Politico

CHICAGO — The mayor of Highland Park, the community outside Chicago where seven spectators at a July 4 parade were gunned down, has spoken to President Joe Biden about pursuing a national ban on assault weapons.

“He shared his absolute grief at what had happened with us and said that this needs to stop, and [asked], ‘Why do we allow these weapons?’ … He was angry and concerned,” Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said in an interview with POLITICO, adding that Biden echoed her own concerns that military-style weapons should be banned.

“These guns need to be removed from the public’s access. These are military weapons. Unless they’re in combat, it just doesn’t make sense,” said Rotering, a Democrat.

During the call, Biden also invited Rotering to the White House on Monday to attend an event commemorating the recent signing of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which strengthens background checks for weapon purchases.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois state Rep. Bob Morgan are also expected to attend the event. Morgan and Rotering were both at the parade when the gunman started shooting into the crowd.

On Sunday, Pritzker echoed Rotering, saying, “We need to ban assault weapons, not just in the state of Illinois, but nationally.”

He also called out “red flag” laws for not doing enough to stop the alleged shooter in the Highland Park case.

“For red flag laws to work, family members had to step forward and sign an affidavit, go to court, do something to make an affirmative action, so that those red flag laws would actually go into effect,” Pritzker said on CNN’s “State of the Nation.”

The governor referred to police previously being called to the suspect’s home and recovering knives. “So there were warning signs, there’s no doubt about it, but nothing that reached the probable cause or preponderance of the evidence required for there to be a red flag,” Pritzker said.

In Highland Park, an idyllic community just north of Chicago, Rotering is juggling her efforts to help her town heal alongside a renewed mission to get assault weapons banned. She spoke after attending a victim’s funeral Saturday and three others on Friday.

Monday’s White House event on the bipartisan gun measure that Biden has already signed will generate mixed emotions, Rotering said: “It’s a great first step. It’s a bipartisan bill. But there needs to be more done.”

The Highland Park mayor is also expected to testify before an upcoming U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the issue examining the use of assault weapons and magazines. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin is head of the committee and has already signaled the issue is a top priority for the panel.

Hundreds of Highland Park residents have sought counseling after the attack on parade spectators. On Friday alone, 1,200 residents were seen over 12 hours by counselors.

“As I’m walking down the street, anybody I see has a dazed look on their faces or they’re hugging or crying. It’s too raw to be talking about anything else right now,” Rotering said.

One of the most sobering facts in the shooting is that children were first to respond, said the mayor.

“They’ve been trained in active shooter drills all of their lives, so they knew exactly what to do,” Rotering said. “They yelled, ‘Active shooter! Run! Hide!’ They told their parents. That to me is such a sad commentary on our society.”

The Highland Park mayor is not new to the gun debate. She pushed for passage of a city ordinance banning assault weapons after the 2013 school shooting at Sandy Hook, which held up despite court challenges. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2015.

Rotering has since testified in Illinois’ state Capitol in Springfield to allow cities authority to ban such weapons. State law has preempted cities from passing such local laws. A measure addressing the issue made it out of the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee, but it was never brought to the floor. Now, Illinois lawmakers are looking at it again.

Just a few weeks ago, after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed, Rotering wrote the governor and state House and Senate leaders, calling on them to allow other cities an opportunity to pass their own bans on assault weapons.

It’s among proposals state lawmakers are looking at addressing in a possible special session or when lawmakers reconvene later this year.

“People say, ‘Look, you had a ban and nothing changed,’” said Rotering. “My response is that that ban reflects the values of my community and other communities should be able to reflect their values in terms of whether they want assault weapons on their streets.”

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on Sunday said the U.S. can stave off a recession, despite concerns that the Federal Reserve’s tightening of interest rates to combat inflation could spur an economic downturn.

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Raimondo cast doubt on the possibility of “a serious recession,” though she predicted high economic growth from the depths of the pandemic would likely cool to “a more steady growth.”

Asked if the U.S. can avoid a recession if interest rates continue to grow, Raimondo responded, “I think we can.”

“I do think at some point, you know, we will see a less rapid growth in the economy, but I don’t see any reason to think that we will have a serious recession,” Raimondo said. “We recovered all the jobs since the pandemic. People’s household balance sheets are strong. Companies are doing well. Companies are hiring. Companies are growing.”

“Inflation is our problem, and it is our top priority,” she added. “And so I think perhaps a transition to a more traditional growth level, but I don’t think we should be talking ourselves into a recession.”

Even as fear of a recession looms, robust job growth continues. The U.S. posted a hot jobs report on Friday, with the Labor Department saying employers added 372,000 jobs last month, outpacing economists’ expectations.

