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GOP worries Trump 2024 announcement will backfire

Former President Trump is plowing ahead with his 2024 campaign launch next week despite the pleas of even some of his closest advisers, who point to risks for both Trump and the Republican Party as a whole. 

For Trump, a formal declaration of his candidacy would cut off support from the Republican National Committee (RNC) in paying his legal bills, complicate how he can fundraise and risk inviting potential GOP challengers to move up their own plans if an announcement lands with a thud. 

Other Republicans are particularly concerned about how an early Trump announcement might cost them in Georgia, where control of the Senate could be on the line in a runoff election next month. If Trump has already declared he is running for president again, lawmakers and party strategists worry that it will become a major motivator for Democrats to turn out and vote in a state Trump narrowly lost in 2020. 

Some in the GOP are openly calling for the party to move on from Trump entirely in the wake of this week’s midterm elections. 

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), who handily won reelection on Tuesday, called the prospect of Trump jumping into the 2024 race so early a “silly decision.” 

“He stands to potentially muck up the opportunity for [Herschel] Walker to win in Georgia in his runoff,” Sununu said in a SiriusXM interview on Friday.  

“I think what the former president doesn’t understand is if he announces … he’s not going to keep anyone out of the race,” he continued. “But no one else is going to announce until summer or fall for a whole variety of fundraising reasons and all of this. So it’s going to be a very awkward thing with only him in the race. No one’s going to really care. It’s just going to be weird.” 

Trump on Monday teased an announcement for next week about his future plans, clearly hoping to build on momentum from a big night for Republicans in the midterms. But the anticipated red wave never materialized, with some of Trump’s highest profile endorsements suffering key losses. 

Jason Miller, a top adviser to Trump who worked on his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, put to rest on Friday any speculation that the former president might be second-guessing the decision in light of the results. 

“President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he’s running for president. And it’s going to be a very professional, very buttoned-up announcement,” Miller told former Trump White House official Steve Bannon on the latter’s radio show. 

The former president and his allies urging him to jump into the race see some benefits to an early announcement. 

Doing so would lay down a marker for other Republicans to either pledge their loyalty to Trump for 2024, or risk being ostracized by the MAGA-wing of the party. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a member of House leadership, has already publicly backed Trump for 2024. 

It would also potentially clear the field of prospective candidates such as Nikki Haley, Trump’s former United Nations ambassador, who said in April 2021 she would not run for president if Trump were in the race. 

There are some in Trump’s orbit who also believe the former president wants to declare his candidacy before a potential indictment comes down over his mishandling of classified information after he left the White House. If he is actively running for president, the Justice Department would face some difficult decisions about how to proceed with bringing charges, though Trump’s allies are sure to claim that any indictment is politically motivated regardless. 

Trump in an interview over the summer denied investigations into his conduct were motivating a possible third White House bid. 

Still, there are numerous risks to Trump launching his campaign essentially two full years before the presidential election.  

Campaign finance laws would restrict how Trump could use the money he raised through his Save America PAC, and it would cap donations he could accumulate over such a long time period.  

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel says the party can no longer pay Trump’s legal bills if he’s a declared candidate. 

Multiple Republican strategists and some former Trump campaign officials doubted that an early announcement would clear the field of potential primary challengers, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) among the potential candidates who are unlikely to be deterred by Trump’s announcement. 

“That’s part of the problem for his candidacy is the earlier he does it is the more time he gives a Glenn Youngkin or a Ron DeSantis [a chance] to bide their time, see where the opening is and see where he is around late second quarter,” a former Trump campaign adviser said. 

Trump has gone particularly hard after DeSantis in recent days, complaining that the Florida governor was not gracious enough for Trump’s help in his 2018 campaign, threatening to release damaging information about DeSantis in a 2024 primary and mocking him as “Ron DeSanctimonious.” 

But the attacks have largely backfired. DeSantis has not engaged, and many conservatives have rallied around the Florida governor after his landslide victory on Tuesday. 

Perhaps the greatest concern around an early Trump announcement, however, lies in Georgia, where many Republicans fear a repeat of two years ago. 

“If I’m advising any contender — DeSantis, Trump, whomever — nobody announces 2024 until we get through Dec. 6,” former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Fox News, adding that Trump should put any announcement “on pause.” 

The former president, who fuels turnout not just for Republicans but for Democrats and independents who oppose him, lost Georgia narrowly in 2020, becoming the first Republican since 1992 to fail to carry the state. 

Trump then spent the weeks before a January 2021 Senate runoff spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election and sowing doubt about whether Georgia voters could trust that their ballots would count. Democrats ultimately won both Senate runoffs, clinching control of the chamber. 

A handful of GOP voices have gone as far as to say the party should move on from Trump completely, including Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, billionaire donor Ken Griffin and Rep.-elect Mike Lawler (N.Y.), who defeated House Democrats’ campaign chief. 

