Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

The House is in recess but members of the Freedom Caucus are dominating the headlines after confirming they voted in July to oust Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from their ranks.

Members confirmed Thursday that the decision occurred weeks ago, marking yet another sign of internal House Republican upheaval that could serve to undermine their political trajectory or governing agenda while the White House and Senate are under Democratic control (Politico).

The ouster occurred two days after Greene, known for attracting headlines with her conservative activism, got into a verbal floor spat with colleague Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) during which she called the Freedom Caucus member a “little bitch.” 

“I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was publicly saying things about another member in terms that no one should,” Freedom Caucus board member Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) told Politico and CNN.

It’s the first time the conservative caucus ejected a member and reflects the group’s increasing level of frustration with Greene. She has emerged this year as a close ally of embattled Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has faced internal opposition from some of his far-right colleagues. McCarthy has struggled to keep his narrow four-seat majority in line, most recently having to diffuse a week-long standstill on the House floor orchestrated by Freedom Caucus members (The Hill and CNN).

Greene, however, stood up for McCarthy against many Freedom Caucus members during his 15-ballot marathon to win the speakership and again when he cut a deal with President Biden to lift the debt ceiling in exchange for two years of spending caps. The firebrands to McCarthy’s right have questioned the wisdom of cutting deals with the White House and were unhappy with McCarthy’s concessions, which the Speaker described as “a start” on GOP goals for budgetary restraint.

Amid chatter that Greene may not be the only Freedom Caucus member who gets purged from a group that’s invitation-only, a Freedom Caucus spokesperson declined to comment Thursday about Greene’s status, noting that the group doesn’t discuss internal business. It is unclear if the process of ejecting Greene is officially complete as members are still out of town and the rules for kicking out a member of the Freedom Caucus are tightly held.

Greene did not address her membership status directly, instead saying in a statement that she will “never change” her character, and that, “in Congress, I serve Northwest Georgia first, and serve no group in Washington.”

Since the June 23 Freedom Caucus vote to boot Greene, Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.), and Greene have had multiple conservations, NBC News reports, but a Republican source familiar with those conversations said Perry has not directly notified Greene that she has been kicked out, with another source adding Perry has not brought up the subject because he wants to sit down and talk to Greene about it in person, likely next week.

Axios: Greene drama looms over House GOP’s return next week.

Democrats, meanwhile, are likely eyeing the fractious Republican conference as they consider their 2024 strategy. As The Hill’s Caroline Vakil and Al Weaver report, the party needs to pick up five seats in the House next year to secure the majority — more than a dozen of which are held by Republicans in Biden-won districts.

Democrats see a clear path to victory in the House even as they worry about losing the party’s narrow majority in the Senate, where they are defending 23 Senate seats, including three in states won easily in 2020 by former President Trump. If Biden wins a second term, the party believes it will win back the House and likely elect Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as the first Black Speaker in the nation's history.    

Related Articles

▪ The Hill and USA Today: Biden, who is headed for Greene’s district, trolls the Georgia lawmaker to make his Bidenomics case: “I’ll be there for the groundbreaking.” 

▪ The Atlantic: Proportional representation — a radical idea for fixing polarization.

▪ Roll Call: Being a lawmaker is the latest leap for career-hopping Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.). The former helicopter pilot and nurse won in the top swing district in the country.

▪ Reuters: Inside the subsea cable firm secretly helping America take on China.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS 

What needs to change in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaign to add momentum at this stage of the GOP presidential primary? The New York Times reports that the first-time national candidate by most measures has had an underwhelming start, as reflected in polls, and is struggling to make his case against former President Trump. He’s been dogged by missteps ranging from a glitchy campaign launch on Twitter Spaces, a schedule that irritated a GOP women’s group in New Hampshire, and an anti-LGBTQ campaign video that takes aim at Trump, but required a public defense from the governor as “totally fair game.”

DeSantis on Thursday reported raising $20 million since launching his presidential campaign May 24 (Trump reported raising $35 million in the second quarter) (The Hill).

The Hill’s Julia Manchester adds that some Republicans are sounding the alarm over the Florida governor’s sagging presidential bid. 

2024 roundup: Trump and DeSantis must sign a loyalty pledge to support the eventual GOP presidential nominee if they want to get on Florida’s primary ballot, according to the state party, which is acting in lockstep with the Republican National Committee’s similar requirement attached to its August debate in Milwaukee (The Hill). … As expected, Trump’s personal aide, Walt Nauta, pleaded not guilty Thursday in a federal court in Florida to criminal charges that he obstructed a Justice Department investigation to retrieve classified White House documents stored at Mar-a-Lago (The Hill). … Biden touted manufacturing job growth Thursday during an official event at a plant in South Carolina. He bashed some Republican lawmakers for opposing laws now on the books while simultaneously hailing key infrastructure improvements and other provisions that benefit their districts (The Hill). Accompanying the president: Palmetto State political influencer Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.).  … The reelection campaign behind Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), a top GOP target next year, raised $5 million in the first quarter (The Hill). … Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson continues to lose campaign staff (Politico).

👉 Former President Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter celebrate their 77th wedding anniversary today in Plains, Ga. The 39th president is 98 and has been in home hospice care since February. The former first lady is 95 and has dementia (The Associated Press).

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Biden approved providing cluster munitions, widely banned weapons known to cause grievous injury to civilians, especially children, to Ukraine. It’s a step that sharply separates him from many of his closest allies who have signed an international treaty banning their use, stockpiling or transfer. The weapons are iffy and error-prone, and Biden would bypass Congress and a 1 percent limit it placed on cluster munition dud rates, The Washington Post reports, drawing down the munitions from existing defense stocks under a rarely used provision of the Foreign Assistance Act, which allows the president to provide aid, regardless of appropriations or arms export restrictions, as long as he determines that it is in the vital U.S. national security interest.

The move comes amid concerns about Kyiv’s lagging counteroffensive against entrenched Russian troops and dwindling Western stocks of conventional artillery. Biden has come under steady pressure from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who argues that the munitions are the best way to fight the Russians who are dug into trenches and blocking Ukraine’s counteroffensive to retake territory. One American official told The New York Times Thursday that it was now clear that the weapons are “100 percent necessary” to meet the current battlefield needs.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia are stoking fears of a massive disaster at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — the largest in Europe — even as independent experts at the site say there is no evidence of an impending attack. Still, as The Hill’s Brad Dress reports, worries are compounded by the similarities with the dam breach in Ukraine last month, when both Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of planning attacks before its collapse. Even if neither side attacks the plant deliberately, the Russian-occupied power plant could be caught in the crossfire as Ukraine pushes forward in its counteroffensive across the eastern front. 

Wagner Group mercenary Yevgeniy Prigozhin returned to Russia Thursday for cash and guns, according to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and a St. Petersburg businessman in an interview. The Wagner chief’s movements raised further questions about the murky agreement under which Prigozhin avoided insurgency charges for a failed rebellion that posed a brazen challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority. Lukashenko said Prigozhin had been back in his home city of St. Petersburg and may have flown to Moscow Thursday morning. Lukashenko said a final deal for relocation of Prigozhin and his fighters to Belarus was not settled (The Washington Post).

▪ Reuters: Russia and Ukraine announce prisoner exchange.

▪ Politico EU: Zelensky mauls Bulgarian president Rumen Radev over his opposition to arming Ukraine.

▪ The Washington Post: Russia to close Finnish Consulate in St. Petersburg, expels diplomats.

▪ Al Jazeera: Analyst: “Uneasy ceasefire” between Wagner, Russia after mutiny.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in Beijing for high-level talks, said Friday she is “concerned” about the export controls China announced this week. Beijing's Ministry of Commerce announced Monday that starting Aug. 1, companies in China that want to export two metals used in semiconductor manufacturing would need to apply for licenses (Reuters).

“I am also concerned about new export controls recently announced by China on two critical minerals used in technologies like semiconductors,” Yellen said in prepared remarks for a meeting with U.S. businesses. “We are still evaluating the impact of these actions, but they remind us of the importance of building resilient and diversified supply chains.”

Her comments underscored the challenges that the world’s two largest economies face as they struggle to reconcile their deep differences. Yellen’s trip follows Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s high-stakes Beijing visit last month, and comes as China’s economic growth has slowed. The secretary met with Premier Li Qiang and in prepared remarks, she defended American actions to protect its national security. Among several measures, the U.S. in October announced sweeping export controls that restrict the ability of Chinese businesses to develop advanced semiconductors.

“The United States will, in certain circumstances, need to pursue targeted actions to protect its national security,” Yellen said Friday. “And we may disagree in these instances.”

Yellen is not scheduled to meet with President Xi Jinping (CNBC and The New York Times).

▪ Bloomberg News: Climate change envoy John Kerry to visit China in a bid for progress in climate crisis talks.

▪ Bloomberg News: China’s Li said Thursday, without offering specifics, that his country’s recovery is at a critical stage and he vowed speedy measures. 

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Israel shells southern Lebanon amid fears of a multifront escalation.

▪ The New York Times: An Israeli court acquits a police officer who killed an autistic Palestinian man. The shooting of Iyad al-Hallaq, who was killed in May 2020, around the same time as George Floyd, casts a light on police violence.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ ADMINISTRATION

Millions of Alzheimer’s patients and their physicians learned Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration approved Leqembi, granting full regulatory blessing to a new drug that may slow the progression of the disease, albeit amid debate about the medication’s efficacy, safety and costs. Other available drugs target the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (NBC News).

Medicare says it will cover most of the drug’s high costs. 

Leqembi, from Japanese drugmaker Eisai and U.S.-based drugmaker Biogen, targets a type of protein in the brain called beta-amyloid, long thought by scientists to be one of the underlying causes of Alzheimer’s. In a phase 3 clinical trial of 1,795 patients with mild cognitive impairment or early-stage disease, progression of the illness was slowed by 27 percent during an 18-month period. 

Ronald Petersen, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., told NBC in an email that Leqembi is not a cure, nor does it stop the disease. “It’s a first step for hopefully more therapeutics in the future,” he said. 

Alberto Espay, a neurologist at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, said the 27-percent slowing in the progression of the illness falls below the threshold of what would be "noticeable" to a patient.  

“The odds for brain swelling and hemorrhage are far higher than any actual improvement,” said Espay, who launched a petition in June raising concerns about full approval of Leqembi by the FDA. 

About 12.6 percent of patients who received the drug in the trial developed brain swelling, compared with 1.7 percent of those in a placebo group. About 17 percent of the Leqembi group experienced brain bleeds, compared with 9 percent in the placebo group. 

The side effect is also seen with another Alzheimer’s drug, Biogen’s Aduhelm, which also works by targeting amyloid in the brain, NBC reported. Three deaths were also linked to the drug in the clinical trials.

▪ The Hill: FDA approved an Alzheimer’s therapy that cannot fix cognitive damage or halt the disease but slowed cognitive decline in some patients during clinical trials.

▪ The New York Times: The FDA added a black-box labeling advisory to Leqembi, warning of safety risks.

▪ The Hill: Alzheimer's drug approval unlikely to ease tension over coverage.

OPINION

■ Furor over the Supreme Court could be the key to Biden’s reelection, by Austin Sarat, opinion contributor, The Hill. 

■ Ron DeSantis is running one freaky campaign, by Frank Bruni, columnist, The New York Times.

■ Here’s the inside story of how Congress failed to rein in Big Tech, by Steven Pearlstein, columnist, The Washington Post.

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will meet at 2:30 p.m. for a pro forma session on July 10. Lawmakers return July 11 to the Capitol.

The Senate will convene Monday at 3 p.m. and resume consideration of the nomination of Xochitl Torres Small to be deputy secretary of Agriculture.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will deliver remarks at 3:30 p.m. about administration efforts to combat “junk insurance,” reduce the problem of medical debt and lower some prescription drug costs for consumers. He’ll depart the White House at 6 p.m. for his home at Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Vice President Harris is in Washington and has no public events scheduled.

Treasury Secretary Yellen is in Beijing Friday. She met with Vice Premier Liu He. She also met with leading representatives of the American business community, hosted by AmCham China. She participated in a bilateral meeting Friday with Premier Li Qiang. She attended a dinner (it was morning, Washington time) with leading Chinese economists hosted by the think tank CF40, to discuss the economic outlook for the United States and China. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will travel to Brighton, Mich., to the Brighton Center for Specialty Care to speak to a group and then meet with the news media at 11:05 a.m. ET to discuss lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) will participate. The secretary will travel to Detroit for an afternoon roundtable event at the Detroit Health Department with elected state officials, providers and advocates who support access to reproductive health care. The secretary will meet with the press at 1 p.m. ET.

Economic indicator: The Labor Department is scheduled to release the June employment report at 8:30 a.m. (The Wall Street Journal).

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ UNIONS

The Teamsters’ representation on behalf of UPS Inc. workers is in the spotlight because its actions are seen as a possible warm up to take on Amazon, The Hill’s Aris Folley reports. The company and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ended talks this week without agreement (CNN). 

Over the weekend, UPS had agreed to end a dual-wage system for delivery drivers, make the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday a paid leave day plus other changes to end what the union calls “forced overtime on drivers’ days off” (Yahoo News).

