Pope Francis has concluded a self-described “penitential pilgrimage” to Canada. For the 85-year-old mostly wheelchair-bound pontiff, the journey was taxing but necessary. In 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission reported that for many years a “cultural genocide” occurred in Catholic schools, and confirmed the deaths of at least 3,200 indigenous peoples, with many others emotionally scarred for life. Upon his arrival, a solemn pope said, “I have come to your native lands to tell you in person my sorrow, to implore God’s forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation, to express my closeness and to pray with you and for you.”
Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has called for a “culture of encounter” that requires more listening than talking. He recently sent a letter to Fr. James Martin commending his outreach toward gay and lesbian Catholics, writing that such encounters, “even with those who think differently or those whose differences seem to separate or even confront us,” leads to a realization “that there is more that unites us than separates us.”
Using earthy language, the pope urges his priests to “be shepherds with the smell of sheep.” To that end, he ordered Catholic churches to begin two-year listening sessions, saying, “It is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church of the third millennium.”
Giving lay people a greater voice has caused Pope Francis to break with precedent and appoint two nuns and one woman to the Congregation of Bishops, a body that recommends candidates to fill vacancies in the 5,300 dioceses around the world. Sister Yvonne Reungoat, one of the new members, said, “I think that to be a bishop one must have the ability to listen, both to those who have the same ideas and to those who protest.”
Pope Francis’s ministry of engagement has caused a great deal of discomfort. Ever since Joe Biden entered the White House, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has been torn asunder. On Inauguration Day, its president issued an ultimatum: “Our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”
For months, the bishops debated whether the Eucharist should be withheld from pro-choice Catholics. In May, San Francisco’s archbishop instructed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) not to present herself for communion “unless and until she publicly repudiates her support for abortion ‘rights’. . .and [receives] absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance.” Such dictums defy Pope Francis’s edict that the Eucharist is “not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”
At the nine-year mark of his pontificate, Pope Francis has acknowledged the unprecedented hostility he has encountered. Catholic scholar Massimo Faggioli calls those hostile to the pope “neo-traditionalists” who want a return to a pre-Vatican II era. Pope Francis, in turn, has described them as “backwardists,” warning, “A church that does not develop its thinking in an ecclesial way is a church that goes backward.” But conservative Archbishop Joseph Naumann pushed back, saying, “I think the pope doesn’t understand the U.S., just as he doesn’t understand the church in the U.S.”
The enmity Pope Francis has encountered is not surprising. Catholics, like most Americans, are creatures of comfort. We seek affirmation from the like-minded, whether it be in religion or politics. It is not surprising to know that MSNBC, whose audience is largely composed of Democrats, led the cable news ratings when the Jan. 6 hearings were televised. It is equally unsurprising that 78 percent of Republicans paid either “little” or “no attention” to the hearings, according to one poll.
Catholics similarly long to be among the like-minded. Today, Catholics no longer abide by church boundaries and seek parishes in which they feel comfortable. Being comfortable, however, often means not listening. In a rapidly changing world, the Catholic Church must encounter those who do not enter its church doors. The Pew Research Center finds just 26 percent of Catholics attend church weekly, while 65 percent say they attend “a few times a year or less.” Another survey reveals 63 percent of Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases; only 31 percent think communion should be denied to politicians who support abortion rights; and 77 percent said Catholics who identify as LGBTQ should be allowed to receive the Eucharist.
Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, says the rift between the laity and bishops on these issues “reveals a breakdown in communication and trust — shepherds who are far removed from the sheep.”
In his three-year ministry, Jesus Christ encountered numerous individuals shunned by society — including prostitutes, tax collectors and Roman soldiers. Pope Francis wants similar encounters. These can be discomforting. But it is important to remember that Catholics believe the Holy Spirit guides the selection of popes. The last three pontiffs taught the Catholic Church important lessons. St. John Paul II proved Josef Stalin wrong when he famously asked, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” The power of the Polish pope’s words marked the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the fall of the Soviet Union. Pope Benedict XVI gave Catholics a lesson in humility by becoming the first to lay down his palladium since Celestine V resigned the papacy in 1294. Pope Francis is giving Catholics a lesson in listening.
Whether the Catholic Church starts listening will determine whether it renews itself or begins a long, slow decline.
John Kenneth White is a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) called the FBI raid on former President Trump’s home in Florida on Monday an “escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies.”
Shortly after the FBI executed a search warrant on the former president’s home, DeSantis took to Twitter to criticize the move, including tying the search to the Senate’s passing of the $740 billion tax, health care and climate change legislation.
“The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves,” DeSantis, who could have his eyes set on a 2024 White House bid, wrote. “Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.”
The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.
The search comes as the Justice Department has expedited its investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, as well as the actions Trump took to overturn the 2020 election results to remain in power.
In 2021, authorities recovered 15 boxes of materials from Trump’s home in Florida that should have been left with government record keepers, which lead to the National Archives reportedly asking the Justice Department to investigate the home. Among the retrieved materials at that time were some that were classified in nature.
“My beautiful home Mar A Lago in Palm Beach, Florida is currently under siege, raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump announced in a statement on Monday that included a link for donations to his political action committee.
“After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid at my home was not necessary or appropriate.”
While it was not immediately clear what was examined during the search, nor what the search warrant was specifically issued for, Trump said the law enforcement officials also “broke into my safe.”
The FBI-executed raid appears to be the first of its kind against a former president.
Climate change is a preoccupation for the elites in our society. Inflation is the preoccupation for everybody else.
The Jan. 6 investigation is aimed at exposing the extremists who tried to overthrow the election and reimpose Donald Trump. That’s what the Democrats hope the voters care about this November.
Modern campaigns are all about tearing down the other candidate. 2022 is all about the extremists versus the elitists.
For the Democrats, the extremists are not just MAGA, they are ultra-MAGA. They are the Donald Trump-supporting, abortion-opposing, election-denying, gay-hating, immigrant-bashing right-wingers who can’t be trusted with power. Because, you know, when Trump was in power and successfully created an economy with low inflation, high employment and strong economic growth, it must have been bad for the environment.