Raimondo argued “the fundamentals of this economy are very strong,” though she acknowledged the impact on consumers of inflation, at its highest point in decades, undercuts the robust economic growth.

“Our president’s administration, we’re doing everything we know how to do,” she said. “You’re starting to see gas prices come down, wholesale gas prices are coming down. But until we do get a handle on inflation, I think it’s natural for a family to be feeling that pinch.”

Joe Biden wants in on your group chat.

The president joined the messaging platform, Community, which allows influencers and other high-profile figures to communicate directly with their audience through text messages.

The administration on Saturday unveiled a phone number, (302) 404-0880 (Delaware-based, obviously), through the platform and will ask people to share personal stories about how gun violence has changed their lives. The president will relay some of those stories during a White House event Monday highlighting the gun safety legislation he signed into law earlier this month.

White House aides say the texts from Biden’s account will reflect a collaboration between staff and the president, although aides expect Biden to craft messages himself.

The president’s digital team has experimented with ways of reaching voters, particularly younger ones on social media platforms. The White House does not have a TikTok account, although Biden has filmed videos with the Jonas Brothers and others who uploaded the collaborations to their own TikTok accounts. The president also has sat for interviews loaded to Shade Room, a pop culture site geared for a young, Black audience, and White House Covid adviser Anthony Fauci has held Instagram Live sessions.

“All of these things are great, but social media audiences go away. You’re beholden to the algorithm. And even email can be unreliable in terms of open rates, and who you send to,” said Rob Flaherty, the White House director of digital strategy. “SMS is a really reliable tool to reach people directly and quickly. SMS people like to say the open rate is 100 percent.”

Political campaigns often use text messages to disseminate information — including Biden through the Democratic National Committee — but aides say this is the first time in nearly a decade the White House has “opened a new communication channel to/from the public.”

Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump was a prolific user of Twitter until he was permanently booted from the platform following the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots. But White House aides have often remarked that “Twitter is not real life,” a reference to the platform not as widely embraced in the heartland of America as it is by Washington politicians and the media who cover them.

Launched in 2019, Community allows both people and companies, or their brands, to send text messages to fans and supporters in a group or one-on-one. Users can opt-in to receive messages and promotions, while the people they follow — particularly politicians — use the platform to mobilize supporters and voters.

Aides say the White House can use the platform to announce trips and ask for feedback on proposals in the works or plan to preview.

“If we’re going to Ohio, we can text everyone subscribed in Ohio and say, ‘Hey, come to our event,’ or ‘I’m going to be in town,’” Flaherty said. “Also, we can text people based on interest areas. It allows us to have a direct dialogue with people.”

There’s also the added benefit of being able to control the message and going around traditional news sources, he said.

Biden is the latest politician to use the platform. Former President Barack Obama used Community in 2020 and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams joined Community last year to work with the voting rights group she started to mobilize voters and promote initiatives.

“You could have the president do a town hall with the tool. Take questions and that kind of thing. We’ve been talking about, ‘Should we let Community pick his tie one day?’” Flaherty said. “We’re kind of experimenting here.”

President Joe Biden will reluctantly set aside his human rights qualms to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman next week, an awkward encounter that U.S. officials hope will help lower energy prices spiked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But the biggest winner of the meeting won’t be Saudi Arabia, the United States or even the war effort against Russia.

It’s Israel.

From the failed revival of the Iran nuclear deal to the effective shelving of U.S. hopes for a Palestinian state, the Israeli government has directly or inadvertently scored what it considers a string of political and policy victories since Biden took office.

The U.S. president’s desire to avoid domestic political blowback and reduce America’s exposure in the Middle East has empowered aides, such as veteran national security hand Brett McGurk, who tend to push policies preferred by Israel and like-minded Arab states that effectively downplay human rights, three current and former U.S. officials as well as outside observers say. And Israel’s turbulent politics — the country is heading into its fifth election in less than four years — has made Biden and his deputies reluctant to pick fights with its leaders.

Biden has several reasons to grit his teeth and see the young Saudi prince, the country’s de facto ruler, whom U.S. officials hold responsible for the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, among other abuses. Perhaps most urgent: Biden needs the oil-rich Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, to help lower skyrocketing energy prices caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine, a move that would indirectly boost Kyiv, which is worried about waning international support as the conflict bleeds on. Food security, another hot-button issue thanks to the war, is also on the agenda.

But for Israeli leaders, the U.S.-Saudi meeting offers something else — hope that Washington can fix its broken relations with Riyadh and nudge it to join other Arab capitals that have established historic diplomatic ties with Israel in recent years.

