Principals

1. Donald Trump’s dream convention
2. Biden’s message on protests
3. FTC targets oil market collusion
4. FAA bill drama
5. Google’s closing arguments
6. DACA recipients get Obamacare

PDB: White House defends Biden’s comment about Japan, India being “xenophobic”

Biden awards Medal of Freedom to Pelosi, Bloomberg … April jobs report out at 8:30am … NYT: US weapons can’t get to Ukraine fast enough

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Donald Trump finally gets the convention of his dreams

Donald Trump’s first convention was hampered by party divisions and growing pains, his second by COVID-19. This July he will finally have total control of the process. Shelby Talcott reports on the early preparations for the event, which will help define just what Trumpism means in 2024. “We’re exercising complete control over not only just the mechanics and the makeup of the committee, but also in the message,” one person involved in the efforts told Semafor. “And the outfacing message of the convention is Donald Trump — the party’s nominee.” In 2020, the pandemic prompted the party to take the unusual step of not updating its official platform, setting up a long-deferred discussion this year of how to write Trumpism into the party’s top messaging document on issues like Ukraine, abortion, health care, and entitlements. Then there are some more Trump-specific topics: Will the January 6th defendants who Trump has championed, still a divisive issue within the party, get a prominent role? What about defeated foes like Ron DeSantis, who traditionally get speaking slots to unify the party, but who Trump has done little to publicly bring back into the fold?

Biden warns against violent protests, antisemitism

President Biden broke his relative silence on the pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations to deliver a clear message: violent protests and antisemitism won’t be tolerated. In brief answers to reporters’ questions after an abruptly scheduled speech from the Roosevelt Room, he said the protests had not changed his approach to the Israel-Hamas war and rejected Republican calls for the National Guard to be sent in. “Dissent is essential for democracy,” Biden said. “But dissent must never lead to disorder.” Republicans are increasing scrutiny of the protests, which they see as a unifying issue following months of focus on intra party divisions. Hours after Biden spoke, news broke that an NYPD police officer accidentally fired a gun while clearing protesters from Columbia’s Hamilton Hall. The chaos and police response to it will continue to vex Democrats, especially if Israel launches a Rafah operation and demonstrations grow more intense.

FTC plans to recommend a criminal case over oil market collusion

The Federal Trade Commission is planning to recommend a potential criminal case against the former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources for allegedly trying to collude with rivals to prop up the price of oil, Semafor’s Liz Hoffman and Gina Chon report. The FTC already barred Scott Sheffield from gaining a board seat on Exxon this week as a condition for greenlighting the energy giant’s merger with Pioneer, but a referral to the Justice Department would escalate the stakes. Like many oil executives, Sheffield publicly argued in 2021 that shale drillers needed to keep a lid on production in order to keep profits steady. The problem is that he also allegedly said the same thing in private to other Texas oil companies and OPEC officials, as captured in WhatsApp conversations the FTC quotes in a complaint filed Thursday. “If Texas leads the way, maybe we can get OPEC to cut production,” Sheffield wrote, according to the complaint. “Maybe Saudi and Russia will follow. That was our plan.” A pioneer spokesman said the government “misreads the nature and intent of Mr. Sheffield’s actions.” But the irony in all this? Shale drilling surged anyway.

FAA reauthorization may run late

The FAA reauthorization may be kept grounded for a while longer. The second-ranked GOP senator predicted that the Senate needs a short extension to hash out an amendment deal on the must-pass bill, which currently has a May 10 deadline. “There aren’t enough days right now, in my view at least, for us to be able to finish this,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune said on Thursday. A whole range of amendment votes are possible, including on the House tax bill, legislation to protect kids and teenagers on social media networks, or eliminating the addition of more flight slots at Ronald Reagan National Airport. There’s also a fight over refunds for canceled flights brewing: The legislation would require travelers to request money back in writing, but Sens. Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren want an amendment to keep them automatic, in line with a recent Biden administration rule. However, Senate leaders are working to ensure the FAA bill doesn’t become a “Christmas-tree bill” that falls apart in the GOP-led House, setting up a, um, turbulent ride for Congress in the next week.

