Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 1975, Arthur Ashe became the first Black man to win a Wimbledon singles title. He defeated Jimmy Connors, 6-1, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4. (Althea Gibson had been the first Black woman to win there, in 1957.)
The big idea
Biden faces a difficult but familiar political test on the Supreme Court
President Biden has denounced individual Supreme Court rulings as “a mistake,” “outrageous” and even “destabilizing.” In the aftermath of last week’s decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions, Biden told reporters: “This is not a normal court.”
“What I meant by that is, it's done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history,” he said in an interview with MSNBC on Thursday.
But Biden has balked at endorsing a wave of new liberal demands to change the court, notably by expanding the number of its members. “If we start the process of trying to expand the court, we're going to politicize it, maybe forever, in a way that is not healthy,” he told MSNBC.
As his reelection campaign ramps up, the president faces rising pressure to take on not just recent rulings on issues like abortion, affirmative action, LGBTQ+ protections and climate but the court itself. There’s just no sign he’s prepared to do it the way his base wants him to.
A lesson from voting rights
There’s a possible parallel to voting rights.
- After Biden took office in January 2021, Republicans moved in states they control to roll back voting practices they blamed for former president Donald Trump’s defeat — in practice, making it harder to vote.
- The president repeatedly denounced the new restrictions as a return to “Jim Crow” laws designed to prevent Black voters from casting ballots.
- But for most of his first year in office, and to liberals’ profound annoyance, Biden resisted personally calling for carving a voting rights exemption into the Senate’s filibuster, which in practice requires 60 votes to pass significant or controversial measures. He finally backed the idea in October 2021.
To be fair, Biden had flirted in early 2021 with the possibility of embracing that change, and he’s never said anything similarly supportive of expanding the court. (He has also come out for a filibuster exception to codify access to abortion.)
Of course, there’s a second lesson there: Democrats didn’t have the votes to change the filibuster, and they don’t currently have the votes to expand the court, so a presidential endorsement didn’t (and wouldn’t) do much to fundamentally alter the landscape.
The 2024 election
The Supreme Court’s job approval is at historic lows, and disapproval is at historic highs. Last year’s ruling overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that safeguarded access to abortion for nearly 50 years helped Democrats hold the Senate and limit GOP gains in the House.
Democrats expect the abortion picture to help them again when Biden is up for reelection in 2024.
And an Associated Press-NORC poll from July 22, roughly a month after the court’s abortion decision, found 34 percent of Americans support increasing the number of justices — a number driven by Democrats, 52 percent of whom backed that idea.
- But two thirds supported replacing lifelong appointments with a fixed number of years, or setting a mandatory retirement age.
While Biden will of course campaign on issues like access to abortion and restrictions on guns, none of this answers the question of how much he’ll make the court itself an issue.
But down-ballot races — governors, attorneys general and House candidates — will do that with or without him.
Just look at the fight to succeed Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the former chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam B. Schiff, the principal contenders, have endorsed legislation that would, among other things, expand the court.
Whatever happened to that commission?
My colleague Tyler Pager, in a nice piece on this same topic, noted that Biden created a commission to look at making major changes to the court. It delivered a report that took no final position on adding justices.
“Caroline Fredrickson, who was a member of the commission and is a professor at Georgetown Law, said the commission only interacted with the president once after submitting its report. In December 2022, its members were invited to the White House and met briefly with Biden in the Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. But Fredrickson said the meeting was largely an opportunity for the president to thank the members for their work, not to discuss the report or its recommendations,” Tyler reported.
“With his history and the fact that he set up this commission in the first place,” Tyler quoted Frederickson as saying, “I think it indicates that he is playing a bit of a longer game on this issue than people would like.”
Politics-but-not
What’s happening now
UPS, Teamsters contract talks break down, raising the odds of a strike
“Negotiations between UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters broke down early Wednesday, increasing the likelihood of a strike just weeks before their contract is set to expire. Marathon negotiations that stretched through the July 4 holiday ended with each side accusing the other of abandoning the effort,” Aaron Gregg reports.
Cocaine in White House found near where guests enter West Wing
“Officials found cocaine on the ground floor of the White House on Sunday near where visitors taking tours of the West Wing are instructed to leave their cellphones, according to three people familiar with the investigation,” Tyler Pager and Peter Hermann report.
Former N.Y. congressman Mondaire Jones launches bid to reclaim his seat
“Former Democratic congressman Mondaire Jones launched a bid Wednesday to reclaim his seat in New York’s Hudson Valley, entering a competitive primary in a contest that Democrats see as one of their best pickup opportunities next year as they try to reclaim control of the House from Republicans,” John Wagner reports.
Kremlin warns of ‘sabotage’ at Ukrainian nuclear plant under Russian control
“The Kremlin said Wednesday that Ukraine is preparing an attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Russia-occupied territory, raising fears of a disaster as each side accuses the other of potential sabotage at the facility, which Moscow’s forces control,” Fredrick Kunkle and Natalia Abbakumova report.
Lunchtime reads from The Post
Wagner rebellion raises doubts about stability of Russia’s nuclear arsenal
“Anxiety over who might gain control of Russia’s weapons of mass destruction has long tempered Western hopes that President Vladimir Putin might be ousted from power. But months of nuclear posturing by Putin and other senior Russian officials, and a new debate among Moscow analysts on using a nuclear weapon on a NATO country, have raised doubts about whether Putin really provides the stability necessary to avoid an atomic Armageddon — or if he is the risk they should fear most,” Robyn Dixon reports.
