Principals

1. Biden talks abortion
2. Campus protests expand
3. Trump opening arguments
4. Politicians tackle happiness
5. Biden’s global approval
6. New China sanctions

PDB: What Biden told Zelenskyy

Biden to Tampa … Senate to pass Ukraine aid as soon as tonight … Trump faces hearing on gag order

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Biden to hammer Trump on abortion in Florida speech

President Joe Biden heads to Tampa for a speech on abortion today as he looks to keep the issue front and center in the 2024 race. The visit, timed eight days before Florida’s 6-week ban on the procedure snaps into effect, will let the president “forcefully advocate for reproductive freedom and call out Donald Trump’s abortion bans,” campaign communications director Michael Tyler said on a press call. Trump has recently attempted to stake out a middle ground on abortion by saying it should be left up to the states; he also urged Arizona “to remedy” its Supreme Court ruling that deemed that a near-total abortion ban from 1864 was in effect. But Tyler said the campaign will continue making the case that the former president is responsible for “extreme state bans,” because he appointed the justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade. Biden’s team is signaling confidence the issue won’t lose its potency. “Abortion bans are now a voting issue in battleground states across the country that will decide this election,” Arizona Coordinated Campaign Senior Advisor Jen Cox told reporters.

— Shelby Talcott

Washington wades deeper into the campus Gaza protests

Prominent universities on Monday moved to contain the fallout from expanding protests on their campuses over Israel’s war with Hamas. Columbia University president Minouche Shafik on Monday moved classes on the main campus online for the rest of the semester to “de-escalate the rancor” and allow administrators time to determine how to proceed. The move follows her controversial decision to have the NYPD clear a protester encampment last week, leading to the arrest of more than 100 students. Shafik nonetheless faced calls to resign Monday from New York’s Republican members of Congress, who accused her in a letter of failing to “ensure students have a safe learning environment” for Jewish students who have faced harassment from demonstrators. President Biden also waded deeper into the issue Monday, saying he condemned “antisemitic protests” as well as “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” The remark drew instant attacks from conservative media, which accused him of attempting to “both sides” the issue. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protests have spread to other schools, including the University of California, Berkley, Tufts University, and MIT. At Yale, Police arrested 50 student protesters on and around campus.

‘There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election,’ Trump lawyer tells jury

The opening arguments kicked off the first trial of a former US president Monday, with prosecutors telling jurors that Donald Trump repeatedly lied to cover up an affair with adult actress Stormy Daniels to win the 2016 election. “It was election fraud, pure and simple,” Matthew Colangelo, a Manhattan prosecutor, told the jury. Trump attorney Todd Blanche accused prosecutors of trying to disparage the use of nondisclosure agreements and criminalize old fashioned politics. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election,” he said. “It’s called democracy.” The first witness, former National Enquirer David Pecker, testified that the tabloid practiced “checkbook journalism,” paying for some stories and buying others to quash them and keep them out of the hands of rivals — known as “catch and kill” in the media industry. Prosecutors will use his testimony to show the hush-money payments at the core of the case were part of a larger push to influence the election by quashing negative news about Trump.

This bipartisan pair wants to fix America’s happiness deficit

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. and Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox are joining forces to try and address a vexing problem plaguing the US: Americans are less and less happy. Today, the pair is launching the “Restoring the Common Good Initiative,” a bipartisan effort they describe as a way to move away from the divisive politics of Washington and talk about and better understand “the state of American anxiety,” Murphy told Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant. US policymakers are grappling with a divided electorate that, data suggests, is increasingly dissatisfied with their political leaders and their lives: A majority of Americans believe the country to be headed in the wrong direction, national suicide rates are on the rise, and the US slipped to 15th to 23rd on Gallup’s global happiness tracker. Murphy said he was introduced to Cox, who was elected in 2021, by Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah about a year ago, and that the two have been talking, texting, and emailing since. “Our goal is to try to get political leaders to start asking bigger, more fundamental questions, like what makes up a good life,” he said.

The world is still lukewarm on Biden’s leadership

Global approval of U.S. leadership under President Biden held steady in 2023, according to new figures from Gallup’s Rating World Leaders report out today. The median global approval rate of US leadership stood at 41% last year consistent with Biden’s second year in office but a decline from 45% in 2021 (it’s an improvement from the same figures across Donald Trump’s tenure). But there were still some sizable fluctuations in views of the US amongst specific populations: In Ukraine, for example, approval of US leadership dropped from 66% in 2022 to 53% last year as American policymakers fought over a way forward for military and economic aid to the country. Positive views of US leadership also declined substantially in India and Finland, while rising significantly in parts of sub-Saharan and North Africa. A record-high 81% of Israelis said they approved of US leadership when surveyed soon after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

US readies China sanctions

The US is readying sanctions against Chinese banks in an effort to pressure Beijing over its tacit support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to The Wall Street Journal. The moves come with the US secretary of state due to arrive in China, part of continued high-level engagement between the two countries even as they face off over an array of issues: The US is carrying out naval drills with the Philippines in the South China Sea, where Manila has accused Beijing of expansionism. China is not standing pat, though, and has built up its own financial wherewithal, having “watched carefully as Western allies have deployed unprecedented economic statecraft against Russia,” the Atlantic Council noted in a recent report.

— Prashant Rao

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Mitch McConnell — a key champion of Ukraine in Washington — will emerge as a winner once the foreign aid bill passes the Senate, though it’s unclear whether a majority of Senate Republicans will ultimately vote in favor of more aid to Ukraine. Opponents think they’re winning the argument. “Our voters want us to put America first. And we’re seeing a growing number of Republican senators who think Ukraine has nothing to do with that,” GOP Sen. J.D. Vance, a Ukraine aid critic, said.