“Anytime you are focused on the future, you can’t so much go to the past. I think people are really excited about the opportunity to address the challenges that we’re facing as a country,” Lawler said on CNN. “And I think more focus needs to be on the issues and the substance of those issues than on personalities.” 

But those concerns have clearly not convinced Trump, who has been itching to declare a third White House campaign for months but has held off at the urging of advisers and party leaders. 

The former president has in recent days insisted the midterms were a success for him personally, pointing to the dozens of candidates he endorsed who won their races for the House, Senate and other offices. 

Miller, who two days ago said “priorities A, B and C” needed to be focusing on the Georgia runoff, on Friday said Trump told him of his plans: “’There doesn’t need to be any question. Of course I’m running. I’m going to do this, and I want to make sure people know that I’m fired up and we’ve got to get the country back on track.’” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Judge sanctions Trump lawyers over handling of 'frivolous' lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, DNC

A federal judge on Thursday ordered sanctions against former President Trump’s attorneys over their handling of a since-dismissed lawsuit brought on Trump’s behalf against his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and dozens more defendants.

The sanctioned parties — four attorneys and their two law firms — were ordered to pay a $50,000 court penalty and more than $16,000 in attorney’s fees to one of the named defendants in Trump’s suit.

“[L]egal filings like those at issue here should be sanctioned … both to penalize this conduct and deter similar conduct by these lawyers and others,” Florida-based U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, an appointee of former President Clinton, wrote in a blistering 19-page order.

Among the 29 defendants Trump sued was Charles Dolan, whom Trump’s lawyers falsely depicted in their suit as a former top Democratic official, a close Clinton ally and a New York resident. The attorneys repeated some of these inaccuracies, despite warnings from Dolan’s lawyers, Middlebrooks said.

According to the judge’s sanctions order, Trump’s suit contained factual assertions that were “either knowingly false or made in reckless disregard for the truth.”

Dolan, a onetime campaign volunteer for Clinton who initiated the sanctions motion against Trump’s attorneys, was awarded $16,274 in legal fees.

The sanctioned attorneys were Alina Habba, Michael Madaio and their law firm Habba Madaio & Associates, as well as Peter Ticktin, Jamie Alan Sasson and The Ticktin Law Group.

“It should be no surprise that we will be appealing this decision,” Habba said in a statement.

In September, Middlebrooks dismissed Trump’s suit accusing dozens of individuals and entities of conspiring to undermine the 2016 presidential election. At the time of the dismissal, the judge referred to Trump’s amended complaint as “a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him.”

In his Thursday sanctions order, the judge noted that the former president’s suit “was, in its entirety, frivolous.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump claims without evidence he sent federal agents to keep DeSantis election from being 'stolen' in 2018

Former President Trump claimed without evidence on Thursday that he sent federal agents to Florida in 2018 to keep the state’s gubernatorial election from being “stolen” from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). 

Trump said in a Truth Social post that he helped save DeSantis’s campaign and sent the FBI and U.S. attorneys to the state to stop voter fraud. 

He claimed votes were “being stolen” by a “corrupt” election process in Broward County, which is located in the Miami area, and DeSantis’s lead over his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum, was dropping by 10,000 votes per day. 

Trump said he and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) sent the FBI and U.S. attorneys and the “ballot theft” ended immediately, stopping the election from being “stolen.” 

Scott, who was running for Senate for the first time in 2018, alleged a couple days after the election that slow counting in Broward County, a strongly Democratic area, was allowing for illegal votes to be inserted in the count, but shared no evidence of this claim. 

In the 2018 election in Florida, DeSantis won the gubernatorial election by about 30,000 votes while Scott won his Senate seat by about 10,000. 

DeSantis was projected to win his race on election night, before Scott made his allegations of voter fraud. 

Additional vote counting in the days following the election did shrink DeSantis’s margin over his Democratic opponent, but not by enough to possibly change the outcome, The Washington Post reported. 

Poll workers continued to count ballots until Scott was eventually declared the winner of the race. 

Tom Winter, an NBC News correspondent for investigations, reported that the outlet has found no evidence that Trump sent the FBI or U.S. attorneys to Florida to stop the vote count, and the Justice Department (DOJ) spokesperson at the time said it “never happened.” 

Democrats slammed Trump’s claims and cast doubt on their truthfulness but said the DOJ may need to step in. 

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) tweeted that Trump “makes stuff up all the time,” but if his claims are true, the DOJ should investigate if he used federal agents to interfere with an election. 

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) tagged the DOJ’s Criminal Division in a tweet with a screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social post, saying “Please add this to his tab.” 

Trump has increasingly criticized DeSantis as the Florida governor is rumored to be considering a 2024 run for the GOP nomination for president. The former president is expected to announce his run next week. 

DeSantis’s prospects appeared to potentially rise earlier this week after he won an overwhelming victory for reelection as governor while several key Trump-backed candidates lost their races.

Source: TEST FEED1

Rubio, Hawley call for Senate GOP leadership vote to be postponed

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Friday called for the Senate GOP’s leadership elections to be postponed a day after news emerged that Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) had been considering a long-shot bid to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) atop the conference.