For the Republicans, the mask-mandating elites are driving up gas prices because they want you to buy an electric car, are in favor of schools (public and private) teaching critical race theory to your children because they just read a splendid book at their book club, are in favor of open borders because it means cheaper labor, think that those poor victims should be let out of prison for rape, murder and other random crime because the system is fundamentally racist (just as they hire private security firms to patrol their ritzy neighborhoods) and want to take away your guns because you shouldn’t be able to protect yourself from the criminals or an overly aggressive police state.
In a democracy, when the elite gains too much power and uses it too promiscuously to feather its own nests, voters usually have the last word.
Republicans used to be patricians who practiced a form of noblesse oblige, serving at their local soup kitchens, giving freely to their local Planned Parenthood chapter, making their money on Wall Street and worrying about the unwashed masses that flowed in from Europe. Those days are long gone, but it took Trump to put the final nail in the coffin of the white, wealthy GOP establishment.
It was Barry Goldwater who is said “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.” It is the extremism that the Democrats hope to hang around the heads of the new Republican Party.
Elites always call working-class populists extremists, because they see them as a fundamental threat to their power, and ultimately their money.
The question remains: Can the Democrats successfully label the Republicans as Trump extremists who want to subvert democracy and install some kind of extra-constitutional fascist republic?
Or are the voters more concerned about the mundane issues that don’t seem to bother the 1 percent as much, things like crushing energy prices, food that is too expensive and getting more expensive every day, middle schools that don’t teach the basics when they are actually open, colleges that are too expensive and teach exotic gender theories, out-of-control crime and an open border that overwhelms local neighborhoods with dangerous drugs like fentanyl.
Democrats are cheering their misnamed Inflation Reduction Act as if this will be their salvation for the upcoming elections, mostly because it invested heavily in obscure tax credits that theoretically will help fight climate change. But most voters, outside of the narrow band of environmental activists who have a vested interest in profiting from those tax breaks, don’t put climate change anywhere near the top of their legislative agenda. What they want is open schools, safe streets, affordable food and energy and a break from crushing inflation. That doesn’t sound so extreme to me.
In the battle of the elites versus the extremists, I still give the edge to the Republicans, although the Democrats have some momentum, born mostly from unlikely bipartisan successes. If the Republicans truly want to be the outsider party, they should probably stop playing the insider game.
Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).
Speaking before supporters on the evening of Nov. 6, 2018, John E. James, with a crisp suit-no-tie look and standing beside his wife and son, told the audience assembled, “Anybody can give glory to God when the times are good, but we’re still supposed to glorify him in defeat because He has a bigger plan than we can understand … And I promise I’m not going anywhere … This is just the beginning.” James had just lost his Senate bid to incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) by six-and-a-half percentage points in what was then his first run for elected office.
His 2020 concession speech was much less elaborate. He had traded his suit jacket for a black golf shirt and uploaded via smartphone a shelf-shot two-minute video touching on election security and the number of dollars spent on the race before congratulating Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) on his victory and promising to send him a bottle of Johnnie Walker scotch whiskey. It was shot at home; there were no cheering supporters, but a photograph of his family occupied the background of the shot. Again, though, there was mention of God and hints that James might still have another run for office ahead.
Then, last week, after two consecutive defeats, James secured the Republican nomination in the race for Michigan’s tenth congressional district, defeating his opponent, Tony Marcinkewciz, handedly. In doing so, James finally made good on his nearly four-year-old promise that “This [was] just the beginning.” His Aug. 2 victory thus represented a remarkable show of tenacity for the Iraq War veteran and businessman, as well as the persistent faith that many in the Republican Party had placed in him. (James, to this point, had notably secured the endorsement of former President Donald Trump in March.)
Although we will have to wait until November to see if James’ political comeback will be complete, given the district’s Republican tilt, it is likely James will finally experience his much sought after electoral victory. But perhaps, more fundamentally, James’ recent ups and downs invites a much-debated question about electoral politics more broadly: How often can one successfully make a comeback, and what sort of personal fortitude is required to embark on a campaign once again after suffering what often amounts to both a very personal and public rejection?
One thinks of the many stories of the emotional toll that losing an election takes — from Richard Nixon’s 1962 infamous press conference and ensuing “Wilderness Years” to the distress Hubert Humphrey experienced after losing the 1968 presidential election to the reascendant Nixon. Nixon aide Dwight Chapin has recounted, though, how President-elect Nixon was remarkably magnanimous following his victory over Humphrey, having himself known all too well “how it feels to lose a close one.” As Chapin describes, “The men had their arms around one another. Humphrey was sobbing. Nixon was patting him on the back saying, ‘Hubert, everything’s going to be okay…’” And Sen. Bob Dole, in the foreword to his 1999 book “Great Political Wit: Laughing (Almost) All the Way to the White House,” referenced the tendency for defeated candidates reflexively to head off on vacation or retreat into seclusion, something Humphrey himself alluded to in a telephone call with President Lyndon Johnson after votes were tallied when he expressed his desire to head down to Caneel Bay.
As such, those like James, former Vice President Mike Pence (who lost two congressional campaigns before finally winning one a decade later), or former President George H.W. Bush, who was defeated in a 1964 Senate race before being elected to the House of Representatives two years later, deserve considerable credit for their tenacity. One also thinks of Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.) who defied his characterization in a 2011 Philadelphia Inquirer article titled “Dwight or wrong: The rise and fall (?) of Dwight Evans,” which was published in the wake of his losing his chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee in the Pennsylvania state legislature. Evans would be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives five years later. (He would joke about that article when I interviewed him in 2019, invoking the rapper LL Cool J, “Don’t call it a comeback.”)
Erich J. Prince co-founded and runs Merion West (@merionwest), a Philadelphia-based group promoting civil discourse in the age of polarization; he also writes a weekly column at MediaVillage on how the news media covers politics. He previously served as a communications strategist for former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory.
Eric Trump, one of former President Trump’s sons, said in an interview late Monday that the FBI’s search at his father’s Mar-a-Lago home earlier in the day was focused on documents sought by the National Archives.
