#The Hill’s Morning Report — Biden: Ukraine not ready for NATO membership

Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

President Biden, who has forcefully promoted unity among NATO nations behind Ukraine’s defense against Russia, heads later today from London to attend a key summit in Lithuania vowing to back Kyiv while also acknowledging that Ukraine is not ready for NATO membership.

Biden told CNN during a wide-ranging interview broadcast Sunday that he does not “think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now,” and that the process could take place only after a peace agreement with Russia was in place. 

“If the war is going on, then we’re all in war,” Biden said, referring to the alliance’s commitment to mutual defense. “We’re at war with Russia, if that were the case.” He added that there would be “other qualifications that need to be met, including democratization,” for Ukraine to be considered for membership (The New York Times).

President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said he will attend the NATO summit in Vilnius this week, told ABC News that membership in NATO can wait until after the war. His goal, he said, is to secure continued NATO-nation military support during his country’s ongoing counteroffensive, which he concedes has been slow but is not at a standstill.

“Ukraine should get clear security guarantees while it is not in NATO,” Zelensky said during an interview that aired Sunday. “And that is a very important point.”

▪ The Hill: Five things to watch during this week’s NATO summit.

▪ The Hill: Lawmakers split over U.S. cluster bombs heading to Ukraine.

▪ BBC: War in maps: Ukraine’s slow advance continues.

▪ The Washington Post: Biden visits the U.K. ahead of a NATO summit amid alliance divisions.

▪ The New York Times: The president met this morning in London with the British prime minister, their sixth meeting as leaders.

Biden spoke with President Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan of Turkey on Sunday while en route to London, the White House said. The NATO meeting takes place as Sweden seeks to join the Western alliance, a move that has faced resistance from Turkey and Hungary. 

Biden told CNN he is optimistic Sweden would eventually be admitted to NATO, noting that Turkey wants to modernize its F-16 fleet, along with Greece, which has voted to admit Sweden. Biden and Erdoğan expressed “a shared commitment to continue supporting Ukraine,” according to the White House, and Biden expressed his desire to welcome Sweden into NATO “as soon as possible.”  

© The Associated Press / Mindaugas Kulbis | NATO summit venue in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Sunday.

▪ The Hill: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, told Fox News he has “real qualms” about the U.S. sending Ukraine cluster bombs. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a Senate candidate since February and the only member to vote against the Afghanistan war, criticized Biden’s cluster bombs decision (The Hill). Biden ally Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) backs the president’s decision, he told CBS News on Sunday (The Hill).

▪ The Hill: Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and four Senate colleagues plan to attend the NATO summit this week to show support for Ukraine. 

▪ The Hill: Biden has not committed to inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, the president told CNN. Israeli President Isaac Herzog will be in Washington later this month.

▪ CBS News and The New York Times: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen believes her estimated 10 hours of meetings in Beijing with top Chinese leaders, including Premier Li Qiang, Vice Premier Liu He, Finance Minister Liu Kun and Pan Gongsheng, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, were “successful” in laying groundwork for future diplomacy. She spoke to “Face the Nation” from China at the end of her trip. 

➤ CONGRESS

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) returns to work at the Capitol this week with a July agenda with clear political overtones that includes efforts to lower the cost to consumers of insulin and prescription drugs, plus proposals to strengthen Supreme Court ethics requirements, reports The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. 

In the House, Republicans confront ugly internal tensions as they return to the nation’s capital. The stunning Freedom Caucus ouster last month of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a prolific fundraiser and prominent conservative lawmaker on social media, could signal new headaches for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has relied this year on Greene’s support to shield him from conservative attacks.

Greene told Breitbart News last week that she had not spoken with caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) about her in-or-out standing and questioned whether there was a quorum for the “impromptu” meeting during which colleagues now say they booted her. The dustup highlights broader frictions between GOP leaders and far-right conservatives. Ahead this year is a threat of a government shutdown — and a possible challenge to McCarthy’s Speakership, report The Hill’s Emily Brooks and Mike Lillis. 

