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Supreme Court says it has not identified leaker of draft abortion decision

The Supreme Court on Thursday indicated it has not yet identified the source of the leak of a draft opinion that showed the court voting in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade’s abortion protections.

In a public report detailing the investigation into the May leak of the draft Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion, the court said it has conducted interviews with almost 100 employees and forensic analysis.

“The team has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence,” the report states.

Chief Justice John Roberts assigned the court’s marshal to investigate the leak immediately after it was published by Politico last year.

Developing

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Zeldin: District support for Santos 'cratering'

Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) said in an interview that the support in the district Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) represents is “cratering” by the day as the embattled first-term lawmaker is facing investigations into his deceit and campaign fundraising. 

During an appearance on Fox Business’s “Kennedy,” Zeldin, who lost to incumbent New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in the state’s gubernatorial election in November, expressed frustration with the controversy surrounding Santos, describing Santos as “personable” and “charming” during interactions they had on the campaign trail. 

“There were a lot of people who were genuinely supporting him, voting for him, volunteering for him,” Zeldin told Kennedy on Wednesday. “And they were just at this point crushed once the news came out, of what was true and what wasn’t true, and unfortunately a lot more has come out that was false than accurate.” 

Zeldin also said more people who supported and voted for Santos are “upset” and “outraged” with the controversy surrounding the lawmaker than those who voted against him in the election, noting that Santos will have a difficult time during his tenure in Congress.

Santos, 34, defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman in New York’s 3rd Congressional District in November’s midterm elections. 

“He’s going to have … an extremely difficult time, not just in Washington, D.C., and he pointed out that he just got seated on two different committees,” Zeldin added. “But especially back home, where there’s just cratering support by the day.”

Zeldin’s remarks come after several current and former New York-based lawmakers such as Rep. Ritchie Torres (D) and former Rep. Peter King (R) have called for Santos to resign. 

Santos is currently facing a federal investigation over potential campaign finance violations and an investigation from Nassau County over his fabrications during his campaign. 

Santos’s lies range from inventing his professional résumé as a Wall Street financier, claiming to be Jewish and have grandparents who escaped the Holocaust, claiming to have played volleyball for a university he did not attend and stating that he ran a charity that saved animals. 

Despite the calls for his resignation, Santos has remained defiant. The House GOP leadership on Tuesday assigned him to two committees: the House Small Business Committee and the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

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McConnell: US 'never will' default on its debt

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday he is confident that the U.S. will never default on its debt and that he is not concerned a financial crisis could be on the horizon. 

McConnell told reporters in his home state that while the push to raise the debt ceiling is “always a rather contentious effort,” he believes lawmakers will succeed at doing so before the Treasury exhausts its “extraordinary measures” in June.

“No, I would not be concerned about a financial crisis,” McConnell told a gaggle of reporters following an event at the University of Louisville to discuss disaster relief funding. 

“In the end, I think the important thing to remember is that America must never default on its debt. It never has, and it never will,” he said. “We’ll end up in some kind of negotiation with the administration over what the circumstances or conditions under which the debt ceiling be raised.” 

The comments came hours after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote in a letter to congressional leaders that the department would now resort to “extraordinary measures” to ensure the U.S. does not default on its debt payments. The U.S.’s debt eclipsed $31.4 trillion this week, crossing the total lawmakers greenlighted more than a year ago.

Yellen told leaders on Thursday that a “debt issuance suspension period” would last through June 5, though no hard date has been laid out for a deal to be reached. 

McConnell will play a crucial role in negotiations as a public battle between the White House and House Republicans has emerged. The White House and top Democrats have argued that passing a clean debt ceiling bill is not up for negotiation, while Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in recent days that any debt ceiling increase must include spending cuts and has called for talks with President Biden on the topic. 

McCarthy has not detailed what sort of cuts he is looking to include in any deal, though he did signal support for cutting defense spending in recent days.

The White House on Tuesday panned the GOP leader and called for him to publicize the deal he struck with conservative House members in order to win their support in the Speaker race earlier this month. 

When asked for his confidence level in McCarthy, McConnell said that he thinks the California Republican will “do just fine.” 

“It certainly was quite an adventure watching him get there, but I think things will settle down in the House and he’ll do just fine,” McConnell added. 

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Pompeo says Trump told him to 'shut the hell up' about China

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in his forthcoming memoir that former President Trump told him to “shut the hell up” about China in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, Semafor reported on Thursday.

