Democrats to Biden: Get ‘off the bench’ in the debt limit fight

It seemed, for a moment, as if there was a potential thaw in an intractable debt ceiling fight. Speaking to reporters from an ornate hall on Wednesday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Republicans were ready to give Democrats key concessions.

And then, he revealed what the concessions were: caps on spending and new work requirements for social safety programs.

McCarthy was referencing proposed cuts that a solitary senator, Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), had once proposed, and a work requirement reform that then-Sen. Joe Biden voted for in the '90s. His “concessions” were, in reality, modern Republican demands. And his framing otherwise was a direct taunt of Democrats who steadfastly oppose both measures.

The jab privately gnawed at administration officials. But when pressed to respond to McCarthy, the White House demurred. Speaking hours later, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said merely that preventing default “is not a concession. It’s their job. Period.”

The decision not to engage McCarthy’s spin was a purposeful tactic for an administration that has chosen, as a media strategy, restraint.

Administration officials say they want to give Biden room to negotiate and insist they will be rewarded for it, as the public regards them as the adults in the room. They argue they don’t need to run to the microphone before and after each negotiating session, as Republicans have frequently done, and instead, only do so at strategic moments.

But the void left by the White House this week — Biden spoke very briefly before Monday’s meeting with McCarthy and made fleeting remarks Thursday — has frustrated Capitol Hill Democrats who believe Biden’s team is allowing Republicans to define the debt ceiling debate on their terms.

“It’s time to bring the president off the bench, or bring somebody off the bench. No one’s responding to anything. Kevin’s consistently on message,” said one House Democrat, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “We have the Oval Office. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Several Democrats on Thursday called for Biden to deliver a national address on the state of the debt talks this week, amid widespread worry the White House has not done enough to emphasize the stakes of a default.

“The scale of the cuts is staggering, which really the public knows very little about,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democratic appropriator, said of the GOP’s demands. “The president should be out there.”

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) also called for a shift in the administration’s strategy, fretting that McCarthy has been allowed to shape public perception of the standoff in “very dishonest ways.” “I do think it’s important that the president speak on this,” she said.

Later Thursday, Biden did address the debt limit fight in remarks that clocked in under three minutes and were delivered just before he named a new chair of the Joint Chiefs. He chastised Republicans for backing “huge cuts” in the number of teachers and police officers and policies that would increase wait times for Social Security claims.

The comments were far from the extensive retort to Republicans' claims that Democrats crave and seemed unlikely to calm the growing belief from within his own party that he could and should be doing more.

“They need to use the power of the presidency. I don't buy this argument that [public silence] helps the negotiation,” said Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford (D-Nev.). “I need the American people to know that Democrats are here fighting, working, prepared to reach an agreement to avoid a default and only the White House, the president, can explain that in this moment.”

Biden is set to be even further out of sight this weekend when he leaves Friday for Camp David, and then travels to Delaware. Told Biden was planning to leave Washington for the weekend, one House Democrat expressed disbelief.

“Please tell me that’s not true,” said the lawmaker, who was granted anonymity for fear of angering the White House. “You’re going to see a caucus that’s so pissed if he’s stupid enough to do that.”

Biden’s aides have largely ignored the chorus of those calling for him to be more public. His minimal presence has been purposeful, according to an administration official granted anonymity to discuss strategy.

The White House believes the president’s bully pulpit should be used strategically — that oversaturating the airwaves could lead to contradictory messaging, and that silence conveys reasonableness and calm, the official said. Throughout the talks, administration officials have throttled their public presence based on how negotiations are going. They sometimes rely on Hill Democrats to use the sharpest cudgel, allowing Biden to remain above the fray.

In coordination with the White House, House Democrats have responded to some of the details spilled by McCarthy and his deputies: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Tuesday that Biden had floated to Republicans his proposal to freeze spending at 2023 levels. And Rep. Pramala Jayapal (D-Wash.) went before cameras to note that Republicans had rejected White House proposals to end fossil fuel subsidies, close the carried interest tax loophole, expand drug negotiations in Medicare and enact corporate tax hikes.

The administration has thrown tougher punches off camera. On Sunday, administration officials circulated a memo accusing Republicans of holding “hostage” their own constituents “who don’t have $100,000 to spend on chapstick,” a reference to a Republican auction on McCarthy’s used lip balm.

Longtime Biden aides brush aside any critique of the president’s public-facing message, stressing that the sole mission is to strike a deal that averts economic collapse.

The administration's approach carries echoes of its playbook in prior high-stakes negotiations, such as the no-comment policy it took toward Manchin amid a monthslong effort to win the senator’s support for the Inflation Reduction Act.

