Principals

1. Exclusive Biden polling
2. Republicans unveil border blueprint
3. Trump on the stand
4. Bill recognizes Frederick Douglass
5. It’s Election Day
6. Netanyahu open to ‘little pauses’

PDB: How Trump has helped Adam Schiff build a national profile

House Republicans meet on gov’t. funding … Dueling censures in the House … Israeli military nears center of Gaza City

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Reid Hoffman-backed group: Biden’s ‘jobs’ message is wrong

Blueprint, a new Democratic strategy group funded by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, is warning that President Biden’s focus on “jobs” is getting him nowhere. Semafor’s David Weigel reports on new polling from the group, conducted by YouGov, that found that nearly two-thirds of voters said reducing prices was their top concern, versus only 7% who said “jobs.” At the same time, 43% identified Biden as most focused on jobs while 49% identified Donald Trump as most focused on reducing prices. But convincing voters Biden is making progress there could also be difficult: More than half of voters said they had heard that inflation had dropped from 8.3% to 3.2% since 2021 — but only 38% said they believed it.

Senate Republicans demand an asylum overhaul

Senate Republicans on Monday unveiled the list of border security proposals they’re demanding in exchange for another round of Ukraine aid, kicking off what’s likely to be a grueling negotiation. Borrowing heavily from the House GOP’s signature border bill, known as H.R. 2, the blueprint would amount to a massive overhaul of the U.S. asylum system, Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig writes. “This is not trying to be out there on the edge. Each one of the elements of it is a problem that we currently have on the border,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told reporters Monday. While some Democrats have dismissed the proposal already — Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif. said it would “eviscerate” the asylum process — there’s enough early interest in talks to suggest a deal is possible. “There aren’t many encouraging parts to it, but there are some,” Sen. Dick Durbin, the chamber’s no. 2 Democrat, said of the proposal. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. said it was “a perfect time for us to make real strides” on the border. What to look for as discussions get going: While Republicans have made it clear that they want fundamental changes to asylum policy, Democrats will likely push for a bill that focuses instead on deploying additional resources to process migrants more quickly.

Trump’s day in court marked by chaos

Former President Donald Trump’s turn on the witness stand in New York City on Monday was, by all accounts, complete chaos. “Donald J. Trump took to the witness stand Monday morning and within minutes turned his day in court into a live Truth Social post,” read a Bloomberg News lede. Trump was “belligerent and brash, unrepentant and verbose,” wrote the New York Times, as he assailed New York Attorney General Letitia James, her case, and Judge Arthur Engoron, fashioning himself the victim of an unfair trial. “He called me a fraud, and he doesn’t know anything about me!” Trump said from the stand, singling out the judge for already finding him and his co-defendants liable for fraud. Engoron grew frustrated at Trump for not answering questions directly, at one point telling his attorneys: “If you can’t control him, I will.” Trump acknowledged “on occasion” making “some suggestions” to financial statements at issue in the trial but insisted that the statements he submitted to lenders underestimated his wealth. He also downplayed the financial statements altogether, saying they came with “worthless” disclaimers (a defense the judge has already dismissed).

Bill would rename House press gallery for Frederick Douglass

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla. is introducing a bipartisan proposal to rename the House Press Gallery after Frederick Douglass, the formerly enslaved Black man turned abolitionist leader who also covered Congress as a journalist. Douglass worked out of the press gallery, where his portrait currently hangs, during the early 1870s with the New National Era, a weekly newspaper, where he served as an editor and publisher. Reps. André Carson, D-Ind., John James, R-Mich., Burgess Owens, R-Utah and Wesley Hunt, R-Texas are co-sponsoring the legislation to be introduced later today. “Frederick Douglass famously said knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom,” Donalds told Semafor in a statement. “He employed the transmission of information to empower our nation to uphold its solemn creed that all men were created equal and to end the horrors of slavery. By renaming the U.S. House of Representatives Press Gallery after him, this hallowed body will pay due respect to a man who devoted his life to bettering America through his righteous, fearless, and intrepid fight to end slavery.”

