Politico

President Joe Biden’s second pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has secured the backing of a prominent group of legal figures.

Seven members of the prosecution team in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing case, including the lead attorney Joe Hartzler, sent a letter to the top senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday praising Biden’s nominee: Steve Dettelbach. The team’s successful prosecution secured the conviction of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who carried out the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and injured more in one of the country’s deadliest domestic terrorist attacks.

The former federal prosecutors praised Dettelbach’s work prosecuting cases involving violent extremists, including one man who firebombed an Ohio courthouse, noting that he used evidence gathered by ATF agents.

“Mr. Dettelbach also worked with a team of ATF agents and other law enforcement officers to prosecute the man who torched a mosque in Toledo, Ohio,” the team wrote in a letter first obtained by POLITICO. “So, Mr. Dettelbach has the direct professional experience that qualifies him to lead the ATF.”

“Although it has been 27 years since McVeigh and Nichols attempted to inspire a violent insurrection to overthrow the United States government, we remember vividly – and with great respect and enduring gratitude – the role that several ATF agents played in bringing these two domestic terrorists to justice” the prosecution team recalled in the letter. The 1995 bombing was seen as retaliation to ATF’s work monitoring far right extremists and their raid on a radical right religious sect near Waco, Texas.

During his inauguration and a speech marking the one-year anniversary of the deadly insurrection on the Capitol earlier this year, Biden vowed that his administration would confront white supremacy and domestic terrorism. Confirming an ATF nominee, the former federal prosecutors said, would prove key to those goals.

“Unfortunately, we also know that domestic terrorism continues to be a major threat in our country,” the prosecutors wrote. “The ATF must continue to play an active role in protecting our nation from the extraordinary threat posed by violent extremists. To fulfill this responsibility, it is imperative that the ATF be led by an experienced law enforcement officer who has been confirmed by the United States Senate.”

Biden nominated Dettelbach earlier this month after withdrawing his first pick for the ATF post, David Chipman. Chipman had failed to secure enough support, including among senators who caucus with Democrats. Dettelbach has also quickly lined up endorsements from prominent organizations including the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, American Pediatric Surgical Association, and the Major County Sheriffs of America.

There has not been a permanent head of ATF since 2015 and the second push for a new head is sure to put Biden’s proposals to expand background checks for firearms and combat gun violence front and center ahead of the midterms.

Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine from Texas who was detained in Moscow, has been released and returned to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia.

In return for Reed, the U.S. agreed to release Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot and convicted drug trafficker serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Connecticut, according to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Reed was arrested in Moscow in 2019 after a night of drinking and was sentenced to nine years in prison on assault charges for what the Russian authorities described as endangering the “life and health” of local police officers.

President Joe Biden, who met with Reed’s parents last month after they demonstrated outside the White House, confirmed the news of Reed’s release in a statement on Wednesday.

“I heard in the voices of Trevor’s parents how much they’ve worried about his health and missed his presence,” Biden said. “And I was delighted to be able to share with them the good news about Trevor’s freedom.”

In his statement, Biden thanked Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens, U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan and “many others across our government to ensure that Trevor came home safely.”

Biden also said his administration would continue to work to secure the release of Paul Whelan, another former U.S. Marine who is detained in Russia. Whelan was arrested in 2018 on espionage charges and sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison.

“We won’t stop until Paul Whelan and others join Trevor in the loving arms of family and friends,” Biden said.

President Joe Biden has granted the first three pardons of his term, providing clemency to a Kennedy-era Secret Service agent convicted of bribery for trying to sell a copy of an agency file and to two people who were convicted on drug-related charges but went on to become pillars in their communities.

The Democratic president also commuted the sentences of 75 others for nonviolent, drug-related convictions. The White House announced the clemencies Tuesday as it launched a series of job training and reentry programs for those in prison or recently released.

Many of those who received commutations have been serving their sentences on home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic. Several were serving lengthy sentences and would have received lesser terms had they been convicted today for the same offenses as a result of the 2018 bipartisan sentencing reform ushered into law by the Trump administration.

“America is a nation of laws and second chances, redemption, and rehabilitation,” Biden said in a statement announcing the clemencies. “Elected officials on both sides of the aisle, faith leaders, civil rights advocates, and law enforcement leaders agree that our criminal justice system can and should reflect these core values that enable safer and stronger communities.”