“Sean, the purpose for the raid from what they said was because the National Archives wanted to, you know, corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had any documents in his possession,” Eric Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“And my father has worked so collaboratively with them for months. In fact, the lawyer that’s been working on this was totally shocked. He goes, ‘I had such an amazing relationship with these people and, all of a sudden, on no notice, they send, you know, 20 cars and 30 agents?’ ” Eric Trump added.
Earlier on Monday, the former president said that the FBI had raided his Florida estate, adding that agents broke into his safe. He said that the raid was not “unannounced” and called it “not necessary or appropriate.”
It was not immediately clear from Donald Trump’s statement what the search warrant was focused on or what documents or property agents were examining.
The probe followed reporting earlier this year that the Justice Department had been asked by the National Archives to look into the former president’s handling of records after more than a dozen boxes, including some containing classified information, were recovered by Archives officials that Donald Trump should have turned over.
The Mar-a-Lago search was immediately criticized by Republicans, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) saying on Monday that should the GOP take back the House after November, his party would conduct a probe into the Justice Department.
The Hill has reached out to the National Archives for comment.
Today marks the second anniversary of Belarus’s infamous 2020 presidential election, in which dictator Alexander Lukashenko defied the will of the people for true democratic change to cling to power. In the two years since, the embattled opposition movement has survived against all odds, while Lukashenko has become a key supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine and has allowed Vladimir Putin’s forces to operate from Belarus against the will of his people. It is vital that the United States and our partners support the aspirations of the Belarusian people for a say in their future, and for their country not to be used as a base for Russia’s brutal wars of conquest.
Why was the August 2020 election a turning point for Belarus? Pro-democracy leaders in the country had struggled to formulate an effective response to Lukashenko’s strongman rule for more than two decades. Yet the consequences of years of repression, corruption and misgovernance began to show in the lead-up to the election, with popular will mobilizing behind an increasingly vocal opposition movement. Lukashenko imprisoned opposition candidates, including Siarhiej Tsikhanouski and Viktar Babaryka — a third prominent candidate, Valery Tsapkala, escaped arrest by fleeing the country — in the hope that this would arrest the groundswell of support for democratic change.
Tsikhanouski’s wife, Sviatlana, bravely entered the race and ran a campaign promising to respect human rights, tackle corruption, and chart a course of democratic reform for the country. She quickly rallied opposition support and her campaign events drew thousands of Belarusians, electrifying the population. Reliable polling pointed to a close race and a likely win for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Yet, when the Central Election Commission released official results, Lukashenko claimed over 81 percent of the vote, with just 10 percent for Tsikhanouskaya. Post-election polling showed that Tsikhanouskaya likely won the election outright. The election evidently was stolen utilizing techniques such as inflating numbers during early voting and blatant ballot-stuffing on election day. Numerous cases of fraud were documented.
Enraged by this brazen and illegal result, Belarusians took to the streets in huge protests. These were met with mass arrests, beatings, and other mistreatment of protestors by the Belarusian police and security forces. Tsikhanouskaya was forced to flee Belarus for neighboring Lithuania; she led the election protest movement from her new base in Vilnius, and later shifted to a long-term effort to maintain unity among the democratic forces.
Despite the severe constraints on independent media in Belarus, democratic forces have been able to get their message out to ordinary Belarusians seeking a new way forward. In the two years since the stolen election, the movement has promoted a vision of a new Belarus: producing a draft constitution, and putting forward reforms for the economy, education, health care and the environment. And since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the movement also has focused on galvanizing opposition to Belarus’s involvement in Russia’s war.
Once Ukraine prevails in the war, there will be openings for a political transition in Belarus. The opposition movement remains unified and is poised to engage in such a transition and build a pro-reform, pro-Western, democratic Belarus. America and our democratic partners can enhance the potential for a peaceful transition of power by providing key diplomatic, political and moral support to the Belarusian democracy movement now, including helping the democracy movement to communicate its vision to the citizens of Belarus.
Two years after Lukashenko’s infamous stolen election, the fight for a new Belarus continues. Let’s make sure the United States is on the right side of that fight.
The FBI on Monday executed an unprecedented court-authorized search of former President Trump’s home at his Mar-a-Lago resort, sparking an escalation of tensions between the ex-president and those investigating him for alleged wrongdoing.
According to The New York Times, the search Monday morning was part of a probe into classified government records Trump took with him from the White House when he resumed life as a private citizen in Palm Beach, Fla. The former president, who was in New York City and not in Florida on Monday, was among the first to reveal the government search, noting with freighted language that agents searched his safe (Axios).
“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said as part of a 341-word statement, labeling it “prosecutorial misconduct.” “After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”
Christina Bobb, Trump’s attorney, told CNN that the FBI seized documents. Bobb was present for the search, according to CNN. “President Trump and his legal team have been cooperative with FBI and DOJ officials every step of the way,” the former One America News host said.
CNN sources said the FBI communicated with the Secret Service at Mar-a-Lago before it executed the search warrant, allowing FBI personnel to access the estate without complications.
As The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch and Harper Neidig note, the National Archives and Records Administration last year asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate after authorities recovered 15 boxes of materials from the Florida locale, which under the Presidential Records Act were required to remain with government records-keepers. It took months and the threat of action to retrieve the records.
Former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliguzzi told MSNBC that to obtain the warrant to search, the Justice Department at the highest level had to decide to seek affirmation from a magistrate or a federal judge of probable cause that a crime had been committed and that evidence of a crime could be found in the former president’s home. The search does not suggest that federal prosecutors have determined that Trump committed a crime.
The DOJ declined to comment to The Hill. The FBI and U.S. attorney’s offices in Washington and for the Southern District of Florida also reportedly declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment (Politico).
The FBI involvement comes at a perilous time for Trump as the DOJ ramps up its own probe into his attempt to remain in power via a false elector scheme ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Investigators have reportedly convened a federal grand jury to examine it and have interviewed key figures with knowledge of it, including Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, his deputy in the counsel’s office.
The department has also executed search warrants for documents and information from two lawyers who worked in concert with the former president, including John Eastman, whose phone was seized by investigators.
The Mar-a-Lago search, however, is separate from the Jan. 6-related investigation, according to The Wall Street Journal.
