Can Biden triangulate the gun debate?

Mar 30, 2023

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No one believes there will be any legislative response to the school shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville this week.

But as Democrats work through their frustrations, a vintage approach to the gun policy debate is getting a fresh look. Instead of just pressing for new gun legislation, the thinking goes, place that push as a component of a larger tough-on-crime initiative.

“If you want to be where the American people are, you’re tough and reasonable on crime,” said JIM KESSLER, a longtime gun control advocate and the executive vice president for policy at centrist Democratic think tank Third Way. “There are police abuses to deal with but also crime to be dealt with. Then you make guns a part of it. What you can’t do is substitute in guns and say that solves the crime problem.”

If the approach has a heavy whiff of Clinton-era triangulation, that’s because former President BILL CLINTON successfully deployed it. The 1994 crime bill included various measures to enhance public safety: from violence prevention programs, to funding for cops and prisons, to the creation of the Violence Against Women Act.

It also included the assault weapons ban, which sunset in 2004 and is now among the most public elements of President JOE BIDEN’s current gun control push. The White House reiterated its call for an assault weapons ban after the Nashville shooting.

But even Biden aides privately concede it won’t pass, at least any time soon.

Nor is there any sense that a modern day version of a ’94-like crime bill will move. Many Democrats look back at that bill with regret, arguing that it led to over-incarceration and failed to properly anticipate the downsides of tough sentencing laws and excessive-policing. A House under Republican control, meanwhile, has no appetite to consider new gun laws even if they come with big policy concessions.

“I don’t think we’re there yet,” said Kessler. “This is one of those issues where you want the cooler heads to prevail and it’s so easy to demagogue.”

But Kessler and others — including those on the progressive spectrum of gun control advocacy — do see a larger political benefit to talking about gun laws under the umbrella of crime reduction.

“I would argue that we have a rising crime problem because lawmakers are pursuing policies for criminals to obtain firearms,” said IGOR VOLSKY, the director of Guns Down America. “I would talk about crime through that prism.”

The White House has largely adopted this approach, too. The president’s Safer America Plan includes police funding, crime and violence prevention programing, and expanded background checks alongside an assault weapons ban. It remains unpassed. Before that, however, Biden shepherded modest enhancements of background checks during the last Congress and has repeatedly urged states to use the American Rescue Plan to fund police and expand community violence intervention programs.

"I might reject the term triangulation,” said a senior administration official. “However, it has been our strategy since Day 1, which is to talk about gun violence as one of the top threats to public safety and one of the top drivers of crime.”

In the wake of the Nashville shooting, the main thrust of the White House’s focus has been on calling out Republicans for refusing to move on guns. “That's unacceptable,” said press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE. “That's our response. It's unacceptable that Republicans are saying that there's nothing that we can do.” That’s also been echoed by Hill Democrats, who appear to be devising ways to force votes on new gun laws even without control of the House.

It’s a reflection of the Democratic Party’s larger conviction that gun control isn’t just morally right but politically advantageous. But Biden also has been fairly clear — in explicit and subtle ways — that he believes his party needs to be more responsive to voter concerns about crime. And if there is ever a lawmaker keen on merging the two components (guns and crime) together, it’s him. He was among the chief congressional architects of the 1994 crime bill.

“You see it in our talking points that police don’t want to be outgunned in our streets,” said the senior administration official. “The core of an anti-crime strategy is fighting gun violence.”

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POTUS PUZZLER

This one is from Allie. Two baseball teams visited the White House to meet President ANDREW JOHNSON in 1865, becoming the first organized sports teams to do so. Who were they?

(Answer at bottom.)

The Oval

BACK TO HIS ROOTS: Biden will travel to Ireland in April to mark the 25th anniversary of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday peace accord, our SHAWN POGATCHNIK reports. According to Irish government officials involved in the planning, Biden will “start his stay overnight at Hillsborough Castle, southwest of Belfast, the official residence for visiting British royalty.”

JOURNALIST DETAINED IN RUSSIA: The Biden administration said Thursday its “deeply concerned” about the Russian detention of WSJ reporter EVAN GERSHKOVICH under charges of spying, our ANTHONY ADRAGNA reports. Administration officials have been in touch with the paper, Gershkovich’s family, as well as Russia’s government, White House press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE said. “We also condemn the Russian government’s continued targeting and repression of journalists and freedom of the press,” she said.

LOTS GOING ON FRIDAY: The president marked March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility in a proclamation Thursday, saying the day shows “transgender and nonbinary Americans that we see them, they belong, and they should be treated with dignity and respect.” The move comes as debates about LGBTQ rights have come into play at the state and federal level.

Biden also marked March 31 as CÉSAR CHÁVEZ Day in a separate proclamation to honor “the dignity and rights of every worker [and stand] with organized labor to build an economy that rewards work and not just wealth.”

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece by NYT’s CATIE EDMONDSON about how debt ceiling talks are at a standstill as Republicans mull over their budget proposal: “House Republicans who have said they will not vote to raise the national debt limit without deep spending cuts are backing away from their promise to balance the budget and struggling to unite their fractious majority behind a fiscal plan, paralyzing progress on talks to avert a catastrophic default as soon as this summer.” White House deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES tweeted out the piece Thursday.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by Axios’ ANDREW SOLENDER about how “Biden’s plans to sign a resolution ending the COVID national emergency has some House Democrats once again simmering over the White House’s communications.” Similar frustrations were felt over how the White House handled the D.C. crime bill and immigration. “It's, like, kindergarten-level cooperation,” Rep. ABIGAIL SPANBERGER (D-Va.) told Axios.