Those granted pardons are:

— Abraham Bolden Sr., 86, the first Black Secret Service agent to serve on a presidential detail. In 1964, Bolden, who served on President John F. Kennedy’s detail, faced federal bribery charges that he attempted to sell a copy of a Secret Service file. His first trial ended in a hung jury.

Following his conviction in a second trial, key witnesses admitted lying at the prosecutor’s request. Bolden, of Chicago, was denied a retrial and served several years in federal prison. Bolden has maintained his innocence and wrote a book in which he argued he was targeted for speaking out against racist and unprofessional behavior in the Secret Service.

— Betty Jo Bogans, 51, was convicted in 1998 of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine in Texas after attempting to transport drugs for her boyfriend and his accomplice. Bogans, a single mother with no prior record, received a seven-year sentence. In the years since her release from prison, Bogans has held consistent employment, even while undergoing cancer treatment, and has raised a son.

— Dexter Jackson , 52, of Athens, Georgia, was convicted in 2002 for using his pool hall to facilitate the trafficking of marijuana. Jackson pleaded guilty and acknowledged he allowed his business to be used by marijuana dealers.

After Jackson was released from prison, he converted his business into a cellphone repair service that employs local high school students through a program that provides young adults with work experience. Jackson has built and renovated homes in his community, which has a shortage of affordable housing.

Civil rights and criminal justice reform groups have pushed the White House to commute sentences and work harder to reduce disparities in the criminal justice system. Biden’s grants of clemency also come as the administration has faced congressional scrutiny over misconduct and the treatment of inmates in the beleaguered federal Bureau of Prisons, which is responsible for inmates serving sentences of home confinement.

Biden, as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, helped shepherd through the 1994 crime bill that many criminal justice experts say contributed to harsh sentences and mass incarceration of Black people.

During his 2020 White House run, Biden vowed to reduce the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. and called for nonviolent drug offenders to be diverted to drug courts and treatment.

He also has pushed for better training for law enforcement and called for criminal justice system changes to address disparities that have led to minorities and the poor making up a disproportionate share of the nation’s incarcerated population.

Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, granted 143 pardons and clemency to 237 during his four years in office.

Trump sought the advice of prison reform advocate Alice Johnson, a Black woman whose life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense he commuted in 2018. He was also lobbied by celebrity Kim Kardashian as well as advisers inside the White House, including daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as he weighed applications for clemency.

The Republican used his pardon authority to help several political friends and allies, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Republican operative Roger Stone and Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of Ivanka Trump.

Among Trump’s final acts as president was pardoning his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and Al Pirro, the husband of Fox News host and Trump ally Jeanine Pirro.

Prosecutors alleged that Bannon, who had yet to stand trial when he was pardoned, had duped thousands of donors who believed their money would be used to fulfill Trump’s chief campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border. Instead, Bannon allegedly diverted more than $1 million, paying a salary to one campaign official and personal expenses for himself. Pirro was convicted in 2000 on tax charges.

With the slate of pardons and commutations announced Tuesday, Biden has issued more grants of clemency than any of the previous five presidents at this point in their terms, according to the White House.

In addition to the grants of clemency, Biden announced several new initiatives that are meant to help formerly incarcerated people gain employment — an issue that his administration is driving home as key to lowering crime rates and preventing recidivism.

The Labor Department is directing $140 million toward programs that offer job training, pre-apprenticeship programs, digital literacy training and pre-release and post-release career counseling and more for youth and incarcerated adults.

The $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed by Congress last year includes a trio of grant programs that the administration says promote hiring of formerly incarcerated individuals. And the Labor and Justice Departments announced on Tuesday a collaborative plan to provide $145 million over the next year on job skills training as well as individualized employment and reentry plans for people serving time in the Bureau of Prisons.

Biden said the new initiatives are vital to helping the more than 600,000 people released from prison each year get on stable ground.

“Helping those who served their time return to their families and become contributing members of their communities is one of the most effective ways to reduce recidivism and decrease crime,” Biden said.

Under mounting pressure from the Hill, the White House is preparing a more aggressive defense around its plan for lifting the Trump-era deportation policy, Title 42, according to five people familiar with the plans.

People familiar with the White House’s thinking said lawmakers are expecting to get more details and talking points about the administration’s strategy for handling a likely migrant surge at the border, possibly as early as Monday. White House Legislative Affairs officials invited Senate chiefs of staff and staff directors to a Title 42 briefing call on Tuesday and there are ongoing discussions with aides and lawmakers too.

The heightened defense and soon-to-be-provided details, which are expected to be given by the White House and Department of Homeland Security, are the latest signs that the administration is not backing off of its plan to lift Title 42.

