Principals

☞ White House: Vice President Harris will give a speech in Florida on Sunday to mark what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. It’s part of a broader effort by the administration to spotlight abortion rights. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra will travel to Minnesota and Wisconsin, senior officials will meet with state legislators, and Biden will issue a proclamation and a statement, senior administration officials said.

☞ Chuck Schumer: The Senate majority leader has some new judicial nominations to move after Biden made his first picks of 2023.

☞ Mitch McConnell: The Senate’s top Republican expressed solidarity with Ukraine after its interior minister and several others were killed in a helicopter crash near Kyiv.

☞ Kevin McCarthy: The Speaker has found at least one Democrat willing to negotiate on the debt ceiling: Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. said in Davos that he has already talked to McCarthy about a possible compromise. He wants to hike the borrowing limit while creating special commissions on entitlements and overall spending.

☞ Hakeem Jeffries: The new House Democratic leader is on a fundraising swing through California.

Former President Trump’s campaign wrote a letter to Meta this week asking that his Facebook account be unblocked, NBC News first reported. Semafor obtained a copy of the letter, on which four leading House Republicans — including Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Oversight Chairman James Comer — were copied. Elon Musk allowed Trump back on Twitter in November, but he has yet to tweet.

The Treasury Department is expected to begin taking “extraordinary measures” today to stave off economic disaster, as the U.S. officially reaches its debt limit. It’s a dramatic term for accounting maneuvers the government will use to keep paying its bills until it actually runs out of cash. Extraordinary measures “are not a big deal, except as the starting gun for what could be about six months until there is a much more serious deadline,” economist Jason Furman told Semafor.

The Biden administration is preparing another military aid package for Ukraine but it’s unlikely to include tanks because of logistical challenges associated with supplying them, according to Politico. That will mean Germany, which has indicated it would wait for the U.S. to send tanks to Ukraine before it does, will hold off as well.

A new White House memo first obtained by Semafor urges Democrats to adopt a populist attack on the new Republican-controlled House, tying together several proposals Republicans have floated or voted on so far. The memo highlights cuts to IRS funding, calls to slice entitlements, and a bill backed by some conservatives that would replace income tax with a national sales tax.

— Morgan Chalfant and Shelby Talcott

Punchbowl News: Nancy Pelosi has been offering Hakeem Jeffries “counseling and guidance” as he steps into his new leadership role during regular meetings in his office.

Playbook: White House officials think the new rightwing members of the Oversight committee will be easy to criticize in the media, but Republicans who spoke to Politico are reminding Democrats’ that their excitement might not last because the GOP has subpoena power.

The Early 202: Reps. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla. and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa. are undertaking a new, bipartisan push for paid leave, with the announcement of a new task force next week.

In new memoir, Mike Pompeo says Trump told him to ‘shut the hell up’ about China

Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

THE SCOOP

Donald Trump told former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “shut the hell up for a while” about China at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in order to avoid angering the country’s leader, according to a memoir that Pompeo will publish next week.

In “Never Give An Inch,” Pompeo recounts a March 26 call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, one day after the secretary of state said that China had “repeatedly delayed” sharing information about the virus and engaged in a “disinformation campaign.”

According to Pompeo, who listened in to the call, Xi told Trump that his cabinet member was jeopardizing the “phase one” trade deal that the principals had just agreed to. Pompeo believed that Xi was trying to get Trump to fire him — “My Mike, that fucking guy hates you!” the president said after the call — and a few days later, in the Oval Office, Trump told Pompeo that he was “putting us all at risk” by angering Xi, in part because the United States still needed protective health equipment from China.

“Stop, for God’s sake!” said the president.

Pompeo writes that he “honored” Trump’s desire to stop criticizing China, but that he “spoke the truth” about the situation.

“We needed health equipment and were at the CCP’s mercy for it,” Pompeo writes. “I worked for the president, and would bide my time.”

SHELBY AND DAVE’S VIEW

We’ve only reviewed part of Pompeo’s memoir, but his recollection of the pandemic’s early days hints at how he could criticize Trump if he joins him in the 2024 presidential race.