But congressional Democrats worry this time is different. It isn't just an intraparty squabble, but a showdown with Republicans, many of whom are likely to refuse any compromise.

“The American people need to understand just what’s at stake, and I’m not sure that for the broad public that case has been made,” said Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-N.Y.), adding he couldn’t identify any White House surrogates on the issue. “Other than the press secretary, I really have not.”

In private, Biden allies have been blunter, cringing over Jean-Pierre's reliance on recycled talking points and questioning her reluctance — or inability — to engage on the substance of the talks. (On Wednesday, Jean-Pierre mispronounced former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's last name as "munchkin," a moment immediately amplified by the Republican National Committee.)

Others noted that there are fewer go-to surrogates in the White House on economic issues, following the departure earlier this year of former chief of staff Ron Klain and former National Economic Council Brian Deese. Economic adviser Jared Bernstein, another frequent television presence, has curtailed his appearances as he awaits Senate confirmation to run the Council of Economic Advisers. Whereas Klain was a frequent presence on Twitter, his successor, Jeff Zients, only sporadically uses the platform — often where political reporters congregate — to engage on the debt ceiling fight.

With the exception of a single press call last week, new NEC chief Lael Brainard has also largely kept out of public view.

"The whole apparatus is not pushing back," said one Biden ally who has fielded complaints from a range of congressional Democrats over the last week. "Our side is just flat-footed."

A person familiar with the White House's strategy said that Zients' and others' involvement in the delicate negotiations precludes them from doing interviews, and that the administration has been strategic in "picking the right moments to speak out."

Biden officials more broadly countered that Republicans' messaging stumbles over the past few days had undermined their case better than the president ever could. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Wednesday called Democrats the “hostage" in the debt ceiling fight — a quote the White House press office and Hill Democrats raced to amplify. The next day, the administration seized on RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel's comment that the debt crisis "bodes very well" for the GOP, with White House spokesperson Andrew Bates blasting her remarks as "appalling and revealing."

Within the White House, aides have also downplayed McCarthy's accessibility as providing little value outside of filling reporters' notebooks, questioning what's to be gained by giving play-by-play on typical negotiation ups and downs outside of further undermining Americans' trust in government.

Yet recent polling shows that the public would blame Biden and Republicans in equal measure if the country defaults. A majority of Americans also support the idea of spending cuts as part of a compromise deal — a data point that's bolstered the GOP and deepened Democratic concerns the party has failed to fully explain the stakes.

Biden officials also have bristled at the media coverage of the standoff, complaining that outlets are failing to convey the seriousness of the crisis or fact-check Republicans on their claims. White House reporters tracking the talks acknowledged that some of those criticisms were fair — but said the White House has done little to aid their case. Officials have closely guarded details of the talks, in contrast to McCarthy's approach of making his negotiators widely available.

Some Democrats acknowledged they could do only so much. Delauro publicly begged reporters to provide the pushback that has yet to more fully come from the White House.

"Help us," she told a group of reporters on Thursday. "I don't want you to feel that you're being co-opted, but you have a responsibility as well."

Sarah Ferris, Lauren Egan and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

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NOAA expects near-normal Atlantic hurricane season with 'a lot of uncertainty'

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projected a "near normal" Atlantic hurricane season Thursday, though officials cautioned unusually high sea-surface temperatures and a likely El Niño complicates the forecast.

Details: NOAA said the season, which runs from June 1 through Nov. 30, could bring between 12 and 17 named storms. Five to nine of those could become hurricanes, with one to four hitting Category 3 or higher.

Context: NOAA lead hurricane forecaster Matthew Rosencrans cautioned that the combination of El Niño and warm waters causes "a lot of uncertainty." He said that's why NOAA's predictions are roughly split, with a 40 percent chance of a near-normal season and an equal 30 percent probability of below and above normal.

Rosencrans said El Niño events typically reduce storm activity, with anywhere from six to 18 named storms in a year according to historical data. But an El Niño has occurred only one other time with comparatively high sea surface temperatures amid an active storm era, muddying the outlook for this season.

“It’s definitely kind of a rare setup for this year," he said at a press conference.

Climate change has contributed to warmer ocean temperatures, which climate scientists say is fueling more intense storms whenever they form.

What's Next: NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said the agency would soon unveil new modeling and computing capabilities that improve its forecasting abilities.

NOAA next month will launch an improved primary hurricane model that Spinrad said would boost track and intensity forecast accuracy by 15 percent.