▪ Reuters’: Explainer: Trump says FBI “raided” his Florida estate. What legal woes does he face?
▪ Fox News: Trump posts campaign ad-style video to Truth Social following FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
Republicans were quick to pounce on the development. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a statement called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to “preserve your documents and clear your calendar” for oversight hearings if the GOP retakes the lower chamber (The Hill). Trump’s political team began sending political fundraising solicitations to supporters about the DOJ search on Monday evening.
Democrats declined to weigh in publicly about the Trump news. During an appearance on MSNBC, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) declined to comment twice when asked about the search.
Related Articles
▪ The Hill: Republicans erupt over FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search.
▪ The Washington Post: Top Republicans echo Trump’s evidence-free claims to discredit FBI search.
▪ The New York Times: If Trump broke a law on the removal of official records, would he be barred from future office?
▪ Politico: DOJ pushes back against Eastman effort to reclaim his cellphone.
LEADING THE DAY
➤ ADMINISTRATION & CONGRESS
President Biden this week is exulting in a string of better headlines and passage of major legislation he’ll sign this week, knowing from experience that a divided country will view his scorecard without instant consensus.
Some of Biden’s predecessors discovered the hard way that aiming at legacy burnishing while in office proved a fool’s errand. What presidents envision and what history decides are rarely in sync in real time.
Former President George W. Bush — whose tenure in the Oval Office was indelibly shaped by the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and years later by the public’s loss of confidence in his leadership — said he knew he could not control what historians would write and what the U.S. public would ultimately decide about his time in office.
“I think a president must not try to write the legacy of every moment,” Bush told an interviewer in 2003 when his job approval numbers hovered at 50 percent. “The president just does what he thinks is right and try to explain as clearly as I can … like I’m doing right now, to people about why I made the decisions I made.”
Peter Baker of The New York Times reported that “whether the victories of recent weeks will prove to be a decisive turning point for Mr. Biden’s presidency or merely a transitory moment in an otherwise bleak administration, of course, remains to be seen. Mr. Biden is still one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history at this point in his term, according to polls.”
Less than 40 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Biden is doing, according to the RealClearPolitics average. Democratic candidates have the jitters about the midterms, and some in the president’s party are increasingly vocal that the oldest president in U.S. history should not seek a second term in 2024.
Newsweek: Biden boosts legacy with energy, health care bill. Will voters reward him?
The spate of recent successes includes passage of bills that invest in the domestic semiconductor industry (Biden will sign that bipartisan measure today) and expand benefits for military veterans exposed to toxic burn pits (to be signed into law on Wednesday). By Friday, the president expects the House to follow the Senate’s 51-50 vote on Sunday to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a breakthrough for the legislative branch in tackling climate change and proposes lower prescription drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, among other provisions.
Inflation remains high, but gasoline prices are dropping, a government jobs report was surprisingly upbeat last week, and Biden gave the order this month to use Hellfire missiles in Kabul to kill former al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
▪ The Hill: Here’s what’s in the Senate’s Inflation Reduction Act, expected to be taken up by the House by Friday.
▪ The Hill: How the White House worked behind the scenes to nudge Senate Democrats toward a breakthrough win.
Coming up on Wednesday will be a government report for July describing consumer prices, which could pour cold water on a White House narrative that inflation is easing. Republican candidates are quick to argue to the party’s base that Democrats’ spending, tax hikes, immigration and energy policies and approach to violent crime in the U.S. are taking the country in the wrong direction. Their message: A Republican-controlled House next year would be a check on Biden and liberals in Congress.
▪ The Washington Post: Biden’s policies have not revived Scranton, Pa. But few there blame him.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: An antitrust bill targeting Big Tech is in limbo, headed for possible Senate attention in the fall. The measure would block the largest tech companies from favoring their own products and services.
IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES
➤ POLITICS
Voters will head to the polls in four states tonight, including in Wisconsin where the GOP gubernatorial contest is a toss-up between one candidate backed by Trump and another who is being fueled by top Republicans in the state and nationally.
Tonight’s elections are highlighted by the battle between former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (R) and Tim Michels, the Trump-supported candidate. For months, Kleefisch, the two-term second in command behind former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), held the advantage, but a Michels surge in recent months has brought the race nearly even.
According to Emerson College’s poll released on Saturday, the former L.G. leads Michels by only 2 percentage points, 36 percent to 34 percent, with three other candidates raking in 15 percent combined. Fourteen percent are undecided.
Both candidates have their pluses and minuses. While Kleefisch’s experience has made her the front-runner at times in the race, it also means her ceiling is not sky high. As for Michels, the momentum his campaign had in mid-July has stalled out after multiple stumbles on the trail, including when he declined to back a potential Trump White House bid in 2024 before having to play cleanup shortly after.
“Gun to my head, I’d probably put my bet on Kleefisch,” one Wisconsin GOP operative told the Morning Report when asked for a prediction. “But I won’t feel comfortable until the gun clicked and I’m still alive.”
The race also represents another contested battle between Trump and Pence, who is backing Kleefisch. The winner will face off with Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) in the fall.
The gubernatorial brouhaha is the preeminent contest on the board for tonight after much of the Senate Democratic field in the state cleared out and backed Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D) to take on Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in November.
In addition, primaries will take place in Vermont, Connecticut and Minnesota tonight.
▪ The New York Times: Barnes is already looking past Wisconsin’s Democratic primary.
▪ Alexander Bolton, The Hill: Johnson steps on political land mine with Social Security, Medicare comments.
▪ The Associated Press: What to watch in Wisconsin, three other states in tonight’s primaries.
▪ The Hill: Key races to watch in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Vermont primaries.
▪ Politico: Welcome to the strangest Senate race in America: Utah.
On the national scene, Republicans are downplaying their chances of retaking the Senate majority in November and winning back the Senate majority in November as Democrats rack up key legislative wins and some GOP candidates fall flat.
As The Hill’s Julia Manchester notes, Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), chairman of the Senate GOP campaign arm, addressed those concerns on Sunday, acknowledging that it’s “going to be a tough year” and noting the Democratic financial advantage with three months to go.
