Principals

1. Biden to India

2. Pollsters on Biden

3. McConnell health update

4. Alaskan drilling ban

5. Fetterman sounds off

6. Sens. play down shutdown

PDB: Trump’s “unlikely” voter advantage.

Hunter facing gun charges… G20 preparations … NYT: Abortions up nationwide

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Modi’s moment

President Biden is planning to take off for the gathering of the world’s largest economies in New Delhi later this afternoon. The Group of 20 summit will give Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi an opportunity to assert himself on the world stage. Modi’s government has spent tens of millions of dollars cleaning up New Delhi — including paving over shantytowns — and is prepared to go to particularly extreme lengths to keep monkeys away from the gathering. Two key questions: Whether the G20 can say anything meaningful in its communique about Russia’s war in Ukraine, and whether the group can address the divisions between the global north and south on tackling global warming.

India is “at a pivot point,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a Biden ally and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told Semafor.

China’s Xi Jinping plans to skip the gathering, as well as a possible meeting with President Biden. Coons said he hoped officials would discuss pitfalls to expanding the BRICS bloc, which India objected to out of concern the group would become too pro-China.

“It’s my hope that at the G20 there will be some pointed conversations about why that’s not necessarily in the best interest of the Global South and how it is that other G20 countries can and should take engagement with the Global South in a more positive direction,” he said.

— Morgan Chalfant

Read on for more details about the summit and Biden’s plans.

You need to calm down, Democratic pollsters say

President Biden has a string of positive headlines on jobs and inflation. Donald Trump has 91 indictments. And yet national polls are tied, producing a wave of near-panic among Democrats — and an effort by Democratic pollsters to calm their party down, Benjy Sarlin writes. They’re making three main arguments:

• There is no campaign — yet. Every time you see a poll showing Biden’s approval in the 30s, mentally add an asterisk that says “before Democrats spend $1 billion.” They’ll put that money into a message that won big in the midterms in swing state races where Democrats campaigned on issues like abortion, drug prices, and entitlements, all while painting their opponents as “MAGA extremists.”
• Known unknowns. Inflation appears to be getting better. Trump’s legal troubles are getting worse. “The economy and the indictments have not played out,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told Semafor.
• The Trump factor. People don’t tend to change their minds about Donald Trump much. This is often considered a strength — see, for example, every poll that shows him unshaken after an indictment — but his favorables are as low as ever and he’s led Republicans to three straight disappointing elections. Biden’s unpopular too, but tends to draw less passionate responses, which may give him a little room for a reset. “Whereas Trump is basically at his ceiling, Biden is close to his floor,” Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher said on X. “That’s the key difference.”

Are you persuaded? Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini isn’t. “Biden’s [argument] relies more on technocratic accomplishments,” Ruffini said. “But that risks being out of touch if the accomplishments are not things people can see and feel.”

Mitch is sticking around

“I’m going to finish my term as leader and I’m going to finish my Senate term,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted to an especially large crowd of reporters on Wednesday. He also briefed Republicans on his recent health scares at their weekly closed-door luncheon, where — despite some very public concern from fellow senators — he received no follow-up questions, the New York Times reported. McConnell told his colleagues that his two recent freeze-ups, both at press conferences, were the only two such incidents he’s experienced.

Biden bans drilling

The Biden administration slapped a big “no drilling” sign across much of Alaska Wednesday, announcing it would prohibit oil and gas exploration on 13 million acres of Alaskan wilderness located in the National Petroleum Reserve, and void all of the oil leases in the state’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Consider it the latest step in the president’s continuing tightrope walk on fossil fuel production. The White House had previously infuriated environmental groups by approving Alaska’s Willow drilling project, and agreeing to new oil lease requirements as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. While this latest move may ease some of those complaints, it drew fire from Alaska’s Democratic congresswoman, Mary Peltola, who said she was “deeply frustrated by the reversal of these leases in ANWR,” and would continue to advocate for “Alaska’s ability to explore and develop our natural resources.”

Fetterman calls impeachment push “a big circle jerk”

Impeaching Joe Biden would be “a big circle jerk on the fringe right” and a political “loser” for Republicans, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. told reporters on Wednesday. “Sometimes you just gotta call their bullshit,” he added.

The Pennsylvania Democrat, who has been increasing his media accessibility since returning to Congress from depression treatment earlier this year, covered a range of newsy topics while holding court in his office, and sporting a recent goatee. A few highlights:

• He says he’ll be pushing to keep funding for LGBTQ community centers that House Republicans stripped from the budget, calling the GOP’s move “a shitty thing to do.”
• “I think the nation is ready to put COVID behind,” he said, when asked whether Democrats should have fought harder to preserve expiring pandemic-era safety net programs.
• He also had advice for how Biden can better sell his economic message in the Keystone state: Visit somewhere other than Philly, a favorite speaking destination for the president. “You got the vote in Philadelphia,” he said. “You got to go to Scranton. You gotta go to York.”