The current contract ends July 31. The stakes are high for UPS’s union workers, who say they want better wages and work conditions. Experts say the pressure is on the Teamsters, which could put tech behemoth Amazon in its sights after UPS.  

▪ Fortune: UPS drivers move closer to a strike after negotiations break down at 4 a.m. amid finger-pointing fracas.

▪ Reuters: UPS, Teamsters accuse each other of walking away from contract talks.

▪ Memphis Commercial Appeal: What would a UPS strike mean for FedEx? What the experts say.

Meanwhile, workers are concerned major automakers are using the transition to electric vehicles to undercut labor conditions, writes The Hill’s Rachel Frazin, complicating the politics of an issue that is emerging as a point of contention in the 2024 election. 

The powerful United Auto Workers union, which has historically supported Democrats and backed Biden in 2020, has so far withheld an endorsement from the president in his ongoing reelection bid, saying they want more backing from the White House before they can support him.  

▪ CNN: White House takes steps to avoid damaging auto strike.

▪ Politico: The upcoming contract talks between the Big Three automakers and a newly energized United Auto Workers union threatens to pose a political threat to Biden’s reelection campaign.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 👏👏👏 Kudos to triumphant readers who dove into this week’s Morning Report Quiz about 🦈 sharks.

Here’s who made a splash in the winner’s circle: Lynn Gardner, Anita Bales, Catherine Hicks, Robert Bradley, Timothy Bolden, Luke Charpentier, Kathleen Kovalik, Pam Manges, Harry Strulovici, Randall Patrick, Bill Grieshober, Lou Tisler, Stanley Wasser, Mary Anne McEnery, Patrick Kavanagh, Paul Harris, Terry Pflaumer, Steve James, Luther Berg, Mark Roeddiger, J.A. Ramos and Jaina Mehta. 

They knew that Long Island parks department employees said they used aerial drones Tuesdayto spot sharks before reopening a beach to swimmers following the season’s first shark bites.

The odds of dying in a shark attack are estimated to be 1 in 3.7 million.

The late author Peter Benchley wrote the novel “Jaws” when he was 27 and soon became a millionaire. Before that career bonanza, he worked as a newspaper stringer, a speechwriter for former President Lyndon Johnson and was in the Marine Corps Reserves, so the best answer was “all of the above.” 

Sharks do have predators among marine animals, including orcas or killer whales, so the answer is “false.”

Stay Engaged

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Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

President Biden is eager to pitch “Bidenomics” in South Carolina today as well as the idea of expanded NATO membership ahead of a European summit next week, but reporters and some of Biden’s political rivals are glued to a Secret Service investigation into how cocaine turned up in the West Wing over the weekend while the president was miles away at Camp David.

Recall that in November, Biden’s representatives found classified documents in his former Washington office space just before the midterm elections, then later found more sensitive materials in his Delaware garage, which led to a Justice Department special counsel investigation, which has not ended.

Expect the unexpected.

In every reelection playbook and white paper for governing, something goes off course — an insurrection at the Capitol, a Chinese weather balloon over Montana, Hunter Biden’s forgotten laptop tumbling into GOP hands, overnight bank failures. 

CNBC and NPR: Tasked to try to ease U.S.-China tensions, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrived in Beijing this morning. 

In their wake, hearings, investigations, internal probes, court actions and crisis meetings fill headlines and inflame social media.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) argued Wednesday on Fox News that in the case of Hunter Biden’s past business dealings and what his father knew of his international consulting clients, Republicans in Congress want the facts.

“I don’t know if Mr. Hunter Biden committed a crime. I sure don’t know if President Biden committed a crime,” he added.

▪ The Washington Post: Cocaine found Sunday in the White House near where guests enter the West Wing.

▪ Politico: “It’s a bit of a thoroughfare. People walk by there all the time,” said one law enforcement official, describing the West Wing basement entryway where many people have authorized access. 

The president, who will speak at a South Carolina tech plant today, wants the public to focus on a surge in U.S. manufacturing jobs on his watch. (Biden is counting on the Palmetto State to give him a decisive Democratic first-in-the-nation primary victory in February.)

But this week’s cocaine-in-the-West-Wing headlines, which spawned more questions than whodunit answers, left imaginations to fill in the blanks, which former President Trump and GOP presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis each rushed to do Wednesday (The Hill). Trump suggested on Truth Social, his megaphone, that Biden, Biden’s son, or even Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting him for alleged crimes related to the mishandling of classified documents, might have something to do with the cocaine found in a West Wing location accessible to visitors. Smith, Trump said, “looks like a crackhead to me.”

The special counsel and his team continue to investigate Trump for his alleged actions and those of his associates during a push to overturn the 2020 election results.  

Related Articles

▪ USA Today: Will UPS workers strike? The Teamsters union and the company ended talks without a new contract.

▪ The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal: Here’s what to know about Meta’s new Threads, its so-called “Twitter killer” app for conversations, built by Instagram. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday that Threads had 10 million sign-ups within seven hours of its launch.

▪ The Hill: The White House is facing backlash about its decision to reactivate interest for student loans as part of its “on-ramp” repayment program, which progressives and advocates argue isn’t enough to help struggling borrowers after the Supreme Court shot down Biden’s loan forgiveness plan.

▪ Politico: Voters don’t love Bidenomics, but markets are coming around. Leading economists at big banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have lowered their odds of an imminent recession.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ ADMINISTRATION

The administration will appeal a judge’s order that experts fear would make it harder to combat a potential “Wild West” of disinformation online as next year’s elections loom (The Hill). A federal judge this week temporarily limited communication among government officials and social media companies following a GOP-led legal challenge.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served in the Obama administration, slammed the judge’s order as “pretty stupid and potentially dangerous” (The Hill).

As courts increasingly reckon with free speech issues on social media, the laws around online speech could drastically change (The Hill). 

🇺🇲 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services propose that updated naturalization testing next year should add a speaking section to assess English skills. An officer would show photos of ordinary scenarios, such as daily activities, weather or food, and ask applicants to verbally describe the photos. Immigrants believe such changes would make it more difficult to attain citizenship among those with limited English proficiency (The Associated Press).

💊 A new class of Alzheimer’s medication, if covered by Medicare, could be a breakthrough for patients and extremely costly for taxpayers. A bitter battle about the Food and Drug Administration's expected decision this week to approve the drug Leqembi, which could slow the progression of the disease, is playing out among Medicare officials, advocacy groups and lawmakers (STAT News). Some physicians say the effectiveness of the expensive drug is limited. Medicare has been cautious about the projected costs. Lawmakers and advocates side with patients. The fight is likely to continue, and the new drug will not be the last to target Alzheimer’s.

➤ INTERNATIONAL

A mystery deepens. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Thursday the Wagner Group’s fighters and their mercenary leader, Yevgeny Prighozin, are not in Belarus, despite Prighozin’s announced exile there after a short-lived mutiny attempt. Prigozhin threw Russia into turmoil days ago after launching his attack against the Kremlin's military leaders, setting up a direct confrontation with President Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said during a rare news conference that Prigozhin was in his hometown of St. Petersburg, despite the Kremlin’s assertions that he had been banished (NBC News). 

Meanwhile, a Russian missile attack on Ukraine's western city of Lviv killed at least four people and wounded at least eight in one of the largest attacks on Lviv’s civilian infrastructure since Russia invaded Ukraine last year. It destroyed entire floors of a residential building and left streets below covered in rubble (The Associated Press). 

Experts from the U.N. nuclear watchdog based at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine have yet to observe any indications of mines or explosives at the plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Wednesday. Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday accused each other of plotting to stage an attack on Europe's biggest nuclear power plant, where the IAEA has repeatedly warned of potential catastrophe from nearby military clashes (Reuters).

The Kremlin has suggested it could be open to a possible prisoner exchange involving jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, but reaffirmed that such talks must be held away from the public eye. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow and Washington had touched on the issue when asked whether Monday’s consular visits to Gershkovich, who has been held behind bars in Moscow since March, and Vladimir Dunaev, a Russian citizen in U.S. custody on cybercrime charges, could potentially result in a prisoner swap (The Guardian). 

“We have said that there have been certain contacts on the subject, but we don’t want them to be discussed in public,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “They must be carried out and continue in complete silence.”

▪ The Guardian: The Kremlin denies Chinese President Xi Jinping urged Putin not to use nuclear arms in Ukraine.

▪ The New York Times: A Russian inmate hoped to start over with a clean slate by fighting in Ukraine. Instead, he was confronted by the drudgery of trench work and the terror of battle. “You’re going in as meat,” he said he was told.

▪ Bloomberg News: Ukraine has caught up with Russia’s tank numbers, data show.

The Biden administration is in a mad dash to get Turkey and Hungary to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO when leaders meet next week in Lithuania. As The Hill’s Laura Kelly reports, Turkey has held back on ratifying Sweden’s accession over criticisms that Stockholm harbors Kurdish groups that Ankara views as a threat. The public burning of a Quran by an Iraqi refugee outside a mosque in Stockholm last week has drawn further condemnation from Turkey. 

In another complication, Hungary’s foreign minister said Tuesday that Budapest will not ratify Sweden’s accession until it gets the green light from Turkey. Adding Sweden to the alliance at the NATO summit is viewed as a key signal of member-states stability and solidarity in supporting Ukraine against Putin’s war while the Kremlin grapples with the fallout of the Wagner Group mutiny attempt. Biden met with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at the White House on Wednesday in a show of support for Stockholm. 

Biden told Kristersson that he was “anxiously looking forward” to the country’s acceptance into NATO. Both leaders emphasized the potential benefits that could come from adding Sweden to the group during their White House meeting, and Biden told reporters it was “very important” for both Sweden and the U.S. to have the Nordic country join NATO (The New York Times). 

“We also do think that we have things to contribute,” Kristersson told Biden as they met in the Oval Office.

Bloomberg News: Turkey snubs U.S. pressure on F-16s as Biden meets the Swedish premier.

The Israeli military said all forces left the West Bank Wednesday and “its goals have been achieved” after previously saying it was targeting Palestinian terrorists. This comes after a car ramming and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday left eight people injured. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement and said it was a response to Israel’s ongoing military operation in Jenin (CNN).

▪ CBS News: Israel ends deadly raid in West Bank Palestinian refugee camp, but warns it won't be “a one-off.”

▪ The Washington Post: What is happening in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, and why now?

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Taiwan’s impossible choice: Be Ukraine or Hong Kong.

▪  The Hill: Downed North Korean satellite had “no military utility,” South Korean officials say.

▪ Vox: France’s protests over a police killing, briefly explained.

The story of how as many as 750 migrants came to board a rickety blue fishing trawler and end up in one of the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwrecks is bigger than any one of the victims. The trawler left from the Libyan port city of Tobruk on June 9. Just 104 survivors have reached the Greek mainland. Authorities have recovered 82 bodies, and hundreds more have been swallowed by the sea (The Washington Post).

The Washington Post: Tracing a tragedy: How hundreds of migrants drowned on Greece’s watch.

The French-American Foundation, established in 1976, on Wednesday named Edward Wallace, co-chair of New York law firm Greenberg Traurig, which represents clients in Paris, as chairman.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ POLITICS 

💰The money chase: Candidates are beginning to tout their campaign hauls during the quarter that ended in June. Totals raised and spent will be reported by the Federal Election Commission later this month.

Trump’s campaign says it raised $35 million in the three months through June, which was double the contributions the former president raised during the first quarter (Politico). … Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) says his campaign raised $4 million for his reelection bid, reports The Hill’s Al Weaver.   

2024 roundup: In Illinois, Rep. Mike Bost (R) will be challenged in the GOP primary by former Illinois GOP gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey (The Hill). ...In Nebraska, state Sen. Tony Vargas (D) announced Wednesday he will again challenge Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) after a close midterm defeat. Democrats see the 2024 contest as a chance to flip a Republican-held seat outside of a blue state (Nebraska Examiner). … In New York, former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D) announced he will compete in a 2024 Democratic primary with aspirations to flip the House seat held by Republican Rep. Mike Lawler (Politico and The Hill). … Hunter Biden’s lawyers blast House GOP investigation (The Hill and The Hill). … Former GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman (Va.) is working with the legal team representing the president’s son amid congressional inquiries (CBS News). … Iowa GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds called the legislature back to the Capitol for a special session next week to consider legislation to restrict abortions after she lost in the state supreme court last month (Des Moines Register). … California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) campaigned for Biden in Idaho Saturday as part of political outreach efforts in red states that build his own base (Los Angeles Times). …GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley will hold a town hall at 6:30 p.m. in North Conway, N.H. (The Conway Daily Sun).

Violence: Mass shootings and gun violence continue to lead national headlines following Fourth of July weekend mayhem and a grisly summer of fatalities. The trend remains politically divisive, with scarce national consensus behind proposed gun safety legislation or federal, state or local prevention initiatives. “This country needs to re-examine its conscience and find out how to get guns out of dangerous people's hands,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (D) said after five people were killed and four injured in his city on Monday night by a gunman dressed in a ski mask and bulletproof vest (ABC News). … Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants to revive efforts that have thus far been largely unsuccessful to pass new legislation on guns as Biden renewed his call on Wednesday to ban assault weapons. The target? Suburban women (The Hill). 