“The Senate GOP leadership vote next week should be postponed,” Rubio tweeted. “First we need to make sure that those who want to lead us are genuinely committed to fighting for the priorities & values of the working Americans (of every background) who gave us big wins in states like #Florida.” 

“Exactly right. I don’t know why Senate GOP would hold a leadership vote for the next Congress before this election is finished,” Hawley said, quote-tweeting Rubio’s initial statement. “We have a runoff in #GASenate — are they saying that doesn’t matter? Don’t disenfranchise @HerschelWalker.” 

Earlier in the day, Hawley laid the lackluster results in the midterm elections at McConnell’s feet, telling RealClearPolitics in an interview that “Washington Republicanism” and the GOP leader’s decision not to offer an alternative vision hurt the party on Tuesday.

While Hawley’s comments about leadership are not wholly a surprise, Rubio’s are. The Florida senator has not been known to fire inside the tent and criticize Senate GOP leaders. A Rubio spokesperson did not immediately respond to additional questions about the senator’s tweet.

Republican leaders have set their elections for Wednesday. McConnell declared in early October that he has the votes to keep hold of his leadership post.

On Thursday, Politico reported that Scott, who leads the Senate GOP campaign arm, aborted a planned challenge to McConnell’s position after the party did not make the gains it anticipated, headlined by losses in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, and next month’s runoff in Georgia. 

Adding to the issues, Arizona GOP Senate nominee Blake Masters continues to trail Sen. Mark Kelly (D), and Adam Laxalt is stuck in a nail-biter of a contest with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) in the Battle Born State.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden insists US will meet climate targets at global summit

President Biden insisted Friday the U.S. will deliver on its climate change commitments, addressing an audience at an international climate summit in Egypt that is skeptical of whether the U.S. will actually live up to its promises.

“Today, finally, thanks to the actions we’ve taken, I can stand here as president of the United States of America and say with confidence: The United States of America will meet our emissions targets by 2030,” Biden said onstage at the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt. 

Biden scored a major domestic win on climate change over the summer when he signed the Inflation Reduction Act, sweeping legislation that represents the biggest effort by a U.S. Congress to date to take action on the issue.

The legislation, which Democrats approved through a budget process that prevented a GOP filibuster in the Senate, will invest billions in clean energy and is intended to meet the U.S. goal of cutting its emissions in half by 2030, compared to a 2005 baseline.

No Republicans voted for the measure.

The U.S. has been the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gasses and modeling has shown this legislation does not, on its own, deliver the emissions reductions necessary to meet the 50 percent target, though Democrats have hailed it as a big step toward Biden’s climate goals.

Biden spoke at the summit as Democrats enjoy a better-than-expected midterm election year that could leave the Senate in Democratic control. Such an outcome, which still depends on uncalled Senate contests in Arizona and Nevada and a runoff in Georgia, would bolster Biden in the second half of his term. 

During his speech, Biden also called out Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, citing the conflict as a reason to shift away from fossil fuels. 

“Russia’s war only enhances the urgency of the need to transition the world off its dependence on fossil fuels. True energy security means every nation … benefiting from [a] clean, diversified energy future,” Biden said. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has contributed significantly to volatile energy prices in the U.S. and around the world. 

He also reiterated a previous apology for the U.S.’s withdrawal from the global Paris Agreement, and announced new U.S. commitments, including new proposed regulations on methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. 

The Environmental Protection Agency has said that its proposed regulations on methane — a planet warming gas that is significantly more potent than carbon dioxide — will cut emission from the operations it has jurisdiction over by 87 percent. 

Biden also touted other new commitments, including a joint $500 million effort with Germany and the European Union to bolster Egypt’s transition to renewable energy. 

The president called on the global community to take action on climate and help developing countries. 

“The United States is acting. Everyone has to act,” he said. “Countries that are in a position to help should be supporting developing countries so they can make decisive climate decisions.”

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act gave Biden a significant climate accomplishment to tout during the summit. But the partisan divide around the climate issue has generated doubts about whether the U.S. can be trusted in the long term.

Questions remain in particular on climate financing, and whether the U.S. can deliver the funding it has promised to help developing countries transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change impacts.

Updated: 12:12 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden administration stops accepting student loan forgiveness applications

The Biden administration announced on Friday it would stop accepting student loan forgiveness applications after a federal judge ruled against the program on Thursday. 

The site that previously led to the student loan applications now shows a message titled “Student Loan Debt Relief Is Blocked.”

“[A]t this time, we are not accepting applications,” the site reads, explaining the pause is due to the court ruling in Texas. 

The site goes on to say the administration will fight in court for the program and the department will hold the applications of the millions of borrowers who already applied for the relief. 

The Federal Student Aid office is encouraging individuals to sign up for updates as they will “post information as soon as further updates are available.”

President Biden’s plan, which was set to forgive up to $20,000 for some student loan borrowers, was struck down by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, a Trump appointee.

