Principals

1. Warner endorses TikTok bill
2. Migrants power job growth
3. The Republican retreat
4. Boebert’s big decision
5. Guns, abortion, and college
6. Ukraine’s fragile EU support

PDB: How the Biden administration botched its overhaul of college financial aid forms

Harris visits Minnesota Planned Parenthood clinic … Biden campaigns in Michigan … FT: Secret Iran talks

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

The TikTok bill has a powerful backer in the Senate

It sailed through the House on Wednesday. But can Congress’ controversial new TikTok bill survive the Senate? At least one influential Democratic hopes so. “We got to get something done,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig. “We’re going into a 24-hour election cycle, where literally millions of Americans get a lot of their news from this site. And if that can be manipulated against American interests — I don’t care whether you’re Democrat or Republican, that is not in America’s interest.”

But the legislation is facing a foggy future in the upper chamber. The bill would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or face a U.S. ban. But despite a 352-65 House vote and a thumbs up from the White House, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer remained noncommittal about bringing it to the floor in a statement Wednesday. Another key Democrat, Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., sounded skeptical, saying she wanted “to find a path forward that is constitutional and protects civil liberties.” Sending the legislation to her committee, one of Schumer’s options, “is a euphemism for killing it,” Punchbowl notes. Warner, whose last effort to rein in TikTok fizzled in the face of both progressive and conservative grassroots opposition, didn’t rule out amending the House bill, which he endorsed alongside his Intelligence Committee GOP counterpart, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

How migrants power the Biden economy

The flood of migrants at the southern border is a central political problem for President Biden. But it may also be powering his economy. A recent report from Brookings concludes that the big pool of new workers, including asylum-seekers, may be the reason businesses have been able to keep adding jobs at an unexpectedly fast pace over the past year without putting as much pressure on wages or inflation. The impact is large, too: The report suggests that payrolls can sustainably grow by 160,000 to 200,000 jobs a month, currently, up from an estimate of 60,000 to 100,000 without the immigration bump. The authors borrow estimates of recent migrant arrivals from the Congressional Budget Office, which recently concluded that the immigrant influx would add $7 trillion to the economy over a decade.

— Jordan Weissmann

A House GOP optimist

The theme of Wednesday’s House GOP retreat in West Virginia was “growing the majority.” But as Speaker Mike Johnson sat for an on-stage interview, he found himself talking instead about members who keep leaving for the door. “I hope and believe that that’s the end of the exits,” he said after being asked about Rep. Ken Buck’s, R-Colo. early retirement announcement this week. The poorly attended event — fewer than half the GOP members even showed up — seemed to be haunted by the party’s notorious morale issues. Semafor’s Kadia Goba asked the conference’s new vice chair, Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, if there was a strategy to improve the party’s mood. “You have to highlight the momentum that you have and build on it,” said Moore, who inherited Johnson’s old job. “It’s being positive and optimistic.” He said Republicans should be proud of how they’ve “clenched down on all of [the] massive new spending proposals.” Moore also said he’s trying to bring a little more “Utah-esque” fun to the grind of Congress by dolling out gold, silver, or bronze medals to reward members with the most floor time.

Lauren Boebert cuts House GOP a break

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. will not leave Congress to run in a special election to replace fellow Republican Ken Buck. Buck’s surprise decision to leave next week put Boebert in a complicated bind — which in-state politicos speculated may have been the anti-MAGA Republican’s intention. She was already abandoning her district to run in Buck’s redder one, but would have had to step down to participate in the special election. That contest is scheduled the same day as the primary for the general election, meaning voters might have been confused by her presence on only one of the ballots, damaging her chances. In a statement, Boebert condemned Buck’s decision to leave, as well as the byzantine election process left in his wake, but decided to stay put. “I will not further imperil the already very slim House Republican majority by resigning my current seat,” she said.

Gallup: Guns, abortion policies weigh on college decisions

Current and prospective students say they’re less likely to attend schools in states where there are loose gun policies and strict abortion bans, according to new surveys from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. Of those surveyed, 84% said they’re more likely to enroll in schools with bans or tough restrictions on guns on campus, including 71% of Republican respondents. Meanwhile, 71% said state reproductive healthcare policy impacts their college choice — and 86% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans said they prefer states that offer more access. While college enrollment has dropped in recent years, it’s still not clear gun and abortion policies are driving many real-world student decisions. “We haven’t seen it in the data yet,” Courtney Brown, VP of impact and planning at the Lumina Foundation, told Semafor, noting that students were often drawn to the most affordable in-state options.

EU Ukraine support falls short

European pledges to support Ukraine were undermined by reports that a major announcement of military aid was largely repackaged funds. In a rare move, Denmark expanded conscription to include women, Poland’s president urged NATO members to up spending to 3% of GDP on defense rather than the obliged 2%, and Czechia’s leader has argued for pooled contributions. Yet a newly announced €5 billion fund for arms shipments to Kyiv was labeled a “Potemkin village” by Politico, made up largely of prior commitments. Coupled with deadlock in Washington, the resulting lack of support for Ukraine could soon translate to the battlefield: The Ukrainian front line is “more fragile” than it appears, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

— Prashant Rao

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — which was suspended last month in the wake of the Israeli government’s accusations that some of its employees were involved in the Oct. 7 attack — has become a sticking point in the last batch of spending bills needed to avert a shutdown.

