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PRESENTED BY

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

THE TOP

Biden Crashes: We like to say that every politician has to live and operate in the political moment he or she is afforded. But between Thursday’s gruesome bombing that killed 13 American service members in Afghanistan, the resurgence of Covid-19 and the Supreme Court striking down the administration’s eviction moratorium, President Joe Biden has what could easily be considered the worst week of his tenure in the Oval Office. 

This wave of bad news overwhelmed what was an efficient — if not always pretty — drive by  Capitol Hill Democrats toward a $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” package, the heart of Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. The  economy continues to be strong, and Wall Street is hitting record highs. Plus, the United States has managed to airlift more than 100,000 Americans and Afghans from Kabul. 

Yet Biden’s ugly August has started to show in his polls. The president’s overall approval rating has fallen into negative numbers for the first time since he was sworn in, mainly due to the havoc the Delta variant is wreaking nationwide. With huge legislative and political deadlines looming next month, this isn’t what the White House or Democratic congressional leaders wanted to see. 

So that’s our theme today: The president’s tough week and what it means for Washington, Biden, Democrats in Congress and the Republican opposition as we stand on the doorstep of the eighth month of Biden’s presidency. 

As Bres pointed out in our early morning chat, it’s one week. And yes, it is. But it was a very bad week at that.

NEWS

Supreme Court nixes eviction moratorium with Congress gone

Breaking overnight, via NYT’s Adam Liptak and Glenn Thrush: “​​Supreme Court Ends Biden’s Eviction Moratorium” 

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the Biden administration’s latest moratorium on evictions, ending a political and legal dispute during a public health crisis in which the administration’s shifting positions had subjected it to criticism from adversaries and allies alike.

The court issued an eight-page majority opinion, an unusual move in a ruling on an application for emergency relief, where terse orders are more common. The court’s three liberal justices dissented. … In recent days, Mr. Biden’s team has been mapping out strategies to deal with the likely loss of the moratorium, with a plan to focus its efforts on a handful of states — including South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Ohio — that have large backlogs of unpaid rent and few statewide protections for tenants.

A few things to point out:

→ Treasury issued a report this week that indicated much of the $50 billion in rental assistance appropriated by Congress has not been disbursed. The Biden administration and Congress are going to continue pushing to get money out to renters and landlords more quickly. Republicans — namely Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina — have legislation that would speed that up even more.

→ There will be pressure from progressives to bring Congress back to pass an eviction moratorium, although it stands no chance in a 50-50 Senate. 

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), whose high-profile protest on the Capitol steps a month ago helped spur Biden to extend the eviction moratorium, said:

"Congress must act immediately to prevent mass evictions and I am exploring every possible option. I urge my colleagues to reflect on the humanity of every single one of their unhoused, or soon to be unhoused, neighbors, and support a legislative solution to this eviction crisis.”

THE OTHER SIDE OF PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

Examining a tragic day in Afghanistan

The Past: Thursday was the toughest day of Joe Biden’s presidency. Even the president himself acknowledged how hard it was.

The twin suicide bombings at the Kabul airport left 12 Marines and a Navy corpsman dead. Another 18 Americans were wounded, some seriously. Dozens of Afghan civilians were killed as well, including children. A somber Biden told reporters at the White House that “We’re outraged, as well as heartbroken.” 

Biden blamed the attack on ISIS-K, Islamic State Khorasan, which operates in Afghanistan. 

“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this  — we will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Biden vowed. 

Yet the horrific incident punctured what had been a growing effort by White House officials to spin the initially calamitous U.S. exit from Afghanistan into something positive for Biden. More than 100,000 people have been flown out of Kabul during the nearly two-week operation, including more than 5,000 Americans. No one in the administration is saying how many Americans remain in Afghanistan — we get the sense they may not know — and tens of thousands of Afghans who worked with U.S. and coalition forces during the 20-year conflict will be left behind. Republicans also demanded that Biden extend the evacuation until every American is brought home.

Biden, however, called it “an evacuation effort unlike any seen in history,” and Democratic pundits had almost taken to bragging about the effort.

The Present: That’s all over now. Biden repeated several times during his Thursday press conference that the military operation in Kabul would end by Aug. 31, next Tuesday, even if Afghans eligible for evacuation are left behind.

“Look, I know of no conflict — as a student of history — no conflict where, when a war was ending, one side was able to guarantee that everyone that wanted to be extracted from that country would get out,” Biden said when asked what he would tell Afghans allies who won’t be evacuated.

Biden also continued to shift between taking responsibility for the “messy” exit from Afghanistan and blaming former President Donald Trump’s Feb. 2020 deal with the Taliban for the current crisis. Trump agreed to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021.