On Sunday, Greene took to Twitter to repeat her calls to impeach Biden, the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security. She drove a wedge into her own party over its support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine. She said Biden’s decision to send U.S. cluster bomb munitions to Ukraine to support its counteroffensive against the Russian military “may be a war crime.”

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ POLITICS

© The Associated Press / Matt Rourke | Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in Philadelphia on June 30..

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is unhappy about a pileup of criticism that his bid against former President Trump for the GOP presidential nomination appears adrift. The governor, who says he’ll debate GOP rivals on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee, lashed out at news outlets Sunday.

“The media does not want me to be the nominee. I think that’s very, very clear. Why? Because they know I will beat Biden,” he told Fox News. “But, even more importantly, they know I will actually deliver on all these things,” he added while ticking off conservative goals he touts to voters. The governor, who has been expending lots of energy on retail politics in Iowa and New Hampshire, took issue with a Politico Playbook analysis titled “Failure to Launch,” and similar reporting by The New York Times.

Why is the governor’s campaign seen as lackluster (The Hill) and what is the assessment costing DeSantis within his party (The Hill)? 

The race is still in its early phase. But likely voters of all stripes are beginning to reckon with who can lead the country through 2028. Voters grouse that the 2024 presidential contest could come down to their interpretation of a “least bad” candidate choice.

The Hill: This year, key elections to watch take place in Louisiana, Kentucky and Mississippi (gubernatorial contests), in Virginia (legislative elections) and in Ohio (abortion rights). 

2024 roundup: The GOP nominating calendar next year will span 50 days beginning in Iowa on Jan. 15 to Super Tuesday on March 5 (The Des Moines Register). … Trump and DeSantis have begun eyeing Super Tuesday states (The Associated Press). … Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison warned Sunday that third-party candidates “are not looking at the big picture” while entering the presidential race “on the margins” (The Hill). … The White House tries to ward off distractions posed by Hunter Biden’s legal difficulties during the president’s reelection bid (The Hill). … DeSantis on Sunday told Fox News the Trump administration’s FBI in 2020 was “colluding” with Big Tech companies to bury conservative viewpoints (The Hill). … A relatively small number of politically active parent groups, which were formed years ago and also recently, are well funded, use social media and turn to like-minded elected officials to get books pulled from school libraries (The Hill).… GOP presidential aspirant and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) said Sunday that he would not sign a federal abortion ban if he were elected president (The Hill). … Retired Army Capt. Sam Brown launches his campaign today in the Nevada Senate race to take on Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) as Republicans seek to reclaim the upper chamber in 2024 (The Hill and Politico). 

Trump World: The former president will appear in a pre-taped interview July 16 on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” (The Hill). … An NBC News analysis of the ongoing Justice Department investigation into alleged efforts by Trump and allies to overturn the 2020 election results finds that dozens of witnesses have appeared before a federal grand jury. Witnesses suggest prosecutors are focused particularly on a fake electors scheme in which false slates of electors from states Trump lost were to assert that he won. In total, 84 fake electors in seven swing states signed documents falsely declaring Trump the winner. 

■ A NATO invitation will make or break Ukraine, by Alyona Getmanchuk, guest essayist, The New York Times. 

■ Biden is right on cluster bombs for Ukraine, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 2:30 p.m. for a pro forma session. Lawmakers return to the Capitol Tuesday.

The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. and resume consideration of the nomination of Xochitl Torres Small to be deputy secretary of Agriculture.

The president is in London today at the outset of a three-country trip. Biden will meet with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at 10:45 a.m. BST amid Western cluster bomb unease (BBC). Biden will travel from London to Windsor Castle for an arrival ceremony at 12:45 p.m. BST. He willmeet with King Charles III from 1:05 p.m. to 2:55 p.m. BST to discuss climate change, among other issues. U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry will participate (The Associated Press). The president will depart London at 3:55 p.m. BST for Vilnius, Lithuania, ahead of a NATO summit taking place Tuesday and Wednesday.

Vice President Harris will swear in Jared Bernstein as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers at 4 p.m. She will swear in Geeta Rao Gupta at 4:15 p.m. as ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is with Biden in the United Kingdom today and will accompany the president to Lithuania for NATO meetings Tuesday and Wednesday.