Playbook: President Biden’s focus on housing costs is driven by worries that it’s a key vulnerability in the battle against inflation; in internal meetings, he has pressed senior staff about affordability, mortgage rates and rental costs and how much inflation is affecting housing budgets.

The Early 202: Democrats are going all-in on preventing third-party candidates: The Democratic National Committee has a dedicated staff working to push back against third-party or independent candidates, and Biden allies have formed a super PAC called Clear Choice to blunt their momentum.

Axios: The TikTok bill gives Biden a “a chance to clearly distinguish his approach from Trump’s,” and position himself to the Republican’s right on China.

White House

• Vice President Harris plans to tour a Minnesota Planned Parenthood clinic on Thursday that provides abortion services, which may be the first such visit from a president or vice president. — NBC News
• Harris is also hosting a marijuana reform event with Fat Joe, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and pardoned cannabis offenders on Friday. — NBC News
• “I have not spoken to the president about Kate Middleton,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Congress

• Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas hosted Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. on his podcast for a pep talk after her State of the Union rebuttal. “Scarlett Johansson is hot,” Cruz said, referring to her SNL depiction. “I am genuinely jealous because, look, SNL has come after me a bunch of times. They don’t ever have Tom Cruise play me!”
• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is planning a “major address” at 10 a.m. today in which he’ll discuss a plan to advance a two-state solution to the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.

Outside the Beltway

Consumer advocacy group Travelers United is suing South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem over an odd infomercial-style video she posted promoting a Texas cosmetic dental clinic. Noem has not said if she was compensated with money or services for the video, which the group argues should have been labeled as an advertisement.

Economy

Thirty-three percent of Americans say the economy is in recovery in the latest USA Today/Suffolk poll, the highest percentage since August 2021.

Technology

Adobe’s Firefly image creation tool has the same flaws as Google Gemini, depicting Nazi soldiers and Vikings as Black, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti reported, noting that Adobe is not a “hotbed of employee activism” like Google and that the “common denominator is the core technology for image generation.”

Courts

• Judge Scott McAfee dismissed six of the charges against Trump in the Georgia election interference case, saying they were too broad to defend against.
• The Hunter Biden trial on federal gun charges is scheduled for June 3.

Polls

• Ships passing in the night? President Biden’s approval rating hit a new low in FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls while Democrats took the lead in the generic ballot for Congress.
• New Fox News surveys find Trump up 49-45 over Biden in Arizona and 49-47 in Pennsylvania, within the poll’s margin of error.

On the Trail

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced he’d debut his running mate on March 26. With unvaccinated NFL star Aaron Rodgers among the pool of candidates, he’s starting to get more scrutiny. CNN’s Pamela Brown and Jake Tapper reported he had shared debunked conspiracy theories claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting was either an inside job by the government or a fake event that “never happened” — including directly with Brown.
• In conversations with allies, Donald Trump sounds worried about picking a running mate with a hard-right record on abortion. — NBC News
• Kellyanne Conway urged Republicans to ditch talking points about Democrats backing abortion “up to the moment of birth” in blue states. “Nobody knows anybody who is about to give birth and says, ‘You know what? I really don’t like stretch marks,’” she said at a Politico Health Care Summit.
• Trump is drafting House candidate and former Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C. into a position on his campaign, clearing a lane in North Carolina’s 6th district for Addison McDowell.

Foreign Policy

Saudi Arabia is investing big in mineral extraction for clean energy technology to hedge against declining oil use. — Semafor

Media

Don Lemon said Elon Musk canceled his planned news show on X after he asked the billionaire questions he disliked for the debut episode. Should have signed that contract first!

Big Read

The college admissions process has become an unholy mess for many families this year, thanks to the Biden administration’s botched effort to update the Department of Education’s system for processing FAFSA financial aid forms. The New York Times has the latest rundown of the situation, which has frozen applications and forced some schools to move enrollment deadlines. The details are cringe-inducing: With days to go before a major deadline, the administration realized an inbox full of 70,000 emails from students submitting personal information had gone completely unread. If the whole thing reminds you of the Healthcare.gov debacle, well, it turns out the same government contractor — ​​General Dynamics Information Technology — was involved in both.

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: Several fast food restaurants, including Taco Bell and In-N-Out, have shut their dining rooms in Oakland, Calif., due to concerns over rising crime in the city.

What the Right isn’t reading: A Massachusetts man has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for threatening to bomb then-Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ office in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

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

Ben Wikler is the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

• As inflation soars, Nigerians are raiding food warehouses.
• How Adobe’s Firefly repeats the same blunders as Google’s Gemini.
• Why Don Lemon’s deal with X just collapsed.