In a visit slated for Wednesday to Saturday, Biden will go to Israel first, then stop by to meet Palestinian leaders in the West Bank before heading to the Saudi city of Jeddah to see the crown prince and other Arab leaders gathered for a regional summit. Biden has shown little enthusiasm about seeing the Saudi royal; in fact, he’s pointed to the Israel factor as one reason he will do so.

“What I want to do is see to it that we diminish the likelihood that there’s a continuation of this — some of the senseless wars between Israel and the Arab nations,” Biden said. “And that’s what I’m focused on.”

An Israeli official, meanwhile, dismissed the idea that one country would benefit more than others. “There’s strategic logic to this trip,” insisted the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic. “It’s a win for the United States. It’s a win for Israel, and it’s a win for the Saudis. Everybody wins.”

The sticky Trump legacy

Biden has largely continued the heavily pro-Israel policies of his predecessor in the Oval Office, Donald Trump.

Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. embassy there while closing the U.S. consulate that dealt with the Palestinians. He effectively zeroed out financial aid to the Palestinians and supported the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel establish diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan.

While Trump didn’t rule out a Palestinian state, his policies severely undercut the possibility. For example, his administration tossed out decades of U.S. policy in declaring that Israeli settlements on land claimed by Palestinians did not violate international law.

The Biden administration has restored much of the funding for the Palestinian people. It has re-established a direct diplomatic channel to deal with Palestinians. And, to the chagrin of the Israeli government, it placed an Israeli spyware company, the NSO group, on a U.S. blacklist over concerns about how its technology was being used.

But Biden hasn’t reopened the consulate, returned the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv, rescinded the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital or reversed the settlements decision — although the Biden administration has spoken out against settlement expansion. Biden aides also want to build on the Abraham Accords, while giving verbal support — but little diplomatic effort — to the idea of a future Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The Biden team has often been constrained for legal and diplomatic reasons; Israel is refusing to permit the U.S. consulate to reopen, for instance. Some moves, such as reversing the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, would cause intense domestic political blowback Biden doesn’t want or need as midterm elections approach.

The Biden administration also sees Israel as a crucial friend in the Middle East, which is home to thousands of American troops facing threats from adversaries like Iran and Islamist extremist groups. Promoting cooperation between Israel and America’s Arab partners is an obvious way to reduce those threats.

Integration within the region is “one of the real meta themes of the [Biden] visit,” a senior State Department official told POLITICO. The goal is “to get it progressively moving in the direction of economic integration, political, diplomatic integration.”

But progressive leaders and even some serving U.S. officials are deflated by what they see as unnecessary Biden administration deference to Israel, whose treatment of the Palestinians some leading human rights groups now describe as apartheid. Israel’s reluctance to gang up on Russia even after its attack on Ukraine has also drawn notice in U.S. foreign policy circles.

Because Biden has ruled out conditioning U.S. military aid to Israel on issues like human rights, his aides are left with rhetoric, both public and private, as their main tool to respond to Israeli actions like the announcement of new settlement construction. But Israel has a long history of ignoring such entreaties, even if it delays some moves out of courtesy to its friends in Washington.

According to a recent report in Axios, U.S. officials asked Israeli leaders to delay any provocative actions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, such as home demolitions and evictions of Palestinians, until after Biden’s visit. (The senior State Department official declined to comment on the report.)

“Biden administration officials tell me ‘we are putting private pressure’ in response to Israeli human rights abuses, to which my response is, ‘Okay, how’s that going?’ Because the facts on the ground indicate ‘private pressure’ isn’t really accomplishing anything,” said Matt Duss, a top foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).

An old school aide

Current and former U.S. officials say much of the president’s Middle East policy is being shaped by Brett McGurk, a senior National Security Council staffer who has served multiple presidents from both parties.

McGurk is close to Arab officials from the Persian Gulf region who, like Israel, view Iran as a major menace. His views, the three current and former officials say, tend to dovetail with Arab states’ requests, which these days often coincide with Israeli desires, such as building a bulwark against Iran.

Early on, McGurk was skeptical about other Biden aides’ efforts to quickly restore the Iran nuclear deal, which Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel have long opposed, although he has supported the overall idea of reviving the agreement.

U.S. efforts to restore the nuclear deal, which Trump quit in 2018, have so far failed, and the Biden administration appears poised to further ratchet up sanctions on Iran, to the delight of Israel and some Arab states.

Israel, meanwhile, recently announced it wants to establish a U.S.-backed regional air defense alliance. The alliance appears likely to include some of its Arab neighbors and defend against Iran-backed missile and other attacks.

