The Hill’s Morning Report — Biden, GOP fish for votes with economic bait

President Biden on Thursday sharpened his warnings to voters: If Republicans are in charge in Congress, GOP “trickle-down” economic policies will raise costs for American families and “make inflation worse.”

“When I took office, the economy was in ruins,” he said during a speech in Syracuse, N.Y., before touting major legislative changes enacted under Democrats and aimed at fortifying America’s economic competitiveness and its middle class.

House Republicans, who sense that election results after Nov. 8 may deliver divided government, promised this week that a GOP majority would end “reckless spending” backed by the president’s party, “unleash” domestic petroleum and gas production with new pipelines and less federal regulation, and end government benefits they argue keep Americans from entering the workforce. 

“You’re not going to see the House of Representatives under Republican control passing $1 trillion boondoggles,” Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) told Bloomberg TV’s “Balance of Power” on Thursday. “To stop that is actually quite easy the moment we take the Speaker’s gavel away from Nancy Pelosi.” Steil is the senior Republican on the House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth.     

Biden’s challenge is that more Americans believe inflation already is sinking their prospects and that the economy is either in recession or poised to tumble over a cliff next year, and they tell pollsters they trust Republicans more than Democrats to fix it, according to a recent survey (ABC News).  

The economy, which contracted in the first and second quarters, began to grow again in the summer, according to data released Thursday by the Commerce Department. The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annualized rate of 2.6 percent between July and September, up from declines of 1.6 percent in the second quarter and 0.6 percent in the third quarter of 2022, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported.

The economy’s slow expansion added to fears of a looming recession — but also kept alive the hope that recession might be avoided (The Hill and The New York Times). 

“The irony is, we’re seeing the strongest growth of the year when things are actually slowing,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, told The Washington Post. “There are some real cracks in the foundation. Housing is contracting. The consumer is slowing. GDP is growing, but not for all of the right reasons.”

The Federal Reserve meets again next week and is expected to aggressively raise interest rates in a continued push to tame record high inflation at a time of low unemployment by trying to curb demand (The Wall Street Journal).

Biden on Thursday said Democrats want large corporations to pay more in taxes while Republicans seek to cut taxes for big companies and the wealthiest individuals. He is also challenging economic promises made by former President Trump without naming him and while skewering the “mega MAGA” ideas that he says would raise deficits, increase energy bills, result in higher costs for prescription drugs and health insurance and put Social Security and Medicare benefits at risk.

“Under the Republican plan, some big corporations are going to go back to paying zero again,” the president said, returning to themes familiar from the 2020 presidential contest. “That’s the plan. I would argue it’s reckless and irresponsible [and] that it will make inflation worse if they succeed.”

Biden repeated his complaint that oil companies are not passing on savings to consumers that the administration helped them secure on gasoline prices. “Last quarter, the five largest oil companies made … $70 billion in profit,” he said (The Washington Post).

▪ The New York Times: Biden stresses economic optimism, seeking contrast with Republicans.

▪ The Washington Post: Democrats play to fears of disorder seeking to turn liabilities on the economy into a political weapon.

▪ The Hill: House GOP lawmakers push permanent tax cuts amid soaring inflation.

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Related Articles

▪ The Wall Street Journal: U.S. mortgage rates top 7 percent, highest in more than 20 years.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Jobless claims rose slightly last week but remained near historically low levels.

▪ The Hill: Republicans sharpen knives for China with eye on House majority.

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LEADING THE DAY

➤ TECH

Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO, on Thursday closed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, officially taking ownership of the company. As one of his first moves, he fired top Twitter executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, Vijaya Gadde, the top legal and policy executive, and general counsel Sean Edgett (The New York Times). 

Musk is expected to take over as interim CEO but may eventually cede the role in the longer term, according to reports (Bloomberg News).

By completing the deal, Musk and Twitter have avoided a trial that was originally set to take place earlier this month after Musk sought to back out of the April deal. But he announced his intention to move forward with the purchase on Oct. 17, and on Wednesday visited Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco (CNN and The Wall Street Journal).

