstrike.

▪ Politico: On the brink of continent-wide elections for the European Parliament, populist right-wing movements appear to be surging in ways that could have a loud global echo.

▪ CNN: Here’s what’s at stake in the European Parliament elections this weekend.

OPINION

■ How to restore abortion rights in every state in America, by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), opinion contributors, The Hill.

■ We cannot repeat the mistakes of the 1930s, by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), opinion contributor, The New York Times.

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / AP photo, John Rooney | Victory in Europe (V-E Day) got a banner headline May 8, 1945, as Pfc. Clarence K. Ayers of Evansville, Ind., scanned the news and German prisoners arrived at the New York City pier.

And finally … Congratulations to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! We asked about D-Day, and readers knew the history drawn from June 6, 1944.

Here are the puzzlers who triumphed: Mark Roeddiger, Georgia Combs, Jack Barshay, William Chittam, Andre Larroque, Carmine Petracca, Jerry Leonard, Luther Berg, Luke Charpentier, Tom Chabot, Frieda Cromley, Rick Schmidtke, Richard E. Baznik, Stewart Baker, Donna Nackers, Harry Strulovici, Blair Mararasco, John van Santen, Lynn Gardner, Chuck Schoenenberger, Phil Kirstein, Steve James, Pam Manges and Mary Anne McEnery.

D-Day, the beginning of an unprecedented World War II battle to wrest western Europe from Nazi control, was given the code name Overlord by the allies.

A supreme command team, which formed in December 1943 to plan the naval, air and land operations for the 1944 D-Day assault in France, was led by U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Following the allied plan among 12 nations that launched on D-Day, 11 months elapsed before Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, when Germany surrendered.

Late on D-Day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to the nation for the first time about the massive operation that had been kept secret. Then-first lady Eleanor Roosevelt did NOT join her husband to add a few encouraging words (the correct false choice among quiz options).

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