— Joseph Zeballos-Roig

As Google’s antitrust trial wraps up, the judge grills both sides

The antitrust trial of the century began wrapping up Thursday, as lawyers for the Justice Department and Google started closing arguments in the case over whether the tech giant illegally smothered its rivals in search. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta had tough questions for attorneys on both sides. He asked Google’s lead attorney whether it was possible for a competitor to enter the market, suggesting that it “seems to be very, very unlikely, if not impossible, under the current market conditions.” He also questioned the government on whether other companies had simply failed to invest in areas like smartphone search. “That’s not anticompetitive, the fact that Google was smart enough to get on the mobile bandwagon before Microsoft.” As Semafor’s Helen Li writes, the trial’s results could significantly alter how people find information online — though Gen Z already appears to be subbing TikTok searches for Googling.

Biden expands healthcare to DACA recipients

DACA recipients will be able to receive health insurance via Obamacare under a new rule the Biden administration is announcing today. Administration officials estimated that 100,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children and are covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will enroll in healthcare coverage due to the final rule from the Department of Health and Human Services, which has been in the making for more than a year. The move does not have a bearing on legal challenges to the program, and the White House is still urging Congress to pass a law that offers a permanent status for DACA recipients — an issue that was not covered in the bipartisan border deal that fell apart earlier this year. “The president will continue to fight for Dreamers, but only Congress can provide them permanent status and a pathway to citizenship,” White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden told reporters.

— Morgan Chalfant

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will speak at Speaker Mike Johnson’s donor retreat in Washington next week.

Playbook: A spokesman for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem acknowledged that an anecdote in her forthcoming book about her meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un while in Congress is not true. “We’ve been made aware that the publisher will be addressing conflated world leaders’ names in the book before it is released,” the spokesman said.

Axios: President Biden is moving a top official at the Department of Homeland Security, Blas Nuñez-Neto, to the White House to serve as a “new point guard on border issues.”

White House

• President Biden will give the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the highest civilian honor — to 19 people later today, including Michael Bloomberg, Katie Ledecky, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Jim Clyburn, Al Gore, John Kerry, Clarence Jones, and Phil Donahue. After the ceremony, he’ll leave the White House for his home in Wilmington, Del.
• Second gentleman Doug Emhoff called Jewish students from Columbia and Barnard University and Hillel leaders at Emory University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Hillels of Georgia on Thursday to discuss their experiences with antisemitism on their respective campuses, according to a White House official.
• Biden will be talking less about Ukraine now that the national security supplemental has passed. — Politico
• The White House defended Biden calling Japan and India “xenophobic” during a fundraiser, saying he was making a broader point about the US being a nation of immigrants. “Our allies and partners know very well how much this president respects them,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
• Biden has recruited a new senior adviser to handle the unprecedented levels of migration in the Americas. Marcela Escobari, who has spent much of her career on Latin America and international development, is now the point person on the issue for the National Security Council as immigration is a growing concern of voters heading towards November. — Axios

Congress

• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to join Speaker Mike Johnson’s letter inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress. — The Hill
• GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone may have been hacked.
• Leaders of the House select committee on China asked the FTC to investigate whether TikTok violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act when it attempted to get users to push back on legislation to force ByteDance to divest TikTok earlier this year with a campaign that sent push notifications to users.
• New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne was remembered at his funeral in Thursday as a humble, dedicated public servant and famously well-dressed. The Democrat died last week following a heart attack in early April.

Outside the Beltway

Arizona’s Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a bill repealing the state’s Civil War-era abortion ban.

Economy

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will deliver a speech at the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum later today where she’ll discuss the importance of democracy for a thriving economy and explicitly invoke the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. “Democracy isn’t just important in and of itself. I believe that democracy is critical to building and sustaining a strong economy,” Yellen will say, according to a copy of her prepared remarks. “Indeed, the argument made by authoritarians and their defenders that chipping away at democracy is a fair or even necessary trade for economic gains is deeply flawed. Undercutting democracy undercuts a foundation of sustainable and inclusive growth.”

