Trump and Vance’s abortion distraction, Harris’s active GOP army & Biden’s student loan win
“It’s desperation tactics from a pair of dishonest brokers,” a leading reproductive health care advocate told me about former President Trump and Sen. JD Vance’s recent shifts on the issue.
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to Once Upon a Hill. The general election is in 33 days. The next government funding deadline is 78 days. Inauguration Day is in 111 days. Today is the one-year anniversary of Kevin McCarthy being removed as House speaker.
A House Democrat described the experience, including the three weeks Congress ground to a halt without a speaker, as long, unproductive and painful.
“I saw a complete breakdown in the Republican Party over purely personal and vengeful reasons,” the member, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said in a text. “It was upsetting to be forced to endure that on the taxpayers dime and time.”
McCarthy has spent much of his post-Congress life attempting to settle scores with the eight Republicans who voted with House Democrats to dethrone him, most notably Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who triggered the motion to vacate that led to McCarthy’s demise.
Meanwhile, the former speaker’s predecessor, Mike Johnson (R-LA), is on the campaign trail stumping for Republican incumbents and challengers in hopes his conference somehow holds onto the majority so he can keep the speaker’s gavel. (But not without competition!) House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is crisscrossing the country on a separate quest to put Democrats back in control of the House and make history as the first Black speaker.
In this evening’s edition, some follow-up reporting on former President Donald Trump’s claim on social media during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday that he would veto a national abortion ban. (In related news, President Joe Biden was asked this morning if Tim Walzlost the debate to JD Vance. “No, he didn’t,” the president said of Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate. “And, by the way, the other guy lost the debate. He misrepresented everything.”)
But first things first…
Hurricane Helene: Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said in a statement that Hurricane Helene is the latest wake-up call for Congress to take climate change seriously.
“For decades, we have known that as climate change continues to worsen, extreme weather events like Hurricane Helene would lead to more death, destruction, and displacement,” the California congresswoman said. “Indeed, scientists and researchers have clearly shown that the intensity of Hurricane Helene is a direct result of climate change.”
She acknowledged the historic investments passed in the Inflation Reduction Act but called on lawmakers to pass legislation to reauthorize and reform the National Flood Insurance Program and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery program. Waters also lobbied for a bill she introduced that would make historic investments in fair, affordable, and resilient housing that is needed to stabilize families and communities over the long run.
President Biden traveled to Florida and Georgia today to tour areas impacted by the storm.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp did not join the president for his visit. Both were invited, per the White House. Biden and Kemp spoke by phone today.
In Florida, Biden’s roughly 45-minute aerial tour took him from Tallahassee to the state’s coast, where helicopters flew over land and then the Gulf of Mexico, per Francesca Chambers of USA Today, one of the reporters traveling with the president on his trip. Biden then attended a FEMA briefing with local officials.
The president’s Georgia visit is ongoing as of press time.
Israel-Iran conflict: The world’s still waiting to see how Israel will respond to Iran for their air attacks against it earlier this week.
President Biden declined to share the types of sanctions the US is considering against. He did say Israel and the US are in discussions about whether he would support Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities.
“First of all, we don't allow Israel. We advise Israel,” he said. “And there’s nothing going to happen today. We’ll talk about that later.”
Israel is still engaged in a so-called limited ground invasion of Lebanon, where the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah is based. Reports estimate more than 1,000 Lebanese people have been killed, 6,000 have been wounded, and as many as a million people have been displaced.
Let’s not forget we’re four days from the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel. President Biden said this morning that he didn’t have any updates on the hostages being held in Gaza.
On the war in Ukraine, President Biden said he doubted President Vladimir Putin would show up to the G20 and APEC Summits next month, which theoretically could provide a venue for the two leaders to discuss international security and the war.
Port strike: President Biden told reporters before traveling to Florida that USMX and the union representing the 45,000 dock workers who are on day three of their strike are making progress towards a new deal.
“We’ll find out soon,” he replied when asked how much.
Student loan debt relief: A Georgia district court judge allowed a temporary restraining order on President Biden’s student loan relief program to expire, allowing it to proceed due to a technicality.
The case will be transferred to a district that can sue the Biden administration.
Seven Republican-led states—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota and Ohio—sued Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in September over the legality of the SAVE plan, an income-driven repayment program the Education Department created after the Supreme Court ruled the president’s more sweeping student debt cancelation program required congressional approval.
It’s welcome news for President Biden, who burned through a lot of political capital on this issue only to be blamed by an ill-informed but vocal minority online for failing to do something the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. While the challenges to his plan will undoubtedly continue, today, the president comes out on top.
Supreme Court ethics: Ahead of the start of the new Supreme Court term next week, reform advocates called on Justice Neil Gorsuch to recuse himself from Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, which could severely narrow the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act, a key environmental protection law.
