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White House says it's tracking potential migrant flight to Delaware

The White House has been in touch with officials in Delaware amid reports that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) may be flying migrants to President Biden’s home state.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the administration is coordinating with state officials and local service providers in Delaware to ensure they are prepared to welcome migrant families upon their arrival.

Officials are bracing for the arrival of migrants in Biden’s home state after reporters noted that a plane DeSantis used to fly migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., last week is scheduled to travel from Texas to Delaware.

Jean-Pierre would not say how the White House was alerted to the potential arrival of migrants in Delaware, but that it did not come from DeSantis’s office.

“I can tell you we’ve been closely coordinating with the folks in Delaware, the officials in Delaware,” she said. “I can tell you our heads up did not come from Gov. DeSantis, because his only goal, as he’s made it really clear, is to create chaos and use immigrants fleeing communism as political pawns.”

Asked if the White House had reached out to DeSantis about the issue to foster some sort of understanding, Jean-Pierre said, “There’s no understanding to be reached. They’re using people who are leaving communist countries as a political stunt.”

The debate over immigration has heated up in recent days as the number of arrests along the southwestern border in one year hit 2 million, a new record.

DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) have been flying and busing migrants to “sanctuary” jurisdictions that say they won’t report immigrants who entered the country illegally to law enforcement.

DeSantis flew two planes of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday, an action that is under investigation by Texas authorities.

Abbott has repeatedly made similar moves, including sending two buses of migrants to Vice President Harris’s residence in Washington that arrived on Thursday.

The White House and other Democrats have derided the governors’ tactics as political theater that endanger the migrants being sent to unknown locations under false pretenses. Jean-Pierre on Tuesday responded to questions about the border by arguing the Biden administration inherited a broken immigration system and pointing to a legislative framework the president put out when he took office 20 months ago.

Source: TEST FEED1

Manchin decries ‘revenge politics’ amid GOP resistance to permitting effort

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) condemned what he described as “revenge politics” as many Republicans have resisted his efforts to speed up the approval process for energy projects. 

“It’s like the revenge politics, basically revenge towards one person: me. And I’m thinking, ‘this is not about me,’ ” he told reporters on Tuesday.

“I’m hearing that the Republican leadership is upset and they’re saying ‘we’re not going to give a victory to Joe Manchin’ — Joe Manchin’s not looking for a victory,” he added. “We’ve got a good piece of legislation that’s extremely balanced and I think it’ll prove itself in time. The bottom line is, how much suffering and how much pain do you want to inflict on the American people for the time.”

Republicans, along with Manchin, have long complained that the approval process for energy and infrastructure projects — known as permitting — has been too lengthy and stalled important projects. 

When he agreed to pass the Democrats’ climate and tax bill, Manchin struck a deal with Democratic leadership to also pass permitting reforms. 

But, as he has tried to push a package of changes through, Manchin has met Republican obstacles, as some members feel slighted over the West Virginia Democrat’s passage of the climate bill. 

Republicans have felt spurned after Manchin announced his support for the Democratic bill hours after a bipartisan chips and science bill passed the Senate. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had previously threatened that bill’s passage if Democrats pursued their bill. 

The GOP has also complained that Manchin’s changes may not go far enough. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, a coalition of liberal Democrats has also come together to resist the effort, arguing that it will undercut the environmental inspections that often draw out the permitting process. 

But Manchin said on Tuesday that “we do not bypass any of the environmental reviews,” which he said was the main difference between his package and a separate proposal from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). 

The senator also told reporters that the text of his proposal would be released on Wednesday, and that it would explicitly speed up the approval process for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a controversial proposed project that would carry natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia.

Source: TEST FEED1

McConnell on GOP migrant transports: 'well-to-do blue enclaves' finally facing border reality

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said Republican governors’ efforts to transport migrants from the southern border to northern Democrat-led cities is showing “well-to-do blue enclaves” the reality of the U.S.-Mexico border crisis.  

“Out of desperation, a few governors along our southern border are now giving some Democrat-run states and cities just a tiny, tiny taste of what border communities have been enduring, literally, for years,” McConnell said on the Senate floor.  

“These well-to-do blue enclaves are finally witnessing the smallest fraction of the challenges that open borders have forced on working-class communities all across our country.”   

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has sent over 10,000 migrants north to Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago.  

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) sent another 1,800 migrants to D.C., and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) joined the effort earlier this month when he sent nearly 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. 

“All those cities combined have had months to accept, between them, approximately one day’s share of our nation’s illegal immigration. But the Democratic mayor of New York City is now declaring that his government’s resources are, quote, at a breaking point. … The self-proclaimed sanctuary city apparently cannot take it,” McConnell said.  

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) has requested federal assistance after receiving more than 2,500 migrants since Aug. 5, and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) declared a public emergency this month over the influx of 10,000 migrants since the spring. 

McConnell knocked the concept of “sanctuary cities,” where local authorities typically aren’t required to cooperate with the federal government to enforce federal immigration laws, and argued that governors’ moves to bus and fly migrants to these cities were to illustrate the impact of open border policies. 

The Senate minority leader argued that DeSantis helped “a tiny number” of migrants reach “the wealthy liberal destination of Martha’s Vineyard, filled with millionaire’s mansions,” before the city sent the migrants to a military base. 

The Massachusetts governor’s office said the island was not prepared to provide “sustainable accommodation” and that migrants would be moved as part of “a plan to deliver a comprehensive humanitarian response.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Graham: Abortion 'not a state's rights issue'

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday said abortion is “not a state’s rights issue” as he continues to promote his legislation that would ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks.

