The Hill’s Morning Report – 2020 jitters hit both parties in the Senate

by Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver - 07/11/19 6:29 AM ET

Welcome to The Hill’s Morning Report. Happy Thursday! Our newsletter gets you up to speed on the most important developments in politics and policy, plus trends to watch. Co-creators are Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver (CLICK HERE to subscribe!). On Twitter, find us at @asimendinger and @alweaver22.

After dealing with primary nightmares for the better part of a decade, Senate Republicans are preparing to deal with a couple of high-profile intraparty fights in 2020 that could help determine whether the GOP holds on to the upper chamber.

As Jordain Carney writes, Republicans are facing two daunting primary fights in Alabama and Kansas that could shake up the battle for the Senate. The two states should be safe GOP seats, but have emerged as early headaches for the party as they face insurgent bids from Judge Roy Moore and Kris Kobach, who are viewed as wholly unelectable by most national Republicans after blowing what should have been easy victories in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Although Republicans say they feel good about their chances to hold onto the chamber in 2020, contentious fights in the two states could help expand Democrats’ path back to the majority. They need four seats to wrestle away control.

“We don’t need to be having any problems, it’s not a state we can stumble in. The map for the majority is OK, but if you have to start diverting resources to Kansas it complicates things,” one GOP operative said, adding that Alabama is also viewed as a “must-win state.”

The two states are key stepping stones for the Democratic path back to the majority, along with other races in Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, and Maine. But candidacies by Moore and Kobach carry with them a certain amount of disdain in GOP circles, particularly those led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Senate Leadership Fund, a group led by McConnell allies, blasted campaign announcements by the two, indicating it will oppose both and ensure they do not reach the general election.

Two others who aren’t enthused by runs from either are retiring Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), whom Kobach is running to replace, and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who told The Hill he has huddled with President Trump to figure out the best course of action to defeat Moore and avoid a 2017 situation.

“It seems to me that if you have just lost a statewide race that the chances of you winning, running again for another statewide race would be very difficult,” Roberts said, pointing to Kobach’s gubernatorial loss in 2018. “[But] Kris Kobach once he makes up his mind, makes up his mind.”

On the Democratic side, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) still hasn’t given up hope that multiple lower-tier Democratic presidential candidates will drop out and run for Senate in key states on the 2020 map.

As Alexander Bolton reports, in the wake of Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) decision to drop out of the presidential race, Schumer is hoping former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) will take the hint and launch Senate bids in their respective states, all of which could become tough, competitive races if they were to do so. Of the three contests, only one — Colorado — is expected to be considered a top-tier Senate contest as Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) is believed to be the most vulnerable Senate Republican up for reelection.

A GOP official told The Hill he fully expects any one of those candidates to reconsider a Senate run, a sign that no one is closing the door on Schumer landing another prize recruit ahead of 2020 as Democrats have struggled to land top-tier recruits in multiple races, including Iowa, Georgia and Texas.

Josh Kraushaar, National Journal: For some, a presidential campaign is no résumé builder.

The Tennessean: Former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) won’t run for Senate, saying it’s not his calling.

> Former Vice President Joe Biden is set to deliver a speech in New York on Thursday in which he lays out his foreign policy vision for the U.S. and he heavily criticizes Trump for his administration’s international policy decisions.

According to a senior Biden campaign official, the former vice president will lay out a vision based on three pillars: repair American democracy and strengthen the coalition of democracies operating around the world, boost the middle class through the global economy, and put the United States “back at the head of the table” in mobilizing global action against threats such as Iran and climate change. Biden, if elected, is also prepared to go beyond the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal, both signed by the Obama administration when he was vice president, the senior official said.

“It’s not enough to go back to Paris, as important as that is,” the official said. “He would, but he would then build on it in very substantial ways to get other countries to actually increase their own commitments.”

After the speech, the former vice president is slated to hold a fundraiser in New York.

The Hill: Democrats warn push for border crossing decriminalization will prove costly in 2020.

NPR: South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg unveils plan to counter systemic racism.

During an interview with The Associated Press, the mayor said of his proposal, “This is my entry, as specifically as possible, about what we can do across all these different areas of American life where the black experience is very much like living in a different country.”

Politico: Being governor was once a solid path to the presidency. Not this time.

