Principals

1. Biden border moves
2. Matt Schlapp talks CPAC
3. Haley: Embryos are ‘babies’
4. Congressional delegation in Taiwan
5. Impeachment inquiry in trouble
6. Rising confirmation delays

PDB: Nevada GOP Senate candidate’s wife opens up about past abortion

Zelenskyy speaks to Fox News … China sending pandas to San Diego Zoo … Politico: Biden backs Rutte for NATO chief

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Biden eyes executive actions on the border

With talks in Congress dead, President Biden is weighing whether to clamp down on the Southern border using executive actions. One idea under consideration would bar migrants who enter the country illegally from applying for asylum, according to CNN and the New York Times, and would snap into place when crossings pass 5,000 a day, mimicking a key piece of the Senate’s border proposal. The administration would rely on a piece of the immigration code known as 212(F), which lets the president bar the entry of foreigners deemed “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” A similar move from Donald Trump was blocked by federal courts in 2018, but House Speaker Mike Johnson has urged Biden to use that legal authority to “regain operational control of the border.” Biden may try to borrow a separate idea from the collapsed border deal, according to NBC, by raising the “credible fear standard” migrants need to meet when they are initially screened for asylum, and more quickly deporting those who can’t. White House officials are saying no decisions have been made yet, but the reports are setting off alarms among left-leaning Democrats who were already wary of the border bill. “Democrats cannot continue to take pages out of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s playbook — we need to lead with dignity and humanity,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, posted on X.

Matt Schlapp breaks down CPAC 2024

“Where globalism goes to die” is the slogan for this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which kicks off this morning. Chairman Matt Schlapp talked to Semafor’s David Weigel about what to watch at this year’s edition. In addition to Donald Trump’s closing speech on Saturday, the event will feature several potential running mates he’s floated, including Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and ex-Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. “I kind of view it as our version of ‘The Apprentice,’” Schlapp said. The event also has an international feel this year, with appearances by newly elected Argentinian President Javier Milei, former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss, and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, among others. The conference has been in turmoil in recent years, in part due to Schlapp’s own troubles — he faces a lawsuit from a GOP staffer who accused him of sexual misconduct — but he told Semafor it hasn’t dragged down the event. There does seem to be more of a siege mentality, however, as reporters from places like the Washington Post, MSNBC, and HuffPost are now banned. “If media outlets spend almost 100% of their time going prominent conservatives, constantly trying to feed anti-Trump rhetoric, then they’re not journalists,” Schlapp said.

Alabama’s embryo ruling spills into presidential race

Nikki Haley defended the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision recognizing frozen embryos as children, which has effectively blocked IVF treatments across the state. “Embryos, to me, are babies,” Haley told NBC News. “When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that.” The Biden administration condemned the court decision and highlighted stories of women cut off in the middle of fertility treatment. “This decision is outrageous — and it is already robbing women of the freedom to decide when and how to build a family,” Vice President Harris said on X. It’s one of many policy fights post-Dobbs that are likely to figure prominently in the general election — and one on which Donald Trump has so far managed to avoid taking a clear position. His campaign did not respond to a request from Semafor to clarify his stance.

China committee chair Gallagher visits Taiwan

The leaders of the House select committee on China are in Taiwan, seeking to demonstrate bipartisan support for the island ahead of President-elect Lai Ching-te’s May inauguration. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis. met with President-elect Lai Ching-te, outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen, and Vice President-elect Hsiao Bi-khim. Gallagher told a news conference he was “confident that support for Taiwan will continue regardless” of the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. “The people of Taiwan should be confident that America stands with them even as we see through a very intense political season domestically,” he said. The five-member delegation traveled to Taiwan at a time when lawmakers are growing increasingly wary of China, which claims the self-governed island as its own, possibly invading in coming years. The timing is not insignificant: Tensions are flaring after the Chinese coast guard boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat. The presence of U.S. lawmakers on the island was not welcomed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, which said it “always firmly opposes any form of official exchange between the United States and the Taiwan authorities and firmly opposes any interference in Taiwan affairs by any means or under any pretext.”