Advocates point to an alleged conflict of interest arising from Gorsuch’s long-standing relationship with Colorado billionaire Phil Anschutz, whose company stands to gain financially from a ruling in favor of the petitioners. Gorsuch previously recused himself from dozens of cases involving Anschutz or his businesses when he was an appellate judge for the Tenth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over the District of Colorado.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), who serves as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Courts and chair of the Court Reform Now task force, said when the public loses confidence in Supreme Court justices’ fairness and impartiality, it affects the rule of law upon which Americans live and our democracy is based.
“If we have no respect for the rule of law, then we have no democracy,” he said. “And so that's why it’s so important that we commit to doing court reform.”
ICYMI: I wrote about Johnson and the Court Reform Now task force in May.
2024 Election: Vice President Harris is in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party with former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WI) in a show of unity for country over party ahead of the election. Ahead of the event, two dozen local GOP leaders launched Wisconsin Republicans for Harris-Walz. Harris currently leads Trump by 1.7 percent in the state.
Cheney and her dad, former Vice President Dick Cheney are among the hundreds of Republicans who back Harris for president. Last night, in an interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, former Trump White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson endorsed Harris.
Hutchinson testified during the January 6 Committee hearings about Donald Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol insurrection and his failure to act as commander-in-chief during the violence. In her endorsement, she stated that Trump would not “uphold the rule of law” and expressed that the Vice President and Governor Walz better represent working-class Americans, whom Trump claims to support but doesn’t.
Jim Greenwood, a former congressman and Pennsylvania Republicans for Harris-Walz, held a press conference this morning with local Republican leaders in Wilkes-Barre, an industrial city in northeastern Pennsylvania. The event followed a rally with the Pennsylvania Republicans for Harris-Walz, national Republican leaders and 100 voters in the south-central city of Lancaster. Harris currently leads Trump by 0.8 percent in the state.
In Georgia, where Harris was yesterday in her official capacity to tour the Helene wreckage, former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan will launch Georgia Republicans for Harris-Walz at a kick-off event in Atlanta this evening, the first in a series of campaign Republican house parties across the state. Trump currently leads Harris by 1.2 points in the state.
In Michigan, former congressman David Trott launched Michigan Republicans for Harris-Walz in a press call with a former Nikki Haley campaign official and a longtime Republican political aide. Harris currently leads Trump by 1.6 points in the state.
Former Trump White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham and actress Jennifer Garner will headline a fireside chat in Arizona this weekend. Trump currently leads Harris by 1.2 points in the state.
Prominent Republicans in North Carolina campaigned for Harris in Greensboro this afternoon and former congressman Adam Kinzinger will campaign for the ticket on Friday. Trump currently leads Harris by 0.5 points in North Carolina; Harris currently leads Trump by 1.1 points in Nevada.
A veteran Democratic insider told me these endorsements and events matter to the 37 percent of Americans who identify as moderates and to Bush-Reagan-Romney Republicans.
Former President Trump was in Saginaw, Michigan, today. The Democratic National Committee put up billboards to remind voters that Trump and JD Vance still refuse to publicly accept the 2020 election results.
The election remains a margin-of-error race, which is no surprise to President Biden, who expressed confidence in his vice president this morning.
“It always gets this close,” he said. “She’s going to do fine.”
Elsewhere on the trail, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, whose vibrant masculinity has been called into question for the second time this campaign, will speak at two campaign fundraisers in New Jersey this weekend. (Emhoff, through a spokesperson, categorically denies the allegations in the linked article, and no top outlets have picked up the reporting.)
ICYMI: Hill Democrats have made their opposition to Project 2025 the cornerstone of their campaign message this cycle. Last week for COURIER Newsroom, I wrote about why former President Trump finds it so hard to outrun an agenda he helped inspire.
And this morning, I wrote about a bill Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) introduced last week that would enhance protections for voters and election workers from intimidation and threats as Trump continues to sow mistrust in the electoral process among his supporters.
Now, back to abortion politics and the election:
Ironically, one of the most curious moments of the vice presidential debate happened off the stage and on the internet.
During a discussion on abortion, which, if you missed it, I summed up in Wednesday’s edition, former President Trump tweeted that he would veto a nationwide abortion ban if elected to a second term.
To cover Trump’s abortion politics is to subject yourself to digital whiplash, so I hopped on the phone with Angela Vasquez-Giroux, vice president of communications at Planned Parenthood Votes, for her take on the issue.
“I think one way that I’ve been thinking about this is when you’re on your way out of a toxic, failed relationship, there’s always a moment where the person you’re leaving tries everything in their power, will say anything and do anything that gets you to stay,” she said. “The flowers, the candy, the I’ll change my ways, suddenly they’re making a counseling appointment. But you know in your heart of hearts that this is just another last-ditch effort to get you to settle for the same old BS. And that, to me, is exactly what we saw both from JD Vance and Donald Trump on Tuesday night. It’s desperation tactics from a pair of dishonest brokers.”
