| Welcome to The Daily 202 newsletter! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 1957, John Lennon (16) first met Paul McCartney (15) when the former's band played at a church in Liverpool. Republican leaders have repeatedly declared they have no interest in relitigating the 2020 election. But GOP candidates and elected officials at every level have done so throughout 2021 — and reliving their version of 2020 is central to their plans for success in 2022 and beyond. The GOP's outward-facing message is opposition to President Biden, blaming him for virtually every ill — rising gas and food prices, gun violence, the situation at the border — and attacking his ambitious (and expensive) plans to remake America. Inwardly, however, Republicans just can't get enough of 2020 — as a way to keep their voters energized, a way to recruit and screen candidates, and a way to justify a coast-to-coast drive to rewrite election laws to end practices they blame for former president Donald Trump's resounding defeat. This column is, in many ways is a tale of three stories my colleague Amy Gardner has told over the course of the tumultuous last seven months. I'm going to take them in reverse chronological order. Yesterday, Amy reported: "Across the country, as campaigns gear up for a handful of key races this year and the pivotal 2022 midterms, Republican candidates for state and federal offices are increasingly focused on the last election — running on the falsehood spread by Trump and his allies that the 2020 race was stolen from him. While most of these campaigns are in their early stages, the embrace of Trump's claims is already widespread on the trail and in candidates' messages to voters. The trend provides fresh evidence of Trump's continued grip on the GOP, reflecting how a movement inspired by his claims and centered on overturning a democratic election has gained currency in the party since the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. … Of the nearly 700 Republicans who have filed initial paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run next year for either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives, at least a third have embraced Trump's false claims about his defeat."  Voters wait to cast their ballots in November at a polling place in Sterling Heights, Mich. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post) | In that piece, Amy makes clear Republicans aren't just required to swear fealty to Trump's claim. They also promise that, had they only been in charge last November, the self-described billionaire would still be in office. " 'He wasn't doing anything — squat, diddly,' Wren Williams said in an interview about his [defeated] primary opponent. 'He wasn't taking election integrity seriously. I'm sitting here fighting for election integrity in the courts, and he's my elected representative who can legislate and he's not.' … Last month, Williams defeated a 14-year incumbent in a Virginia House of Delegates primary after claiming he had seen evidence of fraud while working as a lawyer for the Trump campaign on a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Wisconsin election result. The incumbent, Charles Poindexter, boasts top ratings from the NRA as well as the socially conservative Family Foundation. Williams is widely expected to win easily in the fall in a safely Republican district in Virginia's rural Southside." Back in March, Amy chronicled how, if such candidates are victorious, some of them in places like Arizona and Georgia will come to power with newly acquired tools to shape the outcome of elections: "State Republicans have taken steps this year that could give them more power to sway the certification of election results, efforts that voting advocates decried as a blatant attempt to circumvent the popular vote, as President Donald Trump tried to do after his defeat in November. Amid an avalanche of voting legislation proposed in dozens of states, the moves go beyond highly scrutinized proposals to tighten rules around how ballots are cast in the name of election security. Critics say some of the initiatives attempt to clear the way for partisan actors to take control of election administration, as Trump unsuccessfully urged Republicans to do in the fall. On Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) of Georgia signed the most far-reaching effort yet into law — a sweeping voting measure that undercuts the power of the secretary of state and local election boards. The new law removes the secretary of state from serving as chair of the State Board of Elections, giving the legislature the authority to appoint a majority of the members, and authorizes the state board to suspend local election officials.  Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), second from right, leaves the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta after signing a sweeping voting bill into law Thursday. (Alyssa Pointer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP) | If these measures had been in place in 2020, critics say, the state board could have tried to interfere when the secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, certified Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state and rejected Trump's unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen. … Separately, the new power to suspend county election boards could give state officials unprecedented influence over all manner of election decisions, including the acceptance and rejection of mail ballots, early-voting hours, poll-worker hiring and the number of polling locations, critics say." Which gets us to the first (or third, depending on how you want to