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#The Hill’s Morning Report — In ‘historic step,’ Turkey backs Sweden’s NATO bid

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As NATO members gather today within 20 miles of the border with Russian ally Belarus, their fortified summit will focus on Ukraine’s defense needs and Monday’s news that a previously reluctant Turkey agreed to let Sweden join the Western alliance.

In a sudden reversal, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday lifted his objections after a year of arguing that the European Union should first advance Turkey’s bid to join the EU before Sweden could join the bloc (The New York Times).

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced Turkey’s decision from the summit setting in Vilnius, Lithuania, saying Erdoğan agreed to take Sweden’s bid to join the security alliance to Turkey’s parliament for ratification as soon as possible. Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952.

Most alliance members, who worry about fraying unity while confronting Russia’s 16 months of threats to the West and war with its neighbor, have backed Sweden’s entry. Stoltenberg called it a “historic step” and expressed confidence that another holdout, Hungary, would support Sweden’s entry. Hungary’s president cleared away concerns about Sweden’s membership as “technical” (NBC News and The Washington Post).

President Biden will meet privately with Erdoğan today on the sidelines of the gathering after speaking with him Sunday by phone while flying aboard Air Force One to London. Turkey has long sought 40 U.S. F-16 jets and Biden will support a transfer in consultation with Congress, Bloomberg News and The Financial Times report.

▪ Yahoo News: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who has had a long-running hold on fighter jets to Turkey, said on Monday that he was talking with the Biden administration about F-16 sales to Turkey. Asked how long it would take for a decision, he said, “Probably, if there can be one, in the next week.”

▪ The Hill: The U.S. president gets a major win from Turkey ahead of today’s key NATO summit.

▪ BBC: Turkey in May approved Finland to be the 31st NATO member. Biden will be in Helsinki this week to applaud that change.

Biden, since Russia’s invasion early last year, has endeavored to fortify the NATO posture, acknowledging during a recent interview that there are disagreements that mean Ukraine won’t be eligible to join NATO until after the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who will meet Biden on Wednesday at the summit, conceded Monday that NATO membership, with its pact that an attack on one is an attack on all, will be out of reach for now. He said Ukraine nevertheless is asking for security commitments from alliance members amid its grindingly slow summer counteroffensive against Russia’s military. “We need this signal right now,” he said during a Monday address. Zelensky will hold a joint news conference with Stoltenberg on Wednesday at the summit (The Hill).

The U.S. continues to ramp up intelligence, weaponry, training and ammunition sent to Ukraine. Biden has courted controversy in the U.S. by agreeing this month to send lethal cluster bombs to the Ukrainian military, despite globally acknowledged risks of civilian casualties that can result from smaller explosives ejected from the larger bombs. Deaths and injuries of noncombatants led to a United Nations ban on cluster bombs in 2010.

Sweden has a strong military and its entrance would ring the Baltic Sea with NATO coastline — apart from the terrain that is Russian territory, according to The Washington Post. Military planners say NATO’s defenses will be significantly stronger as a result, an idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin perceives as a threat.

Related Articles

▪ The New York Times: Between Biden and King Charles III, who met Monday, the view from the top is curiously similar. … P.S. The president raised some protocol eyebrows by putting his hand casually on the king’s back when they met at Windsor Castle (People).

▪ TechCrunch: Biden applauded the new EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Monday, which he said “will allow personal data to be transferred from Europe to U.S. companies safely and securely.”

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS

The House is back to work today, and lawmakers have just 11 legislative days to whittle away at a big stack of measures, including spending legislation, defense policy and a farm bill. House Republicans are on a collision course with the Senate as appropriators in both chambers advance conflicting versions of a sweeping government funding package, which must become law by Sept. 30 to prevent a shutdown (NBC News). A group of 21 hard-line conservative House Republicans warned Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in writing on Monday that they’ll vote against spending bills they think contain insufficient overall cuts and they urged him to publicly reject supplemental funding for Ukraine (The Hill).

🏛️ Morning Report talked with The Hill’s congressional reporters Mike Lillis and Mychael Schnell ahead of the House’s return from its July recess.

These conversations have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Kristina Karisch: With the House back until their August recess and the September government funding deadline fast approaching, what are the most important to-do items for lawmakers?

Mychael Schnell: They’re staring down that Sept. 30th government funding deadline. If they don’t come to a consensus by then, they risk the government going into a shutdown or having to kick the deadline down the calendar. Of course, what would be ideal is that in these next three weeks in session before August, if the House can move all 12 appropriations bills to the Senate. Whether or not that’s realistic, we’ll have to see.