Trump world: The former president posted what he claimed was former President Obama’s address on June 29, the same day that authorities arrested an armed man living in his van nearby who had retweeted Trump’s post and created his own threats using Obama’s name on Telegram, prosecutors said Wednesday (The Associated Press).  … Trump’s personal aide Walt Nauta is expected to enter a plea in a Florida federal court today in the classified documents prosecution in which he’s named as a co-defendant. His plea was postponed when he failed to hire a Florida lawyer to represent him and failed to appear in court on time because of travel snarls. Separately, Trump has been ordered by the court to respond by Monday to the Justice Department’s proposal for a December trial date (MSNBC).  

OPINION

■ The Supreme Court didn’t put racism on a leash. It granted it license, by Charles M. Blow, columnist, The New York Times. 

■ Putin’s nightmare: the risk of “disorder,” by Ronald H. Linden, opinion contributor, The Hill.

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will meet at noon for a pro forma session; lawmakers return July 11 to the Capitol.

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session. Members return to Washington July 10.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9:30 a.m. Biden will fly to South Carolina to speak in West Columbia at 1:15 p.m. at Flex LTD, a Singapore-based electronics components manufacturer and global supply chain company with employees in 30 countries (WYFF). The president will return to the White House this afternoon.

Vice President Harris will fly from Los Angeles to Phoenix with second gentleman Doug Emhoff to visit the Gila River Indian Community and speak midday about administration policies supporting tribal and Native American communities. The vice president will visit the Pima Maricopa Irrigation Project at 2:45 p.m. AT. Harris and Emhoff will depart Arizona to return to Washington by 11 p.m. ET.

Treasury’s Yellen arrived in Beijing at 4:30 a.m. ET Thursday ahead of meetings with senior Chinese government officials this week. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Georgetown, Guyana, to meet with President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, Foreign Minister Hugh Todd and other top officials.

Economic indicator: The Bureau of Economic Analysis will report at 8:30 a.m. on international trade in May.

ELSEWHERE

➤ HEALTH & WELLBEING

🥤 Aspartame, a common artificial sweetener used in a wide range of foods and beverages, is about to be declared a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — a branch of the World Health Organization (WHO). In mid-July, the agency is set to declare that aspartame is “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” A separate WHO committee that develops recommendations on how much of a product is safe plans to simultaneously release guidelines aimed at answering consumers’ questions about how much aspartame they can safely consume.

As consumers try to figure out what to add to and ban from their shopping carts, Vox explains aspartame’s path from the lab to refrigerators — and what might set an IARC statement about a product’s safety apart from the assessments made by other agencies consumers trust with these decisions.

💉 Influenza, COVID-19 and RSV vaccines: Americans will be encouraged to roll up their sleeves not just for flu shots but for two other vaccines this year — one of them entirely new — in an effort to prevent a repeat of last winter’s “tripledemic” of respiratory illnesses. Federal health officials have already asked manufacturers to produce reformulated COVID-19 vaccines to be distributed later this year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently took an additional step in endorsing two new vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus for older Americans.

The three shots for respiratory and other viruses — flu, COVID-19 and RSV — may help to reduce hospitalizations and deaths later this year. But uncertainties remain about how the vaccines are best administered, who is most likely to benefit, and what the risks may be (The New York Times).

▪ NBC News: Barriers to transgender health care lead some to embrace a do-it-yourself approach.

▪ Axios: A Medicaid payment proposal for health aides rankles home health companies.

THE CLOSER

Take Our Morning Report Quiz

And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Alert to headlines about hazards during the Fourth of July weekend, we’re eager for some smart guesses about 🦈 sharks.

Be sure to email your responses to asimendinger@thehill.com and kkarisch@thehill.com — please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

Long Island over the weekend reported its first shark bites of the season and employees with the parks department briefly closed one beach when a school of about 50 sand sharks appeared. What did the parks team use on Tuesday to look for sharks before reopening a beach to swimmers, according to reports?

1. A submersible
2. Boats
3. Sonar
4. Aerial drones

The odds of dying in a shark attack are estimated to be ______.

1. One in 3.7 million
2. One in 500 million
3. One in 100,000
4. One in 500

The late author Peter Benchley wrote the novel “Jaws” when he was 27 and soon became a millionaire. Before that career bonanza, what did he do?

1. Newspaper stringer
2. Speechwriter for former President Lyndon Johnson
3. Marine Corps Reserves
4. All of the above

Sharks have no known predator among marine animals.

1. True
2. False

Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on Twitter (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!

Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

The appropriations clock is ticking.

Fresh off a successful effort to raise the debt ceiling, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) now faces what might amount to an even tougher challenge: preventing a government shutdown without sparking an all-out revolt within his own conference. House GOP leaders will return to Washington next week after an Independence Day recess with one major item on the summer docket: moving 12 appropriations bills to the Senate and putting pressure on upper-chamber Democrats to swallow some Republican priorities.

But as recent events — namely a days-long standstill of the House floor orchestrated by a small number of right-wing members protesting McCarthy’s debt deal — show, that process will be far from easy. The GOP conference is sharply divided in its approach to 2024 spending, pitting centrists and leadership allies — who concede the need for a bipartisan compromise on government funding — against conservative hard-liners demanding deep cuts, back to 2022 levels, in defiance of the deal McCarthy cut with President Biden in June.

The dynamics set the stage for a punishing July for McCarthy and GOP leaders, who are racing to win over the conservative holdouts and move the spending bills with just a razor-thin majority that allows scant room for defections ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline. 

Complicating their effort, the conservative hard-liners are now vowing to use their considerable leverage — and hardball tactics — to force the Speaker to hold a tougher line in the spending debate. If the government shuts down in the process, they say that’s a price they’re willing to pay (The Hill).

To say McCarthy’s task is difficult, said Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), is “the understatement of possibly the decade.”

“But difficult is not impossible,” he quickly added. “We’re more united than perhaps the mainstream media would give us credit for.” 

One possible option House GOP leaders are discussing is a stopgap spending bill that would be put on the floor as soon as this month, acting as a fail-safe while they try to build support to pass fiscal 2024 appropriations bills that appear on shaky ground. The idea, Roll Call reports, is to have a stopgap in place to continue government funding in the event all the regular appropriations bills are not passed by the end of the fiscal year. 

That plan — which most House conservatives would likely reject — would avoid a government shutdown in October if the Senate also passed the stopgap and Biden signed it into law, and it would remove some of the pressure from Democrats to accept appropriations bills that have higher spending than conservatives want.

Roll Call: House and Senate majorities are putting their stamps on earmarks.

Related Articles

▪ The New York Times: A vote to send the Homeland Security Committee impeachment articles against Biden for his border policies has underscored rifts in the GOP about whether to try to remove him, and for what.

▪ Politico: Inside the House GOP’s plan to go after FBI and DOJ.

▪ The Hill: Democrats’ effort to force gun votes fizzles in the House.

▪ The New York Times: Dozens of lawmakers are seeking to loosen a law that limits long-distance flights to and from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. For some of them, success could mean a shorter commute.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS   

Republicans are split on whether their presidential contenders should embrace a federal 15-week ban on abortion as the party tries to find its footing on the issue going into 2024. 

As The Hill’s Caroline Vakil and Julia Manchester write, in a radio ad released Thursday in Iowa, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) vowed to back a national 15-week ban on the procedure. That ad followed a call in late June from former Vice President Mike Pence, who urged the other candidates to embrace a federal 15-week ban. But the issue has continued to dog other candidates, including former President Trump, and has sparked disagreement among anti-abortion groups over how candidates should be handling the issue on the campaign trail.

“What’s interesting is that neither [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis or Trump, who are the two — for lack of better term — front-runners, neither one of them are really saying what they’re trying to do in terms of federal legislation,” Ralph Reed, the founder of the influential Faith and Freedom Coalition, told reporters last week at the group’s annual gathering. “So others are going to try to force them, and it will be very fascinating to see how it plays out, and then by the time we get to the convention in Milwaukee, we’ll have a platform and there will be a position.”

Republican senators, meanwhile, are looking for a way to avoid the political hit they took on abortion rights in the 2022 midterm election, when they suffered a net loss of one seat, as Senate Democrats ramp up to make it a top issue in 2024, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. But Senate Republican strategists warn their hopes of winning back the majority in 2024 could be derailed by the abortion debate, as they believe happened last year — especially in races in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, which Democrats won.

▪ The Hill: Lesser-known candidates vying for the Republican nomination are facing a difficult problem: How to break through a crowded field if you can’t make it on the debate stage. 

▪ Politico: The GOP field is more diverse than ever, but the party isn’t heralding the achievement.

▪ Axios: Younger 2024 candidates highlight athletic prowess.

▪ The Washington Post analysis: Parents aren’t as conservative as the right likes to think.

▪ The New York Times: Stumping on July 4, Trump’s rivals pitch themselves to early-state voters. Trump loomed large over the campaign trail, even though he was among the few GOP contenders who stayed away from it.

Election Day 2024 is still 16 months away, but plenty has been revealed in the early months of the presidential campaign, The Hill’s Niall Stanage outlines in The Memo. The Republican field looks set. Biden is not facing a truly serious challenge for the Democratic nomination. And the Supreme Court keeps throwing curveballs.

The high court’s term came to an end last week with decisions that reaffirmed its conservative bent — from nullifying Biden’s student debt relief plan to ending affirmative action in college admission programs. But as The Hill’s Ella Lee reports, the court issued several unexpected outcomes this term that suggest it may be more nuanced than meets the eye, and Supreme Court watchers say those outcomes are less indicative of a moderating court than one aware of its falling public standing.

A Quinnipiac University poll last month found 30 percent of registered voters approved of the Supreme Court, while 59 percent disapproved — the high court’s lowest approval rating since Quinnipiac started asking the question in 2004. 

“It’s still going to be an aggressively right-wing court, but maybe there are some boundaries that the court is going to impose on itself because it is — and I would say, the chief justice in particular, is — worried about its own reputation and standing with the public,” Mary Cheh, a professor at George Washington University Law School, told The Hill.

▪ Axios: The Supreme Court’s ideology continues to lean conservative, new data shows.

▪ The Associated Press: In a polarized U.S., how to define a patriot increasingly depends on who’s being asked.

▪ The Atlantic: What I learned retracing the footsteps of the Capitol rioters. How should we memorialize Jan. 6, 2021? Consider the walking tour.

➤ ADMINISTRATION

In an extraordinary preliminary injunction in an ongoing case that could have profound effects on the First Amendment, a federal judge on Tuesday blocked key Biden administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies about “protected speech.” For more than a decade, the federal government has attempted to work with social media companies to address criminal activity, including child sexual abuse images and terrorism, and the Trump-appointed judge’s move could undo years of efforts to enhance that coordination (The Hill, The Washington Post and The New York Times).

▪ ABC News: Secret Service investigating suspected cocaine found inside White House complex.

▪ The Hill: Biden calls for gun reform after a “wave of tragic and senseless shootings” in recent days.

▪ Politico: How the FBI hacked Hive. The bureau is trying to take the fight to foreign ransomware gangs, even if it means giving up on bringing some of them behind bars.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: The U.S. funds shadow police units all over the world. They pursue matters ranging from heroin smuggling to protecting pangolins, pursuing American interests when regular cops can’t be trusted.

▪ Politico: Biden’s trade experiment is ticking people off. His trade rep is on the receiving end.

At a moment when the Republicans and Democrats are trading fierce fire from the trenches of a war over social and cultural policy, Biden is staying out of the fray.

The president has largely avoided becoming enmeshed in contemporary battles over gender, abortion and other hotly contested social issues. His armor against cultural attacks might seem unlikely for a president who has strongly advocated for LGBTQ people, the leader of a party whose strengths ride on the wave of abortion politics, and a man who owes his presidency to unbending support from Black Democratic primary voters.

While his age has become one of Biden’s chief political weaknesses, both his allies and adversaries say it also helps insulate him from cultural attacks by Republicans. Sarah McBride, a Delaware state senator who recently began a campaign to become the first transgender member of Congress, told the Times Biden’s language gave him the ability to solidify Democrats behind a progressive social agenda and “reach communities and demographics that are not yet fully in the coalition” (The New York Times).

“His background allows him to say things that I think would be heard as more radical if they were said by a younger politician,” she said.

▪ Politico: Meet the Delaware state senator who transformed Biden’s view of transgender rights. McBride, the nation’s first transgender state lawmaker, has been a major force in forging the president’s worldview of LGBTQ rights.

▪ The Washington Post analysis: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg calls the Supreme Court “out of step” on LGBTQ+ issues. He has a point.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

A Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces has been “particularly fruitful” in the past few days and Ukraine's troops are fulfilling their main tasks, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Tuesday. The comments were Kyiv's latest positive assessment of the month-old counterattack, although Moscow has not acknowledged Ukraine's gains. Russia still holds swathes of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday his troops had made progress after a "difficult" week (Reuters). 

