| | | | | |  | | By Elana Schor | Presented by Facebook | SITTING IN JUDGMENT — He's probably never heard of Olivia Rodrigo, but Mitch McConnell is delivering his own cover of "Déjà Vu." The Senate minority leader's Monday affirmation that he would block a Biden Supreme Court nominee in 2024 if the GOP took back power — in other words, he'd replay 2016 — is a cold glass of water in the face of Democrats. But McConnell also might be doing his opponents a favor. That's because Democrats have spent springtime searching for a breakthrough on a long list of White House priorities, from infrastructure to policing to voting rights, with little success so far. The one front that Democratic senators seem to feel genuinely good about, as POLITICO's Marianne LeVine will report Tuesday morning, is their progress on judicial confirmations. Marianne was kind enough to let me give you an early look at the numbers: Democrats inherited fewer vacancies on the federal bench (82) than former President Donald Trump and McConnell did (112). But they're making decent headway so far, with 19 nominees tapped by President Joe Biden this year and several already confirmed, including the first Muslim in the federal judiciary, Zahid Quraishi of New Jersey.
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The U.S. Supreme Court is seen through security fencing in Washington. | Getty Images | Democrats could "easily" confirm judges as fast as the GOP did under Trump, Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told Marianne. Yet all that momentum might not spare the party a déjà vu moment as crushing as Olivia's, if Republicans net the single Senate seat that they need to take back power next fall and a Supreme Court seat comes open in 2023 or 2024. Anyone hoping McConnell might behave differently 18 months before the 2024 election than he did 10 months before the 2020 election is almost certainly hoping in vain. Democratic senators aren't yet putting overt pressure on Justice Stephen Breyer to retire, but Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) went there on Sunday. McConnell's latest comments might inspire more direct nudging from members of Biden's party. If Breyer can be coaxed to make the decision that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg didn't back in 2014 , Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson — confirmed tonight to Attorney General Merrick Garland's seat on the D.C. Court of Appeals — is waiting in the wings as a natural successor. She'd be the first Black woman tapped for the nation's highest court, fulfilling a Biden campaign promise, if she's chosen. Of course, that doesn't mean Jackson would face as easy a path to the Supreme Court as she did to the appellate bench. Justice Amy Coney Barrett won three Democratic votes in 2017 for her own appellate court nomination. When Trump picked Barrett for the high court three years later, every Senate Democrat voted no. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at eschor@politico.com, or on Twitter at @eschor.
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– Reforming Section 230 | | | | | | — DOJ national security chief to step down amid leak probe furor: John Demers, who has headed the division since February 2018, will be the last Senate-confirmed Trump appointee to leave the Justice Department . While he focused on combating Chinese intellectual property theft and espionage, his departure comes as the department draws scorching criticism for seizing reporters' phone records as part of an investigation into leaks during the Trump administration. — Supreme Court: First Step Act snubs some drug offenders: A widely touted 2018 law aimed at reducing sentences for drug offenders and addressing racial disparities in punishment offers no relief to many serving long federal prison terms, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously today. The justices held that while the First Step Act allows retroactive reductions for those serving mandatory-minimum drug sentences, it does not apply to cases where judges had greater discretion but still imposed long terms. — Greene visits Holocaust Museum as House girds for retaliatory censure fight: Freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene paid a visit to the Holocaust museum today in a bid to defuse the controversy over her comments comparing vaccine and mask requirements to Nazi Germany. — NATO commits to training Afghan forces after U.S. withdrawal: NATO leaders have committed to continue to provide training and financial support to the Afghan security forces , Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during the alliance's meeting in Brussels today. The announcement ends speculation over what will happen to the NATO training mission in Afghanistan once U.S. and NATO forces leave the country by September. Pentagon officials have said the United States will end its own training program after the withdrawal, although Washington will continue funding the Afghan forces. — Novavax's coronavirus vaccine proves more than 90 percent effective: Novavax announced today its coronavirus vaccine was 90.4 percent effective in preventing Covid-19 cases and 100 percent effective in preventing moderate to severe disease in phase 3 trials, putting it on the same playing field as highly effective mRNA shots. The trials, which included 29,960 people in the U.S. and Mexico, were conducted when more transmissible variants were spreading, and the Alpha variant, first discovered in the U.K., became dominant in the U.S. — Virginia couple pleads guilty in Capitol riot: A Virginia couple today became the third and fourth defendants to plead guilty in the sprawling investigation stemming from the Capitol riot in January. However, Jessica and Joshua Bustle of Bristow, Va., became the first to plead guilty in federal court who faced only misdemeanor charges as a result of their actions at the Capitol as lawmakers were attempting to certify President Joe Biden's electoral college victory.