Mike Lillis: Nothing is crucial for the month of July, that’s important to point out. They’re going to get another bite at this apple in September. They do have this long six-week August recess, but it’s not like the deadline is before the August recess. That being said, because of the volume of the work that they’ve got to do, and because of the controversy surrounding pretty much every bill that they have to pass, they hope to get as much as possible done in July to make it easier for September.

KK: McCarthy is leading a conference that isn’t always in lockstep — such as when Freedom Caucus members brought the House floor to a standstill a few weeks ago. How would you characterize the Speaker’s handle on the majority?

ML: The short answer is no, Kevin McCarthy does not have a great grip on this conference. He has a great grip on 95 percent of it, but given the slim majority that they’ve got, he can only afford to lose four votes. He loses the fifth and things fail on the floor. And as the Freedom Caucus demonstrated, all they have to do is block a rule and they can keep any bill off the floor — even the messaging stuff. Never mind that must-pass stuff. So, he’s got real challenges coming up.

MS: After conservatives voiced their frustrations with the debt limit bill, saying it didn’t do enough to decrease the deficit, their next focus was the appropriations process. Because they’re unhappy that they didn’t get the spending cuts they wanted the first time, they’re really going to continue these hard-line tactics and hold a real line to ultimately get those spending cuts that they had hoped for. In terms of McCarthy’s handle on the conference, he’s confident in his grip on the gavel — that’s at least what he said publicly.

KK: What role are House Democrats taking in all this? What kind of power do they have now that they see how internally fractious the Republican conference is?

MS: If McCarthy can only afford to lose four votes, assuming everyone votes in a partisan manner, there are going to be Democrats who are going to need to help pass these appropriations bills through the House.

ML: [Historically], the minority party always voted against the majority party’s rule. Both parties do it, but the difference now is that the Freedom Caucus uses this tactic, which we’ve never really seen before, where they vote against their own party’s rule. And that’s where the Democrats will have leverage in the House in the early stages of this debate. Same thing happened in the debt ceiling debate, when McCarthy had to reach across the aisle and ask Democrats for votes to pass the rule.

“[House Democrats are] just standing back and pointing across the aisle and saying, ‘Look how chaotic it is. These guys can’t govern. Voters gave them the majority and it’s chaos over there.’ They can just step aside and watch the internal battles happen on the Republican side, until it’s time to pass it — so they have a very easy job right now.“

KK: What’s the general outlook for the appropriations process in the coming weeks and months?

ML: There’s optimism that these things will ultimately pass. There’s probably pessimism about how the process is going to go. There will be a threat of a shutdown. Probably, there will be a threat that the Pentagon won’t get funded, all these sorts of things. But this is Congress, and they need that threat. They need a deadline. They don’t need more time. They need a deadline. They have to show their base that they’re fighting the good fight, they are willing to go right up until the edge. I’m optimistic that [the bills] will ultimately pass, but it’s going to be messy in the meantime.

MS: Congress is an institution that works slowly, and sometimes there’s not a lot of pep in their step until you’re right before that deadline. These next few weeks are going to be critical in terms of conversations about spending levels, consensus within the House Republican conference, and then just getting a move on in terms of moving these appropriations bills through the institution that is Congress.

Odds are that Congress will have to pass a stopgap spending bill to fund the government beyond Sept. 30, report The Hill’s Emily Brooks and Lillis, and that possibility means political headaches for McCarthy. Conservatives are not yet going so far as to flatly oppose a temporary spending bill while they focus on trying to secure spending cuts in the appropriations process, but some are warning that they do not want to have to pass any legislation that will fund the government at current levels when they are hoping to slash spending.

“None of us want a [stopgap bill] in any form, and the most conservative of us are at the table working together with our Republican colleagues to get the job done,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said in a statement.

▪ The Associated Press: Deep partisanship will be on display as Congress releases competing bills on voting and elections.

▪ CNN: GOP battle brews over defense bill as McCarthy is under pressure to appease the right on social issues.

▪ The Hill: Top House Armed Services Democrat worried about “extreme right-wing amendments” filed to defense bill.

▪ NBC News: Senate Democrats move this week to advance a Supreme Court ethics bill.