Current U.S. officials describe McGurk as an old-school Middle East hand. He wants to promote stability in the region because he sees it as being in America’s broader interest, and he believes that requires regularly engaging with leaders there — despite their questionable records.

McGurk does not believe that Biden’s goal of prioritizing the U.S. rivalry with China means that the United States needs to reduce its ties to the Middle East. He does, however, see value in pushing for an end to long-simmering conflicts that have embroiled the Middle East. One of the Biden team’s success stories — at least for now — is a truce in Yemen between Saudi-led forces and Iran-back rebels who’d been fighting for seven years.

Ultimately, the policy is set by Biden, who has decades of foreign affairs experience, has long been staunchly pro-Israel, and is happy to overrule his aides if they do not make an argument he finds compelling. Biden was deeply involved in efforts to limit last year’s outbreak of violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

As vice president during the Barack Obama administration, Biden saw the domestic political blowback that comes when a president clashes with Israeli leaders — in Obama’s case on the Iran deal, settlements and more — and he’s inclined to avoid such blowups.

“The president is a guy [for whom] being good on Israel is baked deep into his political DNA,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. official who dealt with the Middle East and is now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “He learned from Obama what not to do.”

The Israeli official stressed that the United States and Israel “have a very open dialogue.” “We know how to manage disagreement, and we do it respectfully,” the person said.

The Biden team has avoided pressuring Israeli leaders on topics like restarting peace talks with the Palestinians, who themselves seem unprepared for such discussions, the current and former officials say.

The Palestinians have not helped their own cause in the eyes of many Arab leaders or U.S. officials. Corruption, disorganization and a lack of a true mandate complicate any chance of diplomatic breakthroughs in Ramallah.

Jerusalem has its own baggage. For months, Israel was led by an unwieldy coalition of political parties who joined forces in large part to push out longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu was a huge Trump supporter who deeply offended many Obama aides now working for Biden.

The leadership that replaced him, headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, was diverse but leaned right. The Biden team viewed it as more reasonable than Netanyahu. Even as it showed no interest in talking about statehood for Palestinians, the coalition took some steps to improve their lives, such as issuing them more work permits. It also voiced its criticisms of the United States at a lower decibel than Netanyahu.

Last month, the coalition collapsed, and now another Israeli election is expected in the fall. U.S. officials dread the potential return of Netanyahu, who made his disagreements with the United States very public and rallied Republicans to his side, damaging the bipartisan nature of Israel policy in Washington.

Another journalist killed

In the near term, Israel seems content not to have Washington meddling too much in its affairs. But in the long run, there could be a cost.

Israeli as well as Arab leaders may grow frustrated by a Washington more focused on China and the Russia-Ukraine war. If the Abraham Accords and other efforts — such as an ongoing Saudi-Iran dialogue — do lead to more stability, U.S. detachment from the region is arguably even more likely.

But the Middle East always has a way of edging back into the headlines — often for the wrong reasons.

In recent weeks, the Biden administration has faced intense criticism for its response to the killing of prominent Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

Multiple investigations by media organizations as well as a United Nations panel say evidence points to Israeli soldiers having shot the journalist.

Publicly, the Biden administration did not initially demand that Israel allow for an official “independent” investigation. Instead, it kept calling for an “impartial” probe.

“We have two sets of authorities, two sets of security officials that are perfectly capable of doing a thorough investigation,” the senior State Department official said.

Longtime Israel critics alleged that Israel could not carry out an impartial probe, even when the victim is American. “Israel’s record of investigating itself is quite terrible. We’ve seen it time and again,” said Khaled El-Gindy of the Middle East Institute.

Behind the scenes, U.S. officials pressed the Israelis and the Palestinians to get to the bottom of what happened, including cooperating when necessary. U.S. officials eventually oversaw a forensic examination of the bullet that had struck Abu Akleh, which was in the possession of Palestinian officials.

On July 4, the State Department announced that its overall review of the situation had determined that the gunfire that killed the journalist likely came from Israeli forces, but that the bullet itself was too damaged to offer a definitive conclusion. The department also said it had no reason to believe the killing was intentional, but that it was “the result of tragic circumstances.”

Although it insisted it would continue to push for accountability, the U.S. conclusion infuriated some rights advocates who said it placed too much trust in the Israeli version of events.

“A shocking abdication of responsibility by the United States,” was how Sarit Michaeli, an international advocacy officer for B’Tselem, the Israeli rights group, described it. Abu Akleh’s family also slammed the finding, saying the U.S. ignored the idea that Israeli policies view all Palestinians as “legitimate targets.”

