The Hill’s Morning Report — Twenty days to woo, agitate, frighten voters to cast ballots

In election years, candidates can inspire voters to cast ballots. They can anger the electorate to vote for political change. And they can stoke fear that such change dooms what voters hold most dear.

With 20 days until Election Day, this is the scary season. Ominous warnings, exaggerated portents and oversimplified promises are emanating from leaders in both parties this week — all geared to grab public attention and drive voters to participate, the earlier the better.

Democrats, increasingly nervous that Republicans are poised to gain control of the House next year and perhaps the Senate, have turned in part to U.S. bipartisan support for Ukraine to suggest that Republican dominance in Washington would undermine the global order and play into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has signaled that additional U.S. Ukraine assistance will get pushback from his caucus, especially if Republicans are in charge. He hopes to be the Speaker leading them. “I think people are going to be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” he told Punchbowl News in an interview “They just won’t do it.”

The Washington Post: McCarthy: GOP-led House likely to oppose more aid to Ukraine.

“I’m absolutely not supporting any further funding for Ukraine,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Daily Beast last month. His reasoning: U.S. economic priorities. “At a time when inflation is skyrocketing and Americans are struggling to afford basic goods, we must put the needs of our country first,” he added.

Rep. Tom Malinowski (NJ), a member of the same committee who is also one of the most vulnerable Democrats, said he feared additional Ukraine aid is at risk if conservatives gain control of the House. “It’s certain that the next Congress is going to have more members of the Tucker Carlson/Donald Trump wing of the Republican Party… and I fear they will seize any opportunity they can find to at least chip away at our support for Ukraine,” he said in September.

Flashback: In May, 57 House Republicans and 11 GOP senators voted against a $40 billion supplemental aid package for Ukraine. Such opposition will rise (The Hill).

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Tuesday echoed those concerns, noting that support for Ukraine brought Democrats and Republicans together in the Senate.

“It is bipartisan to date, close to 90 senators. Overwhelmingly bipartisan,” Warner told Bloomberg Radio’s “Balance of Power.”

“I do fear that there is this Trump-led, America-alone contingent that could have greatly increased power in the House, and a Republican House next year could undermine that support,” he added. 

“That would be bad for Ukrainians. That would be bad for our unity with NATO. That would be bad for the world stage because if Putin sees that isolationist approach, he will push that advantage,” Warner said.

President Biden, eager to motivate voters based on anxieties about a conservative majority on the Supreme Court and far-right control of some state legislatures, on Tuesday pledged to codify Roe v. Wade in federal law by next year — if Democrats control Congress (The Hill). It was a midterm mix of bluster and bait.

At the same time, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), during a Tuesday interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, said Democrats need more seats in the Senate to enshrine abortion rights into law, which is why, she said, they didn’t push for it this year in the current 50-50 Senate. 

“You think we would have gotten 60 [votes to break a Senate filibuster] — 10 Republican votes? Do you think we would have gotten 10 Republican votes? Oh, come on,” the Speaker said on MSNBC. She also noted that the Supreme Court’s June decision shifted the midterm messaging for Democratic candidates and that because her party was prepared to make its case, the issue of state abortion restrictions has complicated the political terrain for some GOP challengers. 

Not to be outdone when it comes to wooing voters with future policy promises while also playing to their fears, more than 30 House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a bill that would cut federal funds that support any “sexually-oriented program, event or literature for children under the age of 10” (The Hill). The bill says some school districts “encourage discussions” about transgenderism with kindergarteners.

The Washington Post: Gender identity lessons, banned in some schools, are rising in others.

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Related Articles

▪ The Washington Post: Hundreds of retired military veterans have taken lucrative foreign jobs with Saudi Arabia and other countries since 2015 that U.S. officials approved — but fought to keep secret. The Post went to court to obtain 4,000 pages of government records and has continued to sue to obtain withheld information. The Post found that many military retirees take foreign jobs or gifts without notifying the U.S. government at all. The armed forces and the State Department have no mechanism to identify such cases. New scrutiny by Congress and the administration is widely expected as a result of the reporting.

