Welcome to The Hill’s Morning Report. It is Thursday! We get you up to speed on the most important developments in politics and policy, plus trends to watch. Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver are the co-creators. Readers can find us on Twitter @asimendinger and @alweaver22. Please recommend the Morning Report to friends and let us know what you think. CLICK HERE to subscribe!
Total U.S. coronavirus deaths each morning this week: Monday, 601,825; Tuesday, 602,092; Wednesday, 602,462; Thursday, 602,837.
Senators from both parties said Wednesday that following weeks of proposals, counter-proposals and a shifting cast of determined negotiators, they tentatively agreed on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure “framework” that White House officials described in a statement as “progress.” Negotiators plan to brief President Biden at the White House today (The Hill).
The outline, according to negotiators, consists largely of details the bipartisan group previously disclosed: $559 billion in new spending, or roughly $1.2 trillion over eight years, according to news reports. Senators said both the top-line figures and ingredients to offset the price tag were locked in, but details were closely held.
The proposal remains iffy until senators receive Biden’s thumbs-up, colleagues are briefed and final details are drafted into legislative language.
“White House senior staff had two productive meetings today with the bipartisan group of Senators who have been negotiating about infrastructure,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. “The group made progress towards an outline of a potential agreement, and the president has invited the group to come to the White House tomorrow to discuss this in-person.”
The president initially began in March with a much larger $2.3 trillion proposal that reimagined infrastructure beyond roads, bridges, airports and broadband to include federal incentives for electric vehicles, expanded health care benefits and support programs Biden described as infrastructure for families, innovation and job creation.
Republican senators balked at Biden’s version, but said they could get behind a more modest measure with traditional infrastructure investments, no tax hikes and less generous new spending. Centrist Democrats insisted that infrastructure should be a bipartisan endeavor. Other Democrats in the Senate have prepared a fallback option to move ahead without GOP votes and a simple majority using the reconciliation budget tool, if necessary (The Hill). Talks began in earnest last month while the president met with groups of senators, reacted to their ideas and pledged patience as long as there was tangible progress.
The question is whether the framework plan that came together on Wednesday includes enough inducements to satisfy both parties and multiple regions represented in the 50-50 Senate, a more left-leaning House and the president, who promised voters last year that he possessed the experience to bring Congress together to deliver ambitious legislation that Americans supported.
The Washington Post: Bipartisan group of senators to brief Biden on infrastructure “framework” after potential breakthrough in talks.
The New York Times: Senators to meet with Biden on Thursday after potential breakthrough on a bipartisan infrastructure bill.
> What’s next for voting rights?: That’s the question congressional Democrats are asking themselves after Senate Republicans blocked the For the People Act and they wonder if it is at all possible to pass a voter rights bill in the coming months.
As The Hill’s Jordain Carney writes, progressive activists are expected to heap pressure on Democrats to act however they possibly can, with outside groups preparing an intense summer campaign and the White House set to ramp up its work on the subject. Where they go is another matter, as there is no clear path to passing any sort of bill through the upper chamber, though Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have maintained that they are not done dealing with the topic.
With an election overhaul bill languishing and the Democratic agenda falling behind schedule in Congress, senators are indicating that the August recess — or at least a portion of it — is in peril. For weeks, infrastructure talks have continued, and Democrats started work on a reconciliation package only last week, leading to a number of Democratic senators to call for working through at least a part of the month-long recess (The Hill).
The New York Times and The Associated Press: Democrats and activists focus on the filibuster after a defeat on voting rights.
The Hill: Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he’s “tired of talking” about Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).
Politico: “A lot of people are jaded”: Dems despair amid D.C. gridlock.
The Hill: Pelosi challenges Democrats on economic messaging.
The Hill: Tech antitrust bills create strange bedfellows in House markup.
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LEADING THE DAY
POLITICS: Young Black progressive mayoral candidates are defeating sitting incumbents and long-entrenched interests in Rust Belt cities this year, setting off political tremors, The Hill’s Reid Wilson reports. Black voters are electing their own mayors after going the distance last year to put Biden and Harris in the White House.
That trend continued on Tuesday night as India Walton, a nurse and community activist, knocked off Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown (D), who has held the position since 2006, by 7 percentage points (1,500 votes) with all in-person ballots counted. Walton’s victory was spurred on by intense grassroots support, coupled with a lax campaign effort by Brown, who refused to debate her ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
Assuming Walton wins in November, she will become the first socialist candidate to become mayor of a major American city dating back to 1960 (The Hill).
Elsewhere, The Hill’s Niall Stanage examined the lessons from Tuesday’s New York City mayoral contest. Paramount among them is the message that crime and public safety is among the most powerful on the political scene, with Eric Adams, the likely primary winner, having staked his candidacy on being the best option to curb the city’s spiking violent crime rates.