The worry among advocates for Palestinians is that the Biden administration will, over time, let the issue fade in another example of deference to Israel. After all, there’s a war in Europe, U.S. midterm elections coming up, and plenty of other crises.

As one former U.S. official put it: “We’re trying to focus on elsewhere in the world.”

Runaway inflation is crushing President Joe Biden’s approval ratings and threatens to swamp Democrats in the midterm elections.

But many progressives — including some within the administration itself — say Biden’s all-out messaging war against spiking prices is making matters even worse.

They fear that the administration’s unswerving support for the Federal Reserve’s campaign to choke off inflation will slam the brakes on the economy and undercut the few things the White House has moving in its favor. Among them: a strong labor market, solid wage gains and ambitious spending proposals in areas like child care and prescription drug costs that are popular with voters.

Frustration among administration progressives boiled over at the end of May when Biden declared his “laser focus” on inflation while meeting at the White House with Fed Chair Jerome Powell and rolled out a plan to combat spiking prices. Biden backed the central bank’s aggressive interest rate hikes, which are aimed at cooling the economy by any means necessary, including inducing a possible recession.

“A lot of people were frustrated by [the rollout] and by the idea that we were going to try to Paul Volcker our way out of this problem,” said a senior official, referring to the legendary Fed chair of the 1980s who relentlessly jacked up rates to break the back of soaring inflation — triggering two recessions along the way.

The official, who like others inside the administration interviewed for this story declined to be identified by name, said the new messaging showed that “people who are inherently cautious are dominating” the internal debate, meaning the economic moderates in Biden’s inner circle.

It’s not that progressives want Biden to put pressure on Powell to curb interest rate hikes as President Donald Trump once did. But Biden’s commitment to letting the Fed do whatever it deems fit instead of emphasizing the need to keep making labor market gains struck a nerve.

While every White House engages in internal policy debates, this one stands out because it reflects broader tensions that are roiling the party: Many progressives believe inflation is likely to ease on its own without severe rate hikes; more moderate voices say the only path to improving Democrats’ political fortunes is to bring prices down swiftly.

It’s an excruciating spot for the White House. Polls show inflation is a top concern to voters, so attacking it head-on seems like the smartest political move. Powell and many economists argue that the economy won’t work for anyone if inflation — now at its highest point since Volcker’s day — isn’t reversed quickly.

But progressives worry that Biden is abandoning the liberal vision of government’s role in countering decades of growing income inequality, further assisting women and people of color in making progress in the labor market, and transforming the nation’s infrastructure into one that relies on clean energy.

In remarks to union workers in Cleveland on Wednesday, Biden reiterated his commitment to bringing down prices, declaring, “I’m fighting like hell to lower costs on things you talk about around your kitchen table.”

Inside the administration, the debates are getting more intense as the midterms approach, with Biden’s approval ratings at their lowest levels ever and the economy showing some signs of tilting toward a slowdown. Friday morning will offer a fresh look at the economy’s health with the June jobs report expected to show solid gains but less than the 390,000 in May. The economy has added an average of about 500,000 jobs a month for the past six months.

A mixed picture is likely to provide fodder for both sides in a debate that senior aides say is mostly respectful but may not stay that way.

“It’s not like people are storming out of meetings or Zoom calls or yelling at each other all the time,” said a second senior administration official. “But sometimes there is just not a good answer or one that will satisfy everyone. And obviously, that can be frustrating.”

Some progressives want the president to come down much harder on what they view as corporate America’s role in artificially jacking up prices to fatten profits.

“The president’s agenda that he rolled out in the State of the Union is the agenda that would have eased costs and addressed a lot of the things we could do to deal with families’ budgets,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview. “That got stalled essentially by one person in the Senate,” she said, referring to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Jayapal says the White House should put big pieces of the Build Back Better package on child care, prescription drug costs, health care subsidies and environmental investments back into another big spending bill before the August recess, typically the last moment for any major legislation to have a prayer in an election year.

A White House official said Biden’s policies are aimed at strengthening workers and the economy.

“President Biden has been a strong, explicit advocate for full employment conditions,” the official said in a statement. “He has developed policies that helped achieve those conditions and voiced his argument that we want to fight inflation while maintaining those conditions.”

The official added, “Inflation is the purview of the Fed. The Fed determines rate hikes. And we have been perfectly clear about the independence of the Fed to make the decisions they deem necessary.”

To be certain, Biden has occasionally pursued the corporate price-gouging line of attack. Over the July 4 weekend, he tweeted at gas station owners to “bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now.”