The judge said the program is “an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power” and the administration would need approval from Congress to move forward. 

“Whether the Program constitutes good public policy is not the role of this Court to determine,” Pittman said. “Still, no one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States.”

This is the second — and biggest — win yet for Republicans and conservatives who have launched multiple lawsuits against the Biden administration’s student debt relief program. 

The first win came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit after a judge temporarily blocked the program in October following a challenge from six GOP-led states.

The ruling Thursday is the second win for opponents of the program out of at least the six court cases around the U.S. challenging student debt relief. 

Thomas Bennett, an associate professor of law at the University of Missouri, previously told The Hill the Supreme Court is more likely to get involved in the lawsuits against student loan forgiveness if multiple courts hand down different rulings on the program. 

The Biden administration has made clear numerous times it will fight against the challenges to its program, but the legal fight could take months.

While borrowers wait for a final ruling on the program, student loan payments are set to begin at the beginning of 2023, with Biden previously saying he will not extend the pause on payments again.

Updated: 11:02 a.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump calls out Youngkin amid 2024 chatter

Former President Trump on Friday took aim at Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) amid rumors that the businessman could run for president in 2024.

“I Endorsed him, did a very big Trump Rally for him telephonically, got MAGA to Vote for him – or he couldn’t have come close to winning,” wrote Trump on his Truth Social account.

Trump has been hinting at announcing another bid for the White House as early as next week.

Trump also made a comment about Youngkin’s name sounding “Chinese” as he attributed the governor’s 2021 election win to his support.

“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,” said the former president.

The post by Trump comes a day after Youngkin’s Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears (R) said that she “couldn’t” support Trump if he made a third bid for the Oval Office in 2024.

“I could not support him. I just couldn’t,” said Sears, adding that voters are saying “enough is enough” in relation to Trump through their midterm votes.

“A true leader understands when they have become a liability,” said the lieutenant governor. “A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage, and the voters have given us that very clear message.”

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at likely presidential contender Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) this past week, calling him “Ron DeSanctimonious” and issuing warnings to the governor if he chooses to run in 2024.

“Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games,” the former president said in a lengthy statement released Thursday, deriding the governor for sidestepping questions about a presidential run.

“I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly,” Trump told Fox News earlier this week.

The former president threatened that he will publicize things about DeSantis “that won’t be very flattering” if the governor opposes him in a Republican primary.

Source: TEST FEED1

Cortez Masto draws closer to Laxalt in Nevada Senate race

The Nevada Senate race has continued to tighten in the days since the Nov. 8 election, with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) narrowing Republican Adam Laxalt’s lead late Thursday night.

At the time of writing, the incumbent senator trails Laxalt by just under 9,000 votes, giving him just a 1-point lead over her at 49 percent to 48 percent with 10 percent of votes in the state that still need to be counted. The counties with the highest number of votes still outstanding are Republican-heavy Lincoln County and Democratic-leaning Washoe County.

Democrats were concerned going into the midterms that a favorable political climate for Republicans, as well as the role that inflation has had on the economy in tourism-heavy Las Vegas, would hurt Cortez Masto in the race. Though the election is still too close to call, the senator is now within serious striking distance of Laxalt, raising Democratic hopes that she could still squeeze out a win.

Laxalt, a former state attorney who lost his 2018 GOP gubernatorial race to Gov. Steve Sisolak (D), had been shown leading Cortez Masto in a number of polls leading up to the midterms. Still, many on both sides of the aisle predicted the Nevada race would go down to the wire.

Election officials in the state have said it may take several days to call the race — possibly into sometime next week — given the fact that ballots postmarked by the day of the election can be received through Saturday.

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — All eyes on Georgia, Nevada and Arizona

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.

All eyes on Georgia, Nevada and Arizona  

Three days after the midterm elections, control has yet to be determined in both the House and the Senate and while the upper chamber remains a toss-up, Republicans hold a slight edge to win the House.

Nevada and Arizona ballots are still being counted this morning and Georgia is braced for a hard-fought December runoff to determine Senate results, writes The Hill’s Julia Manchester. In the House, many toss-up races have not been called and the official victors in some gubernatorial races are still up in the air.

In Georgia, Republicans and Democrats are gearing up for a showdown to decide which party will control the Senate next year, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports. Some Republicans are already calling on former President Trump to postpone his planned 2024 presidential announcement, worried he could hurt their chances in the runoff.

Many Republicans blamed Trump for the loss of both Georgia seats in the January 2021 runoff and fear a reprise if he tries to make the race about himself and election fraud.

The Senate Democrats’ campaign arm is already investing $7 million for field organizing efforts ahead of next month’s runoff to support Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) against Republican challenger Herschel Walker (The Hill). Walker is getting support from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NSRC), after its head, Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.) pledged Wednesday to raise whatever money he can and begin an advertising blitz for the candidate.

Scott won’t comment on whether he thinks Trump should stay out of the Dec. 6 runoff, an opinion voiced on Thursday by some fellow Republicans.