Amid concerns about changes to the platform under Musk’s ownership — including rumors that he may seek to reinstate the accounts of banned users including Trump — Musk on Thursday sent a message to the social media platform’s advertisers, saying “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape.”

“In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature,” he continued (CNBC).

▪ Quartz: The ways in which Musk could change Twitter on the inside and on the outside.

▪ The Washington Post: Twitter was already scrambling for the midterms. Now comes Musk.

▪ CNN: If Musk welcomes Trump back to Twitter, it could have major implications for the midterm elections as well as the 2024 presidential campaign.

▪ NPR: From Tesla to SpaceX, what Musk touches turns to gold. Twitter may be different.

Facebook parent company Meta, meanwhile, saw its shares plunge 24.5 percent Thursday as investors and analysts grappled with the company’s miss on third-quarter earnings and a weak fourth-quarter outlook, with one Wall Street analyst describing the report as a “train wreck.”

The company had reached its peak market value of $1 trillion in September 2021, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement in October that the company would rebrand as Meta Platforms and focus on the “metaverse” has been questioned by investors (CBS News).

But Meta isn’t the only Big Tech giant to see financial troubles, as the biggest tech stocks have lost $3 trillion in market cap over the past year (CNBC and NPR).

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IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ POLITICS 

Republicans are recalibrating their operations in the New Hampshire Senate race with 11 days until Election Day, write The Hill’s Caroline Vakil and Al Weaver, as recent polling shows Sen. Maggie Hassan’s (D) lead against Republican Don Bolduc shrinking.

Earlier this month, both the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm and a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) slashed their spending in the race to divert their resources to other battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia, given polls showing Bolduc trailing the Democrat. But a culmination of recent polling has the two polling within the margin of error, with a recent Emerson College poll showing a 3-point lead for Hassan over Bolduc, 48 to 45 percent (The Hill).

The Hill: Five takeaways from the New Hampshire Senate debate on Thursday.

First lady Jill Biden will campaign for Hassan this weekend, heading to Manchester and Portsmouth Saturday to support the senator and Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) (WMUR and The Hill). While the first lady is on the trail, the president will vote early in Wilmington, Del., on Saturday, according to the White House.

The Washington Post: Tuesday night’s Pennsylvania Senate debate between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz “didn’t hurt us too much,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told Biden on Thursday in comments caught on a hot mic.

Former President Obama on Friday begins a midterm campaign blitz to help Democratic candidates with an appearance in Georgia, to be followed by Michigan and Wisconsin on Saturday and events next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania (ABC News). “Barack Obama is the best messenger we’ve got in our party, and he’s the most popular political figure in the country in either party,” said Bakari Sellers, a South Carolina Democrat and political commentator.

A new study targeting a unique rural Nebraska town split between voting methods found that voting by mail raised turnout in 2020 for Republicans and Democrats alike, countering Trump-era arguments about fraud by Democrats.

The study, produced by a nonprofit that advocates for mailed ballots, focused on a farm town split among Nebraska counties. One county did the 2020 election by mail; the others did not. Turnout rose 8 percent in the side of town that mailed ballots (The Hill and The Washington Monthly).

The Hill: Progressives’ letter pressing Biden for a diplomatic approach to Ukraine and Russia erodes potential leadership prospects for Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Cracks are forming in what has largely been a united U.S. response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, with calls rising from the right and left for Biden to push harder for peace talks, writes The Hill’s Colin Meyn. Supporters of Biden’s approach say pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table now would only help Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is losing territory by the day. Those pushing for peace talks say diplomacy is the only way to end a war that has already killed tens of thousands. 

Putin on Thursday portrayed Russia as a champion of rising nations in a new “multipolar” world, which he demanded that Western powers begin to respect as equals. Speaking in Moscow, he blamed the West for the war in Ukraine, which he started with a full-scale invasion in February, and insisted that the U.S. could end the conflict by urging the Ukrainian government to seek peace (The Washington Post).

▪ The New York Times: Biden faces new challenges holding together a coalition to support Ukraine.

▪ The Washington Post: Pentagon: Ukraine to get advanced air defense systems early next month.

