Former President Trump was pummeled by conservatives and anti-abortion groups Monday when he announced he favors letting states handle abortion restrictions, but with exceptions some red states have rejected, and he warned that Republicans who criticize his stance are helping Democratic candidates.

Both parties say the emotional debate over abortion rights is energizing Democratic voters as well as some Republicans and independents, according to polls, and in close swing states, turnout will be everything. 

President Biden pounced on Trump’s remarks Monday and his campaign posted an ad that showcases dangerous health impacts experienced by some women. “Let’s be clear: Trump and his allies won’t stop until abortion is banned nationwide,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said in a statement.  

The Hill: The former president’s federal abortion dodge draws fire from all sides.

Trump, known for saying the quiet parts about politics out loud, crafted an announcement that appeared to endorse the preferences of all states — not just those that enacted abortion bans. He emphasized that the debate since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade cost Republican candidates and could hurt his party’s chances this year. Trump repeated that he favors exceptions in cases of rape, incest or a pregnant woman’s health, a position generally favored by majorities of Americans.

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee, who waited until he captured sufficient delegates before testing his fence-straddling abortion plank, hopes that loyalists who otherwise back him will stay the course come November, writes The Hill’s Niall Stanage. Trump lost no time before blasting ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for publicly challenging his position.

“Many Good Republicans lost Elections because of this Issue, and people like Lindsey Graham, that are unrelenting, are handing Democrats their dream of the House, Senate, and perhaps even the Presidency,” Trump wrote on social media.   

He took credit for putting a conservative majority on the high courtand said it is “now up to the states to do the right thing.” Trump later claimed he “won” against Democrats.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state,” Trump added via video. 

Graham broke with the former president by saying he favors a national ban in states on abortion beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy. “I will continue to advocate that there should be a national minimum standard limiting abortion at fifteen weeks because the child is capable of feeling pain, with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother,” the senator said.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, an abortion opponent who unsuccessfully challenged his former boss early in the GOP primaries, called Trump’s abortion platform a “slap in the face” to supporters (The Hill). 

In Florida, supporters of an abortion-rights referendum in November are mobilizing and fundraising, hoping to gather the necessary 60 percent approval from voters in defiance of the conservative Legislature and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed into law a ban on abortion that will drop from 15 weeks to six weeks of pregnancy next month. A coalition called Floridians Protecting Freedom spent millions to put the abortion question on the ballot this fall.

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3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:

▪ In Louisiana Monday, a restrictive transgender “bathroom bill” advanced out of committee. In Nebraska last week, a measure failed that would have banned transgender students from bathrooms and sports of their choice. 

▪ Pope Francis denounced gender-affirming surgery Monday as a threat to the unique dignity of a person.

▪ 🏀 For their second consecutive NCAA championship, the University of Connecticut Huskies defeated the Purdue Boilermakers 75-60 Monday, thanks to a “suffocating defense” and “balanced offense.”

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☀️ Eclipse mania: See you in 2044 in North America (2026 in northern Spain and Iceland)! Many from Mexico to Canada who ventured to witness the total solar eclipse appeared to be wowed Monday. “I’ll have driven 12 hours and change for two seconds of eclipse,” said Don Kelly, a retired police officer who traveled from Baton Rouge, La., to Canton, Texas, with his wife, Donna. “I’d do it again tomorrow,” he told The New York Times when it was all over.

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LEADING THE DAY

CONGRESS

GREENE VS. JOHNSON: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is facing a gauntlet when Congress returns today, where the GOP leader will seek to usher another round of aid for Ukraine — as well as Israel, Taiwan and border security — through his rebellious conference while a motion to remove his gavel hangs like an anvil over the debate. But the foreign aid portions of that proposition have grown increasingly unpopular within his conference, write The Hill’s Mike Lillis and Mychael Schnell, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has already unveiled a motion-to-vacate resolution, all but daring the Speaker to put Ukraine aid on the floor so she can force a vote on his ouster. 

“Funding Ukraine is probably one of the most egregious things that he can do,” Greene told CNN in an interview last week.

Senate Republicans want Johnson to stand up to the “chaos caucus” in the House GOP conference, warning that time is running out on the battlefront in Ukraine, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports. Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, acknowledged the Speaker faces a difficult situation, but he predicted he would survive any motion advanced by Greene or another conservative rebel to oust him.

“He needs to count the votes and I think there’s a substantial majority in the House who would vote in favor of the defense supplemental, and he needs to do the courageous and correct thing to stand by our ally,” Wicker said.

​​THE WINDING ROAD of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s impeachment is set to hit a dead end this week as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) prepares to do away with a trial, writes The Hill’s Al Weaver, sparing Democrats from a tough vote and upsetting Republicans who wanted to highlight the administration’s handling of the border. House Republicans impeached Mayorkas in mid-February, but the official transmission of the articles has been stuck in limbo while Congress worked to fund the government.

“My expectation is when we get this, we will dispose of this pretty quickly,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), relaying the message he got from Schumer recently. “We view it as a stunt. The Republicans view it as a stunt. That doesn’t mean some won’t vote for it, but no one views this as serious.”

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ZOOM IN

MORE IN POLITICS

PHILADELPHIA: No part of the country has seen more visits from Biden so far this year, or throughout his presidency. Winning the city, and its Democratic suburbs, by large margins is essential for the president’s hopes in November. But some Democrats are now saying that it is time for Biden and his campaign to widen their reach across the Keystone State, which he narrowly won by about 80,000 votes in 2020 (The New York Times).

