The place to be this week to really understand where the country is headed is 1,800 miles away from Washington: Aspen, Colorado, where Biden’s top national security officials — including his CIA director, national security adviser, and top officials from DOJ and Treasury — are gathering with a small cohort of journalists over the next four days for rare on-the-record sessions at the Aspen Security Forum.
Just one state holds its primaries today: Maryland. And it doesn’t lack for drama. But here's what you should really watch — Maryland offers the latest example of a strategy that Dems have employed throughout the country: meddling in GOP primaries to get the general-election opponent they’d prefer, often boosting candidates further to the right who are aligned with Trump.
The week's top three storylines to watch ... 1. The Jan. 6 committee’s primetime (possible) finale ... 2. The Senate parliamentarian is expected to have so-called Byrd bath arguments on Democrats’ plan to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices ... 3. The CHIPS/USICA showdown
Late Thursday night, Sen. Joe Manchin effectively killed any chance of major climate-related provisions making their way into Democrats’ reconciliation package.
Inflation hit a 41-year high on Tuesday, as the consumer price index accelerated to 9.1% in June. That, in turn, affects what might be Biden’s last, best shot at a deal on reconciliation. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said the new numbers make him “more cautious than I’ve ever been” in reconciliation talks, he told reporters. “Everything needs to be scrubbed, anything that can be inflationary.”
Tuesday’s Jan. 6 Committee hearing was cut into two different parts: Donald Trump's call to action, and his supporters’ response. Pieced together, they amount to this: The members of the Jan. 6 panel “are laying out an unmistakable map to a potential criminal case against the former president,” as Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu write.
Today at 1 p.m. Eastern, the House Jan. 6 committee “plans to make its most complex case yet,” write Nicholas Wu and Kyle Cheney: “that Donald Trump's words and actions influenced extremists and brought them to the steps of the Capitol.”
Three sirens to start your week... Siren for House Dems — “House GOP marches into deeper blue terrain as Dem prospects fade,” by Ally Mutnick and Sarah Ferris. Siren for Senate Repubs — “Candidate challenges, primary scars have GOP worried about Senate chances,” by WaPo’s Michael Scherer, Colby Itkowitz and Josh Dawsey. Siren for Biden — “Most Democrats Don’t Want Biden in 2024, New Poll Shows,” by NYT’s Shane Goldmacher.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot and killed during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan. He was 67. And Chuck Schumer made a couple of new moves in his effort to advance two pieces of legislation tangled in political knots.
Last year, the White House convened a bipartisan commission of legal experts and academics to study the Supreme Court and make recommendations on whether (and how) to reform it. The resulting recommendations were fairly moderate in scope, focusing on matters of transparency and ethics. And in the eyes of some progressives agitating for major changes to the judiciary, one big recommendation was noticeably absent: court packing.