▪ Reuters and The Associated Press: Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador discussed migration “management” and security issues by phone on Tuesday. López Obrador said on Twitter following the call that Biden confirmed that he will travel to Mexico for a North American leaders summit, a face-to-face meeting that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is also expected to attend. A date has yet to be set for the meeting.

▪ The Hill: Lawmakers in both parties eye the lame-duck session to pass legislation that would allow cannabis businesses to access banking services. Time is running out, according to advocates.  

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LEADING THE DAY 

➤ POLITICS

Frayed nerves and high stakes have put midterm candidates on the offensive and made campaign attacks nastier — and more personal. Monday’s slate of debates, from Ohio to Utah to Georgia, showed just how on edge candidates are feeling less than three weeks out from Election Day (Politico and The New York Times).

For the second straight debate, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) went after Republican J.D. Vance for being too close to former President Trump. He said that Vance, once a prominent critic of the former president, was “calling Trump America’s Hitler. Then he kissed his ass.”

Vance, meanwhile, said Ryan’s “entire campaign is based on sucking up to the national Democratic establishment” and that the Democrat “says he’s reasonable, keeps saying he’s a moderate … but when he gets to Washington, he votes the opposite way,”(The Hill and Axios).

And it’s not just the debates that are bringing out more direct lines of attack.

In Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) is signaling that he’s ready to ditch his typically restrained persona in favor of more direct attacks on his Republican opponent Herschel Walker, writes The Hill’s Max Greenwood. In recent days, Warnock, who has built his campaign around his work in the Senate and a record of bipartisanship, has shifted toward more open confrontation with Walker. He used a Sunday debate that Walker did not attend to hammer the former football star over his history of domestic violence and leveled another series of attacks on Monday, accusing Walker of lying about everything from his academic credentials to his claim that he has worked in law enforcement.

The more pugilistic approach is likely to come as a relief to some Democrats, who have privately complained about Warnock’s tendency to play it safe and argue that the incumbent senator needs to do more to highlight Walker’s liabilities in an ever-tightening race. 

▪ NBC News: “Clearly not ready”: Warnock votes early and dials up criticism of Walker as dishonest.

▪ The Hill: Georgia smashes record for early voting.

▪ The Hill: Warnock calls out Walker for skipping debate: “Half of being a senator is showing up.”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) had a fiery debate with Democratic challenger Rep. Val Demings (Fla.) on Tuesday (The Hill), hours after the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its ratings for the race to “likely Republican” from “lean Republican” as the GOP’s midterm outlook improved in recent weeks (The New York Times and The Hill). 

In Pennsylvania, Republican Mehmet Oz has spent much of the campaign attacking his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, about everything from his views on crime to Fetterman’s use of captioning devices as he recovers from a stroke he suffered in May.

It’s working.

While Fetterman showed a comfortable double-digit lead over Oz when the latter won his primary, a new AARP Pennsylvania poll found Fetterman receiving 48 percent support among likely voters polled in the state, compared to Oz at 46 percent. That polling falls within the margin of error, which is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, effectively tying the two candidates (The Hill).

But some of the attacks have come from inside the parties’ own ranks.

Former President Trump on Monday angered Republicans when he criticized Colorado Senate nominee Joe O’Dea, writes The Hill’s Al Weaver, leading GOP officials to wonder if he cares about his party winning back a majority in the upper chamber. O’Dea, a pro-choice moderate Republican, against whom Democrats spent $4 million in the primary, was already in an uphill fight against Sen. Michael Bennet (D), but Trump’s opposition comes at the worst time possible. Ballots began to be distributed in Colorado on Monday.

“It certainly is not [helpful],” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a Trump ally, told The Hill. “I would hate to see O’Dea lose to Sen. Bennet by a few votes just because Donald Trump urged Republicans not to vote and we came up short of the majority by one senator. If Mitch McConnell opposed every Republican nominee who criticized him publicly, we wouldn’t stand a chance.”

The former president has a long history of attacking those in his own party, starting back when he was a candidate in 2016 (The Washington Post). Since then, various GOP candidates and lawmakers have fallen in and out of Trump’s favor, especially those who have criticized him or supported the impeachment proceedings he faced in 2020 and 2021 (MSNBC and The New York Times).

