Principals

1. No pre-election House disaster relief vote
2. Inflation data
3. Biden, Netanyahu speak
4. Dems backing Israel
5. Harris, Trump qualities
6. Gallego, Lake debate
7. Harris and guns

PDB: Russian casualties climb in Ukraine war

Three million without power as Milton slams Florida … Track the hurricane’s path … Storm destroys roof of Tampa Bay Rays stadium

Mike Johnson won’t reconvene House for disaster relief vote

As Hurricane Milton batters Florida, Speaker Mike Johnson isn’t planning on reconvening the House before the elections despite calls for an emergency disaster relief vote. Johnson previously addressed calls for a vote for additional FEMA funding, but now faces more pressure after the Small Business Administration said less than $100 million remains in federal disaster loans money. Johnson isn’t budging. “The SBA has plenty of money right now to serve the immediate needs,” Johnson told reporters in Asheville, North Carolina on Wednesday. “When Congress returns to session right after the election, that’ll be one of the first agenda items that we have to address.” Meanwhile, there’s a steady drumbeat of Democrats demanding an immediate vote, although not all members from the devastated areas signed on. Rep. Kathy Castor, who represents parts of Tampa which is in the path of Hurricane Milton, told Semafor, “There is no question that Congress will need to pass supplemental funding when we come back into session and to ensure those resources are used to rebuild in a smart, resilient way.”

— Kadia Goba

The Fed’s next job

The latest consumer price index report out later this morning is expected to show inflation continuing to ease in September. Meanwhile, new Fed minutes from the mid-September meeting showed that some officials pushed back on the decision to cut interest rates by a half point, preferring a quarter-point cut instead — though in the end, only one official dissented. Last month’s rate cut marked the end of the most dramatic monetary medicine in recent memory, which appears to have worked with no recessionary side effects: Unemployment is low at 4.1%, inflation is near the Fed’s target of 2%, and the economy is growing around 3% a year. “Now we’re in a second part of the job, which is trying to freeze the economy where it is right now,” Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Fed, tells Semafor’s Liz Hoffman. “The challenge is, can we engineer that as a steady state, or are we going to crash through?”

US, Israel tensions mount

President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held their first phone call in months as tensions simmer between the US and Israel over the unfolding Middle East crisis. The phone call, which Vice President Harris joined, lasted 30 minutes and was “direct” and “productive,” the White House said. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who Netanyahu forced to postpone a planned trip to Washington, vowed that Israel’s response to the recent Iranian attack would be “lethal, precise and especially surprising.” The White House is worried about further escalation, and specifically the possibility that Israel could retaliate by striking Iranian oil sites. Biden and Netanyahu hadn’t talked since late August, but the Israeli leader did speak to Donald Trump last week. The former president “congratulated him on the intense and determined operations that Israel carried out against Hezbollah,” per Netanyahu’s office.

Dems in battleground PA back Biden’s Israel moves

Two battleground Democrats said in interviews on Wednesday that they are comfortable with Israel defending itself and making its own national security decisions, Semafor’s Burgess Everett reports from Pittsburgh. On a day in which Israel struck at Lebanon and continued its campaign in Gaza against Hamas, both Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Chris Deluzio said that while they want restraint, they also understand Israel can’t just sit back. “They’ve got to be able to make their own national security determinations,” Casey said, while Deluzio said it’s “not realistic to ask the Israelis to take no action” in the face of a multifront conflict in the Middle East. That’s a good sign for President Biden’s Democratic coalition, although the internal discord on Israel isn’t over. Casey said he was “outraged” at Rep. Summer Lee’s statement on Oct. 7 which didn’t mention Hamas.

Voters: Harris is honest, Trump is strong

Kamala Harris is viewed by more voters as likable and honest and trustworthy, while Donald Trump is viewed by more as a strong and decisive leader and someone who can get things done, according to a Gallup survey conducted after the September presidential debate. Whereas Trump comes off as a strong leader to more voters, a larger percentage say that Harris possesses “the personality and leadership qualities a president should have.” The survey also showed that the former president doesn’t share President Biden’s age problem: only 37% say 78-year-old Trump is too old to be president, compared with two-thirds who said the same of Biden in June. And voters are more likely to say they agree with Harris on the issues they care about, and that she has presidential leadership qualities, than they are to say the same of Biden.