But his approach is not organized or consistent enough for some inside the White House economic team or for leading progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who also fears the administration will relieve tariffs on Chinese imports to try to ease U.S. consumer prices.

So far, the White House has only made small changes to the tariffs imposed on China by Trump but is considering larger relief demanded by big business groups.

“The U.S. economy is growing faster than China’s and American manufacturing is booming with good-paying union jobs, but weakening our protections against unfair trade would not significantly reduce prices,” Warren said in a statement to POLITICO.

Progressives also want the president to hammer Republicans harder for resisting bolder structural changes. These include a global minimum corporate tax, a federal $15 minimum wage, surtaxes on the wealthy, and permanent changes to federal support programs for workers and families, along with clean energy tax credits.

The moderate v. progressive fight happens in pretty much every Democratic administration. But progressive power in the party is significantly greater than it was under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. And Biden cannot afford to alienate his base.

On the Fed, Jayapal and other progressives worry that Powell will go too far, too fast, at least in part because he feels has a clear green light from the Oval Office.

“He should be very, very careful about increasing interest rates because we are already seeing some easing in inflation,” she said. “It would be a tragedy to see [recent labor market gains] thrown off into recession.”

Part of the tension is being played out between progressives and Treasury Department officials, including Secretary Janet Yellen.

Progressives are troubled by Yellen’s robust backing of Powell’s rate-hike campaign as well as her support for lifting some China tariffs.

Mike Gwin, deputy assistant Treasury secretary for public affairs, defended Yellen: “Secretary Yellen deeply respects the independence of the Federal Reserve in setting monetary policy, and like President Biden believes that the Fed’s independence is a key tool in our work to drive down inflation.”

Yellen backers also point to her recent comments in South Dakota in which she said the unique nature of the Covid recovery – a hot jobs market but stubbornly low labor force participation – suggests the Fed could cool inflation without driving up unemployment much.

On the China tariffs, White House progressives say that lifting the penalties would have a minimal impact on prices and could hurt American workers. Big labor groups are also mostly opposed to lifting the tariffs.

“It’s a policy that would get you very little and make a lot of people very mad,” said the second senior administration official.

In addition to Yellen, the more moderate-leaning camp in the White House includes Gene Sperling, who served as NEC director under Clinton and Obama, and current NEC Director Brian Deese, another Obama veteran who came to the Biden White House after a stint as global head of sustainable investing at Wall Street giant BlackRock.

“Brian is constantly trying to balance a bunch of different interests and he tries to be responsive to bigger progressive ideas,” said the first White House official. “But the result is usually that those ideas never get a real chance.”

The White House did not make Deese available for an interview.

Those in close contact with senior West Wing officials say Deese’s deputy, Bharat Ramamurti, a long-time aide to Warren, is struggling to make an internal case in favor of letting the economy’s momentum continue for a while to notch more job and wage gains.

“Bharat likes the alternate macroeconomic theory that says you can let the economy run hot,” said a Democrat close to the West Wing who asked not to be identified talking about internal dynamics. “He gets quite irritated that the theory is not being tried out.”

A person familiar with the matter says Ramamurti fully backs administration policy on the economy.

President Joe Biden’s communications director, Kate Bedingfield, is leaving the White House, marking another departure of a high-ranking communications official ahead of the midterm elections.

Bedingfield, who is set to leave in a matter of weeks, has begun informing colleagues of her departure, a senior administration official told POLITICO.

Her exit comes on the heels of Jen Psaki’s decision to step down as press secretary and during a period of internal uncertainty over the structure and makeup of the White House’s larger press operations. In addition to Psaki, a number of mid- and lower-level press aides have left in the past two months.

Democrats have grown openly critical of the Biden team’s communications strategy in recent weeks and months. Longtime Biden aide Anita Dunn recently returned to the White House as a senior adviser and has been working to shore up the operation.

Bedingfield is a longtime Biden aide who helped steer the campaign through the difficult primary contest. She served in a similar capacity for Biden when he was vice president in 2015 and was his deputy campaign manager and communications director during his 2020 run. She has largely operated behind the scenes with relationships throughout the Democratic Party.

As Psaki’s exit neared, Bedingfield took on an increasingly public-facing role, including hosting the daily press briefings when Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre both had Covid-19.

Her smoothness in that role led to chatter that she would be in line for the press secretary post, even though it would represent a demotion. The gig ultimately went to Psaki’s top deputy, Jean-Pierre.

The White House did not return a request for comment. It was not immediately clear where Bedingfield would go next.

The wife of Brittney Griner on Tuesday said that President Joe Biden still has not responded to the handwritten letter that the basketball star sent to him from detention in Russia on July 4.

