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Gallego leads Sinema, Republican candidates in potential Arizona Senate matchups: poll

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) leads Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and a series of other Republicans in potential matchups for Arizona’s 2024 Senate race, according to a new poll. 

The poll from OH Predictive Insights released Thursday showed Gallego leading in eight hypothetical matchups, four of which with Sinema running as an independent and four with Gallego facing a Republican in a head-to-head race. 

The four Republicans included in the poll was former Gov. Doug Ducey, former gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson, former gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and former Senate nominee Blake Masters. 

In a three-person race, Gallego leads by as little as 5 points in a race with Ducey and as much as 9 points in a race with Masters. He leads by 7 points in the race with Taylor Robson and by 8 points in the race with Lake. 

He also leads in the two-person matchups, but the margin varies significantly based on who the Republican candidate is. He leads by 4 points against Ducey and Taylor Robson, but he leads by 10 points against Lake and 11 points against Masters. 

But more than 20 percent of respondents said they were undecided in all matchups. 

Gallego announced his bid for Senate to replace Sinema last month, arguing that Sinema has prioritized wealthier individuals over Arizona families. He has repeatedly criticized Sinema from the left in recent months. 

Sinema, who was first elected to the Senate in 2018 as a Democrat, announced in December that she was leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent. She said at the time that the decision was about “being true to who I am and how I operate” and giving a sense of belonging to people from Arizona and across the country who are “tired” of partisanship. 

Sinema has not officially announced if she will run for reelection in 2024, but her party switch sets up the potential for a three-way race. 

“What I take away from this data is that the two key factors in this Senate race will be the ‘style’ of Republican nominated to run and whether Sinema is also on the ballot,” Mike Noble, the polling firm’s chief of research, said in the release. “But, there’s a long time between now and election day, which leaves plenty of opportunity for something to happen that can shift the dynamics of this race.” 

Gallego was the only candidate in the poll who had more respondents say they viewed favorably than unfavorably. Taylor Robson and Sinema’s numbers were only slightly underwater, while Lake and Masters are viewed significantly more unfavorably than favorably. 

The poll was conducted as part of an online opt-in survey among 1,000 registered voters’ completed surveys. The margin of error was 3.1 points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump tops DeSantis by 6 points among Republicans in new survey

Republican voters give a six-point edge to President Trump over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a hypothetical 2024 GOP presidential primary matchup, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday.

When given a list of 14 potential GOP candidates, 42 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters said they would vote for Trump, while 36 percent said they would vote for DeSantis, who has yet to formally announce a White House bid but is widely believed to be considering one.

Five percent said they would vote for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who announced her campaign for the presidency earlier this week, becoming the first Republican to officially challenge Trump for the nomination.

Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo each received 4 percent of the vote, according to the survey, which found that no other candidate listed — including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — received more than 2 percent of the vote.

Both Pence and Pompeo are considering a White House bid, but neither have made a formal announcement.

When the poll cut down the field to just Trump, DeSantis, Haley and Pence, Republican voters were more split between Trump and DeSantis, who received 43 and 41 percent of the vote, respectively. Six percent voted for Haley and 4 percent voted for Pence.

In a potential general election, registered voters were split between President Biden and Trump in a head to head match-up, with Biden receiving 48 percent and Trump receiving 46 percent of the vote. But between Biden and DeSantis, 47 percent supported the Florida governor in a hypothetical election and 46 percent supported Biden.

The Quinnipiac survey included 1,429 registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points and was conducted between Feb. 9 to 14.

Source: TEST FEED1

Georgia grand jury in Trump interference probe reports at least one witness may have lied

The partial release of a Georgia grand jury report evaluating former President Trump’s election interference in the state determined that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 contest and encouraged prosecution of witnesses who may have lied to the panel.

The limited details gleaned from the report come after a judge allowed the release of just three sections from a document expected to include charging recommendations.

“We find by unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election,” the grand jury wrote.

Jurors involved in crafting the report had previously determined it should be released to the public in its entirety, prompting a warning from Fulton Co. District Attorney Fani Willis that doing so could compromise the right for “multiple” future defendants in a case where charging decisions are “imminent.”

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney largely sided with Willis, determining that only the introduction and conclusion of the report should be released, along with one section discussing potential perjury that did not name any witnesses who appeared before the grand jury.

“A majority of the witnesses believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it. The Grand Jury recommends that the District Attorney seeks appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” the report states.

The sparse information in the now public section mirrors sections from other similar reports, with the introduction generally reviewing the process undertaken by the grand jury and a conclusion thanking all those who aided in its efforts.

Page numbers indicate the full report would have been nine pages, with the public now able to see portions of just three.

The jurors’ conclusion there was no widespread fraud in the election is yet another counter to claims still perpetuated by Trump and his allies and a finding that could undercut possible defenses should charges stem from the investigation.

“Critics, including Donald Trump and others, will be able to attack the findings and poke holes in what they believe the findings to be. Fulton County prosecutors and the DA’s office will be unable to respond, and the evidence supporting their conclusions will be unknown,” Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and a former prosecutor, wrote on Twitter.

“Only when we see the full report and any indictments can we truly assess the strength of the case here.”

Willis’s case is seen as one of the most promising pathways for an eventual prosecution of Trump, who in a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) asked him to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.”

The known targets in Georgia include former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and 16 Republicans who held a meeting to carry out the fake elector plot by voting to certify the election for Trump.

McBurney limited the portions of the report that could be shared, stressing that the grand jury process understandably does not include the same protections for witnesses as a public trial. 