“My Mike, that f—— guy hates you!” Trump reportedly said to Pompeo in March 2020 after a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The disagreement was detailed in Pompeo’s new memoir “Never Give an Inch,” which is set to be released next week, Semafor reported.

Xi had warned Trump on the call that his secretary of State was endangering the recently signed “phase one” trade deal, which sought to rein in the trade war between Washington and Beijing. 

The call came one day after Pompeo created a stir at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven, accusing China of engaging in a disinformation campaign on COVID-19 and calling for the virus to be named after the Chinese city of Wuhan where it was first detected.

Several days later, Trump accused of Pompeo of “putting us all at risk” by angering Xi, telling him, “Stop, for God’s sake!” 

Trump was reportedly also concerned about obtaining protective health equipment from China as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold around the world, according to Semafor.

Pompeo is currently considering a 2024 bid for president, putting him at odds with his former boss. While the former secretary of State is waiting to make an announcement on the subject until the spring, Trump launched his own campaign just one week after the midterm elections in November.

Source: TEST FEED1

Alec Baldwin to face involuntary manslaughter charges over 'Rust' shooting

Alec Baldwin will face involuntary manslaughter charges in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his movie “Rust.”

The announcement on Thursday from the Santa Fe district attorney came more than a year after the October 2021 fatal shooting of Hutchins, caused by a live round fired from a prop gun by Baldwin, the film’s producer and star, while rehearsing a scene on the New Mexico production.

The film’s director, Joel Souza, was also injured in the shooting.

The FBI said in a forensic report following its investigation that the gun that killed Hutchins could not have been fired without someone pulling the trigger.

Baldwin and other “Rust” producers settled a lawsuit with Hutchins’s family — which had accused the team behind the film of “reckless conduct and cost-cutting measures” — last October.

“All of us believe Halyna’s death was a terrible accident. I am grateful that the producers and the entertainment community have come together to pay tribute to Halyna’s final work,” Matthew Hutchins, the 42-year-old cinematographer’s husband, said in a statement following the settlement.

Following the shooting, Baldwin vowed to never work with real guns on a TV or movie set again.

In a TV interview just weeks after the incident, he claimed “someone else” was “responsible” for Hutchins’s death.

“I feel that someone is responsible for what happened,” the 64-year-old actor said at the time, “and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.”

Filming on the movie had been poised to resume this month. It wasn’t immediately clear if the charges against Baldwin would affect the production schedule.

Source: TEST FEED1

Treasury resorts to ‘extraordinary measures’ after US hits debt limit

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday notified congressional leaders that her office will begin to implement “extraordinary measures” to keep the U.S. government from defaulting on its debt.

The nation’s debt climbed to more than $31.4 trillion this week, federal financial data shows, crossing the threshold set by Congress when it last raised the nation’s borrowing limit more than a year ago.

To avoid a default, Yellen previously detailed emergency measures her department would prepare in order to stave off a default. 

Those measures include temporarily redeeming existing and suspending new investments of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund.

Yellen also pointed to “suspending reinvestment of the Government Securities Investment Fund (G Fund) of the Federal Employees Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan” as another course of action in a letter last week.

While it’s unclear how long the Treasury Department will be able to utilize the measures to prevent a default, Yellen told leaders on Thursday that a “debt issuance suspension period” would last through June 5.

The measures buy time for Congress to hash out a bipartisan plan to address the limit, which caps how much outstanding national debt the government can hold to fulfill its financial duties.

Thursday’s letter comes as Congress remains divided on how to handle the issue, with Republicans pressing to use the debt limit as leverage to obtain spending cuts in talks with Democrats, many of whom have pressed for a clean bill to address the debt ceiling.

“With extraordinary measures now in effect, the debt ceiling is officially a ticking time bomb we can’t diffuse soon enough,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (Pa.), top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement on Thursday, accusing Republicans of “pushing for default and start governing in Americans’ best interest.”

Republicans say fiscal reforms are critical while pointing to the growth in debt seen in recent years, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, and the strain of high inflation. But Republicans have also pushed back on proposals by Democrats to tackle the deficit through tax measures targeting wealthier individuals and corporations.

“We don’t want to put any fiscal problems to our economy and we won’t,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said last week. “But fiscal problems would be continuing to do business as usual.”

Experts are raising concerns about the debt limit being ensnared in another partisan spending tug-of-war, noting the potentially catastrophic consequences the economy could face if the nation were to see its first default later this year.

