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.
Democrats’ opening night during an emotional nominating convention presented Vice President Harris as a leader with “heart” while speakers cast former President Trump as a convicted, self-involved “villain” trying to cling to his chaotic past.
A battle cry to voters, repeated late Monday by President Biden during a 52-minute speech, was that democracy requires protectors. Elect Harris and running mate Tim Walz, Democratic governor of Minnesota, and relegate Trump to the past, he said.
“I never thought I’d stand in front of a crowd of Democrats and call a president a liar so many times,” Biden added as he reflected on his decades in office, now close to the end. “No, I’m not trying to be funny. It’s sad.”
▪ The Hill: Biden makes a late speech and exit in Chicago, hailing Harris while trolling Trump.
▪ The Hill’s The Memo by Niall Stanage: Five takeaways from the first day of Democrats’ convention.
The vice president, who delivers her acceptance speech Thursday, appeared briefly on stage Monday night to roars of energetic cheers. “This is going to be a great week,” she responded before thanking Biden for his “historic leadership.” Delegates joined her in finishing her familiar campaign phrases, “When we fight, we win” and “Thank you, Joe!” (The Hill).
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee who narrowly lost to Trump in the Electoral College, received a loud and lengthy standing ovation before she placed Harris firmly in the arc of American history and rights for women (The Hill).
“This is our time, America,” she said, enjoining her listeners to get involved to help Democrats win in November. “Progress is promised but not guaranteed,” she added.
▪ The Hill: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y. ) blasted Trump as a “two-bit union buster” who would “sell this country for a dollar” during her speech Monday.
▪ The Hill: First lady Jill Biden said Monday that her husband “dug deep into his soul” before he dropped out of the 2024 race and endorsed Harris.
▪ Politico: Democrats are jubilant, but now comes the hard part. Some of Harris’ challenges were right in front of her on the DNC’s opening day.
▪ The Washington Post: Fact-checking Day 1 of the convention.
▪ USA Today: Presidents of six labor unions throw support behind Harris Monday.
▪ The New York Times: Thousands of protesters marched in Chicago Monday as the Democratic National Convention began. They were focused on a range of causes, but many said they were angry with the Biden administration’s approach to Israel and Gaza.
COMING UP TODAY as the convention continues: Harris and Walz will leave the Windy City for a campaign event in Milwaukee. Tonight, former President Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama — the most popular Democrat in the country, according to polls — second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker will address crowds at the United Center.
3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:
▪ Planned Parenthood Great Rivers used social media to announce that not far from Chicago’s United Center where Democratic delegates met Monday and meet today, free vasectomies and medication abortions were available in its health clinic van (appointments filled up for both days).
▪ Milwaukee-based cartoonist Paul Noth, who submits 10 political cartoons to The New Yorker most weeks while aiming to sell one or two (and whose comic art is instantly recognizable to readers), sharpened his pencils ahead of last night’s Democratic convention primetime speeches. “I have the Midwestern nice thing. And even when my cartoons have an edge to them, there’s something kind of nice about them,” he recently told WBEZ Chicago.
▪ Democrats’ nominating convention in the Windy City is packed with entertainers. Here are some celebrities expected for the rest of the week.
LEADING THE DAY
© The Associated Press / J. Scott Applewhite | Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, urged voters not to be complacent and praised Vice President Harris as ready to lead with “heart.”
MORE IN CAMPAIGNS & POLITICS
HARRIS-TRUMP CLASH OVER BUSINESS TAXES: If Harris is elected president, she’d seek a new 28 percent corporate tax, a hike from the 21 percent Trump enacted in 2017, which at the time slashed the 35 percent existing rate, her campaign said Monday. Her corporate tax proposal mirrors Biden’s policy (NBC News). Trump floated a 20 percent corporate rate during a closed-door event in June.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that each 1 percentage point increase in the corporate rate corresponds to about $100 billion in additional federal revenue over a decade.