“That’ll be a decision between Herschel and Trump. I know that Trump wants to be helpful to make Herschel win,” Scott told NBC News. “That’s an issue for the campaign. I don’t get to participate in those decisions.”

Scott said his focus will be to raise “every dime” possible for Walker after the NRSC injected $14 million into the race (NBC News).

Trump, meanwhile, is still considering a likely presidential campaign announcement on Nov. 15. The former president may well face off in the Republican primaries against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who looks to be a frontrunner after winning reelection by a double-digit margin on Tuesday night (The Hill). Trump on Thursday attacked DeSantis and conservative media — which blamed him for GOP losses in key races — saying “Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games!” (Bloomberg News).

“The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, ‘I’m only focused on the Governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future,’” Trump said in a statement. “Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.”

▪ Politico: Trump goes to war against DeSantis.

▪ Politico: Scott was prepared to take on McConnell — until tuesday.

While the Georgia seat is critical, both parties are also keeping close watch on Arizona and Nevada, where ballots are still being counted in the states’ respective Senate races. CNN estimated about 540,000 votes in Arizona and 95,000 in Nevada are left to be counted as of Thursday evening.

In Nevada, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) is trailing behind Republican challenger Adam Laxalt by 9,000 votes, but both parties are expressing optimism that they’ll prevail in the race, writes The Hill’s Caroline Vakil. Democrats feared that a favorable political environment for Republicans, coupled with the ever-present issue of inflation in the tourism-dominated economy, would thwart Cortez Masto’s chances of reelection.

But their mood has shifted as ballots counted in Clark County appear poised to help the senator close the gap with Laxalt. Republicans, meanwhile, remain bullish that Laxalt will eke out a win. Both parties are now playing the waiting game after Clark County election officials said counting will continue for several days, with the possibility that most ballots could be recorded by Friday.

The Hill: Key Nevada county expects to count most remaining ballots by Saturday.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Kelly (D) has a comfortable 115,000 vote lead in Arizona over Republican challenger Blake Masters, where the wait for results is expected to continue into next week. Election workers in Maricopa County today will begin wading through a massive tranche of 290,000 early ballots that were handed in on Election Day that have created chaos and lengthened the time until races can be called (The Hill).

Time: Why Arizona’s governor’s race may end up in a courtroom.

Over in the House, Morning Report is tracking a few featured races.

In Montana, former Interior Secretary under Trump, Ryan Zinke (R), who resigned under a cloud in 2018, won a House seat by a narrow margin (The Washington Post).

Votes are still being counted in Colorado in a surprisingly razor-tight race between Rep. Lauren Boebert (R)and Democrat Adam Frisch. Boebert, a far-right Republican with deep ties to Trump who was widely expected to win the race, at one point trailed Frisch by a double-digit vote margin. As of this morning, Boebert leads by 1,112 with 99 percent of the vote tallied (CBS News).

NBC News: The margin in Boebert’s race is so close, it “smells like recount territory.”

Meanwhile in New York, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D), who lost his own reelection bid after serving as the House leader tasked to help Democrats hold the chamber’s majority, on Thursday said of the GOP, “we are not going to let them steal a single seat.”

Maloney, a five-term member of Congress, lost in a newly mapped district in a stunning defeat to Mike Lawler, a Republican in the State Assembly. The outcome provided a rare instance in which the Democrats’ recent brush with fatalism almost seemed justified, as Maloney became the first chair of either party’s congressional campaign arm to lose a reelection in roughly 30 years (The New York Times).

▪ The Washington Post: Maloney is a tale of two nights: The best of times, the worst of times.

▪ KXAN: New York emerges as an exception to a strong election for Democrats.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Hispanic voters largely stuck to historical partisan trends in 2022, despite a narrative of a rightward shift among Latinos. The partisan split and the influence of Latino voters on a series of key elections underscored the importance of a Hispanic electorate once derided as a “sleeping giant.”  

▪ The Hill: The midterms suggest early voting is here to stay, with 47 million voters casting ballots before election day.

▪ The Washington Post: Where voter turnout exceeded 2018 highs.

▪ NPR: Turnout among young voters was the second highest for a midterm in the past 30 years.

▪ The Washington Post: Key election deniers concede defeat after disputing Trump’s 2020 loss.

Hybrid Event Invitation: Gen Z– Writing Their Own Rules; Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT

COVID-19 may be the defining experience for Generation Z, shaping its outlook for decades to come. “Zoomers,” those 70 million young Americans born between 1997 and 2012, missed out on experiences, friendships, and milestones over the past two years – changing their outlook and expectations on social issues, education, mental health, jobs and the economy? Join The Hill to examine the experience of America’s youth, where their common ground lies, and their impact on the future. Join The Hill in-person in Washington or streaming nationally with “The Gen Z Historian” Kahlil Greene, author and pollster John Della Volpe, WH Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, Zlfuence founder Ava McDonald and more. RSVP today.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ ADMINISTRATION

👉 A federal judge in Texas on Thursday ruled the administration’s controversial student loan debt forgiveness program is unlawful. 