count) relevant piece from Amy, from back in January when she reported Trump had pressured Raffensberg to "find" enough votes for the former president to win. "The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking 'a big risk.' … At another point, Trump said: 'So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.'" (Trump apparently tried broadly the same tactic with a top Arizona GOP leader.) Raffensberger held the line. But if you follow the logic of Amy's pieces, you can see the potential problem: Republicans are 1) enlisting candidates who profess to believe Trump's false claims about a rigged election, and 2) giving them new powers to act on those claims. At the same time, congressional Republicans killed the proposal for an independent bipartisan commission to look into the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot to reduce the potential political damage such an investigation could cause them in the 2022 midterms. The same GOP logic broadly applied to voting "no" on setting up a select committee, which the House did last week. The party also purged Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from leadership for refusing to embrace Trump's false claims while denouncing the violence and effectively calling into question the entire rationale for the new election laws. Cheney is now the only Republican lawmaker on the new select committee investigating the insurrection. | | | What's happening now Search efforts continue in Surfside, Fla. "Hundreds of search-and-rescue workers in Surfside, Fla., are fending off rain and wind from Tropical Storm Elsa on Tuesday as they continue to look for remains and — a remote possibility now — survivors at the site of a collapsed condominium building," Timothy Bella reports. "The death toll now stands at 28 after four victims were identified Monday, and 117 people are still unaccounted for at Champlain Towers South. While officials remain adamant that the goal is to find survivors, the mission has become more difficult due to the impending tropical storm that caused search efforts to be paused on Monday. Hope of finding survivors has also diminished nearly two weeks after the disaster." To start your day with a full political briefing, sign up for our Power Up newsletter. | | | Lunchtime reads from The Post - "Hackers demand $70 million to unlock businesses hit by sprawling ransomware attack," by Rachel Lerman and Gerrit De Vynck: "REvil, the same Russian-language group that was behind the attack on meat processor JBS, posted the demand on a dark-Web site associated with the group. The group wants the funds in bitcoin, a popular cryptocurrency, and said if it receives the money it will publish a 'decryptor key,' or a computer code that will unlock the victims' files. The attack was carried out through software that helps businesses manage their computer systems, made by Miami-based firm Kaseya. ... In an interview with the Associated Press, Kaseya chief executive Fred Voccola estimated the number of affected companies to be in the low thousands, made up almost entirely of small businesses."
| | | … and beyond | | | The Biden agenda The House Problem Solvers Caucus announced its support this morning for an infrastructure deal crafted by a bipartisan group of senators. - The move gives a boost to a package that Biden is heavily promoting and signals that it could attract some House Republican support, John Wagner reports.
- "The House caucus, which consists of 29 Democrats and 29 Republicans, noted in a statement that the Senate proposal is similar to one crafted by the caucus's members."
The Senate passed a sprawling bipartisan bill on innovation and China, but House Democrats are looking to take a different approach. - "In a fractious Washington, any deal that would inject billions in new federal spending into the economy and receives overwhelming support from a bitterly divided Senate would seem a good candidate to move swiftly through the House and onto Biden's desk. But a sprawling bipartisan Senate proposal that passed on a vote of 68 to 32 last month and would spread $250 billion across several key industries to counter China's growing technological and economical prowess is being viewed warily in the House," Mariana Alfaro and Marianna Sotomayor report.
- "The skeptical response by Democrats is motivated by policy concerns and a feeling among members of the House that they aren't going to rubber stamp a bipartisan Senate bill simply because it is so rare that one emerges. ... At stake is one of the most ambitious policy initiatives to confront the increasing economic and national security threats posed by China — an issue that both parties highlight as paramount to the United States' future."
- "House and Senate Democrats have expressed optimism that a final agreement will be struck, but how long that will take and what that package will look like will be the subject of intense negotiations in the coming months."
The U.S. left the Afghan airfield at night and didn't tell the new commander. - "The U.S. left Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base's new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans' departure more than two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said," the AP's Kathy Gannon reports. "'We (heard) some rumor that the Americans had left Bagram ... and finally by seven o'clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,' Gen. Mir Asadullah Kohistani, Bagram's new commander said. U.S. military spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett did not address the specific complaints of many Afghan soldiers who inherited the abandoned airfield, instead referring to a statement last week."
