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Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios

House Democrats are pressuring Biden-district Republicans to support a bill that would counter a federal judge's explosive ruling pausing the FDA's approval of a common abortion drug or face the political fallout.

Why it matters: Nearly a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Democrats' strategy of relentlessly hammering Republicans on abortion has continued to pay dividends.

Driving the news: Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), whose special election victory in August was viewed as the first test of Democrats' post-Roe abortion message, told Axios that he invited all members to co-sponsor his bill reasserting the FDA's authority to approve medications, including the abortion pill mifepristone.

What they're saying: These Republicans have a choice, Ryan told Axios in an interview. "They can stand for freedom, they can sign on to the bill, or not. And it will be noted."

The other side: Molinaro, who lost to Ryan in the special election but was elected to Congress after redistricting, called the ruling "a dangerous precedent."

Between the lines: A senior staffer to another New York Republican pushed back on Ryan's comments by noting that the emails were sent out over Easter and Passover weekend, making it more difficult for offices with observant staffers to respond.

Context: U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a decision last week suspending the FDAs approval of mifepristone. If the ruling takes effect Saturday, manufacturing, selling and distributing the drug in the U.S. would be illegal.

What we're watching: Top Democratic operatives are signaling that the legislation is poised to be a centerpiece of their abortion messaging in 2024.

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Democrats squeeze vulnerable Republicans over abortion pill ruling - Axios

WASHINGTON, DC Patients, caregivers, and practitioners will soon see fewer cures should the Biden Administration move forward with implementing its drug price-setting guidance, write House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (MO-08), House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), and U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Brooks-LaSure.

The members note the guidance will deter product improvements for existing drugs, discourage public-private partnerships, weaken intellectual property protections and fail to provide stakeholders with adequate transparency.

From the letter:

We write to express disappointment and concern with recent implementation guidance for the drug price-setting provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, Pub. L. 117-169). This guidance exacerbates the laws statutory flaws and compounds the profound uncertainty and risk posed by the legislations sweeping drug price controls.

The Administrations guidance clearly values government power and overreach above precedent and statute, at the expense of patients seeking potentially life-saving treatments.

We urge you to work diligently and quickly to address these and other issues as you begin implementing this far-reaching new price control program. The preliminary decisions made through this initial guidance process, if carried out without greater reflection and input from the public, will have dire consequences for American patients for decades to come.

Read the full letter hereor below:

Dear Secretary Becerra and Administrator Brooks-LaSure:

We write to express disappointment and concern with recent implementation guidance for the drug price-setting provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA, Pub. L. 117-169). This guidance exacerbates the laws statutory flaws and compounds the profound uncertainty and risk posed by the legislations sweeping drug price controls. We encourage you to reconsider the many components of the initial guidance that will otherwise stifle medical innovation and quality improvement, discourage proven public-private partnerships, undermine American intellectual property (IP) protections, and provide unacceptable conditions for public feedback. If finalized as proposed, these provisions will serve to make bad policy worse, harming patients, caregivers, and health care providers across the United States for generations to come.

The Administrations guidance clearly values government power and overreach above precedent and statute, at the expense of patients seeking potentially life-saving treatments. In an apparent effort to subject as many medications as possible to the IRAs price-setting program, the guidance uses an unusual definition of qualifying single-source drugs that aggregates entirely different medications according to their active ingredient or moiety, thereby discouraging research into future drug indications. This approach will blunt incentives for meaningful product improvements, in addition to punishing products that treat more than one disease.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) misguided drug definition will chill efforts to mitigate side effects, improve adherence, bolster quality, and identify new uses and patient populations that might benefit from a given product. As outlined by Professor Erika Lietzan in a 2018 study, Development of new uses for already approved drugs, in particular, can make profound contributions to the public health.Another analysis, released that same year, details a lengthy list of examples along these lines, such as a failed attempt to a cancer drug repurposed decades later to become the first breakthrough in AIDS therapy.By reducing complex drugs and biologics to their active ingredients and collapsing new drug applications into a single product for price-setting purposes, the definition included in CMS guidance will decrease the likelihood of these types of groundbreaking developments moving forward. In light of this risk, we urge CMS to adopt a more conventional definition with a credible basis in the statute.