“There were no lawyers advocating for any targets of the investigation,” McBurney wrote in the eight-page decision, noting the process is “entirely appropriately — a one-sided exploration.”

“Potential future defendants were not able to present evidence outside the scope of what the district attorney asked them. They were not able to call their own witnesses who might rebut what other State’s witnesses had said and they had no ability to present mitigating evidence. Put differently, there was very limited due process in this process for those who might be named as indictment-worthy in the final report,” McBurney wrote.

–Updated at 12:00 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

FEC presses Santos to identify campaign treasurer

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is demanding Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) to name a new treasurer for his campaign and several affiliated political committees, warning that a failure to do so will bar the groups from raising or spending any money.

“It is required that for any committee to conduct any business, they must have an active treasurer,” Jaime Amrhein, an assistant branch chief at the FEC, wrote in a Tuesday letter to Santos’s campaign. “Failure to appoint a treasurer will result in the inability of the committee to accept contributions and make disbursements.”

Santos’s now-former campaign treasurer Nancy Marks resigned her role last month amid questions about the campaign’s finances. The campaign filed paperwork naming longtime GOP operative Thomas Datwyler as its new treasurer, but shortly after, a lawyer for Datwyler told The Hill that he had not agreed to take the job. 

Federal law requires every political committee to have a treasurer in order to spend or take in money. Campaigns must appoint a new treasurer within 10 days of their former treasurers resigning. The letter from the FEC gives Santos’s campaign until March 21 to respond.

The Hill has reached out to Santos’s attorney for comment on the FEC’s requests.

Santos, a first-term congressman who flipped a Democratic-leaning district in November, has been mired in controversy since late last year after it was revealed that he had lied about his resume. 

Since then, he’s faced scrutiny over everything from his business dealings to his campaign’s financial practices, including the source of a pair of six-figure loans from the candidate and a series of campaign expenses for $199.99 – an amount that’s just two cents under the $200 threshold that would require the campaign to keep receipts or invoices.

Santos has so far avoided addressing questions about his campaign finances, telling reporters last month that he doesn’t “touch” the FEC filings.

“I don’t amend anything,” Santos said. “I don’t touch any of my FEC stuff. So don’t be disingenuous and report that I did, because you know that every campaign hires fiduciaries. So I’m not aware of that answer.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump warns Scott on Social Security, Medicare: 'THERE WILL BE NO CUTS'

Former President Trump warned Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Wednesday to “fight for Social Security and Medicare” and panned the Club for Growth’s endorsement of the Florida senator’s reelection bid as “the kiss of death.”  

Trump endorsed Scott’s challenge against Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in November but lashed out against his ally after the Club for Growth, a powerful conservative advocacy group, endorsed Scott earlier this week and defended him from what it called McConnell’s “false” attacks.  

“Bad news for Senator Rick Scott of Florida! Club for NO Growth just announced they are going to back him, and without my backing them, an Endorsement from them is the kiss of death,” Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform.  

“Be careful, Rick, and most importantly, fight for Social Security and Medicare. THERE WILL BE NO CUTS!” Trump wrote.  

Trump ripped the Club for Growth last week after he wasn’t invited to the group’s annual donor retreat, which was a clear sign that it is not backing his 2024 presidential campaign.  

“The Club for NO Growth, an assemblage of political misfits, globalists, and losers, fought me incessantly and rather viciously during my presidential run in 2016,” Trump wrote last week. “They said I couldn’t win, I did, and won even bigger in 2020, with millions of more votes than ’16, but the Election was Rigged & Stolen,” repeating unsupported claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.  

The conservative advocacy group gave Scott a strong endorsement on Tuesday as “a proven conservative who has promoted economic growth and fought reckless spending in the U.S. Senate.” 

Club for Growth PAC President David McIntosh said that “while other Republicans have caved to massive tax-and-spend packages that have strained our economy, Rick Scott has consistently championed small government solutions centered around fiscal responsibility, and because of that he’s faced the unfounded and false attacks of liberal Democrats like President Biden and even establishment Republicans like Leader McConnell.” 

Democrats have regularly zeroed in on a provision in Scott’s 12-point plan to “Rescue America” that calls for sunsetting all federal legislation after five years and requiring Congress to renew the programs it thinks are worthwhile.  

Scott has repeatedly said he does not want to cut Social Security and Medicare and assumes that Congress would reauthorize those entitlement programs every five years.  

But McConnell pledged on Tuesday that’s Scott’s plan has no support from the Senate GOP leadership after Biden said at his State of the Union address “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — Default warning by summer rekindles debt debate

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 U.S. could default on its debt between July and September, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned on Wednesday, adding new specificity to a partisan impasse that could harm the economy even before summer (The New York Times).

Adding to the battle over budgeting and the statutory debt ceiling, the United States is on track to add $19 trillion in new debt over 10 years, in part because of rising inflation and bipartisan spending bills now in law, according to the CBO (The New York Times).  

Federal debt held by the public is projected to rise from 98 percent of gross domestic product this year to 118 percent by 2033 — an average increase of 2 percentage points per year, according to projections. To many lawmakers and economists, it’s an unsustainable path.

“Over the long term, our projections suggest that changes in fiscal policy must be made to address the rising costs of interest and mitigate other adverse consequences of high and rising debt,” concluded CBO Director Phillip Swagel.  

House and Senate Republicans, looking ahead to next year’s elections and worries about economic unknowns, tell voters that now is the time to rein in federal spending. But under political pressure, they’ve vowed not to cut Social Security and Medicare, and some conservatives have backed away from cutting defense spending, which means major drivers of accumulated debt were swept off the negotiating table.