“I still have not heard from him. And honestly, it’s very disheartening,” Cherelle Griner told “CBS Mornings” in an interview.

Brittney Griner, a WNBA All-Star and two-time Olympic gold medalist from Texas, has been detained in Russia since February on cannabis possession charges. Her trial began last Friday and is scheduled to resume on Thursday.

Representatives for Brittney Griner on Monday shared excerpts of a letter that she sent to Biden, personally pleading with him to do more to help secure her return to the United States.

“I realize you are dealing with so much, but please don’t forget about me and the other American Detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home,” Brittney Griner wrote.

Cherelle Griner said on Tuesday that her wife likely felt compelled to write to Biden “because of the failed attempts that we have had as a family” at advocating for Brittney Griner’s release.

“She’s there,” Cherelle Griner said, “and she knows that we are doing everything that we can in our own strength to ask to meet with the president and to request that they do everything that they can to get her home,”

Cherelle Griner continued: “It kills me every time … when I have to write her, and she’s asking, ‘Have you met with him yet?’ And I have to say, ‘No.’ … I’m sure she’s like, ‘I’m going to write him and ask now, because my family has tried and to no avail. So I’m going to do it myself.’”

Asked to comment on Cherelle Griner’s remarks, the White House shared a statement from National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson, who said the Biden administration “continues to work aggressively — using every available means — to bring [Brittney Griner] home.”

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken “have spoken several times with Brittney’s wife recently,” Watson said, and the White House “is closely coordinating” with Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs. Carstens “has met with Brittney’s family, her teammates, and her support network,” Watson said.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price also said in a statement that Blinken “has spoken to Cherelle in the last several days, and he will continue to remain deeply and personally engaged on this case.”

Despite that outreach, Cherelle Griner criticized the administration’s efforts to negotiate her wife’s release, saying that U.S. officials “are not doing anything.”

“Initially, I was told … ‘We’re going to try and handle this behind [the] scenes.’ And, ‘Let’s not raise her value.’ And, ‘Stay quiet.’ And I did that,” Cherelle Griner said. “And respectfully, we’re over 140 days at this point. That does not work.”

“I will not be quiet anymore,” she added. “I will find that balance of harm versus help in pushing our government to do everything that’s possible. Because being quiet, they are not moving.”

President Joe Biden says “there’s nothing inevitable” about a recession in the U.S.

He is an increasingly lonely voice about that prospect.

From Wall Street to Washington, whispers about a coming economic slump have risen to nearly a roar as the Federal Reserve ramps up its battle against the highest inflation in four decades.

Price spikes and the Fed’s aggressive interest rate hikes sent the benchmark S&P 500 stock index tumbling to its worst performance in the first half of the year since 1970. Consumer confidence has sunk to record lows. And economists are increasingly worried that a downturn will not only happen but happen soon — a danger underscored by one widely watched Fed growth tracker.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has begun saying the quiet part out loud: The central bank is willing to tolerate a recession if it means getting inflation under control. “The bigger mistake to make,” he said on June 29, “would be to fail to restore price stability.”

While Biden has publicly backed Powell’s efforts, raising expectations of a recession are compounding the administration’s economic woes as Democrats head into congressional elections this year.

“Everyone is screaming about inflation,” said Josh Bivens, research director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. But “people would really hate a recession too.”

Americans are already pessimistic about the economy even as unemployment sits at 3.6 percent — near modern-era lows — and a contracting economy would deepen the pain, bringing a wave of layoffs and pay cuts. “The mood could get a lot more sour,” said Bivens, who argues that if the economy contracts, that would mean the Fed has screwed up by going too far in trying to curb surging prices.

Across the nation, the leading topic of economic conversation – high inflation – is swiftly morphing into growing certainty of a coming recession. White House allies are bracing for it. Republican lawmakers are trumpeting that a downturn is inescapable. Wall Street analysts are increasingly building it into their forecasts. And business leaders have rapidly moved from muted fears to openly chattering about an economic slump during investor discussions and inside their companies.

Some Democrats, for their part, are still pointing to bright spots in the economy and hoping that the central bank will manage to slow growth — and therefore bring down inflation — without tipping the country into a full-blown slump. Powell says he shares that hope and has pointed to the continued strength of the economy.

“A recession would be really problematic for the American people,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said in an interview. “Boy, are we ever a long way from a recession though.”

A White House official acknowledged that the economy faces a range of global risks but said that economic strengths in the U.S. — a strong labor market, consumer spending and business investment — “position us well – better than almost any other country – to build on our strong economic foundation and transition to steady, stable growth, with lower inflation.”