According to multiple polls ahead of Tuesday, crime was listed as the top concern for voters. The city’s murder rate soared to 45 percent last year, with homicides showing a 13 percent jump compared with the same period last year. Adams served for more than 20 years in the New York Police Department and has signaled his disdain for the “defund the police” movement.
Among the other takeaways are a division between the elites and the non elites. Kathryn Garcia won The New York Times’s endorsement and support in Manhattan. Another observation in the contest: celebrity for New York voters was not enough; Andrew Yang finished fourth and conceded.
The New York Times: What Did New York’s primary election mean for progressives? It’s complicated.
Politico: How Yang went from rock star to also-ran.
> GOP tiptoes into climate change repositioning: On Capitol Hill, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), plans to start a Republican task force on climate change. On Wednesday, Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) announced the formation of the Conservative Climate Caucus, aimed at educating his party about global warming and developing policies to counter what the caucus terms “radical progressive climate proposals.” As of Tuesday morning, 52 GOP House members had joined (The New York Times).
The Hill: Defense contractors ramp up donations to GOP election objectors.
> Hawkeye state of mind: Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is seeking to reverse her fortunes with Trump World and conservative activists as she prepares to address top Republicans in Iowa tonight.
Haley will headline the Iowa GOP’s annual Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, the latest step in an effort to rehabilitate her image in conservative circles after criticizing Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 riot. In the interim, the former South Carolina governor endorsed a number of female GOP candidates and has praised Trump publicly — all the while fueling speculation ahead of her potential own White House bid.
However, Republicans remain divided over whether the Trump base will reembrace her again, or whether that ship has sailed (The Hill).
Los Angeles Daily News: GOP in flux, former Vice President Mike Pence plans speech today at Reagan Library in Simi Valley.
IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES
ADMINISTRATION: Vice President Harris on Friday will visit the U.S. southern border just weeks after bluntly advising migrants “don’t come” to the United States and bristling at questions about why she had not made a personal trip to the border as Biden’s top emissary on immigration issues.
Harris — who told NBC News’s Lester Holt during a defensive June interview while in Guatemala, “I care about what’s happening at the border” — will visit El Paso, Texas, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Harris previously downplayed calls from congressional Republicans that she tour the southern border as vice president to survey the surge of migrants and federal immigration problems.
Harris’s public comments this month — and her awkward efforts to clean up those comments — invited international media attention and distracted from Biden’s direction to focus on the “root causes” of migration rather than what his detractors call a “border crisis.”
Harris’s trip this week is “part of a coordinated effort … to get the [migrant] situation under control,” Psaki said on Wednesday (The Hill).
The president and Harris have said there is no “quick fix” for decades of challenges posed by illegal immigration and Congress’s political foot-dragging through multiple administration about reforming immigration laws.
Former President Trump, known for wielding immigration as a campaign and governing weapon, will return to the southern border Wednesday. He will be joined by a group of House Republicans who say they want to further Trump’s “legacy” on migration issues (Politico).
Biden on Wednesday outlined new steps the executive branch is taking to try to curb violent crime at a time when cities are seeing spikes in murders and serious lawlessness. The prevention of crimes involving guns is a centerpiece of the administration’s summer strategy (The Washington Post). Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland (pictured below) also met with a bipartisan group of local law enforcement officials and community leaders on Wednesday (The Hill).
In California, some analysts point to Proposition 47 in 2014 and Proposition 57 in 2016 as turning points for crime rates. Law enforcement experts suggest the effects of the coronavirus and street gangs are triggers this year for a surge in violent crimes in California (NBC Los Angeles).
> Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday pleaded with lawmakers to lift the nation’s debt ceiling, which technically expires Aug. 1, to avoid default, which she called “unthinkable” (The Hill).
More administration news: Hispanic Catholics, a diverse cohort, are in the spotlight following the U.S. Catholic bishops’ vote to advance an effort to deny communion to politicians who support abortion rights, including the president (The Hill). … U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, who was expected to step down with the change of administrations, is leaving the agency and will be succeeded on an acting basis by Deputy Chief Raul Ortiz. Scott began his career with the Border Patrol in 1992 (CNN).
The Morning Report is created by journalists Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver. We want to hear from you! Email: asimendinger@digital-release.thehill.com and aweaver@digital-release.thehill.com. We invite you to share The Hill’s reporting and newsletters, and encourage others to SUBSCRIBE!
OPINION
Want to get Trump reelected? Dismantle the police, by Thomas L. Friedman, columnist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2SQGJ9T
A teacher pushes back against K-12 critical race theory indoctrination, by George F. Will, columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/35OOrnz
Why Facebook supports updated internet regulations
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WHERE AND WHEN
The House meets at 10 a.m.
The Senate meets at 10 a.m. to resume consideration of the Growing Climate Solutions Act of 2021.