Elsewhere in the political world … Amy McGrath, a Democrat who is running for Senate in Kentucky against McConnell, flip-flopped in a matter of hours over whether she would have voted “aye” on Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. After saying in an interview that she probably would have voted for him, she reversed course on Twitter shortly after (Courier-Journal) … Justice Democrats announced Wednesday a trio of new endorsements, including candidates who are challenging Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) and Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) (The Hill).

LEADING THE DAY

WHITE HOUSE & ADMINISTRATION: Facing intense scrutiny in Washington and calls from Democrats in Congress for his resignation, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta on Wednesday defended his handling of a 2008 plea deal with wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein and insisted his relationship with Trump is “outstanding.”

“Facts are important and facts are being overlooked,” Acosta said

During a press conference at the Labor Department, Acosta said he is “pleased” that federal prosecutors in New York City this week brought sex-trafficking charges against Epstein, 66, a well-connected hedge fund manager and registered sex offender who pleaded guilty and was jailed for prostitution-related charges involving sex with underage girls years ago.

Vice President Pence, traveling in California, told reporters, “Every member of our Cabinet serves at the pleasure of the president. We were pleased to see Secretary Acosta step forward and explain the basis of the plea agreement in 2008.”

Acosta was the U.S. attorney in Miami who negotiated a deal that allowed Epstein to avoid federal prosecution in exchange for 13 months in a work release program, restitution to some of his victims and registration as a sex offender.

“Times have changed, and coverage of this case has certainly changed,” the secretary told reporters. “We did what we did because we wanted to see Epstein go to jail,” he said. “That was the focus” (The Hill).

A former Florida state’s attorney in Palm Beach County pushed back on Wednesday against Acosta’s account. Barry Krischer, the Palm Beach County state’s attorney at the time of the investigation, said Acosta’s claim that local authorities were prepared to let Epstein walk without serving jail time until Acosta’s office stepped in was “completely wrong.” Acosta “should not be allowed to rewrite history,” Krischer said in a statement (The Hill).

Trump has commended the secretary but also said the White House is reviewing the details of the non-prosecution agreement Epstein and his legal team negotiated with Acosta. Epstein’s numerous young victims, molested between 2001 and 2005 in the case Acosta handled, were not made aware of the terms of the deal in advance.

Epstein is now jailed in Manhattan and pleaded not guilty in federal court on Monday to one count of sex trafficking and one count of sex trafficking conspiracy. He will remain in custody at least until a bail hearing on July 15. Federal prosecutors have said he is a flight risk because of his wealth and international ties (Reuters).

Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and committee member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sent Acosta a letter Wednesday inviting the secretary to testify on July 23 (The Associated Press).

> Immigration: Mass arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of thousands of undocumented migrants living in the United States are set to begin on Sunday. Such sweeps have been described by Trump for months, without specifics. In planning for the operations in at least 10 major cities, ICE agents expect to target at least 2,000 immigrants who have been ordered deported — some as a result of their failure to appear in court — but who remain in the country illegally. Those arrested with family members will be moved to family detention facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania or to hotel rooms until deportation documents are completed (The New York Times). Meanwhile, the administration’s policy to hold many migrants in Mexico instead of releasing them into the United States to await asylum and other immigration hearings is reducing the number of immigrants seen in the United States at detention facilities and at some key points of entry at the southern border (The New York Times). Apprehensions of migrants at the border with Mexico fell sharply in June (The Hill). Pence plans to tour a detention facility in Texas later this week and told reporters, “Our detention centers are overwhelmed.”

> Homeland Security Department and facial recognition: State and federal lawmakers have been calling for new rules and investigations surrounding the use of facial-recognition data by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies using drivers licenses. Some lawmakers have called the government’s use of photos obtained from state licenses a “massive breach of privacy and trust.”

On Wednesday, the window for swift federal intervention appeared to be closing, WIRED reported: “Legislators seemed alternately wary of facial recognition’s civil rights implications and enthusiastic about its benefits to law enforcement. Some representatives seemed impressed by the technology’s accuracy. But others noted that those statistics vary widely based on whether a system is assessing images that are well lit and show full faces, as well as factors like race and sex. The mixed reaction to a panel of Customs and Border Protection, Transportation Security Administration, and Secret Service officials was a stark contrast to two recent House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearings, in which lawmakers expressed deep concern about facial recognition’s potential for misuse and abuse.”

