Morning Report — Biden, Trump look West; Speaker leverages Israel aid

Unpopular 2024 contenders President Biden and former President Trump, buffeted by the latest polls, will fly to western states this week, each hoping to woo supporters who could help with Electoral College math next year. 

Biden, who is trying to sidestep the political downsides of economic headwinds and being 80, will talk up the help he says he’s delivered for rural America. He plans Wednesday to visit a farm in Minnesota, while Trump will pass the hat at two red-state Texas fundraisers, appearing as the GOP presidential primary leader in Dallas on Wednesday and Houston on Thursday. 

Amid a presidential contest described by some as a repeat of 2020, but with added venom, Trump does not plan a rally while in Texas and won’t appear at next week’s Republican debate in Miami, at which a slowly shrinking lineup of long-shot challengers will spar. The former president, busy of late in courtrooms as a civil and criminal defendant, plans a rally Nov. 8 in Hialeah, Fla., the same night as the debate. 

Trump, who leads decisively in polls in Iowa 66 days ahead of the first-in-the-nation GOP caucuses, headlined an event Sunday in Sioux City, Iowa, mistakenly referring to his location as Sioux Falls, in South Dakota.   

The New York Times: How 77-year-old Trump’s verbal slips could weaken his attacks on Biden’s age. 

Republicans searching for an alternative to Trump may have run out of time, The Hill’s Jared Gans reports. The decision by former Vice President Mike Pence, a Midwesterner, to quit the presidential race was the latest shake-up. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who was part of the Trump administration, is tied in Iowa with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 16 percent, well behind Trump.  

“The White House should be terrified because the president, while he is doing a good job in terms of policy, is looking at plummeting numbers, hemorrhaging support and Democrats who, like me, are sort of scared to go on the record and say what they think but are increasingly terrified,” said one Democratic consultant who requested anonymity. 

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LEADING THE DAY 

CONGRESS 

When the House returns tomorrow, Republicans will start moving quickly to pass the chamber’s starter spending bills laying out how they think the government should be funded for most of next year. In preparation for talks with the Democratic-led Senate, the House swiftly approved its first funding bill in weeks just days ago when the chamber reopened under new Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).  

The sprawling partisan energy plan is just one of eight bills that Republicans hope to pass out of the House by mid-November — when government funding is set to expire. But there is still much work to be done and a lot of unanswered questions as Johnson faces a challenge in keeping the party unified on funding legislation in the coming weeks. The Hill’s Aris Folley breaks down five things to watch on the party’s funding strategy.  

A GOP bill to provide $14.3 billion for Israel would not increase the U.S. deficit because it would be offset in the budget by rescinding the same amount of funding for the IRS, House Republicans said Monday (NBC News). The Rules Committee will consider the measure, which pointedly picks a fight with Biden and Democrats, when the House returns Wednesday. A vote is expected as early as this week.  

Meanwhile, Johnson is facing a three-pronged test in his first full week as the House’s top lawmaker as members of both parties look to take disciplinary action against their political opponents. The Hill’s Mychael Schnell reports the three resolutions up for a vote this week — on censuring Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and expelling Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) — will put a spotlight on his ability to manage the fractious GOP conference and steer the entire chamber after a blistering three-week fight that left him with the gavel.  

Politico: Santos’s New York GOP critics may be getting help from new Republican allies on this week’s expulsion vote. It’s highly unlikely to be enough. 

OVER IN THE SENATE, both parties are scrambling to adjust to Johnson and his demands to separate Israel funding from Ukraine and offset the $14 billion in Israel aid with other spending cuts. Neither of these ideas is favored by McConnell nor by key Senate GOP defense hawks such as Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). On these issues, at least, McConnell and his leadership team are more aligned with Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports.  

Instead, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make their case to Senate lawmakers for the president’s $106 billion supplemental budget request for Ukraine and Israel aid, even as House members insist the package has little chance of becoming law. The two Cabinet officials will testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee today to answer questions about the White House spending plan (Military Times). 

CNBC: Ahead of a Senate subcommittee hearing today about artificial intelligence (AI) and the future of work, Biden issued a new executive order on artificial intelligence — the U.S. government’s first action of its kind — requiring new safety assessments, equity and civil rights guidance and research on AI’s impact on the labor market. 

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MIDDLE EAST 

Israeli ground forces attacked Hamas militants and infrastructure on Tuesday in northern Gaza, which the military said some 800,000 people have fled since the war began more than three weeks ago, even as warplanes continued to strike from end to end of the sealed-off territory (The Associated Press and Reuters). Israel said on Tuesday its forces attacked Hamas gunmen inside the group’s vast tunnel network beneath Gaza, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu characterized calls for a cease-fire as “calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism,” telling reporters that Israel was “fighting the enemies of civilization itself.” 

Humanitarian groups and the United Nations General Assembly, among others, have appealed for a cease-fire in Israel’s war on Hamas. Asked about the civilian death toll in Gaza from recent Israeli airstrikes, Netanyahu said that “not a single civilian has to die,” and he accused Hamas of “preventing them from leaving the areas of conflict.” According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israeli airstrikes and the ground offensive have killed more than 8,000 people in Gaza (Reuters and The New York Times). 

The New York Times analysis: After an air campaign that killed thousands of Palestinians, Israel has begun a ground assault of Gaza, but it took hours for outside observers to understand what was happening. The ambiguity was intentional. 

