Roe v. Wade: Democrats seek contrast with Republicans on abortion

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President Biden delivers remarks on economic growth and deficit reduction in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Wednesday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

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Washington Post staff providing insight and analysis

Updated May 5, 2022 at 8:05 p.m. EDT|Published May 5, 2022 at 7:18 a.m. EDT

Welcome to Post Politics Now.

Today, the only public event on President Biden’s schedule is a Cinco de Mayo reception in the Rose Garden at the White House. But behind the scenes, Biden and fellow Democrats are far less celebratory as they scramble to respond to the expected demise of Roe v. Wade from both policy and political perspectives.

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On our radar: Biden travels to Ohio, Trump to rally for Oz in Pennsylvania

7:11 p.m.

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President Biden and the first lady celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Thursday amid developments in Congress and the Justice Department over the battle for abortion access. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Senate will vote next week on a likely doomed bill that would codify the access to abortion, while Attorney General Merrick Garland promised the Justice Department would continue working to provide women access to reproductive health care.

Here’s what we’ll be keeping an eye out for Friday:

On our radar: Jill Biden to spend Mother’s Day with Ukrainian refugees in Romania, Slovakia

7:10 p.m.

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First lady Jill Biden will travel to Romania and Slovakia this weekend, where she plans to spend Mother’s Day with Ukrainian mothers who left their home country during the Russian invasion.

Per the White House, Biden will visit with U.S. troops in both nations and meet with Ukrainian refugees.

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Noted: Chief Justice Roberts says leak draft won’t alter outcome of deliberations

6:05 p.m.

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Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe is “absolutely appalling” but will not affect the final outcome of the court’s historic deliberations on the abortion issue, Robert Barnes reports.

“A leak of this sort — let’s assume that’s what it is — is absolutely appalling, and if the people behind it, or person behind it, thinks that it’s going to have an effect on our decision process, that’s absolutely foolish,” Roberts told the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference meeting in Atlanta.

The latest: Biden would encourage Americans to protest peacefully, Psaki says

5:36 p.m.

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White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden shares with many Americans “that concern and that horror of what he saw in that draft opinion” and would encourage them to protest peacefully.

“It’s not a final opinion,” Psaki said, but the draft “has prompted [a] redoubled effort across the administration and with Congress to take every step we can to protect women’s health care.”

Your questions, answered: Will Justice Amy Coney Barrett recuse herself?

5:16 p.m.

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Will Justice Amy Coney Barrett recuse herself from a ruling on abortion because of her published personal religious opinions regarding the issue? — asks Joan from Connecticut.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett made her view on abortion clear in 2006, when she signed a newspaper ad opposing abortion.

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The latest: Collins won’t support Democrats’ Senate abortion bill

5:00 p.m.

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Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of two prominent Republican senators who support abortion rights, will not back a measure that would codify the procedure into law, arguing that the legislation does not provide sufficient protection to antiabortion health providers.

Collins told reporters Thursday that the Democratic-led Senate effort “supersedes all other federal and state laws, including the conscience protections that are in the Affordable Care Act.”

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This just in: Karine Jean-Pierre will be next White House press secretary

4:36 p.m.

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Deputy White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will be the next press secretary, replacing Jen Psaki. As Tyler Pager reports, Jean-Pierre will take over within weeks when Psaki heads to an expected job in cable news.

Jean-Pierre will be the first Black and openly gay woman to serve as the White House press secretary, taking on the high-profile job of holding the daily news briefing at the White House and fielding questions from the press corps.

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This just in: Schumer says abortion rights legislation vote is next week

3:49 p.m.

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Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Senate would vote next week on legislation to codify abortion rights but did not offer details on the procedural steps.

Schumer, however, remained noncommittal on a filibuster carve-out to assure that the move passes.

3:02 p.m.

Elizabeth Dwoskin: Facebook warns employees against using company channels to discuss abortion ruling — In a company memo this week, a senior Facebook executive steered employees away from discussing the Supreme Court leak on public company discussion channels, while the firm also began deleting some posts where employees had expressed concerns about the issue, according to a person familiar with the announcement and a copy of the memo obtained by The Post.In the memo, executive Naomi Gleit reminded colleagues of the company’s Respectful Communications Policy, which restricts how employees can discuss controversial topics, including abortion.She directed workers to use other channels besides company communications platforms to express their concerns and feelings. She said that employees were allowed to “participate in a listening session of up to 5 like-minded people to show solidarity” or to interact one-on-one.Gleit also noted that employees could still use public social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, to share their thoughts and connect with people. Facebook’s own chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, posted on Facebook that the leaked ruling represented a “scary day for women all across our country.”The policy against discussing abortion on company channels dates from at least 2020, when Facebook tightened restrictions on public conversations among its highly vocal employee base in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests that summer.

Elizabeth Dwoskin, Silicon Valley Correspondent

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This just in: If abortion law changes, Justice Department will ‘address appropriate steps,' Garland says

2:21 p.m.

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Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department has “steadfastly been committed to defending the right to abortion.”

“If the law changes, we will address appropriate next steps at that time,” Garland said. “But what will not change is our commitment to defending the rights of women and all Americans.”

Noted: Democrats getting more credit for handling the pandemic as the issue becomes less dominant

2:20 p.m.

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Some good news for Biden and the Democrats: Voters are crediting them with taming the worst of the pandemic. The bad news: Most voters have turned their attention to other issues.

The Washington Post’s Paul Kane takes note of the phenomenon, noting that Democrats have found a bit of underappreciated success on a topic that had dominated U.S. politics for more than two years. Kane writes:

1:54 p.m.

Matt Zapotosky: New questions about the FBI and intelligence ahead of Jan. 6 attack — The U.S. Government Accountability Office this week released a report tracking how federal law enforcement agencies analyzed social media posts and other publicly available information in advance of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. The report mostly confirmed what has long been known: well in advance of the riot, law enforcement had seen ample online chatter indicating the possibility of violence. It has been well-documented that their response was not sufficiently aggressive.The report was notable for offering such a thorough accounting of all the intelligence products agencies produced in advance of the riot. And it raised some questions about the FBI’s public statements about what it knew and when. FBI officials have repeatedly sought to minimize what they were seeing about possible violence in advance of Jan. 6.The head of the bureau’s Washington Field Office, for example, said in the days after the attack “there was no indication” of anything planned for the day of Trump’s rally “other than First Amendment-protected activity” — even though a report from the bureau’s Norfolk Field Office had warned on Jan. 5 that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war.”The GAO report makes clear that multiple agencies were tracking a wide range of possible threats, and getting information directly from the social media companies Facebook and Parler. If you’re interested in reading more about it, here’s a thread I put together on Twitter and an account of the report from Just Security.

Matt Zapotosky, National security reporter covering the Justice Department

Analysis: Few answers on which Trump ally Oath Keepers talked with

1:34 p.m.

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As a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, there was a direct line of communication between the Oath Keepers and someone with close ties to former president Donald Trump.

We know this because William Todd Wilson, a North Carolina leader of the far-right group, became the Oath Keeper’s third member to cooperate with prosecutors in Capitol riot cases.

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The latest: Biden doubles down on ‘MAGA agenda’ talk

12:59 p.m.

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Biden on Thursday doubled down on his attempt to make former president Donald Trump part of the midterm conversation, tweeting a video from the day before in which Biden disparaged the “ultra-MAGA agenda” and took aim at a tax plan put forward by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

In his remarks Tuesday, Biden repeatedly used the term “MAGA” — an acronym for Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” — to describe what he called an “extreme” plan by Scott, who serves as chairman of the Senate Republicans’ campaign organization.

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