Morning Report — With Congress out, the White House grabs the mic 

The White House is playing offense with Congress on break this week.  

The House’s recess is proving a convenient weapon for the White House to hit Republicans for leaving town before staving off a looming government shutdown and passing more aid for Ukraine.  

The Hill’s Alex Gangitano and Brett Samuels report President Biden has stepped up his attacks as the situation in Ukraine, which has been fighting off Russia’s invasion since 2022, becomes increasingly dire. Russia’s capture of the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, as well as the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, have only spurred Biden and Democrats on.  

“They’re making a big mistake by not responding,” Biden told reporters Monday, speaking of the GOP House. “The way they’re walking away from the threat of Russia, the way they’re walking away from NATO. The way they’re walking away from meeting our obligations. It’s just shocking. I mean, they’re wild. I’ve never seen anything like it.” 

The House left Washington on Thursday for a long President’s Day recess, which might have provided Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his leadership team some breathing room as they weigh the decision of how — or if — to approve another round of military assistance for Kyiv. But Navalny’s death quickly dominated the weekend news cycle, highlighting not only the Republicans’ refusal to consider a Senate-passed Ukraine aid bill, but also the broader battle within the GOP over the global role of the United States in the era of former President Trump’s “America First” agenda. The Hill’s Mike Lillis writes that some of Russia’s staunchest critics say that any Republicans siding with Trump in opposition to Ukraine aid are, by extension, abetting the despotic regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin.   

“We have to take seriously the extent to which you have now got a Putin wing of the Republican Party,” former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a leading Trump critic, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union”. “The issue of this election cycle is making sure the Putin wing of the Republican Party does not take over the West Wing of the White House.” 

Add to that: Trump’s threats to hold back U.S. support for NATO, or withdrawing completely, which are shining a light on what little power Congress has in protecting American commitments to the alliance, The Hill’s Laura Kelly writes.  

The alliance’s supporters say that despite strong congressional backing, the House and Senate have little to no power to prevent the president, as commander in chief, from making decisions about the U.S. military, in Europe or elsewhere.  

“I’ve gotten presidents out of a lot of treaties,” said John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser between 2018 and 2019, and has between two and three treaty withdrawals under his belt. “If somebody like Trump wants to get out, it’s not going to slow him down. It’s better to be making the case to the American people that we should stay in NATO than to try and put up guardrails.” 

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DAY OF REMEMBRANCE: Rep. Mark Takano’s (D-Calif.) grandfather came to America in 1916, at the age of 18, in the hopes of achieving the oft-talked about American Dream. Instead, in 1942, he and his wife were incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp. Takano is among thousands of Americans who on Monday recognized a Day of Remembrance for the more than 120,000 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II.  

“Here’s my grandfather and my grandmother, who was American born, who were punished for something they never did wrong, and they suffered mightily,” Takano told The Hill.  

Programming note: Morning Report’s Alexis Simendinger will be back in your inboxes Thursday. 

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 LEADING THE DAY 

POLITICS 

NO LABELS, the third-party political organization, is facing dwindling options for its proposed “unity ticket” after two high-profile names associated with the group decided against a run for president. The Hill’s Jared Gans reports that former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) were rumored to be among the organization’s top possibilities for a 2024 centrist presidential ticket that would be composed of one Republican and one Democrat. But with Hogan deciding to instead run for an open Senate seat in Maryland and Manchin ruling out a presidential bid in the past week, No Labels appears to have few obvious choices left if it decides to go forward with a ticket. 

“They’re still in the stables, and Trump and Biden are turning the third turn on the Kentucky Derby,” said Democratic strategist Brian Doory. “That’s a pretty big lead to make up.” 

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ZOOM IN 

INTERNATIONAL 

The U.S. has proposed a United Nations Security Council draft resolution calling for a temporary cease-fire in Gaza and warning against an Israeli ground incursion into Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled over the course of the conflict. The draft comes after the U.S. had vowed to veto an Algerian draft proposal calling for an immediate cease-fire, which the Council will vote on this morning.  