— Morgan Chalfant

The GOP’s impeachment quest loses its legs

Republicans continued through the motions of their impeachment inquiry into President Biden on Wednesday, despite the collapse of their most sensational piece of evidence. In the morning, House investigators met for a closed-door interview with the president’s brother, James Biden, who told them that Joe “never had any involvement” in his family’s business activities. The hours-long sit-down was mostly overshadowed, however, by last week’s bombshell indictment of Alexander Smirnov, the longtime FBI informant who prosecutors say lied when he claimed that Joe and Hunter Biden received millions in bribes from the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan had once called those allegations the “heart” of the GOP’s case, and said the FBI form documenting them was the “most corroborating evidence we have.” Jordan awkwardly tried to save face yesterday, telling CNN’s Manu Raju that the unraveling of Smirnov’s story didn’t change the “fundamental facts” about the Bidens’ dealings. But the GOP’s point man on the investigation, Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, has already acknowledged that his party may not ultimately call a vote on impeachment articles. Democrats, meanwhile, are declaring victory. “It feels to me as if everyone knows this impeachment investigation is over,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the party’s top member on the oversight panel, told reporters Wednesday.

The grueling process of confirming nominees

How much time does it take to staff the executive branch these days? A lot, according to a new report from the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service shared first with Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant. At the Pentagon, it took 505 days on average for the Senate to confirm President Biden’s nominees for six undersecretary posts, one of the bottom layers of political jobs. Valerie Boyd, who leads the partnership’s Center for Presidential Transition, wants to see the number of political appointees requiring confirmation chopped down. “You’re discouraging talented people from taking roles,” she said. Congress last acted to reduce confirmable positions in 2012 under President Obama — but there’s plenty of reason to doubt senators will give up their power now. “The confirmation process has become a killing field for members on both sides who are anxious to take as many hostages as possible in order to get whatever they want out of the administration,” said Jim Manley, the former communications director for the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: House and Senate negotiators are struggling to come to an agreement on government funding as House Republicans demand provisions concerning abortion, guns and earmarks, and aides believe a short-term funding bill will be needed to avert a government shutdown in March. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said his staff is “having intense discussions with Speaker [Mike] Johnson” and has “made it clear how bad a shutdown would hurt America.”

Playbook: Former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway presented Republicans with polling showing that 86% of voters support IVF, even those who identify as “pro-life” or evangelicals, during a December Capitol Hill briefing. She discouraged Republicans from limits on IVF and encouraged them to support the treatment.

The Early 202: Despite having little experience raising money before October, Johnson brought in $10.6 million in the last three months of 2023 — not quite as much as former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, but “enough to reassure many Republicans that he can do the job.”

Axios: President Biden and Donald Trump are both trying to court younger voters.

White House

• President Biden is supporting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to serve as the next NATO secretary general. — Politico
• At a fundraiser last night, Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “crazy SOB” but said the real “existential threat” to humanity is climate change. The president also had harsh criticism for the Republican Party, saying the GOP has lost its “American moral center.”
• Biden announced five more judicial nominees (Democrats are struggling to keep up with Donald Trump’s pace of confirmations).
• Elon Musk quietly visited the White House to discuss artificial intelligence last September, but he and Biden didn’t meet. — NBC
• The administration pledged Wednesday to donate $100 million to women’s health research. “We will build a health care system that puts women and their lived experiences at its center,” first lady Jill Biden said. “Where no woman or girl has to hear that ‘it’s all in your head,’ or ‘it’s just stress.’”
• “Every young person deserves to feel safe and supported at school,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre posted on X in the wake of reports that a nonbinary Oklahoma teenager died after being assaulted in a school bathroom.
• Biden’s dog Commander bit Secret Service agents in at least 24 incidents before he was moved out of the White House. — CNN

Congress

• The House Freedom Caucus sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson advocating for a yearlong continuing resolution to fund the government (which would result in across-the-board spending cuts under the terms of last year’s debt ceiling deal) if they can’t secure “significant policy changes” through the appropriations process.
• Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s, D-N.J. resolution that would protect Johnson from the motion to vacate hinges on him moving a package including aid to Ukraine and Israel. — The Hill
• The Senate HELP Committee is planning to vote again on Julie Su’s nomination to be Labor Secretary next Tuesday.
• In an opinion piece for the Northern Kentucky Tribune, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell cited former President Ronald Reagan in his pitch for the Senate’s foreign aid bill. “Today, much like in the Washington President Reagan faced, it has become popular in some circles to bet against American resolve and bemoan the global responsibilities that come with global power,” he wrote. “Loud voices peddle the short-sighted and ahistorical notion that America’s interests do not extend beyond the water’s edge, and that abandoning our friends is the price of restoring order at home.”
• James Biden told congressional investigators behind closed doors that President Biden was not involved and did not have any “direct or indirect financial interest” in his family’s business pursuits.