The corporate tax rate is permanent in law, but many of the household tax reforms included in the GOP bill will expire in 2025, meaning that the next president will play a powerful role in trying to extend, rework or let lapse some of the existing law.
Harris began to unveil an economic framework last week that included a proposal described by economists and analysts as gauzy and going nowhere in Congress. Her call for a federal ban on grocery store “price gouging,” which was not defined, was dismissed by former Clinton and Obama White House economist Jason Furman, a Harvard professor, who told The New York Times it is “not sensible policy. … There’s no upside here, and there is some downside,” he said.
ABC News: Harris’s economic wish list also included a $25,000 federal subsidy for first-time homebuyers.
2024 Roundup:
▪ The FBI and intelligence agencies formally said Monday that Iran was behind the summer’s Trump campaign hack and was also responsible for disruption to the Democratic presidential campaign.
▪ Trump said late Monday he would participate in a tele-town hall hosted by Fox News next month instead of a debate on the network after the Harris campaign made clear the vice president would not participate.
▪ The former president told CBS News Monday he has “no regrets” about helping to overturn Roe v. Wade as president by nominating conservative Supreme Court justices to the bench. He said he would “very gladly” release his medical records and accept the results of the 2024 election “if it’s free and fair.”
▪ Chauncey McLean, president of Future Forward, which backs Harris, said the super PAC’s internal polling is less “rosy” than public polls and warned that Democrats face closer races in key states. McLean spoke during an event at the Democratic convention in Chicago Monday.
▪ In Georgia, how can a conservative takeover of an election board impact the November election?
▪ Trump is counterprogramming the Democrats’ convention with events in multiple states this week. He’ll tour part of Arizona’s southern border Thursday to showcase his criticism of Harris on immigration before headlining a campaign event in Phoenix. He was in Pennsylvania Monday, where he questioned whether Harris is foreign (answer: No. She was born in this country to U.S. citizens). Trump is scheduled to speak in Michigan Tuesday. North Carolina will see Trump and running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) Wednesday. He will add a Nevada stop Friday following his Thursday focus on Arizona.
▪ Headed to the Harris campaign from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.: Ian Sams, departing spokesperson for oversight in the White House Counsel’s Office, and principal White House deputy communications director Kristen Orthman, who will have a campaign planning role.
▪ Poynter veteran scribe Louis Jacobson asked experienced friends and colleagues what makes a good political convention — at least from a journalist’s perspective?
WHERE AND WHEN
The House and Senate are out until after Labor Day.
The president is in Santa Ynez, Calif., with first lady Jill Biden until Sunday. Biden will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m.
The vice president begins her day in Chicago. She will travel to Milwaukee for a campaign event and return to the Democratic convention. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will speak tonight during the convention.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken begins the day in Egypt where he will meet midday with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, then separately with Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Director of General Intelligence Services Abbas Kamel. The secretary will travel to Doha for a meeting tonight with Qatari Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
ZOOM IN
© The Associated Press / Kevin Mohatt, Reuters | Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be in Egypt Tuesday to press for a Gaza cease-fire deal.
INTERNATIONAL
👉 CEASE-FIRE TALKS: Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports a Gaza cease-fire intended to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas and win release of live hostages and hostage remains.
Hamas has said a cease-fire deal must result in a permanent end to the war, and urged the world to pressure Netanyahu to sign an earlier deal proposed by Biden on May 31 and backed by the United Nations Security Council on June 11. Early today, Biden said Hamas was “backing away” from the newest deal agreed to by Israel.
“It’s still in play, but you can’t predict,” he said while leaving the convention in Chicago. “Israel says they can work it out … Hamas is now backing away.”
The negotiations have gained urgency; diplomats hope an agreement will deter Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah from avenging the targeted killings of two top militants, raising fears of an even more destructive regional war. Blinken will travel to Egypt today for meetings, and mediators will meet again this week in Cairo to try to complete an agreement (The Hill and Al Jazeera).
▪ Axios: Netanyahu’s ceasefire doublespeak: Dovish with the U.S. and hawkish with negotiators. Netanyahu endorsed the U.S. proposal — which incorporated several of his updated demands — knowing Hamas would reject it, according to senior Israeli officials.