- "The statement said the handover of the many bases had been in the process soon after Biden's mid-April announcement that America was withdrawing the last of its forces. Leggett said in the statement that they had coordinated their departures with Afghanistan's leaders."
- The Taliban showed off containers full of weapons and other military hardware seized from the Afghan military. "The weaponry includes 900 guns, 30 light tactical vehicles and 20 army pickup trucks," NBC News reports. "District after district has fallen to the Taliban. The militants have seized 120 districts since May 1, according to an ongoing assessment by the Long War Journal. ... At the same time, many military outposts have been surrendered without a fight, allowing the Taliban to seize weapons, according to multiple Afghan military and government sources."
- More than 1,000 Afghan soldiers fled into Tajikistan as the Taliban extends control, Tajik officials said. "The Taliban has been rapidly retaking territory across northern Afghanistan, including areas along the more than 800-mile border with Tajikistan. Thousands of militia members — including ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan — and armed citizens have rushed to join Afghan forces to fight the insurgents. U.S. intelligence analysts have warned that the Afghan government could fall swiftly after U.S. troops completely pull out of Afghanistan," Miriam Berger reports.
Biden allies are bracing for GOP attacks when the southern border reopens. - "The White House is expected to reopen the U.S.-Mexico border in the coming weeks, and even Biden's allies are worried he's not ready for the logistical and political impact, including an avalanche of Republican attacks that will follow," Politico's Anita Kumar and Sabrina Rodriguez report. "In a series of phases, the Biden administration is expected to lift the public health authority, Title 42, invoked by former President Donald Trump at the start of the pandemic. ... The phased-in approach means Biden could first end the practice of turning away families and then, later this summer, for single adults."
- "Even with the phased-in approach, a sharp increase in migrants poses a major challenge for the administration over how to handle their arrival — hold them in detention centers or release them as they await their court proceedings, which can take years given a long backlog of cases. And Republicans plan to highlight any increase in migrants or delays in processing them in campaign ads, mailers and debates in races all over the country as part of a long-planned strategy to use immigration to try to retake Congress in the midterm elections next year."
| | | The pandemic Biden will speak this afternoon about the pandemic as 99 percent of U.S. coronavirus deaths. are now amongst unvaccinated people. - Biden fell shy of his self-imposed July 4 deadline for 70 percent of U.S. adults to have received at least one vaccination shot, John Wagner reports.
- In his speech, Biden will outline several strategies to convince more Americans to get vaccinated, including "door-to-door outreach" in targeted communities and stepped-up efforts to get vaccines to primary care doctors and pediatricians who can encourage adolescents to get vaccinated as they head back to school or get ready for fall sports, Wagner writes.
Britain's daily infections could reach 100,000 this summer, the health secretary said. - "Sajid Javid told BBC Radio that coronavirus case numbers, currently hovering around 25,000 each day, were expected to double ahead of the July 19 deadline to lift restrictions, as the more transmissible delta variant drives a new surge in infections," Erin Cunningham reports. "The health secretary added it was more important to track the number of hospitalizations and deaths caused by the virus — outcomes that he said have been tempered by new covid-19 treatments and a successful vaccination campaign."
- "According to Public Health England, the variant accounts for at least 95 percent of new cases in Britain."
| | | More on the future of the GOP Republicans are considering "cracking" cities to doom Democrats. - "Kentucky's GOP congressional delegation entered the redistricting cycle with an unusual request for their state legislative counterparts: leave Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth alone. The group, which includes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, wants the state's Republican supermajority to refrain from cracking Yarmuth's Louisville-based district into three, even if that might deliver them control of all of Kentucky's six House seats," Politico's Ally Mutnick reports.
- "This kind of redistricting debate — over how aggressively Republicans should try to eliminate the remaining Democratic enclaves in red states — is playing out in cities across the upper South and Midwest. Local Republicans, eager to grow their numbers in Congress and provide launching pads for ambitious state legislators, might be more inclined to carve up those blue pockets. But others in the GOP are wary of a rapid and unpredictable political realignment that complicates the drawing of new maps — and the threat of the legal behemoth Democrats have assembled to counter them."