In July, NOAA's computing capacity will grow by 20 percent, enabling the agency "to run more complex forecast models, and provide faster and more efficient computing power for operational prediction, research and development," he said.

NOAA earlier this month also extended its probabilistic storm surge models to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which Spinrad said would help the territories better prepare for storms.

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IG: Park Police used excessive force against 2 journalists

U.S. Park Police officers used excessive force against two Australian journalists while clearing a protest near the White House nearly three years ago, the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General said Wednesday.

In a report, the IG concluded that one officer violated policy by using his baton to strike a retreating reporter who did not pose a threat.

The IG said the second officer had complied with policy by using his shield to control a cinematographer because it was "objectively reasonable," but that the same officer had not employed the “minimum level of reasonable force” when he later pushed the journalist’s camera.

The IG’s office said it had sent its report finding the officers violated Park Police policy to National Park Service Director Chuck Sams “for any action deemed appropriate.”

The attack on June 1, 2020, led to a congressional investigation and angered the Australian government, which requested an investigation after the incident aired on live television.

The journalists were covering a protest near Lafayette Square that grew violent shortly before then-President Donal Trump walked across the street to pose for photographs in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church.

The protest was sparked by the killing of 46-year-old George Floyd on Memorial Day of 2020. He died when a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s throat for nearly nine minutes. After Floyd's death, protesters demonstrated against police across the country, with a series of protests held in Lafayette Square near the White House.

While the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to prosecute the two officers after reviewing a report from the Park Police’s Internal Affairs Unit, the issue then went to the IG’s office for an administrative investigation.

Both officers had been reassigned shortly after the incident.

At the time, then-acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan defended the work of his officers, saying protesters were throwing projectiles, including bricks and frozen water bottles. He said officers responded with pepper spray and smoke canisters to clear the crowd.

Then-Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison asked for an investigation of the Park Police after he saw correspondent Amelia Brace and photojournalist Tim Myers attacked while doing their live newscast on Australia's 7News program "Sunrise."

The video showed one officer hitting Myers in the chest with his riot shield and another swinging a police baton to strike Brace. Both journalists were pinned against a wall at the time, trying to escape.

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House fails to override Biden veto of solar tariff resolution

House lawmakers failed to garner enough support Wednesday to override President Joe Biden’s veto of a measure that would have rescinded his two-year moratorium on tariffs for imports of solar equipment from four Southeast Asian countries.

The House voted 214-205 on Wednesday, falling short of the two-thirds majority required to override Biden’s veto of the resolution, H.J. Res. 39 (118). Eight Democrats voted in favor of the veto override and eight Republicans voted against.

“Now is not the time to undermine our efforts in producing a robust supply chain in solar,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Ways and Means trade subcommittee, in floor remarks Wednesday.

Blumenauer had urged his colleagues to reject the push to override the veto, arguing Biden’s two-year pause gives the U.S. solar industry time to “reorient and to catch up.”

Context: The bipartisan resolution, which the House passed in April, targets a regulation enacting Biden’s moratorium on new import tariffs on solar cells and modules from Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Biden issued the two-year pause amid a Commerce Department investigation into whether companies were circumventing existing tariffs on China by shuffling products through the four countries.

The Senate passed the Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the moratorium in early May.

Biden officially vetoed the resolution last week, arguing it "bets against American innovation" and would "create deep uncertainty for American businesses and workers in the solar industry."

House Democrats who backed the resolution to undo the moratorium called on lawmakers to vote to override the veto shortly thereafter.

“We are rewarding the worst behavior and penalizing those companies that choose to follow the law,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), a co-sponsor of the resolution, on Wednesday. “Failing to act will mean that other countries will think they can simply take advantage of American business and the American worker, making us more reliant on foreign manufacturing supply chains, including for our clean energy needs.”

Background: When the House first voted on the provision in April, 12 Democrats joined 209 Republicans to vote in favor of it. Eight Republicans voted against the resolution.

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Biden calls for stricter gun laws a year after Texas school shooting

President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged Congress to pass stronger gun laws, including a ban on assault rifles, while commemorating the anniversary of the elementary school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers exactly one year earlier in Uvalde, Texas.

“We still need to ban AR-15 firearms — assault weapons — once again,” Biden said at the White House. “We can’t end this epidemic until Congress has some common-sense gun safety laws that keep weapons of war off our streets.”

The president also called for the ban of high-capacity magazines, establishing universal background checks, national red flag laws and firearm storage requirements. Most “responsible” gun owners also support such measures to “save lives and keep our communities safe,” the president said.

“It’s time to act,” Biden added. “We will act.”