— Kadia Goba

What to watch in Tuesday’s elections

It’s Election Day Tuesday in — well, not every part of America, but several. Mississippi and Kentucky are electing governors; Houston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis are electing mayors; and Virginia is holding state legislative elections. Semafor’s David Weigel looks at the major races and what they might tell us about the state of politics in 2023. One major theme: Abortion politics. In Ohio, where a ballot initiative could codify abortion rights, Gov. Mike DeWine is telling voters he’d try to tweak the state’s 6-week ban with new exceptions if they reject the measure. And in Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his party are proposing a 15-week abortion ban as a middle ground option versus the state’s current 26-week-plus-exceptions law.

Netanyahu suggests Israel may play role in post-war Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested Israel would play a role in governing Gaza for “an indefinite period” if its military campaign is successful against Hamas. President Biden has warned that Israel should not reoccupy Gaza and other top Israeli officials have said that is not the country’s end goal. “I think Israel will — for an indefinite period — will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it,” Netanyahu told ABC’s David Muir. He also insisted there would be “no ceasefire” in Gaza unless Hamas releases dozens of hostages, but didn’t entirely rule out the idea of smaller pauses in Israel’s offensive. “As far as tactical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there, we’ve had them before,” Netanyahu said. “I suppose we’ll check the circumstances in order to enable goods, humanitarian goods to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages, to leave.” Biden raised the idea of “tactical pauses” during a call with Netanyahu earlier Monday, which White House national security spokesman John Kirby described as part of a more sustained push for breaks in the offensive to allow for people to leave Gaza and humanitarian aid to enter. “We consider ourselves at the beginning of this conversation, not at the end of it,” he told reporters.

— Morgan Chalfant

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: During a GOP conference meeting this morning, Speaker Mike Johnson will sound out his members on options to fund the government. Johnson’s team recognizes that “the most obvious outcome” is a short-term funding bill with “some extraneous provisions that the Senate could accept,” like the creation of a deficit commission or border security measures.

Playbook: Johnson has a personal bank account, according to his spokesman Raj Shah, despite a Daily Beast story last week claiming otherwise.

The Early 202: Seven key races to watch in today’s elections are the Virginia legislature, local races in New York, the Mississippi governor’s race, the Kentucky governor’s race, the Rhode Island special election, the Ohio constitutional amendment on abortion, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race.

Axios: In the wake of the United Auto Workers strike, the union’s leader Shawn Fain is “carving a new path” for the group and emerging as a new, powerful voice for labor at the national level.

White House

• President Biden will tour demonstrations today at the White House’s “demo day” in Washington, D.C. that showcase science and technology advancements supported by his economic agenda.
• The Biden administration proposed a new rule to impose tougher regulations on Medicare Advantage, the private sector version of Medicare.
• Intel is the leading candidate to secure billions in government funding for facilities to produce semiconductors for the U.S. military under the CHIPS and Science Act. — WSJ

Congress

• It’s another censure tit-for-tat in the House. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. introduced a revised censure resolution against Rep. Rashida Tlaib, R-Mich. over her Israel statements (more on that below), Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga. introduced a competing anti-Tlaib censure resolution, and Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif. introduced a censure resolution in response to condemn Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla. for likening Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza to Nazis.
• Special counsel David Weiss, who is overseeing the Hunter Biden case, will sit for a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee today.
• Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will question Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower Arturo Bejar during a hearing this morning.
• Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah and Ron Wyden, D-Ore. are unveiling legislation to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act today.
• Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. hopes she won’t have to use the resolution she’s been working on to end Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s, R-Ala. hold on military nominations. “The best way for this to be resolved is for Coach to choose a hostage that is appropriate,” she told Politico.
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. is in talks with members about creating a Congressional Jewish Caucus open to both parties. Axios reports some Jewish members are wary of pursuing the idea.