Russian air defenses said Tuesday they foiled a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow that prompted authorities to briefly close one of the city’s international airports, as a Western analysis said that Russia has managed to slow Kyiv’s counteroffensive. Authorities in Ukraine, which generally avoids commenting on attacks on Russian soil, didn’t say whether Kyiv launched the drone raid (The Associated Press).

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of last month’s short-lived rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group that fought for Russia in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be scrambling to coup-proof his system once more. For decades, people who know him say, Putin has been remarkably focused on his personal security and on preventing rivals from using the powers of government against him. So far, he has avoided the sort of large-scale purge that other authoritarian leaders have carried out in response to coup attempts or rebellions, perhaps to avoid destabilizing his system further (The New York Times).

▪ The Associated Press: Putin says Russia is “united as never before” during Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Moscow’s war propaganda targeting Russian speakers has carved a rift through families, pitching people across generations and backgrounds against one another.

▪ The Atlantic: Multilateral man is more powerful than Putin realized. Unelected bureaucrats get a bad rap. But some, such as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, do an essential job.

The White House is preparing to restrict Chinese companies’ access to U.S. cloud-computing services, The Wall Street Journal reports, in a move that could further strain relations between the world’s economic superpowers. The move comes as China unveiled a new export licensing system Monday that highlighted its role in the global production of gallium and germanium, which are used to make chips, electric cars and telecommunications equipment. The announcement to control the export of the metals — just days before Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visits Beijing — appears timed to give China leverage as it pushes the White House to remove export controls that risk hobbling the nation’s development (Bloomberg News). 

▪ Reuters: The Syrian regime organized feared ghost militias, war crimes researchers say.

▪ The Associated Press: Israel ends West Bank raid calling it a blow to militants. Palestinians grapple with destruction.

▪ Bloomberg News: Spain is confident Turkey will give the nod to Swedish NATO entry.

▪ The New York Times: Biden and the Swedish prime minister to discuss NATO bid.

French President Emmanuel Macron promised "fundamental answers" to more than 200 mayors in a meeting to reflect on the violence that has gripped the country for nearly a week. Protests broke out nationwide after the recent police shooting at close range of a 17-year-old of north African background at a traffic stop. Some protests turned violent, with demonstrators attacking government buildings including town halls, schools and mayors' offices. After more than 3,400 arrests and signs that the violence is now abating, France is once again facing a reckoning — as it did after previous riots in mixed-race, disadvantaged neighborhoods in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s (DW and The Associated Press).

Politico EU: After the riots, Macron must fix a broken France. Fixing the growing rift between disadvantaged youth and French institutions will be no easy task for the president.

OPINION

■ Why there’s reason to believe American democracy has a bright future, by Megan McArdle, columnist, The Washington Post. 

■ Putin created a beast, and now he has no idea how to rein it in, by Colin P. Clarke, guest essayist, The New York Times.

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will meet Thursday at noon for a pro forma session; lawmakers return July 11 to the Capitol.

The Senate will convene on Thursday at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session. Members return to Washington July 10.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. At 2 p.m., he will meet with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in the Oval Office.

Vice President Harris is in Los Angeles and has no public schedule.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Trinidad and Tobago. He will participate in Caribbean Community (CARICOM) events in Port of Spain and meet with U.S. Embassy staff and families at 4:15 p.m. ADT. At 6:45 p.m. ADT, he will meet with Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry before attending a CARICOM working dinner at 8 p.m. ADT.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 2:15 p.m. 

ELSEWHERE

➤ HEALTH & WELLBEING

Maternal deaths across the U.S. more than doubled over the course of two decades, but the tragedy unfolded unequally. Black mothers died at the nation’s highest rates, while the largest increases in deaths were found in American Indian and Native Alaskan mothers. And some states fared worse than others, according to findings of a new study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers looked at maternal deaths between 1999 and 2019 — but not the pandemic spike — for every state and five racial and ethnic groups.

Among wealthy nations, the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality, which is defined as a death during pregnancy or up to a year afterward. Common causes include excessive bleeding, infection, heart disease, suicide and drug overdose.

“It’s a call to action to all of us to understand the root causes — to understand that some of it is about health care and access to health care, but a lot of it is about structural racism and the policies and procedures and things that we have in place that may keep people from being healthy,” Allison Bryant, one of the study’s authors and a senior medical director for health equity at Mass General Brigham, told The Associated Press.

▪ The Hill: More than one-third of young women in the U.S. suffer from iron deficiency, research finds.

▪ Vox: What could cause a malaria comeback in the US — and what could stop it.

▪ The Hill: Almost 1 in 4 people in the US hadn’t gotten COVID-19 by the end of 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

THE CLOSER

A parliament clerk carries used pencils in the Italian parliament, in Rome in 2022.

And finally … ✏️ An Iowa man may be well on his way to an official world record — for his pencil collection. Aaron Bartholmey, of Colfax, Iowa, has been collecting wooden advertising pencils since he was a child, and he now claims to own more than 70,000. 

That number is substantially higher than the current Guinness World Record for the largest pencil collection: 24,000, held since 2020 by Emilio Arenas of Uruguay. Bartholmey told KCCI-TV that his most treasured pencils are those from his hometown, noting that in many instances the pencils “are the only place where there is any record of that business still, and I think it’s just a neat way to preserve history.”

Two counters from the American Pencil Collectors Society have visited the Colfax Historical Society to count Bartholmey’s pencils, and now he’s waiting to hear if the count is approved by Guinness, which estimated the review process could take up to three months (The Associated Press).

Stay Engaged

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To receive The Hill's 12:30 Report in your inbox, please sign up here: https://bit.ly/3qmIoS9 

--> A midday take on what's happening in politics and how to have a sense of humor about it.* 

*Ha. Haha. Hahah. Sniff. Haha. Sniff. Ha--breaks down crying hysterically. 

TALK OF THE MORNING

Supreme Court rejects states’ immigration challenges, reaffirms Biden administration policies:

The Supreme Court has upheld the Biden administration's ability to set deportation policies, rejecting a challenge from Texas and Louisiana officials. 

In an 8-1 decision, the court ruled that the two states don't have legal justification to challenge the Department of Homeland Security's directives on the matter. 

“The States essentially want the Federal Judiciary to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policy so as to make more arrests,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority. “But this Court has long held ‘that a citizen lacks standing to contest the policies of the prosecuting authority when he himself is neither prosecuted nor threatened with prosecution.’” 

The states wanted to block administration guidelines that prioritized deporting migrants who pose the highest threats to the nation, arguing they allowed others with criminal records to remain free. The states pushed to instead deport unauthorized migrants across the board.  

Breaking down the vote: Conservative Justice Samul Alito cast the lone dissenting vote. 

SEPARATELY:

The Supreme Court has also upheld the federal crime of encouraging illegal immigration but clarified the crime’s scope. 

The ruling affirms that the federal law only covers intentional solicitation or actions — not benign statements.

“Properly interpreted, this provision forbids only the intentional solicitation or facilitation of certain unlawful acts,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the 7-2 ruling.

Breaking down the vote: Liberal justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor were the only justices to dissent. 

STILL OUT THERE:

The court is expected to rule on the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness, affirmative action and more plan any day now. Background here. 

It’s Friday, June 23. I’m Elizabeth Crisp, filling in for Cate with a quick recap of the morning and what’s coming up.

Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Sign up here. Send me your tips, add me to your media list, share your funny animal videos and pass along your White House or 2024 campaign gossip: ecrisp@thehill.com and follow me on Twitter @elizabethcrisp. 

In Congress 

Whistleblowers say IRS recommended felony charges, but politics interfered in Hunter Biden probe: 

House Republicans have gotten their hands on testimony from IRS whistleblowers who say there was political interference amid the investigation into President Biden's son Hunter Biden. Democrats have denied the whistleblower claims. 

Gary Shapley, an IRS supervisory special agent, told the House Ways and Means Committee this week that the IRS recommended several felony counts related to Hunter Biden's taxes but faced political interference. 

Hunter Biden earlier this week agreed to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and enter a diversion agreement on a separate charge of unlawful possession of a firearm while he was addicted to a controlled substance. The moves are seen as likely helping him avoid time behind bars. (The Hill) 

One year later 

Most voters disagree with court’s abortion ruling: 

Sixty-one percent of Americans in a new poll released this week said they disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights protections, ahead of the one-year anniversary of the ruling this weekend. 

More than half of those surveyed — 53 percent — said they strongly disapprove of the court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision last year, the NBC News poll found. 

Women voters, particularly younger women, were more likely to disapprove of the Supreme Court decision. (More from the poll here) 

THE IMPACT ON THE GOP 2024 FIELD:  

Republicans running for president — an increasingly growing slate — are having to dodge landmines when talking about abortion. Here's a look at where the top candidates stand on the issue. 

MEANWHILE:  

President Biden is meeting with top abortion rights organizations in a political event today, where they will officially back his candidacy. (The Hill) 

💰 In other news 

Epstein victims want judge to sign off on $290M settlement: 

Sexual abuse victims of the late Jeffrey Epstein have reached a tentative $290 million settlement deal with JPMorgan Chase over the bank's decision to keep financing Epstein's lavish lifestyle even after his abuses became well known. 

The victims' lawyers this week described the settlement as “fair, reasonable, adequate, and in the best interests” of their clients. 

Epstein’s victims have accused JPMorgan Chase of continuing to grant Epstein loans and cash withdrawals despite knowing about his sex trafficking involvement. 

JPMorgan has denied any wrongdoing but ultimately admitted “any association” with Epstein “was a mistake and we regret it.” 

Epstein died of suicide in his jail cell shortly after he was arrested on trafficking charges in 2019. (The Hill) 

🐥 Notable tweets 

'Tiger King’ picks a Twitter fight with Texas congressman:

From the "You Can't Make This Up" files ... 

"Tiger King" star and now candidate for president Joe Exotic attempted to pick a fight this week with ... Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), telling the former Navy SEAL to "quit looking for someone to blame" over the failed Titan sub mission that left five explorers dead. 

"Maybe God just don't want us at the bottom of the ocean to screw with things," tweeted Exotic, who has maintained an active Twitter account despite being in federal prison on a 21-year sentence. 

Crenshaw had tweeted updates, suggesting the federal government was hindering the rescue mission (before news broke Thursday that the submersible had imploded shortly after it began its descent). 

⏱ On tap 

The House convened at 9 a.m., and the Senate is off. President Biden and Vice President Harris are in D.C. 

• 10 a.m.: President Biden received the Presidential Daily Briefing. 
• 11:45 a.m.: Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi began a meeting with senior officials and CEOs of American and Indian companies gathered to discuss "innovation, investment and manufacturing in a variety of technology sectors, including AI, semiconductors and space" at the White House. 
• 1 p.m.: Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters. 
• 3:45 p.m.: Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will leave the White House en route The Mayflower Hotel for a political event with reproductive rights groups.  
• 5:05 p.m.: The Bidens will return to the White House. 
• Various times: The Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to the Majority” is meeting with several high-profile conservatives through the weekend, capped off with an appearance from former President Trump. Here’s the agenda. 

All times Eastern. 

🍕 In lighter news 

Today is National Detroit-syle Pizza Day!A trip to Michigan isn’t required to celebrate, as there are tons of places in D.C. that serve the square deep-dish pies. 

And because you made it this far, check out this rescue beaver meticulously building a dam inside.

Congress has 99 days to avert a government shutdown.

With the September funding deadline creeping closer — and the upcoming summer recess reducing the number of days Congress will be in session — lawmakers must act quickly to avoid a possible shutdown this fall. With tensions still high following Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Biden’s bipartisan debt ceiling deal, the regular appropriations process in the coming months is sure to turn into a tense battle.

Senate and House Republicans are headed for a showdown over the National Defense Authorization Act as Senate Republicans on the Appropriations Committee are expected to push for more funding than what was agreed to in the debt-limit deal, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton, while House Republicans are planning to pass their spending bills below the caps set in the debt limit deal. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is siding with defense hawks, declaring Wednesday the defense spending number in the Biden-McCarthy deal is “inadequate.”  

But despite work on some spending bills, lawmakers have spent the past week concerned with other, more political matters.

The House on Wednesday voted along party lines to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) over his work investigating former President Trump’s ties to Russia, the first time such an action has been brought against a lawmaker in the 21st century (CNN). And now, as some members of the House are calling for Biden’s impeachment, even Republican leaders in Congress seem to see the dangers in launching a hasty effort to do so.

House Republicans on Thursday neutered an effort to impeach Biden over his policies at the southern border, punting the resolution to a pair of committees and avoiding — for now — a politically perilous vote that threatened to split the GOP and undermine the party’s various investigations into the White House. The 219-208 party-line vote ended a two-day clash between GOP leaders and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), a conservative firebrand who stunned Washington Tuesday by introducing a procedural measure to force a floor vote on her impeachment articles despite McCarthy’s objections (The Hill and The New York Times).

As The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes in The Memo, the dangers for the GOP are threefold in pushing impeachment so early. First, the effort could seem unfair in itself; second, it could discredit the work being done by Rep. James Comer’s (R-Ky.) Oversight Committee, which has launched broad investigations into the president and his family; and third, that voters could grow weary of such antics in a nation that faces much more substantive challenges.

