All eyes are on Rafah.

The city in southern Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians have sheltered since Israel’s war against Hamas began in October, is drawing global attention as Hamas’s last stronghold in the enclave — and the planned target of Israel’s next major incursion.

The fate of the 1.4 million civilians crammed into the city — coupled with the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than 34,000 have been in seven months — has prompted international warnings against a ground invasion. In his first major ultimatum to Israel since the start of the war, President Biden this week drew a red line against a full-scale invasion in an interview with CNN, saying he would withhold offensive weapons from Israel if they were used to invade Rafah and kill innocent civilians.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing pressure from his government’s right flank, said Thursday that Israel would move forward, no matter what.

“If we need to stand alone, we will stand alone,” Netanyahu said in a video message.

Still, The Hill’s Laura Kelly writes that Netanyahu remains at a crossroads of how to push forward against Hamas without triggering an unprecedented break in ties with the U.S. The White House has laid out a stark choice for Netanyahu, warning that his pursuit to defeat Hamas at all costs risks losing American support.

“Israel has to make its decisions,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Thursday. “We understand that, and we’ll have to make ours based on what they do. I think the president was crystal clear last night that if they do smash into Rafah, go in, and invade in a major way, he’s going to have to make some major decisions. But we hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Biden’s warning to Netanyahu earned swift and fierce blowback from Republicans; Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday characterized the announcement as a “senior moment.” Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) announced Thursday he is prepping articles of impeachment against the president.

▪ Reuters: Behind Biden’s Israel weapons pause: a defiant Netanyahu, a tense phone call.

▪ The Hill: Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called Biden’s weapon halt threat “deeply misguided.”

▪ The New York Times: New satellite imagery taken after Israeli forces pushed into Rafah shows widespread damage to the southern Gaza city — including large areas of flattened structures — and clusters of Israeli armored vehicles.

▪ The Economist: After a dramatic week in Gaza, where does the war stand?

As the pressure ramps up, U.S. officials, alongside Egyptian and Qatari mediators, are continuing to press Hamas to release hostages in exchange for a temporary cease-fire. Talks in Cairo this week temporarily led to hope for a deal when Hamas announced it would accept a proposal, but Israel soon after said the draft was not the one it had proposed and that it included “significant gaps.” Both sides have since left Egypt, and it is unclear when talks will resume.

Meanwhile, the United Nations, as well as international aid groups, are warning that with border crossings closed and a backup of humanitarian aid, much of Gaza is facing a “full-blown famine.” A ship carrying aid to a pier built by the U.S. off the coast of Gaza set sail from Cyprus on Thursday after Cyprus opened a sea corridor in March to ship aid directly to the enclave, where deliveries via land have been severely disrupted — limiting food, medical supplies and fuel.

American concerns about a ground invasion have continued to grow since the Israeli army sent tanks and troops into the eastern part of Rafah earlier this week, taking over the main border crossing with Egypt. Israeli forces stopped short of entering central parts of the city, but Netanyahu and others have signaled their intent to move forward into those areas.

“Even when Israel has taken additional steps to minimize civilian harm, we have still seen results where far too many civilians were dying,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters Thursday.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ Biden is preparing as soon as next week to impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles but will reject across-the-board tariff hikes, Bloomberg News reports.

▪ At the Department of Veterans Affairs, 180 top executives last year received bonuses worth $11 million — but it was money Congress approved to help recruit and retain staff to process billions of dollars in new veterans’ benefits, according to an inspector general report released Thursday. Congressional hearings are guaranteed.

▪ TikTok says it will start labeling some AI-generated content to combat disinformation.

CRISIS ON THE BORDER: Mexican cartels, not U.S. officials, control the U.S. southern border, according to a U.S. Border Patrol agent interviewed by NewsNation in Texas under conditions of anonymity as part of Thursday’s one-hour “Dan Abrams Live.”  “Everything that we do is a reaction to things that [cartels] have planned. Usually, we’re chasing around pawns while the kings and queens are doing whatever they want,” the agent said.

NewsNation reported from Eagle Pass in Texas, San Diego and Nogales, Ariz., and border agents and police chiefs from Texas to New York described how the border crisis has impacted their communities.

👉 NewsNation: Ride along with “brush teams” at the border. Agents arrested three male migrants identified as Honduran who were hiding in a ditch in Hidalgo County, Texas.

👉 NewsNation: Costs of the border crisis to American taxpayers.

👉 NewsNation: “Smuggler’s Highway”: A look at the border’s popular migrant route.