Semafor: Trump’s plan to kill mail ballots in Pennsylvania.

Democrats, meanwhile, fear they hit their stride too early in the campaign cycle. Three weeks ahead of Nov. 8, the midterm contests appear favorable for Republicans, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton writes, leaving Democratic leaders to play the blame game.

Former President Obama stepped into the spotlight over the weekend by calling some Democrats “buzzkills” for being too quick to scold fellow Americans for not being woke enough, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is eyeing a run for president in 2024, says the party didn’t go big enough in passing bills to help Americans struggle to cope with the cost of living. Other Democrats are pointing the finger at Biden’s low approval rating and the historic headwinds faced by the president’s party during midterms.

Politico: Future Democratic stars at risk of getting wiped out in the midterms.

One last wildcard in these midterms may turn out to be older voters, who often prove indecisive, writes The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld. While an AARP poll released earlier this month showed their motivation to vote remains high, only 49 percent of women aged 50 or older and 48 percent of men in the same age group have determined who they will vote for in November.

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IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Russia’s escalation of its attacks on Ukraine is pushing Moscow’s war into a new phase against Kyiv, writes The Hill’s Laura Kelly. The use of Iranian “kamikaze drones” to target critical infrastructure ahead of the winter months raises the stakes for the U.S. and its allies to quickly send air defense systems to the country and puts pressure on the White House and the European Union to punish Tehran amid tentative talks to revive a fraying nuclear agreement.

Iran has agreed to ship more missiles and drones to Russia, defying the West. The deal, which was reportedly brokered on Oct. 6, was first reported by Reuters on Tuesday.

One of the drones Iran agreed to supply is a delta-winged weapon used as a “kamikaze” air-to-surface attack aircraft. It carries a small warhead that explodes on impact, and attacks from these drones left at least four dead in Kyiv on Monday (NPR).

▪ The New York Times: Iran sends drone trainers to Crimea to aid the Russian military.

▪ Politico EU: Planning for the chaotic post-Putin world.

▪ The Washington Post: Germany removes cyber chief accused of ties to Russia.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen held a virtual meeting on Tuesday with Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal and reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to support Ukraine and disburse $4.5 billion in recently approved budget support, now bringing the U.S. total to $13 billion through grants. Yellen acknowledged Ukraine’s “significant financing needs next year,” according to the department (Reuters).

After a difficult first six weeks in office, British Prime Minister Liz Truss faces harsh questions about her political future after her sweeping economic plan — complete with tax cuts for the wealthy amid painful high inflation for most Brits — met with widespread criticism and sent the U.K.’s fiscal picture into a tailspin (NPR). 

Truss, who has been assailed from all quarters, will field questions today from members of the House of Commons.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: U.K. inflation reaches 10.1 percent as government reversals cloud outlook.

▪ The New York Times: In Europe, bread prices are up 18 percent from a year ago as flour prices soar 30 percent.

▪ The Wall Street Journal and Le Monde: Striking French workers seeking higher wages and demonstrators who took to the streets across France on Tuesday to protest inflation and escalating energy prices are a sign of turmoil facing French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders.

▪ The New York Times: French cement company to pay $780 million over payoffs to ISIS.

➤ ENVIRONMENT 

Research shows that people all around the country are being impacted by perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known as PFAS, and may not even know it, writes The Hill’s Rachel Frazin.

PFAS are a large, complex group of manufactured chemicals that are ingredients in various everyday products such as nonstick cookware and stain-resistant fabrics. These chemicals do not degrade easily in the environment and a recent study found more than 57,000 sites that the chemicals have presumably contaminated.

Their widespread use and persistence in the environment mean traces of PFAS can be found in the blood of people and animals all over the world as well as in food products and the environment. There are significant numbers of communities suffering from the impact of PFAS, although possibly unaware of the cause, said study author Alissa Cordner. 

“There absolutely are more Parkersburgs out there,” she said, referring to a community in West Virginia known for residential exposure to PFAS. “There are more places that have decades of accumulated contamination that we just don’t know about because the testing hasn’t been conducted.”

