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#The Hill’s Morning Report — Frustrated Zelensky rips NATO: ‘Absurd’

To a frustrated President Volodymyr Zelensky, NATO’s reticence on Tuesday to concretely welcome Ukraine into the Western alliance was “absurd” — that is, a missed opportunity to fortify his country in a language Russia understands.

“Uncertainty is weakness,” Zelensky tweeted.

To President Biden, NATO’s approach to Ukraine in a carefully worded statement with no date certain or specific conditions was an affirmation of his go-slow approach to bolstering a jittery alliance, which nonetheless appeared to imagine that Ukraine eventually will gain membership in the 31-nation bloc that shares a defense pact.

Ukraine has to survive the war first.

Biden and several other world leaders today decided to stand with Zelensky to unveil a security “assurance” describing Group of Seven “intent” in the event of a future invasion such as Russia’s last year, according to the White House. The goal is to kick off bilateral negotiations that lead to a series of bilateral security commitments with Ukraine, but apparently with no firm time frame for that process (The Washington Post).

The official NATO communiqué, released in Vilnius, Lithuania, on the first day of a two-day summit, said Ukraine will receive a NATO invitation “when allies agree and conditions are met” (The New York Times). Sweden and Finland are poised to become new members.

Zelensky’s criticism, expressed on Twitter, infuriated the U.S. delegation, according to The Washington Post. Later, the Ukrainian president expressed gratitude for NATO’s “new steps.”

Russia last year upended NATO’s strategic assumptions by invading its democratic neighbor in an attempt to turn back the clock and to try to block the West’s expanding influence to the East. NATO members embraced detailed plans intended to ensure the alliance’s collective military defense against a major attack by Russia or another such power Tuesday, a first since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who this year dangled tactical nuclear weapons as a threat if allies continued to provide arms and aid to Ukraine, has underestimated both Ukraine’s strength and Russia’s military miscalculations, according to experts, but has shown no interest in negotiating peace.

Putin in March announced he would move tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, closer to Ukraine. The reply from the White House at the time: “We remain committed to the collective defense of the NATO alliance.”

The U.S. and allies have sent Ukraine an increasingly hefty list of weaponry, ammunition, training, intelligence and humanitarian and economic assistance. The U.S. repeated its vow Tuesday to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

“Ultimately, the Ukrainians have to decide when to bring this to a close because it’s their country,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC’s “Today” show. “It’s their land. It’s their future. These are their decisions.”

Zelensky today will participate in discussions with NATO’s designated Ukraine council, hold a news conference with NATO’s secretary-general and hold bilateral meetings with Biden and counterparts from Canada, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, Japan and other leaders, he said on Telegram (The Washington Post).

▪ The Hill: Why Zelensky is left unhappy with NATO’s Ukraine plan.

▪ NBC News: Blinken said Ukraine would be “defenseless” without cluster munitions, to be supplied by the U.S.

▪ Politico: France and Germany pledged more weapons to Ukraine. … After France pledged long-range missiles to Kyiv, the Kremlin threatened “consequences” (Yahoo News).

▪ BBC: Zelensky today has already met on the sidelines of the NATO summit with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Zelensky told reporters in advance he wanted to raise security guarantees with Sunak, a summit priority for Ukraine. The prime minister told reporters there had been “real progress” on that.

Related Articles

▪ Reuters: Frontline video offers a grim, close-up view of Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russia.

▪ Reuters: A 42-year-old Russian ex-submarine officer on a Ukrainian blacklist of alleged war criminals was gunned down during his Monday morning run in Russia’s southern city of Krasnodar. The word “liquidated” appeared on his photo Tuesday on a Ukrainian website of purported enemies. Ukraine’s military did not claim responsibility.

▪ ABC News: Biden promised the parents of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained by Russia since March on espionage charges, “whatever it takes” to help gain their son’s release. The Journal denies Russia’s charges and the U.S. government officially designated Gershkovich “wrongfully detained.” The White House last week confirmed U.S. officials have been in contact with Russian counterparts to discuss the journalist’s release.

▪ NBC News: The Secret Service will provide a briefing to a House committee about cocaine found inside a West Wing entrance area used by staff, officials, security and visitors.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS

Calls for stronger ethics rules at the Supreme Court gained traction Tuesday after a new Associated Press investigation scrutinized visits to colleges made by Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum. As The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld reports, the investigation detailed how schools courted donors to attend the events, which enabled encounters between justices and elected officials and provided opportunities for high court justices to visit posh destinations, including Hawaii and Europe, in exchange for lectures and light teaching.

