Updated July 26, 2022 at 5:20 p.m. EDT|Published
July 26, 2022 at 7:18 a.m. EDT
Today, former president Donald Trump returned to Washington to deliver a keynote address at a gathering hosted by a think tank launched by his allies to advance his policies. It was Trump’s first appearance in Washington since leaving the capital ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump focused heavily on crime and support for police but did not mention the violence law enforcement endured from a pro-Trump mob at the Capitol.
Meanwhile, the Senate advanced legislation Tuesday that seeks to bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry. If the bill makes it to President Biden’s desk, it could be the first of several wins for him in quick succession, including a health-care package and legislation protecting same-sex marriage. Biden hailed Tuesday’s vote as a “very important bipartisan step.”
Your daily dashboard
- 9 a.m. Eastern time: Former vice president Mike Pence addressed the Young America’s Foundation’s National Conservative Student Conference in Washington.
- 11 a.m. Eastern time: The Senate held a procedural vote on legislation benefiting the domestic semiconductor industry.
- 2 p.m. Eastern time: Biden met virtually with the chairman of the South Korean conglomerate SK Group. Watch here.
- 3 p.m. Eastern time: Trump spoke at the America First Policy Institute Summit. Watch here.
- 3:15 p.m. Eastern time: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese briefed reporters. Watch here.
- 5 p.m. Eastern time: Biden virtually joins the House Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus’s celebration of the 32nd anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Got a question about politics? Submit it here. After 3 p.m. weekdays, return to this space and we’ll address what’s on the mind of readers.
Take a look: DCCC ad displays Democrats’ strategy of propping up pro-Trump candidates in House races
Democrats spent almost a half-million dollars on a new ad campaign in Western Michigan that appears, in a way, to prop up a pro-Trump candidate.
With all the right buzzwords — “too conservative,” “handpicked by Trump” — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s new ad plays like an attempt to sell right-wing congressional candidate John Gibbs to voters in West Michigan’s 3rd district, where he is challenging incumbent GOP Rep. Peter Meijer in the Aug. 2 primary.
Gibbs has Trump’s endorsement in the race, while Meijer is one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach the former president after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
Before you start wondering where the House Democrats’ campaign arm is going with this ad, note that Michigan’s 3rd district offers a good pickup opportunity for the party. The district, which went for Trump by a margin of 3 percentage points in 2016, was redrawn to lean Biden by 8 points.
The DCCC spent $425,000 on the spot, which started running Tuesday. It claims that Gibbs would support the same “conservative agenda in Congress” Trump pushed, promising that he would “crack down on immigration” if elected to office and support “patriotic” education.
While the ad is made to look like an attack on Gibbs, an election denier, the tone makes it clear there’s one target audience in mind: Trump voters.
This is not the first time the DCCC appeared to meddle in GOP primaries in favor of the Trumpier candidate. During an interview with “Morning Joe,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the DCCC’s chairman, defended the party’s efforts to push pro-Trump candidates to make the path easier for Democratic challengers.
“We have a high bar for that,” he said. “I think if you’re going to do that, you need to really understand what you’re doing, if you’re talking about trying to pick your opponent. You might see us do that, sure, and I think sometimes it does make sense, and largely what we’re doing is telling the voter a fact.”
If Gibbs’s challenge against Meijer is successful, he is likely to face Democrat Hillary Scholten.
The latest: Trump calls police his ‘heroes,’ doesn’t mention Jan. 6 attack
Former president Donald Trump, during his first public appearance in Washington since he left office, proclaimed his support of police but made no mention of his supporters who attacked law enforcement officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump baselessly accused Democrats in Congress of attempting to defund the police and said that, if Republicans win the House and Senate in November, they should “vote to strengthen qualified immunity and other protections for our great police officers.”
“They have become our heroes — they are mine,” Trump said. “Some people, they don’t feel that way. They’re going to have to feel that way if we’re going to have a great country and a safe country.”
Trump, however, made no mention that a mob of his supporters attacked members of law enforcement on Jan. 6. Five people died in the attack or in the immediate aftermath, and 140 members of law enforcement were injured.