In an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Graham acknowledged that his legislation goes against conservative ideas of federalism and letting individual states decide their own laws.  

“This is not a state’s rights issue. This is a human right issue,” Graham said. “So, no matter what California or Maryland will do … I am going to advocate a national minimum standard.”

Graham’s comments come a week after he introduced the bill, the most serious effort to date by Republicans in Congress to pass a nationwide abortion restriction after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

Graham, who just last month said the Supreme Court made the correct decision by leaving abortion decisions up to states, last week said he didn’t see a contradiction and was motivated to act following attempts by Democrats to enshrine abortion protections into federal law. 

“After [Democrats] introduced a bill to define who they are, I thought it’d be nice to introduce a bill to define who we are,” Graham said.

He said elected officials have the power to define and regulate abortion, including in Congress.

“Abortion is not banned in America. It’s left up to elected officials in America to define the issue. States have the ability to do it at state level. And we have the ability in Washington to speak on this issue if we choose,” Graham said at a press conference introducing his bill. “I have chosen to speak.”

On Tuesday, Graham further clarified where he stood on the issue of letting states decide their own laws.

“I do not believe federalism requires me to sit on the sidelines and watch a baby at 30 weeks, 28 weeks be dismembered. I will not do that,” he said. 

The proposal represented a headache for Republican leadership, who have been trying to avoid discussing abortion issues just two months before the midterm elections. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his leadership team want to focus instead on President Biden’s handling of the economy and inflation.

Republicans in battleground states are trying to navigate a growing voter backlash to the Supreme Court decision while also appealing to the party’s base, which is pushing for immediate action on imposing total abortion bans.

Graham last week said that he did not consult with McConnell before making his push for a 15-week abortion ban. 

During the “Fox & Friends” interview, Graham said McConnell was wrong to avoid the issue and instead should make it clear that Republicans are an anti-abortion party.

“And let me tell you why I think Mitch is wrong. He’s pro-life. So, let’s talk about a broken border. Let’s talk about rampant crime. Let’s talk about out-of-control inflation. Let’s talk about failing foreign policy and withdrawal from Afghanistan. But when you’re on the stump, people need to know who you are and where you are,” Graham said.

Source: TEST FEED1

DeSantis: Migrants' flights to Martha's Vineyard 'clearly voluntary'

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said late Monday that the flights he chartered for migrants to Martha’s Vineyard were “clearly voluntary.”

“It was clearly voluntary, and all the other nonsense you’re hearing is just not true,” DeSantis told Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “And why wouldn’t they want to go, given where they were?”

DeSantis said all the migrants who flew to Martha’s Vineyard last week signed consent forms and were provided with maps and numbers for different services in the area.

The Florida governor has been accused of recruiting a group of nearly 50 migrants under false pretenses when he chartered two flights from Texas to the Massachusetts island late Wednesday. 

The sheriff for Bexar County, Texas, opened an investigation on Monday into DeSantis’s transport of migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard. According to the sheriff, one migrant was paid to recruit the others, who were promised work and other benefits.

However, DeSantis has denied the accusations, claiming the migrants were willing to leave after being “abandoned, homeless, and ‘left to fend for themselves’” in Texas, his spokesperson previously told The Hill.

“They were in really, really bad shape,” DeSantis said on Hannity’s show. “There are jobs available in Martha’s Vineyard. There is lodging available in Martha’s Vineyard. Had they lived up to … what they bill themselves out as a sanctuary jurisdiction, they could have absorbed those people without a problem.”

The flights to Martha’s Vineyard appeared to be DeSantis’s first foray into transporting migrants to Democratic-led cities in protest of President Biden’s immigration policies. He joins two other Republican governors — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey — who have been busing migrants to for several months.

Altogether, the three governors have sent nearly 13,000 migrants to Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago and Martha’s Vineyard since April.

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — Midterms turn on potent policy mix

Pundits for months predicted the midterm contests were destined to be a clearcut referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency. With 49 days to go until Nov. 8, voters’ decisions might indeed follow that calculus, but an unusually potent stew of issues color this year’s political “choice.”

If Biden, who is not on any ballot this fall, is a threshold hurdle for midterm voters, the upward slope of his job approval trajectory, albeit hovering at 45 percent, is something of a tell.

The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes that the 79-year-old president may have been underestimated by both the left and the right, in part because some mobilized voters appear to be assessing a mix of uniquely consequential concerns, including soaring prices, crime and guns, immigration, constitutional rights, a war in Ukraine, a pandemic and the fate of U.S. elections and democracy. “Biden is bouncing back — but the question is how high his fortunes can rise and how much they can help his party,” Stanage adds.

The presidentis enjoying what appears to be a solid bump in approval, a shift linked to the rare enactment in a midterm year of four major pieces of legislation Democratic candidates are championing, a stark drop in gasoline prices over the summer, the Supreme Court’s dramatic abortion ruling in June and the swirl of former President Trump’s political influence and norm-busting behavior, The Hill’s Max Greenwood reports.  

Both parties in Congress are exploiting policy issues to appeal to their base voters. Senate Democrats have now decided to wait until after the elections to try to enshrine same-sex marriage into federal legislation as insurance against a conservative Supreme Court’s potential move, as referenced in an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, to rescind justices’ 2015 decision requiring states to grant same-sex marriages.

The Hill’s Al Weaver reports that punting until sometime after Nov. 8 takes the issue off the table for senators, including a few vulnerable GOP incumbents. And that begs the question: Did Senate Democrats undermine the party’s midterm momentum? Will the mix of other issues Democrats placed center stage be enough to hold the Senate and perhaps help the party do better than predicted in close House contests?  