The U.S.-proposed draft resolution calls for a “temporary cease-fire in Gaza as soon as practicable,” which falls short of the wishes of most other Security Council members who want an immediate end to fighting. The U.S., which has traditionally protected its ally Israel from U.N. actions, has repeatedly resisted calls for a “cease-fire,” emphasizing what it claims is Israel’s right to defend itself following Hamas’s terror attack on Oct. 7 (CNN). 

Israel, meanwhile, has given Hamas a Ramadan deadline to return the hostages held in Gaza or face a ground offensive in Rafah, the first timeline it has provided for looming operations in the city that have become a source of tension with the U.S. (The Wall Street Journal). 

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ELSEWHERE 

COURTS 

TRUMP’S LATEST LEGAL DEFEAT in a New York court — a jaw-dropping $354 million judgment to claw back the proceeds of a decade of fraud, plus almost $100 million in interest — puts an exclamation point on an unprecedented losing streak in his home state. Trump frequently calls courts in New York “rigged,” but his losing streak is  
“an indication of the strength of the cases” against him, not a reflection of bias, said Cardozo School of Law professor Alexander Reinert (CBS News).  

“That string of defeats is an indication of the unlawfulness of his conduct,” Reinert said, adding that Trump acts like “he doesn’t think the law really constrains him, and I think he needs to understand now that it does.” 

The Hill’s Brett Samuels and Ella Lee break down what we know about what Trump owes and how he’ll pay while seeking to return to the White House.   

THE SUPREME COURT WILL HEAR a case next week that could effectively make it legal for civilians to own automatic weapons capable of firing as many as nine bullets every second. The case involves bump stocks, devices that use a gun’s recoil to repeatedly fire the weapon as if it were fully automatic. The Trump administration issued a regulation banning bump stocks in 2018, after a gunman used one to kill 60 people and wound hundreds more during a country music festival in Las Vegas. A 1986 law makes it a crime to own a “machinegun,” and the Trump administration determined that this law extends to bump stocks. But federal courts have been divided on whether federal law defines the term “machinegun” broadly enough to include bump stocks (Vox). 

CNN: Idaho officials asked the Supreme Court to let the state enforce a strict ban on gender-affirming treatments for minors in an emergency request made public Monday by one of the groups involved in the case. 

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EDUCATION 

SINCE THE PANDEMIC, schools across the country have faced no shortage of challenges. Students are falling behind academically, while cases of misbehavior and chronic absenteeism are up. But there is another problem that has left some school districts scrambling. Teachers are also missing more school — and there is a shortage of substitute teachers available to fill in (The New York Times). 

“The proof in the pudding is how many people have exhausted their leave and are asking to take days off that are unpaid,” said Jim Fry, the superintendent in College Place, a small district in southern Washington state. “That used to be a really rare occurrence. Now it is weekly.” 

PERSONAL FINANCE CLASSES have become a requirement for high school graduation in dozens of states in the past few years. A tracker from Next Gen Personal Finance shows that in 2020, only eight states had a stand-alone personal finance course available for all high schoolers, and that number is up to 25 this year. Experts say these classes are about more than writing checks and that they will continue to grow for high schoolers — and potentially middle school (The Hill). 

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OPINION 

■ The moral blindness of Putin’s apologists on the right, by Gerard Baker, columnist, The Wall Street Journal. 

■ Navalny paid the price that Russia’s economy hasn’t, by John Authers, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion. 

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THE CLOSER 

And finally … Historians have found a new link between Biden and former President Abraham Lincoln — and it dates back to a late-night Civil War brawl.  

Yes, you read that right. On March 21, 1864, a fight broke out in the Army of the Potomac’s winter camp along the Rappahannock River near Beverly Ford, Va., between Union Army civilian employees Moses J. Robinette and John J. Alexander. 

With Alexander bleeding from knife wounds, Robinette — Biden’s great-great-grandfather — was charged with attempted murder and incarcerated on a remote island near what is now Florida. Three army officers who knew him petitioned to overturn his conviction, and the letter eventually made it all the way to the president’s desk, where Lincoln signed the pardon in September of the same year.  

The Washington Post has all the details about the 160-year-old presidential connection.

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