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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN
WITH MAX COHEN AND CHRISTIAN HALL

THE TOP

Happy Wednesday morning.

A reminder: We’ll interview Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo this morning in a live event at 9 a.m. about American innovation. A lot falls under that headline. We’ll talk about the congressional effort to pass a chips/innovation bill and much more. The event is fully subscribed, but you can still sign up to watch virtually here!

The dog and pony show

Maybe this helps explain President Joe Biden’s ominous press conference yesterday: Roughly 24 hours after the Kremlin said Russian troops were leaving Ukraine’s borders, NATO and the Western allies say it’s basically a lie. 

→ British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said this morning in London that the U.K. has not seen “any evidence at the moment of that withdrawal.” 

"Physical observations that we see show the opposite of some of the recent rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin," Wallace told the BBC, according to Reuters. 

→ NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this morning they’ve not “seen any deescalation on the ground. On the contrary, it appears that Russia continues their military build up.” Stoltenberg was attending a meeting of NATO defense ministers, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

So to be abundantly clear here, it appears as if Russia is continuing its aggression toward Ukraine. What is Congress’s answer? A Republican-only sanctions bill and a sternly-worded statement from the Senate leadership. The Senate will be on recess beginning tomorrow at the latest.

The exodus

Thirty House Democrats have now retired or said they’re not going to run for re-election this November. The most recent was Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.), a 57-year-old former prosecutor in her fourth term in the House.

The Democratic retirement total – 30 – is the highest in three decades for the party. And while the DCCC and the Democratic leadership plays down these departures, we can say that, based on what we’re hearing, there is significant angst among the Democratic rank-and-file as they face the prospect of losing their majority after just four years in power.

“With polling numbers where they are, and the fear of losing the majority, people are heading for the hills,” one House Democrat told us Tuesday evening.

Rice’s retirement  announcement on Tuesday also means that much of the Long Island House delegation is turning over. The island’s other two representatives – Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) and Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) – are both running for governor of New York. 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been predicting north of 30 retirements for months. We reached out to him Tuesday to see what he thinks the total will be for Democrats during the entire cycle.

“I believe the final number will be between 35 and 40,” McCarthy told us. Forty Democrats retired in 1992. Bill Clinton won election that year, but House Democrats actually lost seats while retaining their sizable majority. This was an unusual occurrence for the party of an incoming president. But it happened in 2020 as well; Donald Trump lost the presidency, but House Republicans picked up 14 seats.

The most worrying thing for Democrats when it comes to retirements is that there are still a number of filing deadlines coming up. Several states, however, are in the middle of lawsuits over their new maps, which could shift district lines late in the campaign season.

The other problem for Democrats, of course, is the members they’re losing. Rice’s newly drawn district is pretty solidly Democratic, but it could still be competitive without an incumbent running. It would be a longshot for Republicans, yet who knows in a bad year for Democrats. It will also force House Democratic leaders to play defense in a seat that by all rights should be easily in their column.

Other seats will be tougher for the party to hold, such as Rep. Ron Kind’s southwestern Wisconsin seat, Rep. Cheri Bustos’ Illinois seat or the seat being vacated by Rep. Stephanie Murphy in northern Florida.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

Pelosi in Israel

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, husband Paul Pelosi and House Sergeant at Arms William Walker are welcomed to the Knesset in Jerusalem by Speaker Mickey Levy. 

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, Pelosi and House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) in a meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem.

WASHINGTON X THE WORLD

U.S. trade rep says China hasn’t complied with trade deals

Former President Donald Trump versus China and the World Trade Organization was a major storyline of the last five years. Trump lifted sanctions on Beijing after China allegedly agreed to buy more goods from the United States and normalize its trade practice with the globe.

It turns out that isn’t the whole story.

A new report from U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai details how China has fallen short on its commitments to comply with WTO standards and buy tens of billions of dollars in additional U.S. goods under the trade agreement put together by the Trump administration.

The whole report is here – it’s 72 pages.

Here’s one particularly interesting bit:

[I]n January 2020, the two sides signed what is commonly referred to as the “Phase One Agreement.” This Agreement included commitments from China to improve market access for the agriculture and financial services sectors, along with commitments relating to intellectual property and technology transfer and a commitment by China to increase its purchases of U.S. goods and services. Many of the commitments in the Phase One Agreement reflected changes that China had already been planning or pursuing for its own benefit or that otherwise served China’s interests, such as the changes involving intellectual property protection and the opening up of more financial services sectors. 

