Morning Report — Biden: Economy is fine and polls are wrong

President Biden defended his economic record Wednesday, citing a recent consumer sentiment report that he said backs him up.

His green-eyeshade defense using a university report was not the sort of sales pitch many Democratic candidates preferred from Biden, who visited Racine, Wis., a battleground state that may decide next year’s Oval Office occupant. Trump won Wisconsin by one point in 2016 and Biden won the state by a point in 2020.

The president, comparing his policies with those of former President Trump, rejected polls that show that voters trust Trump on the economy more than they trust Biden.

During an interview with CNN, the president was hard pressed to construct an accessible story about how his economic policies are affecting real Americans.

“We’ve already turned it around,” Biden said from Wisconsin. “The polling data has been wrong all along.”

In an unusual concession about an election-year vulnerability, he added that polls show voters “think the nation’s not in good shape, but [they think] they’re personally in good shape.”

Biden recommended voters “look at the markets’” for reactions to the recent 1.6 percent gross domestic product report for the first quarter, which indicated a slowing economy. Cooling indicators of output are expected to lower inflationary pressures. Democratic presidents for eons have argued that Wall Street bets are not the real economy; Main Street holds the tape measure.

Voters complain about inflation, rising gas prices, high interest rates, unaffordable housing costs and the sticker shock of college tuition. Voters gauge the health of any economy relying on what they see and experience. They blame incumbent presidents when they’re anxious, and they look to political challengers when they’re shopping for change.

Even some of Biden’s closest allies and surrogates have conceded that his economic sales pitch to Americans “is a work in progress.” Election Day is six months away.

Former President Bill Clinton, who transformed George H.W. Bush into a one-term president amid a recession, told an audience two months after his inauguration, “I’d a lot rather get beat trying to put people to work than get beat fighting putting people to work.”  

Biden conceded Wednesday that voters have many reasons for worrying their purchase power and their economic well-being have eroded. But he said 15 million jobs have been created during his term and wages are higher. He criticized Trump as invested in the wealthy, not the middle class, and as a spinner of economic promises, many of them illusions.

Reuters: Biden touts $3.3 billion Microsoft data center at failed Foxconn site Trump backed in Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Trump’s hush money criminal trial resumes today in Manhattan. And House Republicans on Wednesday underscored deep internal divisions by voting with help from Democrats to table a motion triggered by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to try to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). The vote to shield Johnson was 359-43-7, but both Republicans wound up weakened by the tempest. More about those events, below.

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LEADING THE DAY

CONGRESS

GREENE FADES: The Speaker on Wednesday easily survived a move by Greene to strip him of the GOP role he’s held for seven months. The House on a bipartisan basis overwhelmingly voted to table the Georgia lawmaker’s efforts to oust Johnson because she believes he’s collaborated with Democrats and backed more U.S. aid to Ukraine.

The Hill: These are the lawmakers who voted against tabling Greene’s measure to oust Johnson.

“I appreciate the show of confidence from my colleagues to defeat this misguided effort,” Johnson said after Wednesday’s vote. “That is certainly what it was … Hopefully,” he added, “this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress.”

The chamber voted 359-43-7, with Johnson receiving expected support from Democrats and Republicans alike. The final vote — which was widely expected amid bipartisan opposition to Greene’s gambit — deals a major blow to the Georgia Republican. Only 11 Republicans supported Greene’s motion, while 196 voted to keep Johnson in the Speaker’s chair. Democrats overwhelmingly voted to save Johnson, with 163 in support of keeping him and 32 against.

Johnson, who won the gavel in October following the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), will remain in the top job, but is now in the precarious position of being a GOP Speaker propped up by Democrats.

Members loudly booed Greene as she called up the resolution and jeered when she read it aloud. As she recited the measure, airing her grievances against Johnson in a more than 10-minute speech, Republicans lined up on the House floor to shake the Speaker’s hand and pat him on the back. Still, Greene made clear that even if her attempt to depose the Speaker were unsuccessful, she still saw value in publicly undermining him (The Hill and The New York Times).

“If he remains Speaker with” Democrats’ help, she said on social media, “he’s fully compromised.”

FLIPPING THE SCRIPT: Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) push to finish work on the bipartisan Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) reauthorization has put him square in the middle of a Senate fight, a position that is a far cry from those his colleagues are used to as he takes a mini-detour from his role as a conservative rabble-rouser. Cruz, the top Republican on the Commerce Committee, has played the lead role for the party throughout the push to re-up the FAA’s authority ahead of Friday’s deadline.

But the irony is not lost on lawmakers who have watched Cruz up close and personal, especially on government spending battles throughout the years.

“It’s been entertaining to be able to watch,” one Senate Republican told The Hill’s Al Weaver before quoting the movie “Airplane!” “What’s the old Hollywood joke? The foot’s on the other hand.”

