Politico

Protesters calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict interrupted President Joe Biden’s campaign speech Monday at a historic South Carolina church.

A handful of protesters, chanting “ceasefire now,” were quickly shouted down by chants of “four more years” by supporters, during Biden’s speech at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the site of the 2015 murders of nine people by a white supremacist.

“I understand their passion,” Biden said, acknowledging the protesters, as well as a rift that’s divided some within the Democratic Party. “I’ve been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce and significantly get out of Gaza.”

Biden’s appearance at Mother Emanuel — coupled with his speech on Friday near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania — laid out the central theme of his 2024 campaign messaging: Voters face an existential choice between Biden, a champion of democracy, and his likely Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, who Biden said “attempted to overturn a free and fair election by force and violence.” It’s a stark contrast the Biden campaign hopes to cement in the minds of voters during the presidential campaign.

“There’s some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie,” Biden said Monday. “This time, the lie is about the 2020 election.”

Biden reiterated that Trump is “a loser,” a line he used last Friday and one that prompted cheers from the crowd in South Carolina.

He also took a swipe at former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who initially declined to say that slavery was the cause of the Civil War during a campaign event last month.

“Let me be clear for those who don’t seem to know — slavery was the cause of the Civil War,” Biden said. “There’s no negotiation about that.”

Biden’s speech in South Carolina also comes as he faces weakening polling numbers, particularly among Black voters. Black political leaders, including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), have said they are “very concerned” about the Biden campaign’s a bility to “break through the MAGA wall” to reach voters.

Mitch Landrieu, senior adviser and infrastructure implementation coordinator, is leaving the White House to join President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign as national co-chair.

Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans, joined the Biden administration in 2021 following the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Tasked with overseeing one of the most important legislative accomplishments of the president’s first term, Landrieu served as a key member of the president’s advisers. He managed the dispersal of billions of dollars in new funding for roads, bridges, water pipelines, broadband and more. He also worked on projects such as the reopening of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia.

“When I passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, I knew I needed someone by my side who would help deliver real results for the American people. I knew that Mitch Landrieu, a former Mayor and Lieutenant Governor who spent over a decade helping rebuild New Orleans, was the man to help me rebuild the country,” Biden said in a statement Monday morning. “Mitch has always known that the real measure of success is not about scoring partisan points — it’s about building bridges, and fixing the problem at hand.”

Biden said Landrieu traveled over 119,000 miles to nearly 150 cities across the country to hear from governors, mayors and other local leaders. “Mitch has consistently demonstrated that when we work together, we can do big things,” the president said in his statement.

Landrieu’s move comes as some top Democrats have raised concerns about the campaign structure and have suggested that some of Biden’s top White House advisers should move over to the campaign.

NEW YORK — Two years ago, Eric Adams and the New York Post teamed up to deliver an incessant warning: Crime is out of control. The rhetoric proved devastating to Democrats, who lost four competitive House races in districts where the blood-and-guts headlines resonated with voters.

Now, history is repeating.

The moderate Democratic mayor rarely lets a week go by without issuing new pleas for Washington to help stem the flow of migrants into the nation’s biggest city. Neither does the Post, an influential conservative tabloid that seems equally fixated.

The ceaseless, dire messaging is threatening Democrats in a pivotal election year, giving suburban New York Republicans another potent issue in competitive congressional races.

Since Adams began raising concerns about migrants in 2022, the Post has published 54 covers focused on the issue — all with blaring headlines like “Kids ‘Sacrificed’” (about the city using school gyms to house migrants), “Border Storm” (alongside a photo of Adams predicting a “financial tsunami”) and “New Year’s Wave” (next to a photographed migrant convoy approaching the border).

The Rupert Murdoch-run Post even gave migrants top billing the day other outlets featured Donald Trump being kicked off the Colorado ballot.

There are clear indications the migrant talk is connecting in the same way crime did in 2022, and not just in the suburbs: A December poll found 85 percent of New York City voters were concerned about the city accommodating the surge of migrants, up from 63 percent 10 months earlier.

“If you listen to the mayor and you read the New York Post, you believe that everywhere you look in the city, there are migrants and asylum seekers on the street and you’re stepping over them,” said Alyssa Cass, a Democratic political consultant.

For New York Democrats hoping to retake some of those lost House seats, the surge from the Southern border is tricky terrain made more difficult by Adams and the Post. For Republicans, the current migrant policies — like crime two years ago — are being attacked in campaign ads as a threat to New Yorkers’ way of life, even in districts that aren’t directly affected.