But Boebert, undeterred, has promised to bring her resolution up "every day" if it looks like leadership is simply delaying. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — whose public feuding with Boebert is well-documented — has her own set of impeachment resolutions ready to go as well. 

Republican strategist Dan Judy described the move as “frankly stupid,” adding, “the party needs to be focused on the problems facing Americans rather than this sideshow.”

Meanwhile, one mystery surrounding disgraced Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) was solved Thursday when a federal court on Long Island released the names of two individuals who backed his $500,000 bond. Santos had sought to keep their names secret, an unusual move in such cases.

One was his father, Gercino dos Santos Jr. The other was his aunt Elma Santos Preven. Their support allowed Santos to walk free after he was charged in May with 13 crimes including fraud, money-laundering and theft, to which he pleaded not guilty. The House Ethics Committee released a statement Thursday saying its investigation of Santos is running concurrently with the Justice Department's prosecution (NPR).

▪ The Washington Post: Ethics panel expands Santos probe to include conduct covered in federal indictment.

▪ Politico: House fails to override Biden’s veto of bill repealing student debt relief.

▪ Roll Call: Senate Democrats reject measure to block pistol brace rule.

Over in the Senate, any chance that Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) will lift his hold on military promotions over the Pentagon's abortion policy anytime soon has dimmed drastically as Senate Republicans struggle to make a deal with him to end the months-long saga, writes The Hill’s Al Weaver. The Senate Armed Services Committee this week failed to move along a bill that would have overturned the Pentagon's policy that covers travel for military members to receive abortion services. Couple that with the bitter back-and-forth between Tuberville and the Biden administration and the lack of progress in talks with Republicans as the holds are set to enter their fifth month with no end in sight.

“Either side could make a move and right now neither side seems to think that these nominations are important enough to override the position that they find themselves in,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told The Hill. “So we're at a stalemate.”

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Supreme Court rules against Navajo Nation in Colorado River case.

▪ Vox: The Supreme Court’s latest opinion means innocent people must remain in prison.

▪ Politico: Meet Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the Freedom Caucus firebrand you may not know well — but should.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS

The GOP presidential field is beginning to look like an improvisational conga line.

“I didn’t expect to have 12 candidates in this race,” former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told Fox News while campaigning in New Hampshire on Thursday. He was asked about the newest rival in the pack, Will Hurd, a moderate Republican from Texas and former CIA agent, once the sole Black House Republican in Congress.

“Let’s see who catches on,” Hutchinson said, agreeing that the anti-Trump wing of the primary field has grown larger, sparking concern among rivals who oppose former President Trump that he could wind up the beneficiary amid aspirants who are governors (past and present), a former vice president, a mayor, a senator, a businessman and an ex-congressman (The Hill). 

For about an hour Thursday, there were a few gasps when The New York Times reported that Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a Trump ally and former governor,was weighing whether to get into the presidential primary contest. It set off Sunshine State speculation about possible candidates for a Senate seat, and the Times’s Jonathan Swan tweeted that Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) was mulling the prospect. Scott quickly denied interest in a White House bid, saying he will stick with his quest for reelection to the upper chamber (The Miami Herald).

▪ The Associated Press: Biden today will receive reelection endorsements from three groups that support abortion rights.

▪ Politico: Biden can barely say the word, but “abortion” is set to define his 2024 pitch. 

▪ The Hill: GOP presidential candidates try to navigate the abortion policy minefield.

▪ The Atlantic looks at the Democratic governor of Michigan: “Why not Whitmer?”

➤ ADMINISTRATION

Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed a new era in their countries' relationship Thursday, after the Indian leader made a White House visit and was honored with a state dinner. The two leaders touted deals on defense and commerce aimed at countering China's global influence.

The U.S.-India partnership is “stronger, closer and more dynamic than at any time in history,” Biden told reporters at a joint press conference with Modi after the two leaders emerged from Oval Office talks where differences on Russia and human rights were on the table. Washington wants Delhi to act as a strategic counterweight to China, and while neither Biden nor Modi criticized Beijing directly, they alluded to its government (The Associated Press and Reuters).

“The dark clouds of coercion and confrontation are casting their shadow in the Indo Pacific,” Modi said Thursday to a joint session of Congress. “The stability of the region has become one of the central concerns of our partnership.”

Modi’s visit to the U.S. has not come without criticism. He has faced opposition over legislation amending India’s citizenship law to fast-track naturalization for some migrants, which excludes Muslims, and critics have noted a rise in violence against Muslims and other religious minorities by Hindu nationalists during his rule. A half-dozen progressive House Democrats boycotted Modi’s speech to Congress on Thursday, in protest of what they criticize as his abysmal human rights record (The New York Times).

▪ The Hill: Lawmakers, high-profile figures mingle at Modi state dinner, shying away from politics.

▪ The New York Times: How India profits from its neutrality in the Ukraine war.

▪ Reuters: The U.S. will ease visas for skilled Indian workers as Modi visits.

▪ NBC News: Biden says he sees “no real consequence” to calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a “dictator.” Earlier Thursday, the Chinese embassy said China’s ambassador to the U.S. has made “strong protests” to senior White House and State Department officials.

▪ The Hill: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says it’s “critical” to work with China after Biden calls Xi a dictator.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

As officials in Moscow said the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, will meet with nuclear authorities in Russia today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russian forces were preparing a “terrorist act” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest atomic power station.

Ukrainian “intelligence has received information that Russia is considering the scenario of a terrorist act at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — a terrorist act with the release of radiation,” Zelensky said in a Thursday video on social media. “They have prepared everything for this.”

Zelensky did not provide further details but said Ukraine would share “all the evidence” with Kyiv’s international partners — “all of them.” Moscow, meanwhile, rejected the claims (The Washington Post).

▪ The New York Times: Belarus is fast becoming a “vassal state” of Russia.

▪ Reuters: The Africans fighting on Russia’s front line in Ukraine.

▪ The Associated Press: Diplomats from Western countries, developing economies to meet in Denmark for Ukraine talks.

A Russian court ruled Thursday that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, accused of spying and imprisoned for three months, will remain in pre-trial detention (The Guardian).  

A growing conflict between Kosovo and Serbia is threatening to become a major diplomatic crisis for the U.S. during an already tense time in Europe. As The Hill’s Brad Dress reports, with war raging in Ukraine, Washington is trying to deftly navigate a series of violent clashes and boiling tensions in the independent state of Kosovo, which remain unresolved more than a month after the conflict first erupted.  

Last weekend, the standoff grew worse after Serbia — which has placed its combat forces on high alert — arrested three Kosovan police officers and ignored international calls to release them. Kosovo responded to the arrest by closing its borders with Serbia. Meanwhile, the heads of both countries are refusing to negotiate with each other, setting off a U.S.-declared emergency in the western Balkans that could spiral out of control at the worst time possible for Western leaders. 

▪ Al Jazeera: EU holds talks with Kosovo, Serbia leaders amid tensions.

▪ Euronews: Serbian trucks stage blockade at Kosovo border.

▪ The Washington Post: New weapons, tactics further entangle the U.S. in Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

▪ The Washington Post: Spain rescues scores of migrants from capsized boats near the Canary Islands.

➤ ECONOMY

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday that the Fed is committed to bringing inflation down but noted that it won't have to move at the aggressive pace it took last year (CNN Business).

On Wednesday, he told a House panel that additional interest rate hikes are likely in 2023 despite the Fed’s decision to hold off this month while assessing inflation and other economic indicators.

A larger-than-expected rate increase from the Bank of England, announced Thursday, added to investors' fears about the global economy (The Wall Street Journal).

Senate Republicans asked Powell about potential new banking regulations, specifically whether small banks will be subject to higher capital requirements in the wake of three bank failures last spring. The chairman said a proposal is in the works and has been circulated within the Fed, but he declined to comment on specifics.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Banking Committee and a Powell critic, asked the chairman Thursday whether he accepted responsibility for circumstances that contributed to recent bank failures.

“At the Fed, you are the one who lobbied, who drafted and who voted for weaker rules and you were ultimately responsible for the team of Fed supervisors who fell down on the job," Warren said. 

Powell, as he has in the past, responded that "under the law, the vice chair for supervision" has full responsibility and that his own focus is "moving forward."

"Yeah, well, that kind of sounds like not taking responsibility for what you've done in the past," Warren said (CNN Business). 

Electric vehicles: The government will lend Ford Motor Co. $9.2 billion for the construction of three EV battery factories to help the U.S. catch up with China’s dominance. In May, Ford struck lithium deals necessary for batteries amid its leap toward higher EV output (Bloomberg News). Ford is preparing a new round of layoffs, which are expected to hit U.S. salaried workers (The Wall Street Journal).

Housing: Home sales in May rose amid scarce inventory on the market and the largest annual price drop since 2011 (The Associated Press). Mortgage rates ticked lower for a third week (CNN Business).

Jobs: U.S. applications for unemployment claims last week, reported Thursday by the Labor Department, remained relatively elevated. The numbers of jobless claims for the past two weeks were the highest since October of 2021, despite a robust labor market (MarketWatch).

Wallets: Tipping, by most accounts, has gotten out of hand, The Hill’s Daniel de Visé reports. Pre-pandemic, it was customary to leave a 15 percent gratuity for a server after a restaurant meal or 20 percent for exceptional ministrations. Nowadays, customers are nudged to select 18, 20 and 25 percent tips for takeout coffee under the penetrating gaze of a barista holding a Square reader. It's gone too far, marketing experts say. 

OPINION

■ Dictators’ dark secret: They’re learning from each other, by The Washington Post Editorial Board.

■ Why ranked choice voting is a win for Republicans, by Saul Anuzis and Stan Lockhart, opinion contributors, The Hill. 

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will meet at 9 a.m.

The Senate will convene at 2 p.m. on Monday for a pro forma session.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 11:45 a.m. in the East Room will meet with CEOs of American and U.S. companies, along with federal officials, to discuss technology, AI and innovations (Yahoo Finance). Biden and Vice President Harris will speak at 4 p.m. about abortion rights at The Mayflower Hotel at an event hosted by EMILY’s List and other pro-choice organizations ahead of the one-year mark since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The president and first lady will return to the White House in the evening.

The vice president and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will host a 12:50 p.m. lunch in honor of Modi at the State Department. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will attend.   

The secretary of State at 9:30 a.m. will speak in Washington at the ministerial meeting of the Summit Implementation Review Group. He will visit an exhibit at the Organization of American States at 10:30 a.m. in honor of former President Carter. Blinken will address the OAS general assembly at 10:45 a.m. Blinken and Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Homeland Security Department, will co-host and deliver opening remarks at the anniversary ministerial of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection in Washington at 4 p.m. Blinken will speak at 5:15 p.m. at an event hosted by the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will travel to Fairview Heights, Ill., for a tour and to deliver remarks at 8 a.m. at the Planned Parenthood Fairview Heights Health Center about reproductive health and “a tale of two states” when it comes to abortion. ​​He will travel to St. Louis for a 10:45 a.m. event at Planned Parenthood Central West End Health Center to discuss what he calls “a public health crisis across the nation” tied to the impact of state abortion bans. He will be joined by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and other officials.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Paris with a full itinerary today at the conclusion of the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact. She participated early this morning Paris time in a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ THE DEEP

A pilot and four passengers aboard OceanGate’s Titan submersible died during a catastrophic implosion, most likely Sunday, during a high-risk tourist adventure to view the wreckage of the Titanic in the northern Atlantic, U.S. Coast Guard searchers and the search team’s experts indicated Thursday. 

“On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families,” Rear Adm. John Mauger said during a solemn news conference (The New York Times).

A robotic underwater vehicle, deployed as part of an unprecedented multinational search operation that riveted the world, spotted pieces of the submersible in a debris field about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic wreckage at the bottom of the inky depths. The Coast Guard expressed confidence that the debris, including a piece of a tail cone, was consistent with the submersible and was not from the rusting hulk of the famous ocean liner. 

Experts said recognizable pieces of the submersible’s chamber, designed to protect passengers from the undersea pressure, were indicative of an implosive event that would not have been survivable. At a news conference, the Coast Guard and its advisers suggested the evidence so far pointed to a dramatic event in the water column during descent Sunday, although an investigation and evidence-gathering are expected to result in an official determination. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that a top secret military acoustic detection system designed to spot enemy submarines first heard what the U.S. Navy suspected was the Titan’s implosion hours after the submersible began its voyage. The Navy began listening for the Titan almost as soon as the sub lost communications, according to a U.S. defense official. Shortly after its disappearance Sunday, the U.S. system detected what it suspected was the sound of an implosion near the debris site discovered Thursday and reported its findings to the Coast Guard commander on site, U.S. defense officials said.

Experienced submarine and submersible divers previously explained publicly that even a pin-prick sized hole in the Titan’s carbon fiber and titanium construction could result in instantaneous implosion because of the crushing forces per square inch under the sea.

Asked about the prospects of recovering remains of the victims at great depths and in shifting currents, Mauger said he did not have an answer. “This is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor,” he said.