PRETTY COOL: Buffalo Bills safety DAMAR HAMLIN, who suffered cardiac arrest during a game earlier this year, met with Biden Thursday at the White House, per the press office.

ZEN ZIENTS: Axios’s HANS NICHOLS details what it’s like in the White House with JEFF ZIENTS as the chief of staff. He begins his mornings with “20 minutes of transcendental meditation at 4:30 a.m. For the rest of the day, inclusivity is his mantra,” Nichols writes.

Nichols also reports that Zients has upgraded former chief of staff RON KLAIN’s office happy hour offerings of beer and fries to “charcuterie boards and South African wines.”

BURN: House Speaker KEVIN MCCARTHY said Thursday that he would bring “soft food” to debt ceiling talks if it would get Biden to the negotiating table, an apparent dig at the president’s age. Asked during the daily briefing for a response to McCarthy’s comment, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that “the president is able to pick out his own Starbucks.” The comeback didn’t quite seem to land. She followed up later, tweeting that McCarthy “can bring anything he wants as long as he brings a budget.”

HELL YAH, IT’S OPENING DAY: Kicking off the start of MLB’s 2023 season, OKSANA MARKAROVA, Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., is set to throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ home opener Thursday against the Atlanta Braves. Biden is one of just three U.S. presidents who have not thrown an opening day first pitch while in office — a tradition started by President WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT. The other two are DONALD TRUMP and JIMMY CARTER.

JOIN POLITICO ON 4/5 FOR THE 2023 RECAST POWER LIST: America’s demographics and power dynamics are changing — and POLITICO is recasting how it covers the intersection of race, identity, politics and policy. Join us for a conversation on the themes of the 2023 Recast Power List that will examine America’s decision-making tables, who gets to sit at them, and the challenges that still need to be addressed. REGISTER HERE.

THE BUREAUCRATS

FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: SAM BERGER has been promoted to associate administrator at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. He previously served as senior counselor at OIRA. MARTHA ROBERTS is now a senior counselor to the OIRA administrator. She most recently worked on the EPA and USGS portfolios for the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee.

AND ANOTHER ONE: ANASTASIA (KESSLER) DELLACCIO is now senior vice president for external affairs for the Export Import Bank, Lippman has also learned. She most recently was director of public policy and stakeholder engagement at Core Scientific and was on the Biden campaign’s national finance committee.

ONE TIKTOK ADVOCATE: Our HAILEY FUCHS, CLOTHILDE GOUJARD and Daniel Lippman detail TikTok's massive lobbying effort in a story packed with juicy nuggets. Among them: Ahead of Biden’s State of the Union address in February, White House senior adviser ANITA DUNN pointed allies toward the app as an influential messaging tool. Dunn, a founding partner of SKDK, is currently barred by ethics rules from participating in matters involving the public affairs firm, which was recently hired by TikTok.

Dunn told participants on a call hosted by the Office of Public Engagement that the White House encouraged people to hail the administration’s accomplishments on social media — including TikTok, according to two people on the call. White House spokesman Andrew Bates defended Dunn’s remarks, saying the administration for years has said “we work with outside supporters to spread our message on the major social media platforms, including TikTok.”

A message from the Coalition for Medicare Choices:

Agenda Setting

NORMALIZING EVs: The Biden administration is expected to announce changes in what kinds of electric cars and trucks are eligible for its $7,500 tax credit, in hopes of creating more clean energy jobs in the U.S. and advancing the president’s climate goals, our TANYA SNYDER and HANNAH NORTHEY report. The move could also help the president’s reelection campaign boast that Biden “created American clean-energy jobs while making electric vehicles less expensive for consumers.”

TEAMING UP: Russia is looking to acquire more munitions from North Korea for its invasion of Ukraine and is expected to provide the nation food in exchange, National Security Council spokesperson JOHN KIRBY said Thursday. Our ALEXANDER WARD has the story here.

What We're Reading

Biden’s Chief Economist Navigated a Pandemic. She Still Sees Threats ‘Every Which Way’ (Bloomberg’s Akayla Gardner)

How democratic are the countries at Biden’s democracy summit? (WaPo’s Matthew Brown)

Biden’s Confrontation With Netanyahu Had Been Brewing for Years (NYT’s Katie Rogers and Michael Crowley)

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POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

The Washington Nationals and the Brooklyn Atlantics “became the first organized sports teams to meet a president in the White House when they visited Johnson,” on Aug. 30, 1865, according to the White House Historical Association.

A CALL OUT — Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents with a citation and we may feature it.

A message from the Coalition for Medicare Choices:

Medicare Advantage is facing billions in cuts that would hurt the more than 30 million Americans who depend on it for affordable health care.

Medicare Advantage provides affordable health care and continues to be a vital source of coverage for low-income seniors, people with disabilities, and diverse populations. As of 2020, approximately 55% of Hispanic individuals and 54% of Black individuals eligible for Medicare choose Medicare Advantage plans.

Funding Medicare Advantage is an extremely important issue for senior voters. Voters with Medicare Advantage overwhelmingly believe that it is important for the federal government and the Administration to fully fund Medicare Advantage to cover increasing health care costs.

The consequences of cutting funding to Medicare Advantage are dire. A majority of senior voters believe that cuts would impact their ability to afford health care and that increased premiums would negatively impact their ability to afford other necessities.

Don’t cut their care.