Addressing the killings at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022, the third-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, the president called out firearm manufacturers. He labeled the industry “the only major corporate entity” that is legally shielded from mass deaths, and called for a law that would end such immunity.

Vice President Kamala Harrisalso called for more gun regulations on Wednesday. In a written statement, Harris acknowledged Congress’ past action for gun control but encouraged members of Congress and state legislatures “to meet this heartbreaking moment not just with words, but with action.”

Congress last year passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which is considered to beCongress’ most significant response to mass shootings in three decades. The law provides money to states looking to implement so-called red flag laws, which allow firearms to be temporarily taken away from individuals deemed threats to themselves and others.

No federal gun measure has moved in Congress since then. A full month after the bipartisan gun law passed both chambers, House Democrats voted in July toreinstate the assault rifle ban. The bill passed by a slim margin of four votes but soon stalled in the evenly divided Senate.

The Biden administration’s push for more stricter laws is already facing fierce opposition from GOP lawmakers. Sen.Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Rep.Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) submitted in recent weeks separate gun bills that would partially repeal the bipartisan law and ban state and federal gun registries.

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‘The trauma cannot be undone’: Victims relive Jan. 6 as Oath Keepers face sentencing

As rioters ransacked Congress and hunted for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Capitol Police Officer David Lazarus, the lead agent on Pelosi’s security detail, felt like he was running through quicksand.

First, he clamored to evacuate members of congressional leadership to a secure location. Then he had to free stranded lawmakers from their offices across the Capitol complex. Next came the urgent calls from Pelosi’s Capitol suite, where trapped staff members hid for hours under a conference table in a locked room.

There had already been reports of pipe bombs discovered at the nearby RNC and DNC buildings — could there be others marked for the Capitol? Lazarus wondered — and soon, another alert came across his radio: Shots fired by the House chamber. Amid the fear, chaos and confusion, Lazarus on Wednesday described another sensation that he says sticks with him to this day: Inadequacy.

“I felt nothing I did would be enough,” he recalled.

The toll of human suffering wrought by the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol was on display at the federal courthouse in Washington D.C., where U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta is preparing to issue sentences to the leaders of the Oath Keepers, the far-right militia-style organization whose leader Stewart Rhodes was convicted last year of seditious conspiracy.

Prosecutors say Rhodes assembled dozens of allies in Washington as part of a wide-ranging plot to forcibly prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. The group amassed an extraordinary arsenal of weapons at a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Virginia, that the Justice Department said was at the ready should violence spiral even further out of control or should Trump invoke the Insurrection Act and deputize the Oath Keepers as a government-backed militia. Dozens of Oath Keepers entered the building during the early moments of the attack and split up, some charging toward Pelosi’s office and others toward a police line protecting the Senate chamber, before the riot was dispelled.

A jury convicted Rhodes and five other Oath Keepers — including the group’s Florida leader Kelly Meggs — of seditious conspiracy in two trials that took place between September 2022 and January 2023. Several other members of the group have been convicted of serious crimes stemming from the Jan. 6 attack, including felony obstruction, which, like seditious conspiracy, carries a 20-year maximum sentence.

Rhodes, Meggs, Florida Oath Keeper Kenneth Harrelson and Ohio Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins — clad in orange jumpsuits — looked on as Lazarus and several other victims of the Jan. 6 attack described trauma that has never gone away.

“The violence that the rioters brought to the Capitol never ends,” said Lazarus. “For any of us.”

The proceedings on Wednesday were a chance for several police officers and congressional staffers to confront the Oath Keepers with the lingering trauma they’ve lived with since Jan. 6 and to plead with Mehta for the harshest possible sentences.

Terri McCullough, Pelosi’s chief of staff, recalled the Capitol morphing into a “crime scene” and said she expects to carry the pain and horror she felt “every day for the rest of my life.” Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who has been outspoken about the suffering of his colleagues as a result of Jan. 6, said he fears for his safety and dreads being at work. He says some colleagues still avoid certain parts of the Capitol to avoid triggering painful memories. Metropolitan Police Officer Christopher Owens cried as he recalled his wife’s reaction to seeing his battered body, when he returned from his 18-hour Jan. 6 shift at the Capitol, covered in bear spray, mace and other chemicals.

Virginia Brown, a 21-year-old college student who worked as a Senate chambers assistant on Jan. 6, recalled her initial excitement at being chosen to carry boxes of certified presidential elector certificates between the House and Senate chamber during the proceedings. Instead, her memories of that day include “sprinting through the underground chambers of the Capitol” and removing her shoes because she believed she could run faster in her tights.