President Biden and Democratic lawmakers say policies they’ve enacted succeeded in trimming the deficit during the past two years by more than $1.7 trillion, which the president hails as “the largest deficit reduction in American history.” The president will send Congress his proposed budget for fiscal 2024 on March 9.

The U.S. economy will barely grow this year after adjusting for inflation, the CBO forecast. The unemployment rate, which was 3.4 percent in January, will rise above 5 percent before growth reaccelerates next year, according to the economic projections. The CBO attributes the slowdown in growth to the Federal Reserve’s drive to tame inflation by raising interest rates in order to cool the economy and the labor market.

Biden used his State of the Union address and two speeches this week to tell voters that laws enacted since 2021 that House Republicans propose to repeal would raise, not lower, deficits and debt. With a Democratic majority in the Senate, none of the House GOP initiatives Biden has criticized would be expected to end up on his desk.

“I don’t understand my Republican friends don’t quite get this,” Biden said on Wednesday during an event in Lanham, Md. “Bringing down the cost of prescription drugs isn’t just fair. It saves seniors a lot of money. But here’s what else it will do. It will cut the federal deficit, saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars over time.”

As The Hill’s Alex Gangitano reports, the White House asserts that if Republicans got their way and repealed provisions of the law that lowered prices for many prescription drugs for seniors, it would add $159 billion to the debt. The administration says tax increases on corporations that are backed by Democrats would mean more federal revenues and a $296 billion reduction in debt. Republicans oppose tax increases on corporations and wealthy individuals.

Related Articles

▪ CNBC: Retail sales jumped 3 percent in January, smashing expectations despite inflation jump.

▪ The New Yorker: Former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain looks back on Biden’s first two years as president.

▪ Washington Monthly: It’s Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court — and lower courts are saluting him.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ ADMINISTRATION  

Lines of communication between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are in flux amid the fallout from U.S. revelations of a global Chinese balloon surveillance program and the scrambling of fighter jets to take down unidentified flying objects over the U.S. and Canada. As The Hill’s Alex Gangitano and Laura Kelly report, Biden has yet to address the nation on what his administration knows about the threat posed from China, and U.S. officials have dismissed questions over whether the president will speak with Xi, their last face-to-face occurring in November on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia. 

U.S. officials now suspect that the balloon was sent to spy on bases in Guam and Hawaii and that other downed objects were not surveillance machines, The New York Times reports, highlighting how Washington’s evolving view of the situation has heightened the difficulties facing the U.S. and China in discerning each other’s intentions.

Biden is considering speaking publicly as early as today about the recent downing of aerial objects and is expected to describe new rules that would deal with future such situations (NBC News). Next week he’ll be in Poland to mark the anniversary of Ukraine’s persistent defenses against Russia’s invasion (Bloomberg News). 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meanwhile, departs for a week of meetings in Germany, Turkey and Greece. He’ll attend the Munich Security Conference alongside Vice President Harris, who arrived in Germany today. Blinken may meet top Chinese foreign policy official Wang Yi while at the conference; no meeting has been confirmed (The Washington Post).

Politico: Harris on China balloon episode: “I don’t think it impacts our relations.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Wednesday told “NBC Nightly News” that no one had yet claimed ownership over the most recent objects.

“No, they haven’t. No. … There are rules that people should follow, and if you’re going to want something that’s operating in those spaces, the FAA should be notified and permission should be requested. But to answer your question, nobody’s claimed,” Austin said. “We typically are focused on things that are moving fast and so it’s a bit more difficult to collect on slow moving objects like a balloon, and as they made adjustments, they were able to see some of that.”

The balloon’s discovery has forced a recalibration in how the military monitors, tracks and responds to threats from above, writes The Hill’s Brad Dress. The Defense Department said that after the alleged Chinese spy balloon flew over much of the U.S. earlier this month before it was shot down, it began paying closer attention to lower-altitude flying objects.

After the Biden administration announced this week an interagency task force to investigate the UFOs, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said one of the team’s new tasks will be to examine how it will respond to the aerial objects. 

“We’re going to learn from these three events,” Kirby said. “We’re going to have an interagency effort that helps us get around the policy implications here.” 

Advocates are warning of worsening conditions at immigration detention centers, even after official internal investigations shed light on past infractions, writes The Hill’s Rafael Bernal. One facility, the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, N.M., received such poor marks in a September 2022 inspection that the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General “recommended, and continue[s] to recommend, the immediate relocation of all Torrance detainees unless and until the facility ensures adequate staffing and appropriate living conditions.” 

That report followed a March 2022 “management alert” by DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, who recommended “that detainees should be immediately removed from this facility.” But an investigation conducted by Innovation Law Lab at the facility between January and February 2023 found “the men are subjected to conditions worse than those that formed the basis for the DHS Office of the Inspector General’s recommendation to end operations at Torrance in March 2022.” 

▪ The Tacoma News Tribune: How are chemical agents used at the immigration detention center on the Tacoma, Wash., Tideflats?

▪ Bloomberg Government: Immigrant detention center flagged for “dilapidated” conditions.

Progressives want “middle class Joe” to find a worker-friendly Labor secretary to replace Marty Walsh — but they say it may take some nudging to get there. As The Hill’s Hanna Trudo reports, progressive lawmakers and advocates have appreciated Biden’s decisions on labor, and with Walsh’s expected exit, they want the president to select someone who can move their agenda ever further to the left. But some worry he may turn to former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), a centrist and one of their biggest rivals who has former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) blessing. 

“Can you imagine? Why would they do that?” said one nervous Democratic strategist about Maloney. “I don’t think they’ll do it. But stranger things have happened.” 