Israel’s raid left Jenin in rubble. Palestinians are blaming their leaders.
“Israel ended Wednesday a two-day operation in the Jenin refugee camp that killed 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier, forced thousands from their homes, and sparked new tensions between locals and the Palestinian Authority meant to be governing them,” Steve Hendrix, Shira Rubin, Sufian Taha and Hazem Balousha report.
- “Residents threw rocks at the Palestinian Authority security headquarters in the city, with many expressing frustration that its security forces had allowed the Israeli forces to operate freely in the camp.”
… and beyond
The Army is desperate for smart, fit soldiers. How these $200 million fit camps get recruits into shape.
“Fewer than one-in-four young people qualify academically or physically to join the military. With a booming jobs market even fewer young people consider the military an option. The result: the worst recruiting environment in the 50-year history of the all-volunteer military,” USA Today’s Tom Vanden Brook reports.
- “That crisis has prompted the Army to spend more than $100 million this year to open schools to bring recruits who fall short of the standards into mental and physical shape.”
Anti-LGBTQ+ laws are being blocked in federal courts across the country
“More than 75 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been signed into law this year, but they are increasingly unable to hold up in court. In just the last two months, federal judges — including two appointed by former President Donald Trump — and one county circuit judge have blocked seven bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, and three bans on public drag performances,” the 19th’s Orion Rummler reports.
U.S. citizenship test changes are coming, raising concerns for those with low English skills
“Many are still shaken after former Republican President Donald Trump’s administration changed the test in 2020, making it longer and more difficult to pass. Within months, Democratic President Joe Biden took office and signed an executive order aimed at eliminating barriers to citizenship. In that spirit, the citizenship test was changed back to its previous version, which was last updated in 2008,” the Associated Press’s Trisha Ahmed reports.
The Biden agenda
Biden won a global tax rate. Now Americans wonder if it was a good deal.
“When President Biden led the way almost two years ago in brokering a worldwide deal to set a minimum corporate tax rate, it looked like a triumph abroad. Now, as the world comes closer to actually collecting the taxes the United States advocated, it’s starting to seem like chaos here at home,” Julie Zauzmer Weil reports.
- “American companies may face dizzyingly complex tax bills from countries around the world, while Republicans in Congress fight against the plan that their own country championed.”
Voters don’t love Bidenomics. Markets are coming around.
“Leading economists at big banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have lowered their odds of an imminent recession, pointing to a resilient labor market and steady household finances as signs that the U.S. can weather the storm as the Federal Reserve continues to drive up borrowing costs,” Politico’s Sam Sutton reports.
Biden’s hydrogen bombshell leaves Europe in the dust
“The clean energy subsidies that undergird President Joe Biden’s climate agenda have just prompted one Norwegian manufacturer to choose Michigan, not Europe, as the site of a nearly $500 million factory that will produce the equipment needed to extract hydrogen from water. And other European-based companies are being tempted to follow suit, people involved in the continent’s hydrogen efforts say — making the universe’s most abundant substance the latest focus of the transatlantic trade battle on green energy,” Politico’s Gabriel Gavin and Ben Lefebvre report.
The employment rates of Black Americans, visualized
“Three years after the pandemic, Black workers like [Clover] Hines — women, in particular — are benefiting from an incredibly strong labor market that has created some of the broadest and most significant opportunities for career changes in decades,” Lauren Kaori Gurley and Federica Cocco report.
- “Black workers have found better-paying jobs with benefits and professional and office positions that offer more work-life flexibility — opportunities that help explain why the Black unemployment rate in the United States fell to the lowest point on record in April. The share of prime working-age Black women in the workforce is now far higher than any other group of women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
Hot on the left
The Biden administration begins student debt relief plan B
“Cynics are already grumbling that the goal is less to cancel student debt than to appear to be fighting for it. Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues were determined enough to nullify the first student debt relief program based on a non-injury by an unwilling plaintiff. Why would a second bite at the apple go any better? In any case, the timeline of the president’s path would likely put an ultimate reckoning out past the 2024 election,” the American Prospect’s David Dayen writes.
- “Still, supporters of this Plan B can point to what tripped up the first effort at debt relief, and how a new process could fix those missteps in a way that would make it harder for the Court to work its will.”
Hot on the right
Inside the House GOP’s plan to go after FBI and DOJ
“House Republicans are taking their fight with the FBI and Justice Department to a new level — weighing punitive steps against both agencies that would have been unfathomable a decade ago,” Politico’s Jordain Carney reports.
- “Half a year into their majority, and with an increasingly restless right flank, the House GOP is ready for a confrontation after a spate of recent decisions it sees as either anti-Trump or pro-Biden. At the top of the list: Hunter Biden’s plea deal with federal investigators and Donald Trump’s indictment over his handling of classified documents.”
Today in Washington
At 2 p.m., Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in the Oval Office.
In closing
Is competitive eating lucrative? Yes, if you’re hot dog champ Joey Chestnut.
“Such competitions have become akin to a sport in the United States and are treated as a national spectacle. But are there also financial incentives? Can ‘gurgitators’ like Chestnut make a career of competitive eating? Here’s what we know,” Adela Suliman reports.
Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.