The Hill’s Morning Report — Santos indicted; Trump revives false ‘rigged election’

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 05/11/23 6:20 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.

Even by Washington standards, events of consequence piled up almost faster this week than Morning Report could type.

Former President Trump, previously indicted on criminal charges in New York and still under investigation in Georgia and by the Justice Department, was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a civil suit Tuesday. Last night, he appeared live on CNN and encouraged Republican and independent voters in the New Hampshire audience, who applauded his disinformation-filled narrative with gusto, to return him to the White House next year.

“This place was rocking and rolling,” Trump said of his tenure in the Oval Office. “We had the greatest economy in the world.”

The leading candidate for his party’s nomination next year offered a jumble of economic analyses, saying U.S. default “could be very bad. It could be, maybe, nothing. Maybe it’s — you have a bad week or a bad day, but, look, you have to cut your costs. … Get all that money that was wasted. And if they don’t get rid of that, you’ll have to default.”

▪ The Hill’s Niall Stanage in the Memo: Five takeaways from Trump on CNN.

▪ The New York Times: Trump’s falsehoods and bluster overtake CNN town hall.

▪ NBC News: CNN’s New Hampshire audience laughed with appreciation and applauded many of Trump’s boasts.

▪ The New York Times: President Biden’s Twitter reaction to Trump on CNN (with a Biden-Harris fundraising appeal): “It’s simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that?”

Washington’s focus on the debt limit is like a ticking economic bomb that Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have been tossing back and forth since January. Both men are politically vulnerable, and each blames the other for either building the bomb or lighting the fuse. This week they traded blistering rhetoric in public, steered closer to a cliff and then deputized aides to sketch out possible solutions to chew over on Friday when they meet again in the Oval Office.

“We still have time to do a whole deal,” the president told reporters, describing Friday’s meeting as the opening for Republican leaders to be specific about government funding they’d cut to achieve proposed budget savings. “Are they going to make sure they continue to fund the Defense Department? Are they not going to cut veterans? Well, if they’re not going to do that, what are they going to cut? … Are they going to cut more folks out of the Border Patrol? What are they going to do?”

During a campaign-style speech delivered in New York, Biden on Wednesday addressed the impasse (The Associated Press). “America is the strongest economy in the world, but we should be cutting spending and lowering the deficit without a needless crisis,” he said.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), a veteran of Senate horse-trading with Biden and other presidents during past fiscal impasses and budget combat, insists “the country will not default.”

“There has to be an agreement between the Speaker and the president, and there will be, and the sooner they get started talking directly or through their designee the sooner we’ll get an outcome,” the Kentucky senator told reporters.

And finally, there’s the Republican fabulist from the House, Rep. George Santos (N.Y.), who is in serious legal trouble and whose vote is important to the math that helps McCarthy steer his party’s narrow majority.

The young congressman, who in January relinquished committee assignments amid controversies about his inflated biography and campaign finances, pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges Wednesday. Free on a $500,000 bond after his arrest, Santos said he will not resign. House GOP leaders said a presumption of innocence will keep Santos in Congress unless he’s convicted, opts to step down or is defeated by voters in his Long Island district. McCarthy, reacting to his arrest, said he would not support Santos for reelection (The Hill).

Related Articles

▪ Trump calls writer E. Jean Carroll “a whack job” after he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, a jury result he called “a fake charge” (The Hill). … Trump says the 2020 election was rigged, repeating false claims he’s made for two-and-a-half years. “I questioned the election” in Georgia, he added (The Hill). … Trump says Jan. 6 rioters “had love in their heart” (The Hill). … The former president refuses to call Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal but says Putin made a “mistake” by invading Ukraine. Trump declined to say he’d continue U.S. assistance to Kyiv. … Trump calls CNN’s Kaitlan Collins “a nasty person” (The Hill) and he claims he automatically declassified White House documents and did nothing wrong “when I took them” to Florida (The Hill). … Trump dodges about whether he’d sign a federal abortion ban if elected: “I want to do what’s right” (The Hill).

▪ The Hill: Biden uses 14^th Amendment as leverage in debt talks.

