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In today’s edition … White House says Israel lacks a ‘coherent and sustainable strategy’ in Gaza … There is a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security … but first …

On the Hill

House GOP keeps digging into Afghanistan withdrawal

While House Republicans struggle to find hard evidence for impeaching President Biden over his family members’ business dealings, it’s their probe of the Afghanistan withdrawal that could be the most damaging House investigation for the president.

House Republicans are holding another hearing on the topic today, drawing attention to the chaotic withdrawal of more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan in 2021. In this election year, it’s expected to be contentious. 

The politics of the withdrawal

The withdrawal after 20 years of U.S. troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan was chaotic, to say the least. House Republicans, led by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (Tex.), have been investigating since gaining the majority in the 2022 midterms. 

The withdrawal was a pivotal point in Biden’s presidency he has struggled to recover from. His job approval rating before it was above water, around 50 percent, according to a Washington Post review of polling. But afterwards, his disapproval numbers exceeded his approval numbers. That hasn’t turned around. 

The committee includes some of the most outspoken Republicans, some of whom are expected to politicize the hearing and create fireworks.

It continues to be a political challenge for the president. Steve Nikoui, the father of Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, a Marine who was one of the 13 soldiers who died during the evacuation, heckled the president at the State of the Union. Some family members of the 13 service members are expected to attend the hearing, a person familiar with the planning said. 

• “I think the reason he’s never recovered is because nobody has ever been held accountable,” Kelley Currie, a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and former U.S. representative to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women during the Trump administration.

Republicans on the committee released an interim report last year and plan to release a final report in August, on or near the third anniversary of the withdrawal and less than three months from the presidential election. 

But Democrats say Biden’s opponent in 2024 — former president Donald Trump — set the timeline for withdrawal, entered into an agreement with the Taliban and is as much to blame. They’ll focus on that in the hearing today.

• “The Committee has also learned, in contrast to the Republicans’ framing of our withdrawal, that President Trump’s Doha Deal with the Taliban emboldened the Taliban and led to the Afghan government’s precipitous collapse,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement to The Early, referencing the agreement signed in February 2020 that called for the U.S. military’s withdrawal within 14 months.

Democrats will also defend the president and the Biden administration’s transparency during the House investigation.

• “The over 100 hours of closed-door testimony, multiple public hearings, and 11,000 pages of documents produced to the Committee have reinforced that the administration had a comprehensive plan to successfully airlift over 124,000 people out of Afghanistan, despite the dynamic situation caused by the Afghan government’s collapse,” Meeks said in a statement. 

The State Department released a scathing after-action report in the summer, saying Biden and Trump failed to assess how the U.S. withdrawal would destabilize the Afghan government.

On the campaign trail, Trump rarely criticizes Biden over his Afghanistan withdrawal ― if he mentions it at all. 

DOD testimony

Today’s hearing will feature testimony from Mark A. Milley, the general who retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September.

Milley is returning to testify because he thinks it’s important to explain the military decisions behind the withdrawal to the public, those who served in Afghanistan and families who lost loved ones, a person close to him said. Retired Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., who led U.S. Central Command, will also testify.

While top Defense Department officials are testifying today, McCaul is expected to focus this hearing on the State Department, which he says is responsible for the messy withdrawal. He hopes the former generals provide insight into State’s role and whether it fell short, according to a person familiar with his testimony. 

• “Our investigation has uncovered repeated instances of White House refusing to listen to warnings about the situation on the ground in the country,” McCaul is expected to say, according to prepared remarks, though he could deviate from them. 

Milley is prepared to delve into the timing of the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, a critical moment in the withdrawal that has been a point of contention in the aftermath. He is expected to say that the military executes plans for embassy evacuations but doesn’t craft them. 

Scott Clement and Emily Guskin contributed to this report.

What we're watching

On the Hill

Will they or won’t they … fund the government?

There is a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security, our colleague Jacob Bogage reports. But any agreement, even if it’s released today, is unlikely to prevent a short partial government shutdown set to begin 12:01 a.m. Saturday because of the 72 hours the House requires to give members time to read a bill before voting and the time-consuming exercise of passing bills in the Senate. 

“The legislation rolls together the remaining six appropriations bills, five of which had been completed for days. The Homeland Security measure, though, became a proxy for Republican and Democratic warring over immigration and border policy,” Jacob reports. 

At the White House

Biden is out west today for a mix of campaign and official events.

He’s heading to Nevada this morning, where he’ll visit the Washoe County Democrats’ office in Reno before flying to Las Vegas to give an official speech outlining his plans to make housing more affordable. He’ll talk about the housing proposals in his budget, including his call for Congress to pass a bill giving some home buyers a new tax credit, among other measures.

Then Biden’s off to Phoenix to kick off “Latinos con Biden,” his effort to reach Latino voters — with whom Democrats have struggled in recent years.

The campaign swing is part of a longer push that’s bringing Biden to all six swing states since the State of the Union.

