| Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 2011, President Barack Obama announced elite U.S. forces had killed Osama bin Laden. | | |  | The big idea | | GOP focuses on Harris and suggests Biden won't live to 2028 |  President Biden and Vice President Harris share a moment after giving a Covid-19 Update in the Rose Garden at the White House on May 13, 2021. | | | President Biden's formal announcement that he seeks reelection has led to a boom in pieces on what role Vice President Harris will play, and an explosion of conservative commentary that 2024 is just as much a referendum on her as it is about the candidate at the top of the ticket. Harris appears prominently and frequently in the president's official launch video — not just at Biden's side, but on her own. There's nothing especially surprising there. She's the sitting vice president and his running mate. It would have been weird if she had been absent. In some ways, what's going on over in the GOP is more interesting, even if the political payoffs are pretty obvious. | - First and foremost, the tactic reminds voters that Biden, at 80, is the oldest president ever and would be 86 when he finishes a hypothetical second term. (Former president Donald Trump, who currently leads the Republican pack, is 76.)
- It puts the spotlight on a vice president whom GOP base voters dislike even more than they dislike Biden. (Her overall job approval isn't that much worse than his, though neither possesses enviable numbers.)
| | Two caveats: The GOP has attacked Harris since she was picked, and the argument didn't work in 2020 or 2022. | The GOP's actuarial table argument | | Many Republicans are not being subtle in their message to voters, and it's a bit macabre: They argue Biden is likely to die of old age before the end of a possible second term, and Harris would become president. | | "I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris," GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley told Fox News last week, "because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely." "Joe Biden is 142 years old," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told Fox Business last week. "In a very real sense, this election, the Democrats are suggesting Kamala Harris for president" because there's "a very real possibility that Kamala Harris becomes the president" if Biden wins. | | Biden's doctors recently declared him "a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute duties of the presidency." He is known to resent the persistent discussion of his age. At the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday, the president turned to humor to try to defuse the question. (He did the same thing at last year's dinner, so when it comes to inoculating him, the event isn't exactly burying the needle.) Samples: | - The First Amendment? "My good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it."
- "You might think I don't like Rupert Murdoch. That's simply not true. How could I dislike the guy who makes me look like Harry Styles?"
| | And of course, part of the strategy is to argue that Biden has a capable successor in Harris. | | Whatever the tensions between president and vice president and their respective teams — Biden referred to her as "a work in progress" a few months into his term, according to "The Fight of His Life" by Chris Whipple — the White House and Bidenworld more broadly have swung entirely behind her. | | There are two broad tacks. First, public shows of support. Second, efforts to elevate her profile and identify her even more closely with some of the administration's biggest priorities (reproductive rights, for instance) that proved pivotal for Democrats in the 2022 midterms. So both White House chief of staff Jeffrey Zients and communications director Ben LaBolt jumped to her defense on Twitter after Jeff Mason and Nandita Bose of Reuters wrote Harris struggles with "low poll ratings, a failure to win over the Washington establishment and concern among fellow Democrats about an underwhelming start in the job." | | Former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain did an interview with journalist Kara Swisher last week. He partly blamed "sexism and racism" against the first vice president who is a woman, Black and Asian American. But this part of Klain's comment struck The Daily 202: | - "I think she was not as well known in national politics before she became vice president," he said, "And I think hopefully during the campaign season, the American people will get more of a chance to see her on the stump and get to know her a little better."
| | She's been vice president for two years! But a former Harris aide, who requested anonymity to speak more candidly, told The Daily 202 that's part of the problem. | - She is Biden's top political partner, playing the traditional role of vice president, promoting whatever issue of the day the White House wants pushed. That's "actually increasing her ability to know and manage the issues of governing," the former aide said. But …
- … it also conflicts with "her communications team's ability to hone [sic] in on a few things and make those her hallmarks," said the aide, who specifically cited access to abortion as a politically potent issue she has worked to make her own.
| | And that, of course, could position her well for 2028. | | |  | Politics-but-not | | | Click through to submit ideas for potential inclusion in our weekly roundup of stories you might not find in other political newsletters. Read more » | | | | | |  | What's happening now | | Longtime Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) won't seek reelection in 2024 |  Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), seen here in a file photo, is set to retire. (The Washington Post) | | | "Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) is expected to reveal Monday that he will not seek reelection in 2024, bringing his half-century career in public office to a close once he finishes his term," Meagan Flynn reports. | Man accused of killing neighbors still evading officials in manhunt | | "A sweeping search for a Texas man accused of fatally shooting five neighbors with an AR-15-style weapon continued Monday after more than 250 officials from local, state and federal agencies failed to arrest him over the weekend," Marisa Iati reports. | Regulators seize ailing First Republic Bank, sell remains to JPMorgan | McCarthy invites Netanyahu to visit Congress, skip the White House | | "House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, on a visit to Israel, has placed himself in the middle of a widening rift between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, criticizing the White House for not hosting the premier and suggesting he come address the Congress instead," Steve Hendrix reports. | Never-before-seen Chinese military blimp caught on satellite images of remote desert base | | "Aerospace experts say the images, taken three months before a Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, could signal a notable advancement in China's airship program, demonstrating a more versatile and maneuverable craft than previously seen or known," CNN's Paul P. Murphy and Alex Marquardt report. | | |  | Lunchtime reads from The Post | | A school shooting left a 7-year-old terrified to go back. At 13, she found a way. |  (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) | | | "In 2016, when Ava was in first grade, she walked out onto the playground behind Townville Elementary as an angry 14-year-old pulled up in a truck, raised a handgun and opened fire. Ava escaped, but a classmate she loved, Jacob Hall, was shot in the leg. The only boy she'd ever kissed died three days later. He was 6," John Woodrow Cox reports. | - "She was so consumed by trauma and fear that her parents withdrew her from Townville. Ava transitioned to home schooling, not setting foot inside another classroom for six years. Then, in February, her mom and dad finally decided to send their daughter back, and when they told her, she agreed to try."