Even more alarmingly, this guidance appears to serve as a backdoor mechanism for achieving partisan policy goals, to the detriment of Americans health care. Specifically, the guidance treats federal financial support at any stage of drug discovery or development as grounds for further price manipulation by the Secretary under the program, resulting in a de facto expansion of so-called march-in authority, as referenced, but never imposed, under the Bayh-Dole Act. This effort comes despite consistent rejections, including by the Biden Administration, of attempts to rely on federal funding for a drug as grounds to impose price controls.In fact, the Bayh-Dole Acts bipartisan authors repeatedly affirmed that their framework aimed to incentivize public-private partnerships and accelerate access to meaningful medical innovations, rather than to discourage such collaborations or to punish innovators and research centers through pricing restrictions. The price-setting programs treatment of federal support risks undercutting private-sector interest in partnering with the government, further harming American patients.

Anti-innovation policymaking pervades the agencys initial guidance. Drugs with longer remaining patent terms or exclusivities, for instance, will see a downward adjustment in their Secretary-mandated prices, inverting the IP incentive structure that has driven most major inventions and breakthroughs since our nations founding. Research and development costs, meanwhile, would receive insufficient consideration during the price-setting process, with a narrow definition that ignores the complexities of drug development. In this way, CMS perpetuates a troubling pattern of mission creep, whereby the agency bypasses Congress and other federal departments to pursue goals outside of its jurisdiction.

In addition to these and other substantive policy concerns with the Administrations drug price-setting program, we also urge CMS to incorporate meaningful transparency and accountability into every stage of the new initiatives implementation. Already, we find the opportunity for public comment and its unduly brief response period leaving patients, caregivers, and other stakeholders inadequate time and opportunity to review and consider the vast new government rules and regulations at stake. CMS should provide longer comment periods and should not attempt to shield any portions of its regulatory proposals from public feedback or engagement. Furthermore, in implementing the price-setting program, the agency has an obligation to extend offers for additional meetings to hear feedback and input directly from those subjected to or otherwise affected by the process. For any number of conditions, from Alzheimers disease and cancer to the 95 percent of rare diseases that currently lack an approved treatment option, CMS must also ensure that patients can play a proactive and consistent role in the decision-making process.

Additionally, we have major concerns with the guidances severe limitations on basic due process protections, including for small businesses. The proposed policies would prohibit the disclosure of materials sent by the agency during the price-setting process, and manufacturers would ultimately need to destroy any such information, effectively undercutting the potential for the predictability, precedent, and stability that govern virtually all adjudication processes. When coupled with the laws broad restrictions on judicial and administrative review, these proposals stifle any opportunity for accountability, program integrity, or recourse for aggrieved parties.

We urge you to work diligently and quickly to address these and other issues as you begin implementing this far-reaching new price control program. The preliminary decisions made through this initial guidance process, if carried out without greater reflection and input from the public, will have dire consequences for American patients for decades to come.

If you have questions about this request, please contact Conor Sheehey of the Senate Finance Committee staff, Alec Aramanda of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Patrick Dumas of the House Committee on Ways and Means.

Sincerely,

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Congressional Republicans Call for Reconsideration of ... - Ways and Means Republicans

The fog of leaks

Fallout continues from the leak of secret US documents related to the war in Ukraine. The leaked info suggests that Egypt, one of the worlds largest recipients of US military aid, planned to secretly supply Russia with tens of thousands of rockets for use in Ukraine and that the United Arab Emirates, also a key US ally, would help Russia work against US and UK intelligence. Egypt and the UAE say these reports are false.

Another document suggests that US eavesdropping on its ally South Korea indicated that aides to South Koreas president had discussed sending artillery shells to the US or Poland for use by Ukraine, a move that would violate South Koreas policy of refusing to export weapons to any country at war.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has claimed that quite a few of the documents in question were fabricated, but he isnt saying whats true and what isnt. The world may never know who leaked these documents, why they were leaked, and which parts of them, if any, were entirely fabricated or partially altered. But the headaches for those who must now repair damaged international relationships are real, and the domestic political fallout for leaders of some of these countries, particularly South Korea, will continue.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Tuesday that hes suing House Republicans for allegedly interfering in the criminal case against former President Donald Trump.