“If we hit the debt ceiling, and the Treasury runs out of extraordinary measures, and they really can’t meet their obligations, somebody’s not going to get paid,” David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, told The Hill in a recent interview.

“It might be someone who owns a Treasury bond. It might be a Social Security recipient,” Wessel said.

–Updated at 10:53 a.m.

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Biden approval rating nears record low after classified documents discovery: survey

President Biden’s approval rating has dropped to 40 percent, according to a new poll, amid criticism over the handling of classified documents that have been discovered in a former office and at his Wilmington, Del., home.

A new Reuters-Ipsos poll showed 40 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s performance in office. The three-day poll concluded on Sunday, which was the final day of news about classified document discoveries and fell right in the middle of the White House’s messaging around the issue.

The rating approaches Biden’s lowest approval rating, which was 36 percent in May and June. The new approval rating is a notable change from earlier this month, when the president’s approval rating had reached its highest point since October 2021, climbing to 44.1 percent.

The poll was conducted days after CBS broke the news that documents were found in November in an office Biden used in Washington between his time as vice president and the 2020 presidential election. Then, over the course of last week, two more batches of documents turned up at Biden’s Wilmington home.

White House officials have been adamant that they are limited in how much they can say about the discovery of the documents, what’s in them and when the president was informed of the situation, citing an ongoing Justice Department investigation and the appointment of a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The president, last week, said that he was surprised about the discovery of the documents in his old office and does not know what is inside them. Meanwhile, Republicans have been energized by the situation and have bashed the president for his handling of documents.

Despite the controversy over the documents, Biden is on track to signal his reelection plans in the next few weeks. Biden will deliver the State of the Union on Feb. 7 and the president intends to signal he will seek a second term around that time.

The latest Reuters-Ipsos poll was conducted Jan. 13-15 among a total of 1,035 respondents. The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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The Hill's Morning Report — Biden, Trump, DeSantis lean into policy as good politics

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.

Let’s talk about 2024.

President Biden, expected to announce his reelection bid soon, is fine-tuning a policy-focused pitch to voters. Former President Trump, who is an announced candidate, unveiled a three-minute video condemning Chinese government influence in America. In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, seen by many in his party as a prospective presidential contender, courts national attention by swatting at Democrats’ “wokeness” and jumping with both boots into the culture wars.

It will be a long two years.

Biden, who flies to sodden California today to promote federal assistance amid weeks of storms, is on track to signal reelection plans in the next few weeks, reports The Hill’s Amie Parnes. At 80, the president is said to be undaunted by divided government, House conservatives, investigations into his family and rediscovered classified documents, as well as umpteen global crises, according to his supporters.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the campaign groundwork tell The Hill that Biden will signal his intention to seek a second term following his Feb. 7 State of the Union address. A more formal campaign declaration would take place closer to spring.

“It’s still very much in the works and nothing has changed,” said a source who described planning.

Trump as a candidate has been unusually low-key for months. Ahead of a South Carolina rally at the end of January, the former president this week advocated, in a video message released to the New York Post, banning Chinese nationals from buying U.S. farmland and barring Chinese investments in major tech, energy, telecommunications and medical companies.

“We should be very concerned about all Chinese Communist activity in the United States. As I’ve long said, economic security is national security,” Trump added while knocking what he called “corrupt influence-peddlers like the Biden crime family.”

Some Republican operatives insist the former president remains the GOP front-runner for another turn in the Oval Office, reports The Hill’s Max Greenwood, despite interest in DeSantis and a long list of Republicans who are gauging a 2024 run amid talk of a younger, fresher, less polarizing contender. The Florida governor, who has a book out next month and a legislative session in Tallahassee that won’t end until May, is unlikely to announce a decision until June or July, Time reports. 

▪ CBS News: Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House assistant Democratic leader, says he’s convinced Biden will seek reelection.

▪ The Hill: The National Archives says it must consult with the Justice Department before sharing information related to the Biden documents.

▪ The Hill: DeSantis, House Republicans defend natural gas cooktops against federal regulation. “Don’t tread on Florida, and don’t mess with gas stoves!” the governor tweeted. 

So early in the presidential cycle, polls are an iffy barometer. Plus, the results are confusing. A Morning Consult survey released on Wednesday posed a hypothetical match-up and found that Trump trounced DeSantis among potential GOP primary voters (The Hill). That differed from polling in late 2022 that found DeSantis leading Trump among Republicans who weighed the governor head-to-head against the former president (FiveThirtyEight).