“It’s one of the top-polling issues,” vulnerable Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito said in an interview. “The migrant issue equates to crime.”

D’Esposito was among the Republicans swept into office in 2022 by his party’s case that Democrats were worse equipped to keep the suburbs safe. As he and colleagues in swing districts look to retain their seats against formidable Democratic challengers this year, their messaging is reinforced by Adams, who has warned that the migrant crisis will “destroy” his city if he doesn’t get adequate federal resources.

But migrants aren’t as visible a presence in much of the city, including in corners where outcry against sheltering them has been the loudest and angriest.

“In neighborhoods where it’s just something you see on the news or read in the paper, it becomes a specter that demagogues can use as the threat du jour,” Democratic City Council Member Justin Brannan said in an interview. “It used to be ‘defund the police’ or bail reform. Now this is the new thing they can divide and conquer on.”

Brannan was referring, of course, to Republicans. In purple districts like his in southern Brooklyn, the rhetoric is impactful and the rallies against migrants are forceful.

Former GOP mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa would know — he leads many of the massive protests around newcomers being housed in pockets of the city.

“I’m invited and called in like what they used to call Barack Obama — a community organizer,” Sliwa said in an interview. “I know how to organize people.”

In politically moderate suburbs surrounding the city, concerns about migrants flooding neighborhoods beyond the five boroughs has remained just that — a concern.

“Thankfully, we have a strong county executive who’s made sure it’s not a sanctuary county. But we are dealing with it coming so close to the city line,” D’Esposito said.

Laura Gillen, the Democrat and former Hempstead Town supervisor seeking to unseat D’Esposito, countered: “All he wants to do is fearmonger, and he should be ashamed of himself.”

“He mainly points to the migrants who are being housed in New York City. Migrants are not being housed right now in Nassau County,” Gillen added in an interview.

In the most recent election cycle the issue was nonetheless featured in political ads from Long Island to upstate New York.

In one such ad, new Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, a Republican, said he would “say no to Suffolk becoming a sanctuary for unvetted migrants” — unlike his Democratic opponent Dave Calone.

An ad from Chrissy Casilio, a Republican who unsuccessfully challenged the Democratic Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, told voters her opponent “invited the migrant crisis here.”

“Then migrants were arrested for rapes, stabbings and destroying property. I’m Chrissy Casilio and this would not have happened under my watch,” the ad continued.

The migrant crisis undoubtedly has had a major impact on New York City: More than 160,000 people have been processed in the five boroughs since last spring, and about 68,000 of them remain in shelters, according to City Hall.

The Adams administration has struggled to stand up enough emergency facilities to continue housing the newcomers, and the mayor estimates the crisis will cost $12 billion over three years. He’s blamed the lack of aid from the federal government for steep cuts he’s mandated to police, schools and sanitation to plug a $7 billion budget hole.

The mayor’s recent executive order limiting when buses carrying migrants can arrive from Texas to the city underscored his desperation. “We’re dealing with a bully right now,” Adams said Tuesday of GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, “and everything is on the table that conforms with the law.”

But the mayor’s fiery rhetoric has also served as useful fodder for Republicans in their electoral quest.

Recently, the Republican National Committee posted a clip of his comments about the White House, writing on X, “Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams on the flood of illegal immigration: ‘Help is not on the way.’”

Adams is almost an anomaly in Democratic messaging, having been elected to office in 2021 as a conservative Democrat who promised to usher in a new era of public safety.

“The mayor is the first through the door on the immigrant issue, sounding the alarm on why this is bad for cities, which is (made up of) mostly Democrats,” said a City Hall adviser granted anonymity to speak freely. “And still, he is called a Republican, he is called ultra-conservative for simply pointing out how people feel.”

But there are no plans to pivot, the person said, adding: “He’s done with worrying about what it means nationally or how other people try to use his words in political fights.”

One person involved in a competitive Democratic campaign this year said the mayor’s comments on the migrant crisis in recent months have “affected the way Democratic voters thought about it and made it more conservative how they were thinking about it.”

The person, also granted anonymity to speak freely, said, “There were definitely times on the campaign when we were like, will he shut up already?”

A December Quinnipiac poll found 85 percent of New York City voters were either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” the city would “not be able to accommodate the surge of migrants.” That’s compared to a prior Quinnipiac survey last February, in which 63 percent said they don’t think the city “has the ability to accommodate the migrants seeking sanctuary.”