Braggs lawsuit is focused on the actions of Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. In the 50-page suit, Bragg accuses Jordan of a transparent campaign to intimidate and attack the district attorney as his office pursues criminal charges against the former president for allegedly breaking campaign finance laws by making a hush-money payment to a porn star.

House Republicans have demanded that Braggs office hand over documents and testimony related to the Trump case, insisting that the committee has oversight rights. Crucially, Jordan had issued a subpoena for Mark F. Pomerantz a former assistant DA under Bragg who left his job last year after reportedly voicing opposition to a wider tax-and-insurance fraud prosecution of Trump to deliver a closed-door deposition. Bragg is suing to have the subpoena invalidated.

Bragg has sued to block the subpoena saying it amounts to an unconstitutional attempt to undermine an ongoing New York felony criminal prosecution and investigation.

Whatever happens, as this case makes its way through the courts, Jordan will be delayed in getting his hands on the documents and testimony he is seeking.

For almost a week now, protests have raged in the Ethiopian region of Amhara over a federal government plan to absorb local security forces into the national army.

The tensions are only the latest example of how fragmented Africas second most populous country has become. It was just months ago that the government finally reached a peace deal with separatist militants from the region of Tigray, ending a gruesome civil war that had displaced millions.

In that conflict, as it happens, Amharas local forces fought alongside the government, pursuing long-standing grievances and territorial claims against their Tigrayan neighbors.

Now Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed wants to eliminate all regional forces of that kind. For Abiy, its necessary to strengthen national unity. He wont back down, he says, even if a price needs to be paid. But the Amharas worry that without those forces, theyll be vulnerable to fresh attacks from other ethnic groups or the federal government itself.

That puts Abiy in a familiar bind. Five years after popular protests swept him to power with a mandate to liberalize Ethiopias political system, he is still struggling to master the countrys ferocious ethnic and regional rivalries.

Excerpt from:
What Were Watching: Pentagon leak fallout, Manhattan DA sues House Republicans, new source of tension in Ethiopia - GZERO Media

With a Democrat in the White House, Rep. Young Kim is not an influential voice in shaping U.S. foreign and national security policy. But she has sought out opportunities to serve as a link between Americas conservative party and the right-wing government in Seoul. | Olivia Beavers/POLITICO

SEOUL, South Korea When a group of American lawmakers arrived in South Korea for meetings with government and military officials, President Yoon Suk-yeol singled out one in particular for special recognition.

It was not the senior-most official on the trip that would be Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chair but a junior colleague with just three years in office: Rep. Young Kim of California, one of only two Korean American Republicans in Congress.

In a meeting last week at the Yongsan presidential office, the conservative Yoon recognized Kim and thanked her for her efforts on the Hill.

I know enough about the work that youve done, Kim recalled Yoon saying to her during a brief one-on-one exchange. He personally thanked me for that, and that really meant a lot to me.

It was a rewarding moment for a relative newcomer to Washington who has moved to claim a kind of informal diplomatic role linking American lawmakers with the politics of South Korea, the country of her birth.

I consider myself really a bridge builder between our two countries, said Kim, 60, in an interview last week after the delegation toured the demilitarized zone between South Korea and its heavily armed neighbor to the north.

Her bridge-building remains aspirational in many respects. With a Democrat in the White House, Kim is not an influential voice in shaping U.S. foreign and national security policy. But she has sought out opportunities to serve as a link between Americas Conservative Party and the right-wing government in Seoul.

As part of the trip to East Asia intended as a show of support for allies in the region, Kim and her fellow U.S. lawmakers formally delivered an invitation to Yoon to address Congress when he visits Washington later this month. And on a visit to the DMZ, Kim paused to examine the wall outside the U.S. military mess hall there where dignitaries sign their names and quickly found her own signature from a previous visit.

Thank you for fighting to defend our freedom, it read. Kim added an upbeat note of support for the U.S.-South Korea bond: U.S.-ROK Rock! (She used an abbreviation for Republic of Korea, the countrys formal name in English.)

Even Kims symbolic role is complicated, though. She is a prominent Asian American in a party struggling to allay fears among voters of color, including Asian Americans, that Republicans are focused on white voters and overly tolerant of racial bigotry and xenophobia.