Those other issues in heavy rotation include defense of abortion and reproductive rights, reminders of healthy job numbers, policies enacted to battle climate change and specific benefits aimed at students, military veterans and seniors.   

Then there’s immigration. Democrats believe a trio of politically ambitious GOP governors in border states who are transporting migrants by bus and charter planes to left-leaning cities such as New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Martha’s Vineyard are overreaching at best and downright cruel at worst, reports The Hill’s Rafael Bernal. 

Those governors and fellow Republicans, however, disagree. “This is what happens when you have an administration that basically is telling people if you come into this country illegally, you’re going to get to stay,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told supporters in his state last week. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, TexasGov. Greg Abbott and Arizona’s Doug Ducey, all Republicans, believe their focus on a border “crisis” and “failed” immigration leadership under Biden and Vice President Harris is resonating with conservatives and putting Democratic officials on defense during an off-year election cycle.   

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), who is working to identify and finance sufficient shelter and services for migrants transported from border states to his metropolis, was criticized in some quarters Monday when he suggested putting migrant families on cruise ships. It’s an idea former Mayor Michael Bloomberg considered but abandoned in 2002 after public pushback (The New York Times). Adams defended the idea and said the city is looking for “creative ways” to address a “humanitarian crisis.”

The New York Times: After Texas sent 29-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker Lever Alejos to the nation’s capital, he found work and shelter. “I feel fortunate the governor put me on a bus to Washington,” he said.

County authorities in Texas on Monday opened a criminal investigation into DeSantis’ operation to fly roughly 50 Venezuelan migrants from the Lone Star State to Massachusetts last week, exploring whether the migrants were deceived and transported under false pretenses (The Miami Herald).

“I believe people need to be held accountable for it to the extent possible,” said Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, a Democrat, at a news conference. “At this point, I’m not able to definitively say here’s the statute that they broke, either federal, state or local, but what I can tell you is it’s wrong. Just from a human rights perspective, what was done to these folks is wrong.”

Related Articles

▪ Bloomberg News: Republicans want to flip the House, and they’re outspending Democrats to do it.

▪ The Hill: These women could make history in November’s midterms. 

▪ The Hill: Maryland Democrat Wes Moore opened up a 22-point lead in his race against Republican Dan Cox to succeed retiring GOP Gov. Larry Hogan in a blue state. 

▪ The Dallas Morning News: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) leads challenger Beto O’Rourke (D) by 47 percent to 38 percent, up 7 points from last month, according to a new poll of registered voters from The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler. The governors’ recent flood of TV ads, which for weeks went unanswered, and voters’ slight rightward tilt on abortion, the border and crime may have helped the two-term incumbent.

▪ The Hill: California law promises aid to LGBTQ+ veterans discharged from the military under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policies because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. 

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS

Senate Republicans are threatening to sink Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) side deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on permitting reform, partly because of lingering anger over Manchin’s approval of last month’s Democratic climate, health and tax bill, which Biden signed into law.

As The Hill’s Alexander Bolton writes, Schumer had been paving a path to passage for an agreement he cut with Manchin, to be attached to a stopgap spending bill that seeks to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month. But now GOP senators say the combination of the bill and Manchin’s construction permitting reform proposal is unlikely to get 10 Republican votes in the Senate.

“They say there’s little appetite for giving Manchin a big political and policy victory after he shocked them over the summer by announcing a deal with Schumer on the Inflation Reduction Act.” 

Democratic leaders had promised Manchin they would adopt changes to the permitting process for construction projects in the fossil fuel and renewable energy industries in exchange for his vote on a sweeping measure enacted in August as the Inflation Reduction Act (The Hill). Republicans are now pushing to replace his proposal with permitting reform legislation crafted by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), which they argue would do more to speed the approval of fossil-fuel extraction and other projects (The Hill).

Politico: Revenge? Republicans weigh tanking Manchin’s permitting plan.

Until now, Schumer’s biggest threat to the bill’s passage ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline was progressives in the House, who say they’re opposed to permitting reforms but haven’t explicitly pledged to vote “no” on the bill (The Hill).

Meanwhile, in a nod to environmentalists, Schumer is expected to hold a vote this week to ratify the Kigali Amendment, a global agreement to limit climate-affecting hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) emissions. 

Schumer on Monday set the Senate clock for a possible vote later this week on the Disclose Act, a legislative priority for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.),  who is a pro-environment swing vote. Biden today will publicly back the measure, which would impose political donation disclosure requirements on corporations, labor organizations, super PACs and other entities. Analysts believe it is unlikely to clear the Senate (The Hill).

Roll Call reports that some backers of the permitting reform bill — and a West Virginia pipeline that would be approved in the process — “have received thousands of dollars in contributions from the companies behind the project, hold stock in those companies or both.”

▪ The Hill: House, Senate conservatives: GOP should not give “lame duck” Democrats power in a funding bill. 

▪ Reuters: Congress still grappling with short-term funding bill.

▪ Roll Call: Conservatives’ ire over stopgap spending presages budget wars to come.

▪ Yahoo News: Government funding bill creates rift over Manchin “side deal.”

In the House, The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch reports that Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), members of the Jan. 6 select committee, introduced legislation to reform the 1889 Electoral Count Act, which outlines how electoral votes are cast and counted following presidential elections. The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet on the bill on Thursday.

Lofgren and Cheney’s bill follows a similar announcement in the Senate, where the Rules and Administration Committee said Friday that it would mark up its own bipartisan bill later this month to overhaul the 1887 law (Roll Call).