In the city and nearby suburbs, neither Democrats nor Republicans can politically afford to be anti-immigrant but those closer to the political center stress the need for legal immigration.

City Council Member Joann Ariola, a Republican who’s been fighting a migrant shelter in Floyd Bennett Field in her Queens district, argues politicians ignore the migrant issue to their own detriment.

“People are either going to vote with their feet and [move],” she said in an interview, “or they’re going to start voting for people who are much more vocal on how to get a handle on this problem.”

The crisis also threatens to impact neighborhoods through budget cuts, regardless of whether those areas are housing migrants.

“America’s largest city is cutting police and fire services to its own citizens to cope with the growing cost of migrants,” said Council Member Joe Borelli, who leads the body’s GOP caucus. “This is the biggest rake the Democrats could have stepped on in a decade, and they have pressed hard on it.”

Republican voters have steadily grown more forgiving of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — and in some cases, more supportive of Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the election.

The rest of America hasn’t joined them.

As the GOP appears poised to formally line up behind Trump as its standard-bearer this November, fewer Republicans today call the rioters “criminals” or say the judicial punishments they’ve received are appropriate than in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack, polls show.

That’s helped ease Trump’s path to the nomination. But those shifts in public opinion haven’t extended to the rest of the electorate, including independents, suggesting a continued danger for Republicans and an opening for Democrats: GOP voters may increasingly brush it aside, but the Jan. 6 riot continues to be toxic in a general election.

The findings of two polls released this week underscore the risk for the GOP in tapping Trump again, just as Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire prepare to cast the first votes in the primary contest.

Democrats and independents still hold starkly negative views of Jan. 6, its participants and Trump’s role in stoking the riot. Majorities of Americans overall still believe now-President Joe Biden was elected legitimately, that Trump is guilty of trying to steal the election and that the federal criminal charges in Washington against Trump are appropriate.

Even as surveys generally show Trump running even with the unpopular Biden or leading him narrowly in the horse race, Trump’s refusal to concede the last election and his actions leading up to the Capitol riot are significant liabilities for his candidacy.

And it’s not just a poll-based hypothetical that direct ties to Jan. 6 or broader denial of the 2020 election results are a millstone for Trump and his aligned candidates. Only 14 months ago, voters in the midterms rejected the majority of 2020 election deniers — especially in battleground states — despite a political environment and generic ballot that otherwise favored Republicans.

The latest poll results — conducted ahead of Saturday’s anniversary — show that views of the Jan. 6 violence have changed little overall since 2021. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll out this week showed half of respondents believe the protestors who entered the Capitol were mostly violent, down only slightly from 54 percent two years ago.

The percentage of Americans who said the legal punishments for people who broke into the Capitol have been too harsh ticked up 7 points, from 19 percent two years ago to 26 percent in the new poll, with the greatest gains among Republicans. More than 4-in-10 Republicans, 42 percent, now say the Jan. 6 rioters’ punishments have been too harsh.

Similarly, a majority of Americans, 53 percent, said Trump bears a great deal or a good amount of blame for the attack on the Capitol. That’s down 7 points from two years ago, driven by a 14-point drop among Republicans. Just 14 percent of Republicans said in the new poll that Trump was responsible for the attack. Majorities of Democrats (86 percent) and independents (56 percent) said Trump bears a significant amount of responsibility for Jan. 6.

The majority of Republicans are also deeply divided from the rest of the electorate on the false claim underpinning the Jan. 6 attack: that Biden’s election wasn’t legitimate. In a Suffolk University/USA Today poll released this week, 63 percent of all voters said Biden was legitimately elected — but that includes only 29 percent of Republicans. Nearly 6-in-10 GOP voters, 59 percent, said he wasn’t.

Biden is pressing his case that Trump is responsible for the attack for the final Jan. 6 anniversary before the election.

He delivered a symbolism-heavy speech in the electorally critical Philadelphia suburbs on Friday in which he decried the establishment Republicans who “have abandoned the truth and abandoned our democracy” by warming back up to Trump since spurning him immediately after the riot.

