Biden Signs Ukraine Funding Bill, Trump's Terrible April Keeps Getting More Terrible

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Happy Thursday all, got a few things for you today:

The President Signs The Ukraine Funding Package - I am very grateful for all of you who made calls to get this vital bill passed. We live in uncertain times, and getting this bill signed was something we needed to do. From the President’s remarks yesterday:

Good morning.  It’s a good day for America, it’s a good day for Europe, and it’s a good day for world peace, for real.  This is consequential.

I just signed into law the national security package that was passed by the House of Representatives this weekend and by the Senate yesterday. 

It’s going to make America safer.  It’s going to make the world safer.  And it continues America’s leadership in the world, and everyone knows it. 

It gives vital support to America’s partners and they — so they can defend themselves against threats to their sovereignty and to the lives and freedom of their citizens.  And it’s an investment in our own security, because when our allies are stronger — and I want to make this point again and again — when our allies are stronger, we are stronger.

Why I Am Optimistic We Will Win This November - From Punchbowl news this morning, “ActBlue Donations Surge in Q1”

News: Democratic donors gave a total of $151 million to House and Senate races through the ActBlue fundraising platform in the first quarter of 2024.

The ActBlue data reveals an increase from the same point four years ago, indicating growing Democratic grassroots support as the 2024 election season heats up.

Compared to Q1 2020, ActBlue donors gave 20% more to Senate races in Q1 2024. And donations to House races in the first quarter of 2024 grew by 29% compared to four years ago..

A new Navigator polling report on Congressional battleground districts finds Democratic candidates in much better shape than their Republican counterparts:

On Monday I wrote about Biden’s rising poll numbers, including his best national poll so far in 2024. On Tuesday I wrote about the importance of Arizona and North Carolina this year, and new polling showing RFK taking more from Trump than Biden.

Here’s more on 2024 if you want to dive deeper:

• Why I’m So Optimistic We Will Win This November (Video, 4/16/24) - My latest overview of where we are in the 2024 election and why I am so optimistic about winning this year. The post also has a deep dive on recent, encouraging polling data. While it remains a close, competitive election, things have gotten bluer in recent weeks, and Trump no longer leads.

• My Interview With the NYT - Here’s my interview with Adam Nagourney of the New York Times. It’s gotten a lot of attention. Do read. Lots of great stuff in here! Additionally, a new, fresh interview with me by Aaron Rupar just dropped. He’s calling it “Why the Trump campaign is in deeper trouble than you think.” It’s getting some attention and well worth your time.

• With Democrats, Things Get Better - The core Hopium presentation, this 30 minute deep dive on the progress America makes when Democrats are in the White House, has an extended section on the strong economic gains the country has made under Joe Biden. A must view for all the budding information warriors out there.

Yes a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll had Biden down 6 yesterday, and yes the Morning Consult weekly tracking poll - yes the same pollster - had Biden up 1 this week. How do you make sense of that? You can’t. I have no idea how the same pollster can produce such different results in the same week.

Keep calm, carry on peeps. We have a long way to go in this election, and a lot of work to do, but in every way imaginable right now I would much rather be us than them.

Trump’s Terrible April Just Keeps Getting More and More Terrible - From Politico Playbook this morning:

Over the course of roughly 24 hours since yesterday morning, Trump …

… was revealed as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the “fake electors” scheme in Michigan during a court proceeding;

… was identified as “unindicted co-conspirator 1” in a slate of new grand jury indictments over Arizona’s “fake electors” scheme that saw his former attorney RUDY GIULIANI and former White House chief of staff MARK MEADOWS both charged;

… will be the subject of a Supreme Court case today as the justices hear oral arguments over his claims of immunity from criminal prosecution stemming from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election;

… will return to a Manhattan courtroom for another day of testimony from former National Enquirer chief DAVID PECKER in his criminal trial for alleged election interference and business fraud; and

… could see the judge in that case, JUAN MERCHAN, rule on whether he violated a gag order.