The remarks come as Democrats are buoyed by the Senate’s passage of the reconciliation bill and the rejection of a ballot measure in Kansas to strip abortion rights.
▪ CNN: Lobbyist Susie Wiles helped Trump win Florida twice. Now she could lead his expected 2024 campaign.
▪ The New York Times: Maps in four states — Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio — were ruled by judges to be illegal gerrymanders. They’re being used anyway in a midterm year because of the Supreme Court. House Republicans gained the advantage.
▪ The Hill: Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, plans to run for whip if Republicans take the House.
▪ CNN: Alex Jones’s texts have been turned over to the Jan. 6 committee.
■ The Mar-a-Lago search proves the U.S. isn’t a banana republic, by David A. Graham, staff writer, The Atlantic. https://bit.ly/3d5gO7V
■ We will all end up paying for someone else’s beach house, by Francis Wilkinson, opinion contributor, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3C6FMyv
■ The not-ready-for-prime-time Republicans, by Gerard Baker, editor at large, The Wall Street. https://on.wsj.com/3dkkm6E
WHERE AND WHEN
The House will meet at 1 p.m. for a pro forma session while in recess. Members are expected to reconvene on Friday to vote on the Senate-passed Inflation Reduction Act.
The Senate convenes at 9 a.m. for a pro forma session during its summer recess, which ends Sept. 6.
The president will receive the President’s Daily Briefing at 9 a.m. Biden at 10 a.m. on the South Lawn will deliver remarks while signing into law the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, intended to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and national security, especially for critical semiconductors, which are primarily made outside the United States. The president at 2 p.m. in the East Room will sign an accession protocol for Finland and Sweden’s inclusion as NATO members.
The vice president will join Biden for the morning and afternoon signing events at the White House.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Pretoria, South Africa, where he met in the morning with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The secretary at 9:30 a.m. local time participated in an event to promote women in science. Blinken in the afternoon in Kinshasa, the Congo, meets with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula, joining the foreign minister for an evening joint press conference. Blinken plans to attend a dinner hosted by Tshisekedi and a jazz cultural event and discussion in Kinshasa.
The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 2:40 p.m.
Ukraine will be the recipient of an additional $1 billion in U.S. ammunition for advanced rocket systems, vehicles and explosives, the Pentagon announced on Monday. It’s the largest military assistance package to the war-torn nation since Russia’s invasion (The Hill) and brings the total security assistance from the U.S. to more than $9 billion since February (The Associated Press).
▪ The Hill: U.S. to provide additional $4.5 billion to keep the Ukrainian government operating.
▪ Reuters: As Russian missiles struck Ukraine, Western tech still flowed.
Reuters: Today, Russia has stepped up its assault in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in Kyiv with an overnight video, continued to assail Russia as a “terrorist” state as Moscow takes aim at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
China on Monday continued to ignore calls to calm tensions with Taiwan as its threatening military drills continue this week. There was no immediate indication of when Beijing would end what amounts to a blockade in part of the Taiwan Strait (The Associated Press). Biden said he is “not worried” when asked Monday about China’s actions.
“I’m concerned they’re moving as much as they are. But I don’t think they’re going to do anything more than they are,” he told reporters.
➤ PANDEMIC & POX
BioNTech on Monday indicated that it expects to begin shipments of two omicron-targeted vaccines by October. Pfizer and BioNTech have already submitted one of the updated vaccines, aimed at the BA.1 subvariant, to the European Union’s drug regulator in July and is starting clinical trials in the U.S. on a separate jab that looks to combat the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants (Reuters).
Politico: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has long COVID-19. That’s not moving Congress to act.
In Georgia, Travis McMichael, 36, and Greg McMichael, 66, were sentenced by a U.S. district judge Monday to life in prison (plus 10 years) on federal hate crime charges for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was jogging through a residential neighborhood during a 2020 murder recorded on cellphone video. The father and son were previously sentenced to life without parole in a state court for the murder. Monday’s ruling means they will serve out their sentences in state prison (The Associated Press).
Jury selection begins today in a retrial involving an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) in 2020. Federal prosecutors face an uphill challenge trying to convict two men accused of conspiring to kidnap the governor because they allegedly objected to her restrictive COVID-19 policies and plotted an overthrow of state government, according to the FBI’s arresting documents, which described attempted “domestic terrorism” (Detroit Free Press). A jury in April failed to reach a unanimous verdict for the men still charged and resulted in the acquittal of two other defendants (The Wall Street Journal).
In Utah on Monday, the family of 22-year-old Gabby Petito, who disappeared in 2021 and, according to investigators, was murdered last year by her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Moab City Police Department related to the handling of an encounter between Petito and Laundrie. The family is seeking $50 million in damages, with their attorneys alleging that Petito would still be alive if officers had been properly trained to handle domestic violence situations (NewsNation). Petito’s body was found in Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming on Sept. 19, 2021. It was determined she had been dead for at least three weeks, and her death was ruled a homicide by “manual strangulation.” She and Laundrie had embarked on a cross-country trip living out of a van when she disappeared. Laundrie, suspected in the strangling, later vanished. His remains were found in wetland areas in Florida’s Carlton Reserve on Oct. 20, 2021 (NBC News).
➤ TRANSPORTATION
After a rough weekend for air travelers, 649 additional flights were canceled in the U.S. on Monday, creating more chaos following the more than 1,500 flights that were nixed over the previous two days combined. According to tracking website FlightAware, about 6,745 flights were delayed at some point on Monday into or out of the U.S. Snarls that delayed travelers were especially prevalent in Chicago as thunderstorms and heavy rain were predicted (The Hill).
Elton John confirmed on Monday that he and Britney Spears are collaborating on a remake of the classic song “Tiny Dancer.” The new version, titled “Hold Me Closer,” was teased on the legendary pianist’s Instagram feed and showed temporary art for the single that included emojis that represent the two stars: a rose for Spears and a rocket for John. The tune is expected to be released this month (Daily Mail).