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Gallego and Lake clash in Arizona debate

Senate hopefuls Ruben Gallego and Kari Lake faced off on Wednesday, trading charges of incompetence, dishonesty, and convenient political evolution. “You’ve been to Mar-a-Lago more than you’ve been to the border,” Democratic Rep. Gallego told Lake, and attacked her initial reaction to the Dobbs decision on abortion. “She said she was thrilled when Roe was overturned.” Lake has since shifted her position, opposing any new federal abortion limits. She asked the audience to “think about how many lives could have been saved” if the money from Gallego’s multiple TV ads on the subject had gone to women instead, accused him of an “extreme makeover,” blamed his votes for everything from overdose deaths to sex trafficking, and made reference to his estranged father’s drug arrest. Gallego noted that Lake hadn’t acknowledged she lost the 2022 race for the governor. “The weaker you are, the louder you are,” Gallego told reporters afterwards.

— David Weigel

The politics of Kamala Harris’ Glock

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want you to know they’re gun owners even as they advocate for more restrictions on firearms, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott reports. The dynamic underscores how the politics on guns are shifting in both parties. Harris, for instance, has reversed her past support for mandatory buybacks of assault rifles. But gun control advocates still see the Democratic candidate as a solid partner. “We understand that folks’ positions and nuances of those positions will shift slightly over time,” said the executive director of gun safety group Giffords. And while Trump has been more muted in advocating for the Second Amendment this campaign, the National Rifle Association still touts him as a “strong supporter.” Voters, meanwhile, are divided: Gallup recently found that 49% of registered voters believe Harris would better address gun policy, the same as for Trump.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., is in danger of losing his seat to his Democratic challenger, but that isn’t causing him to temper his conservative views to reach out to moderates. “When you fear God, you have nothing else to fear,” he said. “I don’t answer to the Republican Party. I answer to the people of this district.”

Playbook: Donald Trump is making an all-out push to win over young male voters.

WaPo: Meanwhile, Trump’s allies are concerned about him alienating female voters.

Axios: Democrats are growing worried about Kamala Harris slipping in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

White House

• President Biden said Donald Trump sending COVID-19 tests to Russia when he was president was “un-American.”
• Vice President Harris is participating in a Univision Town Hall in Las Vegas today before heading to Arizona for a campaign event.

Congress

• Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., implored the Justice Department to investigate four large operators of youth residential treatment facilities after a Senate probe uncovered evidence of “rampant abuse, neglect and substandard care.” — NBC
• Tim Johnson, a former Democratic US senator from South Dakota, died at the age of 77.

Economy

• Germany reversed its growth forecast and now expects its economy to contract for the second year in a row.

Business

• Bank of America is losing business over an allegation that employees shared nonpublic information with investors before a stock sale in India. — WSJ

Courts

• Toronto-Dominion Bank is expected to pay penalties of $3 billion and accept restrictions on its growth in the US as part of a settlement with regulators over failures of its anti-money laundering measures. — WSJ

Polls

• Majorities of American adults across six swing states support the US offering a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants living in the US for years who have not committed a crime, according to a new survey from the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. A quarter to a third of voters in those same states prefer mass deportation.
• Kamala Harris lost ground to Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, according to new polling from Quinnipiac University.
• Most Taiwanese believe China is unlikely to invade the island in the next five years, according to a poll from a military think tank. — Reuters

On the Trail

• Donald Trump is addressing the Detroit Economic Club today.
• Kamala Harris’ fundraising surpassed $1 billion last month. — NBC
• Trump rejected a debate rematch with Harris on Fox News later this month.

Foreign Policy

• Russia has suffered more than 600,000 casualties in Ukraine and September represented its deadliest month in the conflict to date, according to a senior defense official.
• EU countries approved a plan to provide Ukraine with a loan worth up to 35 billion euros. — FT

Media

• Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said threats by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to criminally prosecute televisions stations in the state for airing an ad featuring a brain cancer survivor who backs a ballot measure to broaden abortion access in Florida were “dangerous,” adding, “The right of broadcasters to speak freely is rooted in the First Amendment.”

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: The office of Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., was vandalized a second time by pro-Palestinian protesters.

What the Right isn’t reading: A CDC survey found that more than 3% of US high school students identified as transgender in 2023.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Elana Schor, Morgan Chalfant

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

Nicole Malliotakis is a Republican Congresswoman from New York.

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