▪ The Hill: Biden adviser Gene Sperling tells NewsNation’s “The Hill” that staff discussions Tuesday about the debt ceiling impasse were productive.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS

Santos’s Wednesday arrest and charges with 13 counts of fraud and money laundering made shockwaves in Washington, as the freshman lawmaker must contend with legal challenges following revelations that he fabricated much of his background. Santos, who maintains his innocence, has faced intense scrutiny since even before his swearing-in over dubious financial transactions and a resume that, by his admission, was largely fabricated. It was well known that the Justice Department was investigating him (Vox).

He’s not the first member of Congress to face indictment, but Santos’s legal fate is important to the House Republican conference and its narrow majority as McCarthy and GOP leaders fight to pass their top legislative priorities through the House, pressure Biden over the debt ceiling, and protect incumbent seats — three goals that are all complicated by Santos’s legal troubles. The Hill’s Mike Lillis explores five key takeaways from Wednesday’s indictment.

Colleagues from both sides of the aisle — and especially fellow New Yorkers in Congress — have long called for Santos’s resignation. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) called Santos a “serial fraudster” who should “resign from office,” while Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said his conduct has been “embarrassing and disgraceful, and he should resign.” A defiant Santos said on Wednesday he won’t resign (The Hill).

The Hill: Timing of Santos indictment does GOP no favors.

But McCarthy and other House GOP leaders, operating with a slim and fractious majority, said Santos should be allowed to continue to serve in Congress (The New York Times and Business Insider).

“If a person is indicted, they’re not on committees,” McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday before the charges were unsealed. “They have a right to vote, but they have to go to trial.”

▪ The Washington Post analysis: Breaking down Santos’s seemingly damning indictment.

▪ QNS.com: Queens leaders, political opponents react to the Santos indictment.

▪ The New York Times: Santos could become a target of an unemployment fraud bill he co-sponsored.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), 89, flew to Washington on Tuesday after being absent from the Capitol since February with complications from the shingles virus. She issued a statement Wednesday saying that doctors advised her to return to work with a “lighter schedule” (The Hill).

The Hill: How Congress is fighting back against disinformation from Russia and China.

➤ ADMINISTRATION

A controversial immigration policy ends tonight under the Biden administration and will soon be replaced by new limitations on asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border. While the administration predicts near-term border “chaos,” the president’s point person on immigration and border security worked Wednesday to dissuade migrants from making the dangerous trek toward the U.S..

Federal officials and lawmakers anticipate surges of migrants and that they could quickly be overwhelmed by a relentless tide of men, women and children — anticipated to exceed 11,000 a day in coming weeks — who are desperate to flee their countries for a chance at life in America.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, under fire from the left and right for months in anticipation of the policy transition, repeated Wednesday that the expiration of Title 42, put in place by the Trump administration amid the pandemic, does not mean the U.S. border is now open.

“To people who are thinking of making their journey to our southern border, know this: The smugglers care only about profit, not people. They do not care about you or your well-being. Do not believe their lies,” the secretary said during a news conference.

The department will have a new rule that assumes those who don’t use lawful pathways into the U.S. are ineligible for asylum, allowing for the expulsion of migrants who do not “establish a reasonable fear of persecution or torture in the country of removal,” a move the department says is aimed at incentivizing the use of the lawful pathways (The Hill). The administration has announced it will publish a new asylum ban on May 16.

“Our plan will deliver results but it will take time for those results to be fully realized,” the secretary said.

Speaking to reporters, Biden said, “the purpose of what we’re doing now is making legal immigration more streamlined, illegal immigration shorter term and … moving in a direction that people know that there’s a legal way to get here.”

Biden said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with whom he spoke on Tuesday, is being “very cooperative” about migrants traveling from Central America and other locations through his country to reach the United States. “We’re in agreement. And he’s also supportive of making sure we have way-stops in Colombia and other countries where people can make their case” for asylum, the president added.

▪ The Associated Press: The U.S. will limit asylum at the Mexico border.

▪ NBC News: Biden administration to allow for the release of some migrants into the U.S. with no way to track them.

▪ The Washington Post: Texas uses aggressive tactics to arrest migrants as Title 42 ends.

▪ The Hill: Senate seeks long shot solution with Title 42 deadline on deck.

▪ The Hill: GOP leaders make last-minute changes to the border bill after floor delay.

A less public controversy came to a boil Wednesday when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said military readiness is at risk because Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville has been stalling promotions at the Pentagon since March to protest the department’s abortion policy. The senator’s stance, the secretary wrote in a letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), “harms America’s national security and hinders the Pentagon’s normal operations” (The Washington Post).

