The Hill’s Morning Report — Senators plead for patience as gun talks intensify

by Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver - 06/07/22 6:27 AM ET

Senate negotiators on Monday said that talks are progressing on a package to combat gun violence but indicated discussions could spill into next week in search of a final deal in response to a spate of mass shootings across the country.

Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the top lawmakers in discussions on each side of the aisle, said on Monday that negotiations are unlikely to yield a result by week’s end and that more time is likely needed to secure an accord. The Texas Republican, who has been dispatched by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in search of a deal, said that lawmakers are “hovering above the target,” but have yet to strike an agreement.

“Good consensus legislation takes time,” Cornyn said on the Senate floor, noting that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) has given lawmakers only a short timespan to get a deal. “So I hope Sen. Schumer will let his members work. There’s no use in rushing a vote on a doomed bipartisan bill like the House is expected to vote on this week.”

Murphy conceded to gun control activists that the upper chamber won’t vote this week on any gun-related legislation, adding that he hopes the Senate will act “in the following weeks.”

Talks between Murphy, Cornyn, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) also continued on Monday night on a proposal that would incentivize states to pass “red flag” laws, provide funding for school safety and mental health, and beef up background checks.

However, as The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports, whatever bill emerges will not expand background check requirements akin to what Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) tried to pass in 2013.

The group of senators was also looking into raising the minimum age for purchasing semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21, an idea Manchin threw his weight behind on Monday (CNN). However, Cornyn and Tillis both indicated after their meeting with the Senate Democratic pair on Monday night that the provision is off the table (CNN).

“This is about the art of the possible,”Cornyn said (The Washington Post).

However, there remains consternation on the Democratic side not just about the ability to get a deal but also about whether any deal will be enough given the seemingly endless string of mass shootings in recent weeks and months.

“I’m trying not to be cynical about it. … The problem is so overwhelming, I’m afraid we are going to fall short of what I believe we should do. But I don’t want to give up on any step forward to reduce gun violence,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who added that the lack of a hard-and-fast deadline creates another headache in the search for a deal (Politico).

Murphy added to reporters that Democratic negotiators will not be making a formal presentation at the weekly party lunch later today (CNN).

Any bill will need 10 Senate Republicans to clear procedural hurdles in the upper chamber, a high bar that has proved tough to clear throughout the past decade on gun legislation.

▪ NBC News: Key senators eye bipartisan gun bill deal “this week.”

▪ Carl Hulse, The New York Times: With Cornyn in the room, Senate gun talks focus on narrow changes.

▪ The Hill: Senators want President Biden to stay out of gun talks.

▪ Niall Stanage: The Memo: Gun reform advocates will take what they can get from Senate talks.

While lawmakers in Washington push for a deal, there is action being taken at the state level. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) on Monday signed into law legislation that prohibits individuals under age 21 from purchasing semi-automatic rifles.

Hochul signed 10 public safety bills, including requiring microstamping on new guns and a revision of the Empire State’s “red flag” law.

“In New York, we are taking bold, strong action,” Hochul said at a press conference (The Associated Press).

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) says the House Jan. 6 panel has found more on former President Trump than “incitement.” The committee has scheduled televised hearings Thursday and Monday, with more expected this month.

▪ The Hill: Prosecutors on Monday charged five Proud Boys defendants, including national leader Enrique Tarrio, with seditious conspiracy for actions tied to the Jan. 6 attacks.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS

Primaries in seven states today will help determine whether the November midterms result in divided government, a Republican Party shaped by Trump and whether Democratic candidates mend or widen party divisions this cycle.

▪ The Associated Press: What to watch in today’s primaries in California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.

▪ The Hill: Five things to watch in today’s primaries.

▪ The Washington Post: Tuesday’s primaries test Democrats on crime, GOP on electability and Trump.

In blue-state California, issues brewing in the national party come into focus in today’s races, including crime, homelessness and economic worries. The Hill’s Reid Wilson dissects the Los Angeles mayoral primary in which Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who switched his party affiliation from Republican before the contest, appear poised for a November showdown.

Politico: How a billionaire mall magnate pulled ahead in the Los Angeles mayoral race.

Los Angeles Times: Early voter turnout in California’s primary appeared dismal as of Monday. “It’s a boring election,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of political data tracker PDI. “It’s clear from what we’re seeing that we’re going to have a low turnout election despite the fact the state has made it easier than ever to vote.”