The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10:15 a.m. He is expected to meet with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House to discuss pending infrastructure legislation. Biden will travel to Raleigh this afternoon to encourage people to get COVID-19 vaccines. He speaks at 5:15 p.m. before returning to the White House.
First lady Jill Biden will travel to Kissimmee, Fla., to visit a drive-thru coronavirus vaccine site at 2:15 p.m. and will be in Tampa at 5 p.m. to join the Tampa Bay Lightning and AdventHealth at the arena to encourage Floridians who signed up to get COVID-19 doses on the ice, along with photos, prizes and team swag. At 5 p.m., the first lady will deliver taped remarks as part of Dallas College’s commencement in Texas.
The vice president at 4:15 p.m. will meet virtually with organizations assisting in the promotion of COVID-19 vaccinations.
Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features news and interviews at http://digital-release.thehill.com/hilltv or on YouTube at 10:30 a.m. ET at Rising on YouTube.
ELSEWHERE
➔ INTERNATIONAL: Russia says it fired warning shots near Crimea at a British warship on Wednesday, asserting that the Royal Navy destroyer was in Russian territorial waters. Great Britain, however, provided a different explanation: No shots were aimed at the ship, and Russia had warned it was conducting a gunnery exercise (The New York Times).
➔ SUPREME COURT: Justices on Wednesday ruled 8-1 that a Pennsylvania school district violated the First Amendment by punishing a 14-year-old student for a vulgar social media message she sent while she was away from school grounds. The case was a victory for then-cheerleader Brandy Levy, who was off campus and using Snapchat with a friend to express her middle-finger unhappiness with school officials because she failed to make the varsity cheerleading squad. The school eventually saw the message and suspended Levy from cheerleading for a year, arguing such punishment was needed to “avoid chaos” and maintain a “teamlike environment” (The New York Times). … Also on Wednesday, the high court ruled that when police officers are pursuing someone suspected of a misdemeanor, a less serious crime, they cannot always enter a home without a warrant if a suspect enters. The case the justices decided Wednesday is important both to law enforcement and to groups concerned about privacy. But it does not give police a bright line for when they can and cannot enter a home to pursue someone suspected of committing a misdemeanor (The Associated Press and The Hill). … The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision Wednesday ruled that a California law allowing unions access to farms to organize workers is unconstitutional because it in effect deprives farm owners of their property rights without just compensation (Fox News). … And lastly, justices also ruled that the leadership structure of the Federal Housing Finance Agency was unconstitutional because of a provision that the president could only remove its director for cause, not at will. Hours after the ruling, Biden removed Mark Calabria, a libertarian economist appointed by Trump, as the regulator of U.S. mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Politico) and appointed Sandra Thompson to lead the FHFA (The Hill).
➔ ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT: After this year’s winter storm in Texas resulted in power outages that ultimately killed dozens, electric grid issues there and elsewhere are flaring up again in the summer heat. Experts told The Hill that more needs to be done to prepare the grid in both the summer and the winter as climate change will continue to exacerbate extreme weather conditions and lead to more issues (The Hill). … The week after one of the worst heat waves in the history of the Western U.S., a series of wildfires has already broken out unseasonably early, and experts say the heightened, dryer temperatures could make this season worse than 2020’s. The early fires are concentrated in the Southwest and Southern Rockies (The Hill).
THE CLOSER
And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by the first U.S. day of summer, which occurred on Monday, we’re eager for some correct guesses about headlines and history pegged to the season.
Email your responses to asimendinger@digital-release.thehill.com and/or aweaver@digital-release.thehill.com, and please add “Quiz” to subject lines. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.
A well-known U.S. fast-food chain this week had to change its menu because of a shortage of which summer food fav?
- Avocados
- Chicken wings
- Foot-long hot dogs
- Hoagie rolls
Can you match former U.S. presidents with summer jobs they had when they were young?
- Barack Obama
- Ronald Reagan
- Gerald R. Ford
- Richard Nixon
——————————-
- Carnival barker
- Park ranger
- Ice cream scooper and sandwich maker
- Lifeguard
The White House says Biden won’t meet a Fourth of July goal he publicly set for ____?
- Eating at least one ice cream cone or cup from all 50 states over his political career
- Welcoming a pet cat to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
- Signing into law a $2.3 trillion infrastructure and jobs bill
- Reaching at least 70 percent of the U.S. adult population inoculated with at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine
A well-known, expert organization predicted on Tuesday that a record 43.6 million Americans will ___ over the 2021 Fourth of July holiday.
- View fireworks
- Hit the roads to travel by car
- Head to a movie theater
- Attend professional sporting events
Some cities and states this summer are modifying popular recreational options for residents and visitors because of a shortage of ___, according to news accounts this week.
- Lifeguards
- Dog parks
- Bus drivers
- Insurance coverage
