The Hill’s Morning Report — SCOTUS delays abortion pill ruling; GOP unveils debt limit plan

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 04/20/23 6:30 AM ET

Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday punted its ruling on abortion pill access to Friday, while in Congress, House Republicans unveiled their debt ceiling bill.

The court extended its emergency stay on a ruling that would have limited access to mifepristone, a key drug used for medication abortion, giving itself until the end of the week to review a lower court decision that imposed additional restrictions on the drug. For now, the pill remains available.

Experts say the court’s delay could indicate the justices are not unanimous in how they plan to handle their first major abortion-related case since overturning Roe v. Wade last year. The battle over mifepristone — waged by the administration, abortion providers, drug companies, anti-abortion activists and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — has underscored the rapidly changing and at times confusing legal landscape for abortion access. Medication abortion drugs, which can currently be ordered by mail and taken at home, have become more critical as states limit or ban abortions following last summer’s ruling.

Before Friday, the justices must now decide how to rule on a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that rolled back the FDA’s actions since 2016 liberalizing access to mifepristone, which, combined with U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s recent ruling in Texas, would altogether undo the FDA’s approval of the drug more than two decades ago.

If the Supreme Court declines to extend the pause after Friday, the Justice Department has warned of “chaos.” The brand-name version of mifepristone would have to apply for a new label and packaging, which could take months. The generic version of the medication, which accounts for two-thirds of the market, would become unapproved (The Washington Post and The Hill). GenBioPro, the company that makes the generic drug, has already sued the FDA, marking a new legal move in a string of recent court actions over the fate of the drug. The lawsuit, filed in Maryland on Wednesday, seeks to block the FDA from complying if the courts ultimately order mifepristone off the market (The New York Times).

In response to the national uncertainty, Democratic governors across the country are pitching their states as “abortion sanctuaries.” Governors like J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Jay Inslee of Washington and Gavin Newsom of California have taken steps to preserve abortion access, including moves like stockpiling their supply of mifepristone, signing legislation to offer legal protections to out-of-state residents seeking an abortion, or codifying the right to an abortion in their state law (The Hill).

“There’s nothing unusual about us trying to protect people,” Inslee said, adding that he wants to protect providers and anyone who travels to the state from politicians who would “try to put his tentacles into the state of Washington.”

▪ NBC News: GOP resolution seeking to halt abortion care at Veterans Affairs fails in the Senate.

▪ CNN: After the fall of Roe, future doctors show less interest in training in states with abortion bans or as obstetricians and gynecologists.

Meanwhile, in Congress, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday unveiled Republicans’ long-awaited go-it-alone debt limit bill, which pairs a debt ceiling increase expected to last into next year with what McCarthy said would be about $4.5 trillion in savings generated in part by cutting Biden administration priorities.

The bill — dubbed the Limit, Save, Grow Act — aims to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or through March 31, 2024, whichever comes first, by cutting federal spending by three times that amount. It lays out an opening position in what is likely to be a tense partisan debate over increasing the government’s borrowing authority. The bill’s release comes as President Biden has refused to negotiate with McCarthy on the matter, calling for a “clean” debt limit increase not paired with any other policy points (The Hill and Reuters).

“Now that we’ve introduced a clear plan for responsible debt limit increase, they have no more excuse and refuse to negotiate,” McCarthy said in a House floor speech.

After a push from conservatives, the bill would repeal unobligated IRS enforcement funding and a raft of clean energy tax credits from Democrats’ 2022 climate, tax and health law that leadership initially wanted to leave out (Roll Call and The Hill).

The proposal is already fueling blowback from Democrats dismissing the proposal as a non-starter that could raise chances of a national default this summer. Likewise, Biden on Wednesday delivered a sweeping rebuke of the bill, calling it a nonstarter that would impose deep cuts to critical programs across the board (Politico).