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Here are the House GOP power players in the 118th Congress. 

▪ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Bloomberg TV: Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia ventured to the Swiss Alps, where he promoted the Peach State to CEOs and leaders gathered in Davos, gave interviews and called for Washington bipartisanship on the debt ceiling. 

▪ Roll Call: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) floats fiscal commissions for a debt limit bill.

▪ Axios: House Oversight Committee becomes ground zero for partisan clashes.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ MORE POLITICS & CONGRESS 

The president’s visit today to Santa Clara County, Calif., follows a devastating three weeks of rain along the state’s central coast that created flooding, mudslides and sinkholes. The nine consecutive rainstorms that inundated California since Dec. 26 killed at least 20 people while tens of thousands remained under evacuation orders as of Monday.

Biden will see damaged areas from a helicopter, meet first responders, visit affected towns and “assess what additional federal support is needed,” according to the White House. Planned stops include Capitola and Seacliff State Park in Aptos, both in Santa Cruz County just off Monterey Bay. The president, who will deliver a speech at the park and amended his disaster declaration to cover 100 percent of eligible costs for 60 days, will be joined by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).

While damaging, a benefit of so much rain is some relief from historic drought. Much of the Golden State has already received half or more of its average annual rainfall (CNBC).

KRON4: Biden will tour Santa Cruz to survey storm destruction.

A bipartisan group of senators seeking to craft an immigration compromise faces a tough path to come up with a deal that could clear the House as hard-line conservatives seize power, The Hill’s Al Weaver reports. Almost a decade ago, a bipartisan group of senators known as the “Gang of Eight” attempted to move a comprehensive immigration reform package through Congress but failed when then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) did not bring the measure to the floor for a vote. Six of those senators remain in office. Anti-immigration reform animus on the right has since hardened, although it has not deterred talks among senators.

“This is going to take months to potentially get to something that we could support in the House. We can’t simply, because it’s politically difficult, say we can’t touch it this Congress,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told The Hill following last week’s trip to the border with a bipartisan group of senators.  

Truth & Consequences? Yes, there’s more news about Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.).

Santos has repeatedly said his mother was inside one of the World Trade Center towers when they were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, but immigration records indicate that she wasn’t in the United States on that day. Instead, the records show that Fatima Devolder applied for a visa to enter the United States from her home country of Brazil in February 2003 and stated on her application that she had not been in the United States since 1999 (The Washington Post).

Two New Jersey veterans say Santos promised to raise funds for life saving surgery for one of their dogs in 2016, then became elusive and took off with the money. The fundraiser eventually raised around $3,000, but things went south after one of the men tried to access the GoFundMe donations.

“I had to jump through hoops and do everything his way,” Navy veteran Rich Osthoff told CNN when describing his pit bull “Sapphire,” which developed a tumor in 2015. “He was just totally, totally difficult. One obstacle after another,” he said of Santos.

▪ Business Insider: Santos used a fake Jewish name on a GoFundMe because he thought “Jews will give more,” a former roommate said.

▪ The New York Times: Santos shows early signs of tilting to the hard right. Through his staff hires and his public appearances with members of the House Freedom Caucus, he has signaled a move away from the mainstream.

Republicans have incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-Ohio) Senate seat in their sights ahead of 2024, pointing to signs that the Buckeye State is trending redder every election cycle. As the Hill’s Julia Manchester reports, state Sen. Matt Dolan (R-Ohio) launched his second bid for Senate on Tuesday and became the first Republican to enter Ohio’s 2024 senatorial primary. Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has already started running ads in the state, targeting Brown and urging him to retire.

Republicans have won Ohio in the last two presidential races and maintained their hold on former Sen. Rob Portman’s (R-Ohio) seat after he retired last year. However, Brown is considered a political institution in the state, making him an abnormally tough candidate to beat in an increasingly red region.  

The Hill: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) knocks Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in exchange over committee assignments.

In Illinois, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) is bracing for a challenging reelection bid as she vies to remain the city’s top executive, writes The Hill’s Caroline Vakil. Lightfoot, who made history in 2019 as the city’s first Black female and openly gay mayor, has faced a slew of challenges in recent years, including confrontations with local unions, the COVID-19 pandemic and rising concerns over crime in the Windy City. Observers suggest Republican ambitions to defeat Lightfoot could be uphill. She faces eight challengers in February’s election. 