The Hill: Biden’s IRS nominee draws heat — and some support — from GOP senators.

➤ POLITICS

California: The campaign of Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) filed with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday to compete in an increasingly crowded field for a Senate seat following Tuesday’s retirement announcement by 89-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

Lee has not made a formal campaign announcement. Democratic California Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff announced their respective plans to compete for the seat weeks before Feinstein’s retirement announcement (The Hill).

▪ The New York Times: Senate race in California reflects fight for Democrats’ future.

▪ Politico: West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) is the strongest candidate against Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), GOP poll says.

Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor, on Wednesday formally announced her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. At an event in Charleston, S.C., Haley launched her 2024 White House race by calling for a new path in American politics — one that likely sets her on a collision course with her erstwhile boss, former President Trump (The Post and Courier).

“We’re ready, ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past, and we’re ready for a new generation to lead us into the future,” Haley said on Wednesday.

After her kickoff, Trump’s campaign criticized Haley as a flip-flopper who at one time supported former Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) idea of entitlement vouchers (Washington Examiner). Trump himself took a dig at his former Cabinet member but said the “more the merrier” in the 2024 race (Fox News).

▪ The Hill: Haley calls for “mental competency tests” for politicians over 75.

▪ The New York Times: The former president’s Republican rivals appear highly reluctant to criticize him, and Haley mostly tiptoed around him as she jumped into the race this week.

▪ Politico: Haley looks to move past Trump with a style that predates him.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Trump changes tune on mail-in voting, ballot collection.

Republican lawmakers are wary of their party’s propensity for scoring own goals or self-inflicted wounds and are hoping for more discipline heading into the next election cycle, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. Leading Republicans think that the House GOP’s raucous reception of Biden played into the president’s hands and that the proposal by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to sunset Medicare and Social Security and a comment last week by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” are political gifts to Democrats.  

▪ Washington Monthly: Why does Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) seek to “fix” a high-ranking college?

▪ Politico: Former Vice President Mike Pence moves to claim culture war lane before DeSantis gets there.

➤ CONGRESS 

House lawmakers are away from Washington this week, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is on the road and in the air. Today he’ll take aim at Biden and Democrats with a visit to the U.S. southern border with colleagues, arguing the situation is in “crisis.” They’ll get an aerial tour from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and fly over the Tucson area in Cochise County, Ariz. Proposed legislative changes to immigration and border policies are splintering House Republicans (The Hill).

▪ Time: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called on Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to help Washington get tougher on monopolies.

▪ Axios: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dialed the numbers of influential Americans as his government debates proposed judicial reforms amid public protests. Netanyahu this month called former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, an economist, for advice about calming business jitters, and Schumer and Senate colleagues plan to travel to Israel next week to meet with the prime minister and other officials. 

▪ NBC News: The Justice Department ended a sex trafficking investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) without bringing charges, his attorneys and congressional office said on Wednesday.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Russia has deployed nearly its entire army in Ukraine, increasing pressure along the front line in the east of the country but falling short of a breakthrough, according to British officials. While Ukrainian officials have warned of a renewed Russian onslaught to coincide with the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion next week, some Western authorities say the offensive is unlikely to be one single event. Russian forces have redoubled attacks along the front lines in recent weeks, eking out gains after a series of reversals last year (The Wall Street Journal).

But weeks of failed attacks on a Ukrainian stronghold have left two Russian brigades in tatters, raised questions about Moscow’s military tactics and renewed doubts about its ability to maintain sustained, large-scale ground assaults (The New York Times).

▪ BBC: Nicola Sturgeon resigns: Scotland’s first minister says politics has taken its toll. 

▪ NPR: Sturgeon will resign, complicating the Scottish independence movement.

A verdant olive grove was cleaved into two during last week’s devastating earthquake in Turkey, creating a valley over 980 feet long that now divides the area. Remarkable footage of the split olive grove has emerged from Turkey’s southeast Altınozu district, which borders Syria, showing a jagged, sandy-colored, canyon-like chasm. The cleavage reaches over 130 feet deep.

Its creation is another show of the devastating power of last week’s magnitude 7.8 quake, which killed tens of thousands of people in Syria and Turkey and destroyed entire city blocks (CNN).

▪ BBC: Women pulled alive from Turkey quake debris nine days on.

▪ The Washington Post: Rising seas risk climate migration on “biblical scale,” says United Nations chief.

▪ Miami Herald: Suspect in assassination of Haiti president tried to get FBI involved in “regime change” plot.

▪ Foreign Policy: Pakistan’s government is choosing extremist Islam over economic stability.

➤ STATE WATCH

Questions linger around the derailment and explosion of a train carrying hazardous chemicals in Ohio among locals and environmentalists, who worry the Environmental Protection Agency’s response has been insufficient and confusing, writes The Hill’s Zack Budryk. On Feb. 3, a freight train owned by the Norfolk Southern railroad and carrying 14 cars of vinyl chloride derailed in the town on the border with Pennsylvania. Two days later, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) ordered the town evacuated. “Ohio EPA is confident that the municipal water is safe to drink,” the state said in a Wednesday statement after receiving test results of water used in East Palestine (The Hill). However, at a Tuesday news conference, Ohio Health Director Bruce Vanderhoff advised residents to drink bottled water “for right now.” 

The federal agency has now sent a letter to Norfolk Southern informing the company it may be responsible for cleanup under the federal “Superfund” law, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. “EPA has spent, or is considering spending, public funds to investigate and control releases of hazardous substances or potential releases of hazardous substances at the Site,” the agency wrote.