Jan. 6 is also the subject of a new Biden ad, coordinated with the Democratic National Committee, set to begin airing on Saturday in seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Before the 2022 midterms, Democrats grappled with how heavily to lean into Jan. 6 and the democracy argument. Would voters recall that day and rebuke Republicans when filling out their ballots for federal and state offices, or would concerns about inflation and crime drive most voters? But the evidence suggests that, along with abortion rights, democracy helped the party’s candidates outrun poor perceptions of Biden’s job performance.

According to the survey AP VoteCast, 86 percent of midterm voters said the future of democracy was an important factor in the election. And among those voters, Democratic congressional candidates led, 51 percent to 46 percent, despite losing the majority of overall votes cast for the House that year. Among the 44 percent of voters who said it was the single most important issue, Democratic candidates led by 22 points, 60 percent to 38 percent.

Meanwhile, the most prominent Republican election deniers were punished at the ballot box.

The Washington Post identified nearly 300 GOP candidates for federal or statewide office in 2022 who “denied or questioned” the 2020 election results. Of the 47 who ran in what the paper determined to be competitive races, only 10 won. And that list of competitive candidates doesn’t include some battleground-state candidates, like Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, whose false claims around the 2020 election made him a considerable underdog to now-Gov. Josh Shapiro, despite the state’s history of close elections.

Some of those prominent 2022 losers are trying again, like Arizona’s Kari Lake and Washington State’s Joe Kent. Lake, who lost a close race for governor in 2022 that she never conceded, is running for Senate. Kent, who ousted then-Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) in a congressional primary only to lose narrowly in a general election, was recently recorded saying Trump needs to win the presidential race so he can pardon some of the Capitol rioters who’ve been convicted in federal court, according to CBS News.

Trump himself has floated mass pardons for many of the nearly 1,300 defendants who’ve been charged with a crime related to the Jan. 6 riot, according to data released by the Justice Department on Friday. Last May, Trump told CNN he would be inclined to pardon a “large portion” of those the government has accused of committing crimes that day.

That won’t be a popular position to the general public. The Suffolk University/USA Today poll found that 59 percent of voters agreed with a statement calling the Justice Department’s prosecutions of the Jan. 6 rioters “the appropriate work of the justice system.” Only about a third, 32 percent, said it was “inappropriate and should be reversed” — though that does include a 60 percent majority of Republicans.

Trump may have succeeded in moving GOP voters away from their immediate revulsion after Jan. 6, but the broader electorate is less likely to come onboard in November.

President Joe Biden on Friday declared that defending democracy from the extremist forces that fueled the Jan. 6 insurrection three years ago was the nation’s “sacred cause,” one that would be at the heart of his reelection bid.

In what resembled an unofficial campaign kickoff, Biden took square aim at his likely general election opponent, Donald Trump, denouncing his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election. Unleashing his strongest language yet against his once and possibly future foe, Biden tore into his predecessor, deeming Trump “despicable” and a danger to the nation he once led.

“Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about,” Biden told a crowd gathered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

“The choice is clear: Donald Trump’s campaign is about him. Not America, not you,” the president continued. “Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power.”

The looming rematch between Biden and Trump would present America with an unprecedented stark choice of visions for the future, and the incumbent president set the stakes for the election as a defining moment for the nation. Biden both invoked distant history of George Washington at Valley Forge, as well as the searing images from the U.S. Capitol riot three years ago, to connect the American traditions of fighting for freedom while also being willing to relinquish power.

The president recalled how the mob “waving Trump flags and Confederate flags, stormed right past” a Washington portrait that was commissioned by an artist impressed that the general had handed over his military commissioner after the war instead of trying to become king.

“In America, our leaders don’t hold on to power relentlessly. Our leaders return power to the people — willingly. You do your duty. You serve your country,” Biden said.

The president, at times, seemed equally incredulous and disgusted by Trump’s behavior, which included embracing a choir of Jan. 6 convicts, celebrating the assault of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, and simply standing by as violence raged nearby at the Capitol.

“It was among the worst derelictions of duty by a president in American history,” he said.

Biden once was reluctant to call out Trump by name. That was not the case Friday, as he ran through a catalog of his predecessor’s incendiary actions and words, including his refusal to denounce political violence, his warm words for dictators and his use of language evocative of Nazi Germany.

He deemed Trump “the election denier in truth” and declared that his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election only proved that “I won the election and he was a loser.”

Biden aides have been confident that voters — like they did in the 2022 midterms — would rally behind the cause of democracy. But it is becoming less clear how true that assertion is the further the country moves away from the riots that day. Biden himself noted that Republicans who once distanced themselves from Trump have embraced him again, and a recently released Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that 34 percent of Republican voters falsely believe the FBI organized the attempted insurrection.