John, 75, who is on his “Yellow Brick Road” farewell tour, has been talking for months in interviews about retiring from the road while continuing to release new music. Younger artists started reaching out to work with him during the pandemic’s isolation period, and he collaborated with Charlie Puth on “After All.” Texas duo Surfaces asked him to work with them on “Learn to Fly.” He also collaborated with Miley Cyrus, Lil Nas X and Dua Lipa on what became “The Lockdown Sessions” (CBS News).
Republicans are looking to manage expectations when it comes to winning back the Senate majority in November as Democrats rack up key legislative wins and some GOP candidates stumble.
National Republican Senatorial Campaign (NRSC) Committee Chairman Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Sunday acknowledged that it’s “going to be a hard year.”
“We have 21 Republicans up, only 14 Democrats,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “The Democrats are outraising us, but we have good candidates. And I believe Joe Biden is going to be our key here.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last week also sought to manage expectations.
“I think it’s going to be very tight. We have a 50-50 nation. And I think when this Senate race smoke clears, we’re likely to have a very, very close Senate still, with us up slightly or the Democrats up slightly,” McConnell said Wednesday evening on Fox’s “Special Report.”
While neither Republican leader is conceding the upper chamber — Scott, in the same interview, said he was “optimistic” — the tone stands in contrast to the confidence Republicans were expressing about the Senate earlier this year, as well as the near certainty felt within the GOP of retaking the House.
“There’s been a lot of curtain-measuring on the House sid,e and if Republicans take back the House but it’s by a small margin and they manage to hold onto the Senate even if it’s by one vote, that could cast how we view the election,” said veteran Republican strategist Doug Heye.
“We’ve seen the expectations game played a lot in Washington, and I think Scott is mindful of that, and depending on where expectations get set you could have a good night that’s defined as a bad night,” he added.
The comments come as Democratic hopes of gaining seats in the upper chamber are growing. Democrats just passed their climate, tax and health care bill, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, a major piece of President Biden’s agenda. That followed bipartisan passage of a measure to increase semiconductor manufacturing and competitiveness with China, as well as a bill to expand health care for veterans.
Additionally, the overwhelming rejection of an anti-abortion ballot measure in Kansas points to an electorate energized by the fall of Roe v. Wade.
And Republicans are grappling with a handful of controversial Senate candidates struggling in the polls in key swing states.
In Pennsylvania, Republican Senate nominee Mehmet Oz continues to trail Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) in a number of polls, while Georgia GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker has had to grapple with various scandalous headlines. Out west, meanwhile, Democrats have employed a strategy of hitting Arizona GOP Senate nominee Blake Masters and Nevada GOP Senate nominee Adam Laxalt over their views on the 2020 presidential election.
The election forecaster FiveThirtyEight currently has Democrats “slightly favored” to win the Senate. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who leads the Democratic Senate campaign arm, said earlier this year that his goal is a 52-seat majority after the midterms.
But Republicans are still running in a national environment that appears to be tilted in their favor, given the state of the economy and the historical trend of a first term president’s party losing seats during their first midterm election cycle. And many within the GOP are pushing back on the idea that its prospects in the Senate are in real trouble.
“Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by a point and a half,” said one Republican using that state as an example. “You don’t think just the national ambience and environment has moved a couple of points against him?”
Chris Hartline, communications director at the NRSC, also shot down the idea the Senate is lost.
“I think that what the chairman said yesterday is not that it’s going to be hard for us to take back the Senate but that the races are tough races, which they were always going to be,” Hartline said. “A lot of these are in races that Biden won by a small margin.”
Some Republican strategists have expressed frustrations over what they say is a flawed recruitment and spending operation, something Democrats have tried to zero in on.
“There’s no bigger tell that Senate Republicans are saddled with a roster of deeply flawed candidates than the fact that the head of their campaign arm squirms like a fish out of water when asked to try and defend them,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committees spokesman Eli Cousin. “Sunday shows should book Rick Scott every weekend.”
Others, however, contend that primary voters ultimately choose their nominees. Scott on Sunday, responding to a question about Walker and Masters, said “the voters in those states would choose in those states who they want.”
Over the past week, Democrats have been highlighting a number of key wins for Biden and the party.
“Everything that they have been successful at doing in recent days, in recent weeks is just going to further drive that contrast,” said one Democratic operative. “We are already going to be talking about candidate on candidate when it comes to a race like Georgia. We’re going to be talking about how Sen. Warnock has been working to lower costs, and taking on gas prices and taking on big corporations.”
But Republicans are quick to argue that the recent wins for Democrats, particularly the Inflation Reduction Act, will not translate into victories come November.
“It’s pretty commonly agreed to that it actually doesn’t do anything about that, which is the No. 1 issue in the country,” Heye said, referring to inflation.
Another Republican strategist referred to the act as “an Orwellian fib to cut a bunch of block grants to environmental nonprofits.”
“There is a Democratic spin machine that is not anchored in any reality,” the strategist said.
Hartline described Democratic messaging on the victories as “living in an alternate universe.”
And despite the recent wins for Democrats, polling shows that voters are still unhappy with the status quo. An ABC News-Ipsos poll released on Sunday found that 69 percent of Americans say they believe the economy is getting worse, while 18 percent of those surveyed believe that the U.S. economy has remained the same.
The poll did show a few bright spots for Democrats, with 34 percent of respondents saying they approve of Biden’s handling of gas prices. That’s up seven points from a similar poll released in June. Additionally, 49 percent of respondents also said they will favor a candidate who supports keeping abortions legal, which would bode well for the party.
“Every single Senate Republican who’s up for reelection is going to now have to defend the fact that they just voted against capping the cost of insulin for folks on private insurance at 35 bucks,” the Democratic operative said, referring to Republican votes against the Inflation Reduction Act. “That’s an incredibly popular policy that they just voted against, so I can tell you right now you’re going to see that in advertising.”
If Republicans do lose the Senate on election night, a blame game will almost certainly commence immediately. Tensions have emerged between former President Trump and the party establishment over Trump’s backing of candidates that others have been leery of and his repeated criticism of McConnell.
But GOP strategists argue the buck ultimately stops with the voters.
“Of course you’re always going to have palace intrigue and internal politics and all of that,” Heye said. “The persons responsible are those candidates that didn’t do what they needed to do, the voters who voted for them but didn’t turn out enough. These are decisions that are made in the states. Washington can help but still that’s where it falls.”
