Principals

1. Border deal looks wobbly
2. RNC to Haley: Drop out
3. UAW backs Biden
4. Tax deal rumors
5. Two-state solution push
6. Boeing scrutiny

PDB: Clean energy investors prep for a potential Trump presidency

Biden to tout infrastructure funding in Wisconsin… U.S. lawmakers meet with Taiwan’s president-elect … NYT: Biden pushes Congress to approve F-16 sale to Turkey

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Will Trump smother the Senate border deal?

Donald Trump wants to squash the Senate’s unfinished border deal — and on Wednesday, there were hints he might succeed. The former president, who now appears poised to sew up his party’s nomination, has publicly railed against the potential compromise package on social media. But HuffPost reports that Trump has also been privately urging Republican senators to oppose the agreement under negotiation, which would pair conservative border policy reforms with aid to Ukraine and other U.S. allies. “Trump wants them to kill it because he doesn’t want Biden to have a victory,” one source told the site. Perhaps not coincidentally, some of Trump’s high-profile Senate allies lit into the package yesterday: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas called it a “stinking pile of crap” while Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla. suggested that Trump himself should have his say over any deal Republicans sign on to. Even more telling: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for the first time expressed doubts about whether a border package will move forward during a private GOP meeting yesterday evening, according to Punchbowl News. The Kentuckian, who has previously urged a quick vote on the package once it was finished, told his conference that “the politics of this have changed” and that leadership did not want to do “anything to undermine” Trump, whom he called “the nominee.” Don’t ring the death knell for a deal yet, though: The GOP conference for now still appears split between those firmly in favor of an agreement and those who are now against, and there’s even some talk of once again trying to handle Ukraine aid separately from the border.

Nikki Haley isn’t letting up

Nikki Haley rallied in South Carolina on Wednesday, again shrugging off calls to drop out and endorse Trump for the sake of party unity. Those entreaties included an unusual public appeal from RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Semafor’s David Weigel reports, who previously pledged to remain neutral in the primaries. But Haley sounded unbowed, mocking Trump’s “temper tantrum” after the New Hampshire primary and repeating her calls for a “mental competency test” and a one-on-one debate (“Bring it, Donald”). She also announced she’d taken in $1 million in small donations since Tuesday’s primary (helpful, as some big donors might not offer further support, and Trump is threatening to permanently exile those who do). Over at The Dispatch, anti-Trump conservative Nick Catoggio wrote that the current bridge-burning underdog was “not the Nikki Haley I thought I knew,” noting her reputation for political self-preservation when it came to Trump. Mark Harris, a strategist for the Haley-aligned super PAC SFA Inc., warned reporters Wednesday against wearing “cynic hats” and speculating about how her campaign might affect her future within the party. “Nikki is running, as she made clear last night, because she believes it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

President Biden scores UAW’s endorsement

President Biden accepted an endorsement from the United Auto Workers on Wednesday, and we can only assume it’ll be replayed in his Michigan campaign ads for the next 10 months. “Rarely, as a union, do you get so clear of a choice between two candidates,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a speech, saying Biden “bet on the American worker” while “Donald Trump is a scab.” The union, which represents about 400,000 workers, withheld its endorsement during an extended strike last year in which Trump appealed to its members by emphasizing his opposition to electric vehicles, a top Biden administration priority. Democrats warned Biden not to take their support for granted, and he made a visit to the picket lines, a first for a sitting president. “Let me tell you something I learned a long time ago,” Biden said on Wednesday. “If I’m going to be in a fight, I want to be in the fight with you, the UAW.”

There’s a weird rumor about Congress’s new tax deal

A whisper campaign apparently aimed at tanking the bipartisan tax plan being considered in Congress has been making its way around K Street and Capitol Hill. But tax experts say the claims behind the chatter simply aren’t true, Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig writes. According to talking points circulating among lobbyists and congressional aides, the package would potentially allow the Biden administration to send out Child Tax Credit checks right before the 2024 election, two people familiar with the situation said. “The problem with that is this particular [bill] does not facilitate that payment structure,” Kyle Pomerleau, a tax expert at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told Semafor. While the legislation does increase the credit’s value for many families, they would typically receive it at tax time after filing their returns, with the money built into their annual refund. “There’s no separate check that says ‘CTC’ on the subject line or anything like that,” Pomerleau added. The child credit was distributed as a separate monthly check during Biden’s one-year expansion of the program, which ended in 2022.

Almost every Senate Democrat backs amendment supporting two-state solution

Senate Democrats gently pushed back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, as nearly the entire caucus signed on to a resolution reiterating U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict. Led by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, the move was in the works before Netanyahu publicly rejected the idea of an independent Palestinian state last week. But those comments “turbocharged our efforts,” Schatz told reporters. Technically, the measure is supposed to be an amendment to the chamber’s unfinished national security deal, which is expected to include aid for Israel alongside border security reforms and Ukraine assistance. But while Schatz is introducing the amendment, he isn’t asking for a floor vote on it, since that could further complicate the overall package’s uncertain path to passage. “I think the statement does the trick,” he said. “The supplemental will be hard enough to land and I’m not in the business of increasing the degree of difficulty.” The amendment is co-sponsored by 48 other members (all of whom caucus with the Democrats) but two members of the party abstained: Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa. and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.