Economy

• Chinese President Xi Jinping will go to dinner with leading American CEOs while in San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next week. — CNBC
• WeWork filed for bankruptcy.

Polls

• Nate Silver weighed in on the big NYT/Siena poll showing Biden trailing in battleground states. On the question of whether Democrats should consider replacing Biden, he wrote that he’s torn between his head, which says polls this far out historically mean little, and his gut, which says voters are highly familiar with both candidates and their opinion might matter more now. “Voters are telling us in every possible way that they’d really like someone other than these two guys to be on the ballot next year,” he writes. “And since this is a democracy, maybe somebody should listen?”
• Donald Trump is pulling ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in his home state. A poll from the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab finds Trump with 60% of support among likely Republican primary voters, while DeSantis gets 21% and Nikki Haley gets 6%. In a head-to-head matchup, Trump beats DeSantis 59% to 29%.

2024

• Five candidates have qualified for Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate, the Republican National Committee announced: Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott.
• Arkansas Gov. and former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders plans to endorse Donald Trump on Wednesday at a rally in Miami that will serve as “counterprogramming” to the third GOP presidential debate. — NBC
• The National Republican Senatorial Committee isn’t thrilled with former GOP congressman Peter Meijer’s decision to run for Michigan’s open Senate seat. “Peter Meijer isn’t viable in a primary election, and there’s worry that if Meijer were nominated, the base would not be enthused in the general election,” the NRSC’s executive director told Politico.
• Steve Bannon and other MAGA figures are encouraging longtime Breitbart scribe Matt Boyle to primary a Republican congressman in Florida who opposed Jim Jordan’s speaker bid.

Foreign Policy

• A leaked State Department memo urges the Biden administration to support a ceasefire in Gaza and “publicly criticize Israel’s violations of international norms.” — Politico
• Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has formally requested a meeting with his Chinese counterpart at an upcoming meeting in Indonesia, even though China has yet to name someone to fill the role following the removal of Li Shangfu.
• The U.S. is selling thousands of rifles to the Israeli national police, raising human rights concerns. White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters the U.S. received assurances the guns would only go to national police units.

Big Read

If Rep. Adam Schiff becomes the next senator from California, he will almost certainly have Donald Trump to thank. The congressman became a hero to millions of Democrats (and a star on MSNBC) by leading the prosecution during the former president’s first impeachment trial. That role also earned him the permanent ire of Trump Republicans, and as Mark Leibovich writes this week at The Atlantic, Schiff’s rise is yet another telling example of how being hated by your party’s opponents can be the most valuable currency in American politics. (His campaign raised millions this year, for instance, after he was censured by the House GOP.) But getting Schiff, or his political allies, to admit that Trump has been a boon to his career and campaign coffers is surprisingly tricky. As former speaker Nancy Pelosi puts it: “If what’s-his-name never existed, Adam Schiff would still be the right person for California.”

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: Pro-Palestinian protesters left red-paint handprints and other graffiti on the White House gates and nearby monuments during a protest to demand a ceasefire in Gaza over the weekend.

What the Right isn’t reading: Speaker Mike Johnson admitted in 2022 that he and his son used “accountability software” to make sure they abstain from internet porn.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

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

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. reintroduced a censure resolution against Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. after her prior one was blocked in a bipartisan vote. In a statement Monday, Tlaib accused Republicans of “distorting my positions in resolutions filled with obvious lies” and said she advocated “peaceful coexistence.”

• Key providers of satellite photographs to news organizations have begun to restrict imagery of Gaza after a New York Times report on Israeli tank positions.
• A Florida summit devolved into a battle between Trump and DeSantis over who owns the Sunshine State.
• An analysis of TikTok hashtag data suggests that users outside the U.S. are posting and consuming more content about the Israel-Hamas war than those in the United States.