▪ The Hill: Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) remains a figure of controversy because of his blockade against Defense Department nominations and promotions while he protests a Pentagon travel policy related to abortion. His refusal to lift his “hold” means the Marine Corps is without a confirmed leader for the first time in 164 years.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ POLITICS

If former President Trump declines to debate GOP primary rivals next month, would it be good or bad for the Republican Party, which says it wants a competitive primary? It’s in the eye of the beholder. The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports that GOP leaders are divided. Trump has not committed to participate, hinting he’s reluctant to share a crowded stage in Milwaukee on Aug. 23 if he’s leading the GOP presidential pack.

He’s been resisting since April, reportedly confiding privately that he thought an August debate was too early.

Some Republicans believe Trump is playing coy to gain leverage over the strict Republican National Committee debate rules. He’s also a practiced hand at keeping the focus on himself by leaving others with power guessing. Republicans who would prefer to see another candidate as the nominee worry that Trump’s absence would mean fewer potential viewers. If Trump’s not on stage, then the focus may shift to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who trails the former president by more than 30 points in recent polls and would become a debate piñata for other contenders who are angling for a breakout moment on live television.

In 2016, the Republican Party hosted 12 primary debates, which stretched from August 2015 to March of the election year. The first live debate on Fox News, which split the crowd of candidates into two separate panels in Cleveland, was viewed by an astonishing 24 million people.

Eight years later, Trump and his performance style remain big draws for his base but are no longer novel for likely voters, including moderates and independents.

Politico: Trump and his legal team in a Monday night court filing said they want to delay his federal trial on classified documents and obstruction charges until after the 2024 election, arguing an impartial jury would be virtually impossible to seat. Trump has pleaded not guilty. A federal judge initially set a trial date for next month; the government proposed a December date.

DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have each said it’s premature for Republicans to anoint Trump as the party’s presidential nominee (The Hill).

House: New York Democrats are anxious about a potentially bruising primary in a seat important to the party’s hopes of retaking the House in 2024. The key swing district race pits former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) against Democrat Liz Gereghty, the sister of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). Jones is vying for his old seat in New York’s 17th District after redistricting forced him to run in a different district last cycle. Jones ended up losing that primary. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) currently represents the district (The Hill).

2024 roundup: Haley announced her campaign has raised a total of nearly $16 million since its launch (a super PAC supporting her candidacy raised $7.3 million in the second quarter this year). Trump’s team previously reported a $35 million Q2 haul (Fox News). … Trump took a swipe at Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) Monday over her approach to the 2024 GOP presidential primary field amid reported frustrations from his team that Reynolds has been too cozy with DeSantis’s campaign (The Hill). … Speaking of Iowa: thelegislature today will hold a special session to consider a proposed ban on abortion after approximately six weeks of pregnancy. Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks (The Associated Press).

➤ INTERNATIONAL

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will arrive today at the NATO summit in Lithuania to press the Western alliance to get tougher with North Korea because of its nuclear ambitions. It’s the second consecutive year that Yoon will take part in the summit, underscoring his push to deepen ties with the world’s biggest military alliance. His country faces a mix of security challenges, including North Korea’s nuclear program and the U.S.-China strategic rivalry (The Associated Press and Reuters).

“Now is the time to clearly demonstrate that the international community’s determination to deter North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is stronger than North Korea’s desire to develop nuclear weapons,” he said.

The New York Times: With China, Biden bets high-level diplomacy can cool fiery relations.

Putin met with Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and his commanders in Moscow after the paramilitary group’s aborted mutiny last month, according to Russian media reports. “This meeting took place in the Kremlin on June 29. It lasted almost three hours,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday, according to a state-owned newswire.

Peskov said that during the June 29 meeting, Putin offered an “assessment” of Wagner’s actions on the battlefield in Ukraine and “of the events of June 24.” The confirmation of the meeting with Putin — who branded Prigozhin a backstabbing traitor — adds a new layer to the uncertainty surrounding the mercenary chief, whose fate and whereabouts have been unknown since the aborted mutiny. The rebellion severely weakened Putin’s authority (Politico EU, The New York Times and The Associated Press).

▪ Reuters: Wagner mercenary fighters neared a Russian nuclear base during their revolt.

▪ The Associated Press: How many Russians have died in Ukraine? Data shows what Moscow hides.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Europe’s defense dilemma: to buy, or not to buy American.

▪ Reuters: Russian drones attack Kyiv and Odesa hours before NATO summit.