The Biden campaign is hoping that speeches like the one Friday will help remind voters of what happened, in addition to framing the stakes ahead.

“We all know who Donald Trump is,” Biden said. “The question we have to answer is: Who are we? That’s what’s at stake.”

The Biden administration is ramping up attacks against Republicans ahead of a possible government shutdown, arguing that the GOP is imperiling a funding deal and border security policy with increasingly unreasonable demands.

The messaging effort represents a concerted effort by the White House to turn the tide of a long-running clash over an issue that has challenged Democrats. As Biden turns to his reelection after three years in the White House, migration at the southern border remains a major vulnerability for him and a constant attack line for Donald Trump and other Republicans.

With that issue now at the center of government funding and foreign aid negotiations, administration aides are facing the possibility that those negotiations will falter. If that happens, they want to turn it to their political advantage.

The fresh counteroffensive by the White House has included launching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom House Republicans are trying to impeach, on a television interview spree. In recent days, Mayorkas has pushed back on criticism about Biden’s handling of the border and even decamped to conservative-leaning Fox News to make his case.

Beyond Mayorkas, Biden aides have begun publicly blasting House Republicans as hypocritical, while the president himself chastised the GOP for denying him the funding needed to protect the border in his first remarks to reporters this year.

“It is a shift,” said Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist. “I think [the White House] always had this in their back pocket should the need arise. And the need has arisen.”

It remains to be seen whether the White House and the Biden campaign or the president himself will sustain this line of argument; in the past, the president and his allies have struggled to maintain a consistent drumbeat of criticism against the GOP on policy in a chaotic political environment.

Still, Biden administration officials believe they’ve been handed fodder in recent days with several conservative House GOPers — including Texas Republican Rep. Keith Self — tying border closure to a government funding standoff that is quickly coming into focus. Another Texas Republican, Rep. Troy Nehls, suggested he wouldn’t vote for any border deal that might boost Biden’s political standing ahead of November.

All of this has taken place amid ongoing talks between the White House, Mayorkas and Senate negotiators over border policy changes that could unlock the president’s request for aid to Ukraine and Israel. The aggressive posturing comes as the deal remains elusive, with a person familiar with the talks saying there had not been new breakthroughs in recent days.

It also is coming as House Republican leadership visited the southern border this week to place a spotlight back on migration numbers there. The White House effort to cast those lawmakers as more interested in photo ops than policy solutions is a long-shot attempt heading into an election year to shift the voters’ blame for the border crisis from Biden to Republicans before November.

It’s one that Republican leaders say won’t work.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s office on Friday issued a detailed memo disputing the administration’s claims, in particular arguing that House Republicans have never voted to cut thousands of agents.

“From the start of President Biden’s term, his Administration has implemented policies that have undermined security and created a humanitarian crisis at the Southern border,” wrote Johnson spokesperson Raj Shah. “Now, in a desperate attempt to shift blame for a crisis their policies have induced, they have argued it’s a funding problem. Clearly, they have no facts to back up their claim.”

White House officials seemed eager to get into the fray.

“Today’s memo proves we struck a nerve by highlighting House Republicans’ actions to eliminate 2,000 Border Patrol agents and weaken our crackdown on fentanyl,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates fired back, pointing to a 2023 debt limit bill.

So far, little public polling suggests that the president’s team should feel confident that they can turn the tides of this particular debate. The numbers continue to show Biden getting poor marks on handling the historic levels of migration to the southern border. But White House officials argue last year’s House vote on the GOP’s debt limit bill helps illuminate the larger point they’re making.

It is not an argument that the White House has delivered with vigor or consistency in the months since House Republicans voted for that proposal en masse. They are dialing up the message now, however belatedly.

“We’ve already lost count of how many are now outright calling for a government shutdown that would damage the nation’s economy and national security,” Bates said. “The through line of their record is that they keep putting extreme politics above the needs of the American people — whether it’s threatening government shutdowns that would cost jobs or delaying border security funds that are critical for our national security.”

Cardona said the Biden administration has offered “some very reasonable policies and requests that would frankly meet what Republicans want if Republicans were serious — $14 billion in additional border security that would go to new border patrol, asylum processors, immigration judges and smart border security.”

She added: “And frankly, a lot of money to try to detect fentanyl coming through the border.”

The increasingly aggressive posture of Biden aides comes as the border threatens to suck up a lot of oxygen in the presidential race and in any legislative battle on Capitol Hill in the coming months. Republicans are laying the groundwork to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the crisis, even as he plays a key role in border policy negotiations in the Senate.

The government funding fight further complicates matters. Johnson has not embraced the idea of tying border closure to government funding. But he has said that HR 2 — the House GOP bill panned by Senate Republicans as dead on arrival in their chamber — must be part of a national security supplemental or government funding bill.

The surge of migrants at the border is an “an unmitigated disaster. A catastrophe … of the president’s own design,” Johnson said Wednesday alongside dozens of House Republicans during a visit to a border crossing in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Celinda Lake, a 2020 Biden campaign pollster and the president of Lake Research Partners, argued that there is an opportunity for Biden to convince voters he’s a problem-solver who is seeking “common-sense solutions” on immigration, especially if Republicans overplay their hand.

She conducted recent polling for the American Business Immigration Coalition and other groups and found that Americans see the current immigration system as “broken.”

Voters, she added, respond most positively to solutions — working with Mexico and allies, changing current immigration laws, offering a path to citizenship for DACA recipients and dreamers, and granting work permits for migrant farm workers to address shortages, among other policies. Many voters they surveyed also broadly reject the linking of immigration policy changes to foreign aid because they view it as a political tactic that ultimately won’t result in progress.

“This notion of shut down the government, shut down the border, wildly unpopular,” Lake said. “So I think that, ironically, the Republicans, in an attempt to dramatize this to their base, are turning this into an issue that has more legitimacy to an issue that just seems like a political stunt.”

President Joe Biden hosted a small group of scholars and historians for lunch on Wednesday as he gears up for a speech framing the upcoming election as a battle for the nation’s democracy.

The discussion revolved around “ongoing threats to democracy and democratic institutions both here in America and around the world, as well as the opportunities we face as a nation,” the White House said in a statement.

Princeton’s Eddie Glaude Jr. and Sean Wilentz, Harvard’s Annette Gordon-Reed, Yale’s Beverly Gage and Boston College’s Heather Cox Richardson were among the attendees, as well as presidential biographer — and occasional Biden speech writer — Jon Meacham.

Attendees were tight-lipped about what was discussed at the gathering. One would only go so far as to say they “talked about American history and its bearing on the present — a lively exchange of ideas.”

Another person in the room, who like the others was not authorized to speak publicly about a private meeting, said the historians urged the president “to call out the moment for what it is.” In blunt terms, the academics discussed looming threats to the nation’s democracy and warned about the slow crawl of authoritarianism around the globe.

Biden listened intently and asked questions, the participant said. “This is something that he cares about deeply,” the person said.

Over the course of his presidency, Biden has periodically convened groups of top scholars and historians for big-picture conversations about his legacy, as well as existential threats to the country. Wednesday’s lunch meeting comes ahead of Biden’s speech this Friday in Valley Forge, Pa., marking the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“This is something that he tends to do, especially as we head towards an important day like Jan. 6,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during Wednesday’s press briefing.

The subject matter is familiar for Biden. He has repeatedly declared that he vowed to run for president after watching the racist demonstrators march on Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 when then-President Donald Trump declared there were good people “on both sides” of the protests. He called that race a battle for the “very soul of the nation” and now believes the stakes are higher.

Biden watched the U.S. Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, from his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Del. He had hoped that the riot would bring the Trump era to an end. But since then, the former president has tightened his grip on the Republican Party. Biden has repeatedly warned that the dangers of anti-democratic forces have grown, using his speeches to mark the two previous anniversaries of the insurrection — one delivered from the Capitol.

The president also made it central to his efforts to aid Democrats in 2022’s midterm elections — which included a speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall — and credited it in part for the party’s surprisingly strong showing. He returned to the theme last year at the McCain Institute and will revisit it at another historically symbolic venue this weekend at the headquarters of General George Washington’s Continental Army during the American Revolution.

Eugene Daniels contributed reporting.

The Biden administration has weighed a proposal to name a new top diplomat to focus on long-term Israeli-Palestinian relations, though for the moment it is sticking with a post focused on the immediate humanitarian crisis of the Israel-Hamas war, a U.S. official told POLITICO.

If the conditions on the ground change and the current post is vacated, the administration may create a position with the broader mandate, the official said. Doing so soon could ease some of the day-to-day pressure off of President Joe Biden and his top aides during a presidential election year.