The Hill: Elevated energy costs will not hit U.S. regions evenly and could impact lower and middle-income families this winter as they struggle with rising expenses. 

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OPINION

■ Republicans’ secret economic agenda? A global financial crisis, by Catherine Rampell, columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3TaTLZF 

■ Liz Truss is finished, by Tanya Gold, guest essayist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3MDJwdY

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WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets at 11 a.m. on Friday for a pro forma session. Members are scheduled to return to the Capitol on Nov. 14. ​​

The Senate convenes Thursday at 9 a.m. for a pro forma session. Senators make their way back to Washington on Nov. 14. 

The president will receive the President’s Daily Briefing at 10:45 a.m. Biden will have lunch with Vice President Harris at 12:15 p.m. He will discuss energy security at 1:15 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room. Biden will speak in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building about the bipartisan infrastructure law at 3 p.m. with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

The vice president will have lunch with the president. She has no other events on her public schedule.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Philadelphia today and will speak at the unveiling of a mural dedicated to the late former Rep. Robert N.C. Nix Sr. (D-Pa.) at 1:15 p.m. Blinken at 2 p.m. will speak at the opening of a new Passport Agency facility and a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services naturalization ceremony. The secretary at 2:25 p.m. will administer the oath of allegiance to candidates for U.S. citizenship gathered in Philadelphia.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf at 9:30 a.m. will visit a Walgreens location in Northwest Washington, D.C., to talk with seniors about the availability of over-the-counter hearing aids for mild hearing loss. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), an author of the law that made the change, will participate.  

First lady Jill Biden will speak at the Communities In Schools leadership town hall conference at 11:15 a.m. in Washington. She will visit with staff and volunteers at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., at 5 p.m. 

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 12:15 p.m.

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ELSEWHERE

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

Experts are nervously eyeing a swarm of COVID-19 variants that could drive the next wave of infections, The Washington Post reports. One or multiple versions of the existing omicron variant could fuel a winter surge. “It is this constant evolutionary arms race we’re having with this virus,” said Jonathan Abraham, an assistant professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School.

Information about COVID-19 vaccine and booster access can be found HERE.

Moderna will supply up to 100 million doses of COVID-19 booster shots to vaccine alliance Gavi for distribution in lower-income countries in 2023. The vaccines will be distributed through Covax — a World Health Organization initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines (Bloomberg News).

The administration has a new strategy to combat a future pandemic. The National Biodefense Strategy calls for the U.S. to produce a test for the new pathogen within 12 hours of discovery and a sufficient vaccine supply to protect the nation within 130 days (Bloomberg News).

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which ended national protections for abortion access, a growing army of activists is funneling abortion pills from Mexico into states that have enacted restrictions. Community-based distributors are reaching pregnant women through word of mouth or social media to supply the pills for free, which comes with legal and medical risks for both recipients and suppliers (The Washington Post).

Bloomberg News: The rise and fall of the COVID-19 billionaires.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,065,868. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 321, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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THE CLOSER

And finally … ☄️ One of the brightest and most powerful explosions in space ever recorded by telescopes came to Earth’s attention on Oct. 9 as a gamma ray burst. Scientists believe the creation of the long, bright pulse occurred when a massive star in the Sagitta constellation — about 2.4 billion light-years away — collapsed into a supernova explosion and became a black hole. The star was likely many times the mass of our sun (CNN).

It’s the kind of experience scientists gush about because it’s rare and technology has made it possible to discern the events and record them. 

“Because this burst is so bright and also nearby, we think this is a once-in-a-century opportunity to address some of the most fundamental questions regarding these explosions, from the formation of black holes to tests of dark matter models,” Brendan O’Connor, a doctoral student at the University of Maryland and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.

According to NASA, gamma ray bursts are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang and can release more energy in 10 seconds than Earth’s sun will emit in its 10 billion-year expected lifetime. Gamma rays and X-rays set off detectors installed on NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Wind spacecraft, as well as ground-based telescopes, including one in Chile.

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