Presumed dead are Stockton Rush, the chief executive of OceanGate, who piloted the submersible, and passengers Hamish Harding, a British businessman and explorer; Shahzada Dawood, a British-Pakistani businessman, and his teenage son, Sulaiman; and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French maritime expert who had been on more than 35 dives to the Titanic wreck site (The Associated Press).

OceanGate, which charged up to $250,000 per person for deep ocean expeditions, designed the Titan to hold up to five passengers in a tight space with no seats, a flat floor and a single, thick porthole about 21 inches in diameter. Descent from the surface to the Titanic wreck should have taken more than two hours under successful circumstances. Here’s a closer look at OceanGate’s design, which did not have safety certification by independent experts in the submersible industry.

Vox: The messy legal fight that could follow the deaths of the Titan passengers.

➤ HEALTH & WELLBEING

Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said Thursday at The Hill’s Future of Health Care Summit that he is worried about the future of the country due to what he called the “normalization of untruths.”

As The Hill’s Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack noted, Fauci has already made appearances in 2024 campaign ads, albeit not from his own participation. DeSantis has used Fauci’s likeness through artificial intelligence in campaign ads to generate photos depicting him hugging Trump, which the former health official humorously said was “wonderful.”

“I worry about the country a lot because what we’re seeing — and I think anybody who just takes a deep breath and looks at what’s going on — that we are in an arena, an era, of what I call the normalization of untruths,” Fauci said. “There are so many misrepresentations and distortions of reality and conspiracy theory, that it almost becomes normalized. We should not accept that as the new normal because when facts are no longer accepted as facts, when distortions occur and when reality is distorted, that will undermine the foundations of the social order and of our democracy. And history has shown us that.”

▪ Mother Jones: The hell of providing health care in a post-Dobbs America.

▪ Reuters: Biden to sign executive order expanding access to contraception.

▪ The Associated Press: The Navajo Nation declares a widespread Medicaid scam in Arizona a public health state of emergency.

➤ GOOD READS

Are you stalled in the airport security line? Waiting at a restaurant for a friend? Lolling on the sofa with time on your hands? Morning Report flags some intriguing human interest journalism you might have missed: 

❤️ Alexander Sway’s girlfriend wanted a $10,000 Birkin handbag. He spent 60 hours making her a replica (The Wall Street Journal).  

💬 Young people have no idea what we used to do after work. Let me regale you (Slate). 

🏀 Tyrell Terry: “I can’t continue this fight any longer” (The New York Times). 

⚡ Amber Escudero-Kontostathis survived a White House lightning strike. Could she survive what came next? (The Washington Post).

📲 After four University of Idaho students were killed, TikTok and Reddit sleuths swarmed the campus. The community is still struggling with the wreckage they left behind (The Atlantic).

THE CLOSER

And finally … 👏👏👏 Kudos to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners, who solved our puzzle about U.S. presidents and their wayward relatives. 

Victoriously Googling or guessing their way through four questions: Pam Manges, Lou Tisler, Luther Berg, Randall S. Patrick, Paul Harris, Stan Wasser, William Grieshober, Clare Millians, Harry Strulovici, Richard Baznick, Phil Kirstein, Patrick Kavanagh, Ki Harvey, Steve James and Robert Bradley.

They knew that during a tumultuous U.S. election year, former President Carter juggled some controversy when his brother, Billy Carter, became a paid agent for the government of Libya.

Former President George H.W. Bush navigated a savings and loan crisis at a time when his son, Neil Bush, was a director of Silverado Banking, Savings and Loan Association, which went bankrupt, costing taxpayers more than $1 billion.

Former President Nixon, according to information received by Senate Watergate investigators, directed the Secret Service to listen to phone conversations involving his brother, F. Donald Nixon, because he feared potential political headaches. Defeat in the 1960 presidential contest taught Richard Nixon something about his sibling, who was revealed amid that contest to have pocketed a $205,000 loan from billionaire Howard Hughes to try to save a supermarket business, which failed. 

Roger Clinton, former President Clinton’s half-brother, went to prison for more than a year in 1985 for cocaine possession at a time when his sibling was governor. His brother in 2001 handed him a presidential pardon. 

Stay Engaged

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If voters envisioned a reality TV House of Representatives, the determined paybacks by some Republicans aimed at the foes of President Trump — one liberal Democratic congressman as well as President Biden — fit that script.

The House voted 213-209-6 along party lines on Wednesday to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) as punishment for his 2019 handling of an Intelligence Committee investigation examining Trump’s finances and Russia and to protest his role in Trump’s impeachment. His censure was only the third such House rebuke in the 21st century (CNN).

Six Republicans voted present (five are members of the House Ethics panel, which receives the censure resolution). Five Democrats on the Ethics Committee opposed the reprimand. 

The congressman, a candidate in California’s crowded Senate race next year, tried to motivate fellow Democrats using the day’s turn of events.

“I wear this partisan vote as a badge of honor,” Schiff said.

After the vote, Democrats surrounded Schiff on the House floor, chanting “Adam, Adam.” They interrupted Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as he tried to announce the results of the vote, shouting “shame, shame, shame!”

The vote marked the apex of Republicans’ years-long campaign against Schiff, who emerged as a bogeyman on the right for his unrelenting criticism of Trump and eagerness to investigate the former president’s actions before and during his time in office (The Hill).

Schiff told his colleagues he had no regrets for trying to hold “a dangerous and out-of-control president accountable” and would do it again in the future, if need be.

Schiff told CNN on Tuesday that Trump threatened to defeat GOP primary candidates who did not vote for the censure resolution: “It shows you just who is behind this whole effort to distract from Trump’s legal problems. [It] is Trump.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a Schiff ally who backs him for the Senate, did not mince words on the House floor Wednesday. She accused Republicans of “wasting time” with “puppet show” floor votes intended to curry favor with “puppeteer” Trump (The Hill).

Across the Capitol in the Senate, Republicans are nervously eyeing moves by other GOP House members to try to impeach Biden and administration officials including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, reports The Hill’s Al Weaver. One of them is Freedom Caucus firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). Another is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who says she may target FBI Director Christopher Wray andAttorney General Merrick Garland. 

“We really need to have this argument here in our conference and get to the same place that our base is, where our Republican voters are, and they’ve had enough. They’ve absolutely had enough,” Greene told reporters Wednesday.

The moves by Boebert and Greene are also seen as conservative enforcement mechanisms aimed at McCarthy, who is struggling to lead his fractious conference and its narrow, four-vote majority.

The Hill: Boebert’s Biden impeachment gambit divides and angers GOP. 

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell affirmed to a House panel on Wednesday that more interest rate hikes are likely this year.

▪ The Hill: The Senate on Wednesday failed to override Biden’s veto of an attempt to overturn a federal rule to reduce truck and bus pollution. 

▪ The Hill: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) proposed a framework policy for artificial intelligence on Wednesday. 

▪ The Hill: Five things to know about the culture war hiding inside House appropriations bills.

▪ The Hill: Thirty-three Senate Republicans asked Biden in a letter on Tuesday to pull his nomination of acting Labor Secretary Julie Su for confirmation to the top job. She may not have sufficient Democratic backing in the 51-49 Senate.

▪ The Hill: Both parties heard what they wanted to hear during the rare House testimony from Justice Department special counsel John Durham. 

▪ The Hill: The growing divide on student loan relief. 

▪ Politico: The House Armed Services Committee approved the fiscal 2024 defense authorization bill late Wednesday night by a vote of 58-1. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) opposed the measure.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS

Samuel Alito has become the latest Supreme Court justice to face an ethics firestorm, adding to a stream of controversies at the high court about luxury trips and recusals, The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld reports.

Alito on Tuesday night took the rare step of penning a Wall Street Journal opinion piece to rebut a ProPublica story, published hours later, that detailed an undisclosed Alaskan fishing trip Alito took in 2008. The conservative justice admitted he accepted a seat on the private plane paid for by Paul Singer, a major Republican donor and billionaire hedge fund owner, and participated in several cases before the court in which a subsidiary of Singer’s fund was a party.

Alito denied any wrongdoing, clashing with judicial watchdog groups who say the revelation has only added to a string of ethical lapses by Justice Clarence Thomas and others at the Supreme Court. Democrats renewed a push for the court to adopt a binding code of ethics earlier this year, when Thomas came under fire for undisclosed luxury trips he took at the expense of Harlan Crow, a GOP megadonor and real estate developer. Thomas also denied wrongdoing (Politico).

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) vowed to mark up Supreme Court ethics legislation following Congress’s Fourth of July recess (The Hill).

“Justice Alito’s response to this latest reporting shows exactly why this Supreme Court urgently needs an ethics overhaul to hold the justices accountable for the many instances of ethical wrongdoings that continue to come to light,” Whitehouse said in a statement. The effort, however, is already running into opposition from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who warned that Democrats should “stay out” of the court’s business (The Hill).  

“Look, the Supreme Court, in my view, can’t be dictated to by Congress,” McConnell told reporters Wednesday. “I think the chief justice will address these issues. Congress should stay out of it because we don’t, I think, have the jurisdiction to tell the Supreme Court how to handle the issue.”

🏛️ The first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the national right to an abortion, is coming up this weekend. In the lead-up, The Hill is examining how the monumental court ruling shaped the country in a series: Special report: Roe v. Wade falls — One year later. 

When Biden rallied Democrats last September ahead of the midterm elections, he predicted the Supreme Court decision had set off major electoral ramifications. 

“Republicans have awakened a powerful force in this country: women,” Biden said. “Here you come.”

He was right, report The Hill’s Alex Gangitano and Brett Samuels. While the president faced criticism immediately after the ruling for not responding more aggressively to protect access, the issue helped propel Democrats to a better-than-expected midterm result. In the past year, voters in Kentucky rejected a ballot proposal that would have amended the state constitution to assert there is no guaranteed right to an abortion. Kansans voted to keep existing abortion protections in the state, while voters in Michigan, California and Vermont approved new abortion protections in the months after the Dobbs decision.

The issue will remain pivotal in the 2024 presidential election, with the Supreme Court’s decision giving Biden and his team a tangible way to argue that a Republican in the White House could lead to a national ban on the procedure.

▪ The Hill: How the Supreme Court changed America nearly a year ago by overturning Roe v. Wade.

▪ The Guardian: A new poll shows an increase in Americans planning to vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion.

▪ Time magazine: What abortion laws look like in the U.S. one year after the fall of Roe.

▪ Reuters: How access to abortion has changed.

▪ USA Today: Abortion rights lawyer in case that overturned Roe was confirmed as a federal judge.

▪ The Hill: Most OB-GYNs in a new poll say the Dobbs ruling worsened pregnancy-related mortality.

Republican 2024 presidential hopefuls will converge in Washington, D.C. this weekend, offering members of the party their first chance to see all of the major contenders on the same stage. Former President Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and others will be attending an event hosted by the Faith and Freedom Coalition, coming on the heels of Trump’s federal indictment and news of Hunter Biden’s plea deal. The Hill’s Caroline Vakil has rounded up five things to watch as 2024 Republicans head to the nation’s capital.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) saw a boost to his political brand Tuesday night after his slate of endorsed State Legislature candidates won their respective primaries, writes The Hill’s Julia Manchester. Youngkin waded into the GOP contests last month, backing 10 candidates, all of whom won against their primary challengers. The results are seen as a boon to the incumbent governor ahead of what is expected to be a hard-fought cycle in November, and bolster his image as a rising star within the GOP ranks. 

More 2024 headlines: DeSantis rolled out a campaign video Wednesday that takes him to the streets of San Francisco to use the city’s homeless problem to slam California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) (The Hill). … Meanwhile, DeSantis’s wealthy donors and supporters lent a golf simulator to the governor’s mansion and provided private flights to fundraisers and other political events (The Washington Post). … Presidential hopeful and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley criticized former President Obama for his remarks about racism in America (The Daily Mail). … Asked about Haley and rival Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) approaches to race relations, Obama said in a podcast interview there was sometimes a tendency among Republican candidates to gloss over the effects of racism, arguing that candidates need to address racial disparities (The Guardian).

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on Wednesday struck down Florida’s prohibition on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care, the second decision to upend restrictions put into place at the urging of DeSantis. “There is no rational basis for a state to categorically ban these treatments or exclude them from the state’s Medicaid coverage,” stated Hinkle, who was first appointed to the court by former President Clinton. In his ruling, he called the restrictions “purposeful” discrimination against transgender individuals and not a “legitimate state interest” (Politico).

🎧 Tune in: The Hill’s new podcast, The Switch Up — hosted by journalist Cheyanne Daniels — explores the intersection of race and politics through conversations with leading scholars, advocates and legislators from communities of color. The first episode, available HERE, focuses on Black activists in the LGBTQ community.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ U.S. & CHINA 

Biden called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “dictator” Tuesday, sparking an angry reaction from Beijing in a sudden flare-up following discussions this week that were intended to thaw geopolitical tensions. Biden suggested at a California campaign fundraiser that Xi was embarrassed because he did not know about the alleged Chinese spy balloon flying over the U.S. earlier this year, despite his status as China’s all-powerful leader. 