As Politico reports, the House bill echoes many parts of its Senate counterpart, but lays out certain processes in more detail. Both bills “make clear that the vice president’s role is ministerial, indicate that only a governor or other top official can submit slates of electors to Congress and create an expedited judicial review to challenge a governor’s certification of electors. However, the Senate bill only requires one-fifth support in both chambers in order to force a vote on an objection, compared to the House’s proposed one-third.”

Additionally, the House’s legislation includes a section based on the findings gathered by the Jan. 6 select committee, while the Senate’s version takes a more general, bipartisan approach to updating the centuries-old law.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ ADMINISTRATION

Biden, who returned Monday evening from London, departs today for New York City where he plans to address the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, hold a meeting with new British Prime Minister Liz Truss and host a reception for world leaders.

The war in Ukraine is set to dominate U.N. discussions while Biden’s speech will take aim at fortifying the international community to back Ukraine, NATO, Europe and other democracies by isolating Russia and collectively pressuring worldwide autocracies (The Hill).

Separately, the Pentagon commissioned an audit of its conduct regarding clandestine information warfare after several social media companies identified and shut down fake accounts found in violation of the sites’ rules and suspected of being run by the U.S. military.

Pentagon officials must provide a full report of their activities next month after the White House and federal agencies expressed concern about the Defense Department’s “attempted manipulation of audiences overseas,” The Washington Post reports.

Elsewhere on Monday, American prisoner in Afghanistan Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran from Illinois who was kidnapped in 2020 while working on a construction contract, was released and flown out of the country as part of a prisoner swap for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the United States. Frerichs was held for more than two years, likely by the Haqqani network, a faction of the Taliban. Biden phoned Frerichs sister to disclose her brother’s freedom (CNN and The Associated Press).

➤ GLOBAL ECONOMY & MONETARY POLICY

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday is expected to raise interest rates for a third time this year at the end of a two-day meeting focused on inflation. The anticipated move will further increase the strength of the dollar compared to rival currencies such as the yuan and Euro. Some critics believe the central bank’s hawkish monetary policy is speeding Europe toward a recession (The Hill). 

The Wall Street Journal: Dollar’s rise spells troubles for global economies. 

The Hill’s Sylvan Lane reports that the Federal Open Market Committee is on track to raise its baseline interest rate range by another three-quarters of a percentage point, increasing U.S. borrowing costs in the process. Following an unexpectedly high August inflation report, the central bank is projected by analysts to maintain its current aggressive posture on rates. 

OPINION

■ What I saw as the country’s first national climate adviser, by Gina McCarthy, guest essayist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3Lu0Ml2

■ Where’s the permitting bill, Senator Manchin? by The Wall Street Journal editorial board. https://on.wsj.com/3LrlK42

■ The puzzling disconnect between production and employment, by Vivekanand Jayakumar, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3UmcPVK

WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets at 10 a.m.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. and will resume consideration of the nomination of Florence Pan to be a U.S. circuit judge for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The president at 1:45 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room will speak about the Disclose Act, which is pending action in the Senate and which would require organizations spending money in elections to promptly disclose donors who have given $10,000 or more during an election cycle. He will depart the White House and arrive in New York City at 5:25 p.m. and headline a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at 7:30 p.m. The president will remain in New York overnight ahead of a U.N. General Assembly meeting on Wednesday. 

The vice president will travel this morning to Orangeburg, S.C., to join a noon roundtable conversation at Claflin University with students about mental health, entrepreneurship and access to capital. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will join her. Harris at 1:55 p.m. will speak about National Voter Registration Day at South Carolina State University. She will depart at 3:40 p.m. to return to the nation’s capital.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in New York for events tied to the United Nations and has a full schedule beginning at 8:30 a.m. when he meets with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. The secretary will speak at 9:30 a.m. at the launch of the Alliance for Afghan Women’s Economic Resilience. At 10 a.m., he hosts a Strengthening Atlantic Cooperation ministerial meeting and participates at 11:15 a.m. in the Alliance for Development in Democracy ministerial meeting. Blinken at 1 p.m. speaks about democracy at an event hosted by the U.S. Agency for International Development, followed by a ministerial meeting about food security at 2 p.m. The secretary will meet with Kenyan President William Ruto at 4 p.m. He’ll meet with British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly at 4:45 p.m., followed by Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati at 6 p.m.

Second gentleman Doug Emoff will appear at the John F. Kennedy Center at 6:40 p.m. to present the Federal Employee of the Year medal, part of a Samuel Heyman Service to America Medals ceremony. 

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at noon.

Gov. Ducey at 6 p.m. PDT delivers a speech that will be livestreamed about the future of the Republican Party at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif.

🖥  Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features news and interviews at http://thehill.com/hilltv, on YouTube and on Facebook at 10:30 a.m. ET. Also, check out the “Rising” podcast here.

ELSEWHERE

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, during a Bloomberg TV interview on Monday, said his country seeks more weapons from the West to maintain its counteroffensive against Russia.

The counteroffensive is “a clear message to everyone that it works, that it makes sense to help Ukraine with weapons because we can defeat President Putin and his army in our territory,” Kuleba said in New York.

Ukraine has extended its hold on recently recaptured territory on Monday, with troops heading further east into areas abandoned by Russia. As Reuters reports, this paves the way for potential attacks on Russian occupying forces in the Donbas region.

In response, the Moscow-backed administration in the Donbas region called for urgent referendums that would make the region a part of Russia.

“The occupiers are clearly in a panic,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a regular televised address. He said he’s now focused on “speed.”

“The speed at which our troops are moving,” he said. “The speed in restoring normal life.”

Zelensky is set to address the U.N. General Assembly this week, where he is expected to ask nations for more weapons.