— Joseph Zeballos-Roig

Florida Senators: No shutdowns, please

With Capitol Hill’s budget fight revving back up, Florida’s GOP senators are sounding cold on the idea of a government shutdown that could potentially interrupt their state’s recovery from Hurricane Idalia.

“It will affect every operation, every element of government,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. told Semafor, when asked if he was worried that a shutdown would hamper the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s efforts in his state. “So I hope we don’t have a shutdown.”

Asked the same question, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. told Semafor that “the government should never be shut down.” Scott is currently pushing for an immediate Senate vote on disaster aid.

Scott and Rubio weren’t the only Republicans on Wednesday to play down the idea of flicking off the government’s lights, either. “I’m not a shutdown guy,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. told reporters.

— Joseph Zeballos-Roig

To read the rest of this story including the View From Missouri, click here.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl: House Republican leaders are considering leaving Ukraine funding out of their short-term stopgap funding bill and instead including billions of dollars of disaster relief, which would put the House at odds with Senate leaders and the Biden administration.

The Early 202: Over on the Senate side, meanwhile, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is facing a “critical moment” as he works to unify his caucus behind additional Ukraine funding while also reassuring them about his health.

Playbook: Will Nancy Pelosi run for another term? In an in-depth interview, she and her husband Paul Pelosi offer potential hints and arguments for both retiring and staying in Congress.

Axios: McConnell is trying to tamp down concerns about his health “by taking the very on-brand stance that there’s nothing to see here.”

White House

The Biden administration sent a new package of security assistance to Ukraine, including depleted uranium munitions to arm Kyiv’s coming Abrams tanks. The U.S. says the shells aren’t a radioactive threat, though some groups have warned they pose cancer and other health risks.

Congress

The Senate confirmed Philip Jefferson as vice chair of the Federal Reserve and Lisa Cook to a full 14-year term at the central bank. (Minor drama: Joe Manchin left his “yea” vote for Cook a mystery until the last minute).

Trump critic Becky Edwards conceded in the GOP primary for Utah’s 2nd District, as Trump supporter Celeste Maloy took a narrow lead in the vote count.

Outside the Beltway

A federal judge in Texas ruled in favor of the Biden administration and ordered the state to move floating barriers used to deter migrants from the middle of the Rio Grande.

Courts

Federal prosecutors said they would indict Hunter Biden this month on gun charges that would have been resolved under a now-defunct plea agreement.

Georgia prosecutors estimated that a trial involving Donald Trump and other defendants in Fulton County on racketeering charges would take four months and involve 150 witnesses. A judge ruled that two defendants who sought a speedy trial, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, would be tried at the end of October.

Relatedly: Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he looked forward to testifying in his own defense at a potential trial. (More below on whether that would be a good idea.)

A federal judge ruled that Trump is liable for defaming E. Jean Carroll when he denied her rape allegations in 2019.

Polls

First, the good news for Donald Trump: A new USA Today/Suffolk poll shows him up by double digits over Joe Biden. Then, the bad news: It’s a poll of unlikely voters, who pollsters typically screen out because they’re not registered or show no intention to vote. Finally, the really bad news: Some 13% of them cite “rigged election” claims similar to Trump’s to explain why they plan to skip the election — suggesting his fraud talk may hurt his turnout.

2024

Mike Pence warned that Donald Trump’s brand of populism would be a “road to ruin” for the GOP in a speech Wednesday and urged Republicans to once again embrace Reaganite conservatism. The address attracted some of the most media attention of Pence’s campaign, but given his low poll numbers and spotty crowds, voters so far seem less concerned about pre-Trump purity tests.

Big Read

You gotta be kidding Xi: Chinese leader Xi Jinping was recently chewed out over the nation’s recent struggles by a council of retired Communist Party luminaries. At least, that’s the claim in a widely talked about article in Nikkei. But the piece has received a skeptical reaction from some experts. “There seems to be a lot of wish casting in such stories, which often circulate among more liberally minded figures willing to talk to foreign reporters,” Foreign Policy’s James Palmer wrote.

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: A climate scientist said he left out key information from a paper about the link between climate change and wildfires in order to get it published.

What the Right isn’t reading: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order directing the state to study the risks of using generative AI.

Ty Cobb is a lawyer who served as a counsel in the White House during Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. He is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.