There is a recall election in liberal San Francisco, and Democrats’ approach to urban crime and prosecutorial policies are under a political microscope. The city’s progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, faces a $7 million recall effort backed by those who believe he is not tough enough on crime in the city. What would customarily be viewed as a local contest could prove instructional for both parties as voters nationwide weigh the rise in violent crime nationally as an election issue and associate the problems with liberal leaders (The Hill).

San Francisco Chronicle: Former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) retired to Palm Springs in 2017, discovered redistricting left her residing in a Republican district, and she is now working as a volunteer to try to unseat her congressman, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.). “I’m having the best time because I know I can make a difference,” she said.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ UKRAINE CRISIS

A U.S. court on Monday issued warrants to allow officials to seize two luxury aircraft owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich as part of the sanctions issued against Russian oligarchs following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Abramovich’s $350 million Boeing 787 Dreamliner and $60 million Gulfstream G650 ER are not yet in U.S. custody, according to the Department of Justice. An official declined to tell Reuters if the U.S. knows the precise location of the two airplanes.

The U.S. has the authority to seize the aircraft because they were manufactured in the country, with both having flown to and from Moscow after the sanctions were put into place, violating U.S. export controls.

Meanwhile, the impact of the Russian invasion has been clear on the U.S. economy, but the global food supply could be in even bigger trouble in the coming years due to Moscow’s self-imposed export restriction on fertilizers.

As The Hill’s Tobias Burns writes, price pressures exerted on agricultural markets by Ukrainian exports like wheat and sunflower oil have been so far mostly caused by issues with their transportation, with cargo ships stuck in blockaded ports that Russian authorities say need to be cleared of mines. A shift in Russian fertilizer policy could go a step further, leading to problems with food production in addition to distribution.

“If the fertilizers don’t flow, then the world will produce less,” United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization chief economist Máximo Torero told The Hill. “That’s why we’re saying that next year we could have a problem of food availability, and also of food access like what we have today.”

The Hill: Asia may provide market for Russian oil after European Union ban.

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OPINION

■ Why losing the midterms isn’t the worst thing for Democrats, by Matt Bai, contributing columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3MpTX2Z

■ The U.S. and Europe have different inflation problems, by Jason Furman, opinion contributor, The Wall Street Journal. https://on.wsj.com/3MuNkw9

WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets at 2 p.m.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. and resumes consideration of the nomination of Alex Wagner to be an Assistant Secretary of the Air Force

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will sign into law nine bipartisan bills at 2:45 p.m. related to improved health care for veterans. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough will attend.

Vice President Harris is in California today. This morning, she and the White Houseannounced more than $1.9 billion in new private sector commitments to create economic opportunity in northern Central America, part of the U.S. focus on tackling the root causes of migration. She also described a U.S. commitment to the empowerment of women in Latin America, and creation of a Central American Service Corps, with public, private and nonprofit backing. Her schedule today: Harris hosts a women’s leadership roundtable at 2:15 p.m. PDT at the InterContinental Los Angeles hotel. The vice president at 3:20 p.m. will deliver remarks at an event promoting women’s economic empowerment in northern Central America and throughout the Western Hemisphere, also at the InterContinental Los Angeles. Forty minutes later, Harris will host a roundtable discussion at the hotel with business executives focused on helping Central America with long-term development and will announce $1.9 billion in private-sector commitments.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Los Angeles today. He’ll visit an Inter-American mayors workshop at 3 p.m. PDT, a dialogue event about economies and health at 3:30 p.m., then confer with defenders of human rights at 4 p.m. The secretary will deliver remarks at 5:30 p.m. and join a panel discussion at a “media summit of the Americas” about journalistic freedom, as part of the U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas.

The Treasury Department today announced initial American Rescue Plan funding for expansion of broadband to states, part of $10 billion enacted with Congress. The early state recipients of interagency funding are Louisiana ($176.7 million), New Hampshire ($50 million), Virginia ($219.8 million) and West Virginia ($136.3 million) (Virginia Mercury). Tribal governments were already awarded funding for high-speed internet access.

First lady Jill Biden arrives at 11 a.m. PDT in Burbank, Calif., in preparation for a keynote address at the Los Angeles City College commencement ceremony. She will speak at 5:45 p.m.