▪ Politico: Ukraine has shot down 55 Russian warplanes, U.S. general says.

▪ Reuters: Ukraine marches farther into liberated lands, separatist calls for urgent referendum.

▪ The Associated Press: ‘We have nothing’: Izium’s trauma after Russian occupation.

▪ The New York Times: One big problem for Ukraine Is clear: glass.

The war in Ukraine, and Europe’s sanctions of Russia, are having repercussions across the continent. After Russian President Vladimir Putin abruptly cut off natural gas supply to Europe indefinitely in early September, energy costs have skyrocketed (CNBC).

For one factory owner in France, energy prices have climbed so fast that he has had to rewrite business forecasts six times in two months, The New York Times reports.

Nicholas Hodler, who owns a wine glass manufacturer, had to put a third of his 4,500 employees on partial furlough and idle four of his factory’s nine furnaces.

“It’s the most dramatic situation we have ever encountered,” Hodler told The Times. “For energy-intensive businesses like ours, it’s crippling.”

Putin on Friday denied Russia had anything to do with Europe’s energy crisis, and said if the European Union wanted more gas it should lift sanctions preventing the opening of Nord Stream 2 — an unused pipeline in the Baltic Sea (Reuters).

▪ The Washington Post: Coal stoves and wood thieves: Europe braces for winter without Russian gas.

▪ Yahoo News: How Europe’s energy crisis will impact U.S. gas prices.

▪ Bloomberg: Europe gas prices drop as nations ramp up efforts to ease crisis

Mexico’s Pacific coast was struck by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake on Monday, which set off a seismic alarm in the capital and killed at least one person (NBC News). The earthquake coincided with the anniversary of two other devastating earthquakes in 1985 and 2017 (Bloomberg). 

➤ POX, PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

Biden told CBS News during a recent interview that the COVID-19 pandemic “is over,” a comment that reflected the administration’s eagerness to see the U.S. return to normal but also challenged his administration’s embrace of the science of virology, booster doses to fight COVID-19’s omicron variants, its push to vaccinate children against COVID-19 during a school year and federal preparations for the next pandemic.

Meanwhile, the White House is trying to persuade lawmakers that COVID-19 is dangerous enough to warrant $22 billion more in federal appropriations to fight it. Mixed messages could undermine that effort. Health experts warn that prematurely declaring the end of the pandemic risks prolonging the hazards and transmission rates, and could scuttle the rollout of updated booster doses available for the BA.5 version of omicron (The Hill). 

The Hill: Sean Cahill, Fenway Institute: Shoring up LGBTQ health. 

U.S. health officials are calling for new prevention and treatment efforts for sexually transmitted diseases, including gonorrhea and syphilis. Last year, new reported syphilis cases rose 26 percent and the rate of such cases reached its highest since 1991, while the total number of cases was the highest since 1948. HIV cases are also on the rise, up 16 percent last year. An international outbreak of monkeypox, spread through contact mainly between men who have sex with other men, has underscored the nation’s worsening problem with diseases spread most commonly through sex (The Associated Press).

Ebola has been confirmed in Uganda, where health authorities on Tuesday declared an outbreak in response to a relatively rare case of the Sudan strain of the deadly virus (Reuters). 

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,053,840. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 360, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

➤ PUERTO RICO

Hurricane Fiona today could strengthen into a major Category 3 hurricane while passing near the British territory of Turks and Caicos Islands, according to forecasters. The intensifying storm since the weekend has dropped copious rain over the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where a 58-year-old man died after police said he was swept away by a river in the central mountain town of Comerio (The Associated Press).

Fiona soaked the U.S. territory with more than 2 feet of rain, knocking out Puerto Rico’s power grid and causing flash floods across the territory. 

National Guard troops rescued hundreds who were stranded and authorities said at least 1,300 people spent the night in shelters across the island, which is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Maria in 2017 (The Associated Press).

Biden phoned Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi (D) Monday to talk about near-term needs following Fiona’s destruction there, and to describe more than 300 federal personnel helping with response and recovery, the White House said (The Hill). Federal assistance and personnel will expand as damage assessments are completed, Biden added. Federal Emergency Management Administrator Deanne Criswell is traveling to the island today to coordinate with local officials and to meet with some affected residents.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🚘 On American roadways for at least 12 weeks this year, it’s been the best of times but it’s still among the worst of times — as measured by traffic fatalities, according to the government’s latest statistics. 

Projections released Monday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed the first quarterly decline in crash deaths since the earliest days of the pandemic. But let’s slow down for the next sentence: The improvement measured this spring fades when the entire year’s forecast is taken into account. 

An estimated 10,590 people died in U.S. vehicle crashes between April and June, fewer than the 11,135 people killed during the same period last year. But NHTSA estimates that 20,175 people died in the first six months of this year. Ann Carlson, the acting head of the highway safety agency, said the figures for the second quarter were “heartening,” but “the number of people dying on roads in this country remains a crisis” (The Washington Post). 

Autos themselves may be safer, but drivers — not so much. 

In Washington, D.C., speed limits on two major commuter arteries through the city are dropping to 25 mph to try to reduce fatal crashes (The Washington Post). Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) is reacting to a rising number of serious traffic crashes in the nation’s capital. The new, lower speed limits on Connecticut Avenue NW and New York Avenue NE, two busy routes that together carry nearly 100,000 vehicles daily, take effect this week.

Stay Engaged

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Source: TEST FEED1

The Memo: Biden bounce lifts Democrats’ midterm chances, but how high?

President Biden is bouncing back — but the question is how high his fortunes can rise and how much they can help his party in the midterms. 