Chicago Sun-Times: Lightfoot raised $1.49 million, more than all of her competitors except Brandon Johnson. But she spent $3 million, twice as much as she took in.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ EMPLOYMENT & SHRINKAGE

Microsoft and Amazon, two of the world’s biggest companies, began cutting a total of 28,000 jobs on Wednesday as part of a post-pandemic reckoning that has left almost no tech name unscathed. Microsoft began notifying some of the 10,000 workers who will lose their jobs this quarter, while its Seattle-based neighbor Amazon started sending out emails to employees in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica who are among 18,000 people whose positions will be eliminated (Bloomberg News). 

▪ USA Today: Tracking tech layoffs: Why companies like Amazon and Meta cut jobs in 2022.

▪ Bloomberg News: Amazon kills “Smile” charity program to focus on other giving.

▪ CNBC: Microsoft, Amazon and other tech companies have laid off more than 60,000 employees in the last year.

▪ Bloomberg News: Fed’s beige book says U.S. price growth seen moderating in 2023.

More than 26,000 tech employees have been laid off in 2023 to date, according to a tracking site focused on tech job losses.

A lawyer for investors told jurors at Elon Musk’s securities fraud trial that the CEO misled Tesla shareholders when he tweeted in 2018 about taking the company private with “funding secured” and cost them millions of dollars. 

“His lies caused regular people, like Glen Littleton, to lose millions and millions of dollars,” attorney Nicholas Porritt said in his opening arguments Wednesday, referring to the named plaintiff in the class-action case. Porritt said it’s “critical that he is held, and the company is held, liable” in order for markets to operate normally and fairly (Bloomberg News).

➤ INTERNATIONAL

After nearly a year of fighting in Ukraine and numerous setbacks in the war, Russia is planning another major offensive to make up for its losses and gain more ground in the country, reports The Hill’s Brad Dress. Intelligence analysts and researchers largely agree there is an offensive brewing in Moscow and that it is likely to come sometime in the winter or early spring. Still, there is no clear picture of what that might look like, and there is wide dispute over how effective it would be considering the heavy losses the army has suffered in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, have been warning for months about the possibility of another surge in attacks, but have said very little publicly about the details. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday made a passionate appeal by video to heads of state and other decision makers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, urging a faster pace of support for his country in the face of Russia’s invasion. Too often, he said, Ukraine found itself in a race against time (The New York Times).

“Tragedies are outpacing life. The tyranny is outpacing democracy,” he said. “The time the free world uses to think is used by the terrorist state to kill.”

▪ CNN: U.S. preps another major Ukraine aid package, but Kyiv pleads for tanks.

▪ The Globe and Mail: Canada to send 200 more armored vehicles to Ukraine as Kyiv stresses a need for tanks.

▪ The New York Times: U.S. warms to helping Ukraine target Crimea.

Ukraine needs a “significant increase” in weapons at a pivotal moment in Russia’s invasion and such support is the only way to a negotiated peaceful solution, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday, as defense leaders from around 50 countries and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization prepare hold talks at Germany’s Ramstein Air Base on Friday (Reuters).

Stoltenberg’s comments follow repeated pleas from Kyiv for tanks from Western allies. While the U.S. has said it would likely supply Ukraine with tanks, its decision hinges on Germany doing the same, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday steered clear of committing to the supply of Leopard 2 tanks. He argued his country was “strategically interlocked” with the U.S., France and other “friends and partners,” and that any decisions about weapons had to be part of a collective effort to help Ukraine win the war (The Guardian). 

Poland would supply Ukraine with the German-made tanks if Germany doesn’t grant approval for the transfer soon, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said, increasing pressure on Berlin to back down from its stance that the U.S. must send tanks to Kyiv before allies donate the most-widely used tank in Europe (The Wall Street Journal).

▪ The New York Times: Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Aryeh Deri, a politician convicted of tax fraud, was not fit to serve as a senior minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing coalition.  

▪ The Washington Post: The shadowy groups trying to keep North Koreans from listening to K-pop.

▪ CNBC: The threat of a transatlantic trade war is dominating Davos.

▪ The Hill: Four U.S. citizens, residents killed in Nepal plane crash.

▪ Politico EU: United Nations boss to Davos: You’re the problem.

In a surprise announcement, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today announced her resignation, saying she “no longer had enough in the tank” to do the job. Ardern, who has led the country since 2017 when she became the world’s youngest female head of government and whose time in office spanned the terror attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, a volcanic eruption and a global pandemic, said her term will conclude no later than Feb. 7. She’ll remain a lawmaker until the general elections, which she said would be held on Oct. 14 (The Guardian and ABC News). 

