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PRESENTED BY

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

THE TOP

Good Monday morning and Happy Independence Day. A reminder: We’ll only have morning editions this week.

But here’s a treat: We have a new edition of The Canvass, our survey of senior Capitol Hill aides. This is a joint project with the Locust Street Group. Here are some new data points — straight from the minds of the most powerful aides on the Hill to you.

→ 73% of respondents said that Republicans will control the House. This is down five percentage points from our last survey.

→ 75% of respondents say that Democrats will keep control of the Senate — up five percentage points since last month. 

→ 58% of respondents say enhanced unemployment benefits are hurting the labor markets. Just 24% say they are helping.

We’ll have more this week for Premium subscribers. We asked some interesting questions, including who is more influential: lobbyists or constituents. LOL. Sign up for premium. 

Wanna get in on the action? If you are a chief of staff, LD, comms director, staff director, or press secretary, sign up here to be the first to weigh in anonymously for next month’s survey.

FOREVER WAR

U.S., NATO forces leave Afghanistan as security situation worsens

While President Joe Biden initially set a Sept. 11 deadline for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan, the handover of Bagram air base on Friday effectively ended the American military mission there. Several hundred U.S. forces remain in the country to protect the U.S. embassy in Kabul, but no combat troops. So what comes next inside Afghanistan, and what does it mean politically?

Biden promised Afghan President Ashraf Ghani continued U.S. support during Ghani’s recent visit to the White House, yet the Taliban already control as much as one-third of the country. A number of U.S. and Western military experts predict a possible Taliban takeover within six to 12 months. A Taliban official told the BBC that the group has no plans to attack Kabul but that any foreign forces left in the country beyond Sept. 11 — including military contractors — would be considered “occupiers” and subject to military action. And as many as 1,000 Afghan forces fled into neighboring Tajikistan following Taliban advances, Reuters reported.

Now to the political fallout. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may make a statement to Parliament as early as Tuesday about his country’s future mission in Afghanistan, although nearly all British troops have already left the country. Some forces may remain to protect the British Embassy in Kabul.

While Biden bristled at reporters’ questions about Afghanistan on Friday, Republicans are already starting to bash the administration over what will happen next in the troubled country. Biden has promised he would have more to say on the issue this week.

Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, claimed Biden “is going to own” what happens in Afghanistan if the Taliban takes over.

“When we fully withdraw, the devastation and the killings and women, humanitarian crisis, fleeing across the border into Pakistan, President Biden is going to own these ugly images” McCaul said on “Fox News Sunday.” You’ll hear a lot more statements like this in the coming days and weeks.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been especially critical of Biden’s Afghanistan policy and the threat it poses to the Ghani government. “Increasing indications that this collapse could come soon after U.S. withdrawal is complete are as tragic as they are avoidable,” McConnell said in a recent statement.

Yet for Biden’s Republican critics — and some Democrats as well — the White House response has been: “Okay, what’s your plan? How will you end the longest war in U.S. history?” Beyond leaving U.S. combat troops inside Afghanistan indefinitely, there is little new to offer.

Republicans also acknowledge that former President Donald Trump also wanted to pull out U.S. troops, and his timeline for withdrawal was even faster. The Trump administration had initially opened talks with the Taliban about a U.S. exit from Afghanistan following a generation-long conflict.

This is something Congress and the administration will struggle with in the short and long term.

SNEAK PEEK

Biden’s week ahead

Tuesday: President Joe Biden will get briefed on Covid response and the state of vaccinations. He will speak publicly afterwards. 

Wednesday: Biden will go to Crystal Lake, Ill., to talk about the American Families Plan. 

Chicago Sun Times’ Lynn Sweet: “President Joe Biden will make his first presidential visit to Illinois on Wednesday when he travels to Crystal Lake — a northwest suburb in McHenry County that former President Donald Trump won in 2020. … 

“Sources told the Chicago Sun-Times that Biden, unless plans change, will appear at the McHenry County College in Crystal Lake. Biden will be at the community college to promote his American Families Plan — a package of proposals dealing with, among other items, child poverty and making college more affordable.

“While McHenry County voters preferred Trump, Crystal Lake is represented in Congress by Democratic Reps. Lauren Underwood and Sean Casten and they are expected — along with other Illinois Democrats — to be at the event.”

THE NATION’S FRONTS

MOMENTS

President Joe Biden has no scheduled events today. He is in D.C. Vice President Kamala Harris has no events scheduled. She is in Los Angeles. Harris went to a fire station Sunday in Los Angeles with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.).

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “Why America’s Politics Are Stubbornly Fixed, Despite Momentous Changes,” by Alex Burns

→ “Rep. Adam Kinzinger on the Moral Failure of Republicans and the Big Lie,” by David Marchese

WaPo

→ “Biden heralds U.S. emergence from the pandemic, but he risks celebrating too soon,” by Sean Sullivan and Matt Viser  

→ “With trillions at stake, Democrats hurtle toward key decisions on Biden’s agenda,” by Mike DeBonis

→ “Despite attacks from Republicans, Vanita Gupta is leveraging longstanding relationships with police at the Justice Dept.,” by David Nakamura

WSJ

→ “Facebook, Twitter, Google Threaten to Quit Hong Kong Over Proposed Data Laws,” by Newley Purnell in Hong Kong

AP

→ “Biden: US ‘coming back together,’ but COVID not yet finished,” by Zeke Miller and Josh Boak

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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images