The latest evidence of Biden’s improved political standing came in an NBC News poll released Sunday, which showed the president’s approval rating ticking up to 45 percent, its highest level since last October. 

The poll also showed a dead-even race for Congress, with 46 percent of voters saying they would prefer Democrats to be in control on Capitol Hill and an equal share saying they favored the GOP. 

The NBC poll came on the heels of a New York Times-Siena College survey that showed Biden at a more modest 42 percent approval but Democrats holding a 2-point edge in the battle for Congress. 

There was good news for Biden in the Times poll, particularly in the sharp increase among Democrats and independents backing his performance. Between July and September, the share of Democrats approving of Biden’s record in office grew by 13 points, to 83 percent. Among independents, it went up 14 points, albeit to a distinctly unspectacular 39 percent. 

Similar findings have emerged across a number of polls. Biden’s approval rating in the RealClearPolitics polling average now stands just above 42 percent, roughly 5 points higher than it was in late July. 

The rebound is testament to Biden’s political resilience — and to the tendency of critics on both right and left to underestimate him.  

Biden’s allies often note how his chances of winning the Democratic nomination in 2020 were dismissed early by some progressives and media pundits. They also recall how confident former President Trump was of defeating Biden in the general election. 

Instead, Biden won the Democratic nomination easily and defeated Trump by more than 7 million votes. 

But Biden’s bounce-back isn’t making Democrats pop any champagne corks just yet.  

The president’s ratings are far from stellar even after having recovered from their lowest points.  

His party’s chances of holding on to the Senate have improved, but Republicans are still favored to take the House. A GOP that controls even one chamber of Congress will be able to hamstring Biden on most issues for the remainder of his first term. 

Still, Democrats are at least looking with far less foreboding toward midterms that they once thought could be catastrophic. 

Strategists in Biden’s party point with striking unanimity to several factors that have shifted the midterm dynamics. 

The Supreme Court handed liberals a stinging, substantive defeat when it struck down the constitutional right to abortion in late June. But the conservative justices also look to have done Democrats a political favor. 

Polls consistently show around 60 percent of the public believing the court did the wrong thing in overturning the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. 

Meanwhile, Biden has racked up a number of legislative wins. The biggest was the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes significant action on climate change and prescription drug pricing, among other things.  

But the president has also successfully pushed one bill to expand health care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits and another boosting the U.S. semiconductor industry. 

Biden has also proposed cancellation of up to $20,000 in student loan debt for some borrowers. 

Alongside Biden’s gains, Trump has given him an unintentional helping hand. 

Trump has returned to center stage in recent months, primarily for negative reasons. Example A is the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. 

Democratic strategist Tad Devine, who served as chief strategist of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential bid, said that Trump’s renewed prominence “gives a dramatic relief to Biden.”  

The former president “is a powerful motivator on both sides of the aisle,” Devine said.

“I know he refused to accept that he lost the last election by 7 million votes, but he did. He got a lot of people out to vote against him.” 

At the same time, Devine added, “I think the abortion issue will get more people out to vote Democratic than any other single issue.” 

Other Democrats see the recent polling gains mainly as signs that once-dissatisfied Democratic voters are “coming home” as the midterm choice looms larger. 

“At the nadir of his polling numbers, you saw even among partisan Democrats that his favorability ratings were much lower than you would expect,” Texas-based Democratic strategist Keir Murray said of Biden. 

“Those have improved considerably in the past few months,” Murray added, citing legislative achievements and an “ebbing” of gas prices as among the most important factors. 

“There has been some improvement among independent voters, but not as much,” Murray cautioned.  

Republicans contend that Biden’s rise in the polls is likely to peter out soon. 

“I think a lot of it is Democrats coming home,” said Matt Gorman, a former communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.  

The Democratic Party, Gorman argued, is “clearly running a turnout strategy and are seeming to ignore the persuadable voters. The student loans thing, for example, showed they just want to juice their base as much as possible.” 

For now, Democrats will take the gains where they can find them.  

They just hope there is time to advance further before voters go to the polls in November. 

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats think GOP governors may torpedo Republicans with immigrant moves

Democrats say GOP governors sending migrants to liberal cities in blue states are making a political mistake, potentially turning the issue of immigration and the border into a loser for Republicans.   

They say sending plane- and busloads of men, women and children to unfamiliar cities with the promise of jobs and care is coming off as cruel and careless, even if the intention is to make a statement about the difficulties border areas face with a surge of immigrants.   

“DeSantis and Abbott thought they were going to put immigration on the ballot, but what they’ve done is reinforce the Democrats’ message regarding MAGA extremism,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a progressive immigration advocacy group.  

Sharry referenced Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who along with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey are the three Republicans most associated with the migrant dumps. The three have shipped migrants seeking asylum to New York City; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.   

Immigration is an issue regularly used to pulverize Democrats at election time, but a number of voices in the party think that, in this case, it could boomerang on the GOP in the final stretch of the midterms.   

Democrats have sought to move the subject of conversation away from the topics of inflation and the economy, and they’ve been helped in doing so by a variety of news events, including the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision and the FBI search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.   

The dropping off of migrants at Martha’s Vineyard — an island vacation spot off Massachusetts — and at Vice President Harris’s home in Washington is seen as another distraction of sorts.   

In Florida, Democrats are zeroing in on the argument that the Republican governors are unfairly targeting and making life harder for migrants fleeing repressive leftist governments in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. It blunts Republican talking points on socialism that the GOP has used to make inroads with Hispanic voters in Florida in particular.  