“I hope I leave New Zealanders with a belief that you can be kind, but strong, empathetic but decisive, optimistic but focused,” she said. “And that you can be your own kind of leader – one who knows when it’s time to go.”

OPINION

■ As Russia weakens, whoever has soldiers and guns will survive, by

Alexander J. Motyl, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3GO6eNP

■  Why George Santos won’t be able to fake his way through Congress, by former Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), opinion contributor, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3XCCs5w

WHERE AND WHEN

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

The House will meet briefly at noon on Friday and return for legislative business on Jan. 24. 

The Senate meets Friday at 1 p.m. for a pro forma session. 

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 7:30 a.m. in the Oval Office before flying to Santa Clara County, Calif., where he will arrive at midday accompanied by Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell. Biden plans en route to survey storm-ravaged areas via helicopter, then visit with business owners and local residents during an event at Capitola Pier, Capitola, Calif. At 2:35 p.m. local, the president will meet with first responders and state and local officials at Seacliff State Park, Aptos, Calif., to survey recovery efforts. At the park, Biden will deliver a speech at 3 p.m. local before departing California to return to the White House by early Friday.                              

Vice President Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will leave Washington this morning for Tonopah, Ariz., where she will join IBEW workers this afternoon to talk about a transmission line project. The vice president will speak at 2:25 p.m. MT about clean energy, joined by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. Emhoff’s schedule also includes a 2 p.m. MT roundtable at Arizona State University with college students to discuss combating antisemitism. Harris will greet U.S. service members at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., at 4:50 p.m. MT before flying with her husband to Los Angeles. 

Economic indicator: The Treasury Department forecast that the U.S. statutory cap on borrowing of $31.3 trillion would be reached today, requiring “extraordinary measures” to forestall default for as long as possible in the absence of action by Congress. Separately, the Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on filings for unemployment benefits in the week ending Jan. 14.

ELSEWHERE

➤ HEALTH & PANDEMIC

🦠 Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, 69, contracted COVID-19 and is suffering mild symptoms while working in isolation. He is expected to be able to participate in the central bank’s next two-day meeting that concludes on Feb. 1 (CNBC). 

▪ Nature: China’s COVID-19 wave has probably peaked, model suggests, but a lack of data is obscuring the true impact of the outbreak.

▪ Forbes: Why seniors should still get their COVID-19 booster.

As the United States enters its third full COVID-19 winter, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha is warning that the permanence of the virus in the disease landscape could mean brutal and long-lasting seasonal surges of cold-weather illnesses for years to come, resulting in hospitals struggling to care for other emergencies and unable to give patients timely, lifesaving treatments.

“I just think people have not appreciated the chronic cost, because we have seen this as an acute problem,” Jha said. “We have no idea how hard this is going to make life for everybody, for long periods of time.”

So far, this COVID-19 winter in the United States has been challenging, though not nearly as disastrous as the past two. But much of the winter still lies ahead (The Washington Post).

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

▪ The Washington Post: Lab-leak fears are putting virologists under scrutiny.

▪ The New York Times: California joins other states in suing companies over insulin prices.

▪ NBC News: Another major HIV vaccine trial fails.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,102,286. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 3,907 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

And finally … 🚘 It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by America’s passion for automobiles, we’re eager for some smart guesses about cars in the news.

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.

Which is the beloved automobile Biden told reporters was “locked” in his Wilmington, Del., garage near cartons of White House records from the Obama administration?

1. 1959 Cadillac Coupe De Ville
2. 1967 Corvette Stingray
3. 1960 Volkswagen Type 1 Coupe
4. 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT

Police in Baltimore (and other cities) this week offered anti-theft tips to owners of certain vehicle models made by which manufacturers because they’re vulnerable to thieves inspired by a TikTok dare?

1. Tesla and Bolt
2. Honda and Toyota
3. BMW and Audi
4. Hyundai and Kia

Prices of used cars, previously soaring, have plummeted, according to a Tuesday news report. The reason(s) cited?

1. Higher interest rates
2. Affordability strains for consumers
3. Increased supply of new cars
4. All of the above

A car show on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Fort Pierce, Fla., was interrupted by what headline event?

1. A shooting that accompanied an argument at the show injured eight people (one critically) 
2. An alligator escaped an exhibit used to display a car 
3. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) delivered remarks to the crowd 
4. A small tornado ripped through the roof

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