Despite promising during his campaign to revoke the policy, Biden has kept it in place since taking office. Declaring that the Covid pandemic no longer necessitated its implementation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced earlier this month that it would stop the policy, which has been used to expel more than one million migrants encountered at the border since it was put in place in March of 2020.

“We’re continuing to prepare for a May 23 implementation,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday. “There will be a range of conversations about this over the coming days.”

CNN first reported that the administration planned to release more details on its plan for lifting Title 42.

Since announcing their plans to end the order, vulnerable Senate and House Democrats have urged the Biden administration to delay its decision to end the policy on May 23.

But in an interview with POLITICO last week, a White House official defended the decision, saying it was a matter of public health, not politics, and that Title 42 “is not a policy to applaud or defend or anything.” A former Biden administration official and immigrant advocates also said the White House had long been working on a plan to better manage influxes of migrants and asylum seekers at the border. But they urged the White House to provide more transparency and better communicate with Democratic lawmakers.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are expected to meet with Biden on Monday to discuss Title 42 and immigration. Separately on Monday, White House officials met with senior Democratic aides and gave no indication that a delay was imminent in a meeting, according to multiple people in the room.

In that meeting, White House legislative liaison Louisa Terrell said that congressional offices could expect much more clarity from the administration this week, including possible briefings with members themselves.

Terrell also told aides that lifting the Trump-era policy was the only way that the Biden administration could begin to address the nation’s broken immigration system — changes that she said Republicans were obstructing.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment and the White House did not provide comment.

Marianne LeVine and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

President Joe Biden on Sunday issued a statement memorializing the Armenian genocide that included some phrasing that seemed to be indirectly referencing Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

“Let us redouble our efforts toward healing and building the better, more peaceful world that we wish for our children,” Biden said in a statement Sunday. “A world where human rights are respected, where the evils of bigotry and intolerance do not mark our daily lives, and where people everywhere are free to pursue their lives in dignity and security.”

April 24 is an important date for those who remember and mourn the Ottoman Empire’s systematic killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians. On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities began persecuting Armenians by arresting and then deporting community leaders in Constantinople. The persecution continued through 1917 and didn’t fully end until the demise of the once-mighty Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.

“As we reflect on the Armenian genocide, we renew our pledge to remain vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms,” Biden said. “We recommit ourselves to speaking out and stopping atrocities that leave lasting scars on the world.”

The statement did not directly reference Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine during its invasion, which Biden has called “genocide.”

“It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of being Ukrainian. The evidence is mounting. It looks different than last week,” Biden said in Iowa earlier this month. “More evidence is coming out, literally, of the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine. And we’re going to only learn more and more about the devastation.”

In 2021, Biden became the first American president to describe the mass killings of Armenians as “genocide.” American leaders had long been reluctant to make the designation, which the nation of Turkey has fought against tooth and nail.

Facing a growing rebellion from within the Democratic Party, the White House is standing behind its decision to end on May 23 a Trump-era deportation policy for migrants encountered at the southern border.

That decision to end the use of the public health order known as Title 42 has placed President Joe Biden in a political bind. The president is attempting to balance his long-standing promise to revoke the policy — which, under the banner of fighting the Covid pandemic, justified the immediate expulsion of migrants without due process — right as Republicans weaponize immigration before the midterms and as a growing number of Democratic senators want restrictions to remain in place for fear that the administration is not prepared for a summer surge of migrants to the border.

“It’s not like we’ve been hiding the ball on this,” a White House official said, speaking freely about the state of play on condition of anonymity. “This is not a policy to applaud or defend or anything. It simply is a public health directive on whether there is a public health risk associated with processing migrants or not. The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] made a determination that there wasn’t and that we’re OK to move forward with lifting it on May 23.”

In interviews with POLITICO, immigrant advocates, lawmakers and former administration officials urged the White House to stay the course and to better communicate its plan to lawmakers and necessary stakeholders along the border. Several urged Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to go to the border ahead of the May 23 policy change to demonstrate the coordinated response being prepared by government agencies.

The White House is “definitely not going to reverse their decision on Title 42,” said Kerri Talbot, deputy director of the advocacy group Immigration Hub. “We would really urge them, instead, to more clearly roll out their border plan. There’s really a communications issue here where they have detailed plans, but they just haven’t really concretely laid them out for Congress.”

