Wake up with the Washington Examiner: Debate, Dobbs, and blue wave – Washington Examiner

Matter of Debate

In the first installment of the Washington Examiner’s Matter of Debate series, White House Reporter Naomi Lim took a look at what President Joe Biden will have to do if he wants to defeat former President Donald Trump again.

The first presidential debate will take place in Atlanta on Thursday, the earliest debate in a presidential contest since the practice began in 1960.

Biden’s record will be on the line as the country tunes in, ostensibly “hoping for a wreck,” South Carolina Democratic state Sen. Dick Harpootlian told Naomi.

“The right-wing pundits are picking at him from being over the hill, too old, disengaged, walks stiffly,” he said. “He needs to show that he’s in command of his faculties, that he can articulate a position that resonates, and, again, who appears to be presidential here? … It’s in Biden’s advantage to remain calm and appear to be presidential and be cogent and focused.”

Those expectations might have set the bar low enough for Biden to step over it and make himself appear to be a more attractive candidate than Trump and Republicans are painting him as.

“Sometimes debates are more about expectations than the debates themselves,” University of Michigan debate director Aaron Kall said. “It’s not a high bar for President Biden to clear, and, if he doesn’t make a major, disqualifying gaffe, he may be perceived as the winner.”

Read the full story here. And catch up on everything you need to know about Thursday’s debate from Congressional Reporter Cami Mondeaux here.

Dobbs anniversary

To mark the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision, Healthcare Reporter Gabrielle Etzel took a look at how the abortion landscape has changed since the Supreme Court sent the authority to set laws governing the procedure back to individual state legislatures.

As part of her survey, she sat down with Erin Hawley, a lawyer and the wife of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), to discuss the ramifications of the historic decision.

“For 50 years under Roe, states have been unable to protect life up until viability, and it was a regime that was more liberal toward abortion or more permissive toward abortion than almost every country in the world,” Erin Hawley, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Washington Examiner in an exclusive interview. “So this was an extremely permissive regime of abortion, and Dobbs changed all that.”

Catch up on the full interview and Gabrielle’s analysis here.

Republicans shrug off signs of a blue wave

Democrats are running up huge scores in contests for control of state legislatures. They are on a roll signing up new voters and are spending cash freely in the effort to do so.

“Democrats have both candidates and money, and they’ve flooded swing states with campaign staffers and canvassers. In Wisconsin, newly drawn state legislative maps have empowered Democrats to recruit candidates for every state Senate seat on the ballot for the first time in over 20 years. The same goes for Florida — where even in the bright-red state, Democrats have recruited candidates to contest every state legislative race for the first time in 30 years,” Breaking News Reporter Emily Hallas wrote.

But Republicans said they weren’t concerned about that. Instead, they said GOP candidates are running on matters most voters are concerned about, mainly addressing the economy, immigration, and crime, as opposed to Democrats’ focus on abortion and LGBT issues.

“The issues Republicans want to talk about are issues, concerns that most ordinary people have to confront in their daily lives,” Wisconsin GOP Chairman David Hann said. “Inflation, economy, immigration, public safety, crime. These are all things that Democrats seem to just ignore.”

Read the full story here.

Merchan ‘man crush’ and Cannon fodder

Almost as discussed as the former president’s historic appearances in courtrooms up and down the Eastern Seaboard are the judges weighing Trump’s future.

And those judges haven’t received equal treatment by legal experts and pundits who have had much harsher words for Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing Trump’s classified documents case, and Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the hush money trial and is responsible for sentencing the former president after he was found guilty on 34 counts related to falsifying business records.

Investigations Editor Sarah Bedford did a deep dive to look at how these officials charged with treating defendants in their courtrooms equally under the law have not received the same benefits themselves.

“Cannon’s decision to allow hearings on a number of challenges from Trump’s defense team in the classified documents case against him, rather than reject those challenges outright, has enraged many legal commentators. They accuse Cannon of giving Trump favorable treatment, sometimes by citing the fact that the former president appointed her to her position,” Sarah wrote. “But the legal punditry had far fewer concerns about the appearance of favorable treatment Merchan displayed toward Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump with 34 felonies related to a years-old hush money arrangement using a novel legal theory. And Merchan had the additional baggage of his small donation to President Joe Biden and the political work his daughter performed for Democrats fundraising off of Trump’s criminal cases.”

Read the full story here.

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Out in Utah

While most of the country has its eyes on the bitter battle for New York’s 16th Congressional District, where Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) could become the first “Squad” member to fall to a primary challenger in Westchester County Executive George Latimer, Congressional Reporter Samantha-Jo Roth is keeping tabs on what’s happening on the other side of the country.

“Voters in Utah will head to the polls this week in primary races that will test former President Donald Trump‘s influence in the state,” she wrote. “While Utah Republicans typically embrace the most conservative candidates, the voters sometimes don’t follow party leaders. Winning a Utah nominating convention only means the candidate will appear on the primary ballot — but it doesn’t mean they become the eventual nominee. Here’s what to know about the state’s marquee races and which Republican candidates have been endorsed by the former president.”

See the full rundown here.