— Morgan Chalfant

Boeing stares down federal regulators, congressional probe

It looks like Boeing’s time in the barrel is just beginning. The Federal Aviation Administration froze the company’s production rates for its 737 Max jet on Wednesday while also clearing grounded jets that have passed inspections to resume flying, weeks after a piece of a jet’s panel separated from the aircraft mid-flight. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the Biden administration will also conduct “a bigger-picture examination of any and all quality issues” beyond just looking at manufacturing problems. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun made the rounds on Capitol Hill to answer what he said were “a lot” of questions from lawmakers. “We don’t put airplanes in the air that we don’t have 100% confidence in,” Calhoun told reporters. After their meeting, Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. vowed to hold hearings. There’s at least some bright news for the company: Boeing delivered a 737 to a Chinese airline for the first time in five years.

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Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Bipartisan border security negotiations led by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., Chris Murphy, D-Conn. and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. “are probably over.”

The Early 202: Senate leadership is in discussions about potentially dropping the border security element of the national security supplemental and moving forward with a bill that includes aid to Ukraine and Israel and funding to counter China.

Axios: Donald Trump’s campaign is a “more conventional, buttoned-up operation” than he had in 2016 or 2020: Top advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita “run a tight, lean ship” in which staffers get along, the team has built an extensive ground operation in key early states, and they’ve worked to shape state delegate rules to Trump’s benefit.

Playbook: Some House conservatives are expressing opposition to the bipartisan tax deal because it could result in undocumented immigrants who bore children in the U.S. receiving the Child Tax Credit benefit.

White House

• President Biden is headed to Wisconsin today and will announce $5 billion in funding for transportation projects across the U.S., including $1 billion for rebuilding the Blatnik Bridge connecting Superior, Wis. to Duluth, Minn.
• Vice President Harris is in Sacramento, Calif. today fundraising and meeting with Democratic members of the state legislature.
• White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said the administration was “gravely concerned” by reported strikes on a U.N. shelter in Gaza said to have killed at least nine people. Israel said it did not conduct the strike.
• Biden vetoed a resolution that would reverse a Biden administration rule waiving some “Buy America” requirements for federally-funded electric vehicle chargers.
• The Biden administration is releasing guidance about safe firearm storage and sending a letter to school principals encouraging them to communicate with parents about safely storing guns, actions that will be highlighted at a White House town hall with first lady Jill Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
• The Bidens invited Kate Cox, a woman who was denied an emergency abortion by the Texas Supreme Court last year, as their guest for the State of the Union in March.

Congress

• Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio came out against President Biden’s nominee for deputy U.S. trade representative, Nelson Cunningham, citing his past support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and his lobbying work for a Chinese glass company.
• Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. announced he’s running for a 17th term.
• The Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced legislation that would allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian assets and use them to pay for reconstructing Ukraine.
• The House Homeland Security Committee scheduled a mark up of articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for next Tuesday.
• House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. is catching flak from members of his own party over his handling of the Biden investigations. “It’s been a parade of embarrassments,” one anonymous House GOP lawmaker said. — The Messenger
• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. declared a “Zynsurrection” as a number of Republicans piled on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call to investigate the nicotine pouches.

Outside the Beltway

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott escalated his feud with the Biden administration over the border, releasing a statement saying the state had a constitutional right to “self-defense” from a migrant “invasion” that “supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.” Seems like this will end well.
• Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature voted to override a veto from the state’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and banned gender-affirming care for minors while also barring transgender girls from participating in women’s sports at the K-12 and college level.
• Arizona GOP chairman Jeff DeWit resigned after audio leaked of him suggesting to Kari Lake that “very powerful people” would compensate her if she didn’t run for Senate. In his resignation letter, DeWit said Lake threatened to release a “new, more damaging recording” if he stayed longer. — NBC News

Polls

Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va. leads Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney in the Democratic primary for governor in Virginia, according to a new survey from the Wason Center.

On the Trail

• The RNC quietly shut down over a dozen Latino outreach centers it touted in the 2022 cycle as part of a major long-term push for votes. —The Messenger
• The pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. raised more than $46 million in the second half of 2023 and has just over $23 million on hand.
• Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J. picked up another endorsement in his quest to replace Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. Former congressman Tom Malinowski is backing Kim, meaning he’s officially passing on his own bid.
• The Biden campaign is dispatching first lady Jill Biden to South Carolina on Friday for an “Educators for Biden-Harris event.”

Courts

• Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro will be sentenced later today after being convicted of contempt of Congress charges for evading a subpoena in the House’s Jan. 6 probe.
• Donald Trump‘s defamation trial is resuming in New York.

Foreign Policy

• Israel’s decision to construct a “buffer zone” along its border with Gaza is a source of “growing frustration” among U.S. officials. — WSJ
• British Foreign Secretary David Cameron met with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. when he visited Washington last month, as part of a broader effort by British officials to make the case for Ukraine aid among Republicans opposed to passing future assistance. — NYT
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said he would push for his country’s legislature to approve Sweden’s NATO membership bid.
• Jane Hartley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.K., shared her favorite tea recipe with Semafor’s Flagship newsletter.

Climate

• Clean energy investors are preparing for the possibility of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, even if they might be hoping President Biden will stick around. “If Trump is reelected there will be a clean energy reckoning in the first 100 days,” Jim Kapsis, CEO of the climate policy consulting firm Ad Hoc Group, told Semafor’s Tim McDonnell.
• The Biden administration is delaying a decision on whether to approve an LNG export project that would be the largest in the U.S. if approved (potentially kicking it to after the November election). — NYT

Media

Jon Stewart is coming back to “The Daily Show” for weekly hosting duties — at least through the 2024 election.

Blindspot

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: Republicans criticized President Biden after he joked that Terry McAuliffe was the “real governor” of Virginia at an abortion rights rally in the state Tuesday night.

What the Right isn’t reading: Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers pledged to veto a Republican redistricting proposal.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

Reporters: Kadia Goba, Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Michèle Flournoy is cofounder and managing partner of WestExec Advisors and served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under the Obama administration.