In a rare rebuke of a GOP colleague, McConnell on Wednesday took issue with Tuberville’s tactics. “No, I don’t support putting a hold on military nominations,” the Republican leader told reporters in response to a question (The Hill).

Separately, Tuberville’s staff clarified on Wednesday that the senator, a member of the Senate Armed Service Committee, did not mean to suggest during a recent WBHM interview that white nationalists should be allowed to serve in the military (AL.com).

“Sen. Tuberville’s quote that is cited shows that he was being skeptical of the notion that there are white nationalists in the military, not that he believes they should be in the military,” the senator’s spokesman said in a statement. “He believes the men and women in uniform are patriots. Secretary Austin seems to think otherwise, subjecting them to extremism training as his very first act in office. That cost us four million man hours.”

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Ukrainian military commanders said Wednesday that their troops broke through Russian positions on the southern flank of the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, and that Russian troops had lost an area of roughly three square miles southwest of the city. If confirmed, it would be the first significant gain for Ukraine in the fight for Bakhmut since pushing Russian forces off a key access road two months ago, but the fighting around the city did not seem to be part of a broader counteroffensive that Kyiv has said will begin soon (The New York Times and Reuters).

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Thursday BBC interview that his military needs more time to prepare the anticipated counteroffensive.

“With [what we have] we can go forward and be successful,” Zelensky said in the interview. “But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable.”

Meanwhile, Russian authorities controlling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine are preparing to evacuate more than 3,000 staff and families from the facility and surrounding areas. The move would leave a “catastrophic lack of skilled personnel,” Energoatom, Ukraine’s energy provider, said in a Telegram post (The Washington Post).

▪ CNBC: Russian unit flees Bakhmut post; Wagner mercenary group could be labeled terrorists.

▪ Reuters: How Russians end up in a far-right militia fighting in Ukraine.

▪ CBS News: France launches war crime investigation after reporter Arman Soldin is killed in Ukraine.

Ahead of the end of Title 42, thousands of migrants in Mexico have been clambering onto dangerous freight trains rumbling northward in a scramble to reach the U.S. border. Activists and officials say in recent weeks, up to several hundred people have boarded daily, with many setting off atop train cars pulling out from a brief stopping point at a garbage dump in Huehuetoca, a town north of Mexico City (Reuters).

The New York Times: Aboard “the Beast” on a journey to America.

In 2000, the elected governor of the impoverished department of Chocó, Colombia was stripped of his position by the country’s courts, later kidnapped and fled with his family in exile to Washington. In 2022, that same former governor arrived in Washington as Ambassador Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia’s first Black ambassador to the United States. As The Hill’s Rafael Bernal reports, Murillo’s journey has placed him on the front row of history throughout his career. He was in the Soviet Union for the fall of the Berlin Wall, back in Colombia for the adoption of the country’s 1991 constitution, in Washington for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and once again in his home country for the historic 2016 peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

The Associated Press: Israeli–Palestinian fighting continues, despite Egyptian cease-fire announcement.

Fighting continues to rage in Sudan, where the rivalry between two generals — who lead the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces — burst into an open war last month, plunging the country deep into a humanitarian crisis and reshaping life in one of Africa’s largest and most geopolitically important nations. The capital, Khartoum, has endured the most intense fighting. Embassies and the United Nations evacuated their nationals and staff members — leaving behind millions who now face shortages of food, water, electricity and medicine. The clashes have continued despite repeated cease-fires purportedly agreed to by both sides (The New York Times).

“It’s an unseen tragedy,” said Tagreed Abdin, a 49-year-old architect in Khartoum, who has started to prefer the noise of war over the humming silence. “At least when there’s gunfire, I know they are running out of ammunition.”

The Associated Press: South Sudanese who fled north to Sudan amid conflict in their country return home to crisis.

➤ MORE POLITICS

The economy is the fundamental issue on voters’ minds, according to surveys. The Hill tracks some trends: U.S. prices measured annually have fallen for 10 consecutive months, from 9 percent inflation in June to 4.9 percent in April, according to the Labor Department on Wednesday. The central bank’s goal remains getting to 2 percent (The Hill). … Mortgage rates have soared since the Federal Reserve began raising key interest rates. Average rates settled above 6 percent after fluctuating for months, a painful barrier for many potential homebuyers (The Hill).