Economic indicator: The Bureau of Economic Analysis will report at 8:30 a.m. on the U.S. trade deficit in April.

The White House daily briefing is scheduled at 1:45 p.m.

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

ELSEWHERE

➤ INTERNATIONAL

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament, leaving him in office as a weakened leader of the Conservative Party with an uncertain future (The Associated Press). Johnson won the secret-ballot backing of 211 out of 359 Conservative members but lost 148, considered a notable rebellion. He spent months trying to dig out the “partygate” scandal he and his staff created during the U.K.’s strict COVID-19 lockdown. Less than three years ago, he led the party to its biggest election victory in decades (BBC). Johnson, who was publicly booed on Friday during festivities for Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, now faces an economic tsunami of soaring inflation and the worst cost-of-living squeeze in a generation (Financial Times). … Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed Monday that he will skip this week’s Summit of the Americas hosted by the United States in Los Angeles in a rebuke to the Biden administration’s exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua because of their autocratic governments (The Associated Press). … Biden will offer a new economic framework for Latin America at the summit on Wednesday (Axios) and sign a declaration on migration (The Hill).

➤ SUPREME COURT

Justices on Monday denied an appeal by a St. Louis couple whose law licenses were sanctioned and possibly suspended indefinitely after they pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters near their home two summers ago. Mark McCloskey, a personal injury lawyer and U.S. Senate candidate, and wife Patricia McCloskey, asked the justices to vacate the sanctions against them, saying that they were protected by the Second Amendment and claimed their home was under threat amid protests against George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer. The action by the court came in an unsigned order without any noted comments or dissent (The Hill). … Justices have yet to decide an unusually high number of cases — 30 — remaining this term, squeezing some of the nation’s most contentious legal disputes involving abortion, gun rights, religious liberty, immigration and the environment into some final fraught weeks (CNN). … The White House is quietly coordinating ahead of the Supreme Court’s pending end-of-term decision on states’ restrictive abortion laws and Roe v. Wade (The Hill).

➤ TECH

Elon Musk on Monday accused Twitter of breaching its merger deal in its refusal to hand over information on bots and fake accounts on the platform. In a Securities and Exchange filing, Musk said the company is “actively resisting and thwarting his information rights” under a merger agreement. As of last month, the Tesla CEO put the deal “on hold” until the social media giant could deliver information showing that less than 5 percent of users are bots (The Hill).

➤ OBESITY

A new diabetes drug could be a game changer for obesity. The drug, tirzepatide, approved to treat Type 2 diabetes, works on two naturally occurring hormones that help control blood sugar and are involved in sending fullness signals from the gut to the brain. Those taking the highest of three studied doses lost as much as 21 percent of their body weight, as much as 50 to 60 pounds in some cases (USA Today).

➤ POX & PANDEMIC

The first possible monkeypox case in the nation’s capital was confirmed Saturday in a resident who recently traveled to Europe. The District resident is positive for orthopox, the family of viruses in which monkeypox occurs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will conduct further testing and confirmation (The Hill).

🦠 Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Monday that he is the latest vaccinated Cabinet member to test positive for COVID-19. The father of two infants with husband Chasten Buttigieg, said he has mild symptoms and would work remotely and isolate under federal guidelines (The Hill).

Across the Pacific, restaurants in Beijing reopened on Monday for the first time in more than a month as COVID-19 restrictions continue to be eased as part of China’s “zero COVID” push. In addition, museums, gyms and movie theaters are able to operate at 75 percent capacity (The Associated Press).

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,008,857. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 247, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

THE CLOSER

And finally … The image of another former first lady, Nancy Reagan, now graces a new U.S. Postal Service stamp — an honor first lady Jill Biden helped unveil on Monday at the White House (The Hill). The stamp depicts Reagan, who died in 2016 at age 94, in a signature red dress, a color so favored by her husband it was dubbed “Reagan red.” The art for the stamp was based on Nancy Reagan’s official 1987 White House portrait painted by artist Aaron Shikler, who also created memorable official portraits of Jacqueline Kennedy and former President Kennedy.

Biden praised her predecessor for calling attention to issues she cared about. “You know we can all change the world in big ways and small ones, and Mrs. Reagan reminds us that we need both,” she said.

Other former first ladies who have appeared on stamps: Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, Abigail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt and Lady Bird Johnson.

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