Netanyahu said the army’s advance through Gaza opened opportunities to free hostages, which Hamas would do only under pressure, he told a news conference. “This creates pressure,” he said. “We’re committed to getting all the hostages back home. We think that this method stands a chance.” 

Netanyahu congratulated the Israel Defense Forces and security agency Shin Bet for freeing Ori Megidish, an army private, over the weekend. However, The Guardian reports many relatives of hostages favor accepting a Hamas offer to swap them for about 5,000 Palestinians, including Islamist militants, in Israeli prisons — an offer the Israeli government has rejected. 

In the face of a devastating intelligence failure, a hostage crisis and the launch of a brutal, grinding war, Netanyahu has struggled to rally the public to his side. Over the weekend, Netanyahu apologized for accusing military and security officials of lapses that led to the Hamas massacre, but he declined to accept responsibility himself (The Wall Street Journal). 

“He’s in survival mode,” Gadi Wolfsfeld, an expert in political communications at Reichman University in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, told The New York Times. “He’s been in difficult circumstances before, and he still believes he can come out of this and continue to be prime minister when this is all done. The only thing driving him is staying in power.” 

Meanwhile, Axios reports Mossad Director David Barnea visited Qatar — the main mediator between Israel and Hamas over the issue of the hostages — over the weekend and met senior officials to discuss their efforts in trying to secure the release of the hostages. The Biden administration is also working with Qatar on this issue because several of the hostages Hamas is holding are Americans. 

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ZOOM IN 

HEALTH & WELLBEING 

How will the popularity of new weight-loss drugs, including Ozempic and Wegovy, impact U.S consumer choices in ways that can hammer the marketplace for certain companies and bolster the future valuations of others? It’s a question being asked on Wall Street and in board rooms, and among manufacturers and service providers. 

It’s too early to measure how many Americans will in a lasting way overhaul their food selections at grocery stores, move into smaller clothing sizes, and lose their appetites for pricey restaurant experiences or fast food-menus. But corporations are eyeing trend data and stock analysts are weighing in. 

Bloomberg News reported Monday that one Wall Street firm advised investors that Krispy Kreme stock could take a hit if doughnut demand drops because of Ozempic. 

Investors worry that fast-food restaurants, already suffering weaker traffic because of inflation, will see a continued downward trend because of weight-loss drugs that make people stop thinking about their next meal, Reuters reported. 

Walmart says consumers who currently take the drugs, which reduce appetite, are indeed buying less food, a big part of its business. 

An estimated 24 million people, or 7 percent of the U.S. population, will be using the drugs by 2035, Morgan Stanley Research analysts recently wrote. Given the anticipated widespread adoption of such medications, corporations are examining their own exposure to loss because of the drugs. 

NewsNation: Can Ozempic, Wegovy make Americans spend more? 

It’s worth repeating that the weight-loss drugs are expensive for patients without insurance and can have some unpleasant health side effects. They are also tied to high quit rates, could break the U.S. healthcare system and may change employer insurance costs. 

👁️ The Food and Drug Administration warned consumers last week to stop using dozens of brand name, over-the-counter eye drops because of risks of infection that can lead to vision loss or blindness (The Hill).  

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ELSEWHERE 

COURTS 

Federal judge Tanya Chutkan on Sunday reimposed a narrow gag order against Trump in his federal election case, rejecting arguments by Trump lawyer John Lauro that Trump’s repeated public statements about the case posed no risk of intimidating or harassing the people the order was meant to protect. They include members of her court staff, special counsel Jack Smith and any members of his staff and any witnesses who might end up testifying in the case (NPR and CBS News). 

“The First Amendment rights of participants in criminal proceedings must yield, when necessary, to the orderly administration of justice,” the judge said in her order. “And contrary to Defendant’s argument, the right to a fair trial is not his alone, but belongs also to the government and the public.” 

The Hill: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) is expected to testify in a Colorado trial aiming to determine whether Trump is eligible to be on the state’s 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”  

The Supreme Court is set to wade into social media’s free speech wars this term with a series of dicey cases that could reshape how public officials and U.S. government agencies operate online. The court will hear oral arguments in the first two cases today, which both ask whether public officials can constitutionally block their constituents on social media. Technology cases have often left the justices grappling with the platforms at issue as much as the law at hand. Years ago, when questions over video games and First Amendment rights landed at the court, multiple justices were known to have played a violent video game to prepare to decide the case.  

“We’re a court. We really don’t know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet,” Justice Elena Kagan joked during a case last term involving Google. The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld and Ella Lee break down what to know about the five social media cases this term that could reshape the internet as we know it.  

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THE CLOSER 

And finally … BOO! 👻 

Zoos and botanical gardens coast to coast discovered that Halloween can become a cauldron of happiness for visitors when cooked up with real or imagined animals, the natural world, lights and inventive spookiness, The Associated Press reports. 

Sculptors by day become master carvers, bringing pumpkins to life. Plants, bats and bugs become murderously educational. And at night, zoos and gardens take on the aura of stage or movie sets. Animals and little visitors seem to revel in their walk-on, soar-in and slither-through parts. 

“We started hosting what we call ‘HalGLOween’ back in 2017 and it’s become one of our biggest draws of the year, providing a huge audience for our conservation messages,” says Lisa Martin, a wildlife care ambassador for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. “People learn best when they’re having fun.” 

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Stay Engaged 

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