“And we can do so without giving up all the economic gains we’ve made,” the official added.

But foreboding questions loom large: Does the U.S. need a recession to tame inflation? How soon? And will the Fed continue raising rates even if the country enters a downturn until inflation retreats?

Dana Peterson, the chief economist at The Conference Board, a business research group, said she anticipates a “brief yet shallow” recession starting in the last three months of the year. But other factors could worsen the situation: if housing prices start to take a nosedive or if the war in Ukraine intensifies, sending oil and food prices even higher. She also said her forecast assumes some of the infrastructure spending enacted last year will begin bolstering the economy, cushioning a slowdown.

“If we don’t see that, we could see a deeper and more prolonged recession,” she said at a POLITICO “Women Rule” event.

Michael Feroli, the chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase, said a downturn could even start as soon as this quarter, with recent data showing that consumer spending — the biggest driver of GDP — is beginning to slow.

“Things are looking like we’re losing altitude pretty quickly,” he said.

The government confirmed last week that the economy shrank in the first three months of the year — and the Atlanta Fed’s economic growth tracker is pointing to the increased chances of a second-quarter contraction.

If that happens, it will kick off an intense debate about whether the U.S. is in a downturn already; recessions are often defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, although they aren’t official until confirmed by the National Bureau of Economic Research, generally long after they have begun. The bureau defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” It does not set a particular time frame of consecutive quarters.

Still, many of the factors contributing to shrinking GDP in recent months are technical in nature — companies stocked up on a lot of goods for their back rooms and so aren’t adding as much to that inventory — leading many economists to question whether it’s really a recession without the economic pain of notable job losses.

The White House official said the fact that the U.S. has added an average of 400,000 jobs over the past three months is evidence that the economy is not in recession. The June jobs figure that is scheduled to be released on Friday, July 8, will provide further clues as to the health of the employment market.

Himes, the Democratic congressman, said he thinks the Fed waited too long to begin raising rates — an argument that many Republicans have made — but he also has faith that the American economy could weather what’s ahead.

“There’s no question that growth will moderate as a result of the Fed’s interest rate increases,” he said. “But with unemployment at 3.6 percent, you’re a long way from the ugly effects of a recession.”

There’s no guarantee that a recession would actually smother inflation, though ensuing job losses would dampen the kind of consumer spending that has fueled price spikes. And the Fed’s moves are already triggering a backlash among some Democrats.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) argues that the Fed is engaging in aggressive rate hikes to fight an inflation problem that’s predominantly caused by events the central bank can’t fix — supply chain snags and Russia’s war on Ukraine. She said that might hurt the economy without helping much on prices.

“Inflation is like an illness, and medicine needs to be tailored to the specific problem, otherwise you could make things a lot worse,” she told Powell during a hearing. “And right now, the Fed has no control over the main driver of rising prices.”

Bivens of EPI said he expects inflation to decelerate naturally for a number of reasons: higher prices for food and energy are cutting into people’s ability to buy other things, government spending is waning, and wage growth has shown signs of slowing. The Fed shouldn’t feel that it needs to cause a recession to bring prices to heel, he said.

“They seem to be locking themselves into an ever-more hawkish stance, just as they’re getting close to going too far,” Bivens said.

But Charles Calomiris, a Columbia Business School professor who served as chief economist at a bank regulatory agency under former President Donald Trump, warned that the Fed would have to cause more pain than investors are currently baking in if it really intends to conquer inflation.

The best way the Fed can prevent the public from expecting persistently surging prices is if “it shows it’s willing to have a real recession until inflation gets tamed,” he said.

The National Security Council’s John Kirby on Sunday defended President Joe Biden’s weekend tweet urging gas companies to lower their prices.

“I think anybody that knows President Biden knows he’s plain-spoken and he tells exactly what he’s thinking in terms that everybody can understand,” Kirby said on “Fox News Sunday.” Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, talked to Mike Emanuel in a far-ranging interview.

On Saturday, Biden tweeted: “My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril. Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now.”

Emanuel displayed a response from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos suggesting Biden remarks’ were “either straight ahead misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics.” Kirby rejected that criticism.

“The American people are facing pain at the pump, clearly now, we are at $5 a gallon. The president is working very, very hard across many fronts, Mike, to try to bring that price down,” Kirby said, citing the president’s recent efforts at the G-7 summit and the release of oil from the nation’s strategic oil reserve.

“If everybody cooperates on this, we can bring the price down at least by about a dollar a gallon,” Kirby said, “so he’s working very, very hard to do this because he knows the impact that high gas prices have on the American household.”