Morning Report — Vance makes his case; Biden has COVID-19

All eyes were on Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) Wednesday, as former President Trump’s newly minted vice-presidential candidate addressed the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The first-term senator, 39, used his speech to lean into his history and decry policies he said have harmed “forgotten communities” across the country. Vance spoke about how the lessons he learned growing up in greater Appalachia shaped his populist and isolationist worldview. Bad trade deals, “disastrous” foreign wars and a drug epidemic headlined the list, with Vance taking the opportunity to draw a contrast between Trump and President Biden on each issue.

“And at each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania, or Michigan and other states across our country, jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war,” Vance said. “Somehow, a real estate developer from New York by the name of Donald J. Trump was right on all of these issues while Biden was wrong.” 

The speech and place on the Republican ticket marked the end of a transformation for Vance, who was once a staunch critic of the former president — who will address the convention tonight to formally accept his party’s nomination. Vance delved deeply into his biography in what was his introduction on the national stage Wednesday (The Hill and The Washington Post).

As Vance prepared to take the convention stage, Biden’s reelection campaign released its first ad hitting Vance over his stance on abortion. The one-minute ad, titled “They Don’t Care,” was narrated by a Kentucky woman, Hadley Duvall, who was raped by her stepfather (The Hill).

Other notable Day 3 speakers: Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who was released from prison Wednesday morning after being sentenced on contempt of Congress charges…. Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director, Thomas Homan, who oversaw parts of Trump’s family separation policy…  Donald Trump Jr., Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.

UNCERTAINTY MOUNTS: Biden announced he tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday ahead of a planned speech at the UnidosUS conference in Las Vegas. He canceled the event, and the White House said the president is “experiencing mild symptoms” and “will be returning to Delaware where he will self-isolate and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time.” News networks showed Biden walking slowly up the stairs of Air Force One, not wearing a mask.

Amid the diagnosis, Democrats’ rebellion against Biden intensified as the party’s congressional leaders lobbied successfully to delay his official nomination by a week. Bowing to the pressure, top Democratic National Committee officials announced Wednesday that the virtual roll call will now take place during the first week of August, instead of late July (NBC News). Still, a group of House Democrats that was prepared to publicly denounce an effort to nominate Biden before the convention has been swayed to stand down for now (Politico).

Privately, The New York Times reports, Biden has become more receptive to hearing arguments about why he should drop his re-election bid, after both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told him they were deeply concerned about his prospects.

The president said in an interview Wednesday that he would only reevaluate his decision to run for a second term if a doctor told him he had a medical condition. A new AP-NORC poll shows that 65 percent of Democrats said that Biden “should withdraw and allow his party to select a different candidate.”

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SECRET SERVICE: Local police alerted the Secret Service before Trump’s Saturday rally that they lacked the resources to station a patrol car outside a key building where the gunman later positioned himself. Officials are now trying to determine how Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to climb the building with no intervention by authorities, why law enforcement was not placed on the roof to begin with and whether the event was properly staffed for security (The Hill and The Washington Post). 

Senators were told during a briefing call Wednesday that the Secret Service had flagged Crooks as suspicious more than an hour before he shot from the rooftop, and that a countersniper spotted him as a potential threat 19 minutes before the shooting (The Hill). In the wake of the attack, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for new Secret Service leadership Wednesday, while Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called on Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign and said he will launch a task force for the consolidation of investigations focused on the security failures of the Saturday rally (The Hill).

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LEADING THE DAY

MORE IN POLITICS

When Biden took part in a Zoom call with lawmakers from the Congressional Progressive Caucus last weekend, his staff passed him a note that read, “Stay positive. You are sounding defensive.” Biden said he “intentionally” read the note out loud for a moment of levity during a call with anxious lawmakers. On a separate call with centrist House lawmakers — which some sources described as “tense” — the president lashed out at Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.). As the discussion around Biden withdrawing from the race picked up steam and grew heated in recent weeks, so has the president. 

The Hill’s Amie Parnes reports that sources who have been on calls with Biden since his dismal debate performance last month have described him as defensive and angry. 