“The moment I read that it was Venezuelan and Colombian refugees, I realized this was an absolute disaster for Governor DeSantis,” said Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.).  

“Not only is it inhumane, but these are two key voting groups in Florida that we are vigorously contesting between the parties,” he added.  

Many Democrats see an opportunity for the party to define itself on immigration, in opposition to GOP hard-liners, as it did in 2018 and 2020.  

“President Biden should seize this moment to remind the country of what American democracy stands for,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a statement Friday.  

“He should welcome these refugees and those from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba that have been bussed to other states, and allow them to seek temporary protections in the United States. This was the right thing to do for Ukrainians who could not return home, and it is the right thing to do now.”  

While most Northern city officials have avoided statements portraying immigration and migrants as a problem, some have used the kind of rhetoric the migrant relocations have presumably sought to provoke.  

Earlier this month, D.C. Councilwoman Brianne Nadeau blamed Abbott and Ducey for turning Washington into a “border town.”  

And Republicans are leaning in to their original view of immigration as a national crisis of Biden’s making that overburdens border communities.  

“This is what happens when you have an administration that basically is telling people if you come into this country illegally, you’re going to get to stay,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told supporters in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Friday.  

Rubio doubled down on GOP claims of Democratic hypocrisy, downplaying the validity of Northern cities’ sanctuary policies.  

“It’s easy to be a sanctuary city or sanctuary county when illegal immigration is not burdening you,” he said.   

Still, the migrant relocations have opened a window of opportunity for Democrats to talk about immigration, after months of being on the defensive on the issue.  

“Republican Governors DeSantis and Abbott as well as Latino Republicans are creating confusion to divide the country and distract from their lack of solutions on the top issues for working families,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s campaign arm, Bold PAC.  

Gallego added that Democrats feel emboldened by the new battlefront, given their success in 2018 and 2020 framing Trump-era immigration policies like family separations.  

“This is the same tired, failed GOP playbook. Every time an election comes around, Republicans try to politicize immigration. They tried this in 2018 with caravans and it didn’t work for them — Democrats won by the largest margin in midterm history,” he said.  

Ducey, who is term-limited, is not running for reelection in Arizona, a state where the gubernatorial race is a toss-up between pro-Trump Republican Kari Lake and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D).  

Abbott and DeSantis are up for reelection and are facing bold-faced Democratic opponents in former Reps. Beto O’Rourke and Charlie Crist, who is also a former Florida governor. Polls suggest a close race in Florida; in Texas, a new poll released Monday showed Abbott with a growing lead.  

But perhaps the biggest political effect of the relocation program has been as a unifying force for Democrats.  

“It’s right up there in cruelty with Trump confining kids to cages, and it’s keeping our caucus unified,” Soto said.

Source: TEST FEED1

New evidence shows GOP’s Trump problem may be getting worse

Republicans are growing more concerned that President Trump could be a drag — and not a help — in tight midterm races that will determine the majorities in the House and Senate.  

Trump remains overwhelmingly popular among Republican voters, but he’s just as unpopular with Democrats, and there is a growing body of evidence that he is losing more support from independent swing voters as he grapples with a slew of investigations.  

A new NBC News poll released Sunday found just 34 percent of registered voters said they have a positive view of Trump, compared to 54 percent who said they have a negative view of him. That’s the lowest Trump has polled in NBC’s survey since April 2021. 

While Trump has defended himself since the FBI conducted a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified records, the controversy appears to be hurting him. 

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in late August found half of Americans think Trump should be prosecuted over his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, including 52 percent of independent voters. 

An NPR-Marist poll released on Sept. 7 found 67 percent of independents say they don’t want him to run for president again. 

And in another indictment of Trump’s standing with moderate voters, a New York Times-Siena survey conducted earlier in September found him trailing President Biden in a hypothetical rematch by 3 percentage points, despite just 39 percent of independents in that poll saying they approve of Biden’s job performance. 

“These candidates have to fight kind of two-fold battles,” said John Thomas, a Republican strategist. “Can you move your base turnout margin ever so slightly? I think Trump has utility there. And can you win with independent swing voters on issues that aren’t Trump-related?”

Trump won’t be on the ballot this fall, but he’s closely associated with GOP Senate candidates Herschel Walker, Blake Masters, J.D. Vance and Mehmet Oz, all of whom got across the finish line in their respective Senate primaries with the former president’s support. 

As a result, it’s possible those candidates could be hurt by Trump as they seek to move to the middle for the general election.  

Trump, who held a rally in Ohio on Saturday for Vance, pushed back strongly at any suggestion he isn’t helping GOP candidates. 

He also held a recent rally in Pennsylvania and plans to hold similar events in Michigan and North Carolina.  

“Both J.D. Vance and Dr. Oz asked me to do big Rallies for them in Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively, and I did,” Trump wrote in a post over the weekend on Truth Social, his nascent social media platform.  

“The Pennsylvania Rally was a massive success, ‘packed’ with great American Patriots, and the Ohio Rally … is a likewise sold out juggernaut — Look at the massive crowds,” Trump wrote.  

“Both candidates wanted this and I, as usual, delivered,” Trump continued. “ALL Republican candidates want Rallies. Without the Rallies and, even more importantly, the Endorsements, most would lose. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” 

A former Trump campaign aide argued Trump’s value depends on the state, pointing to Ohio and Georgia as redder states where he helped earn Vance and Walker the nomination and could make a difference in a general election. 

But in more purple states such as Arizona, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, the former aide acknowledged, Trump could ultimately be more of a drag. 

