Morning Report — House holds Garland in contempt; GOP plots for 2025

Congressional leaders are sending clear political signals with their actions this week, hoping to appeal to their share of voters — and party leaders.

House Republicans, led by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress after he declined to turn over subpoenaed audio of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The 216-207 vote marked a win for the House GOP, after numerous members privately voiced concern over backing the measure. Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) was the lone GOP “no” vote.

With Republicans’ razor-thin House majority, Johnson could afford to lose only two votes if every member was present. The GOP already has the transcript of the relevant conversation, and while the president discussed no items relevant to their impeachment investigation, Republicans have nonetheless connected the issue to their probe (The Hill).

Democrats argued the move was an effort to aid an imploding impeachment probe, with Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) calling Garland “collateral damage for [this] failed effort to impeach the president of the United States.”

Axios: House Republicans’ campaign arm is already bashing Democrats for voting against holding Garland in contempt.

The vote came after Johnson met with Senate Republicans at a Wednesday lunch to begin setting an ambitious agenda for Washington if former President Trump is reelected and Republicans control both chambers of Congress. With that triple victory in mind, Republican leaders are honing a bold strategy to send a slate of promised policy priorities to Trump’s desk as swiftly as possible (The Hill).

“When he comes in, we’ve got to have a very aggressive first-100-days agenda,” Johnson said. “The first year will be important, and I think we cannot waste a moment because there’s so many things to do. So, in light of that, we’re having discussions with [him] and his team now, and amongst ourselves, to plan accordingly.”

Dovetailing with that agenda are culture war amendments that could be added to the House’s annual defense bill, threatening to turn the normally bipartisan legislation into a partisan one. The move would potentially complicate the bill’s path to final approval and create headaches for GOP leaders.

The House will vote this week on those amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act, including provisions to ban coverage of gender-affirming care for troops and repeal a Biden administration rule to reimburse service members for the travel costs of obtaining an abortion (The Hill).

Democrats, meanwhile, are focusing their efforts on reproductive rights, a key issue for the party going into November. Ahead of a planned vote on a Democratic-led proposal today, Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked a GOP effort to pass a bill to provide protections for individuals seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) access. Republicans have widely panned the vote on the bill as a “show” vote, which follows similar votes on contraception and the border in recent weeks.

The GOP bill, led by Sens. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), would ban states from getting access to Medicaid funding if they bar IVF services. (Democrats are actively targeting Cruz, who is up for reelection, this year.) Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) blocked the unanimous request, arguing that the GOP bill would not do enough to protect IVF access (The Hill).

“I am not going to mince words. It is ridiculous to claim that this bill protects IVF when it does nothing of the sort,” she said. “In fact, it explicitly allows states to restrict IVF in all sorts of ways. This Republican bill really is a PR tool, plain and simple. It’s just another way for Republicans to pretend they’re not the extremists that they keep proving they are.”

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LEADING THE DAY

POLITICS 

Trump never made it to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but he will be there today. Some House and Senate Republicans who fled the attacking mob blamed Trump and hoped he’d retreat to Mar-a-Lago for good. But 145 days from Election Day, the 2024 GOP presumptive presidential nominee, now a convicted felon who is leading Biden in most swing-state polls, wants to smooth over some of his rifts with GOP members of the House and Senate.

Trump’s strong following among voters is his calling card, and his message today in a closed-door session with Senate Republicans and a separate gathering with House conservatives will echo his boasts on the campaign trail: “Stick with me and we can win.”

The Hill: Johnson, Trump, GOP plot ambitious agenda hinged on total control of government.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is not a Trump fan, but he saves his public rebukes for Biden, “liberal bureaucrats” and concerns about the staying power of incumbent Democrats who are seeking Senate reelection on Nov. 5.

“I said three years ago, right after the Capitol was attacked, that I will support our nominee regardless of who it was, including him,” McConnell told reporters on Wednesday. “I said earlier this year I supported him. He’s earned the nomination by the voters all across the country. Of course I’ll be in the meeting.”

Trump previously derided McConnell as “old crow” and criticized McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, a former Trump Cabinet member. But that was then. This is now, The Hill’s Al Weaver and Brett Samuels report.

The Hill: Bullish GOP hones legislative plans for 2025.

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ZOOM IN

ECONOMY

Americans shopping for a house or a car and hoping for lower interest rates, as well as consumers who fear that higher prices are unrelenting (and unaffordable), will have to wait until fall or perhaps next year to see interest-rate relief, according to the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Still on the fence about whether the U.S. economic trend line for inflation is reliably downward, Fed Chair Jerome Powell explained that officials want to wait some more after penciling in one rate cut this year. “We’ll need to see more good data,” he said.

The central bank’s continued cautious perspective did not dampen Wall Street’s exuberance about a possible September rate cut and came hours after the government reported the consumer price index pointed to slowing inflation in May (CNBC).

Meanwhile, gasoline prices, which consumers confront frequently, are a mixed bag nationwide. California, Hawaii and Miami reported higher pump prices in the past week, yet flagging demand ahead of summer travel has contributed to lower gas prices elsewhere.

“Really, what we’re seeing right now with [declining] gasoline prices … has been driven primarily by seasonal and predictable economics,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told The Associated Press.

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ELSEWHERE

INTERNATIONAL

UKRAINE AT G7: U.S. officials are trying to get European allies on board for a deal to present at the Group of Seven summit of leading industrialized democracies this week about using interest from Russian frozen assets to support war-torn Ukraine, but discussions are still ongoing (Al Jazeera). Biden and Zelensky will sign a 10-year bilateral security agreement at the summit today that will pledge long-term defense and security cooperation (The Washington Post and ABC News).

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a series of new financial sanctions aimed at interrupting the growing technological links between China and Russia. U.S. officials hope European nations will take similar steps (The New York Times).

CEASE-FIRE TALKS: Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that Israel’s war in Gaza would go on after Hamas proposed “numerous” changes to a U.S.-backed cease-fire plan, some that he said were “workable” and some not. Speaking to reporters in Qatar, Blinken said the U.S. and other mediators will keep trying to “close this deal.” His comments came as Hezbollah fired a massive barrage of rockets from Lebanon into Israel to avenge the killing of a top commander, further escalating regional tensions (PBS NewsHour). Still, Blinken made clear his exasperation at both the changes Hamas proposed and the length of time it took to reply (CNN).

“Israel accepted the proposal as it was,” he reiterated, despite repeated public statements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that seemed to cast doubt on his approval. “Hamas could have answered with a single word — yes.”

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan denied that the group had put forward new ideas, while White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said many of Hamas’s proposed changes were minor “and not unanticipated” while others differed more substantially from the plan put before the U.N. (Reuters).

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THE CLOSER

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