City officials and residents of East Palestine attended a town hall meeting Wednesday evening to discuss the ongoing cleanup efforts following a train derailment on Feb. 3, but Norfolk Southern said its representatives will not attend due to the “growing physical threat” to employees (News 5 Cleveland). 

▪ CNN: National Transportation Safety Board says videos of the Ohio train derailment include one showing wheel bearing in “final stage of overheat failure.”

▪ Fox News: Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), who represents East Palestine, urged Buttigieg on Wednesday via tweet to attend the evening town hall meeting.

The gunman who killed 10 people and injured three others in a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket last year was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison without parole. He also faces separate federal charges that could carry a death sentence if the Justice Department chooses to seek it. His defense attorney said in December that his client is prepared to plead guilty in federal court as well to avoid execution. Payton Gendron, a white supremacist from Conklin, N.Y., who was 18 years old at the time of the massacre, received life in prison after pleading guilty in November to all state charges brought against him (CBS News). 

OPINION

■ Four reasons why Democrats aren’t lining up to run against Biden, by Perry Bacon Jr., columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3E9u6ed 

■ Japan is muscling up and locking arms with allies to face China, by David Boling, opinion contributor, The Hill.  https://bit.ly/3YwX7st

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 convene for a pro forma session at 10 a.m. on Friday. McCarthy is in Tucson, Ariz., to lead a congressional delegation for a border tour, followed by a news conference.

The Senate meets at 10 a.m. 

The president is scheduled to undergo a routine annual physical examination at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (NBC News). The president and first lady Jill Biden plan to host a screening in the East Room of the film “Till,” about the 1955 murder in Mississippi by two white men of 14-year-old Emmett Till, and his mother’s Chicago-based campaign for justice (History).

The vice president is inGermany to participate in the Munich Security Conference.

The secretary of State is traveling to Germany.

Attorney General Merrick Garland will deliver a speech in St. Louis at 9 a.m. about the Justice Department’s $100 million grant program to support community violence interventions as a complement to law enforcement.

Economic indicator: The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on claims for unemployment benefits filed during the week ending Feb. 11.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will participate in a roundtable discussion focused on global efforts to combat antisemitism at the BBYO International Convention in Dallas at 5 p.m. CT, followed by keynote remarks at 8:40 p.m. CT.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) will participate in a livestreamed conversation at 11 a.m. ET with Cato senior fellow and surgeon Jeffrey Singer to discuss the federal government, health care and the pandemic. Information HERE. 

ELSEWHERE

➤ TECH

Here’s the most important sentence to read this morning about the future and artificial intelligence, courtesy of The New York Times. As a tech journalist concluded after experiencing Microsoft’s new Bing search engine chatbot: “I worry that the technology will learn how to influence human users, sometimes persuading them to act in destructive and harmful ways, and perhaps eventually grow capable of carrying out its own dangerous acts.”

▪ The Verge: These are Microsoft’s Bing AI secret rules and why it says it’s named Sydney.

▪ Rolling Stone: AI chatbots are running amok — and we have no clue how to stop them.

▪ The New York Times “The Daily” podcast: The online search wars.

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

Moderna on Wednesday responded to criticism with an announcement that it will continue to supply its COVID-19 vaccination for free for all consumers, including the uninsured, even after the federal government stops underwriting the drug as part of its pandemic response (ABC News). The company was reported to be considering charging up to $130 per jab. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he wants Moderna’s chief executive to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, which he chairs (The Washington Post). 

Many American adults who were hospitalized for COVID-19 experienced lingering symptoms, physical limitations and financial problems six months after being discharged, according to a new study. The study, which looked at more than 800 adults who were hospitalized for COVID-19 between August 2020 and July 2021, found that at the six-month mark, more than 7 in 10 participants reported problems affecting the heart or lungs such as coughing, rapid or irregular heartbeat, and breathlessness. More than half of survivors reported fatigue after half a year (U.S. News).

Nature: The World Health Organization abandons plans for a crucial second phase of COVID-19 origins investigation.

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

In the decade before the pandemic, the share of high school students who reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased by 40 percent to more than 1 in 3 students. The pandemic exacerbated this trend, leading the American Academy of Pediatrics to declare a national state of emergency. In 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 44 percent of high school students reported they persistently felt sad or hopeless during the past year.

Many have theorized about possible interventions, but the vast majority of proposed “solutions” focus on crisis response rather than crisis prevention. Time magazine has rounded up three concrete ways you can help them find purpose and direction in the face of an uncertain future.

The mosquitoes that transmit malaria dramatically increased their range over the past century as temperatures warmed, scientists reported in a new paper published in Biology Letters and may explain why malaria’s range has expanded over the past few decades. The results have serious implications for countries that are unprepared to cope with the disease.

“If this were random, and if it were unrelated to climate, it wouldn’t look as cleanly climate-linked,” Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security and the paper’s lead author, told The New York Times.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Health startups offer diabetes drugs like Ozempic for weight loss with little oversight.

▪ CNN: Study finds link between “free sugar” intake and cardiovascular disease.

▪ The New York Times: New research affirms what doctors have long advised: Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day for big health benefits.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,115,638. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 3,171 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

Take Our Morning Report Quiz

And finally … 🎈 It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by aerial orbs, we’re eager for some smart guesses about balloons in the headlines and in history.

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.

The U.S. government knew it was a Chinese balloon spotted publicly over Montana this month because it was marked with the red insignia of the Chinese Communist Party.

1. True
2. False

Which country during World War II released more than 9,000 balloons carrying incendiary bombs in a failed plan to burn down the enemy’s cities and forests using wind power?