The Biden administration has faced criticism for doing little to curtail Israel’s military operations, even though it speaks often about ending civilian harm, and ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian crisis for the majority of Biden’s time in office.

Two other current U.S. officials and two former U.S. officials confirmed that discussions about an expanded envoy role have taken place within the administration, though each person offered different predictions for what a future such role could entail. All were granted anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations.

“They should do it if only because they can get this off of Biden’s plate,” one of the former officials said of creating a newer, more powerful post, noting how the president and his top aides have been very hands-on in dealing with the conflict amid growing Democratic criticism of Israeli actions. “This is not a particularly big political winner for Joe Biden.”

The considerations come as Israel is shifting to a less-intense phase of its war, albeit more slowly than the U.S. would like to see. Israel’s bombing campaign and ground operations have led to immense suffering for Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians.

The post that the administration created in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel is “special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues.”

It is held by David Satterfield, a veteran diplomat and regional specialist who returned to government for the role. He has focused on finding ways to provide Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with more food, water and medical aid as the territory faces Israeli bombardment. But Satterfield was not expected to stay in the role on a long-term basis.

If and when he leaves, the first U.S. official said, the administration could revamp the role or create a brand new one.

The second former official predicted a future such position would still have a large, primary humanitarian focus, but said it would need to include some responsibility for creating a pathway to long-term Israeli-Palestinian peace.

It’s unlikely, however, that a future such role would be entirely focused on a peace process given there’s little appetite in Israel to consider such an idea anytime soon.

And finding a person to tackle any such position will be challenging enough even if it is not given a grand past label such as “special envoy for Middle East peace.”

The details of the position — including its title and where it falls on the U.S. diplomatic chain of command — also could impact whether the position must be confirmed by the Senate.

U.S. lawmakers in 2021 expanded the Senate’s confirmation powers because they were unhappy with the proliferation of special envoys, representatives, coordinators and similar roles whom they were unable to vet. That requirement went into effect last year.

Israeli officials have said the war will likely last at least several more months, though there are signs it may shift to less intense operations.

The Hamas attack killed 1,200 people in Israel; some 20,000 Palestinians have died in Israel’s military response, according to health officials in Gaza, where Hamas was long in charge and is believed to still have a substantial number of fighters.

A version of this story previously appeared in POLITICO’s National Security Daily newsletter. Like this content? Consider signing up!

A group of aides hired to reelect President Joe Biden is breaking with him on the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

In a letter first shared with West Wing Playbook, 17 current Biden campaign staffers called directly on the president to push for a permanent ceasefire in the monthslong conflict.

“As your staff, we believe it is both a moral and electoral imperative for you to publicly call for a cessation of violence,” the staffers wrote in the letter, which was anonymously signed and posted on Medium. “Complicity in the death of over 20,000 Palestinians, 8,200 of whom are children, simply cannot be justified.”

The staffers also urged the president to end unconditional military aid to Israel and advocated for a deescalation in the region, including the release of hostages.

The letter is the latest example of internal rifts not just within the Democratic Party but within the Biden operation over how to approach the conflict. Since the fall, a flurry of protest letters — often written without names attached — have urged the president to support a ceasefire. In November, 500 political appointees and staff members from 40 government agencies anonymously signed one letter, while another letter included the names of over 500 alumni of Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. White House interns also sent a letter to the president and staffers on Capitol Hill have also sent similar letters to their bosses. Biden supporters have raised questions about the veracity of those numbers, noting that the anonymity makes it impossible to confirm.

A campaign official said they could not comment on a letter the campaign had not yet received. But the person added: “When it comes to President Biden’s position, he has been unequivocal: Israel has a right and obligation to defend its people after the October 7 terrorist attack.”

“He also knows the importance of earning the trust of every community, which is why he is working closely and proudly with leaders in the Jewish, Muslim and Palestinian communities in America,” the official said.  

The letter was organized by campaign staffers. Five of them confirmed the authenticity of the letter to West Wing Playbook. Those staffers, who were granted anonymity because of their concern of backlash, said they were motivated to organize their letter out of a sense of moral responsibility.

They also fear the president’s stance — which has been to push Israel to be more mindful of humanitarian concerns and more surgical in its military campaign, all while rejecting a ceasefire — could affect his standings with voters. They stressed that although they disagree with the president’s approach, their pushback comes from a place of “tough love,” as one staffer put it.

