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| House Speaker McCarthy, President Biden |
President Biden and top congressional leaders expressed optimism about urgent negotiations over the debt ceiling after a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, as the administration’s liberal allies worried that talks with House Republicans over the budget risk rewarding the GOP’s hard-line stance. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sounded confident that an agreement could be reached ahead of a June 1 deadline to raise the nation’s borrowing limit or risk a global economic catastrophe. Biden gave a similar assessment, though major differences remain between the two sides before a deal can be struck.
White House officials also announced that Biden would be cutting short a visit to Asia as the administration seeks to finalize an agreement. Aides to McCarthy and Biden will negotiate directly, lawmakers said, slimming down the number of parties involved in the talks as the deadline nears.
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| Jake Sullivan |
➤INTRUSION AT NATIONAL SECURITY'S HOME UNDETECTED: The U.S. Secret Service is investigating how a man entered the home of President Biden’s national security adviser in the middle of the night roughly two weeks ago without being detected by agents guarding his house, according to three government officials. The unknown man walked into Jake Sullivan’s home at about 3 a.m. one night in late April and Sullivan confronted the individual, instructing him to leave, two of the people briefed on the incident said. There were no signs of forced entry at the home, according to one of the people. Sullivan has a round-the-clock Secret Service detail. But agents stationed outside the house were unaware that an intruder had gotten inside the home, located in the West End neighborhood of Washington, until the man had already left and Sullivan came outside to alert the agents, the two people said.
UKRAINE FOILS INTENSE RUSSIAN MISSILE ATTACK: Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 18 attempted Russian strikes on Kyiv early Tuesday including six hypersonic missiles, military and city authorities said, largely foiling one of Moscow’s fiercest attacks so far. Residents of the Ukrainian capital were jolted awake about 3 a.m. by cascading booms that shook windows, set off car alarms and delivered a new dose of terror in a city mostly spared from direct damage and destruction in recent months. Falling missile debris injured at least three people in Kyiv and caused damage to the city’s zoo and central neighborhoods, city officials said.
The strikes, which could be heard for over 20 minutes in the capital, were among the most intense in months. The assault “was exceptional in its density — the maximum number of missile attacks in the shortest period of time,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration stated.
A U.S.-made Patriot missile defense system being used by Ukraine likely suffered some damage from a Russian strike, two U.S. officials said on Tuesday, adding that it did not appear to have been destroyed. The Patriot system is one of an array of sophisticated air defense units supplied by the West to help Ukraine repel a Russian campaign of air strikes that has targeted critical infrastructure, power facilities and other sites. One U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity and citing initial information, said Washington and Kyiv were already talking about the best way to repair the system and at this point it did not appear the system would have to be removed from Ukraine. The Patriot is considered to be one of the most advanced U.S. air defense systems, including against aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. It typically includes launchers along with radar and other support vehicles.
➤IRS AGENT REMOVED FROM BIDEN INVESTIGTION: An IRS supervisory agent has been removed from the tax investigation into President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, the agent’s lawyers told lawmakers this week, after claiming to have evidence of political interference in the criminal inquiry. In a letter to House and Senate leaders, lawyers for the Internal Revenue Service supervisor said “his entire investigative team” had also been removed from the inquiry, in what they suggested was retaliation. The supervisor, who is seeking whistleblower protections, was informed that the change was made at the request of the Justice Department, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
While the letter doesn’t name Biden, referring to an investigation into an unidentified “high-profile, controversial subject,” the Journal previously confirmed the claims concern the inquiry into the president’s son. The lawyers sent the letter to congressional leaders on Monday, a month after the IRS supervisor first told lawmakers he had information that the Biden administration was improperly handling the investigation into the president’s son. The long-running investigation has come to focus in recent years on the younger Mr. Biden’s taxes and whether he made a false statement in connection with a 2018 gun purchase.
➤SENATOR HAS LOST IT: Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (right) of California insisted that she had not been absent from the Senate when asked about it by reporters on Tuesday, according to
Slate and
the Los Angeles Times. "No, I haven't been gone," she
told the Times' Ben Oreskes on Tuesday when asked how her Senate colleagues have responded to her return. "You should follow the — I haven't been gone, I've been working." Oreskes then
asked her whether she had been working from home. "No, I've been here. I've been voting," she said. "Please, you either know or don't know."
WH SPOX KJP ABRUPTLY LEAVES PODIUM DURING BRIEFING: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was blasted online for abruptly ending a briefing and 'fleeing her podium' without comment when she was grilled about a recent report on how the FBI handled the Trump-Russia probe. When asked Tuesday about the White House's reaction to the special counsel report, Karine Jean-Pierre said it was a matter for the Department of Justice to speak on. Jean-Pierre closed her briefing book and left the podium without further comment, which sparked outrage online as social media users accused her of ignoring her own history of reportedly pushing the Russia collusion allegation. Special Counsel John Durham's 300-page report, which was released on Monday, found that the Department of Justice and FBI 'failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law' in regards to the investigation of possible collusion with Trump and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.
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