> Courts: If Trump issues an executive order or presidential directive to the Commerce Department to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census, it will spark an intense round of new legal challenges. Legal specialists told The Hill that the administration may run out of time to defend the president’s position in court under those circumstances because of statutory census deadlines that have passed. The administration continues to struggle in court with the Justice Department’s effort to swap out its legal team representing the government in census cases. A second federal judge refused the request without additional information (The Washington Post).

Separately, the president won in court on Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by Maryland and the District of Columbia alleging that Trump violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by profiting from foreign government guests at his Trump hotels, alleged to be an unlawful revenue stream from entities abroad. The court found that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue the president (The Hill).

> U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and bees: Despite what many scientists describe as an alarming decline in the population and health of honeybees from pesticides and a destructive mite, the USDA temporarily stopped its traditional quarterly data collection about bees, citing tight resources at a time when research programs are being scaled back under the administration, CNN reported. The administration said it will still issue an annual honeybee report, however (The Hill).

Researchers at the USDA’s Economic Research Service described the honeybee quarterly dataset as valuable and important for beekeepers and other stakeholders, such as the honey industry and farmers whose crops rely on pollinators.

“We’re concerned about whether honeybee colony losses are still high and whether we’re making any progress in bringing them down,” Peyton Ferrier, an economist at the USDA who conducts research on how honeybee health affects the agriculture industry, told CNN.

> Organ transplants and kidney disease: Trump instructed federal agencies on Wednesday via an executive order to pursue strategies that will diagnose kidney disease sooner, make treatment less expensive and encourage more people to donate their kidneys for transplantation (The Hill).

More … Ambassador to the United States Kim Darroch of Great Britain resigned on Wednesday, saying he could not perform his job in the United States following the diplomatically damaging leak of a confidential cable he sent to his bosses describing the Trump foreign policy team as “inept.” Trump castigated Darroch, calling him a “very stupid guy” and a “pompous fool.” Darroch was scheduled to retire at the end of the year, and Prime Minister Theresa May, who defended Darroch, will soon be leaving government (The Hill). … In Washington, divided government, increasing oversight by House Democrats and the hiring of Trump’s second White House counsel have resulted in a larger team of lawyers working for the president in the West Wing and across the street at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (NPR).

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

CONGRESS: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took out her frustrations on progressive lawmakers in a closed-door meeting Wednesday morning after two weeks of a bitter back-and-forth between members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and moderates who helped the party win back the House last November over how to deal with migrant facilities at the southern border.

Pelosi pleaded with her members not to allow vitriol directed at other members to reach Twitter. This was viewed as a veiled shot at Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), co-chairman of the CPC, who labeled the Problem Solvers Caucus the “Child Abuse Caucus” as House Democrats were embroiled in a battle over the $4.6 billion border supplemental bill two weeks ago, in which the moderates prevailed (The Hill).

Liberals were steaming after Pelosi allowed a Senate-passed version of the bill to reach the House floor rather than a House-passed bill that contained more protections for migrants who are held at facilities along the border. Democrats are trying to keep tensions inside the conference as they bring the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to the House floor this week.

“There were some strong feelings; people are very, very upset with the humanitarian abuses that are occurring at the border that every American ought to be ashamed of. So there were some strong feelings, and they were manifested,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “But there was no doubt that bill was going to pass.”

The Washington Post: “Outright disrespectful”: Four House women struggle as Pelosi isolates them.

Politico: ‘Do not tweet’: Pelosi scolds progressives in closed-door meeting.

George P. Shultz and Pedro Aspe: Make Central America Great Again.

> NDAA: House Democrats believe the internal squabbling over border-related legislation will not jeopardize the party’s chances to pass the $733 billion NDAA later this week.

“I feel confident the support is there for the [defense bill]. I think there will be a supermajority of Democrats who will be supportive,” Assistant Speaker Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), a top progressive, said on Wednesday evening.

With the bill not expected to win much support, if any, from across the aisle, Democrats need to rely on their members from all corners to support the bill, especially progressives who have remained question marks as the vote nears.