In recent weeks, the House committee tasked with investigating the insurrection has shown that, while officers were under attack, Trump refused to call the mob off. He also did not comment on the Jan. 7, 2021, death of Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick. In messages released by the committee, two of Trump’s aides said the then-president wouldn’t comment on Sicknick’s death because he would not want to acknowledge any responsibility for the events of the day.
Still, on Tuesday, the former president went on a lengthy rant against Democrats, falsely accusing them of working to severely weaken police departments nationwide.
“Our country is going to hell and it’s going to hell very fast,” Trump said.
This just in: Dozens protest at D.C. hotel where Trump delivers speech
A few dozen demonstrators protested at the D.C. hotel where Donald Trump is delivering a keynote address at an America First Policy Institute event Tuesday afternoon, calling for the Justice Department to indict the former president.
Video on Twitter showed demonstrators inside the Marriott Marquis, where they displayed a banner that declared “INDICT TRUMP” and tossed fliers onto the ground that read “PROTECT DEMOCRACY,” as they chanted, “No Trump. No KKK. No fascist USA.”
In the crowd gathered in the rain outside the hotel, protesters chanted “Trump is a loser” and “Donald Trump is an insurrectionist.”
Among the protesters, Alex Murphy, 26, said she had been following the congressional hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection but is skeptical any action will be taken: “I’m very doubtful that anything will happen, regardless of who is on the committee, in my opinion.”
Benjamin Nadler, a 32-year-old District resident at the protest, said he hopes the Justice Department takes action against Trump for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“I hope that Trump gets indicted for war crimes,” Nadler said. “All the insurrectionists on that day need to be arrested.”
Protesters and counterprotesters yelled through megaphones at one another from opposite sides of the street, while police moved quickly to prevent any scuffles.
Noted: New Warnock ad questions Walker’s refusal to debate
A new ad from Democratic Sen. Raphael G. Warnock’s reelection campaign questions Republican challenger Herschel Walker’s refusal to meet on the debate stage.
“Herschel Walker likes to talk tough,” the ad starts. “Yet Herschel Walker still refuses to agree to any debates.”
Although Walker has told reporters that he would debate Warnock “when he’s ready to debate,” saying he’s “ready to go” whenever Warnock calls the time and place, the Georgia Republican and former NFL player has not accepted three invitations to debate Warnock.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Warnock has accepted invitations to participate in debates held by WTOC in Savannah, Mercer University in Macon and the Atlanta Press Club. Walker, meanwhile, has yet to accept these invitations.
“If Herschel Walker is so ready to debate, why hasn’t he agreed to any?” Warnock asked in a tweet sharing the ad.
In the 30-second ad, the Warnock campaign questions Walker’s ability to represent Georgia in the Senate if he continues dodging the chance to debate ahead of the November election. The TV spot began airing Tuesday.
Walker, during the Republican primary for the nomination, also avoided debates with his GOP competition.
A spokeswoman for Walker’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Warnock campaign manager Quentin Fulks said the campaign hopes Walker will meet Warnock on a debate stage.
“There’s a clear choice in the race for Senate, and we hope Herschel Walker will be true to his word and commit to joining us at three debates,” Fulks said.
The latest: Trump lost the election, former aide says
Marc Lotter, the spokesman of the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute, on Sunday said the former president lost the election — remarks made two days before Donald Trump was expected to give a speech to the group.
Asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta whether Trump lost the election, yes or no, Lotter responded with a solid “Yes.”
Trump is delivering Tuesday’s keynote address at a conference in Washington thrown by the America First Policy Institute, the organization for which Lotter works.
Acosta asked Lotter, a former special assistant in the Trump White House, if he believed Trump had lost the election.
“I think there’s no question — Joe Biden is in the Oval Office,” Lotter said. Acosta asked him not to dance around the question, posing it again.
“Yes,” Lotter said. Trump “lost the election.”
Analysis: Trump’s ‘policy speech’ is not guaranteed to include policy
Ahead of what is being billed as a “policy speech” Tuesday afternoon by former president Donald Trump, The Post’s Philip Bump explores how the only policies Trump will tout are the ones he feels like touting that day.