Far-right extremist Nick Fuentes found an ally in Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar (R). - "His unapologetic association with them is perhaps the most vivid example of the Republican Party's growing acceptance of extremism, which has become apparent as more lawmakers espouse and amplify conspiracy theories and far-right ideologies that figure prominently in the belief systems of fringe groups," the New York Times's Catie Edmondson reports. "Mr. Gosar has appeared at rallies across the country referring to President Biden as a 'fraudulent usurper,' and called efforts to seat him 'sedition' and a 'coup.' Last week, Mr. Gosar came under scrutiny after a social media channel associated with Mr. Fuentes advertised an upcoming fund-raiser featuring both men."
- "The statements and actions have not resulted in any punishment from House Republican leaders, who have largely declined to publicly reprimand those in their conference who espouse fringe beliefs or peddle misinformation."
Two major QAnon influencers were given official press credentials to the latest Trump rally held in Florida this weekend. - "Jeffrey Pedersen, known in the Q world as In The Matrixx, announced on his Telegram channel on Friday that he and his podcast co-host, known as Shady Grooove, had been approved by the Trump Organization for media credentials," Vice News's David Gilbert reports. " 'We are the news now,' Pederson wrote.
In a sprawling interview with the Times, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said he suspects some members of Congress were aware of what was going to happen on Jan. 6. - "I won't name names, but yes, I do have that suspicion. I will say, if you just looked at Twitter — the whole reason I brought my gun and kept my staff home and told my wife to stay in the apartment was looking at Twitter. I saw the threats," he said. "When Lauren Boebert — I will call her out by name — tweeted 'Today is 1776,' I don't know what that meant other than this is the time for revolution. Maybe it was a dumb tweet that she didn't mean. Fine. I'll give her that credit for now. But if you have members of Congress who were involved in nurturing an insurrection, heck yeah, we need to know."
| | | Quote of the day "I made the decision early in my career that I would be willing to take a potentially career-ending vote," Kinzinger, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, said. "But I thought that vote would be for something like a Social Security reform bill. I never thought it would be for defending democracy." | | | Hot on the left Journalists Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates will join Howard University's faculty. "The surprising development came less than a week after trustees for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill voted to award tenure to Hannah-Jones. Initially, the public university hired her as a professor without the job-protection status. But its board of trustees approved tenure for her on Wednesday, after faculty and students at Chapel Hill protested that she had been mistreated," Lauren Lumpkin and Nick Anderson reports. "Now Hannah-Jones will have tenure at Howard in the new position of Knight chair in race and journalism, starting this summer at the historically Black university. ... Hannah-Jones will also found a Center for Journalism and Democracy at Howard." Online, many commended Hannah-Jones on her decision to join Howard and criticized UNC for their treatment of the New York Times writer, who was the driving force between the paper's 1619 Project: | | | Hot on the right J.D. Vance, the "Hillbilly Elegy" author who is now running for Congress, said he regrets his since-deleted tweets criticizing Trump. "Vance has shifted toward a pro-Trump position, recently visiting the former president in Florida in hopes of earning his endorsement. He told Fox News on Monday that he hoped people wouldn't judge him for his past remarks, which he then walked back," Politico reports. "Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016," Vance said. "And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I've been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy. I think he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak." | | | This Supreme Court term, visualized Justice Amy Coney Barrett moved the Supreme Court's center of gravity further to the right this term, but not as quickly or as dramatically as her supporters had hoped. | | | Today in Washington Biden will receive a briefing from the White House's covid-19 response team today at 1:15 p.m. and, at 3:15 p.m. he will deliver remarks on the federal government's pandemic response. | | | In closing Tomorrow, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter will celebrate their 75th anniversary, making theirs the longest marriage in presidential history. To mark the date, our colleagues Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan write about the former first couple, who will celebrate by visiting Plains, Ga., the place where it all started. "They will probably just sit and hold hands," said a friend and neighbor, Jill Stuckey. It's quite fitting that Jordan and Sullivan penned the story, as they have just celebrated their 28th anniversary.  In this 1979 photo, President Jimmy Carter pauses to kiss first lady Rosalynn Carter as he boards a helicopter in Washington. (Barry Thumma/AP) | | | | |
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