Notably, the AP focused on information it obtained that official staff members working for liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor urged colleges to purchase the justice’s books when she traveled to their schools.

Senate Democrats are queued up to champion a Supreme Court ethics bill in the coming weeks, an effort that has been met with scorn from Republicans. Senators previously focused on two conservative justices — Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — whose conduct and close ties to conservative megadonors have been examined in detail by ProPublica. While the Senate measure is unlikely to pass, it sends a signal of discontent about the court.

Unlike other branches of government, the Supreme Court operates without an ethics code, instead following what Chief Justice John Roberts has referred to as a set of foundational “ethics principles and practices” (The Associated Press).

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, called the new revelations “powerful reports” that amount to a “drip-by-drip-by-drip indictment of a Supreme Court that seems answerable to no one for ethical breaches. The chief justice really ought to be taking these into account for the sake of the court and the country because the Supreme Court will no longer exist as a truly viable institution if it continues the failure to face the need for a code of ethics.”

▪ The Associated Press: Inside the AP’s investigation into the ethics practices of the Supreme Court justices.

▪ CNN: The Supreme Court stands by its guidelines after a report raises new ethics questions.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is working to avoid another House floor takeover by his hardest-right conservatives as the GOP prepares to tackle some of the year’s biggest bills in the final stretch before the House’s August recess. McCarthy summoned a group of leaders from multiple corners of his conference Tuesday to shape a strategy for staving off further right-wing revolts. The group met in the shadow of what could become a new far-right rebellion, over the rule for debating a must-pass Pentagon policy bill (Politico).

Lawmakers will take up that bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), after the House Armed Services Committee last month voted it out of committee 58-1. The Senate Armed Services Committee had similar bipartisan support with a 24-1 vote. But even with the bipartisan votes, lawmakers and observers are bracing for battles on the House floor as more than 1,500 amendments have been filed. Though not every initiative will get a vote, several contentious amendments are sure to cause strife on the floor. Several Democrats — including House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith (Wash.) — have already expressed their worries over “extreme right-wing amendments” making it into the bill. The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell details the top issues expected to draw a fight, from Space Command headquarters to the Pentagon’s abortion policy and transgender troop medical care.

Freedom Caucus members poured cold water on House leadership’s hopes that the bill could be out of their chamber by Friday. Late Tuesday, they expressed support for continuing to work on the bill instead of bringing it up this week as soon as it is advanced out of the House Rules Committee (Washington Examiner).

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) sparked uproar Tuesday after refusing to denounce white nationalists as racists while describing that definition as opinion rather than fact during a CNN interview, write The Hill’s Alexander Bolton and Al Weaver. His comments forced Republican senators to respond, furnishing Democrats with political ammunition. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), asked about his colleague’s comments, issued a forceful denunciation of white supremacy during his weekly leadership conference.

“White supremacy is simply unacceptable in the military and in our whole country,” McConnell told reporters.

Tuberville appeared to backtrack later in the day, asserting that “white nationalists are racists.” The senator changed course after being pressed repeatedly by journalists to explain his comments. Despite the intense blowback, there is evidence that Tuberville’s high-profile battles in Washington are raising his national political profile and strengthening his support among conservatives at home. One Republican senator who requested anonymity observed that Tuberville appears to be gaining political strength in Alabama after spending months blocking the Senate progress of 260 nonpolitical military promotions to protest abortion policies at the Defense Department.

▪ CNN: Republican block leaves a major branch of the U.S. military without a confirmed leader for the first time in over a century.

▪ Politico and Reuters: “We will lose talent” over Tuberville blockade, Joint Chiefs nominee warns.

FBI Director Christopher Wray is set to appear before one of the House’s most cantankerous committees today as GOP members of the Judiciary Committee prepare to raise grievances with the bureau. As The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch reports, Wray’s appearance, part of regularly scheduled oversight, is his first after narrowly avoiding a censure vote from Republicans who sit on the House Oversight Committee. It also comes shortly after the GOP released transcripts from a whistleblower asserting that FBI agents working with the Justice Department failed to thoroughly investigate Hunter Biden, as well as the indictment of Trump adviser Gal Luft, who accused the Biden family of shady business dealings. The Justice Department denies any favoritism during its probe of the president’s son and GOP assertions of business illegality by Joe Biden remain unsubstantiated. Hunter Biden will offer a negotiated plea in court on July 27 to charges of two misdemeanor tax violations and a federal gun charge.