“I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that’s happened of late,” Biden said in response to questions from Fox News’ Peter Doocy, who Biden said was "the most interesting guy that I know in the press."

 “But here’s the deal. You know — I wish you’d one day say these things — you know as well as I do that the former president made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1.”

Biden and his top aides insist that reneging on Trump’s agreement with the Taliban would have triggered a huge military confrontation requiring thousands of  U.S. combat troops being sent to Afghanistan to fight, and he wasn’t willing to do that. But that still doesn’t explain the shocking collapse of the American-trained and equipped Afghan defense forces, why billions of dollars of U.S. equipment fell into Taliban hands and why the intelligence assessments were so wildly off base.

The Future: While Democratic control of Capitol Hill will protect Biden somewhat from congressional investigations over the Afghanistan debable, even some of his former Senate colleagues have raised concerns about the situation following Thursday’s bombings.

"This is a full-fledged humanitarian crisis, and the U.S. government personnel, already working under extreme circumstances, must secure the airport and complete the massive evacuation of Americans citizens and vulnerable Afghans desperately trying to leave the country,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said.

Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), however, went much further than that in her criticism of the Biden administration. Read all of this, it’s probably the harshest line we’ve heard from any Democrat:

“It is clear to me that it was long past time to end the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, and that we could not continue to put American servicemembers in danger for an unwinnable war. At the same time, it appears that the evacuation process has been egregiously mishandled.

 “In order to move forward, our country will need to receive answers and accountability regarding the cascading failures that led us to this catastrophic moment, and I look forward to using my platform on the House Foreign Affairs Committee to secure answers from the Biden Administration about what went wrong. Our troops deserve nothing less than a complete and unvarnished account of the truth.”

As for Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy have been very, very critical of Biden. But hard-core Trump supporters — like the forrmer president himself — have demanded that Biden resign; Vice President Kamala Harris resign; Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley all resign; Biden’s Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office; or that Biden be impeached.

Setting aside the most extreme partisan rhetoric, Biden and U.S. military officials are just hoping to get through the next several days without more casualties. Some of the 6,000 U.S. troops that Biden sent to Kabul for the evacuation have already been withdrawn. Hill sources suggested that number will continue to be drawn down before Tuesday’s deadline, although balancing the need to protect American troops versus the urgency of desperate Afghans will be a difficult line to walk. 

Part of the challenge here is that Biden is caught in a maelstrom because Americans are paying attention to Afghanistan for the first time in many years. One of our colleagues suggested it’s almost like “another George Floyd moment” when white Americans woke up to the fact that police do in fact kill Black people. There hasn’t been large-scale combat for U.S. forces in Afghanistan for several years. The total U.S. casualties — while terrible — add up to less than a quarter of the number of Americans killed in one year of the Vietnam War, for instance. Thanks to the volunteer military, most American families have been totally disconnected from the conflict, and are not even being asked to pay a modest tax increase to cover the costs of the war. And now they wake up to see this horror show on TV and blame Biden?

→ One other point: Thursday’s tragedy  means Biden — who’s long boasted of his foreign policy credentials —  has become the latest in a line of commanders in chiefs who faced military disasters, major intelligence failures or terror attacks during their first year in office. These incidents had enormous impacts on their presidencies and the country.

George W. Bush had to deal with 9/11, of course, which led 20 years later to Thursday’s tragedy. The Battle of Mogadishu — “Blackhawk Down” — took place in Oct. 1993, eight months after Bill Clinton was sworn in. Nineteen U.S. troops were killed that day on a doomed mission that ended a military intervention begun so hopefully under George H.W. Bush. The fall of Saigon in April 1975 — which has drawn numerous comparisons to the fall of Kabul — came only eight months into Gerald Ford’s presidency. John F. Kennedy’s presidency wasn’t even 100 days old when the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 rocked Washington. 

We’ll have to see if this crisis alters Biden’s relationship with top military leaders or the intelligence community. That happened to some of his predecessors after similar debacles. It made them more hesitant to believe what they were being told by the brass or intel chiefs, and to look more for their own solutions to military or foreign policy emergencies. Or these presidents instead changed direction to focus more on domestic issues than overseas problems. Sometimes these changes turned out to be positive, sometimes not. One thing is clear — the path for Biden’s presidency has already been dramatically altered by what’s happened in Afghanistan, and the operation isn’t even over yet.

WHAT THE WORLD IS WAKING UP TO

Fronts are dominated by Afghanistan

U.S.

Global fronts

IN THE COURTS

Capitol Police officers sue Donald Trump

Seven U.S. Capitol Police officers filed a lawsuit Thursday against former President Donald Trump and members of far-right extremist organizations over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol,  the latest in a growing list of civil and criminal litigation cases involving the 45th president.