One GOP strategist in Arizona expressed skepticism about whether Kari Lake and Blake Masters, the Republican gubernatorial and Senate candidates, respectively, would be able to expand their appeal beyond hardcore Trump voters to win in a state that sent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D) to Washington and narrowly backed Biden in 2020. 

There’s no doubt Trump is popular with the GOP base, and few Republicans will want to send any signals of criticism toward him. A USA Today-Ipsos poll in late August found Trump had an 81 percent approval rating within the Republican Party. 

“J.D. is kissing my ass. He wants my support,” Trump said in Ohio on Saturday, arguing that wouldn’t be the case if he were politically toxic. 

But Republican candidates will have to overcome a trend of Trump voters failing to turn out in droves when the former president is not on the ballot. Enthusiasm for Trump carried him to the White House in 2016 and earned him more than 74 million votes in 2020. 

Republican turnout dipped in 2018 without Trump on the ticket, and the party lost its House majority. Trump was again not on the ticket in early 2021 when two Georgia Senate seats went to Democrats in runoff elections.

Some Republican candidates who hugged Trump closely in primary races have already tried to pivot away from the former president on certain issues, especially around the 2020 election. 

Dan Bolduc, a GOP Senate candidate in New Hampshire who insisted as recently as August that Biden was illegitimately elected in 2020, made a complete reversal after winning his primary last week, telling Fox News he had concluded after talking to voters “the election was not stolen.” 

Oz, who with the help of Trump’s endorsement emerged from a crowded primary field in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, said earlier this month he would have voted to certify Biden’s victory. Trump and many of his supporters remain outraged that then-Vice President Mike Pence certified the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Biden won New Hampshire in 2020 by roughly 60,000 votes, and he won Pennsylvania by roughly 80,000 votes. 

Democrats have been happy to take advantage of Trump’s prominent role in the midterm elections, believing his lack of appeal with independent voters and the cloud of investigations hanging over him make it possible to turn the vote into a referendum on the former president rather than the current one. 

In a memo late last week, Nevin Nayak, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, wrote that so-called MAGA Republicans, or those who are part of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, have turned off voters with extreme views on abortion, election security and other issues. 

“With the primary season having concluded … the general election is officially upon us,” Nayak wrote. “The dangerous MAGA agenda is giving voters a very clear choice this November — and that’s causing major headaches for the Republican Party.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Dems say they're close on police funding and stock ban bills

House Democrats scrambling to secure a few last-minute wins ahead of the midterm elections say they’re close to reaching deals on two elusive issues — a stock ban and police funding — that would free them to vote on both items this month.

While most of the focus of the short September session is on the must-pass legislation to keep the government running beyond Oct. 1, a number of vulnerable front-line Democrats are hoping also to move the other two high-profile bills before November’s elections.

While neither the stock ban nor the policing legislation has a chance to pass through the Senate within that short window, House lawmakers in tough reelection contests want to tout those victories on the campaign trail in their districts.

“Both are still very much in play, and we’re kind of working on some final details. I’m not sure when they’d be brought up, but I know they’re both still being talked about,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), chairman of the Rules Committee, said Monday evening.

“I know they’re getting close.”

House lawmakers were expected to vote on the package of police funding bills in July, alongside legislation to ban assault weapons. But the last-minute opposition from a large group of liberals — many of them members of the Congressional Black Caucus — caused Democratic leaders to yank the law enforcement funding from the calendar while the sides sought a resolution.

Supporters of the package are hoping to use it to boost their pro-police bonafides — and symbolically reject the “defund the police” mantra on the far left of the party. The liberal critics are wary of increasing funding for state and local law enforcers without including new guardrails designed to rein in police abuse, which affects minority communities disproportionately.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), the chair of the Black Caucus, has been heavily involved in the talks, as has Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, who’s pushing hard to secure a vote this month.

“We’re making very good progress,” Gottheimer said.

Another source familiar with the talks predicted that they’re far enough along that a vote on the police package could come by Thursday.

“It’s got to go [this month],” the source said.

The stock ban legislation — which would prohibit lawmakers from owning or buying stocks to eliminate conflict-of-interest concerns — is also making progress, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chair of the House Administration Committee, is working to finalize a proposal, piecing together elements of several existing bills.

“We are working hard to get final [agreement],” Lofgren said.

“Getting consensus on something that a lot of people want more or less has not been that easy,” she added, but said “I think we’re very close.”

Meanwhile, the debate over the broader issue of how to fund the government beyond Oct. 1 yielded no major revelations as Congress returned to Washington on Monday.

Party leaders, including President Biden, had promised centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) a vote on legislation to fast-track energy infrastructure projects — a vow that won Manchin’s vote on a much larger health and climate bill that Biden signed into law last month.

That promise made, Democratic leaders in both chambers are now struggling for a way to include Manchin’s “permitting reform” provision in the government funding bill in a manner that can both win GOP support in the Senate — where 60 votes are needed to elude a Republican filibuster — and doesn’t alienate so many House liberals that the package can’t pass in the lower chamber.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, made clear Monday that she wants the short-term government funding bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to extend to Dec. 16. But as far as developments in the talks? “Nothing new,” she said.

“It’s always my hope that we can move sooner than later.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) deferred questions about the CR to DeLauro, while House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) suggested the House is simply waiting to see if Senate Democrats can bring their Republican colleagues to support a funding bill with the Manchin language attached.

“I think it’s still undecided in that the Senate is still trying to figure out what they can do,” Hoyer said. “We can pass it” in the House.

As the debate drags on, Hoyer made this much clear: Any hope that the House will wrap up its work in time to cancel next week’s scheduled session is likely gone.

“No, no,” Hoyer said. “We’re going to be here.”

Source: TEST FEED1