SCOTUS: The Supreme Court case is almost certainly the most meaningful one of these stories today — and judging by Trump’s (denied) request to attend today’s oral arguments, is almost certainly the one he’s most concerned about. More from Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein

At stake today is nothing less than a “basic truth about the American system of government: No one is above the law, not even the president,” AP’s Mark Sherman writes.

From the Washington Post:

PHOENIX — An Arizona grand jury on Wednesday indicted seven attorneys or aides affiliated with Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign as well as 11 Arizona Republicans on felony charges related to their alleged efforts to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an announcement by the state attorney general.

Those indicted include former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Christina Bobb, top campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn and former campaign aide Mike Roman. They are accused of allegedly aiding an unsuccessful strategy to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden after the 2020 election. Also charged are the Republicans who signed paperwork on Dec. 14, 2020, that falsely purported Trump was the rightful winner, including former state party chair Kelli Ward, two state senators and Tyler Bowyer, a GOP national committeeman and chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, the campaign arm of the pro-Trump conservative group Turning Point USA.

Trump was not charged, but he is described in the indictment as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Here is Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announcing the felony indictments:

Trump’s terrible April just keeps getting more and more terrible.

Isreal-Gaza A Very Secondary Concern for Most Young People, and Most Americans - Last week Harvard’s Institute of Politics released its quarterly, high-sample, gold standard poll of 18-29 year olds. Three key takeaways from the poll:

• Vote intent right now is where it was in the spring of 2020, a very high turnout year for young people. Young people are engaged, paying attention

• Biden is close to 2020 results with likely 18-29 year old voters. Work to do, but we can - if we do the work - hit our 2020 numbers with 18-29 year olds in vote share and over all turnout. This is good

• Israel-Palestine is not a major issue for young Americans right now, and is in my view very unlikely to be one in the fall. This finding is confirmed in other polls. It’s an important issue, of course, but for young people there are many issues which matter much more. Note the top 6 issues for 18-29 year old self-identified Democrats:

  • women’s reproductive rights

  • gun violence

  • healthcare

  • housing

  • inflation

  • climate change

That “jobs” ranks so low is a sign of how strong the economy is right now.

Here’s the Economist/YouGov track this week. While it asks the “most important issue” question slightly differently, foreign policy is at 1% with 18-29 year olds:

This isn’t 1968. The Vietnam War had been raging for years. A national draft was in place, and lots of young Americans were fighting and dying in a very far away place. In 2024 we are facing grave threats to our democracy and freedoms here at home and in Europe, and I just don’t believe that at the end of the day the fate of 2m Gazans will be more important to Americans than the loss of American democracy, the loss of fundamental freedoms here and the ending of the American led global order which has over the last 80 years created more opportunities and more freedom for more people than any other system in world history.

For almost all Americans, including almost all young people, these other issues - economy, health care, climate change, public safety, loss of reproductive freedom, ending American democracy - matter much more to them because they are, in fact, much more important to them. These protests today do not involve large numbers of students, and are only occurring on a very small number of elite campuses. They could grow, and become something far more significant, but there isn’t the kind of broad societal support for these protests as there was in the protests over Vietnam in the late 1960s. Leaders of the center-left who could become allies understand there is more important work to be done now, and are unlikely to divert their energies into this cause, regardless of its intrinsic virtue. We have an election to go win, a country to save. Here is the tweet of a very influential Texas based youth leader from Tuesday:

The debate we are having over our foreign policy in the Middle East is an important one, and I welcome it. Peaceful protests are an important part of our democracy. But remember friends, there are many many people here in the US and around the world who want to blow up and inflame these protests into something far bigger than they are, and none of them are our friends:

And yes here is Iran’s leader, ally of Putin and North Korea, funder of Hamas and Hizbollah, the leader of one of the most oppressive and barbaric dictatorships in the modern world, sworn enemy of the West and Israel, praising the protests in New York:

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Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon