If it’s TUESDAY… President Biden remains in California, where he speaks on Artificial Intelligence at 4:00 pm ET and then hits two more campaign fundraisers… Donald Trump tells Fox News why he didn’t turn over documents, per NBC’s Jake Traylor: “Because I had boxes I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out”… Senate Democrats plan abortion-rights push to mark one-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade’s overturn, NBC’s Ali Vitali reports… Vice President Harris sits down for an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid… And it’s Primary Day in Virginia for the state’s legislative races.
But FIRST... Think of him as Kanye West — but running in a presidential primary instead of as an independent general-election candidate.
Or maybe as present-day Tulsi Gabbard — but without the previous service in elected office or military credentials she had in 2019-2020.
Or as that man who got 41% of the vote against Barack Obama in West Virginia’s 2012 Democratic primary — but instead with a famous father and a famous last name.
That’s the way to view Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bid challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination.
He’s a man without a party, given how his views on vaccines, Covid and Ukraine are antithetical to where the vast majority of Democrats are on those issues.
“Kennedy has his vocal supporters — anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, internet contrarians, billionaire tech bros, Camelot nostalgists and right-wing provocateurs who seem to be pumping Kennedy as a spoiler candidate,” NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny writes.
“Recent polls show him making a dent against an incumbent whom many voters see as too old.” (Last week’s Quinnipiac poll showed him getting 17% among Democratic voters, compared with Biden’s 70%.)
Zadrozny adds that Kennedy bristles at skepticism about his presidential chances.
“Tell me something,” he says, “did you think Donald Trump would win?”
Yet Donald Trump — by 2015 — was the most vocal Barack Obama opponent in a political party that was universally anti-Obama and anti-Hillary Clinton.
By contrast, it’s hard to think of an issue Kennedy champions that rank-and-file Democratic voters universally support.
Bottom line: Democrats know he’s not a Democrat.
In politics, you’re defined by the company you keep.
And Kennedy’s company — Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Fox News — isn’t today’s Democratic Party.
Headline of the day
Data Download: The number of the day is … 66
That’s how many candidates Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin has endorsed in this year’s state legislative elections — 46 candidates for the House of Delegates and 20 for state Senate. While some have prevailed in earlier nominating contests, others will be competing for the GOP nod in Tuesday’s primaries.
Tuesday’s contests will be early tests for Youngkin’s political operation and brand as he still weighs a presidential run. Two key races to watch include the GOP primaries in Senate District 27, where Del. Tara Durant faces restaurant owner Matt Strickland, and Senate District 17, where Del. Emily Brewer faces former NASCAR driver Hermie Sadler. Youngkin has endorsed Durant and Brewer and both races will be key battlegrounds come November. Those elections later this year could provide some clues about 2024 — as well Youngkin’s own political future.
Other numbers to know:
$600 million: How much money the Biden administration plans to spend on “climate adaptation projects,” the president announced during a trip to California Monday, per the Washington Post.
2: The number of times one of Washington D.C. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser’s former top advisers sexually harassed a female staffer, per a new city investigation reported on by The Washington Post.
6: The number of people who died in a series of severe storms across the South over the weekend.
5: How many people were aboard a research vessel visiting the submerged Titanic and are now missing.
80%: The portion of their volume that Himalayan glaciers could lose this century if greenhouse gasses aren’t sharply reduced, a report found.
50%: The rate at which eviction filings have increased from pre-pandemic levels, per an Associated Press report.
Eyes on 2024: Trump meets the press
Former President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Fox News that aired Monday evening, the first time he’s been specifically pressed on the allegations levied in the federal indictment against him.
Asked why he didn’t hand over documents to the government after he was subpoenaed, Trump replied, per NBC’s Jake Traylor: “I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don’t want to hand that over to NARA yet. And I was very busy.”
He denied showing classified material to people during a meeting with a book publisher (the indictment claims Trump showed the meeting attendees a “plan of attack” that audio shows Trump called “secret” and “highly confidential”), telling Fox’s Bret Baier “I didn’t have a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles.”
And he was broadly pressed about his past comments about the importance of protecting classified information, as well as how so many of his former administration officials are now critical of him.
The almost line-by-line interrogation concerning the allegations against him are a stark reminder of the legal woes Trump faces in this case — a federal judge Monday just ordered Trump not to share evidence from the discovery process with anyone, keep it, or post it on social media.
And the classified documents case might not even be Trump’s only federal liability — the Washington Post just published a deep dive into the origins of the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attacks as well as the attempts to overturn the election (the key finding was that the Justice Department and the FBI were slow to investigate Trump and his allies because of “A wariness about appearing partisan, institutional caution” and the high bar needed to justify investigating a former president).
In other campaign news:
The Golden State: Both President Joe Biden and Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis traveled to California Monday to fundraise for their 2024 presidential campaigns.
The anniversary of Roe: NBC News’ Monica Alba and Mike Memoli report that the White House is readying a series of events and appearances to mark the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade. And Senate Democrats plan to mark the anniversary with new legislationon access to contraception and birth control, as well as protections for doctors and for those traveling across state lines to receive an abortion.
Oh man, Oman: The New York Times reports on Trump backing a plan to sell villas in Oman, a plan “underscoring how his business and his politics intersect as he runs for president again amid intensifying legal and ethical troubles.”
Opportunity in Opportunity Zones: NBC News’ Ali Vitali reports that South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott is out with a new ad that focuses on his “opportunity zones” legislation and playing up how former President Trump signed it during his administration.
A little help from his friends: The Messenger reports that Nuestro PAC, a pro-Biden group aimed at helping the president with Latino voters, is re-launching and plans to spend $37 million to help Biden.
The call is coming from inside the House (Republicans): House Republicans want to ban the Defense Department from releasing summaries of military service records to the public after an investigation found records of GOP politicians were improperly released during the 2022 campaign, per NBC News’ Courtney Kube.
Judgment time: Three progressive prosecutors are also facing challenges in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries in Virginia, and the contests are “part of a flood of district attorney elections over the next two years,” writes NBC News’ Scott Bland.
ICYMI: What ELSE is happening in the world
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC News that “the chapter should be closed” on the spy balloon incident between China and the U.S.
Despite the publicity around governments and companies providing weapons to Ukraine, many of the weapons shipped to the country arrive broken or too old and worn down to use, the New York Times reports.
The FBI and Department of Justice delayed the start of their investigation into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol for more than a year, the Washington Post reports.