“That’s the MAGA economic agenda: spending cuts for working and middle class folks,” Biden said, while speaking from a Maryland union hall. “It’s not about fiscal discipline, it’s about cutting benefits for folks that they don’t seem to care much about.”

Photo —Bottom of top-Dems on debt ceiling:

© Associated Press / J. Scott Applewhite | New York Democrats Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, with Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) at the Capitol on March 23.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Centrists float fallback plan if Biden-McCarthy debt limit talks falter.

▪ The Hill: Here are the nominated judges stalled in the Senate as a result of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (Calif.) absence from the Judiciary Committee.

▪ The New York Times, Carl Hulse: Progressives organize fresh nationwide push for changes at the Supreme Court.
▪ The Hill: In social media stalking case, the Supreme Court considers scope of “true threat.”

▪ Axios: Congress gets second tranche of presidential and vice-presidential classified docs.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ NEWS MEDIA

Washington, D.C., is poised for the arrival of “The Hill,” a weekday political program debuting Monday at 5 p.m. ET on TV’s NewsNation, owned by Nexstar Media Group, parent company to The Hill, writes our colleague Judy Kurtz.

“The crown jewel of our new, 24-hour programming block is going to be a show that we are partnering with our friends and our colleagues at The Hill called, not surprisingly, ‘The Hill,’” Michael Corn, NewsNation’s president of news, said Wednesday during a kickoff party at The Hay-Adams hotel in the nation’s capital.

▪ Axios: NewsNation plans multimillion-dollar expansion in D.C. and New York City.
▪ Deadline: NewsNation is expanding to a 24-hour weekday schedule anchored by a four-hour “NewsNation Now” block.

“Our goal here is really to take viewpoints from across the spectrum of Washington,” said Cherie Grzech, vice president of news for NewsNation, available on every major cable and satellite provider, streaming platforms including YouTubeTV, Hulu, DirecTV Stream, FuboTV and Sling, online at www.newsnationnow.com, and on the NewsNationNow app available on Android and iOS.

“The Hill” program, with its ties to The Hill newspaper and website, will feature a high-profile guest and four rotating panelists to tackle local, state and national topics. Kicking off the panel: NewsNation political editor Chris Stirewalt, senior political contributor George Will, former Obama official Johanna Maska and The Hill’s Niall Stanage, associate editor.

Gathered to toast the launch on Wednesday: The Hill General Manager Joe Ruffolo, The Hill Editor in Chief Bob Cusack, White House communications director Ben LaBolt; former Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, Reps. Bob Good (R-Va.) and Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), NewsNation Washington Bureau Chief Mike Viqueira, Maska, Bipartisan Policy Center’s Steve Scully (host of “The Briefing with Steve Scully” on SiriusXM POTUS 124 and The Hill contributor), NewsNation anchor and national correspondent Leland Vittert, GOP strategist Rina Shah, Airlines for America’s Rebecca Spicer, Axios’s Mike Allen, “The Hill” executive producer Rob Yarin and many more.

Elsewhere, media analysts are eyeing Fox News’s future following this week’s settlement by Fox with Dominion Voting Systems. While it remains unclear how the settlement of $787.5 million will affect Fox’s financial health and reputation, The Hill’s Dominick Mastrangelo looks at winners and losers from the biggest media defamation cases in decades.

▪ The Hill’s The Memo, by Stanage, ticks through five takeaways from the Fox settlement with Dominion.

▪ The Washington Post: Fox was resigned to a tough trial. Then a secret mediator, Jerry Roscoe, stepped in.

▪ The New York Times: After the Fox settlement, an assault on media protections is likely to continue.

▪ Bloomberg News: Fox News producer’s secret recordings helped spur Dominion deal.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said during a Wednesday interview with Bloomberg Radio’s “Sound On,” that Fox’s settlement with Dominion Voting Systems affirmed his office’s many assurances to voters that the 2020 election was not rigged against any presidential candidate in his state, as claimed by personalities appearing on Fox News, who falsely asserted that voting machines were compromised.