“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn't know it was there,” Biden said. “That's a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn't know what happened. That wasn't supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course.”

Beijing quickly hit back, branding Biden’s dictator reference “extremely absurd and irresponsible.” The president’s remarks followed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s discussions with Xi and other Chinese officials this week in Beijing — an itinerary postponed by the U.S. immediately following the spy balloon incident (Reuters and NBC News). 

It’s not the first time Biden made his view of an adversarial world leader transparent: In 2021, Biden told ABC News that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “killer” and warned he would “pay a price” for interfering in U.S. elections (Good Morning America).

OPINION

■ The price of making friends with Modi, by Maya Jasanoff, guest essayist, The New York Times. 

■ Modi in Washington: A symbolic visit for a substantive partnership, by Husain Haqqani and Aparna Pande, opinion contributors, The Hill.

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will meet at 10 a.m.

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. 

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Biden and first lady Jill Biden will welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a state visit at 10 a.m. The two leaders will meet in the Oval Office at 10:45 a.m., then take questions from the press at 12:45 p.m. in the East Room. The Bidens will pose for photos with Modi at 6:55 p.m., followed by a state dinner with invited guests. 

Vice President Harris will participate this morning in the White House welcome for Modi. She will preside during a joint session of Congress for Modi’s address at the Capitol at 4 p.m. She and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will join Biden and the first lady while hosting Modi, including at the state dinner.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in London for the conclusion of the Ukraine Recovery Summit.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Paris. She held a press conference this morning ahead of her participation in the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact. She joined the opening ceremony at the summit, then held a bilateral meeting with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, followed by a roundtable on the evolution of the Multilateral Development Bank with a focus on climate change. Yellen will participate in a bilateral meeting with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, followed by a bilateral discussion with Ghana’s President Akufo Addo. In the afternoon, the secretary will hold a bilateral meeting with European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen with a focus on Ukraine. Yellen will participate in a roundtable about capital mobilization and climate as part of the “Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.” She will also hold a bilateral meeting with the president of Comoros, Azali Assoumani, to discuss close cooperation between the United States and African Union. In the evening, the secretary will attend a state dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The attorney general will address the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “Chiefs of Police Executive Forum on Crime Guns” at 1:30 p.m. in Washington.

The Federal Reserve’s Powell at 10 a.m. will testify to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs about monetary policy, the economy and U.S. banks. 

Economic indicator: The Labor Department will report on claims for unemployment benefits filed in the week ending June 17. The Bureau of Economic Analysis at 8:30 a.m. will report on U.S. trade in the first quarter.

ELSEWHERE

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cautioned on Wednesday that it would take time for Kyiv to achieve results in its counteroffensive against Russia, as officials seek to manage expectations around the widely anticipated military operation. In the opening weeks of the counteroffensive, Kyiv’s forces have recaptured tiny farming villages, and progress in the early days has often been measured in yards, not miles.

“Some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results now. It’s not,” Zelensky told the BBC. “What’s at stake is people’s lives.”

Military analysts have warned that the fight would be long and bloody, and that it would take weeks or months, not days, to gauge the success of the offensive. But anticipation for the operation has built over months, as Ukraine amassed a powerful arsenal of Western-supplied weapons and tens of thousands of soldiers underwent training for the campaign (The New York Times). Ukrainian missiles struck the Chonhar road bridge connecting Crimea with Russian-held parts of the southern Kherson region overnight.  The so-called “gate to Crimea” is one of a handful of links between the annexed peninsula and mainland Ukraine (Reuters).

▪ The Hill: Ukraine intensifies pressure in long-shot push for NATO membership.

▪ Politico EU: Europe’s new Marshall Plan: The European Union makes a bet on rebuilding Ukraine. 

▪ The Washington Post: The U.S. and the West pledge billions of dollars’ worth of assistance for Ukraine’s reconstruction. 

▪ The Hill: The Pentagon admits it overvalued Ukraine military aid by $6.2 billion. 

▪ The Washington Post: African leaders visited with a peace plan. Putin showed little interest. 

▪ The Washington Post: Israeli settlers rampage through a Palestinian village after Hamas shooting. 

➤ BUSINESS & COURTS

✓  The Federal Trade Commission is taking e-commerce giant Amazon to court, claiming “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers” into signing up for its Prime subscription service and allegedly trying to keep users subscribed who wished to cancel their memberships (CNN). The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington marks the first against the company by FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan, who helped kickstart a wider debate on tech platforms’ impact on competition with an influential journal article in 2017 highlighting potential antitrust issues involving Amazon.

💊 The powerful lobby representing pharmaceutical companies sued the government on Wednesday to try to block Medicare negotiations approved by Congress to lower some drug prices as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. The lawsuit from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) argues against the constitutionality of the law’s provision to use Medicare’s powerful sway on behalf of taxpayers and beneficiaries to control soaring drug prices in the marketplace. PhRMA joined with the National Infusion Center Association (NICA) and the Global Colon Cancer Association (GCCA) to file the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (The Hill).

The Washington Post: The White House met this week with drug firms about the high costs and affordability of overdose-reversal drugs, such as Narcan, which have proven to be lifesaving.

➤ LOST AT SEA

The submersible Titan remains lost in a remote portion of the northern Atlantic Ocean amid an unprecedented search and rescue effort involving multiple nations, resources and expertise by both air and sea. If the OceanGate dive vessel is intact, perhaps miles beneath the surface with five passengers aboard, its oxygen supply is estimated to run out between 5 and 6 a.m. ET. The vessel lost contact with its mother ship about an hour and 45 minutes into the planned dive on Sunday to view the wreckage of the Titanic.

The U.S. Coast Guard, which on Wednesday was still calling the response a rescue operation, conceded that without any confirmed clues about where the Titan might be or about its condition, difficult decisions might have to be made today in coordination with OceanGate, the vessel’s owner. “You always have hope,” said Capt. Jamie Frederick, the First Coast Guard District response coordinator, during a news conference on Wednesday (USA Today).

The New York Times: A critical day for the Titan search.

The Coast Guard confirmed an unknown “banging” noise heard on Tuesday and Wednesday, but ocean and submarine experts have expressed doubt that the sounds originated from inside the Titan. 

Stockton Rush, the chief executive of OceanGate, was piloting the submersible, according to the company. The other four passengers are Hamish Harding, a British businessman and explorer; a British-Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood, and his teenage son, Suleman; and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French maritime expert who has been on more than 35 dives to the Titanic wreck site.

Experts have described the “miracle” any rescue would be after days of searching and  how rare such success would be in maritime history (AS, CNN).

THE CLOSER 

Take Our Morning Report Quiz

And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Prompted by Hunter Biden’s legal problems, we’re eager for some smart guesses about history, headaches and presidential relatives.

Be sure to email your responses to asimendinger@thehill.com and kkarisch@thehill.com — please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

During a tumultuous U.S. election year, which president was dogged by controversy when his brother became a paid agent for a dictatorial government?

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt
2. Harry S. Truman
3. Ronald Reagan
4. Jimmy Carter

Which president faced a savings and loan crisis at a time when his son served on the board of a financial institution that went bankrupt, costing taxpayers more than $1 billion?

1. Martin Van Buren
2. Herbert Hoover
3. Lyndon Johnson
4. George H.W. Bush

Former President Nixon, according to information received by Senate Watergate investigators, directed the Secret Service to listen to phone conversations involving his brother, F. Donald Nixon, because he feared potential political headaches. During the 1960 presidential contest, how did Richard Nixon’s brother end up in the headlines?

1. Revelations of a $205,000 loan from billionaire Howard Hughes
2. Evidence of fathering a child out of wedlock
3. Probe of alleged scheme to sell forged paintings
4. Accusations of passing bad checks

Roger Clinton, former President Clinton’s half-brother, went to prison for more than a year in 1985 when his sibling was governor, and he received a controversial presidential pardon from his brother in 2001. What crime put Roger Clinton behind bars?

1. Tax evasion
2. Vehicular manslaughter
3. Cocaine possession
4. Wire fraud

Stay Engaged

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Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

Former President Trump on Tuesday received an Aug. 14 trial date to begin to defend himself against the government’s prosecution of his handling of classified documents, although most observers expect the GOP presidential candidate to prolong the case for as long as possible rather than concede mistakes or try to settle.

Trump — who for years has accused President Biden and his son Hunter Biden, without evidence, of business corruption — pounced on Tuesday’s news that the president’s 53-year-old offspring agreed to plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor charges stemming from late-filed tax returns and enter into a pretrial diversion agreement on a felony involving a handgun application during a period of drug use. Hunter Biden’s federal punishment would be probation (The Hill and The New York Times).

Trump turned to Truth Social to complain about the government’s plea deal with the president’s son.

“Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere `traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN!” Trump said.

The former president’s allies on Capitol Hill said the younger Biden will still be subject to House Republican investigations of the Biden family’s business dealings despite settling with the Justice Department ahead of the presidential election year.  

“It continues to show the two-tier system in America,” said Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a Trump ally. “If you are the president’s leading political opponent, the DOJ tries to literally put you in jail and give you prison time. But if you are the president’s son, you get a sweetheart deal” (The Hill).

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) called the plea agreement a “slap on the wrist” and the Trump-supporting Make America Great Again super PAC criticized it as a “sweetheart deal” (The Hill). GOP lawmakers who may be reluctant to defend Trump in the classified documents case are more comfortable assailing what they see as politicized justice.

The president, who was fundraising in California this week, wants to keep the public focus on economic and legislative achievements, the mission among top officials during a three-week public relations blitz to more than 20 states beginning Monday and ending July 15. Biden wants to avoid getting drawn into Trump’s legal woes, or even Hunter Biden’s actions before Biden was elected president.

“I’m very proud of my son,” Biden told reporters.

▪ NBC News: Legal experts say the charges against Hunter Biden are rarely prosecuted.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Hunter Biden’s messy path to a plea deal.

▪ The New York Times: The plea agreement must be approved by a federal judge. Hunter Biden is expected to appear in court in Delaware in the coming days to be arraigned on the misdemeanor tax charges and plead guilty. He would not be prosecuted for owning a firearm during a period when he was using drugs, contingent on remaining drug-free for 24 months and agreeing never to own a firearm again.

Republicans who do not support Trump for a return to the White House, or fear he will cost the party seats in the House and Senate next year, are eyeing his apparent concession during a Fox News interview that he willfully retained boxes of White House documents. His shifting explanations for his actions are expected to be brought up at his trial. 

His accounts: He was “busy” when the National Archives sought the presidential records, and he instead wanted to sort through cartons that he said contained papers as well as clothing and other personal items. Trump also suggested with zero evidence that the government could have ”stuffed” his boxes, stored at Mar-a-Lago, in order to frame him (Fox News).

Former Attorney General William Barr, who served Trump before quitting after the 2020 election, said decisive action by Attorney General Merrick Garland is required. Barr said there is a public perception that the Justice Department has a double standard while investigating Hunter Biden’s alleged law-breaking and Biden’s discovery of a handful of classified documents at his Delaware home, dating to his time as vice president and senator. The president’s handling of sensitive documents remains under Justice Department investigation.

“I think AG Garland should move quickly with concrete steps to address it,” Barr told Fox News. “The public needs to be assured that the two pending investigations about the Bidens — the one about mishandling of classified material and the broader one in Delaware — are being pursued with the same rigor as the case against Trump,” he added. 

▪ The New York Times: Trump’s real estate deal with a Saudi firm building in Oman raises potential ethics questions as business and political roles intersect. 

▪ CNN poll: Trump’s GOP support appears to soften post-indictment, but he holds the lead in the 2024 primary field.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Feud between Trump and his former attorney general, William Barr, reaches fever pitch.

▪ Politico: What happened to the 6-3 Supreme Court? The next two weeks will tell us.

▪ The Hill: What to know about the loan servicer at the center of the Supreme Court student debt fight.

▪ The Hill: How the Supreme Court changed America nearly a year ago by overturning Roe v. Wade.

▪ ProPublica: Associate Justice Samuel Alito took a luxury fishing vacation with a GOP megadonor who later had cases before the court.

▪ CBS News: More than 29,000 LGBTQ+ military members were denied honorable discharges because of their sexuality, new figures show.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS

As the 2024 campaign season heats up, there are plenty of surprises left. As the Hill’s Hanna Trudo reports, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could walk away with a win in the New Hampshire primary next year — a reality that few mainstream Democrats have let sink in. Though Kennedy, whose closeness to conspiracy theories — from COVID-19 vaccine misinformation to the origins of mass shootings — deeply worries the establishment, is unlikely to clinch the party’s nomination, he sees a conceivable path to victory in the Granite State, thanks to Biden’s push for a new primary calendar. While a win there would hardly spell doom for Biden, it could be a high-profile embarrassment at a time when he faces low approval ratings.

“It was President Biden’s decision to deprive New Hampshire of its historic First in the Nation Primary status,” Dennis Kucinich, the former left-wing presidential candidate who serves as Kennedy’s campaign manager, told The Hill on Monday. “Our decision is to respect the people of New Hampshire.” 