▪ The Washington Post: As Blinken arrived in Israel to push the cease-fire proposal, Hamas claimed responsibility for a bombing that shook Tel Aviv on Sunday.
▪ NBC News: The bodies of six Israeli hostages have been retrieved from Gaza during an overnight military operation, Israeli authorities said Tuesday.
RUSSIAN TROOPS defending a pocket of territory wedged between a river and the border with Ukraine are at risk of becoming encircled after Ukraine bombed bridges that are the only routes for resupply or retreat. Ukrainian forces are feeling more optimistic after months of battles on the front line (CNN).
The New York Times: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to hold Russian territory as leverage for peace talks. Ukrainian officials say diplomacy and taking the war to Russian territory are not contradictory efforts. Many in Moscow doubt the strategy.
ELSEWHERE
© The Associated Press / J. Scott Applewhite | Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D), in a tough reelection contest in a red state, is not attending the Chicago convention and hasn’t endorsed the Democratic presidential ticket.
CONGRESS
SKIPPING THE CONVENTION: A handful of leading Democrats facing tough bids for reelection are not attending the Chicago convention this week. Among them are Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Jacky Rosen (Nev.), whose absences suggest they believe distance from their party’s nominee (and more time to campaign in their respective states) could be more politically advantageous. Tester has not endorsed Harris. The three-term incumbent will not attend the convention and instead will hold a fundraiser Wednesday with a member of the rock band Pearl Jam, according to the Montana Free Press (The Hill).
New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat convicted of bribery, set today as his official resignation date. George Helmy, a former chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), will be sworn in Sept. 9 to serve until January. Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) is favored to win the Senate contest this fall to fill the seat next year after Helmy voluntarily steps down.
The GOP-led House’s signature investigation into Biden fizzled to a close Monday with a series of allegations but no recommendation to move forward with impeachment, report The Hill’s Emily Brooks and Rebecca Beitsch. House Republicans who wanted to impeach Biden also did not have the votes for that earlier this year.
It’s an unusual end for a process that started with a pledge to showcase that Biden abused his power and was at the center of a corrupt plot to enrich his family. But the report failed to uncover a smoking gun demonstrating wrongdoing, instead relying on largely debunked threads, disputed testimony and circumstantial evidence.
Instead, it suggests that Biden, who withdrew as the presidential nominee last month, won’t face a vote on impeachment articles in the GOP-controlled House. Republicans are shifting gears. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) launched a probe into Walz Friday over his ties to China. And Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the chair of the House Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel, is investigating the vice presidential candidate’s record in the Army National Guard.
Comer also has been investigating Harris for her role as the administration’s point person on the sources of migration.
▪ The Hill: Senate Republicans are worried that Trump could be blowing their chances of winning back the majority as he flails in responding to Harris, according to GOP aides and strategists.
▪ The Hill: Senate Democrats are divided over whether to support legislation that seeks to speed up the nation’s energy buildout because they disagree about the actual climate impacts.
OPINION
■ Biden’s crowning moment came before his Monday speech, by The Washington Post editorial board.
■ Governors are building more homes. Here’s how Congress can help, by Tina Kotek and Spencer Cox, opinion contributors, The Hill.
THE CLOSER
© The Associated Press / Michael Varaklas | The supermoon passed by the Temple of Poseidon, south of Athens, on Monday.
And finally … 🌕 Look up into the night sky this week and you may catch a glimpse of the first supermoon of the year. It glows, looks huge and lingers as an orb dangling overhead from Sunday morning to Wednesday morning.
The supermoon distinction comes from the relative distance. The moon will orbit about 14,000 miles closer to Earth than average, according to EarthSky.org. It will appear about 15 percent brighter than average.
Stay Engaged
We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger (asimendinger@digital-staging.thehill.com) and Kristina Karisch (kkarisch@digital-staging.thehill.com). Follow us on social media platform X: (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!