The Justice Department immediately filed an appeal, according to the White House. “We strongly disagree with the District Court’s ruling,” Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Thursday night. 

“For the 26 million borrowers who have already given the Department of Education the necessary information to be considered for debt relief —16 million of whom have already been approved for relief — the Department will hold onto their information so it can quickly process their relief once we prevail in court,” she wrote.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, appointed by Trump, on Thursday ruled in response to a lawsuit filed in October by the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy group, which represented one borrower who is ineligible for the relief program and another who is not eligible for the largest possible benefit of $20,000. In late October, a federal appeals court temporarily put the program on hold following a challenge from six Republican-led states. However, the appeals court ruling blocked the program while the states’ appeal played out and did not strike down the program (The Hill). The Supreme Court has turned down two requests to block the administration’s debt forgiveness initiative.

Biden on Monday will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, now in his third term as leader of the Chinese Communist Party, on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit taking place in Bali, Indonesia. It will be their first in-person meeting during Biden’s term, and the two leaders are expected to discuss Taiwan’s security, human rights concerns and what the U.S. considers China’s “harmful economic practices” (The Hill). 

Biden will speak in Egypt today during the COP27 United Nations climate change summit and describe a $375 billion U.S. commitment to fight climate change that he hopes will provide leverage as he works to persuade other countries to step up their own efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, all with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (CNN).

In his speech, Biden will call on nations to “really keep their eyes on the ball when it comes to accelerating ambitious action to reduce emissions,” one U.S. official told reporters. And the president will highlight his administration’s intent to propose a rule this week requiring large federal contractors to develop carbon reduction targets and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, leveraging the federal government’s purchasing power to combat climate change in the private sector and bolster vulnerable supply chains. 

The president will be on the ground in Egypt today for about three hours and then fly to Cambodia to participate this weekend in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit this weekend, after which he will travel next week to Bali, Indonesia, for a global summit of leaders from the 20 largest economies. 

The Hill’s Rachel Frazin reports that the U.S. enactment this year of the Inflation Reduction Act offered Biden a concrete achievement meant to showcase measures to reduce greenhouse gasses and reliance on fossil fuels. But it’s also a time of intense global pressure to secure ample energy supplies at affordable prices, exacerbating reliance on carbon-producing energy sources.

The Hill: International human rights activists, including in Egypt, worry that the host government during COP27 seeks to launder its criticized record on human rights using the implicit approval of the United States and other nations participating this week in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The Hill: White House chief of staff Ron Klain told CNN during an interview on Wednesday that the administration is ready for investigations Republicans may launch if they hold House or Senate majorities next year.

Reuters and The New York Times: The administration and the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to reject Trump’s bid to avoid complying with the panel’s request for his tax returns.

➤ CONGRESS 

Ballots are still being counted nationwide as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) formally launched his bid on Thursday to be elected Speaker later this month (NPR, The Washington Post and NBC News).

McCarthy had envisioned that his party might see a “red wave” majority of perhaps 25 or more seats, which would have helped him make a muscular case to his Republican colleagues, particularly members of the Freedom Caucus. If Republicans gain the majority, as many expect, the margin may be smaller than GOP leaders anticipated, making the challenge of managing the fractious House Republican caucus that much larger (The Hill).

The Hill: House conservatives withhold support for McCarthy, press for delay to their leadership election. 

▪ Politico: Control of Congress is in limbo because of unresolved midterm races.

▪ The Hill: Ongoing fight for Senate control threatens the fate of a key bipartisan bill targeting tech giants.

▪ The Hill: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has extended remote House voting through Dec. 25.

▪ The Hill: Senate Banking Committee leaders on Thursday called for new crypto rules after the collapse of FTX.   

Florida’s Board of Governors on Wednesday officially named Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) as president-elect of the University of Florida. His base salary will be $1 million per year for a contracted term through 2028, amounting to a $140,000 per year increase compared with his predecessor’s 2014 contract.

Once Sasse resigns, Nebraska’s governor will appoint a successor. The current governor, Pete Ricketts (R), confirmed Wednesday that Sasse’s resignation will not come until January, meaning the decision to appoint his replacement will fall to Jim Pillen, a Republican livestock producer and veterinarian who decisively won Tuesday’s race for governor. Ricketts is rumored to be a top candidate for the Senate appointment and he declined to comment when asked. Pillen’s appointee will have to stand for election in 2024 to serve out the remaining two years of Sasse’s current six-year Senate term (Omaha World-Herald).

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL   

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed caution after Russia announced on Wednesday it was retreating from the key strategic city of Kherson.

“No one just gets away if they don’t feel the strength,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. “The enemy does not bring us gifts, does not make ‘gestures of goodwill.’ We fight our way up. And when you are fighting, you must understand that every step is always resistance from the enemy, it is always the loss of the lives of our heroes.”

