The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

Is Joe Biden on the brink?

Getting ready for Milwaukee mayhem

What happens to your inbox after a WH nomination

McConnell’s history lessons

THE TOP

Is Joe Biden on the brink?

Welcome to The Readback, our weekend digest featuring the best of Punchbowl News this week — a quick roundup of all our scoops, analysis and Capitol Hill insight you won’t find anywhere else. We’ve also included a few of our favorite outside reads from the week.

Now let’s get to the story of the week, month and maybe year: Will President Joe Biden remain on the Democratic presidential ticket until November? And if not, what does it look like for him to step aside? Who runs in his place and how does the Democratic Party handle that — via a messy condensed primary or rallying behind Vice President Kamala Harris?

These are all questions we as reporters on Capitol Hill and everyone in Washington — and many people throughout the country — have been asking all week. And for now, no one knows the answer.

Yes, Biden did seem to buy himself some time with a stronger-than-expected press conference at NATO Thursday evening. But there’s also a whole lot of anxious Democrats who think Biden can’t win, with several coming out with calls for Biden to step aside since his news conference.

The mood on the Hill: As with many momentous weeks in Congress, things almost seemed to be moving in slow motion, until they weren’t, with developments then coming at rapid speed. Overall, though, the vibes on the Hill this week were mid, as the kids say.

House Democrats, after nearly two years in the minority, were not accustomed to the barrage of reporter attention they were getting. Many of the chattiest members clammed up, unable or unwilling to answer honestly about the caucus’ mood toward Biden.

And there were meetings. So. Many. Meetings. Big and small. Some caucus-wide, some not. Leadership and the Frontliners, several times. The Congressional Black Caucus with Biden and without Biden. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The New Dem Coalition. Food was served, cell phones were seized, warnings against leaks were issued.

More than a dozen House Democrats and counting have called on Biden to step aside. Almost all Senate Democrats — despite having their own tortured meetings — have stayed mum or expressed concerns without outright calling for Biden to leave the ticket.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — after repeating the same alliterative phrase about “clear-eyed, concise, and comprehensive conversations” ad nauseum — met with Biden Friday evening.

What’s next: Democrats couldn’t get out of the Capitol fast enough on Thursday afternoon. They’ll get a little bit of a reprieve, with Congress on recess next week and much of the focus on the Republican National Convention.

But the same concerns about Biden still exist. Despite Biden’s insistence that he’s staying atop the ticket, there are many lawmakers in his party who think he shouldn’t be the nominee. And if he stays on the ticket, these folks believe, they will lose the White House, House and Senate.

We’ll be tracking closely how all of this plays out, both on and off the Hill.

What I’m listening to: As a not-quite-geriatric Millennial, I like to keep one ear on Gen Z’s latest efforts to shorten or twist the English language into oftentimes nonsensical slang. So I was intrigued this week when the phrase “Brat Girl Summer” kept popping up. My younger colleagues helpfully informed me that it’s tied to Charli XCX’s latest album, Brat.

And my cooler-than-me, musically inclined, best friend Kate then sent me a link to listen to the album. Here we go kids!

— Heather Caygle

You can find The Readback in your inbox every Saturday at 10 a.m. And don’t hesitate to reach out to readback@punchbowl.news with feedback. Enjoy The Readback.

Getting ready for Milwaukee mayhem

I’m gearing up to cover my first convention next week as the Punchbowl News team heads to Milwaukee.

A week-long political fest in Wisconsin — one of the best states in the union — sounds like a blast. There’s a lot I’m looking forward to, but also a lot I’m unsure about.

My expectation is the best events of the week will happen outside of the official confines of the convention hall. I’ll be paying attention to the delegation breakfasts, the post-programming parties and everything in between. Forget the stodgy speeches and scripted-for-TV moments. The real action is going to be on the sidelines. On that note, holler at me — max@punchbowl.news — with any tips or events I should be paying attention to!

The major question hanging over the convention is who former President Donald Trump will select as his running mate. The top two choices seem to be Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Both options would be ideal for our coverage of Capitol Hill.

But I wouldn’t put it past Trump to surprise us all and go outside the box.