Spain rescued more than 80 people aboard a boat in the Atlantic on Monday after an aid group reported several vessels carrying migrants from Senegal to the Canary Islands had not been heard from in about two weeks. The migrants were “in good health” on a rescue vessel, Spanish authorities said (The New York Times).

The rescue comes just weeks after a boat carrying hundreds of migrants sank off the coast of Greece in June. Attempts by the Greek coastguard to tow the fishing trawler may have caused the vessel to sink, according to a new investigation that has raised further questions about the incident, which left an estimated 500 people missing. The trawler carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the coast of Greece on June 14. There were 104 survivors (The Guardian).

▪ Al Jazeera: More than 1,000 refugees pushed out by Tunisia were bussed to the borders with Libya, Algeria — where they remain trapped with no food, water, shelter or way out. Some are wounded. Others say they’ve resorted to drinking seawater.

▪ The Washington Post: Why did the Dutch government collapse over a refugee policy dispute?

▪ The Associated Press: Israelis block highways in nationwide protests of government’s plan to overhaul judiciary.

OPINION

■ NATO isn’t what it says it is, by Grey Anderson and Thomas Meaney, guest essayists, The New York Times.

■ With hundreds of explosive chemical plants, Louisiana could be a ticking time bomb this hurricane season, by Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré (ret.), opinion contributor, The Hill.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at noon.

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. and resume consideration of the nomination of Xochitl Torres Small to be deputy secretary of Agriculture. Senators at 3 p.m. will hold a private, classified briefing with defense and intelligence officials on how artificial intelligence is used for national security purposes.

The president is in Vilnius, Lithuania, for a NATO summit. Biden will participate in an arrival ceremony with President Gitanas Nausėda. He will pose for an official photo and guest book signing before a bilateral meeting with Nausėda. Biden, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Nausėda will share an official greeting. The president will join his counterparts for a group photo before a NATO meeting that is to include Sweden, which seeks membership. Biden will hold a bipartisan meeting with Erdoğan of Turkey at 6 p.m. local time at the Lithuanian Exhibition and Conference Center in Vilnius.

Vice President Harris will describe to the news media at 11:35 a.m. a federal child care subsidy program designed to lower costs for families, plus efforts to help providers who are part of the program. She will discuss transportation accessibility for the disabled during a White House roundtable at 1 p.m. with advocates.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is with Biden in Lithuania for NATO and bilateral meetings.

ELSEWHERE

➤ ECONOMY & CONSUMERS

Graduates and students with heavy debt could see thousands of dollars in interest added to their tabs as part of a proposal aimed at helping them after last month’s Supreme Court decision knocking down a Biden loan forgiveness plan, write The Hill’s Lexi Lonas and Adam Barnes. The White House’s “on-ramp” repayment plan allows borrowers to miss payments from Oct. 2023 to Sept. 2024 without an effect on their credit score or threat of default. But experts warn borrowers not to view this period as an extension of the previous pause (The New York Times).

▪ USA Today: Biden’s backup student debt plan likely faces “major” scrutiny.

▪ Axios: Student loan payment resumptions are set to test the economy.

Looking to the second half of 2023, nobody seems to have a definitive idea of where the U.S. economy is headed. While Biden has shrugged off the idea that there’ll be a recession, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen isn’t so sure, and the Federal Reserve’s forecaster’s put the odds at about 50-50. Wall Street, too, is on the list of places where there’s limited agreement on whether there’ll be a recession before the end of this year (Business Insider). Central banks, meanwhile, are at “the end of the beginning” in their battle against inflation, as several factors are keeping core prices persistently high, said top Societe Generale economist Kokou Agbo-Bloua (CNBC).

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / Manuel Balce Ceneta | Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton dueled at Weehawken, N.J., in 1804, as depicted in a drawing exhibited by the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in 2018.

And finally … On this day in 1804, then-Vice President Aaron Burr and Founding Father Alexander Hamilton met at dusk in Weehawken, N.J. Outraged over disparaging remarks that Hamilton had allegedly made at a dinner party, Burr challenged his longtime rival to a duel.

Hamilton, a leading Federalist and the chief architect of the United States’s political economy, died the following day. One of the original Founding Fathers, Hamilton was appointed the first secretary of the Treasury by President George Washington in 1789, and during the next six years, he crafted a sophisticated monetary policy that saved the nascent government from collapse (History.com).

🎶 For an early morning listening recommendation, Morning Report suggests the musical retelling of the duel from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster musical about the 10-dollar Founding Father.

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