For the time being, Biden’s allies are waving off any concerns about the primary. But Kennedy, who has seen surprisingly strong poll numbers in recent weeks, is almost sure to seize on a possible win amid growing discontent with the president.

📺 Our partners at NewsNation will host a 90-minute town hall with RFK Jr. at 9 p.m. EDT on June 28, originating from Chicago and moderated by anchor Elizabeth Vargas (The Hill).

▪ Politico: Your guide to the first Republican presidential primary debate. Candidates will face off Aug. 23. Here’s what to know.

▪ The Hill: Trump has not made a final decision on participating in the GOP debate on Fox.

▪ The Washington Post analysis: The tedious demand that everything be subjected to a made-for-TV “debate.”

More 2024 news: Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made dueling trips to California this week, underscoring the importance of the state politically and financially as they prepare for 2024 (The Hill). …  DeSantis is continuing his feud with California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), mocking Newsom’s apparent “fixation” on Florida while insisting that the Democratic governor’s “leftist government” is destroying The Golden State. Newsom, for his part, called DeSantis “weak” and “undisciplined” and said he “will be crushed by Donald Trump,” while insisting there’s no chance “on God’s green earth” he’ll run for president in 2024 (The Associated Press). … Trump suggested that his attacks against DeSantis are personal in a Fox News interview, saying that he finds it “very disloyal” that DeSantis joined the 2024 presidential race after Trump helped him get elected (Fox News). … In the same interview, the former president advocated for imposing the death penalty on convicted drug dealers, even as anchor Bret Baier pointed out that the policy would have applied to a woman Trump granted clemency to (The Hill). … As Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) flirts with a third-party campaign for president, his Democratic colleagues are taking him seriously enough to try to talk him out of it (Politico).

Meanwhile, Republicans are facing a dwindling number of alternatives to mount a challenge to Kari Lake in the Arizona Senate primary, raising concerns over what should be a prime pickup opportunity next year, The Hill’s Caroline Vakil reports. Lake, who narrowly lost her gubernatorial election to Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) last November, is weighing a potential Senate run for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's (I) seat. 

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) previously threw his hat in the ring while Sinema has not yet announced whether she's running again. Republicans concede Lake would be the party’s frontrunner if she officially launched a bid and see almost no serious alternatives who could take her on — but they also worry her emphasis on baseless allegations of election fraud could cost them. 

▪ The Hill: Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) moves to force a vote on impeaching Biden over his handling of the border.

▪ Axios: House to vote this week on Biden impeachment and censure of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

▪ The Washington Post: DeSantis used a secretive panel to flip Florida’s Supreme Court. Leonard Leo, the key architect of the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority, led the advisers who helped DeSantis.

▪ Politico: The sleeper legal strategy that could topple abortion bans. Jews, Espiscopalians, Unitarians, Satanists and other people of faith say the laws infringe on their religious rights.

A strike authorized Friday by Teamsters working for shipping giant UPS is the latest flash point in a conflict between organized labor and global logistics companies caused by 40-year high inflation that itself originated in global supply chain problems, writes The Hill’s Tobias Burns. The authorization comes after work stoppages on West Coast ports by longshoremen and port workers earlier this month, as well as a threatened strike last year by U.S. rail workers that prompted Biden — who has called himself the most pro-union president — and the White House to intervene.

Disgraced Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is back in the headlines, as a federal judge denied his latest attempt to keep sealed the identities of the people who financially backed his criminal bond. U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert, an appointee of former President Clinton, ordered the names be unsealed at noon Thursday, giving the bond sureties a window to withdraw beforehand (The Hill).

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL 

Washington will welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, highlighting a bipartisan effort to move past the many differences in the U.S.-India relationship and focus on their shared problem: China. As The Hill’s Laura Kelly and Sarakshi Rai report, the Indian premier’s trip comes amid a push for defense and tech deals between the countries, but some lawmakers and human rights groups are critical of the visit given the religiously motivated violence in the country. His historic address to the joint session of Congress has also raised alarm bells among activists and groups critical of the Modi administration’s push towards silencing dissenters in India and are worried the Biden administration will soften criticisms in exchange for advancing a powerful economic and military relationship. 

Human rights groups and political opponents have accused Modi of stifling dissent and introducing divisive policies that discriminate against Muslims and other minorities. And India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, has said there are no allies or friends, only “frenemies” (The Associated Press).

“Now, we know that India and the United States are big, complicated countries,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the U.S.-India Business Council in Washington ahead of Modi’s visit. “We certainly have work to do to advance transparency, to promote market access, to strengthen our democracies, to unleash the full potential of our people. But the trajectory of this partnership is unmistakable, and it is filled with promise.”

▪ The Hill: Democrats push Biden to make human rights a focus in meeting with Modi.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: In an interview, Modi sees unprecedented trust with the U.S., touts New Delhi’s leadership role.

▪ The Washington Post: As Modi visits White House, India’s reliance on Russian arms constrains him.

▪ Reuters: After meeting with Modi on Tuesday, Elon Musk said Tesla is looking at significant investment in India.

▪ The Associated Press: Modi will bend leaders into shape on International Yoga Day.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country has seen “no lost positions” in the counteroffensive against Russia. In a video update Tuesday, Zelensky assured the Ukrainian people that the high-stakes counteroffensive, for which the country has been preparing for months, is demonstrating Ukraine’s strength as it defends or retakes its territory (The Hill). Ukrainian forces are reinforcing positions they have reached in areas of the southern front line after having "partial success" fighting Russian forces, a military spokesperson said on Wednesday (Reuters).

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian forces in the south were “gradually, in small steps, but very confidently, making advances. We could even use the allegory that we are carving up every meter of land from the enemy.”

▪ The Associated Press: Russia says it downed three drones outside Moscow, suspects it was attack by Ukraine.

▪ The New York Times: Ukrainian captives released in prisoner exchanges say beatings were common, and that they suffered from woefully inadequate health care and food. 

▪ The Associated Press: Once starved by war, millions of Ethiopians go hungry again as U.S., U.N. pause aid after massive theft.

➤ SCALING UP FOR AI GUARDRAILS

Biden on Tuesday met with a group of artificial intelligence experts and academics in San Francisco to discuss the risks and opportunities of a technology that is rapidly burrowing into the fabric of global human existence.

CNN reports the president and his West Wing advisers are racing to use executive authority to try to erect some guardrails and common policies around AI as applications, such as ChatGPT, outrun the snail’s pace of regulatory agencies and Congress.

Vice President Harris will hold a summit on artificial intelligence next month focused on consumer protection, CNN adds.

In July, leading AI companies — such as Google, Microsoft and OpenAI — are expected to announce privacy and safety commitments crafted in coordination with the White House, and the federal government will employ “appropriate methods to ensure companies live up to these commitments,” CNN’s sources add.

This summer, Biden and his team expect to deploy his executive heft and the government’s existing regulatory reach to tackle AI. They also believe legislation will be needed to address some novel aspects and issues, including the core AI technology. They’re creating an inventory of government regulations that could be applied to AI and identifying where new regulations are needed.

Semafor: AI content floods the internet, making human-generated text a precious resource.

“This is not an area that you can take years to get your arms around or regulate. You’ve got to measure time in weeks,” White House chief of staff Jeff Zients told CNN. “Speed is really important here. If one acts too slowly, you’re going to be behind by the time you take action, and your action is going to be leapfrogged by the technology,” he continued. “So, we have to act decisively and with speed and pull every lever we have to maximize the positive impact while minimizing any unintended consequences.”

▪ The Los Angeles Times: Biden met with experts on the dangers of AI during his California visit Tuesday.

▪ The Associated Press: The president discusses the risks and promises of artificial intelligence with tech leaders.

▪ Kiplinger: AI has powerful potential to make investing decisions easier. 

▪ Foreign Policy: AI is winning the U.S.-China AI race.

California Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu, working with Colorado Republican Ken Buck and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), this week plans to introduce legislation that would create a bipartisan commission to regulate artificial intelligence. Lieu in January wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “I'm a Congressman Who Codes. A.I. Freaks Me Out,” but he says he worries that Congress isn’t savvy enough at the moment to regulate AI, a technology that has raced beyond lawmakers’ efforts to figure out what kind of guardrails are required now and later. Lieu’s commission idea is supported in the Senate by Hawaii Democrat Brian Schatz (Politico).

Separately, Lieu in April introduced legislation that would codify U.S. defense policy to expressly require humans to approve any launch of nuclear weapons.

“I'm not even sure we would know what we're regulating at this point, because it's moving so quickly,” Lieu told MSNBC on Tuesday. “Some of these harms may in fact happen, but maybe they don't happen. Or maybe we see some new harm. … It's good to have a commission of experts advise us because if we make a mistake, as a member of Congress, in writing legislation, you need another act of Congress to correct that.”

OPINION

■ Senators have preferred the art of obstruction, by David Firestone, editorial board member, The New York Times.

■ Antimicrobial resistance will be worse than COVID-19 — we have to act now, by

Donna Shalala, Mark McClellan and Lillian Abbo, opinion contributors, The Hill.

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will meet at 10 a.m.

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. 

The president is in California where he will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. PDT. Biden will return to Washington from California, arriving at the White House at 6:20 p.m. Biden and first lady Jill Biden will welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House for dinner at 7:15 p.m.

Vice President Harris is in Washington and has no public events.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Paris to participate in a New Global Financing Pact summit.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in London where he participated this morning in the opening session of the Ukraine Recovery Conference and attended an address by Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal before their meeting. At noon local time, Blinken met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, and British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. The secretary meets in the afternoon in London with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whose monetary stewardship attracts much scrutiny, will testify about the state of the economy before the House Financial Services Committee at 10 a.m. 

The first lady and Modi will visit the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, Va., at 2:15 p.m. to meet with students from the U.S. and India and participate in a moderated conversation. The first lady will host a media preview at 4:30 p.m to describe the preparations for Thursday’s state dinner celebrating ties with India. The first lady will join the president at 6:50 p.m. at the South Portico to officially welcome Modi to the White House for dinner at 7:15 p.m.

ELSEWHERE

➤ SEA AND LAND

The submersible Titan, missing since Sunday, remains the center of a search in the North Atlantic today with five people aboard. A Canadian surveillance aircraft “detected underwater noises in the search area,” the U.S. Coast Guard said early today. In a brief statement on Twitter, it said that remote-operated vehicles were still searching for the tourist-adventure dive vessel, which had been headed to the wreck of the Titanic on Sunday with a limited supply of oxygen that could be exhausted by Thursday (The New York Times and USA Today). In addition to the Coast Guard and salvage equipment, the search includes an underwater robot looking for the Titan in the vicinity of the Titanic, three C-130 aircraft and three C-17 transport planes from the U.S. military. The Canadian military said it provided a patrol aircraft and two surface ships.

Wildfires update: U.S. experts eager to find ways to keep California wildfires at bay say an unusually cool spring means there’s fire suppressing snowpack intact, writes The Hill’s Sharon Udasin. They concede that conditions can change rapidly and that new forest growth could quickly become fuel for fire. 

“I’m personally feeling more optimistic about a manageable fire season for the rest of 2023,” Chris Field, director of Stanford University’s Woods Institute and Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, told The Hill. “But one of the things that's quite dramatic about the drying of fine fuels is that just in a few days of hot weather, it can take you from fire risk to really terrifyingly high fire risk.”

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Firefighters boost the use of prescribed burns in a bid to prevent massive wildfires.

▪ ABC News: A jury verdict that found power company PacifiCorp liable for devastating wildfires in Oregon in 2020 is highlighting the legal and financial risks utilities face if they fail to take proper precautions for climate change.

▪ OPB: For victims still recovering from Oregon’s 2020 Labor Day wildfires, millions in legal damages offer hope.

➤ HEALTH & WELLBEING

Medicare’s new authority to negotiate drug prices launched talks with pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers just as some stakeholders headed to court rather than agree to lower drug costs, writes The Hill’s Joseph Choi. By Sept. 1, Medicare must select and announce the first 10 drugs to be negotiated for pricing. The newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act requires that those 10 be chosen from a list of the highest-spending, brand-name Medicare Part D drugs that don’t have competition. The negotiated Medicare drug prices for those first 10 drugs are to be available to beneficiaries starting in 2026. Merck & Co. and the Chamber of Commerce each filed lawsuits that could delay the implementation of the law and appear to rely on what some experts see as shaky constitutional reasoning. 

▪ The Guardian: The last health taboo: why are so many women still suffering with endometriosis?

▪ NBC News: All adults under 65 should be screened for anxiety, health panel says.

▪ The Washington Post: Multiple myeloma has long been a killer. Therapies are changing that.

▪ The Associated Press: Kansas agrees to temporary pause in enforcing new law on medication abortions.

▪ The New York Times: A judge struck down an Arkansas law banning gender-affirming care for minors.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🏖️ Today is the First Day of Summer — a grand excuse for thoughts of lake cabins and beach houses, swimming pools and sleep-away camps, flip-flops and floppy hats, strawberry shortcake and soft serve, plus baseball and barbecue. 

Pro tip: Plan immediately, because summer will be gone in a flash.  

Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on Twitter (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!