In terms of coverage, I’ll also be tracking how different the convention feels compared to the last two.

Remember in 2016, there was significant GOP division over Trump, with notable defections from Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Then 2020 was the Covid convention for both parties, where questions about the pandemic and social unrest loomed large. Zoom forward eight years, and the GOP is firmly behind Trump and ready for a rollicking week.

What I’m watching: England will face off against Spain in the final of the Euros tomorrow at 3 p.m. ET. Is it coming home?

— Max Cohen

What happens to your inbox after a WH nomination

Nomination politics can be brutal. There are bright spots!

Being vetted and tapped by the White House for senior administration roles is tough enough. Surviving a Senate hearing and the often-fierce scrutiny that comes with it can be much harder.

But between those two stages comes a fun little interlude that we stumbled into this week. Punchbowl News Policy Editor Dave Clarke sends a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests, and we just had a fun — if not super newsy — batch come in.

Earlier this summer, Clarke sent a FOIA request to the Commodity Future Trading Commission asking for “any emails to or from the government account of Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero … in the agency’s possession regarding her nomination to lead the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.” in the first few weeks of June.

What we were hoping to find was a trail of frank government emails discussing a tough position to fill in the hopes of saving an agency in crisis.

What we got instead from the CFTC’s commendable and responsive FOIA office was a series of congratulations. A number of public and private officials emailed Goldsmith Romero after her nomination to chair the FDIC became official. Some highlights include:

One last thing in the FOIA release caught our eye: a calendar invite to a June 18 breakfast inside the FDIC’s executive dining room with current Chair Martin Gruenberg. Goldsmith Romero “ACCEPTED” the 8 a.m. invitation, per the FOIA release.

What I’m listening to: After several years of being a zealous podcast listener, I’ve made the gentle transition to audiobooks… at about 1.65x speed. Right now, I’m making my way through Memory’s Legion by James S.A. Corey. It’s a collection of science fiction short stories in the universe of The Expanse, a nine-part series of sci-fi books that I would recommend with my whole freakin’ chest.

If you like sci-fi and want to read something compelling and digestible about humanity’s first few centuries of exploring our solar system, Memory’ Legion isn’t a bad place to start.

– Brendan Pedersen

McConnell’s history lessons

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is on a mission.

As we’ve written extensively, McConnell wants to use his final two and a half years in the Senate to reverse his party’s trend toward former President Donald Trump’s foreign policy brand. I sat down with McConnell in his office this past week to get a status update, of sorts, on what he says is his “top priority” as he transitions out of the GOP leadership suite.

If you want to get a sense of how serious McConnell is about this effort, look no further than this quote from our interview: “The language they used in the [1920s] and [1930s] are similar to what you hear today — ‘America First.’”

It’s not going to be easy to reverse his party’s trend, and McConnell knows that. While this week’s NATO summit brought some promising signs, the longtime GOP leader still has his work cut out for him, as I wrote in our Friday AM edition.

In the meantime, McConnell is reflecting on history as part of his bid to convince his fellow Republicans that the trajectory they’re on is downright dangerous.

After our sit-down, McConnell led me to an adjacent room decorated with paintings of his predecessors as Senate GOP leader. He stopped at the painting of Robert Taft, who served in the chamber from 1939 to 1953.

“He was wrong before the war and after the war. Before the war, he was opposed to lend-lease,” McConnell said. “After the war, he opposed NATO, he opposed the Marshall Plan. From a Republican point of view, we were lucky that [Dwight] Eisenhower got the [presidential] nomination instead of Taft.”

McConnell referenced this to make the point that Republicans have, at certain points in modern history, trended toward “isolationism” when a Democrat was president. McConnell gleefully references the Taft anecdote in order to warn his fellow Republicans against those tendencies.

Take note, Hill reporters! McConnell is so committed to pushing back on the Trumpian foreign policy doctrine that he told me he might even start holding court with us in the halls of the Senate once he’s no longer the Senate GOP leader. Clip and save!

What I’m watching: The Philadelphia Phillies — simple as that. Best team in baseball. First team to 60 wins. And swept the Dodgers this week.

— Andrew Desiderio