There had been internal divisions within the White House over whether the Title 42 authority should have been ended. And questions about whether the administration would reverse itself emerged in recent days amid reports from Axios that it was considering a delay of the May 23 deadline and that officials were worried about being overwhelmed by a spike of migrants at the border. The White House has suggested to lawmakers that they pass legislation to change the CDC’s authority on the public health order themselves if they were inclined to. But a court injunction could end up, at least for a time, solving the Catch-22 for Biden. Earlier this month, a number of Republican-led states sued the administration to prevent the termination of Title 42, and a hearing is expected before the end of May.

“The little secret here is they don’t think they’re actually going to have to end Title 42,” said an immigration advocate familiar with the White House’s thinking. “They’re expecting to lose a lawsuit that’s going to force them to keep it in place.”

Prior to the CDC’s announcement that the use of Title 42 was no longer warranted, Republicans sought to label Biden as a proponent of open borders. Vulnerable Senate Democrats were quick to distance themselves from the White House, too, with at least nine publicly calling for an extension of the Title 42 authority, which has been used since early 2020. Democrats have accused the White House of moving forward without a plan to handle expected seasonal increases of people at the border, and Senate Democratic aides say the administration hasn’t provided concrete details.

The White House official pushed back on these accusations, referring to the DHS fact sheet that was released last month, calling it “comprehensive.” The official reiterated that it was up to the CDC to make that determination down the road but that at this point, the CDC was moving forward with lifting TItle 42.

“It all depends on the public health risk, that’s up to them to decide. What is the public health risk associated with X, Y and Z?,” the official told POLITICO. “That authority lives with the CDC. I recognize that there are people in our party that want to extend it. That’s great. If they think that the CDC shouldn’t have that authority, there’s a legislative mechanism to do that.”

Still, veterans of the administration concede that the pushback has overshadowed the White House’s efforts, exacerbating questions about how the matter might play in the midterms.

“Republicans are winning this messaging war, and they’re making it about open borders,” said a former Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely about the problems the current team is having. “If Democrats would just remind the American public that this is the brainchild of [Trump senior aide and hardline immigration adviser] Stephen Miller, who also separated 5,000 children from their parents, and that the president campaigned on overturning all these cruel policies of the Trump administration, I think the American public would support it.”

“There is no alternative that’s being put out there,” the former official added.

The former administration official said the White House has long been planning for future increases in migration. After the surge of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border near Del Rio, Texas, last fall, the administration developed a better early warning system for migrant movement. It also organized an all-of-government response in which different agencies will provide planes and buses when the number of migrants increases at the border. “It doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect, but there is a plan,” the former official said.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said he was “disappointed” by his fellow Democrats who’ve called for keeping Title 42 in place but urged the administration to provide more details on how they intend to “expand capacity and process asylum seekers in the United States.” He added that “there’s plenty of time” for the White House to explain its plan in the next month.

“I hope that the administration continues on course to lift this Trump-era policy that was put in place by a xenophobe because, ultimately, history will not look kindly upon those who argued for its continuation,” Castro said Thursday.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who represents the El Paso border community, said she understands why some of her fellow Democrats are worried about an increase in migrants encountered at the border. But Escobar maintained that Title 42 has not been an effective deterrent.

“Everyone is looking for a quick and easy solution, and it’s that kind of thinking that has, in my view, created a situation where we don’t address the root causes,” Escobar said. “We’ve had Title 42 for over two years in place. Has that deterred migration? Has any of that stopped asylum seekers? Has any of it curbed the numbers? No.”

The absence of a more enthusiastic White House communications strategy on Title 42 has been felt most acutely on the ground along the border, where local leaders have grown accustomed to Republicans using the issue as an election year battering ram.

“States are not in the immigration business. The federal government is. The federal government does need to work with us,” said Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat and an immigration attorney by trade, who this week visited a detention facility where the state is locking up migrants. “At least get down here and be the immigration cop and answer the questions that the community has in a more tangible, efficient way to where people are sure that they’re doing their jobs.”

Gutierrez joined with others in advocating for Mayorkas, specifically, to visit the region, contending it was Republican leaders in Texas, including the governor, who are treating immigrants inhumanely. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently bused migrants to Washington, D.C., in a move derided as inhumane.

“I have no doubt that the federal government can handle the 60,000 or 70,000 migrants that are waiting on the other side and handle them in an expeditious manner. But certainly we need to hear that from the administration rather than not hear anything,” Gutierrez said.