“It’s good news. It’s vindication for the state of Georgia, the people of Georgia, but also for Dominion,” Raffensperger said. “My deal is making sure that we had fair and honest elections and explaining that to voters, and we were vindicated. … What was put out there by Fox News was misinformation, disinformation and was never supported by the facts. So, the facts are, the machines accurately recorded the votes. … For us, we had our day in court and we were vindicated.”

➤ POLITICS

The Florida Board of Education on Wednesday approved a ban on classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades, expanding the law critics call “Don’t Say Gay” at the request of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as he gears up for an expected presidential run (The Associated Press). The governor is trying to pitch his conservative strides in the Sunshine State as a kind of anti-progressive and pro-parent template for the rest of the country.

The change would ban lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity from grades four through 12, unless required by existing state standards or as part of reproductive health instruction that students can choose not to take. Such lessons are currently banned in Florida in kindergarten through third grade.

The prohibition, which began last year with the law banning sexual orientation and gender identity lessons in early grades, triggered intense criticism from the left that the governor and the GOP-led legislature are marginalizing LGBTQ people and upending public instruction, state educational standards and the teaching profession, AP reported. Biden has called the law “hateful.”

The statutory changes figure in an ongoing feud between DeSantis and the Disney company, which opposed last year’s law and is one of the state’s largest employers and political donors.

The Hill: A federal judge on Wednesday denied Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) bid to block a subpoena from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who want to cast the prosecutor’s motives as political and to throw a shield around former President Trump, who faces criminal charges in New York City.

2024 Watch: A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll suggests that Trump’s bounce among GOP primary voters after his indictment and arrest in New York last month may be fading. In a survey of 1,530 adults begun last week and completed on Monday, 44 percent said the former president would not be the strongest Republican nominee in 2024, while 33 percent said he would be. … Spoilers or gadflies? Author, lawyer and anti-vaccine conspiracist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 69, on Wednesday launched a Democratic presidential campaign, challenging Biden (The Hill). Progressive self-help influencer Marianne Williamson, 70, previously filed paperwork to seek the Democratic presidential nomination.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ CONGRESS

A growing number of Republican lawmakers are expressing outrage over a leaked document showing that 14 U.S. special forces are stationed in Ukraine, even though the Pentagon has said for months that a small team of Marines is stationed at the embassy. The Hill’s Brad Dress reports that some far-right figures are even using the news to push a broader conspiracy about a larger presence of U.S. troops in Ukraine, which they say poses the risk of direct fighting between American and Russian forces. But the administration says the U.S. troops are providing security and helping with oversight of U.S. weapons in Ukraine — an effort that Republicans have pushed to increase. Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said the information is “not new” during a Monday briefing.

“We publicly acknowledged previously that there is a small U.S. military footprint in Ukraine to provide mission-critical support to the U.S. embassy,” she said. “To be clear, there are no U.S combat troops conducting combat operations in Ukraine.”

A classified briefing about the document leak on Capitol Hill Wednesday left senators on both sides of the aisle with questions and complaints as they repeated calls to more closely restrict who has access to U.S. secrets. Top officials with the Pentagon and intelligence community briefed the entire Senate on the leak, but Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said he was “left with more questions than answers” (The Hill).

“I remain deeply unhappy and unsatisfied with the structure and procedures of access,” he said. “My impression coming out of that meeting is too many people have too much access to too much information without safeguards or guardrails.”

The leaker, 21-year-old Massachusetts National Guard airman Jack Teixeira, made a brief court appearance Wednesday, as a hearing to determine whether he should remain jailed while awaiting trial was delayed to give the defense more time to prepare (The Associated Press).

▪ The New York Times: What happens next in the leaked documents case.

▪ ABC News: Does motive make a difference in the Pentagon leak case? Experts weigh in.

▪ The Washington Post: Teixeira left tracks online, but was seen as quiet in his hometown.