Other commitments to which China agreed reflected a calculation, as it saw them as appeasing U.S. priorities of the prior Administration, as evidenced by the attention paid to the agriculture sector in the Phase One Agreement and the novel commitments relating to China’s purchases of U.S. goods and services ostensibly as a means to reduce the bilateral trade deficit. 

Given these dynamics, and given China’s interest in a more stable relationship with the United States, China followed through in implementing some provisions of the Phase One Agreement. At the same time, China has not yet implemented some of the more significant commitments that it made in the Phase One Agreement, such as commitments in the area of agricultural biotechnology and the required risk assessment that China is to conduct relating to the use of ractopamine in cattle and swine. China has also fallen far short of implementing its commitments to purchase U.S. goods and services in 2020 and 2021. 

A pretty rough record for the Trump trade deal with China.

SPENDING WARS

Schumer files cloture on CR as Blackburn lifts her hold

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer filed cloture to set up a Thursday procedural vote on a short-term funding bill designed to keep federal agencies open until March 11, but both sides believe a consent agreement is possible to shorten the floor proceedings.

Schumer’s move sets up a cloture vote tomorrow if there’s no bipartisan agreement. Funding under the current CR runs out on Friday.

Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell both insist there won’t be a government shutdown. Yet the talks around the CR are proceeding slowly, which forced Schumer to file his cloture motion to break the filibuster.

GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and a group of Republican senators say they won’t sign off on any consent agreements that don’t eliminate federal vaccine mandates. Republicans say the Lee group is going to want a vote on its proposal before a deal can be reached.

However, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has dropped her hold on the CR over the issue of the Health and Human Services Department allegedly supplying crack pipes to drug addicts. The Wall Street Journal reported that HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, in a letter to Blackburn, “wrote that ‘no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits.’” Becerra and the White House had previously stated this publicly, yet Blackburn was holding out for a direct communication from the Biden administration before dropping her hold.

W.H. wants $30B in Covid aid

The Biden administration has signaled to Congress that it wants $30 billion in additional Covid aid, according to the Washington Post. The request has not yet been fleshed out, but it’s expected to include new money for testing, vaccines and therapeutics, according to our sources. The White House hasn’t said when exactly they expect this package to get through Congress.

The big squabble on the Hill has been whether to include this money in a yearlong spending bill. Democratic and Republican negotiators have resisted this, both publicly and in private, and the Biden administration has bowed to their request to leave it out of an omnibus spending bill that appropriators are assembling for floor action next month.

In the grand scheme of things, $30 billion isn’t a ton of money, but any amount will be difficult to get through the Congress on its own, so this will undoubtedly be a big fight. Speaker Nancy Pelosi can probably get a Covid relief bill through the House, but the evenly divided Senate will be a tougher hill to climb. Republicans – including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – have pushed for the government to use what they say is billions of unused Covid dollars.

→ Club for Growth is airing a new ad in Reno, Nev., seeking to boost Adam Laxalt in his race against Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.). The spot says former President Donald Trump “needs fighters he can count on in the Senate.” Count on for what? Trump is out of office. Anyway, thanks to AdImpact for the spot. 

FRONTS

MOMENTS

10:15 a.m.: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will get their daily intelligence briefing.

11 a.m.: The Covid-19 response team will brief. … Senate Republicans will talk about inflation. 

1 p.m.: Jen Psaki will brief. 

1:15 p.m.: Harris will swear in Cynthia Ann Telles to be ambassador to Costa Rica.

1:40 p.m.: Harris will swear in Reta Jo Lewis to be president of the Export-Import Bank.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “U.S. Intelligence Agencies Face Crucial Test in Deciphering Putin’s Motives,” by David E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt

→ “How a Secret Assault Allegation Against an Anchor Upended CNN,” by Emily Steel, Jodi Kantor, Michael M. Grynbaum, James B. Stewart and John Koblin

WaPo

→ “Russia aims to ward off NATO in the event of a Ukraine invasion,” by Paul Sonne and Ellen Nakashima

WSJ

→ “The Fed Missed Inflation. Can Jay Powell Tame It Without Causing a Recession?” by Nick Timiraos

→ “For Ukraine, Deterring Russia Is a Long-Haul Challenge Even if War Is Averted Now,” by Yaroslav Trofimov in Kyiv

Politico

→ “A bipartisan deal to stop Trumpian election subversion? Not so fast,” by Burgess Everett

USA Today

→ “Russian speedskater apologizes for flashing middle fingers after team pursuit win vs. USA,” by Jace Evans

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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images