Will Dempster of the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates to advance the rights of low-income immigrants, said the frustration for many activists is that the issues themselves are not political losers — despite battleground Democrats running for cover. In a recently commissioned poll by the organization, Dempster said a majority of likely 2022 voters supported ending the practice of using the pandemic as a reason to deny asylum seekers entrance to the U.S. Some 1.7 million migrants have been expelled under Title 42 since it was first implemented, including asylum seekers.

Colin Strother, a veteran Democratic operative in Texas, agreed the administration’s plan needed to be better communicated by officials in Washington. For now, he argued, Democrats look defensive on a moral issue they should be leaning into.

“Everyone would be more comfortable with the administration saying, ‘Here’s our priority, here’s our goal, here’s our value. We understand some people aren’t going to like it, but by God, this is what we think is best. And that’s what we’re going to do,’” he said. “Instead, they constantly seem to be trying to have it both ways; trying to make everybody happy.”

“This administration is just so risk averse that in moments like this, it’s paralysis by analysis.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association on Wednesday announced that President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden plan to attend the organization’s annual dinner later this month.

The Bidens’ attendance at the April 30 event would make them the first “first couple” to take part in the festivities since Barack and Michelle Obama attended in 2016. Donald and Melania Trump boycotted and occasionally counter-programmed the black-tie affair throughout their term in the White House.

“The @WHCA is pleased to host President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden as we honor the First Amendment at our dinner on April 30,” the organization tweeted.

The White House also confirmed to POLITICO that the Bidens will indeed attend the dinner, which is set to be headlined by Trevor Noah, the host of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central.

Jill Biden is an apparent fan of Noah; the comedian’s autobiography — “Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood” — was one of the two pieces of required reading for an introductory English course taught last year by the first lady.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to coronavirus-related concerns, and this year’s event will come after another elite Washington gathering — the Gridiron Club dinner earlier this month — resulted in a spike in Covid-19 cases among prominent lawmakers and administration officials.

Ahead of the dinner, the Biden administration is still grappling with how to handle shifting public opinion over the coronavirus-related restrictions that have prompted several cities and states to roll back mask mandates and other measures.

A U.S. district court judge in Florida struck down the Biden administration’s federal mask mandate for airplanes and other modes of public transportation on Monday. And asked on Wednesday whether Americans should continue to wear masks on planes, Biden said: “That’s up to them.”

The rest of the world might not allow it. But Joe Biden wants to return his focus to matters happening at home.

With the war in Ukraine entering its second month and continuing to dominate global headlines, White House allies are expressing concern that voters may see the president as more consumed by international affairs than domestic ones.

The White House itself is keenly aware that voters’ perceptions about the economy are still likely to determine the outcome of November’s midterm elections. And as they warily watch the president’s poor poll numbers, two senior administration officials said a concerted effort is being launched to reemphasize to Americans that the president understands their pain and is trying to help.

In the coming weeks, Biden will travel more inside the country and further stress that Russia’s invasion isn’t some far-off crisis but one with deep economic ramifications in the United States.

“Voters, as sympathetic as they are to Ukraine, are getting a little fatigued,” said Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster. “And they’re wondering: We’re spending all this money abroad, but what are we spending here at home?”

Lake said it was imperative that the president spend the seven months remaining before the midterms explaining his record and promising to do more. “Half of voters,” she suggested, still don’t know what Biden has accomplished to date.

“They don’t know what’s in the infrastructure package. They don’t know the full extent of the rescue package. They don’t know the executive orders that he’s taken on inflation,” she said, referring to the coronavirus stimulus money sent to states, and the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law to rebuild roads, bridges and more.

The scope of Biden’s presidency will be impacted by Democrats’ ability to keep control of at least one, if not both, chambers of Congress this November. And the White House knows it needs to both hammer home Biden’s accomplishments and show Americans it is trying to do more, even at the margins.

The war in Europe will continue to dominate Biden’s time, but aides do not want it to occupy all of his attention. In fact, some of Biden’s advisers believe they only need to look across the Atlantic to find a warning sign of a president perceived to be focused too much on global diplomacy and not enough on domestic pocketbook issues. Many French voters believe that French President Emmanuel Macron prioritized trying to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that he neglected domestic issues, leading to tight poll numbers heading into the presidential runoff election later this month.