Senior Republicans — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky). — continue to defend Justice Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court over revelations that Thomas accepted tens of thousands of dollars in hospitality and other gifts from conservative donor Harlan Crow. But as The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports, some Republican senators feel uneasy about the scandal, and this could fuel bipartisan support for a Supreme Court ethics reform bill.

“I think we are moving dangerously close to a place where the public has lost faith and trust in the credibility of our governing institutions,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said. “They don’t trust the court, I don’t think what’s going on with Justice Thomas is helping anything.”

Meanwhile, Democratic allegations about Thomas have been referred to a judicial committee that reviews financial disclosures. Roslynn Mauskopf, the director of the Judicial Conference of the United States, said in a Tuesday letter to two Democratic lawmakers that she had passed along their concerns about Thomas. “I have forwarded your letter to the Judicial Conference Committee on Financial Disclosure, which is responsible for implementing the disclosure provisions of the Ethics in Government Act and addressing allegations of errors or omissions in the filing of financial disclosure reports,” she wrote in the letter, NBC News reports.

Also on Capitol Hill, new IRS chief Danny Werfel took the hot seat in the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday following the release of his agency’s strategic operating plan for the $80 billion funding boost as part of Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — and no less than the future of Western civilization was up for discussion and debate. The topic came up in the context of the study the IRS was commissioned to do on a free direct e-filing tax return system, which could replace many of commercial software programs and automate an often-complicated process.

“Republicans and the tax prep lobby have in the past reacted as if this is just going to be pretty much the end of Western civilization,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said at the hearing (The Hill).

Today, Biden’s Labor Secretary nominee Julie Su will appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee as she tries to navigate what has become a field of landmines en route to win confirmation to the post (The Hill).

And some news out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) could very well result in a congressional hearing of its own; As The Wall Street Journal reports, a staffer forwarded confidential information on thousands of consumers and dozens of financial firms to a personal email account, in what the agency has described to U.S. lawmakers as a major incident.

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Just days before fighting broke out across Sudan, foreign envoys held long meetings with the two generals on either side of the battle lines — the army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary leader, Lt. Gen Mohamed Hamdan — in an effort to get an agreement. The two are vying for power, despite promises that a civilian government would be installed after an October 2021 coup d’etat by the Sudanese military. What has followed is five days of violent clashes in and around the capital, Khartoum, and there appears to be no way out of the northeast African country, with the main airport closed and fighting having spread to Sudan’s north and west (The New York Times and NPR). The warring military factions said they had agreed to a 24-hour cease-fire on Wednesday evening, and the patchy agreement decreased fighting in some parts of the capital (The Associated Press).

“On Saturday morning, everyone was kind of caught unawares,” Kholood Khair, a researcher and academic in Khartoum, told NPR. “It’s the kind of warfare one might expect in a battlefield, but instead it’s taking place right in the heart of town. And the problem is for a lot of people that no one is really sure how long this is going to take — and that uncertainty is driving people’s anxieties and fears.”

▪ BBC: Residents flee capital Khartoum as fighting continues.

▪ Reuters: At least 78 killed in surge for Ramadan donations in Yemen.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau privately told NATO officials that his country will never meet the military alliance’s defense spending target, according to a leaked secret Pentagon assessment obtained by The Washington Post. The anonymous authors say Canada’s “widespread” military deficiencies are harming ties with security partners and allies, and that “enduring” defense shortfalls led the Canadian Armed Forces to assess in February that it “could not conduct a major operation while simultaneously maintaining its NATO battle group leadership [in Latvia] and aid to Ukraine” — and that the situation was not “likely” to change without a shift in public opinion.

The document, which bears the seal of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says Germany is concerned about whether Canada’s Armed Forces can continue to aid Ukraine while meeting its NATO pledges. Turkey is “disappointed” by the Canadian military’s “refusal” to support the transport of humanitarian aid after February’s deadly earthquake, the document says, and Haiti is “frustrated” by reluctance to lead a multinational security mission to the nation.