| Key nations sit out U.S. standoff with Russia, China, leaks show | | "The leaked intelligence findings, which have not been previously disclosed, also offer new insights on the obstacles Biden faces in securing global support for his efforts to reject the spread of authoritarianism, contain Russia's belligerence beyond its borders and counter China's growing global reach — as influential regional powers try to remain on the sidelines," Missy Ryan reports. | The bipartisan battle over capping insulin costs outside Medicare |  Lija Greenseid prepares to draw insulin to fill an insulin pump cartridge at her home in St. Paul, Minn., on June 2, 2019. (Jenn Ackerman for The Washington Post) | | | "Susan Collins started the Senate's Diabetes Caucus back in 1997, and her Democratic colleague Jeanne Shaheen has co-led it for more than a dozen years. So excuse them for being a little miffed right now," Politico's David Lim and Burgess Everett report. | - "The buttoned-up bipartisan duo from New England is waging an awkward battle over legislation to reduce insulin costs, as Senate leaders weigh another cross-aisle pair's plan as an alternative…Sens. Collins (R-Maine) and Shaheen (D-N.H.) are squaring off against an odd-couple Southern pair of prominent junior senators: Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and John Kennedy (R-La.)."
| This Supreme Court is slow to issue rulings — glacially slow | | "Back in 1923, the Supreme Court had issued 157 rulings by May 1 in a term that started the previous fall. On the same date a century later, the current justices, facing a firestorm of scrutiny on multiple fronts, have disposed of just 15 cases, fueling speculation about why they are falling behind," NBC News's Lawrence Hurley reports. | | |  | The latest on covid | | Masks come off in the last refuge for mandates: The doctor's office | | "With the era of government-mandated masking at restaurants, grocery stores and schools long gone, hospitals and doctors' offices were the last to carry the most visible reminders of the three-year-old pandemic. But regulators and some infectious-disease specialists have concluded universal masking is no longer essential in medical settings, prompting one of the starkest returns to pre-covid life," Fenit Nirappil reports. | | |  | The Biden agenda | | Biden courts son of Philippine dictator he once opposed |  President Biden meets with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images) | | | "Washington's embrace of [Philippine President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.], the son of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, who ruled for two decades, would have seemed far-fetched only a year ago. Before his election in May 2022, it was unclear whether he would be able to set foot in the United States. Marcos Jr. faces a contempt order in a class-action lawsuit related to unpaid damages for human rights violations under his father's rule," Regine Cabato and Sammy Westfall report. | For Biden, navigating the debt ceiling is an early test of his 2024 strategy | | "The bill calls for aggressive caps on spending that would reduce health, education and science programs while repealing Biden's programs for climate change and canceling student debt. It also would add new work rules for recipients of food stamps and Medicaid. The measure has no chance of getting through the Senate or becoming law, but by passing it, Republicans both heightened their own political vulnerabilities and added to the pressure on Biden," Dan Balz writes. | | |  | (Some of) the royal family's wealth, visualized | | | |  | Hot on the left | | Needing younger workers, federal officials relax rules on past drug use |  Cannabis flowers are flash frozen after being harvested at Maryland's first legal outdoor marijuana farm at Culta on Oct. 1, 2019, in Cambridge, Md. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) | | | "During the past five years, the United States military gave more than 3,400 new recruits who failed a drug test on their first day a grace period to try again, according to data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Agencies like the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. have adopted more lenient rules regarding past use of marijuana among job candidates, officials acknowledge," the New York Times's Ernesto Londoño reports. | - "And later this year, the Biden administration is expected to take another major step, scaling back how deeply the government delves into the drug histories of people applying for a security clearance."
| | |  | Hot on the right | | DeSantis critical of China, hazy on Ukraine as he charts foreign policy path |  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) talks to the media Thursday at a conference titled "Celebrate the Faces of Israel" at Jerusalem's Museum of Tolerance. (Maya Alleruzzo/AP) | | | "In multiple stops, DeSantis laid out a foreign policy vision that casts China as a new Cold War-level threat and suggested a recalibration of America's military focus toward Asia. As for the land war in Europe, he has echoed former president Donald Trump's call for European allies to shoulder more of the cost, while breaking with current U.S. leaders' aversion to signaling interest in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia," Michael Scherer and Hannah Knowles report. | | |  | Today in Washington | | | At noon, Biden and Harris will speak in the Rose Garden to mark National Small Business Week. The Bidens will host Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the president of the Philippines, at the White House at 2:30 p.m. At 5:30 p.m., Biden will host a reception for Eid-al-Fitr. | | |  | In closing | | Still reveling in the weekend? | Highlights from Roy Wood Jr.'s WHCD set | | Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow. | | |
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