Courts

A Justice Department probe into TD Bank’s internal control is focusing on how Chinese criminal groups and drug traffickers used the Canadian bank to launder money from fentanyl sales.

Polls

Forty-seven percent of Americans — a plurality — believe that colleges should ban pro-Palestinian protests on campus, a share that shrinks to 41% among 18-to-34 year olds, according to new polling from Morning Consult.

On the Trail

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t sound too bullish on the prospects of Republicans winning control of the open US Senate seat in Arizona. — Politico
• Former president Donald Trump promised to withhold federal money from being spent under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the Washington Post reported, which would violate the 1974 Impoundment Control Act that mandates the executive branch to abide by Congressional spending decisions. About $120 billion of the law is non-tax credit spending,
• Trump said he would accept the election results in Wisconsin “if everything’s honest.” — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• The Biden campaign placed a new seven-figure ad buy focused on abortion. — CBS
• Top Trump campaign aide Chris LaCivita downplayed the vice presidential contender rumor mill.
• South Dakota Gov. Krisi Noem’s political future appears to be headed for the same fate as her dog Cricket: dead in a gravel pit. Noem had largely been dismissed long ago as a possible Trump running mate, Politico says, citing six people close to the former president.
• Maryland Rep. David Trone has removed the phrase “training wheels” from his ad attacking his Black female Senate primary opponent after more than 650 Black women told him in a letter that the remarks were “not only disparaging and dismissive but also echoes tones of misogyny and racism.” — Axios

National Security

• Russian military personnel have entered an air base in Niger that is housing US troops, a senior US defense official says. The military junta ruling the West African nation last month ordered the US to withdraw its 1,000 troops. — Reuters
• The US is moving military assets in the Middle East to Qatar to avoid restrictions on launching airstrikes from its air base in the United Arab Emirates. The shift comes amid increasing tensions between the US and its Gulf allies that have allowed the American military to be based in their countries but are now concerned about being drawn into a regional conflict as the war in Gaza has spread. — WSJ

Foreign Policy

• Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified that China and Russia are working more closely on military exercises near Taiwan.
• The Pentagon for the first time acknowledged that an airstrike in Syria last year mistakenly killed a civilian. — CNN
• Turkey is stopping trade with Israel over the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Energy

Russia’s Gazprom reported its first net losses in a quarter century.

Media

• US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Thursday condemned Russia’s 400-day detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on the eve of World Press Freedom Day. She also highlighted the plight of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual US-Russian citizen who has been held by Russia since October, and American freelance journalist Austin Tice. He was kidnapped in Syria in 2012.
• Elon Musk says he will reinstate the X account of white supremacist livestreamer Nick Fuentas. “He will be reinstated, provided he doesn’t violate the law,” Musk said on X.

Big Read

While the country waits for Supreme Court decisions on abortion, guns, and presidential immunity, Defense Department employee Stuart Harlow is waiting to see if a missed email ends his 11-year fight to get $3,000 in pay and interest he claims was wrongfully held during budget cuts in 2013 that left him temporarily unemployed, The Wall Street Journal says. When the high court heard oral arguments about the missing six days of back pay in March, Justice Neil Gorsuch said, “Here we are in the Supreme Court of the United States over a $3,000 claim. I’m — I’m just wondering why the government’s making us do this.” The path to that point included a three-person federal board that was unable to make quorum for five years. There was a missed email to an abandoned account, and there is the question of what Congress meant by the phrase “pursuant to.”

Blindspot

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, curated with help from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: House Republicans called the NPR CEO to appear at a hearing next week to answer questions about allegations of bias.

What the Right isn’t reading: The IRS unveiled plans to significantly increase audits of wealthy taxpayers and large corporations.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

Reporters: Kadia Goba, Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Susan Wild is a Democratic congresswoman from Pennsylvania and a member of the newly-formed Dog Lovers Caucus.

Rep. Susan Wild’s dog, Zoey.

• A Huawei research evaluation reignites debates on US-China academic collaboration.
• Georgia’s “foreign influence” bill could jeopardize its Western trajectory.
• Amazon researchers propose ways to get rid of bad AI data.