North Korea is increasingly using its crypto heists to fund its nuclear weapons program, worried U.S. officials say.
“I’m very concerned about North Korea’s cyber capabilities,” Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said recently during an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). “They use cyber to gain, we estimate, up to a third of [stolen crypto] funds to fund their missile program.”
“That’s a major issue, whether it’s attacks against cryptocurrency exchanges or use of information technology workers in various countries,” Neuberger said.
She added that North Korea’s expansion of its missile testing is a top priority for the U.S., which is taking multiple steps to counter Pyongyang’s cyber threats, including imposing sanctions against criminal groups and seizing stolen digital assets.
A United Nations report this year found that between 2020 and 2021, North Korean-backed hackers stole more than $50 million in digital assets to fund the country’s missile program, the BBC reported. The U.N. report also revealed that the attacks targeted at least three cryptocurrency exchanges in North America, Europe and Asia.
U.N. investigators said at the time that the attacks are an “important revenue source” for North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program.
In 2019, the U.N. submitted a similar report, this time saying that North Korea had raised about $2 billion to fund its weapons of mass destruction programs using sophisticated cyberattacks that targeted banks and cryptocurrency exchanges.
In April, the FBI said that North Korean-sponsored hackers known as the Lazarus Group, which had been previously sanctioned by the Treasury Department for targeting critical infrastructure, were responsible for stealing about $620 million in cryptocurrency from the virtual game Axie Infinity.
North Korea began aggressively targeting the financial sector, specifically digital currency, following the rise of bitcoin in the mid-2010s and the expansion of U.S. and U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang, said Jason Bartlett, a research associate for the energy, economics and security program at CNAS.
“Right now, when we’re thinking about North Korea and cyber, there is this big focus on the global financial services, mainly because North Korea needs money compared to other U.S. cyber adversaries like Iran, China and Russia,” he said.
Bartlett added that North Korea also likely turned to crypto because it wasn’t well regulated and understood at the time, making it easier for the East Asian country to exploit it for its own gains.
Although North Korea has shifted most of its cyberattack focus to the financial industry to generate income, it still uses hacks to target government institutions, especially ones in South Korea.
“There have been instances of them also having politically motivated cyberattacks, but the majority of them are more financial-based,” Bartlett said.
Jenny Jun, a political science Ph.D. student at Columbia University, said that North Korea has used its cyber capabilities to conduct political and economic espionage, coerce and intimidate individuals it perceives as a threat to its government and for the “survival and continuation of the Kim family rule.”
“Even before the [emergence] of cybercrime, North Korea maintained an extensive illicit network to generate foreign cash, which was controlled by the Kim family to placate a small circle of elites, engage in repression and also pursue expensive weapons programs such as missile and nuclear programs,” Jun said.
President Biden has faced criticism for not taking a more aggressive approach to North Korea following the test launch of several ballistic missiles earlier this year.
Biden, who has called for new diplomatic talks between the two nations, has so far not been able to bring North Korea to the table.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that North Korea’s latest missile tests were “profoundly destabilizing,” and that the administration is closely working with its allies, including South Korea and Japan, on a response.
While there’s been little diplomatic engagement, the Biden administration has been actively countering North Korea in cyberspace, Neuberger said at the CNAS event.
Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI announced the recovery of more than half a million dollars in ransom payments after it disrupted ransomware operations of a North Korean state-sponsored group that targeted U.S. medical facilities.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that the stolen funds were laundered through cryptocurrency.
In 2020, the DOJ filed a motion to seize 280 cryptocurrency accounts for allegedly facilitating the laundering of millions of dollars during two North Korean hacking incidents.
“We’re doubling down and planning to do much more work to make it riskier, costlier and harder for North Korea to gain funds that way,” Neuberger said.
Nearly two decades after Facebook’s inception and astronomical rise, the Silicon Valley staple is changing course in an effort to preserve its top spot in the digital landscape as it faces new headwinds.
Meta is shifting to adapt to a changing climate for tech with product updates and a focus on virtual reality.
But the company is facing a battle on all fronts as it vies to maintain its status — working to convince consumers and investors to embrace CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the company’s future while confronting a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) intent on mitigating Meta’s market power, increasing competition from platforms such as TikTok, industry changes impeding ad revenue and the looming threat of a recession.
Zuckerberg told investors at the end of July the company is focused on riding two “major technological waves” — artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse.
The focus on AI is leading to more short-term changes, including updates to push recommended content on Instagram and Facebook. The focus on the metaverse is part of a more long term initiative the company is continuing to invest in.
Zuckerberg first unveiled the company’s next phase focusing on virtual reality, as well as announcing that Facebook was rebranding under the metaverse-inspired parent company name Meta, in October, when the company was fresh off another round of increased scrutiny from regulators after a whistleblower leaked internal documents.
“I think there’s a lot of attention [on the] monetization strategy,” said Dan Ives, an analyst for Wedbush, about the metaverse focus.
“They’re laying the groundwork for what should be a significant opportunity down the road, but in the near-term this is essentially a company based on Facebook. I think the name change is great from a PR perspective but it doesn’t change the challenges they face 100 percent. And I think there’s still skepticism that they’re going to be successful,” Ives added.
On the earnings call last month, Zuckerberg expanded on the forthcoming updates in the move toward virtual reality.
“Given some of the product and business constraints we face now, I feel even more strongly now that developing these platforms will unlock hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, over time,” he said. “This is obviously a very expensive undertaking over the next several years, but as the metaverse becomes more important in every part of how we live — from our social platforms and entertainment, to work and education and commerce — I’m confident that we’re going to be glad that we played an important role in building this.”
Zuckerberg’s comments reassuring investors about the shift to the metaverse came as the company reported a revenue loss for the first time in its history. Meta’s overall revenue dropped to $28.8 billion in the quarter ending in June.
As Meta embarks on its path to build in the metaverse, it’s also fending off a fresh lawsuit from the FTC, now with prominent Big Tech critic Lina Khan at the helm, after the agency previously sued the company to try to unwind its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp under the Trump administration.