| | | | DON'T MISS THE MILKEN INSTITUTE FUTURE OF HEALTH SUMMIT: POLITICO will feature a special edition of our Future Pulse newsletter at the 2021 Milken Institute Future of Health Summit. The newsletter takes readers inside one of the most influential gatherings of global health industry leaders and innovators who are turning lessons learned from the past year into a healthier, more resilient and more equitable future. Covid-19 threatened our health and well-being, while simultaneously leading to extraordinary coordination to improve pandemic preparedness, disease prevention, diversity in clinical trials, mental health resources, food access and more. SUBSCRIBE TODAY to receive exclusive coverage from June 22-24. | | | | | | | | | 
| JOE THE FLATTERER — Two days before he talks to Russia's leader, Biden today sought to tamp down expectations of the long-anticipated meeting by acknowledging that Vladimir Putin is a "worthy adversary," Anita Kumar and Myah Ward write. "I have met with him. He's bright. He's tough," Biden said. "And I have found that he is a, as they used to say when I used to play ball, a worthy adversary." When Biden was asked whether he still thinks Putin is a killer, as he has previously said, the president laughed for several seconds. "I believe he is, in the past, essentially acknowledged that he was, there were certain things that he would do or he did do," he said. "But look, when I was asked that question on air, I answered it honestly. I don't think it matters a whole lot in terms of this next meeting we're about to have."
| | | |   | | | | | | | | 24 percent The percentage of New York City voters who would rank Eric Adams first in the upcoming ranked-choice voting mayoral primary, according to a new poll sponsored by WNBC, Telemundo 47 and POLITICO . Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, would win with 56 percent by the 12th round of ranked-choice voting. Former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia would last until the final round, when she would lose to Adams by 12 points, Marist College found in polling 876 likely primary voters from June 3-9. | | | | | | JOIN TUESDAY FOR A CONVERSATION ON REOPENING THE U.S.-CANADA BORDER : It's been more than one year since the border between the U.S. and Canada first closed to non-essential travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The unprecedented and ongoing closure imposed economic and social costs in border communities and across both countries. Join POLITICO for an urgent conversation on what's at stake in the border closure, what it will take to reopen safely, and how the pandemic will change the border in the long term. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | GRAB YOUR DECODER RING — Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky may need to get better at Twitter. Chiming into the NATO summit Twitter conversation, the Ukrainian leader tweeted this afternoon that Ukraine "will become a member of the Alliance" — a juicy-sounding claim some interpreted to mean Ukraine would be joining the alliance immediately. If true, that claim would upend Wednesday's Biden-Putin head-to-head summit. Instead, the alliance merely reiterated a 2008 commitment that Ukraine will one day become a member, and Biden later confirmed — at a press conference held two hours behind schedule — that Ukraine did not yet meet NATO membership criteria. In the summit communique, NATO members stopped short of labeling China a threat, but did little else to conceal their concerns, referencing "systemic competition from assertive and authoritarian powers." The allies criticized Russia directly, saying it has "intensified its hybrid actions against NATO Allies and partners, including through proxies." Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi kept up the anti-Trump tone of the European leaders. Draghi stressed that "President Biden's first visit is to Europe" and asked journalists to "try to remember where President Trump's first visit was." The answer: Saudi Arabia. As NATO finalized upped its cyber defense plans, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance will ready itself to respond jointly to any attacks against members in space. Read more from Ryan Heath and POLITICO reporters from around the globe on the issues and decisions coming out of Brussels this week.
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