Trump, who said today that he would ban Chinese nationals from buying American farmland or energy companies, has criticized Xi and the CCP repeatedly since leaving office. He spent much of his term in a trade war with China, culminating in the “phase one” agreement, which expired thirteen months ago, and has accused President Joe Biden of being personally compromised by Chinese money, signaling how he’d use the issue in a 2024 campaign.

Pompeo’s story goes after Trump’s credibility on that issue, reminding readers that the former president favored a friendlier approach to Xi than he did. He even quotes a Jan. 2020 tweet that Democrats have thrown back at Trump, thanking China for its effort to “contain the coronavirus” and ending with “on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”

“I was not happy that the president had tweeted that,” Pompeo writes.

Pompeo might have difficulty landing the punch, however, in part because Trump’s tough-on-China image is so thoroughly baked in among voters. Critics are also likely to turn the argument back onto Pompeo, and question why he agreed to hold his criticisms on an issue he felt so strongly about.

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

A former Trump official familiar with the situation suggested Pompeo’s account may be somewhat exaggerated. They said that the president listened to Pompeo’s views on China, and moved in his direction during the pandemic, but that it was a stretch to say that Xi was trying to get him fired.′

Why did Hakeem Jeffries jump into the brutal fight over New York’s top court?

Thanks to a revolt by fellow Democrats, Kathy Hochul became the first governor in New York history to have her pick for the state’s top court shot down by lawmakers Wednesday afternoon.

It was a rejoinder not just to the newly re-elected governor, but also to members of New York’s congressional delegation who had lined up to back Hochul’s controversial choice, Justice Hector LaSalle. That includes House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who made a failed last-minute push to help along the floundering nomination.

The month-long fight over LaSalle has been a political whirlpool, sucking national figures into what’s normally a quiet, state-level nomination. An experienced jurist who would have been the first Hispanic chief of New York State’s Court of Appeals, his nomination was nonetheless greeted with anger by many within the party, from powerful union leaders to left-wing activists, who worried that his track record on organized labor, abortion, and criminal justice made him too conservative.

“We deserve so much better,” progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an email to supporters.

The Democratic reaction was also fueled by anger over New York’s recent battle over redistricting. Last year, the court’s conservative majority struck down the state’s new Democratic gerrymander and ordered the map redrawn by a nonpartisan special master — a decision that helped swing the U.S. House of Representatives to Republicans. Many worried that Hochul was sacrificing the next redistricting fight by not appointing a reliable liberal to the court.

Still, LaSalle had plenty of backing from New York’s party establishment, including from prominent Hispanic lawmakers and U.S. House members. With his nomination on the rocks, Hochul appeared at a rally Saturday flanked by Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Adriano Espaillat, as well as Jeffries. The minority leader called LaSalle “highly qualified” to serve, and called for him to get an up or down vote from the full state Senate, where Republican support might have pushed him over the line.

The plea went nowhere: The state’s Senate’s Judiciary Committee voted 10-9 to kill his nomination Wednesday, with only two Democrats in favor. Hochul is reportedly considering bringing a lawsuit to try and force a full Senate vote as her next move.

Why did Jeffries intervene? Some have theorized that he saw it as a chance to punch at progressives he’s clashed with in the past. But experienced New York political hands who spoke to Semafor said it was more likely that he was simply an act of loyalty to longtime allies in the Hispanic caucus like Velázquez, who were all-in on LaSalle. “I view Hakeem as someone who has been very supportive of priorities important to his NY congressional colleagues,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist in New York. Not that it made much difference.

One Good Text ...with Tom Bonier

Stories that are being shared less widely across left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

WHAT THE LEFT ISN’T READING: The Education Department is investigating a Texas school district for allegedly removing books that feature LGBTQ characters.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: Trump mistook a photo of his rape accuser E. Jean Carroll for one of his ex-wife during a deposition last fall, according to new court filings.

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— Steve Clemons