The distrust Vasquez-Giroux and other reproductive freedom advocates speak of is rooted in the constant shape-shifting from Vance and Trump on the issue since the latter appointed the three justices who gave the Supreme Court the conservative supermajority anti-abortion activists worked for nearly five decades to assemble with the single mission of dismantling Roe v. Wade. Vance claimed on Tuesday night that he didn’t support a national abortion ban, although he did when he ran for Senate in 2022. And just last month, I reported on Trump’s flip flop on Amendment 4—a ballot initiative Florida voters will consider in November to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution—and proposal for public-funded IVF despite his own party’s platform proposing a law to establish so-called fetal personhood. (Vance voted against federal protections for IVF before Trump made Vance his running mate.)
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must confess that I hesitated on whether to cover Trump’s veto promise because honestly, it feels like a distraction from the reality that no legislation has to reach his desk for him to oppose federal funding for abortions or look the other way as Congress adds requirements to make it harder to access legal abortion care, a point NOTUS’s Oriana Gonzalez, who established herself as one of the premier reporters on abortion way before the Dobbs decision, astutely noted in a recent article.
Not to mention, Project 2025 is chock-full of proposals to restrict reproductive freedom without even a blink from Congress.
There’s the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-obscenity law that bans mail-order drugs and instruments related to abortion. It’s not currently enforced but is still on the books, allowing it to be implemented under a Republican administration. Trump could institute a backdoor abortion ban without congressional action through a Project 2025 proposal to pressure the FDA to revisit and withdraw its initial approval of medication abortion. And a second Trump White House could force the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to adopt hostile messaging to birth control.
And to be clear, Republicans are uninterested in expanding abortion rights. The Republican Study Committee—the largest ideological caucus in Congress of either party, of which 80 percent of House Republicans are members, including the party’s entire leadership—released a budget this spring that calls for passage of the Life at Conception Act. As I wrote in July, this legislation establishes conception as the beginning of human life, which would make abortion legal in all cases, even in blue states and including for patients impregnated through rape or incest.
This is why Vasquez-Giroux told me the national media is framing the wrong argument.
“We’ve all kind of taken this bait and now we’re stuck arguing this one specific when again, there’s Comstock, there’s what he did with Title X,” she said of the federally funded family planning program that provides no- and low-cost contraception counseling and dispensation that saw states drop out of the network due to restrictions on providers who discussed abortion care with their patients. “There are dozens of administrative actions and things that he has access to. And now he would have an administration full of people who are all bought into that. Without the protections of Roe, that would make some of those things untenable and without a Supreme Court that actually cares about protecting people, all guardrails are gone.”
And finally, a few evening reads:
“Helene should trigger a national rethink of home insurance” by Kate Aronoff: “A for-profit insurance industry is a bad first line of defense against natural disasters. There’s a better way.”
“Jon Tester is the Montana Democratic Party. Is that a problem?” by Casey Murray: “Tester unifies Montana Democrats, but insiders say he isn’t interested in playing the ‘alpha Democrat’ who builds out the party’s bench.”
Hakeem Jeffries on winning the House and defending democracy against another January 6” by Pablo Manriquez: “The difference between a smooth presidential transition and a calamitous repeat of 2021 might come down to who holds the gavel. And while Mike Johnson himself might seem tame, his commitment to overturning a potential Trump loss could be quite the opposite.”
“The makings of an alleged school shooter: Missed warnings and years of neglect”by Sarah Blaskey, John Woodrow Cox, Hannah Natanson, Laura Meckler and Shawn Boburg: “Interviews with family members, along with a review of private texts and public documents, open a window on a 14-year-old’s path to alleged gunman at Georgia’s Apalachee High School.”
“The misogyny of Gen Z men has been overstated” by Jessica Grose: “The majority of them support equality, even if they don’t call themselves feminists.”
“Who’s too old to be president now? Take a guess. by Gail Collins: “If voters felt 81 was too old for Joe Biden, it’s hard to believe they can overlook 78 in Donald Trump.”
“How we unintentionally created the affordable housing crisis” by Yullya Panfil and Craig J. Richardson: “Well-meaning regulations and reforms intended to prevent another financial crisis has pushed millions of affordable homes out of the reach of everyday buyers and into the coffers of investors.”
“Nitrous, one of the oldest mind-altering drugs, is back” by Oshan Jarow: “Whippets on TikTok are just a re-run of inhaling nitrous on stage in the 1800s.”
They raised the world’s biggest superstars. Now they’re telling their own stories.”by Samantha Barry: “Tina Knowles, Donna Kelce, Maggie Baird and Mandy Teefeytalk motherhood, stardom, ambition and what’s next.”
“Black women say dating apps like Hinge are biased. Now some are testing it.” by Rivan Stinson: “A Hinge user kept the same picture but changed her race to White to see whether the algorithm was biased.”
“A'ja Wilson unfiltered: The WNBA superstar opens up about her record-breaking season” by Tyler R. Tynes: “Wilson, the three-time MVP, talks about her historic season and the growth of the WNBA in an exclusive ESPN interview.”
That’s all I’ve got for now.
See you on Monday,
Michael