| Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. The Associated Press informs me that, on this day in 1977, President Jimmy Carter defended Supreme Court limits on government payments for poor women's abortions. "There are many things in life that are not fair," Carter said. | | |  | The big idea | | Biden faces a laundry list of challenges on his Middle East visit |  Israeli authorities project an image of the Israeli and U.S. flags on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City in honor of July 4th. President Joe Biden is set to visit Israel and the occupied West Bank next week as part of a broader trip to the Middle East. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean) | | | President Biden won't exactly escape riotous politics and shifting alliances when he heads this week on his first trip to the Middle East. He'll face challenges related to Iran's nuclear ambitions, Arab-Israeli peace, China's influence, soaring gas prices, and fraught relations with Saudi Arabia. Most of the news coverage has dwelled on the Saudi stop, focusing on whether he can wring more oil production from Riyadh to perhaps bring down gas prices, and how he reconciles this diplomatic overture with his campaign promise to make the kingdom a "pariah." The Daily 202 will touch on that aspect of the visit as we consider four challenges Biden will face on a trip that opens Wednesday in Israel, takes him to the Palestinian Authority and finally to Saudi Arabia for a visit centered on a meeting of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. Egypt, Iraq and Jordan will also attend. | What can Biden get (or give) on Iran? | | President Donald Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal and promised he would broker a better arrangement. He failed. Biden has promised to return to the agreement, but has failed thus far. And now his administration acknowledges that the situation is ever more urgent. In an NPR interview earlier this month, Robert Malley, Biden's special envoy for Iran, acknowledged the Islamic Republic has enough highly enriched uranium to make a bomb in "a matter of weeks" should it opt to take that dramatic step. | | Israel and Saudi Arabia — Iran's big rival for regional influence — weren't party to the nuclear deal, which grouped the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia. But both regard Tehran as their main regional threat. And both want reassurance America is prepared to use military force if diplomacy and economic pressure fail. | Can Biden manage ties with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? | | Biden's year and a half in office have seen a steady erosion of his forceful promise to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" and isolate its de facto ruler, who is almost universally known as "MBS." The Daily 202 chronicled that gradual easing in a mid-June column. But now, it's actually really happening: Biden will come face to face with the man the U.S. intelligence community blames for the murder of U.S. resident and Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. (Mohammed denies the charge.) And the man whom Saudi dissidents accuse of cracking down on domestic critics. The White House left Mohammed out of the announcement of Biden's trip. Riyadh said they'd see each other. Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre grudgingly acknowledged that fact but said the president would "see over a dozen leaders on this trip." But the purest distillation of Biden's approach came in this assessment from Jean-Pierre. "The president is focused on getting things done for the American people … and if he determines that it's in the interest of the United States to engage with a foreign leader and that such an engagement can deliver results, then he'll do so," she said. | Does Biden get anything from Saudi Arabia? | | The news coverage has focused on whether Biden can get Saudi Arabia to boost oil production in an effort to bring down gas prices, or at least look like he's working on that problem. In a June 30 news conference, the president said he won't be asking just the Saudis but all regional oil producers. "I hope we see them, in their own interest, concluding that makes sense to do," he said. Gas prices have already started coming down, though it's not clear whether that's a long-term trend. Also unclear is how much boosting oil production would help, given bottlenecks in refinery capacity. | | Biden heads to the kingdom with two broader diplomatic goals. In a lengthy defense of his trip to Saudi Arabia in the pages of The Washington Post, he emphasized the importance of "steps toward normalization between Israel and the Arab world, which my administration is working to deepen and expand." Watch for announcements — symbolic or substantive — on that score. But U.S. officials have also been sounding the alarm about China's expanding influence in the region, and in particular Beijing's deepening strategic relationship with Riyadh. Saudi Arabian arms purchases from China have soared. And the kingdom has considered pricing some of its oil sales to China in yuan, which could boost that currency's importance to global trade. | Can Biden make any progress on the Israel-Palestinian conflict? | | It's hard to see how Biden advances his case for a two-state solution. Fractious Israeli politics don't seem to allow for that at the moment. It remains to be seen whether Israel takes a symbolic step like freezing settlements before Biden's visit. He hasn't reversed Trump's decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. On this trip, though, there are signs he may bring U.S.-Palestinian relations to the status quo ante Trump. Anything more would be fairly remarkable in a region in which the threat from Iran, not the Israel-Palestinian conflict, has come to be seen as the dominant issue. | | |  | What's happening now | | U.S. military: ISIS leader in Syria killed in drone strike | | "The leader of Islamic State in Syria, who is one of the top five leaders of the militant group, has been killed in a U.S. air strike, the U.S. military said on Tuesday," Reuters's Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali report. "In a statement, U.S Central Command said Maher al-Agal had been killed in the drone strike in northwest Syria and a close associate of his was seriously injured." | Biden admin: Docs must offer abortion if mom's life at risk | | "The Biden administration on Monday told hospitals that they 'must' provide abortion services if the life of the mother is at risk, saying federal law on emergency treatment guidelines preempts state laws in jurisdictions that now ban the procedure without any exceptions following the Supreme Court's decision to end a constitutional right to abortion," the Associated Press's Zeke Miller reports. | U.S. says Iran plans to send Russia drones | | "Iran is preparing to supply Russia with hundreds of drone aircraft, including advanced models capable of firing missiles, the Biden administration said Monday, publicly revealing what U.S. officials say is a secret effort by Tehran to provide military assistance for Russian's invasion of Ukraine," Joby Warrick and Amy Wang report. More key updates: | | |  | Lunchtime reads from The Post | | Today's Jan. 6 hearing