Progressives are hoping to rack up another big-city win in Philadelphia’s mayoral primary next week after scoring a major upset in Chicago earlier this year, writes The Hill’s Hanna Trudo. Major progressive figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have thrown their weight behind Helen Gym, a member of the Philadelphia City Council, in the crowded primary.

Whoever wins Tuesday’s contest, which has largely been dominated by the issue of crime, is likely to win in November’s general election, making the primary another test of progressive strength ahead of 2024.

The 2024 Maryland Senate race is shaping to be a crowded one, and Rep. David Trone’s (D-Md.) recent step into the ring only further expanded the already-packed field (The Baltimore Sun). But Trone’s candidacy has further implications, as it creates a rare congressional vacancy with a free ride for most of the elected officials who might seek the seat, and there could be a surfeit of candidates lining up to try to replace Trone (D-6th) next November (Maryland Matters).

The Hill: Tucker Carlson’s tweet announcing a new Twitter show tops 100 million views.

OPINION

■ The panic over Biden’s age is manufactured, by Charles. M. Blow, columnist, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/3VWnk3t

■ George Santos and life in deceptive times, by Tara D. Sonenshine, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/3VSwe1E

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 nomination of Bradley Garcia to be a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 11 a.m. Biden at 4 p.m. will deliver remarks in the Rose Garden about the administration’s conservation policies.

Vice President Harris will join the president at 11 a.m. to receive the President’s Daily Brief.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken at 10 a.m. will speak during the World Food Prize Laureate Announcement Ceremony in Washington.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Niigata, Japan, for the Group of Seven meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors. At 1:30 a.m. EST, she held a press conference before beginning G7 meetings. She held a bilateral meeting with Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad at 2:45 a.m. EST. Yellen held a bilateral meeting with Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani at 3:30 a.m. EST. The secretary participated in the first session of the G7 meeting, focused on Russia’s war and helping Ukraine. This evening in Japan, Yellen will attend a working dinner with her counterparts.

Economic indicator: The Bureau of Labor Statistics at 8:30 a.m. will report on the Producer Price Index for April. The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on claims for unemployment benefits filed during the week ending May 6.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1 p.m., joined by Mayorkas.

ELSEWHERE

➤ HEALTH & WELLBEING

An advisory panel of the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday endorsed making the birth control medication Opill available over the counter without a prescription (NBC News and The Hill). Meanwhile, a pancreatic cancer vaccine using mRNA tailored to each patient shows promise in a small trial. Pancreatic cancer has the highest mortality rate of all cancers (The New York Times).

Reminder: The pandemic-triggered U.S. public health emergency ends today. The government previously emphasized that it will work to see that COVID-19 vaccines and treatments as well as telehealth under Medicare and Medicaid will continue for “all who need them.”

▪ Axios: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changes COVID-19 data reporting as public health emergency ends.

▪ NBC News: Your costs for COVID-19 tests and treatments may rise after the public health emergency ends.

▪ The Atlantic: The latest COVID-19 variants have a surprising feature in common.

▪ The New York Times: Scientists unveil a more diverse human genome.

THE CLOSER

Take Our Morning Report Quiz

And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! While mulling the White House focus on U.S. air carriers and consumers ahead of summer travel, we were inspired to quiz readers about presidents and planes.

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.

Which president(s) had experience as a pilot?

Dwight D. Eisenhower
George H.W. Bush
George W. Bush
All of the above

Which president is credited with the first airplane flight while in office? [Hint: there’s a photo.]

Calvin Coolidge
Woodrow Wilson
Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Which president was first to use an airplane to travel on official business? [Bonus point: Who was he traveling to meet?]

William Howard Taft
Harry S. Truman
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Why were helicopters used for the first time to transport the nation’s chief executive?

President Eisenhower wanted to travel to Camp David faster than by car.
President Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy opted for speed while crossing Quonset Bay for a July vacation in Newport, R.I.
The Secret Service relented on safety concerns in deference to anxieties about evacuating the commander-in-chief by road during a period of Soviet nuclear threats.
The Air Force sought to support defense manufacturers and contractors by demonstrating civilian use of helicopters.

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