On the campaign trail

Voters will cast ballots today in two crucial Ohio races that we outlined in Monday’s edition: the contentious Republican primaries to take on Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, both of whom are running for reelection in territory Trump won in 2020. On Monday, Trump endorsed Derek Merrin, the Republican establishment’s preferred candidate in the race against Kaptur.

But those aren’t the only races we’re watching today. Here are two more primaries we’re tracking:

• Illinois’ 7th District: Democratic Rep. Danny Davis is facing several primary challengers, including Kina Collins, an activist whom Davis defeated by barely six points when she challenged him in 2022. Davis has represented the heavily Democratic district — which arcs from Chicago’s South Side through the Loop to the western suburbs — since 1997.
• Illinois’ 12th District: State Sen. Darren Bailey, the 2022 Republican nominee for governor, is challenging GOP Rep. Mike Bost in this deep-red southern Illinois district. While Trump and the Illinois Farm Bureau have endorsed Bost, some of his colleagues are trying to defeat him. Reps. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) are backing Bailey and have bashed Bost for voting for Ukraine aid, among other things.

From the courts

We’re watching to see whether Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee will grant Trump and eight co-defendants charged in the Georgia election interference case a “certificate of immediate review.” The order would allow them to appeal McAfee’s Friday ruling, which allowed Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) to stay on the case.

Trump attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement that McAfee’s ruling “is ripe for pretrial appellate review.”

In the economy

The Federal Reserve kicks off its two-day policy meeting today in the shadow of hotter than expected inflation numbers. But “Fed officials aren’t concerned anymore that inflation will again surge to 40-year highs or threaten the entire economy,” our colleague Rachel Siegel reports. “Instead, the question is whether the last mile of the central bank’s fight is colliding with a sticky reality: that inflation could settle just above normal levels and keep victory out of reach.”

At the White House

White House says Israel lacks ‘coherent and sustainable strategy’ in Gaza

President Biden has summoned a senior Israeli military, intelligence and humanitarian team to Washington next week to discuss the government’s plans to launch a major military offensive in Rafah, telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call Monday that any effort to “smash” into the southern Gaza city would be a mistake, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

“In the talks, which Sullivan said Israel had agreed to, the United States will ‘lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements … without a major ground invasion,’” our colleagues Karen DeYoung and Toluse Olorunnipa report.

• “Sullivan insisted that the first call between the two leaders in more than a month was ‘very businesslike.’ But he made clear that it reflected Biden’s rapidly growing concern that a military offensive in Rafah would make the situation immeasurably worse for the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Gaza and for Israel’s long-term security. The administration has said it ‘would not support’ such an action but has not said what form that lack of support would take.”
• More than five months after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, Biden “has found himself deeply entangled in a war he does not want and that threatens to become a defining element of his tenure,” our colleagues Yasmeen Abutaleb and John Hudson report. “His allies privately acknowledge that it has done him significant damage domestically and globally and could easily become his biggest foreign policy cataclysm.”
• “Biden’s strategy from the outset rested on a central trade-off: that if he showed Israel unequivocal, even defiant, support early on, he could ultimately influence its conduct of the war. Some administration officials now concede the strategy is heading toward failure, and in private talks, they voice a striking frustration and uncertainty about how the war will end,” Yasmeen and John write. That frustration appeared to boil over on Monday. 

Here’s what you need to know about the Israel-Gaza war:

• A dire new report: According to a report from a group of international organizations and charities known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, or IPC, “famine is imminent and could already be underway in northern Gaza and risks spreading across the besieged enclave, plunging 2.2 million Palestinians into the broadest and most severe food crisis in the world,” per our colleagues Niha Masih, Anthony Faiola and Cate Brown. (Read more about famines.)
• A Hamas commander killed: “Marwan Issa, deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing, was killed in an Israeli strike this month in central Gaza, Sullivan confirmed Monday. The highest-ranking militant commander to be killed in five months of fighting, Issa was believed by Israel to have played a central role in Hamas’s day-to-day military operations and to have helped plan its devastating Oct. 7 attack on Israel,” our colleagues Cate, Lior Soroka and Patrick Svitek report.

The Media

Must reads

From The Post: 

• Lawsuit details 1993 sexual assault allegation against New York mayor. By Praveena Somasundaram.
• Trump says Jewish Democrats ‘hate’ their religion and Israel. By Mariana Alfaro.
• Stephen Breyer’s new book sheds light on Supreme Court cases on abortion, guns. By Amy B Wang.
• Supreme Court refuses to delay prison time for Trump aide Peter Navarro. By Ann E. Marimow.

From across the web: 

• Foundation cancels RBG award ceremony that would have honored Musk, Murdoch after family’s outcry. By CNN’s Tierney Sneed.
• Trump sues ABC and Stephanopoulos, saying they defamed him. By the New York Times’s Michael M. Grynbaum and Jim Rutenberg.

Viral

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