In one of Khan’s most prominent moves since taking the reins, the FTC’s new Democratic majority voted at the end of July to launch a suit against Meta aimed at blocking the company from acquiring the virtual reality company Within Unlimited.
The FTC’s complaint argues Meta could have built its own virtual reality app to compete in the space, but is choosing to buy a potential rival in a way that limits competition and could lead to less innovation, lower quality, higher prices and less consumer choice.
Meta rejected the agency’s claims.
“The FTC’s case is based on ideology and speculation, not evidence,” the company said in a statement when the lawsuit was filed. “By attacking this deal … the FTC is sending a chilling message to anyone who wishes to innovate in VR. We are confident that our acquisition of Within will be good for people, developers and the VR space.”
Last week, Meta, Within Unlimited and the FTC came to an agreement for the deal not to close until Jan. 1 pending the outcome of a trial for the preliminary injunction to block the acquisition. The parties are scheduled to meet for a virtual hearing on Aug. 15, according to court documents.
The conflict over Meta’s attempt to acquire Within Unlimited comes after the tech giant previously bought the virtual reality company Oculus in 2014, laying the foundation to enter its metaverse-focused next phase.
“That was huge for VR in general and, really, something that’s important to remember is that having those consumer virtual reality experiences didn’t exist in the same way before all of those sort of inexpensive headsets came out. So it’s already had an enormous impact,” Andrea Stevenson Won, an assistant professor at Cornell University and director of their Virtual Embodiment Lab, said of the Oculus purchase.
Through the acquisition of Oculus, Meta has launched Quest headsets, priced around $400, that allow users to enter the company’s Horizon Worlds platform. The headsets are a more comfortable, relatively cheaper version of the equipment that makes it more accessible to consumers, Won said.
On the consumer level, the virtual reality metaverse world has been more commonly used in gaming. Meta’s vision is to bring users together socially, or to work, even without the base of a video game.
Zuckerberg said on last month’s call the company will expand Horizon, its social metaverse platform, and continue to improve avatars on the platform. Meta will launch a web version of Horizon that he said “should dramatically increase” the number of people who can use the platform.
As part of the pitch, the company has been on a campaign to explain the vision of the metaverse to users.
Metaverse Vice President Vishal Shah showcased Horizon Worlds and the Oculus headset in an interview last week with the “Today” show’s Craig Melvin. The interview, in part, was conducted inside Meta’s Horizon Worlds, showcasing the virtual product for “Today” show viewers with a side-by-side screen of Melvin with the headset and Melvin’s avatar inside Horizon.
Last month, Meta also kicked off its new “Are We There Yet” digital series with actress Keke Palmer interviewing metaverse creators and experts to explain the virtual reality world and its features.
As Meta continues its long-term push on the metaverse and fends off the FTC’s suit, the company is making short-term changes to its existing apps to compete with rising competition — mainly from TikTok.
Facebook and Instagram interfaces have been updated in recent weeks to operate more similarly in some ways to the popular video sharing app.
Meta is going to push more recommended content using the platforms’ algorithms, meaning users are more likely to see content the platform is recommending over posts from accounts they follow. The company last month rolled out a home feed redesign that will include a “Home” tab with content driven by Facebook’s algorithm, and a separate “Feeds” tab that will allow users to see posts in chronological order from friends, groups and pages they follow.
Instagram is also putting more of an emphasis on video content, with its TikTok-like Reels feature, over photos.
The changes have been met with criticism, including some prominent celebrities such as Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian who have a combined Instagram follower count of 692 million.
Instagram also tested an update to look more like TikTok, with users seeing full screen photos and videos on the app. But the company decided not to follow through with the full screen change after pushback.
“I’m glad we took a risk — if we’re not failing every once in a while, we’re not thinking big enough or bold enough,” Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told Platformer in an interview. “But we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup. [When] we’ve learned a lot, then we come back with some sort of new idea or iteration. So we’re going to work through that.”
Beyond user criticism and the FTC, some of Meta’s challenges stem from Apple’s iOS update released last year that forced apps to ask users before tracking their data across apps. The change impacted Meta’s ability to gain revenue from targeted advertising.
Meta campaigned hard against the update, casting it as detrimental to small businesses. Zuckerberg again pointed to the Apple update as a challenge on the most recent earnings call.
The company is still pushing for users to embrace targeted advertising, trying to sell it as a way to help connect them with relevant small businesses.
A Meta ad launched earlier this year celebrates targeted advertising through a song, parade and dancing penguins. The nearly 2-minute long ad showcases users finding different businesses — an “eco sponge” maker, a vegan bakery, a tailor — because of personalized ads.
“Good ideas deserve to be found. Personalized ads help you find them,” text at the end of the ad reads.
As Meta expands virtual reality features, they could also offer more ways for the company, and others in the virtual reality field, to collect data from users and target ads. Won said virtual reality could provide companies with a “rich stream of data,” not only about what users are interested in, but even information about health conditions from details as minute as a minor hand tremor.
“We don’t have instances of this happening, but it’s also not something that’s top of mind of most people when they put on a headset and have an awesome virtual experience,” she said.
With virtual reality headsets, companies could track a user’s eye movements to see what is grabbing their attention, said David Krum, an assistant professor at the California State University, Los Angeles.
“It’s a great environment for doing experiments. And so Facebook and social media [companies], in some sense, those are experiments trying to find what’s the stickiest most appealing content to people, and then promoting that through the algorithm, and then keeping people on the platform, and then you can collect information about them and then serve them ads or serve that information to your consumer companies,” Krum said.
“And they can collect even more information through a metaverse platform,” he added.
As Meta adapts to the changing social media landscape, with hurdles from increased regulation and rising competition, the company is also preparing to face a storm of economic downturn. Facebook rose to prominence on the heels of the Great Recession; now, Zuckerberg is plotting the company’s path forward to come out on top through the looming recession ahead.
“We can’t control the timing of when things will bounce back, but I’ll note that periods like this are when marketers reevaluate their budgets and are even more focused on finding the highest performing advertising,” Zuckerberg said on the call. “In the last recession, we invested in our ads business through the downturn and came out stronger on the other side. And I’m focused on making sure we do the same today.”