Philip offers this telling anecdote from a few years ago:
Back in August 2015, shortly after Trump announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, he visited the Iowa State Fair. It’s a common destination for candidates, a place where they can delineate their campaign platforms to voters in the state that has long kicked off presidential contests.
This is not what Trump did. Trump took a few kids up in his Trump-branded helicopter, a bit of PR aimed at having fair attendees see his name flying overhead. He did a quick run through the fairgrounds, ate some pork, and left. No speech on the stage where candidates usually spoke; he was in the midst of a feud with the stage’s sponsor, the Des Moines Register.
In a brief huddle with reporters before the helicopter flights, though, Trump made obvious another reason he wasn’t going to outline detailed policy proposals: He didn’t have any.
“I don’t think the people care,” Trump said when a reporter asked about a promised immigration plan. “I think they trust me. I think they know I’m going to make good deals for them.”
You can read the full analysis here.
Analysis: Pence’s bifurcated approach toward Jan. 6
In a notable media interview Monday night, Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, told ABC News that his former boss was in real danger Jan. 6, 2021, after rioters stormed the Capitol.
“If the mob had gotten closer to the vice president, I do think there would have been a massacre in the Capitol that day,” Short said.
The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake says it was a striking choice of words, given how Pence has noticeably declined to press on former president Donald Trump’s treatment of him vis-a-vis Jan. 6. Aaron writes:
Not only did Trump attack Pence as the insurrection was underway, tweeting about his vice president’s “lack of courage” even after, according to recently revealed evidence, he was aware of the violence and of his supporters having weapons; Trump also showed a remarkable callousness toward Pence in the aftermath of that day.
A long-burning question has been how Pence could just let that go — having been so personally endangered by that mob, one so obviously spurred by Trump’s quest to stay in power.
Pence has said very little about that issue publicly, and he has only infrequently carved out differences with Trump on Jan. 6, on occasions when the subject could scarcely be avoided. In February, in response to the former president’s remarks at a rally, he called Trump’s plot “un-American” and said Trump was wrong about what Pence could even do that day as he oversaw the joint session of Congress.
But increasingly, he seems happy to pursue a bifurcated approach, in which his aides do the speaking for him on that subject (to whatever degree he has or has not personally blessed it) — while he continues walking his 2024 tightrope in a party so dominated by Trump.
You can read Aaron’s full analysis here.
Noted: 9/11 families launch ad criticizing Trump for hosting Saudi-backed golf tournament
Survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and their family members launched an ad Tuesday criticizing former president Donald Trump for hosting a Saudi-backed golf tournament at his New Jersey resort, Eugene Scott reports.
In the ad, family members of those who lost their lives in the attacks hold up photos of their deceased loved ones while sharing the pain they still endure more than 20 years later.
“How much money to turn your back on your own country?” one woman asks.
“This golf tournament is taking place 50 miles from Ground Zero,” a man says.
“It’s disgusting,” another woman adds.
The ad is part of an effort by 9/11 Justice, a group of hundreds of family members of victims and survivors of the attack, to get Trump to cancel the event. More than 100 of those affected by the attacks will head to Trump National Golf Club Bedminster next week to protest the golf event, which is being funded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The fund is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom U.S. intelligence has deemed responsible for the murder of Washington Post contributing opinion writer Jamal Khashoggi.
Eugene writes:
The group plans to hold a news conference and rally Friday near the golf club to further publicize the Saudi government’s connection to the attacks, which killed 3,000 people on American soil. Newly declassified documents from the U.S. government’s investigation into the attacks provide more clear evidence of Saudi Arabia’s role in the attacks, which featured 15 Saudi nationals.
You can read the full story here.
Take a look: Who’s been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack?
As of July 18, 842 suspects have been federally charged in the Justice Department’s probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection.
While most of those cases are ongoing, 218 defendants have been sentenced so far — 1 in 4. The Post’s Aadit Tambe, Sahana Jayaraman and Adrian Blanco have created a graphic to illustrate the magnitude of these charges. Take a look:
Explore the data in more detail here.
Take a look: Sen. Warren narrates Nadler’s first primary ad
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) narrates the first television ad from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) in his Democratic primary contest in New York’s newly drawn 12th Congressional District, where he’s facing off against fellow veteran Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (N.Y.).
