Morning Report — Biden assails ‘extreme’ Trump, Supreme Court 

Some Democratic officials have argued recently that President Biden’s view of former President Trump as a threat to democracy gives Trump too much credit. 

More “weird” and “creepy” than existential threat.

Biden is having none of it. Although no longer a presidential candidate and fully behind Vice President Harris to make the political case against Trump, the president Monday accused the former president and his acolytes of being extremists who want to trample on the Constitution and U.S. institutions.

Biden accused conservative Supreme Court justices of being so eager to turn back the clock on rights, transparency and freedoms that substantial court reforms, including enforceable ethics rules, are required. Congress won’t agree with the president’s proposals anytime soon, but Biden and Harris know that polls show the public disapproves of the high court and views the conservative majority on some issues as activist, politicized and unanswerable to outside authority.

Since 2021, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, blocked gun control measures, rejected affirmative action in college admissions, and backed immunity from prosecution for presidents, most prominently Trump. Biden, formerly a Senate Judiciary Committee chair, called immunity a “dangerous principle” and has joined Democrats in taking his reform themes directly to voters in an effort to defeat Trump, hold the Senate and try to install Democrats in the majority in the House.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) described as “radical” Biden’s ambitions to amend the Constitution to bar blanket immunity from prosecution for current or former presidents, limit Supreme Court justices to 18-year terms and create enforceable ethics rules so that justices are no longer self-policing on recusals and receipt of gifts. Biden opposes calls from within his party to expand the high court beyond nine justices.

“We must restore faith in the Supreme Court,” Biden said during his speech at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.

Trump, during a pre-taped interview with Fox News Monday, said “the Democrats are good at spinning things.” During a friendly conversation with host Laura Ingraham, he said he prefers to run against Harris and defended Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), his running mate, as a Republican who “likes family.” 

Trump sidestepped a commitment to debate Harris, insisting voters know him and know his opponent. “Probably,” was his reply.

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LEADING THE DAY

CAMPAIGN POLITICS

POLLING: Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, has made strides in some polls against Trump, performing somewhat better than Biden before the president withdrew from the contest. But The Hill’s Jared Gans writes it’s impossible to gauge voter sentiment or make election forecasts as analysts recalibrate survey models to assess a Harris-Trump match-up. Scott Tranter, the director of data science for Decision Desk HQ, said he could make an argument that either Trump or Harris is in the preferable position, underscoring how up in the air the race is.

“I could probably give you one or two good points, case for either of them, and that’s the mark of a true 50-50 race,” he said.

The trail: Harris is in Atlanta this evening for her first rally since launching her campaign for president. In addition to nabbing Georgia endorsements, Harris will receive a crowd assist from rapper Megan Thee Stallion (real name Megan Pete), who will perform. 

SOME GOP SENATORS think Trump should have picked a female running mate or a person of color to help broaden his general election appeal, but they think Vance may help the ticket in Midwestern states and in battleground Pennsylvania. The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports reception of Vance is divided in the upper chamber, as Trump’s running mate faces a barrage of negative press.

“I would assume he’s not real happy,” one Republican senator said of how Trump is handling the barrage of negative publicity that’s hit his running mate over the past ten days. “I don’t think Trump likes any discomfort — he can create discomfort himself — but he doesn’t like external discomfort coming in and JD’s struggling.”

A number of House Republicans last week privately bashed Trump’s choice, warning that Vance will not help — and could hurt — the party’s chances of winning in November.

Meanwhile, Vance keeps feeling the wrath of childless women across the nation for his resurfaced comment about “childless cat ladies.” And the Trump campaign has spent the past week trying to clean up after other controversial comments, including previous interviews in which Vance took a position on abortion much stronger than Trump’s (The Washington Post).

“Some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it’s just plain weird. I mean that’s the box you put that in,” Harris said of Trump on the campaign trail Saturday.

As Harris’s honeymoon ebbs, The Hill’s Niall Stanage asks five key questions about her campaign, from how she’ll deal with vulnerabilities on migration to if she can win over voters who are angry about Gaza.

Veepstakes: North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, 67, who had been seen as a leading contender to become Harris’s running mate, withdrew from the shortlist Monday, The New York Times reports. According to The Associated Press, Cooper opted out in part due to concerns that his GOP lieutenant governor would try to assume control if he left the state to campaign.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, 42, is all over the airwaves as a Democratic surrogate and much-mentioned potential vice presidential pick. What’s the reaction among some Democratic strategists?

