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Happy Monday morning.

Congress is out for the Easter recess, but the news keeps coming.

President Joe Biden has another hectic week that includes the Ukraine crisis, guns and crime, the latest monthly inflation report and quick trips to Iowa and North Carolina.

Biden will hold a high-profile video call this morning with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India has emerged as a key player in enforcing economic sanctions imposed on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. India has stepped up its purchase of Russian oil despite calls from the United States and other Western nations to end such imports. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden “will continue our close consultations on the consequences of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine and mitigating its destabilizing impact on global food supply and commodity markets.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also begin a “U.S.-India 2+2 Ministerial” meeting today in Washington with Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Minister of Defense Rajnath Singh. India is seen as a critical counterweight to growing Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific region.

Then in the Rose Garden this afternoon, Biden will announce that he’s nominating Steve Dettelbach, a former U.S. attorney in Ohio, to take over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to two senior administration officials.

This comes as the Justice Department moves to finalize a federal rule on “ghost guns,” untraceable, privately made weapons that don’t have serial numbers. The new rule, which goes into effect in four months, requires manufacturers who sell “Buy-Build-Shoot” kits for such guns to obtain federal licenses and include serial numbers on the parts. Purchasers of these kits will also have to undergo a background check, just as if they’d bought a gun from a federally licensed gun dealer.

We’re expecting some vocal Republican pushback on this, especially from potential 2024 GOP hopefuls.

Biden’s previous nominee for ATF director, David Chipman, was withdrawn seven months ago in the face of opposition from Senate Republicans and some moderate Democrats. So Dettelbach will have to navigate his way through that political trial in order to become the first Senate-confirmed ATF director since B. Todd Jones stepped down in 2015.

Dettelbach, who lost the 2018 race for Ohio attorney general, was backed by gun-control groups during that campaign. Dettelbach supported universal background checks, barring domestic violence abusers from having guns, and reinstatement of the assault-weapons ban.

Dettelbach, currently a partner at the law firm BakerHostetler, was a longtime DOJ official in the civil rights division. He also served a six year-plus stint as U.S. attorney. In 2001 to 2002, Dettelbach was detailed as a counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Laura Barron-Lopez and Chris Cadelago at Politico first reported last week that Biden was looking at Dettelbach for the ATF post.

DOJ’s ghost gun rulemaking process has been closely watched by both pro gun-control and gun-rights groups. Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland have repeatedly promised action on this issue. ATF initially proposed a new rule for ghost guns in May 2021. Technically, ATF is updating the definition of a firearm – including two critical parts, the “frame” and “receiver” – for the first time in decades.

According to ATF, “there were approximately 20,000 suspected ghost guns” recovered by law-enforcement agencies during criminal investigations last year, “a tenfold increase from 2016.” The new rule will allow ATF to trace an additional 1,000-plus guns per year, the agency asserts.

Yet as with anything gun-related, what’s being announced today is going to be controversial. During the rulemaking process, “ATF received more than 290,000 comments, the highest number of comments submitted to a proposed rule in ATF’s history.”

Some Republicans question whether DOJ and ATF should be expending so much effort on gun-control initiatives, including ghost guns. “This is a distraction from the reality that the explosion of crime in blue cities is directly attributable to those same cities implementing de-policing, installing progressive prosecutors, and enacting disastrous bail reform policies,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, claimed in a Feb. 14 letter to Garland.

Gun-control advocates, however, have been complaining for months that Biden isn’t doing nearly enough to reduce gun violence, which has spiked since 2020. Legislation to expand background checks on gun sales has been stalled for months in the Senate, with zero chance that it can be passed unless the filibuster is eliminated – and that’s not happening. Chipman’s withdrawal further upset gun-control advocates, some of whom blamed the White House for not pushing hard enough on the nomination.

Rising crime – especially soaring homicide rates in major cities – has become a serious political liability for Biden as well. A CBS News Poll released over the weekend showed crime as the No. 3 issue behind the economy and inflation. And Biden’s numbers on the issue are terrible. Only 39% of respondents approve of Biden’s handling of crime, while 61% disapprove.