This new lawsuit accuses Trump and his allies of spreading lies about election fraud and using racist sentiments in a bid to overthrow the 2020 election, ultimately leading to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. That attack by thousands of Trump supporters left more than 150 law-enforcement officers injured, some very severely. Four people died that day, and several police officers have committed suicide in the wake of the incident.

From the lawsuit:

 “Because of Defendants’ unlawful actions, Plaintiffs were violently assaulted, spat on, tear-gassed, bear-sprayed, subjected to racial slurs and epithets, and put in fear for their lives. Plaintiffs’ injuries, which Defendants caused, persist to this day.

“Trump, in concert with other Defendants, deliberately and persistently made and encouraged false claims of election fraud to discredit the outcome of the election and disingenuously incite outrage among his supporters. He and other Defendants encouraged and supported acts of violence, knowing full well that among his supporters were extremist groups and individuals, like Proud Boys, who had demonstrated their propensity to the use of violence against those they regarded as critical of Trump.”

This isn’t the first lawsuit against Trump related to the Jan. 6 riot. The NAACP filed the first on behalf of Democratic lawmakers who accused Trump and his associates of conspiring to prevent the Electoral College certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race. In March, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) filed a lawsuit against Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and Trump ally, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) over the attack. Later that month, two Capitol Police officers also filed a suit against Trump. 

Thursday’s lawsuit comes a day after the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection issued its first sweeping request for records from federal agencies related to the Capitol attack. When we spoke to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the select committee investigation, earlier this week, he avoided putting any limits on the panel’s probe.

“We gonna do whatever it takes to get it done. We’ll have a thorough review. Given the charge, it’s what’s required,” Thompson said.

THE MONEY GAME

→ Gil Cisneros, a former Democratic congressman from California who is now waiting to be sworn in as under secretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, forgave $645,475 in personal campaign loans. Cisneros’ campaign paid him back $70,524.89. Cisneros won a $266 million lottery in 2010.

→ Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi invested between $250,000 and $500,000 in an LLC that is buying Marriott branded hotels in Rogers, Ark., Phoenix, Lakeland, Fla., Albany, Ga., Andover, Mass., Fayetteville, N.C., Greenville, S.C., Johnson City, Tenn., Beaumont, Texas, Richmond, and Vancouver, Wash., and Hilton hotels in Montgomery, Ala., Schaumburg, Ill., Jackson, Tenn., Allen, Texas, Burelson, Texas, El Paso and Irving, Texas. Check it out here

Pelosi has said repeatedly she is not involved with her husband’s investments.

MOMENTS

8 a.m.: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.

8:30 a.m.: Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will get a briefing on Afghanistan.

10:30 a.m.: Biden will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. … House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will hold a news conference on Capitol Hill.

11 a.m.: The Covid team will brief reporters.

1 p.m.: Jen Psaki will brief reporters.

4 p.m.: Biden will receive his economic briefing.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “Biden Faces a Tragedy He Pledged to Avoid,” by Michael Shear

→ “After Decades of War, ISIS and Al Qaeda Can Still Wreak Havoc,” by Ben Hubbard, Eric Schmitt and Matthew Rosenberg

→ “Justice Breyer on Retirement and the Role of Politics at the Supreme Court,” by Adam Liptak: “Justice Stephen G. Breyer says he is struggling to decide when to retire from the Supreme Court and is taking account of a host of factors, including who will name his successor. ‘There are many things that go into a retirement decision,’ he said.

“He recalled approvingly something Justice Antonin Scalia had told him. ‘He said, ‘I don’t want somebody appointed who will just reverse everything I’ve done for the last 25 years,’’ Justice Breyer said during a wide-ranging interview on Thursday. ‘That will inevitably be in the psychology’ of his decision, he said. ‘I don’t think I’m going to stay there till I die — hope not,’ he said. … 

“The justice tried to sum up the factors that would go into his decision. ‘There are a lot of blurred things there, and there are many considerations,’ he said. “They form a whole. I’ll make a decision.’ He paused, then added: ‘I don’t like making decisions about myself.’”

WaPo

→ “Biden struggles to address the most volatile crisis of his presidency,” by Sean Sullivan and Anne Gearan

→ “‘Dead people were everywhere’: Carnage and chaos at Kabul airport,” by Susannah George in Kabul, Ezzatullah Mehrdad and Sudarsan Raghavan in Doha

→ “Biden receives heated criticism from Republicans, questions from some Democrats after Kabul airport attack,” by Paul Kane

WSJ

→ “Inside the Hidden War Between the Taliban and ISIS,” by Alan Cullison

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