The developments are the latest fuel for long-simmering tensions between the bureau and the GOP, who created a subcommittee to review “weaponization” of the federal government that has frequently focused on the FBI.

▪ Roll Call: FBI director to face harsh critics at House Judiciary oversight hearing.

▪ Yahoo News: A new House GOP report claims the FBI violated Americans’ civil liberties.

⛳ Senators grilled two members of PGA Tour leadership Tuesday in a hearing on the organizer’s pending deal to form a new for-profit golf entity with LIV Golf, the league backed by Saudi Arabia’s Private Investment Fund (PIF). The merger has not yet been finalized beyond a framework released last month; no financial terms have been hammered out between the PGA Tour and PIF, but the wealth fund is expected to contribute a “significant amount” that will likely exceed $1 billion.

Blumenthal, the subcommittee chairman, repeatedly questioned PGA Tour COO Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne, who helped broker the truce between the two entities over the decision, to accept money from the Saudis after vehemently opposing LIV Golf for more than a year (The Hill).

“Today’s hearing is about much more than the game of golf,” Blumenthal said in his opening remarks. “It’s about how a brutal, repressive regime can buy influence — indeed even take over a cherished American institution — to cleanse its public image.”

▪ The Washington Post: The Professional Golf Association tour-Saudi emails show the origins of the LIV deal.

▪ CBS News: PGA Tour says U.S. golf would likely struggle without Saudi cash infusion.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ POLITICS

Top Democrats are wringing their hands that third-party campaigns could cost the president a second term and help a Republican candidate to victory (The Hill).

“In 2016, the Green Party played an outsized role in tipping the election to Donald Trump,” David Axelrod, who served as former President Obama’s chief strategist, recently wrote on Twitter. “Now, with Cornel West as their likely nominee, they could easily do it again. Risky business.”

West, 70, a leftist academic turned presidential aspirant, registered with the progressive Green Party last week. The quandary for the Democratic Party is what it can do beyond expounding on perceived electoral hazards. West may draw support from younger voters who remain cool to Biden and see West as allied with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) (Politico).

2024 roundup: Check out this month’s Iowa schedule of GOP candidate appearances, forums and a Lincoln dinner (👉 Trump and DeSantis are scheduled to be at the same event on July 28) (The Des Moines Register). … Iowa’s legislature on Tuesday passed a six-week ban on most abortions (the law had been set at 20 weeks). Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds will sign it on Friday (The Associated Press and The Hill). … Republicans are scratching their heads and wondering why Trump, ahead of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus next year, decided this week to criticize Reynolds. GOP presidential contenders leaped to her defense (The Hill). … Amid his tensions with the Iowa GOP, Trump next week will pair up with Fox’s Sean Hannity in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for a town hall (The Hill).

Trump world: The former president will be on the hook for damages and not immune as a former president in the defamation lawsuit won by writer E. Jean Carroll, the Justice Department said Tuesday in a reversal of opinion (The Hill). … Trump injected more uncertainty into the presidential cycle with his Monday request to a federal court to postpone until after the 2024 elections his criminal trial involving alleged retention of classified documents and charges that he and a co-conspirator tried to obstruct a federal investigation, writes The Hill’s Niall Stanage. … A pretrial hearing before Judge Aileen Cannon in United States v. Trump is scheduled Tuesday at 2 p.m. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Fort Pierce.

OPINION

■ Ukraine’s muddy road into NATO, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

■ Justice Alito: States don’t always know what’s best for children, by Steven Lubet, opinion contributor, The Hill.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 10 a.m. The House Judiciary Committee will hold an oversight hearing at 10 a.m. with the FBI director to “examine the politicization of the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency.”

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. The Senate Banking Committee convenes an executive session at 2 p.m. to vote on Fed board member Philip Jefferson, nominated to be the central bank’s next vice chair; board member Lisa Cook, nominated to a full 14-year term; and Adriana Kugler, U.S. executive director of the World Bank and Fed board nominee (Reuters).

The president is in Vilnius, Lithuania, for a NATO summit. Biden will meet with Zelensky. He will attend a meeting of NATO leaders, plus Sweden, Indo-Pacific partners and European Union representatives. The president will attend a separate meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, including Sweden. Biden will deliver remarks about support for Ukraine. He will depart Lithuania for Helsinki, Finland.

Vice President Harris will meet at the White House with civil rights leaders and consumer protection experts to discuss the “societal impact” of artificial intelligence.