1. Germany
2. Japan
3. Russia
4. United States

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury indicted a man and woman for conspiring to use Mylar balloons (and other means) to try to destroy a ring of _____ around Baltimore.

1. Childcare centers
2. Suspected drug dealers
3. Pesky geese
4. Electrical substations

Airspace is cluttered with a type of floating surveillance above North America and the Pacific Islands. What government entity operates 92 weather balloon sites (69 in the mainland U.S. and 13 in Alaska)?

1. NASA
2. Federal Aviation Administration
3. Defense Department
4. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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!

ICE unable to stamp out abuse allegations at detention centers

Advocates say conditions at U.S. immigration detention centers are getting worse, even after years of investigations, calls to action and pledges to improve the civilian incarceration system.

Early in his tenure, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ordered two detention centers shuttered, and he has since closed a handful more.

“Allow me to state one foundational principle: we will not tolerate the mistreatment of individuals in civil immigration detention or substandard conditions of detention,” Mayorkas said in a memo to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting Director Tae Johnson in March of 2021. 

Even as Biden administration officials have vowed to reduce immigration detention, multiple organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, have consistently highlighted the flaws in the system.

Still, ICE and private detention center operators such as CoreCivic and the GEO Group have been dogged by consistent reports of abuse, neglect and mismanagement.

One location, the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, N.M., received such poor marks in a September inspection that the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General “recommended, and continue[s] to recommend, the immediate relocation of all Torrance detainees unless and until the facility ensures adequate staffing and appropriate living conditions.”

That report followed a March “management alert” by DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, who recommended “that detainees should be immediately removed from this facility.”

That recommendation was not followed.

ICE continued to populate the facility, bringing in upwards of 200 new detainees starting on Christmas Eve, according to Ana Ortiz Varela, a program manager at Innovation Law Lab, a nonprofit that combines legal, political and technological tools to fight against mistreatment and deportations.

“It actually started on Christmas Eve,” said Ortiz Varela. “And it was Christmas for them, because they’re Latino. Like for them, that’s Christmas Day.”

An investigation conducted by the Innovation Law Lab at Torrance between January and February and released Wednesday found “the men are subjected to conditions worse than those that formed the basis for the DHS Office of the Inspector General’s recommendation to end operations at Torrance in March 2022.”

The report, based largely on first-hand accounts by detainees, found “a disturbing picture of the conduct of US Government officials and CoreCivic employees who manage the facility day to day.”

CoreCivic is a private company that operates dozens of detention and correctional facilities throughout the country.

“Much of the recent reporting about [Torrance] has been inaccurate and misleading. The reality is that we provide a safe, humane and appropriate environment for those entrusted to us at [Torrance] and are constantly striving to deliver an even better standard of care,” said Ryan Gustin, a spokesman for CoreCivic.

Reports of abuse and subpar conditions in immigration detention centers are far from exclusive to Torrance.

Advocates say conditions at the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPC) near Seattle reached a breaking point early this month, when a group of 85 detainees in one unit began a hunger strike.

Allegations regarding that facility’s installations, inmate services and incidences of detainee abuse are so notorious that the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights has been investigating conditions at NWIPC since 2017.

The hunger strike, which has since ended, led to some concessions for the striking unit — advocates report detainees receive chicken rather than soy-based meals — but only after significant uproar.

“We have never seen a demonstration being put out by gas canisters thrown to them. That was new to us. Not saying that they haven’t done it, maybe they’ve done it before, but not to hunger strikers that we’ve worked with,” said Maru Mora-Villalpando, a community organizer with La Resistencia, a group that’s focused on abuses at NWIPC.

NWIPC is run by the GEO Group, which operates 51 secure facilities for federal, state and local governments throughout the United States.

A spokesperson for GEO characterized the early February disruption at the facility thusly: “An incident occurred at the Northwest ICE Processing Center involving a small group of high-security detainees that were behaving in a disruptive manner, barricading themselves inside of their housing unit, and blocking security cameras, which provide additional safety for other detainees and staff.”

The spokesperson added that “chemical agents” were used but no detainees were injured, while rejecting the allegations of poor conditions and abuse.

“We strongly reject these allegations, which are clearly part of a politically motivated and choreographed effort to abolish ICE. There is currently no hunger strike at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, and residents are provided three meals daily based on nutritional menus approved by a registered dietician free of charge, in accordance with the federal government’s Performance-Based National Detention Standards.”

Representatives for both CoreCivic and GEO pointed to ICE as the ultimate arbiters and enforcers of immigration detention standards.

ICE did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Reports of detainee mistreatment in immigration detention are so widespread and commonplace that advocates say non-criminal immigration detention itself is the problem.

“As long as the U.S. government has been jailing people as part of the immigration process, it’s been a concern,” said Heidi Altman, director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

And ICE detention costs taxpayers $2.9 billion a year for a detainee population that’s averaged 25,978 people per month since June of 2019, according to numbers from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data monitoring project at Syracuse University.

Even discounting the alleged patterns of abuse, the practice of keeping non-criminal immigrants in detention has been broadly denounced both domestically and internationally, as it subjects people without criminal charges to prison-like conditions for indeterminate amounts of time.

“That the detention doesn’t have an end date is important in terms of the impact on people who are detained. So think in terms of the psychological damage that immigration detention does — the indefinite nature of it, which is different from the criminal legal system, is just really, really insidious,” Altman said.

Immigration detention has often been portrayed as a necessity to keep deportable immigrants from evading authorities in hopes of staying in the country.