👉 NewsNation: “Looking out for humanity”: Along the border, volunteers help migrants.

A Decision Desk HQ/NewsNation poll this week found 46 percent of registered voters think former President Trump is the better pick to deal with the border. Roughly a quarter, or 26 percent, think Biden is the candidate to trust, and another 13 percent said they were undecided. NewsNation and The Hill are owned by Nexstar.

LEADING THE DAY

© The Associated Press / Andrew Harnik | Former President Trump headlined an America First summit with conservative allies in 2022.

POLITICS

CONSERVATIVES LOOK AHEAD: Trump asked some of the nation’s top oil executives to steer $1 billion in donations to his campaign instead of spending huge sums lobbying the Biden administration, according to people with knowledge of a Mar-a-Lago meeting with CEOs last month. Trump told the executives that if he returns to office, he would quickly reverse Biden’s climate and energy policies. The result, Trump said, would be more offshore oil drilling, exports of liquified natural gas and support for gas-powered cars, instead of electric vehicles (The Washington Post).

Meanwhile, conservative group America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank founded in 2021 by former Trump officials and close allies, is eager to be ready for a Trump administration in 2025. It released an international policy book Thursday to suggest the former president’s second turn in the Oval Office would make future military aid to Ukraine contingent on negotiating a peace deal with Russia, national security positions in the government would be filled with Trump loyalists and Chinese nationals would be barred from buying properties within 50 miles of federal buildings. The nonprofit group is one of several with publicly active GOP transition planning projects in the works (The Associated Press).

Bungling the message: Biden’s “pride” may be his reelection undoing more than Trump’s 2024 challenge as the president clings to a campaign narrative, heard again in Wisconsin Wednesday, that frames economic woes as part of the past rather than acknowledging Americans’ current anxieties with empathy, Democratic political strategist David Axelrod told CNN. “I think he’s making a terrible mistake” (The Hill).

2024 ROUNDUP

▪ Some House Democrats are campaigning for border security while casting Republicans as impediments to reform after the GOP in the Senate, bolstered by Trump, rejected a bipartisan border security bill. The strategic turnabout has the blessing of House Democrats’ campaign arm.

▪ Barron Trump, the former president’s youngest offspring and a recent high school graduate,will be a Florida delegate at the GOP convention in Wisconsin in July.

▪ Wealthy North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, 67, has emerged as an unlikely potential pick to be Trump’s running mate. North Dakota has three electoral votes. What’s the draw?

▪ South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has been unable to stem the damage from her memoir boasts of shooting and killing a young hunting dog and a goat. Even reliably conservative media outlets have been critical.

▪ Republican National Committee lawyer Charlie Spies, who departed last week after two months, was ousted after sustained lobbying from MAGA influencers.

▪ Federal prosecutors have charged former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) in Washington for allegedly lying to investigators in connection with a campaign finance probe of a foreign billionaire’s political contributions.

▪ Loosening the federal classification of marijuana for prosecution purposes, backed by Biden and the Drug Enforcement Agency, is one of several potent topics Democrats can persuasively talk about with younger voters, according to Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. Other issues: student loan forgiveness, criminal justice reform, abortion rights and threats to democracy, she said.    

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 12:30 p.m.

The Senate will convene at 6:30 p.m. for a pro forma session.

The president is in California and will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9:50 a.m. Biden will headline two separate campaign events in the San Francisco Bay area in the afternoon. He’ll fly to Seattle in the evening for a fundraiser at 7 p.m. local time and remain in Seattle overnight.

Vice President Harris has no public events. Shewill host a reception for the Democratic Mayors Association’s Leadership Summit at her residence.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken participates at 9:15 a.m. at the department in a memorandum of understanding signing event with Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares focused on foreign state information manipulation.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will convene a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council at 2:45 p.m.

First lady Jill Biden is in California and will speak at a Los Angeles fundraiser at 3 p.m. PST. She will fly to Phoenix and headline a fundraiser at 6:45 p.m. local time. She will remain in Arizona overnight.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will speak at noon at a campaign event in Annandale, Va., outside the nation’s capital.  

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press / Patrick Semansky | Lawmakers are debating additional slots at Washington’s Reagan National Airport as part of Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization.

CONGRESS

AIR TRAVEL: The Senate on Thursday wrapped up one of its final legislative priorities for the foreseeable future as it passed a reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, clearing it before today’s deadline to avoid a lapse. Lawmakers voted 88 to 4 on the measure after leadership and negotiators were able to sidestep several landmines to secure final passage. Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin (Md.), Tim Kaine (Va.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Mark Warner (Va.) were the only no votes.