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday went after the leaders of prominent U.S. K-12 school systems over what they say is a lack of enforcement when antisemitic incidents occur in their districts. New York City Public Schools Chancellor David Banks rebutted assertions and pushed back on lawmakers’ claims that the entire New York City public school system is antisemitic, noting that while some members of Congress have said antisemitic things, he does not cast all of Congress as antisemitic (The Hill). 

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ZOOM IN

INTERNATIONAL

NO U.S. WEAPONS: Biden on Wednesday warned the U.S. would stop supplying Israel with offensive weapons including bombs and artillery shells if Israeli forces launch an invasion of Rafah. His new red line emerges weeks after U.S. public demonstrations over the conflict in Gaza and months after he and other U.S. officials warned Israeli counterparts about the humanitarian repercussions of any military offensive in Rafah.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” told CNN. “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone in Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities — that deal with that problem.”

Israel has launched “targeted strikes” against the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians have taken shelter, though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a full-scale invasion is on the horizon.

Biden has grown increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu in private, and last month suggested in a call with the prime minister that the U.S. could reassess its support for Israel if it did not do more to protect civilians and humanitarian workers (The Hill and The Wall Street Journal).

NEGOTIATORS FROM ISRAEL AND HAMAS met in Cairo on Wednesday amid a renewed international push for a cease-fire in Gaza, though Israeli officials said that major gaps remain. In a sign of the growing urgency, Netanyahu met CIA Director William Burns on Wednesday afternoon in Israel, The New York Times reports. Burns has been shuttling across the region in recent days to try and clinch a cease-fire deal that would see the release of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

Hamas announced Wednesday it was unwilling to make more concessions to in truce negotiations, although talks were still under way in Cairo aimed at pausing Israel’s seven-month-old offensive (Reuters).

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the closure of the Rafah border crossing in Gaza meant health services in the southern part of the enclave would run out of fuel in three days. While Israel said it reopened a key Gaza border crossing in Kerem Shalom after a rocket attack, the United Nations said no aid has entered (Yahoo News and The Washington Post).

“All the fuel that entered Gaza went through Rafah crossing,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International. “The whole aid operation runs on fuel, so if the fuel is cut off, the humanitarian operation collapses. Water can’t be pumped. Lights cannot be kept on in hospitals. Vehicles cannot distribute aid.”

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TRUMP WORLD

FEDERAL CASES: Judge Aileen Cannon’s indefinite delay on Tuesday of Trump’s documents trial is placing yet another hurdle in the former president’s pathway to seeing trial in any of his federal cases ahead of the election. The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch reports Trump’s other federal trial is also facing roadblocks to reaching trial before the election, with proceedings in his Jan. 6 case on pause until the Supreme Court resolves a bid by the former president to toss the case by arguing he is immune from prosecution. If the cases don’t reach trial before November and Trump wins, his Justice Department would almost certainly drop all charges.

The Hill: Senate Democrats are venting their fury over Cannon’s decision to cancel the start date of the documents trial, accusing the Trump appointee of “deliberately slow-walking” the case.

A GEORGIA APPEALS COURT agreed Wednesday to review a lower court’s decision not to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) from prosecuting Trump in his election interference case in the state (The Hill). 

HUSH MONEY TRIAL: Trump’s hush money trial will resume today with cross-examination of adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who testified earlier this week. Judge Juan Merchan, during a Tuesday sidebar conference, warned the former president for “cursing audibly” while Daniels was testifying (The Hill).

“I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” Merchan said during the brief sidebar, which took place just before the court’s morning break.

The Hill: Is Trump still publicly railing about a New York gag order and fines for violations imposed on him by Merchan? You bet.

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ELSEWHERE

POLITICS

MEDICAL MATTERS: Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 70, has faced previously undisclosed health issues, including a parasite that he said ate part of his brain and died there (The New York Times). He has been hospitalized at least four times for atrial fibrillation, a common heart arrythmia that increases the risk of stroke, and he was previously diagnosed with mercury poisoning. “I have cognitive problems, clearly,” he said in the 2012 deposition. “I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.”  He says he has recovered from memory loss and has no aftereffects from the brain parasite. He declined to release his medical records, the Times reported.

CNN: Kennedy is officially on ballots in five states — Michigan, Utah, Hawaii, Delaware and California. His campaign says it’s gathered enough signatures to put him on the ballot in two more battlegrounds, North Carolina and Nevada, as well as Ohio, Idaho, Nebraska and Iowa.

Brick and mortar: Trump lobbied late Tuesday on social media in favor of keeping a new FBI building in Washington, although selection of a Maryland location was completed. It would be “the centerpiece” of his plan to “totally renovate and rebuild” Washington, D.C., if elected, he added. Keeping a new FBI headquarters in the nation’s capital, according to Trump, would be “important for ending violent crime, which I will do, quickly,” he wrote in all caps (The Hill).

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THE CLOSER