While incarceration does keep deportable foreign nationals within reach of ICE, advocates say nearly 100 percent of immigrants with legal representation show up for hearings and meetings with ICE agents.

And ICE has alternatives to the detention program, which include electronic surveillance methods such as ankle bracelets and phone-like tablets given to migrants so they can be tracked.

On Monday, 36 House Democrats led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Jerry Nadler (N.Y.) and Nanette Diaz Barragán (Calif.) called on the Biden administration to give additional funding to the Case Management Pilot Program (CMPP), which provides legal assistance to immigrants in deportation proceedings.

“Previous case management programs were highly effective in producing compliance with immigration proceedings. For instance, the Family Case Management Program (FCMP) enjoyed a strong record of success, producing compliance rates of 99 percent for compliance with court hearings and immigration appointments, at a cost of only $36 per day per family compared to adult detention, which costs up to $232 per person per day,” wrote the lawmakers.

Despite the alternative programs, the number of ICE detainees has remained steady during the Biden administration, and a majority of detainees neither face criminal charges nor have a criminal record.

According to TRAC, ICE had 24,170 detainees at the end of January, 14,732 of whom had no criminal charges or records.

Many of those detainees complain about living conditions, cruel treatment, food, and alleged overuse of solitary confinement and diminished or lack of access to the asylum process.

For one detained migrant who spoke to The Hill from Torrance, the experience has been worse than threats from criminal gangs that made him flee.

“I would have preferred to stay in my country, for them to take my life there rather than being a prisoner here, because I had never in my life been in jail,” they said.

“I would already be out of this because in death one is better off, one doesn’t suffer, doesn’t agonize, doesn’t feel anything, doesn’t go through toil, or the fight that one is going through here, and living here.”

Source: TEST FEED1

McCarthy experiences rollercoaster of highs and lows in first weeks as Speaker

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) is experiencing the highs and lows of his new position, underscoring how his tenure leading a fractious House GOP majority is likely to be something of a rollercoaster.

McCarthy is managing fiery personalities in his own conference after a turbulent one-week battle to be elected Speaker. 

He’s squeaked out a number of wins, showing the GOP can divide House Democrats with the right messaging bills. Allies also see opportunities for bipartisan agreement on issues such as China policy. 

At the same time, internal Republican disagreement that is derailing some of the leadership’s plans for bills forecasts the challenges ahead. With just a four-vote majority, McCarthy will face difficulties in getting his conference completely on board with on difficult policy measures. 

“Speaker McCarthy fully understands the challenges of leading a nearly split House with a fractured GOP caucus. He inherited these circumstances, he did not create them,” Republican strategist Rick Tyler told The Hill. “But I believe that he has, as he is already demonstrating, the political skill to lead the Republicans into an era of a sustained governing majority.”

The lows, so far, have been more dramatic than the highs. 

Most notably, hard-line conservatives forced McCarthy into a historic days-long Speaker election floor battle. After extensive negotiations between opponents and allies, including commitments on structural changes that allows any Republican to force a vote on his ouster, McCarthy secured the gavel.

Soon after, McCarthy ran into a challenge in getting enough votes to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over past comments deemed antisemitic by members of both parties. 

Reps. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Ken Buck (R-Colo.) expressed misgivings about the tit-for-tat of removing members from committees as retribution for Democrats stripping Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) from panels in the last Congress. But after nonbinding language was added to address “due process” concerns, McCarthy swayed the members, and Republicans removed Omar. 

McCarthy has embraced Greene as a key ally, but observers think it could be hard for him to keep walking a tightrope of managing firebrands and those stoking controversy without condemning them.

As revelations about Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) continue to emerge, McCarthy has declined to call for his resignation, and said that Santos voluntarily stepped down from his committees after originally getting assignments. 

“To succeed, he has to constantly be communicating to and convincing the voters that his party has a better vision for America and is capable of governing. Over time, that will mean replacing the Marjorie Taylor-Greens and Matt Gaetz’ with more sane, rational competent representatives,” Tyler said.

House Republicans have passed several party-line messaging measures that have virtually no chance of getting through the Democratic-controlled Senate. Those included a bill to rescind a boost in IRS funding for enforcement and a bill to require health care providers to provide lifesaving care to any infant born alive after an attempted abortion.

But because of internal GOP disagreement, several pieces of legislation that Republicans had hoped to bring to the floor in the opening weeks of the session for a quick vote have stalled.

One of those is the Border Safety and Security Act, a bill that would allow the Homeland Security secretary to turn away migrants in order to achieve “operational control” at the border.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who represents a district on the U.S.-Mexico border, has warned that the bill could prevent legal asylum claims, and dubbed it “anti-immigrant.” Lead sponsor Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) says there has been “misinformation” about the bill.

Many of McCarthy’s wins have been structural and were promises the Speaker made in the runup to the midterms. 

The House GOP ended pandemic-era proxy voting, reopened buildings and the gallery to the public, and removed magnetometers around the House floor. The House held its first modified open amendment process in seven years, during which more than 140 amendments were considered on a bill limiting the president’s ability to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

China policy is another bright spot for McCarthy. 

Fulfilling the Speaker’s longtime goal, the House established a select committee on China with bipartisan support. The panel is likely to focus on not only international issues but also on domestic issues related to the influence of the Chinese Communist Party, such as Beijing’s purchase of agricultural lands in the U.S. It could also touch on human rights issues and “ideological warfare.”

And the House unanimously passed a resolution condemning China for flying a suspected spy balloon over the continental U.S., in a 419-0 recorded vote. The resolution was reportedly modified from an earlier idea to criticize President Biden for not shooting down the balloon faster.