“We’re dealing with an old, angry man. It’s very Trumpian in some ways. But it’s not a good look,” said one Democratic strategist, who wants Biden to remain in the race. “His mood describes the moment we’re in right now and we need someone to lead us out of this mess.” 

The news came as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is a heavy favorite in California’s Senate race in November, called for Biden to step aside. Schiff said that while Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history,” he noted that “our nation is at a crossroads.”

“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November,” he said in a statement.

TEN SEATS: Johnson told The Hill Wednesday that his “goal” is for Republicans to pick up more than 10 House seats in November, underscoring the optimistic outlook the GOP has in the lead-up to Election Day.

“It’s my goal,” the Speaker said. “We’re very wary of setting benchmarks and making projections, but I’ll tell you, we’re very encouraged and very bullish about November.”

SIGHTS AND SOUNDS: This year’s Republican convention has had a speaker to appeal to Republican voters of all stripes, including moderates, and to less traditional voters, reports The Hill’s Brett Samuels. It’s a sign of how Trump has transformed the party and done away with traditional conservative orthodoxy, and a signal that the GOP is hoping to expand its outreach heading into November.

It’s also an unlikely fashion event, writes The Hill’s Aris Folley, with attendants sporting everything from earring bandages in solidarity with Trump to “Don’t Tread on Me” gowns.

🎧 Listen to The Hill’s Switch Up election series. In the inaugural episode, host Cheyanne M. Daniels spoke with Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) about the importance of Black voters and her continued support for Biden. In today’s episode, which goes live at noon, GOP strategist Sarah Chamberlain weighs in on the assassination attempt against Trump and how women voters could impact the election. Follow on Spotify.

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ZOOM IN

HEAT & HEALTH

FOURTEEN STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL are pressing to make extreme heat and wildfire smoke eligible for major disaster declarations, as dangerously high temperatures envelop the eastern and central U.S. More than 130 million people are affected by heat alerts, as the National Weather Service is warning of “widespread record high minimum temperatures” across much of the country (Axios).

Six farmworkers in Colorado have been affected by bird flu this month as health officials stress the importance of preparedness to contain the H5N1 virus spreading in dairy herds and poultry flocks across the country (USA Today).

The New York Times: Bird flu is spreading. Why aren’t more people getting tested?

AFTER PEAKING during the COVID-19 pandemic, physician burnout has dipped under 50 percent for the first time in four years, but doctors say working conditions in the medical field are a mixed bag, writes The Hill’s Joseph Choi. A survey published by the American Medical Association (AMA) this month found that 48.2 percent of physicians in 2023 experienced at least one symptom of burnout, down nearly 15 percent from when this metric peaked in 2021. 

“It’s good news and it’s bad news,” said Steven Furr, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “It’s good news that the numbers have gone down but still they’re higher than what we’d like them to be.”

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ELSEWHERE

INTERNATIONAL

CEASE-FIRE TALKS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the country had to apply “pressure, pressure and more pressure” to gain further concessions from Hamas in cease-fire negotiations. “As long as we keep pressuring them, Hamas will give up more and more” in the talks, Netanyahu said in a speech to Parliament, accusing his opponents of defeatism.

Israeli negotiators headed to Qatar last week for renewed meetings on a cease-fire deal in Gaza that would also free the roughly 120 remaining hostages. But no high-level meetings have been announced since, with the negotiations seemingly at a standstill (The New York Times).

The Washington Post: The Pentagon ended its sea pier off the coast of Gaza Wednesday, which enabled delivery of millions of pounds of aid even as it faced near-constant setbacks and ultimately fell short of expectations.

CYANIDE POISONING caused the deaths of six foreigners whose bodies were found in a room in a plush Bangkok hotel, authorities in Thailand said Wednesday, with the suspected killer among the dead. The deceased — three women and three men, ranging in age from 37 to 56 — were all of Vietnamese descent. Two of them were citizens of the United States, and the rest of Vietnam (Reuters and The New York Times).

Politico: Germany, which became Ukraine’s biggest European supplier of military aid, looks poised to slash future assistance by half in order to fulfill other spending priorities. 

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THE CLOSER

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