Russia, meanwhile, is increasingly using treason and espionage laws to smother criticism of the war against Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin’s government has widened the scope of the legislation and expanded his crackdown on opponents — lengthening sentences and harshening charges. Journalist and government critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced this week to 25 years in prison after being convicted of treason in addition to disseminating allegedly false information about the Russian military and being part of a banned organization. American Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is awaiting trial in Russia after being imprisoned on espionage charges, which the Journal and U.S. government vehemently deny.

“There are more cases, and there will be more convictions, and the sentences will be longer,” said Daria Korolenko, a lawyer at OVD-Info, a Moscow-based rights group. The group’s analysis shows that the number of people sentenced to prison on charges related to the war has risen almost every successive month since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February (The Wall Street Journal).

▪ The Washington Post: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lobbies U.S. speaker on fighter jets, invites him to visit.

▪ ABC News: The U.S. is sending $325 million in more military aid to Ukraine.

▪ Bloomberg News: India passes China as world’s most populous nation, U.N. says.

OPINION

■ Challenging the failed status quo in American politics, by Holly Page, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3LdRw69

■ NATO could consider a nuclear deployment of its own to counter Russia, by

William Courtney, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3LbUqsi

WHERE AND WHEN

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

The House will convene at 10 a.m.

The Senate meets at 10 a.m. to resume consideration of the Fire Grants and Safety Act.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 7:30 a.m. Biden will convene at 8:30 a.m. the fourth virtual leader-level meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate. Biden will host President Gustavo Petro of Colombia for meetings at the White House at 2:30 p.m.

Vice President Harris is in Washington and has no public schedule.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will join the president at 2:30 p.m. for the White House meeting with Petro.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will deliver opening remarks at the Creative Artists Agency’s “Countering Antisemitism: Awareness, Accountability, and Allyship” event at 8:45 a.m. PT at the CAA Headquarters in Los Angeles.

Economic indicator: The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on filings for unemployment claims in the week ending April 15.

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

ELSEWHERE

➤ HEALTH & PANDEMIC

Following in the footsteps of the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday backed a second dose of the versions of Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 booster shots for older adults and people with weakened immune systems (NBC News).

The White House on Tuesday announced a program to help uninsured Americans continue access to free COVID-19 vaccine shots and treatments through next year, even as the government is winding down its pandemic response ahead of the May 11 expiration of the three-year-old public health emergency. The $1.1 billion program, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, would allow officials to purchase coronavirus vaccine doses for uninsured Americans after the current federal supply is exhausted — and when vaccine makers plan to charge as much as $130 per dose (The Washington Post and The Hill).

▪ The Hill: New COVID-19 vaccine guidance explained: Are you due for a shot?

▪ The New York Times: COVID-19 may increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, researchers find.

THE CLOSER

Take Our Morning Report Quiz

And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by congressional eating habits, we’re eager for some smart guesses about Congress and food.

Be sure to email your responses to asimendinger@digital-staging.thehill.com and kkarisch@digital-staging.thehill.com — please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

Food is a no-go on the Senate floor, but members can have something to drink. Other than water, what beverage does the chamber permit?

Coffee
Tea
Milk
Apple juice

In 2011, Congress came under fire for suggesting what part of school lunch be classified as a vegetable?

The potatoes in French fries
Ketchup
The tomato paste in pizza sauce
The corn in corn dogs

Indiana Sen. Todd Young (R) was recently appointed to what time-honored role?

Deciding from where his conference orders takeout pizza
Stocking the Senate’s candy drawer
Organizing the holiday gift exchange
Selecting an Indiana coffee roaster for the cloakroom’s percolator

Established in the 1830s, what did members call the first restaurant attached to the House of Representatives?

The canteen
The mess
The congressional cafe
The refectory

Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on Twitter (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!