“The House is the only place where we’ve moved bipartisan legislation. We just had a unanimous vote against the CCP of China on the balloon,” McCarthy said in a recent video posted to his Twitter account. 

He also noted that dozens of Democrats joined Republicans to pass resolutions disapproving of the District of Columbia passing measures to allow noncitizen residents to vote in local elections, and a bill that did away with a majority of mandatory minimum sentences in the D.C. criminal code.

“We’re going to differ in a lot of places, but there’s other places that I think we can find common ground,” McCarthy said.

Republicans also successfully split Democrats over a resolution to condemn socialism, with about half of the House Democratic Caucus joining Republicans to vote for the measure — a move that could come up in future campaign ads.

With a divided Washington, much of the House GOP’s focus will be on investigations of the Biden administration, big tech companies, intelligence agencies, and more — areas that will be led by committee chairs rather than McCarthy himself.

The next major legislative test for McCarthy in his first year as Speaker will be how he manages in trying to secure spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit. 

McCarthy has started conversations with President Biden on cutting spending alongside raising the debt limit. Those spending cuts were a promise made to some of his detractors during the Speakership fight, but the White House says it does not want to negotiate.

Source: TEST FEED1

Spy balloon dustup sends US-China relations from bad to worse

Revelations of a global Chinese balloon spying program have upended fledgling attempts by President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to manage tensions that risk spiraling into confrontation and conflict. 

Lines of communication between Washington and Beijing remain in flux as the US has repeatedly scrambled fighter jets to take down unidentified flying objects over the U.S. and Canada over the past week. 

“Whether you call it competition or whatever, the U.S.-China relationship at the moment is bad in pretty much every possible dimension. And that includes the military one,” said Tim Bergreen, former staff director of the House Intelligence Committee Democrats.

Biden has yet to address the nation on what his administration knows about the threat posed from China, and U.S. officials have dismissed questions over whether the president will speak with Xi, their last conversation occurring during a face-to-face meeting in November on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia.

For Washington, the most immediate threat is Beijing’s tacit support for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and threats to Taiwan. And China views Biden’s commitment to Taiwan’s defense – raising the possible use of American troops – as crossing a bright red line of Beijing’s self-determination. 

The White House stressed this week it does not seek conflict with China, despite the discovery of the spy balloon.

“It doesn’t change the fact that we want to avoid a conflict with China, we’re not seeking conflict with China,” national security spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.

Administration officials also stress that lines of communication with Chinese counterparts remain open, despite a rebuff by the Chinese Minister of Defense after outreach from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last week, after the U.S. downed with an air-to-air missile the first, publicly-acknowledged Chinese surveillance balloon.  

China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), has often used a strategy to rebuff American military attempts at outreach, Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told a Senate committee on Wednesday.

“I’m not surprised that Sec. Austin’s counterpart did not pick up the phone,” Lin said.

“It shows that across the U.S. engagement with China, our military-to-military ties and relationship is relatively weak, and despite the efforts of this administration to focus on deconfliction, crisis communication with the PLA, we have not made significant progress. I wouldn’t fault that to be on the U.S. side, I would fault that to be the Chinese.”

Lin added that, “From their perspective, they have very little incentives to communicate or deconflict from us because they view our attempts to communicate with them as either allowing or green lighting certain U.S. operations.” 

Chinese officials have criticized the U.S. for downing the balloon, calling it an overreaction and maintaining their explanation that the crossing into American airspace of a “civilian unmanned airship” was an unintended, unexpected and isolated mistake. 

And Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Wednesday warned that Beijing is prepared to respond with unspecified “countermeasures” after the Commerce Department sanctioned six Chinese entities it said were related to the PLA’s aerospace programs.

Still, the administration has left open the possibility of high-level dialogue with senior Beijing officials. 

While Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a high-stakes trip to Beijing in the wake of the balloon’s discovery, State Department spokesperson Ned Price has said meetings between senior U.S. and Chinese officials could happen in a third-country, amid reports the secretary could meet his counterpart at a security conference in Munich on Thursday. 

“There’s rationale for both sides to move forward here because the Chinese are facing all kinds of domestic problems — many of their own making — that they need to deal with economically, demographically, and otherwise. At the same time, Biden is looking towards re-election,” Bergreen said.

He added that Biden has to “balance that off against a Congress that essentially, there’s almost no limit to how anti-China you can be on the Hill now.”

Some lawmakers have been quick to assign blame to China for three other unidentified flying objects that Biden ordered shot down over the weekend, even as the White House has said there’s no indication they are part of the Chinese espionage program. 

Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said this week that China “almost certainly” launched three objects.

While the Biden administration has not drawn that conclusion, it has pointed to other worrying instances of Chinese sabotage against American allies in the tense Indo-Pacific waters.

Price, the State Department Spokesperson, condemned on Monday the Chinese coast guard’s use of a military-grade laser against a Philippine coast guard ship that temporarily blinded its crew, and reaffirmed Washington’s mutual defense pact with Manila. 

And military tensions between the U.S. and China are likely to rise higher as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is likely to visit Taiwan, which Beijing views as violating its deepest, brightest, red line. 

“The relationship, it signals just how brittle it is, and it signals how a public incident forces decision makers to take decisions that play to domestic audiences,” Comfort Ero, President and CEO of International Crisis Group, said in a briefing with reporters last week. 

“It’s because of those miscalculations and those tendencies to overreach… given how public this was, it’s not surprising that Blinken canceled his trip, not surprising that Biden reacted the way he did, but it’s also the reason why we say we need guardrails to prevent and deal with crisis management in a measured way.” 

Source: TEST FEED1