Playbook: Donald Trump defended Speaker Mike Johnson publicly for the second time in two weeks yesterday, sending a signal to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to cool it on her threat to oust the speaker. “Well, look, we have a majority of one, OK?” Trump said in a radio interview. “It’s not like he can go and do whatever he wants to do.”

The Early 202: The typical election-year slowdown hasn’t yet hit K Street: Some top lobbying firms reported record revenue during the first quarter of 2024.

Axios: House Republicans are “haunted” by two moves this Congress: allowing any member to call for ousting the speaker and tapping two conservative hardliners to the House Rules Committee.

White House

• President Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday and told him the U.S. would “quickly provide significant new security assistance packages to meet Ukraine’s urgent battlefield and air defense needs” as soon as the Senate passes — and he signs into law — the foreign aid package containing $60 billion for Kyiv, according to the White House. Zelenskyy emphasized Ukraine’s “critical” need for air defense, according to his office.
• Vice President Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff are hosting a private Passover Seder today.
• The Biden administration is “seriously discussing” proposals that would give legal status to immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens who entered the country illegally, which could affect a million people. — WSJ
• A new Biden administration rule would protect the privacy of women traveling for abortions.

Congress

• The Senate returns this afternoon to begin taking votes on the national security and foreign aid bills passed by the House over the weekend.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson apologized to President Biden for the “eye-roll memes” featuring Johnson’s expression that circulated following the State of the Union Address earlier this year. “I’m just grateful you didn’t rip my speech up,” Biden replied, laughing. — RealClearPolitics
• Some on the left are comparing Democratic Sen. John Fetterman to Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, in part due to his willingness to clash with the Biden administration and other Democrats over Israel policy. — HuffPost
• An investigation by the House Intelligence Committee faulted the CIA for failing to punish perpetrators of sexual assault among its employees. — Politico

Courts

• A majority of the Supreme Court’s justices seemed inclined to side with the small Oregon city at the center of a closely watched case about whether local governments can impose criminal penalties on homeless individuals for sleeping on the streets. The court’s three liberals looked ready to declare such measures a violation of the 8th amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. But members of its conservative expressed concern about allowing courts to micromanage how cities deal with a complicated issue like homelessness.. “Why would you think that these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?” Chief Justice John Roberts, asked.
• The Supreme Court will hear a case over the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate so-called “ghost guns.”
• The UK and Germany charged five people suspected of spying for China.

Polls

Another glimmer of hope for President Biden: A new Marist poll found him with a three-point edge over Donald Trump among national registered voters (that’s within the survey’s margin of error) and his lead increases to six points when the question is posed only to people who say they definitely plan to vote. Trump has also seen his support decline among independent voters, according to the poll.

On the Trail

• Voters head to the polls in Pennsylvania today, where the closely watched races include a primary challenge to Democratic Rep. Summer Lee, who commands a lead over opponent Bhavini Patel despite criticism of her stance on Israel. — NYT
• Speaker Mike Johnson is fundraising for Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, in San Antonio today. — Punchbowl News
• Donald Trump appears to be road testing a new wedge issue: “Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok,” he posted on Truth Social Monday. (No mention of his administration’s own attempts to restrict the app.)

National Security

Last year, global military spending reached a 35-year high, in large part due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. — NYT

Foreign Policy

• The US is investigating alleged human rights and international law violations by both Israel and Hamas and won’t apply a double standard, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Monday. His remarks came amid reports the Biden administration is planning to sanction an Israel Defense Forces battalion accused of human rights abuses in the West Bank.
• Israel hasn’t yet offered evidence for its claims that employees of UNRWA, the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, have ties to militant groups, an independent review commissioned by the UN found.
• The Pentagon is putting together a Ukraine military aid package that is “larger than normal” in size and will include armored vehicles, artillery, and air defense. — Politico

Technology

• Nina Jankowicz, who briefly led the federal government’s now defunct Disinformation Governance Board that was shuttered amid a conservative outcry, has launched a nonprofit to combat “what she and others have described as a coordinated campaign by conservatives and others to undermine researchers, like her, who study the sources of disinformation.” — NYT
• Google has fired another 20 employees it said protested the tech giant’s cloud-computing deal with Israel’s government, according to the activist group representing the workers. Google reportedly has confirmed it fired more employees after further investigating sit-in protests at its offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, Calif., last week. – WaPo

Media

Donald Trump is set to receive an additional 36 million shares of Truth Social parent Trump Media today, an “earnout” bonus worth $1.25 billion at Monday’s closing price.

Big Read

Speaker Mike Johnson’s two teenage sons nearly drowned while accompanying their father on a trip to Mar-a-Lago, according to a lengthy Atlantic profile of the Republican leader. The close call left both boys briefly in the emergency room. According to Johnson, Donald Trump told him that “God saved your sons’ lives” — which he took as proof they shared some fundamental sense of faith.

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: A federal agency sued the chain Sheetz, alleging discriminatory hiring practices.

What the Right isn’t reading: The House Ethics Committee is investigating whether Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., used drugs while in Congress.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

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

Josh Gottheimer is a Democrat from New Jersey. He was among a group of lawmakers that visited Columbia University on Monday as the school grapples with protests over the war in Gaza.

• Axel Springer’s Trump years.
• Ukraine can ‘prevail’ with U.S. support, NATO deputy says
• Why Togo’s politicians disagree over a constitutional change.