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

First lady Jill Biden at 1:30 p.m., will be in Columbus, Ohio, for an Investing in America Workforce hub visit focused on workforce training.

Economic indicator: The Bureau of Labor Statistics at 8:30 a.m. will release the Consumer Price Index in June and a separate report on real earnings in June.

ELSEWHERE

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Biden’s outspoken criticism of extremist members of the Israeli government and his pushback against a judicial overhaul in the country is falling flat as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushes ahead on domestic policy supported by the far-right members of his coalition. The Hill’s Laura Kelly reports Israeli protesters are calling on the U.S. to oppose the judicial changes more forcefully. During a “day of disruption” Tuesday, protesters singled out the U.S. mission in Tel Aviv for their demonstrations — with mass protests blocking major roadways, the international airport and taking place outside government buildings. Biden and his top officials had earlier succeeded in having Netanyahu delay a package of legislation that critics said will erase the independence of the courts and threaten Israel’s status as a democracy.

But the Israeli government in recent days has taken up at least one piece of the package that protesters say marks a first step in pushing forward the government’s plan to neuter the country’s Supreme Court.

▪ The Washington Post: Israel faces an ongoing constitutional crisis — without a constitution.

▪ The Associated Press: “I will not stay quiet”: Israel evicts a Palestinian family from their home after a 45-year legal battle.

▪ The New York Times: Humanitarian aid to Syria is imperiled after vetoes in the U.N. Security Council.

▪ Reuters analysis: Turkey sets new Western tilt in foreign policy as economy weighs.

▪ The Associated Press: In the fight against Canadian wildfires, dancing South African crews are a familiar and uplifting sight.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Masked gunmen and a stolen toilet: How Russia seized a Ukrainian city’s businesses. Many of Melitopol’s companies have been taken over by Russian interests. Now some former owners are fighting back.

➤ HEALTH & WELLBEING

💊 “This analysis points to the fact that there can be a lot of spending on people that are not likely to reap any long-term health benefits,” Khrysta Baig, a health policy researcher at Vanderbilt University, said after reviewing findings that a majority of patients opt to stop taking expensive weight loss drugs such as Wegovy after about a year. In that period, total health care costs for the group in the study rose sharply, according to an analysis of U.S. pharmacy claims shared with Reuters. Such prescription medications can cost more than $1,000 per month, and any improvement in health and subsequent reduction in medical costs is unlikely to occur quickly.

The Wall Street Journal: European regulators are investigating whether the popular weight loss drugs Ozempic and Saxenda increase the risk of suicidal thoughts among users.

🫂 It’s not news to most parents of teenagers that a mental health crisis impacting the nation’s young people also affects their fretful parents. A Harvard University report finds that parents of teens are as depressed and anxious as their offspring (The Hill).

A bipartisan push to expand methadone access across America is picking up momentum after restrictions on the medication were relaxed during the pandemic, writes The Hill’s Joseph Choi. Methadone is one of the most effective treatments available for opioid use disorder (OUD), however experts have long feared that easy access could backfire since the drug carries its own potential for abuse and unintentional overdose. But the pandemic provided an opportunity to explore this option when dispensing restrictions were relaxed, providing patients and clinicians experience with a more open system.

The newly approved Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi, which slows cognitive decline in early stages of the disease, appears in clinical trials to have been of greater benefit to males than females. The difference was determined to be by chance and not statistically significant (Axios).

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / Bebeto Matthews | Harvard physicist Avi Loeb, pictured in 2016, has studied an interstellar meteor that struck Earth in 2014. His research team found alloy traces left by the meteor beneath the Pacific Ocean unknown on this planet.

And finally … 🔬 Are they out there? An astrophysicist at Harvard University believes he and colleagues may have found proof of extraterrestrial life — at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean (USA Today).

Last month, a crew embarked by boat on an expedition to Papua New Guinea with the mission of recovering fragments from a mysterious meteor that struck Earth in 2014. During the two-week excursion, the team combed more than 100 miles of ocean bed before recovering 50 tiny spheres composed of a metallic substance they say is unmatched by any known alloys in our solar system.

Are the tiny spheres alien?

“Our findings open a new frontier in astronomy of studying what lies outside the solar system through microscopes rather than telescopes,” said Avi Loeb, the Harvard professor who led the expedition as its chief scientist. He has studied and written about the meteor, known as CNEOS 2014-01-08, along with one of his graduate students, Amir Siraj.

Scientific American: Spy satellites confirmed our discovery of the first meteor from beyond our solar system.

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