Final passage came after a bit of a roller coaster, which included multiple stopgap extensions and battles that culminated Thursday night after the four Washington, D.C., area members struck a deal with leadership over a slots dispute at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The senators loudly opposed the inclusion of five new slots (or 10 round-trip flights) at the busy airport, arguing that it went against safety concerns after a near-miss there last month and that it would significantly increase delays at the landlocked airport (The Hill).

BEEFS AMONG LAWMAKERS — both personal and policy based, some of which can take a petty turn — are a tale as old as time on Capitol Hill. But The Hill’s Mychael Schnell reports that sometimes, those battles spill into the open. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) once said “it will be hard not to hit” his predecessor, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in the head with the gavel if he were to win the top job. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) infamously called Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) a “little bitch” on the House floor, a flashpoint in the long-running feud between the two conservative firebrands.

And Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) dubbed Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) a “Smurf” during a House Oversight Committee hearing, prompting the Democrat to sport a blue tie with the cartoon character at a subsequent meeting.

But whose beef will make the history books? The Hill’s congressional reporters have compiled seven major clashes in recent congressional history.

The Hill: Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) called for Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to be “immediately removed” from their powerful spots on the Rules Committee after they voted with Greene on Wednesday to advance her effort to oust Johnson from his post.

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press / Elizabeth Williams | Adult film personality Stormy Daniels testified at Trump’s criminal hush money trial in Manhattan Thursday.

TRUMP WORLD

Manhattan prosecutors are in the middle of a headline-grabbing trial in which Trump is alleged to have committed criminal fraud with his business records to hide a hush money payment and a sexual dalliance from voters in 2016. But the former president’s defense sought Thursday to tell a different story about money to impugn the credibility of adult film personality Stormy Daniels.

Seeking to create reasonable doubt among jurors, Trump’s legal team suggested Daniels invented a lurid tale of a sexual encounter with Trump purely for money.

Witnesses have testified that to prevent Daniels from going public in 2016, Trump paid the porn star $130,000 through his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lock up her tale.

“You made all this up, right?” asked defense lawyer Susan Necheles.

“No,” Daniels responded during cross-examination (The New York Times).

Trump has denied 34 charges and maintains he did not have a sexual encounter with Daniels.

▪ The Hill’s Niall Stanage: Stormy Daniels under fire: Five takeaways from Day 14 of the Trump trial.

▪ Newsweek: Prosecutors Thursday disclosed they will not call Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to testify about her alleged affair with the former New York businessman.

At Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial Thursday, Justice Juan Merchan rejected the former president’s request through his lawyer to narrow a gag order so he can speak publicly about Daniels following completion of her testimony.

“That’s just not the track record,” Merchan said from the bench. “The reason why the gag order is in place to begin with is precisely because of the nature of these attacks — the vitriol.”

The court’s gag order bars Trump from hurling insults at witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, court staff or the judge’s family. It doesn’t bar Trump from attacking the judge himself or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D).

OPINION

■ The Biden border crisis takes to the skies, by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), opinion contributor, The Hill.

■ What kind of husband behaves like Donald Trump, by Jessica Bennett, contributing opinion editor, The New York Times.

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / Efrem Lukatsky | Ukrainian artist Dasha Marchenko created a 2015 portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin called “The Face of War,” exhibited in Kyiv and made with 5,000 weapons cartridge cases of various calibers.

And finally … 👏👏👏 Congratulations to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! Readers took up a trivia challenge about Russian President Vladimir Putin, who began his fifth term this week.

🏆 In the winners’ circle: Richard Baznik, Lynn Gardner, Harry Strulovici, Stan Wasser, Lori Benso, Randall S. Patrick, Linda Field, Valentin Simanovsky, Jaina Mehta Buck, Robert Bradley, Chuck Schoenenberger, John Ciorciari, Carmine Petracca, Rick Schmidtke, Steve James and Pam Manges.

Putin, 71, began his KGB career in Leningrad.

British photographer Platon recently recounted to CNN how Putin during a 2007 portrait shoot enthused in fluent English that he loved the Beatles, Paul McCartney and the song “Yesterday.”

When Putin travels abroad, bodyguards reportedly collect his poop and urine and return it to Russia, supposedly to maintain his personal security and secrecy about his health.

The Russian president, aware of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal fear after being attacked by a dog as an adult, was accused of trying to rattle her by releasing his black Labrador, Koni, during their joint press conference in 2007. (He later denied it. “I wanted to do something nice for her,” he told German newspaper Bild in 2016.)

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