Warren offers praises for Nadler on a list of liberal causes, including bankruptcy protection, gun control, reproductive rights and climate change.
“New Yorkers are so lucky to have Jerry in Congress, and America can’t afford to lose him,” Warren says in the spot.
It debuts a day after an ad from Maloney that focuses heavily on reproductive rights. “You cannot send a man to do a woman’s job,” she says at the end of the spot.
The latest: Senate votes to advance bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips
The Senate voted Tuesday to advance a bill that would provide $52 billion in subsidies to domestic semiconductor manufacturers, as well as invest billions in science and technology innovation, in a bid to strengthen the United States’ competitiveness and self-reliance in what is seen as a keystone industry for economic and national security.
The Post’s Amy B Wang and Jeanne Whalen have details:
The legislation — which has been referred to as the “CHIPS Act” but which Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) dubbed the “Chips and Science” bill Tuesday — resembles the United States Innovation and Competition Act, the original form of the bill that cleared the Senate last year but ran aground in the House.
On Tuesday morning, the Senate voted 64-32 to limit debate and move the bill toward a final vote. If the Senate passes the bill, as expected, it would then move to the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said it has the support for passage.
President Biden has said the chips funding legislation is one of the top priorities on his agenda, and convened a virtual meeting Monday with a group of business and labor leaders to discuss the bill’s importance.
You can read the full story here.
The latest: Biden’s coronavirus symptoms ‘almost completely resolved’
President Biden’s coronavirus symptoms have “almost completely resolved” themselves, and he feels well enough to resume his physical exercise regimen, White House physician Kevin C. O’Connor said in a memo released Tuesday.
Biden, who tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday, has completed his five-day course of Paxlovid, an antiviral therapy, O’Connor said. He said Biden would continue to isolate himself in keeping with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which call for doing so for five days.
Biden said Monday that he expects to return to the office in person by the end of the week.
Analysis: What if the Supreme Court had had term limits from the beginning?
In the past half-century, the Supreme Court has never been viewed with as much skepticism as it is now.
The Post’s Philip Bump writes that Gallup polling, stretching back to the ruling in Roe v. Wade, shows that American confidence in the institution is at a low, with 25 percent of Americans expressing that view.
Per Philip:
That’s largely because of a significant drop in confidence among Democrats, 1 in 8 of whom now say they have confidence in the court.
Unsurprisingly, this decline in confidence has overlapped with calls to reform the court. In a new poll from the Associated Press, for example, two-thirds of Americans indicated support for instituting term limits for Supreme Court justices. It’s an idea backed by 4 in 5 Democrats — and a majority of Republicans.
You can read the full analysis here.
Noted: Cheney tangles with Cotton, sees Cruz endorse her primary challenger
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has been on the outs with many in her party since assuming the role of vice chairwoman of the House Jan. 6 committee and using the perch to criticize Donald Trump for his “supreme dereliction of duty” during the insurrection.
You can add Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) to the list of GOP lawmakers with whom Cheney has recently tangled. Late Monday, she took to Twitter to respond to Cotton’s criticism of the Jan. 6 committee during an interview with syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt in which Cotton also acknowledged he hasn’t been watching the hearings in full.
“Hey @SenTomCotton – heard you on @hughhewitt criticizing the Jan 6 hearings,” Cheney tweeted. “Then you said the strangest thing; you admitted you hadn’t watched any of them. Here’s a tip: actually watching them before rendering judgment is more consistent with ‘Anglo-American jurisprudence.’ ”
During his interview with Hewitt, Cotton said Cheney and the other Republican on the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, “clearly share the views of the Democrats” on the panel. If other GOP members were on it, Cotton said, “they would be probing that information and probing witnesses to try to get at truth, which is again what the Anglo-American legal system has done for centuries.”
On Tuesday, one of Cotton’s colleagues, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), offered his endorsement of Harriet Hageman, Cheney’s Trump-backed primary opponent on Aug. 16.
In a tweet, Cruz said Hageman would be a “rock-ribbed conservative congresswoman who will always defend the Constitution.”
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