Progressive caucus leaders said Wednesday they remain undecided on how to vote on a $733 billion bill they consider too costly. But they showed an inclination to support it if amendments to constrain Trump’s war-making powers are added. A handful of progressives, including Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), have pledged to vote yes (The Hill).

The Hill: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin signals he wants debt ceiling vote before August recess.

Elsewhere in Congress … Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) says that leadership’s decision to put her on several prominent House committees was in part an effort to keep her occupied. “I was assigned to some of the busiest committees and four subcommittees. So my hands are full. And sometimes I wonder if they’re trying to keep me busy,” she said (The Daily Mail).

The Morning Report is created by journalists Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver. We want to hear from you! Email: asimendinger@digital-staging.thehill.com and aweaver@digital-staging.thehill.com. We invite you to share The Hill’s reporting and newsletters, and encourage others to SUBSCRIBE!

OPINION

Jeffrey Epstein forces Washington to deal with embarrassing connections, by Jonathan Turley, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/2JrgjE3

A cautionary tale for Justin Amash from someone who knows, by former Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.), opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/2G5XrbC

WHERE AND WHEN

Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features David Sirota, a senior adviser and speechwriter for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) campaign, discussing “Medicare for All.” Lauren Chen, a BlazeTV host, previews the White House’s social media summit today. And Alexandria Villaseñor, lead organizer at Global Fridays for Future Climate Strikes, talks about the Moms Clean Air Force Annual “Play-In.” Find the interviews beginning at 9 a.m. ET at http://digital-staging.thehill.com/hilltv or on YouTube at 10 a.m. at Rising on YouTube.

The House meets at 10 a.m.

The Senate convenes at 9:30 a.m. and resumes consideration of the nomination of Robert L. King to be the Education Department’s assistant secretary for postsecondary education.

The president speaks at 3:45 p.m. during a White House event focused on social media platforms and treatment of conservative viewpoints (The Washington Post). Twitter and Facebook were not invited (CNN).

Pence, who is in California for a second day, will visit the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in San Diego, which serves as the training site for U.S. Navy SEALs. He’ll also visit the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter MUNRO and deliver remarks to personnel. In the evening, Pence headlines a Trump Victory political fundraising dinner.

The Library of Congress and the Washington Performing Arts’ Mars Arts D.C. project co-host the “Summer Concerts on the Lawn” outdoor musical performance series on Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. through Aug. 15. Tonight’s performers: Brent Birckhead Quartet. Free and open to the public. Location: North lawn of the library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, across the street from the U.S. Capitol. Information is HERE.

ELSEWHERE

➔ Federal Reserve: Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday gave Congress broad hints that the nation’s central bank will cut interest rates later this month as it navigates a global economic slowdown and headwinds from uncertain trade policies at home. “Economic momentum appears to have slowed in some major foreign economies and that weakness could affect the U.S. economy,” Powell said, adding a note of caution about persistently low inflation. Powell’s description of a more precarious economic landscape led many economists to conclude that a quarter-point rate cut is a virtual certainty at the Fed’s meeting in three weeks, with many forecasting further rate cuts to come (The Associated Press). The Fed chief will testify for a second day on Capitol Hill this morning, speaking to the Senate Banking Committee (The Hill).

➔ Brains + opioids: Scientists and medical experts with the National Institute on Drug Abuse are leading a first-of-its-kind study using scans of opioid addicts’ brains to help determine whether medication-based treatments will help damaged neural networks start getting back to normal faster than if patients try to kick their addictions without methadone, buprenorphine or extended-release naltrexone (The Associated Press).

➔ ⚽ Champions: In New York, a metropolis that adores soccer, heroes and big parades on work-days, Wednesday’s celebration of the World Cup-winning U.S. women’s soccer team delivered joy and inspired legions of young athletes to appreciate team play and perhaps, in the future, equal pay. Quote of the day from Aly Hoover, 12, of New Jersey: “I just want to be like them” (The Associated Press).

THE CLOSER

And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by the release of a new live-action version of “The Lion King,” we’re eager for some smart guesses about the adventures of Simba the lion, the original 1994 film and the famous actors whose voices bring a computer-generated world to life.

Email your responses to aweaver@digital-staging.thehill.com and/or asimendinger@digital-staging.thehill.com and please add “Quiz” to subject lines. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

Which star from the original 1994 version reprises the voice of Mufasa in the new movie?