Courts

Federal prosecutors in New York charged a Japanese Yakuza leader with conspiring to smuggle nuclear material out of Myanmar.

Polls

President Biden is beating Donald Trump 49% to 45% in a hypothetical general election matchup, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll of registered voters nationally. While 67% say he’s too old to effectively serve, 57% say the same of Trump as well. Fifty-one percent say Biden cares about average Americans, versus 42% who say the same of Trump.

On the Trail

• The Teamsters union’s political committee donated $45,000 to the Republican National Committee — the maximum — the same day the union’s leadership met with Donald Trump. It’s a big departure for a group that normally backs Democrats, though the union did also give $30,000 to the Democratic National Committee. — WaPo
• Kari Lake reached out to Meghan McCain on X to “discuss how we can work together to strengthen our state” after previously telling supporters of her late father, John McCain, to “get the hell out” days before the 2022 election. Meghan replied, “NO PEACE, BITCH!”
• In other intra-GOP feuds, NBC News reported that Ron DeSantis privately expressed concern Trump will play “identity politics” with his VP pick and predicted he would pick “yes men” to staff his White House if he wins. Trump’s top campaign aide Chris LaCivita responded, “Chicken fingers and pudding cups is what you will be remembered for you sad little man.”
• Jing Qu, chief of staff to President Biden’s senior adviser Mike Donilon, is moving from the White House to the Biden reelection campaign to work on paid media. — The Hill
• Former Vice President Mike Pence is launching a new multimillion dollar effort at his group Advancing American Freedom to drive home the message that conservatism “is bigger than any one moment, election, or person.” — RealClearPolitics

National Security

• The Pentagon is planning to cut “F-35 fighter jets, an attack submarine, Army helicopters and drones and Air Force overhead” in order to stay under spending caps agreed to with congressional leaders last year. — Politico
• Leaked documents tied to Chinese state hackers offer a very rare window into Beijing’s expansive hacking operations targeting foreign governments and companies. The files, which were posted to GitHub last week, show targets within some 20 foreign governments and territories, including India, the U.K, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan. — WaPo

Transportation

In perhaps the least surprising news of the week, Boeing announced it was replacing the head of its beleaguered 737 Max program.

Foreign Policy

• Iran sent “hundreds” of ballistic missiles to Russia. — Reuters
• Ukraine is close to a deal with the International Monetary Fund to unlock the next $900 million disbursement from its multibillion dollar loan through the global lender amid uncertainty over future U.S. assistance. — Bloomberg
• Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that he disagreed with Lula’s recent comments comparing Israel’s conduct in Gaza to Nazi genocide during World War II.

Media

Fox News will air an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conducted by anchor Bret Baier this evening. The interview was taped “less than a mile and a half from Russian positions,” according to the network.

Big Read

Amy Brown, the wife of Republican Nevada Senate candidate Sam Brown, opened up in an emotional interview with NBC News for the first time about her past experience having an abortion at the age of 24. “I just felt this immense amount of pressure that I had to do it. I felt all alone. I felt really overwhelmed, and I also felt a lot of shame,” she said. Her husband also revealed that he opposes a federal ban on abortion and that the issue should be left up to states. He backed Nevada’s law allowing abortion up to 24 weeks.

Blindspot

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem said she was sending the state National Guard to the U.S. southern border, calling it a “warzone.”

What the Right isn’t reading: Donald Trump owes an added $87,502 in interest every day until he pays the fine ordered by Judge Arthur Engoron in his civil fraud case, according to ABC News.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

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

February 29 | Washington D.C.

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Jared Huffman is a Democratic congressman from California.