Russia increasingly showed signs of surrendering Kherson city in recent days, including lowering a Russian flag over the main administrative building and the withdrawal of some military resources, but Kyiv has expressed skepticism that Moscow would swiftly withdraw from the city (The Hill).

The Biden administration for the first time will send Ukraine four Avenger air defense systems as part of its latest $400 million weapons package, the Pentagon announced Thursday. The most recent lethal aid tranche comes less than a week after the Defense Department on Nov. 4 announced a $400 million military assistance package (The Hill).

At least 636 representatives of the fossil fuel industry have registered to attend the ongoing United Nations COP27 climate summit, marking a sharp increase over the industry’s already large presence last year. The industry’s presence once again tops the number of representatives from any single national delegation, except that of the United Arab Emirates — a major fossil fuel producer that is set to host next year’s conference. The UAE registered 1,070 delegates, 70 of whom were classified as industry representatives.

The report, released by advocacy groups Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness, showed that industry influence at the top climate summit is growing (The Washington Post).

“Tobacco lobbyists wouldn’t be welcome at health conferences, arms dealers can’t promote their trade at peace conventions,” they said in a statement. “Those perpetuating the world’s fossil fuel addiction should not be allowed through the doors of a climate conference.”

▪ The New York Times: Brazil counted all its votes in hours. It still faces fraud claims.

▪ Reuters: Britain has frozen 18 billion pounds worth of Russian assets.

▪ The New York Times: A Vatican auditor is suing for wrongful dismissal after he said he found cardinals siphoning off funds. The Vatican has hit him with a criminal investigation of its own.

➤ ECONOMY

The government on Thursday reported that inflation in October was 7.7 percent year over year, signaling both good and bad news. Inflation eased beyond economists’ expectations but not by enough in a single month to persuade the Federal Reserve to downshift on interest rates.

Inflation finally offered some relief, but there’s a long way to go (Bloomberg News).

MarketWatch: Egg prices are up 43 percent in the last year. Butter prices rose 26.7 percent during the 12 months that ended in October. What’s going on?

Investors and traders swooned on Thursday over the consumer price index report with the biggest one-day rallies since 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped more than 1,200 points. The S&P rose 5.5 percent and the Nasdaq Composite surged about 7.4 percent (CNBC).

The Hill’s Sylvan Lane unpacks the data to focus on price relief seen for used cars, household supplies, clothing, gas for heating and even some food costs.

About 7,000 more Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending on Nov. 5 than in the previous week, according to a government report on Thursday (ClickonDetroit). The U.S. jobs market continues to be strong.

The Hill: Home prices increased in most U.S. metropolitan areas in the last quarter despite rapidly rising mortgage rates that are hovering near 7 percent, according to data released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors.

➤ TECH 

Twitter continues to chart a rocky path two weeks after new CEO Elon Musk took the helm of the social media platform. In his first company wide emails, sent Thursday, Musk painted a bleak financial picture and spoke to a series of changes for employees.

“Sorry that this is my first email to the company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message,” Musk wrote in one email. “The economic picture ahead is dire.”

In addition to saying Twitter is too dependent on advertising and must focus on subscriptions, Musk said he plans to end the company’s remote work policy and urged employees to focus on generating revenue and fighting spam (The New York Times and The Hill).

He warned that “bankruptcy isn’t out of the question” for the platform, after advertisers continue to leave in droves following an increase in misinformation and hate speech, as well as ever-shifting changes to the company’s verification policies (Axios). Several key executives announced they were leaving the company Thursday, including the heads of content moderation and cybersecurity (The Washington Post and Bloomberg News).

▪ The Verge: Musk is putting Twitter at risk of billions in fines, warns a company lawyer.

▪ CNBC: The Federal Trade Commission says it is tracking developments at Twitter with “deep concern” after key security departures.

▪ CNN: Twitter is dealing with a wave of impersonators after launching a new paid verification system.

OPINION

■  Biden is no sure thing for 2024. What about Buttigieg? Harris? Even Whitmer? by Frank Bruni, contributor, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3UKzN8y 

■ It’s the women, stupid, by Lauren Leader, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3A6rQlZ

WHERE AND WHEN

🇺🇸 Happy Veterans Day!

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

The House meets at 2 p.m. on Monday. ​​

The Senate meets Monday at 3 p.m. to resume consideration of the nomination of María del R. Antongiorgi-Jordán to be a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Puerto Rico.

The president is in Egypt at COP27, the United Nations climate change conference. Biden will meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at 3:55 p.m. local time. He will give a speech at 5:15 p.m. local time during the climate conference and then depart for Phnom Penh, Cambodia, at 6:20 p.m. to participate on Saturday during the annual U.S.-ASEAN summit and the East Asia Summit. 