▪ Foreign Policy: Ukraine’s war is like World War I, not World War II.

In China, Wang Xiaodong, once called the standard-bearer of the country’s nationalism, now often fends off criticisms of being too moderate, or even a traitor. In a conversation with The New York Times, he says the nationalism he helped define has now gone too far.

“They’ve forgotten,” he told the Times, “I created them.”

▪ Bloomberg News: China wants to “speed up” its seizure of Taiwan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken says.

▪ U.S. News: China’s Xi Jinping says he is willing to work with the United States for mutual benefit.

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OPINION

■ The US should take Musk’s China entanglements much more seriously, by

Akhil Ramesh, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3U4K3YI

■ The US has an affordable housing shortage. Here’s what Congress can do to fix it, by Rachel Fee, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3FnNQMA

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WHERE AND WHEN

👉 YOU’RE INVITED: Have a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights? The Hill has launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE. 

The House meets at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session. Members are scheduled to return to the Capitol on Nov. 14. ​​

The Senate convenes on Monday at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session. Senators make their way back to Washington on Nov. 14. 

The president will travel at 5:30 p.m. from New Castle, Del., to Philadelphia to speak at 7 p.m. at the Philadelphia Convention Center to benefit the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and Democratic candidates running for governor and the Senate. Afterward, Biden will return to Delaware, where he will spend the weekend.

Vice President Harris will participate in a moderated conversation about protecting reproductive rights with Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) at Philadelphia’s Bryn Mawr College at 3:50 p.m. She will join the president and speak at the Philadelphia Convention Center this evening before returning to Washington.

Blinken will be in Montreal on Friday. The secretary and Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly at 9:25 a.m. will tour Lithion Recycling. They will meet with Les Filles Fattoush at 10:35 a.m. and host a conversation with Canadian leaders at 11:50 a.m. Blinken is scheduled to meet with members of the International Civil Aviation Organization Council at 1:50 p.m. in the province of Quebec’s most populous city.

Economic indicator: The Commerce Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on U.S. consumer spending in September.

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ELSEWHERE

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

The severity of COVID-19 infection and the symptoms of illness are affected by how many vaccine doses people received, according to new research (Fortune). People who completed their primary series or got one vaccine dose reported fewer symptoms over a “shorter period of time” compared to unvaccinated people, the study showed (CNBC).

The ZOE Health Study, a joint project between health science company ZOE and researchers from King’s College London, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard and Stanford University, recently shared an updated list of the top symptoms reported by more than 4 million users of the ZOE COVID Study app, which has tracked symptoms since 2020 based on daily user-entered data. 

▪ The New York Times: COVID-19 symptoms can rebound even if you don’t take Paxlovid as a treatment.

▪ CNN: People of color are less likely to receive a Paxlovid prescription within five days of symptoms, as well as other COVID-19 treatments, according to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Reasons for the disparities were not directly assessed but researchers suggest multiple contributing factors, including disparities in timely access to treatment facilities and patients’ distrust.

Information about COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot availability can be found at Vaccines.gov.

▪ The New York Times: OB-GYN residency programs face a tough choice on abortion training.

▪ The Hill and Axios: Health insurance premiums stayed flat in 2022, but inflation threatens an insurance premium spike for 2023.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,070,064. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,649 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

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THE CLOSER

And finally … 👏👏👏 Here, here for all Morning Report Quiz winners! This week, they Googled or guessed about U.K. prime ministers, past and present. 

🇬🇧 In the winner’s circle: Patrick Kavanagh, Tom Chabot, Bill Grieshober, David Letostak, Amanda Fisher, Ki Harvey, Harry Strulovici, Steve James, Randall Patrick, Robert Bradley and Terry Pflaumer.

They knew that the youngest British prime minister was William Pitt the Younger (his father was known as Pitt the Elder), who was 24 when he was appointed premier in 1783. 

Queen Elizabeth II, who was on the throne for 70 years and 214 days, served with the longest list of British prime ministers.

Robert Walpole wasprime minister for nearly 21 years, a record in British history.

U.K. prime ministers must first be welcomed by the monarch to officially begin as the head of government.

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