“That’s what motivated us to do this,” a second staffer said. “There’s this disconnect in the type of man that he is, and we think him calling for a ceasefire will set things straight and show the world what kind of man he is.”

Prior letter-writing efforts by anonymous aides have been criticized by party operatives, who say the job of working for a politician means backing their positions, even when you disagree. The notion that aides would agree with every position a politician is taking, they have noted, is not based in reality; nor is it the way that politics work.

But Biden’s handling of the conflict has clearly frustrated many voters that he needs to win his reelection. According to a CBS News/YouGov poll from December, 61 percent of Americans disapprove of his approach.

“We’re reaching this point of no return where, as we’re working to get voters to support the president,” a third staffer said, describing the situation. “It’s getting harder and harder to vote for him when they’re so disillusioned by his handling of this conflict.”

In the letter, the staffers write that they’ve seen “volunteers quit in droves.”

“It is not enough to merely be the alternative to Donald Trump. The campaign has to shift the feeling in the pits of voters’ stomachs, the same feeling that weighs on us every day as we fight for your reelection. The only way to do that is to call for a ceasefire,” the letter reads.

Staffers told West Wing Playbook they’re still optimistic Biden can adjust his approach to the conflict.

“We all hold hope that the person we work for and the person we joined the campaign for has time to change course,” said the third staffer.

Some staffers said that their boss’ own words were, in part, what motivated them to take action. Three people pointed to a 2021 speech that Biden gave at the dedication of a human rights center at the University of Connecticut arguing that remaining silent in the midst of human rights violations makes you complicit.

“Those words are what inspired us,” the first staffer explained. “Those words are what called us to write a letter and why we believe these letters do hold power and hold weight.”

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The Biden administration is attempting to flip the blame for the migrant crisis at the southern border onto Republicans.

In anticipation of Speaker Mike Johnson heading to the U.S. southern border on Wednesday, the White House issued a statement accusing House GOPers of ducking the chance to address the issue they’ve been attacking.

“Actions speak louder than words,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement first obtained by POLITICO ahead of two days of Republican border visits. “House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.”

Republicans have been critical of Biden’s handling of the southern border since the beginning of his term, often saying he’s downplayed, neglected or worsened a historic migrant influx through Mexico. They are now aiming to make the border a key 2024 election issue and place responsibility for the increase in migrants at the president’s feet.

The public appears to agree with them. A Pew Research Center poll conducted late last year found that only 32 percent of U.S. adults are very confident or somewhat confident in the president’s ability to make “wise decisions about immigration policy.”

The White House has argued that Republicans carry blame, too. Their point rests on the GOP’s rejection of Biden’s supplemental funding package, which included money to hire new border agents, asylum officers and immigration judges, as well as technology to combat the flow of fentanyl. White House officials also note that Republicans rejected the comprehensive immigration reform plan the president introduced shortly after he took office.

“After voting in 2023 to eliminate over 2,000 Border Patrol agents and erode our capacity to seize fentanyl earlier in 2023, House Republicans left Washington in mid-December even as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate remained to forge ahead on a bipartisan agreement,” Bates said.

Bates’ comments illustrate the degree to which the immigration hawks have won the larger debate over the migrant crisis, with each side now competing over who has a more robust and effective approach to security. They also come at a delicate time legislatively.

Senate negotiators are trying to land a bipartisan agreement on policy to help stem the flow of migration and House Republicans are considering impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the issue.

A spokesperson for Johnson dismissed the criticism, saying Biden has been “derelict in his duty to protect” the border.

“While the president requests more funds — not to stop illegal immigration — but to process more illegal immigrants through their ‘catch and release’ policy, he has undermined security at every turn,” said spokesperson Raj Shah. “From his decision to rescind the Remain in Mexico policy to the widespread abuse of the parole and asylum systems, there is a direct line between this administration’s reckless policies and the record 300,000 illegal immigrants encountered at the Southern border last month.”

Johnson’s visit to the border — with dozens of his colleagues — will include a tour Wednesday of a U.S. border patrol facility near Eagle Pass, Texas. On Thursday, the GOP lawmakers will meet with local law enforcement, officials and landowners.

Johnson has previously called on Biden to take executive action on the crossings. He wrote in a letter to the president last month that the southern border “is being overrun” and that the “catastrophe requires your administration’s full attention and commitment.”