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Michael Barr will speak at 10 a.m. about bank capital and regulation during an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.

➤ INTERNATIONAL

North Korea on Monday accused the United States of violating its airspace by conducting surveillance flights. Pyongyang warned such flights may be shot down (Yahoo News).

Amid tensions with North Korea and China, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is heading to the NATO summit in Lithuania (Reuters).

▪ The Hill: Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging a smear campaign against Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group military leader who led a brief mutiny against the Kremlin and became an international political figure. 

▪ The New York Times: The Dutch prime minister resigned over the weekend after his coalition rejected his tough new line on refugees, demonstrating the potency of migration in European politics. 

▪ The New York Times: Aiding North Korean defectors in China has become “all but impossible.”Messages from defectors describe their journeys.

▪ The Guardian: Sudan is on the brink of a “full-scale civil war,” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned amid deadly air strikes and reports of ethnically targeted killings there. 

➤ JUSTICE & COURTS

© The Associated Press / Jose Luis Magana | Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in May.

The end of the Supreme Court’s term in June opened the floodgates to fresh assessments of Chief Justice John Roberts, who has led the high court for 18 years. Court watchers said Roberts’s alignment among fellow justices was not a reflection of his power as chief, but rather his influence within the high court’s ideological middle, reports The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld.

In the most significant opinions this term, the chief’s stance reflected the majority. With an end to consideration of race in university admissions, rejection of Biden’s student loan debt relief program and a decision that for religious reasons, a website designer could refuse to service same-sex couples, it meant joining a 6-3 conservative supermajority. 

In other major cases, Roberts kept the court from embracing sweeping legal positions, breaking with some of his most conservative colleagues to strike down Alabama’s GOP-drawn congressional map and reject a fringe theory that would have handed near-total authority to state legislatures in setting federal election rules. 

The Washington Examiner: Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh emerge as the court’s most pivotal votes.

Increasingly, Americans see the Supreme Court as politically polarized. But a majority of recent respondents backed the court’s ruling ending consideration of race as a factor in college admissions, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted between June 30-July 1. On striking down the administration’s student loan forgiveness program, 45 percent said they backed the ruling, while 40 percent said they supported the federal program. Respondents were more closely divided on whether a designer should be permitted under the Constitution to deny services to same-sex customers seeking a wedding website because of her religious disapproval. A narrow plurality, 43 percent, backed that opinion, while 42 percent objected.

The Washington Post: How Supreme Court decisions are activating a generation of young voters.

⚖️ Today begins a bench trial for right-wing Oath Keeper militia members James Beeks and Donovan Crowl before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta on two felony counts stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including alleged conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and civil disorder (The Hill). 

© The Associated Press / Brynn Anderson | Old books in Sasser, Ga., in 2020.

And finally … 📚 Public Libraries are community treasures and also very forgiving. These days they automatically renew materials for borrowers on the off chance they might become overdue — and email their patrons about the anticipatory extensions they’ve granted. 

They also overlook dramatically past-due materials and waive fines, always delighted when books make their way back to the shelves. Even after 119 years. 

The New Bedford Free Public Library in Massachusetts Friday welcomed the return of James Clerk Maxwell’s “An Elementary Treatise on Electricity,” which was checked out on Feb. 14, 1904, by someone curious about the emerging possibilities of a key force of nature (The Standard-Times photos and The Associated Press).

The book, in excellent condition after more than a century, made its improbable return thanks to a rare books expert who spotted it among donations to the West Virginia University Libraries and made sure New Bedford’s librarian was reunited with one of her library’s holdings.

The New Bedford library has a 5-cent-per-day late fee, which arithmetic would suggest would have meant a possible penalty of $2,100. However, the library’s late fee policy limit is $2, and the moral of the story: It’s never too late to return a book.

ABC News: “A History of the United States” by Benson Lossing, was due back at the St. Helena Public Library in Napa Valley, Calif., in February 1927. It was returned in May by a resident who found the formidable tome amid his late wife’s book collection. 

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on Twitter (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!