Vice President Harris will attend a White House Veterans Day breakfast at 8 a.m. along with second gentleman Doug Emhoff. The vice president will speak at 11:15 a.m. at the National Veterans Day Observance and wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery while Biden is out of the country.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in New Delhi, India, for the U.S.-India Economic and Financial Partnership. She will meet with U.S. and Indian business leaders and tour the Microsoft India Development Center and deliver remarks this morning, local time. The secretary will meet with Indian Minister of Finance and Minister of Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman and join the U.S.-India Economic and Financial Partnership dialogue. Yellen and Sitharaman will speak to the news media. The secretary will join Sitharaman in the afternoon for a discussion with executives from major Indian and U.S. companies operating in India. Yellen will depart New Delhi in the evening for Bali, Indonesia, where she will join the president at the G20 summit.

First lady Jill Biden hosts an 8 a.m. Veterans Day breakfast at the White House. She will join Harris and Emhoff at 11 a.m. at Arlington National Cemetery for the National Veterans Day Observance. 

ELSEWHERE

➤ COURTS

Infowars host Alex Jones on Thursday was ordered to pay an additional $472 million in punitive damages and attorneys’ fees on top of the nearly $1 billion verdict a Connecticut jury imposed on him for spreading lies about the Sandy Hook school massacre. Jones baselessly told audiences that the shootings were staged and that the families and first responders were “crisis actors.” 

Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis ruled that Jones’s conduct merited his payment of punitive as well as the compensatory damages to the families of the victims of the 2012 school shooting, which claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six educators. She awarded $150 million in punitive damages as well as $321.7 million in legal fees that Jones must pay the victims’ lawyers under a one-third contingency-fee arrangement (Bloomberg News). 

Bellis on Thursday temporarily barred Jones from transferring or spending assets other than for ordinary living expenses. Jones is appealing a judgment to be paid to the Sandy Hook families and denies he has the resources (Bloomberg News and CNN).

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

New research details a so-called natural experiment that occurred when all but two school districts in the greater Boston area lifted COVID-19 masking requirements in the spring. Researchers took the opportunity to make a direct comparison of the spread of COVID-19 in masking and nonmasking schools in the region. They found that masking mandates were linked with significantly reduced numbers of COVID-19 cases in schools.

Infection rates were lower among masked students — even in the city’s public schools, where many buildings are old and lack good ventilation, classrooms are full and students more often come from at-risk communities — compared to unmasked students attending newer schools in wealthier communities. Julia Raifman, an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health and an author of an editorial accompanying the study, said the data should help stop misinformation about the effectiveness of masking requirements in stopping virus transmission in schools (The New York Times).

“Even as recently as this summer, people were saying, ‘Oh, COVID doesn’t spread in schools,’ and there was a misconception that kids don’t get COVID,” Raifman told the Times. “But what we see in the study is that COVID does spread in schools, and it spreads back home, and it spreads to teachers.”

▪ Time: Getting COVID-19 multiple times is risky for your health.

▪ CNBC: Unvaccinated infants were hospitalized with COVID-19 more this summer than most age groups, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say.

Information about COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot availability can be found at Vaccines.gov.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,074,485. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,344 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

➤ TOYS!

We think news from the National Toy Hall of Fame is playful fodder for a Friday ahead of the holidays. We were unaware that a new class of toys gets inducted annually during a ceremony at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, where the Toy Hall of Fame is housed. The aim of the museum is to herald toys that fostered “creative play and enjoyed popularity over a sustained period.”  

Three honorees selected this year from a dozen finalists are a top, one of mankind’s earliest known toys; Masters of the Universe action figures, which launched in 1979 at Mattel; and Lite-Brite, originally marketed as an artistic toy in 1967. 

The museum includes other nostalgic reminders of youthful escapes, including Scrabble, Risk and LIFE board games, American Girl dolls and G.I. Joe, chess and jacks, Big Wheels and Hot Wheels, Atari’s 2600 game system and Nintendo Game Boy, Tonka trucks marketed after World War II, Lincoln Logs and Erector Set, the Hula Hoop and the Easy-Bake Oven (from which an edible facsimile of a miniature cake was baked with the heat of a lightbulb). 

THE CLOSER

And finally … 👏👏👏 Kudos to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! They correctly guessed or Googled information about historical barrier-breakers in Congress.

Here are the puzzle masters who went 4/4 with trivia about congressional firsts: Patrick Kavanagh, Paul Harris, Richard Baznik, Amanda Fisher, Pam Manges, Lou Tisler, “Bruce,” Randall Patrick, Stan Wasser, Mary Anne McEnery, Terry Pflaumer, Luther Berg, Len Jones and Robert Bradley.

They knew women were first permitted to wear trousers on the Senate floor in 1993 after then-Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.) wore a pantsuit in the chamber, prompting a rule change.

They knew African Americans were first elected to Congress during Reconstruction, the historic period in which the United States grappled with the question of how to integrate millions of newly freed African Americans into social, political and labor systems.

They correctly guessed that Margaret Chase Smith, Republican from Maine, was the first woman to serve in both chambers of Congress. She served in the House of Representatives from 1940 to 1949 and in the Senate from 1949 to 1973.

And finally, they knew the first member of the House of Representatives to serve as president was James Madison, who was the nation’s fourth commander in chief, from 1809 to 1817.

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