expected to focus on link between militants, White House |  A mob of Donald Trump supporters storms the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post) | | | "The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection plans to hold its seventh public hearing on Tuesday, with an expected focus on the ways in which President Donald Trump and his allies summoned far-right militant groups to Washington as he grew increasingly desperate to hold on to power," Jacqueline Alemany and Hannah Allam report. "The hearing is likely to drill down on the period after states cast their electoral college votes on Dec. 14, 2020, action that confirmed Joe Biden's victory. Trump, the committee is expected to argue, then shifted his focus to using the date of the congressional counting of the votes, Jan. 6, 2021, to block a peaceful transfer of power." Follow our live coverage of the hearing here | Top Social Security official keeps job after reports of being impaired at work | | "Theresa Gruber, a deputy commissioner overseeing around 9,000 employees and a $1.2 billion budget in the hearings and appeals operation, displayed 'significant anomalies' at work over the course of at least a year, including slurred speech in which she 'appeared intoxicated,' leaving meetings without notice, slouching in her chair and aggressive behavior, witnesses told investigators," Lisa Rein reports. "But five months after acting Social Security commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi was presented with the internal report, which The Washington Post obtained, Gruber remains on the job." | Mark MacGann, former top executive, comes forward as Uber Files leaker | | "MacGann leaked more than 124,000 company documents to the Guardian, which shared the materials with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which helped lead the project, and dozens of other news organizations, including The Washington Post. The Uber Files, which date to between 2013 and 2017, reveal the ride-hailing company's aggressive entrance into cities around the world — and its frequent challenges to the reach of existing laws and regulations," Elahe Izadi reports. | The case of the vanishing abortion data | | "It's not just that abortions will be harder to come by. It's that accurate, verifiable data about abortions will be harder to come by. Which means that, to a large extent, we won't know how the court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is actually [affecting] the health and well-being of women and children," Business Insider's Adam Rogers reports. "It will be difficult, if not impossible, to gather reliable information not only in states hostile to abortions, but also from clinics that serve women who cross state lines to obtain the procedure — an act some states are trying to criminalize." | Their son is talking about school shootings. Should they call the police? | | "For parents faced with troubling behavior, reporting their child to police for an act they might commit is a wrenching decision. These parents fear the consequences — emotional, social and legal. Even after making the decision, they often question whether police can steer their children to the help they need," the Wall Street Journal's Tawnell D. Hobbs and Sara Randazzo report. | | |  | The Biden agenda | | Biden officials push to offer second booster shot to all adults |  Biden receives a briefing from NASA officials about the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope on July 11. (Evan Vucci/AP) | | | "Biden administration officials are developing a plan to allow all adults to receive a second coronavirus booster shot, pending federal agency sign-offs, as the White House and health experts seek to blunt a virus surge that has sent hospitalizations to their highest levels since March 3," Dan Diamond, Laurie McGinley and Lena H. Sun report. | White House foresees June inflation reading to be 'highly elevated' | | "The White House expects June's consumer price index figures to be 'highly elevated' as Americans grappled with substantial increases in the cost of gasoline and food, but said the reading was 'already out of date' because of falling energy prices," Bloomberg News's Justin Sink reports. | Mexican president meets Biden amid tensions over migration and fentanyl | | "A month after boycotting President Biden's Western Hemisphere summit, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador goes to the White House on Tuesday for a make-up meeting amid rising concerns over migration, trade and the flow of fentanyl across the southwest U.S. border," Mary Beth Sheridan reports. | NBC health analyst Vin Gupta passes on Biden admin role | | "Public health commentator Vin Gupta has taken himself out of the running for a senior Food and Drug Administration job aimed at bolstering the agency's messaging operation, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO," Politico's Adam Cancryn reports. | | |  | The James Webb Space Telescope, visualized | | | "Regardless of whatever wow factor is generated by the new images, the significant fact is that the Webb works. This was never a slam-dunk mission. The telescope was repeatedly delayed, and its price tag soared. At one point, Congress nearly killed the project. For many years, it was unclear whether the Webb would get off the ground, literally," Joel Achenbach reports. | | |  | Hot on the left | | As worries about Biden in 2024 grow, other Democrats aren't stepping forward to challenge him | | "A challenge requires a challenger — and all the Democrats being discussed as potential primary opponents to President Joe Biden tell CNN they're ruling out runs and warning others to follow suit," CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere. "The chatter is fed by Democratic officials and party leaders who have begun to doubt that Biden is, as he's insisted privately to donors and others, their strongest candidate to beat Donald Trump — or another GOP candidate — in 2024. And it's being propelled even more by the 79-year-old President's age, which has prompted questions about what kind of campaign schedule he'd be able to keep up." | | |  | Hot on the right | | Trump 2024? Not just yet, some Republicans say |  Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka applauds at a rally with former president Donald Trump at the Alaska Airlines Center, in Anchorage on July 9. (Bill Roth/Anchorage Daily News/AP) | | | "Party leaders want Trump to hold off on any campaign announcement at least until after November's midterms so the GOP can make the 2022 elections a clean referendum on President Joe Biden. They see a clear road map toward netting the handful of House and Senate seats they need to flip Congress, with a twice-impeached former president still under investigation possibly blocking their path," Politico's Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine report. | | |  | Today in Washington | | | The Bidens will host the White House Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn at 4:30 p.m. Vice President Harris will attend. At 9:30 p.m., Biden will depart the White House to head to Jerusalem. | | |  | In closing | | | Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow. | | |
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