“I cannot measure how many hours of sleep I lost,” she said, describing her efforts to cope after Jan. 6 “The trauma cannot be undone.”

Mehta’s ultimate sentences, which he will mete out over the next 10 days in individual sentencing hearings for each defendant, are the first for any Jan. 6 defendants convicted of seditious conspiracy — the most significant crimes charged by the government related to the attack.

Mehta has already doled out the two harshest sentences stemming from the violence: 14 years for Peter Schwartz, who assaulted multiple police officers and had a long rap sheet, and 10 years for Thomas Webster, a retired NYPD cop who brutally assaulted a D.C. officer and, in Mehta’s view, lied on the witness stand about it before a jury convicted him.

Both those sentences, while steep, were significantly lower than prosecutors sought.

Prosecutors are seeking a 25-year prison term for Rhodes, who they say was the ringleader of the Oath Keepers’ role in the attack. The group is one of two — along with the Proud Boys — who prosecutors have described as key planners and orchestrators of the violence that unfolded. Former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other leaders were convicted earlier this month of seditious conspiracy as well and are slated to be sentenced in August.

How Mehta, an appointee of Barack Obama, sentences these defendants will be the clearest metric yet of the government’s efforts to deliver accountability for perpetrators of the Jan. 6 attack. He has, in previous sentencing hearings, lamented that judges have been asked to punish “pawns” in the Jan. 6 attack when leaders — including political leaders like Donald Trump, who he said bear responsibility for lying to supporters and driving them to the Capitol on Jan. 6 — have yet to face punishment.

Special counsel Jack Smith has been probing Trump’s potential criminal culpability in attempting to subvert the election on Jan. 6 and has been hauling in some of Trump’s top White House advisers, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence, for testimony.

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Voter confidence ticks up in 2022 — but deep partisan divides remain

Voter confidence is ticking back up after the 2022 midterms, even as a deep partisan divide remains, according to a new survey released this week.

Overall, 69 percent of registered voters said they were either very or somewhat confident that votes at a nationwide level were counted as intended, a prominent measure of voter trust in election integrity. The results come from a new survey from the MIT Election  Data + Science Lab, a nonpartisan research group at the eponymous college.

That is up from 61 percent in MIT's 2020 version of the same survey.

That growth comes almost entirely from Republicans, even as a dramatic partisan gap remains. Democrats’ confidence in the nationwide count was virtually unchanged — 93 percent in 2020 to 92 percent in 2022. Republicans grew 20 points — to 42 percent — in 2022, still short of a majority.

“Recent patterns in voter confidence, especially at the state and national levels, are a product of the polarization of attitudes about the electoral process along partisan lines,” the report read, noting that Democrats and Republicans gave “similar responses” to this question in 2016.

A large majority of Democrats have expressed confidence in the vote each time this question was asked since 2012. Even the lowest measure among Democrats, after the 2016 presidential election, still found a majority — 69 percent — expressed confidence their votes were counted.

By contrast, a majority of Republicans only said as much in 2014 and 2016, the two elections their party performed well in.

Voters expressed more confidence the more localized the election was. Overall, 85 percent of people said that they were confident that votes in their state were counted as intended, 89 percent said the same about their city or county.

More broadly, the survey found that Americans were largely happy with their individual voting experiences in the 2022 midterms. The survey found 93 percent said they were confident that their vote was counted as intended.

Of those who voted via the mail, a group that is overwhelmingly Democratic, 98 percent found it to be either very or somewhat easy “to follow all the instructions necessary to cast your ballot and return it to be counted.”

For in-person voters, 97 percent said things were run either “very well” or “okay” at the polling place where they voted, and the average wait time for an Election Day voter was six minutes, and four minutes for an early in-person voter.

The survey also asked voters about a slate of election policies. With few exceptions — like requiring electronic voting machines to have paper backups, a widely accepted practice, and supporting nonpartisan election officials — there are significant partisan divides.

A majority of Democrats and Republicans support requiring a photo ID to vote, for example. But there is still a 30 point gap between Democrats and Republicans, with support nearly universal among Republicans. A majority of those surveyed overall — and a majority of Democrats — support automatic voter registration and allowing for voter registration on Election Day, but not a majority of Republicans.

And while nearly 60 percent of Republicans support requiring hand-counting paper ballots — something election officials say is costly, slow and less accurate — most Democrats do not.

MIT has run their study — the Survey of the Performance of American Elections — for every presidential election since 2008, as well as the 2014 and 2022 midterms. This year’s survey, which was administered by YouGov, surveyed 10,200 registered voters, which includes 200 in every state and the District of Columbia.

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