As it looks to refocus on domestic issues, the White House is eyeing faster, tangible actions to tackle kitchen table issues, namely inflation. This month, Biden issued executive orders allowing the use of an ethanol blend this summer to lower gas prices and to jumpstart a new regulation fixing the Affordable Care Act’s so-called family glitch, which would lower health insurance costs for millions. And late last week, the administration announced plans to resume the sale of leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

Having gone overseas to address the conflict in Ukraine, Biden, for the first time in weeks, boarded Air Force One to promote the steps he’s taken to battle inflation and the economic impact of that war. Last week, he traveled to Iowa to promote an effort to lower gas prices and North Carolina to tout measures to ease supply chain bottlenecks.

He also unveiled a finalized regulation to curb the rise in gun violence across the country, an event that came roughly a week after a mass shooting in Sacramento, Calif., and one day before a man opened fire on a Brooklyn subway, injuring 10. This week, Biden will hit the road again, visiting New Hampshire, Oregon and Washington to highlight new infrastructure projects and cost-saving efforts for families.

He’s also expected to unveil a police reform executive action and take another shot at passing a revamped version of his Build Back Better proposal aimed at combating climate change and cutting health care costs.

Aides want Biden to hit the road to both pitch these ideas and show that he is empathizing with Americans’ struggles. But his tools to actually deal with rising gas and food prices are somewhat limited. And on several other initiatives — including gun control, citizenship for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, and voting rights — there seems to be no legislative path forward due to Republican opposition and Democratic resistance to change the legislative filibuster.

The re-emphasis on domestic affairs comes against a sobering backdrop for Biden: His job approval ratings are bad and not improving. The president has received high marks from foreign policy experts, fellow world leaders and even some Republicans for his handling of the war in Europe and unemployment is at its lowest level in more than 50 years. But inflation, though a global trend, has soured Americans’ views of the economy and his handling of it.

Biden’s poll numbers with critical Democratic base voters are particularly worrisome for party officials. Last month, a Marist poll found only 34 percent of Gen Z and millennial voters approved of Biden’s job performance, and a Marquette Law School poll found that the percent of Black voters who approve of Biden’s handling of the presidency had dropped by 12 points since November.

“A segment of the Democratic base blames Biden for Republican recalcitrance,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.). Black voters have criticized Biden for an inability to pass voting rights legislation, he said. “It has nothing to do with Biden’s interest in and willingness to fight for the Voting Rights Act.” Cleaver surmised that Biden “probably had more meetings with Senator [Joe] Manchin”—the Democratic Senator most prominently standing in the way of filibuster reform— “than he has with the first lady.”

Passing a smaller version of Biden’s Build Back Better plan would be a huge lift, said Cleaver. But selling what Democrats have already passed is equally imperative.

“I wish we could put up signs all over the country: ‘Pardon our progress, we’re rebuilding the nation,’” said Cleaver, referring to money going to states to fix crumbling bridges, waterways and broadband. “Most Democrats would like for the president to be out in the nation more, but hopefully, most Democrats like me, are also fully aware of the fact that we have a crisis in Eastern Europe.”

Ultimately, Democratic lawmakers and pollsters believe the party’s midterm fortunes will rise and fall on voters’ views of their handling of the economy. More travel by Biden to key swing states is necessary, said Lake, who conducts regular focus groups with Democratic and inconsistent midterm voters. She advised that Biden retell stories he shared on the campaign trail about his dad’s unemployment forcing his family to move. That message “gets lost when you’re relying on messaging from economic statistics, and economic studies and data,” she added.

But previous efforts for Biden to hit the road to promote his economic agenda were scuttled by the need to respond to outside forces. And the current portfolio is also likely to be largely reactive, with aides anticipating a sharp rise in Covid cases and an increase in migrants at the southern border.

“While rallying the world against Vladimir Putin’s appalling invasion of Ukraine and inflicting unprecedented costs on Russia, the president has also taken further action on his economic agenda for the American middle class,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates. “The president also continues to work with a wide range of lawmakers on a reconciliation plan that would cut the costs of prescription drugs, energy, and childcare while lowering the deficit even more and fighting inflation for the long haul, as well as a landmark bill to strengthen our competitiveness with regard to China.”

If Democrats are unable to pass the rest of Biden’s economic proposals before November, their best — perhaps only — shot at maintaining some power in Congress is to reset the focus domestically and to convince voters that they helped the economy recover as the nation emerged from the worst of the pandemic.

“Democrats have one overriding political communications priority now – we have to convince voters that things are better because of our time in power,” said Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic operative, who is advising campaigns and party committees to ramp up now. “If people come to believe by this summer that things are better we will be competitive this fall. If they don’t, we won’t.”