“Biden tiptoed in the right direction in 2020,” said former Rep. Conor Lamb, a moderate Democrat who won a Pittsburgh-area district in 2018 that Trump carried by double digits. “And I think he needs to go much further this time.”

TRUMP IS EXPRESSING INTEREST in a more authoritarian potential second term in the White House, and Republicans increasingly seem inclined to support that goal. Polling shows the GOP’s appetite for a more powerful president has been slow in coming, but the emerging picture is that Republicans are remarkably on board with a president who isn’t answerable to Congress and the courts — significantly more so than Democrats (The Washington Post).

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ADMINISTRATION

STATE VISIT: Biden will host the leaders of Japan and the Philippines this week to boost economic and defense ties as the allies seek to offset China’s growing power and manage risks ranging from North Korea to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. His bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday will bring an upgrade in defense ties with Japan, a key ally in the Indo-Pacific region and an increasingly important global partner.

The two countries will make “historic” announcements that will take the U.S.-Japan alliance to “new heights,” ABC News reports. A senior administration official said Biden and Kishida’s announcements will focus on deepening defense ties and furthering cooperation between Japan and other allies. The summit is also expected to include steps that would allow the countries to work on joint development — and potentially co-production — of military and defense equipment (ABC News).

Reuters: Biden and Kishida are likely to discuss the first high-speed rail project in the U. S. using Japanese bullet trains, sited in Texas.

On Thursday, Biden will meet with Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos before the two join Kishida for a trilateral summit expected to focus on countering Chinese pressure on the Philippines in the disputed South China Sea (Reuters).

The Hill: The U.S., Britain and Australia are considering a possible expansion of their alliance, known as AUKUS, which has been hailed as a landmark coalition designed to counter Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

BIDEN ANNOUNCED A NEW PLAN Monday that would help millions of Americans lower or erase their student loan debt. The measure is focused in large part on borrowers with what’s referred to as “runaway interest” who owe more money than they did at the start of repayment. If finalized, the plan would likely go into effect this fall, but it risks being legally challenged by Republicans who don’t back student debt relief. The Hill’s Alex Gangitano breaks down five things to know about the proposal.

Justice Department: “Avoid conflict” was the advice Monday to House Republican chairs of the Oversight and Judiciary panels from the department’s legislative affairs chief in response to threats of contempt charges to get information tied to the president, which the department asserts the committees already have. 

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ELSEWHERE

INTERNATIONAL

ASSAULT ON RAFAH: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he has set a date for an assault on Rafah in southern Gaza. Far-right allies warned that his leadership post would not be secure if he did not launch an attack. The U.S. and other allies have increasingly put public pressure on Netanyahu not to carry out a major operation in Rafah in recent weeks. The city has become Hamas’s last stronghold but is also sheltering more than 1 million displaced Palestinians. Late Monday, Netanyahu insisted that Israeli forces would enter the city (The Hill and Financial Times).

“Victory requires entering Rafah and eliminating the terrorist battalions there,” he said in a statement. “This will happen; there is a date.”

HIS ANNOUNCEMENT comes on the heels of deadlocked truce talks between Israel and Hamas. Both sides sent teams to Cairo on Sunday for talks that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators, as well as CIA Director William Burns — who brought a new draft of a truce proposal. His presence underlined rising pressure from Washington for a deal that would free Israeli hostages held in Gaza and get aid to Palestinian civilians. Everyone agreed to study the new U.S. proposal, CNN reports, but given the difficulties of communicating with Hamas leaders who are believed to be hiding in Gaza’s vast underground tunnel system, getting a response can take several days (Reuters and Axios).

FOUR DAYS AFTER Israel promised to enable a major increase in aid reaching Gaza, it was unclear Monday whether much had changed amid widely divergent claims about the amount of food and other vital supplies entering the territory (The New York Times).

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned China on Monday that the U.S. will not accept new industries being decimated by Chinese imports, as she wrapped up four days of meetings to press her case for Beijing to rein in excess industrial capacity (Reuters).

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TRUMP WORLD

A NEW YORK APPEALS COURT denied Trump’s last-ditch bid to put his hush money trial on pause while he argues that the case should be tried outside of Manhattan. The decision followed arguments at an emergency hearing Monday where the former president’s lawyers contended that deep blue Manhattan is not an appropriate venue for the Republican former president’s criminal case to be heard.

Trump also appealed the hush money trial judge’s gag order and asked the appeals court to postpone the trial, set to begin April 15, until the issue is resolved (The Hill).

ABC News: Witnesses in Trump’s hush money trial are likely to include former members of his inner circle, sources say.

Special counsel Jack Smith urged the Supreme Court to reject Trump’s claims of immunity and prevent the former president from further delaying his federal election subversion case trial in Washington, D.C. In a Monday night filing, Smith argued Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal prosecution for his actions on Jan. 6 contracts the “bedrock principle” of the United States that no person, including the president, is “above the law” (The Hill).

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THE CLOSER

And finally … OK, we’re all done with blocking out the sun, and it’s safe to look up again. In about a month, you’re going to want to look down. At the cicada swarms, that is.

Trillions of cicadas will emerge from the ground, bringing with them their loud buzzing and molted exoskeletons (CBS News). Notice the word “trillions,” with a T.

By mid-May, both the cicadas that show up every 13 years and the every-17-year versions will dig out, arriving in numbers that have not been seen in generations. Scientists call it a double-brood emergence. The cicadas may be a harmless bounty for brave birds and curious cats, but for many humans, it will be an icky infestation of weird bugs that have pumps in their heads, astonishing urinary capabilities and a sexually transmitted zombie disease (The Associated Press).

🧹 A broom might come in handy.