Organized labor is leading a quiet push for Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Axios reports. The Great Lake State is a crucial battleground for Democrats, and strong union backing could make Peters an attractive strategic option for Harris.

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ZOOM IN

INTERNATIONAL

ISRAEL IS WEIGHING a potential response to the deadly Hezbollah attack on a soccer field over the weekend that killed 12 people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed Hezbollah will “pay the price” after the rocket attack in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights in a town dominated by the Druze minority Muslim group, writes The Hill’s Brad Dress. The U.S. has tried to defuse tensions between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel for months with little success as both sides teeter toward a larger war. Israel is already discussing whether a military operation is needed in Lebanon, and the weekend attack could boost the arguments of those advocating for war. 

On a visit Monday to the site of Saturday’s deadly strike, Netanyahu said Israel “will not, and cannot, ignore this,” before vowing to retaliate. “Our response will come, and it will be severe” (The Washington Post).

Amid the potential for an outbreak of a wider war, The Hill’s Laura Kelly reports the Biden administration’s efforts to secure a cease-fire and hostage release in Gaza is taking on increased urgency.

CONCERNS OVER the legitimacy of Venezuela’s presidential election persist as its entrenched president, Nicolás Maduro, and the country’s opposition candidate, Edmundo González, both claimed victory Monday — prompting other countries, including the U.S., to hold off on recognizing the results. Maduro has provided continuity to the single-party rule of the Chavistas, the socialist-inspired political movement turned authoritarian regime. It remains unclear what the opposition’s next steps will be, but González said it is not calling for supporters to take to the streets or commit any acts of violence (The Hill and NBC News).

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ELSEWHERE

CONGRESS

SENATE NEGOTIATORS are punting consideration of their full-year Department of Homeland Security funding bill, which was set for consideration Thursday, as both sides work to find bipartisan agreement. The Senate Appropriations Committee was slated to consider the measure, along with four other full-year funding plans, as it works to pass all 12 annual government funding bills.

Congress has roughly two months until a late-September government shutdown deadline, and the Senate leaves Washington for five weeks starting Monday. While the Senate has yet to pass any of its funding bills across the full floor, the House has so far passed five appropriations bills for fiscal 2025. But the House struggled to pass multiple other funding bills last week and began its recess a week early (The Hill).

BIPARTISAN TASK FORCE: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) Monday announced the seven Republicans and six Democrats who will sit on the task force to investigate the assassination attempt against Trump. The Republican chair of the panel will be Rep. Mike Kelly (Pa.), who represents Butler, Pa., where the shooting took place and who was present in the front row during the rally (The Hill).

STATE WATCH

California and Colorado: The Golden State’s Park fire burned more than 726,000 acres in four counties as of Monday, roughly half the size of Rhode Island, and was only 12 percent contained, according to state officials. It’s the sixth largest wildfire in California’s history. While firefighters worked, the Alexander Mountain Fire in Larimer County, Colo., north of Boulder, ignited in a northern section of the Roosevelt National Park. That fire was initially estimated to be burning about 247 acres at midday Monday, but has now spread to more than 950 acres, according to the National Park Service.  

Texas: A GOP-dominated panel sought to blame Houston power outages during Hurricane Beryl on failures by CenterPoint, the Lone Star State’s largest utility. A select committee of the Texas state Senate grilled executives from a Houston-area power company Monday about the utility’s storm preparations (The Hill).

Strategic Petroleum Reserve: Oil stockpiles managed by the Energy Department and held in Louisiana and Texas caverns that were drawn down by the Biden administration in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have been replaced by purchases and sales cancellations, the government said in a detailed accounting Monday. 

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THE CLOSER

And finally … 🚀 Their trip to space has turned into an unexpected extended stay. NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams left for a planned eight-day mission on the International Space Station in early June on a Boeing Starliner. Now, more than 50 days later, they’re still in orbit.

Their trip to the space station has been extended indefinitely while NASA and Boeing determine what went wrong with their spacecraft. And while engineers on the ground examine why several of the Starliner spacecraft’s thrusters failed on the way to the station, the astronauts in space have to work, too.

“We’ve been thoroughly busy up here, integrated right into the crew,” Williams said during a briefing with reporters. “It feels like coming back home. It feels good to float around. It feels good to be in space and work up here with the International Space Station team. So yeah, it’s great to be up here.”

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