A recent blowup on Capitol Hill illustrated this tension in wrenching terms: When Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) questioned the national loyalty of a leading Asian American Democrat, the U.S.-born Rep. Judy Chu of California, Kim sought a private meeting with Gooden. She did not call him out publicly at the time, but said during an interview in Seoul that his comments were inappropriate.

Lance, out of nowhere, started attacking her loyalty. So I said no. Whether or not she is a Democrat or Republican, it didnt matter, Kim said. Dont question someones loyalty when she is born in the U.S., and she has served honorably in her position.

Responding to a request for comment, Gooden showed no contrition and instead chastised Kim.

Rep. Kim requested this private meeting and I believed it was to remain private, Gooden said in a statement. She has betrayed the trust of our visit but as a now-undeserved courtesy to her, I will not further broach some of the other things she said.

Kim was a young teenager when her family made what she has called the difficult decision to leave Seoul for the U.S. Her early days in politics, including time advising former Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), align with the resume she leans on today: focused on Asian American communities and foreign policy.

After ousting a Democratic incumbent to become the first Korean American Republican woman to serve in the California State Assembly, she unsuccessfully challenged then-Rep. Gil Cisneros (D) in 2018 before prevailing in their 2020 rematch.

Since taking office representing a battleground district that favored President Joe Biden in 2020, Kim has diverged from her own party during a few big moments. When anti-Asian rhetoric and acts of racist violence flared during the pandemic, for example, she testified before a House committee to denounce discrimination.

Kim said she saw it as an opportunity to educate my colleagues about how they could talk about the pandemic in a respectful way without deploying provocative terms like China virus. (That concern did not stop her from supporting Trumps reelection in 2020, however.)

In 2021, when the Democratic majority in the House voted to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) of her committee assignments because of her incendiary rhetoric, Kim voted for that punishment.

The chair of the Foreign Affairs Committees Indo-Pacific subpanel has also voted for some bipartisan bills including one that stirred anger in South Korea.

During her visit, Kim confronted frustration with her vote for a bipartisan package of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing incentives that enraged foreign tech manufacturers, powerful Korean conglomerates among them.

Touring a Samsung facility in Seoul, Kim insisted that the U.S. semiconductor law was less offensive to free-trade principles than the Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats massive clean energy-focused law that passed with zero GOP votes. That may or may not have reassured Korean executives.

In the interview, Kim said she had tried to assure them that she was lobbying the Biden administration to ensure countries that have free-trade pacts with the U.S., such as South Korea, receive better treatment under laws that award special benefits to domestic companies.

Issuing subsidies that disadvantage foreign manufacturers, Kim said, is not how we treat one of our biggest trading allies like South Korea.

Linking up with Korean officials may be more realistic for Kim now that Seouls government is more politically aligned with the U.S. GOP.

Back in 2021, Kim and Rep. Michelle Steel of California, the only other Korean American Republican in Congress, joined a small group that met in Washington with then-Korean President Moon Jae-in, a popular liberal then nearing the end of his term. But the dynamic is clearly warmer now.

In an interview, Steel said we are actually working much closer with the Yoon administration than its predecessor, adding: This year its going to be much more comfortable.

It remains to be seen how comfortable the House GOP can be as a home for Steel and Kim, emigres from South Korea whose friendship long predates their service in Congress. These days, both represent districts that Democrats have targeted in recent campaigns.

Steel acknowledged that the womens entry into the congressional Republican ranks hasnt always been smooth.

A lot of people, the first year, they couldnt recognize the differences between Kim and me, she recalled. I had to mention that Im taller than her, I have longer hair than her.

Despite exit polls showing the Asian American electorate generally tilting leftward, Kims anti-communist rhetoric has helped her connect with conservative Asian American voters in her Orange County-area district particularly Vietnamese Americans, who tend to lean more to the right. House Republican leaders, eager to diversify the partys ranks, have pointed to Kim and Steel as valuable messengers and potential models.

What has worked for Kim in her district hasnt quite translated into national success for the GOP, though.

Republicans still havent been able to break through among Asian American voters in other key races, with the fast-growing voting bloc still swinging decisively towards Democrats during the last election in swing states from Georgia to Nevada.

And Kim is plainly still finding her own way in Washington, too, even as Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicts she could rise to become a committee chair or senator.

In an interview, Chu, the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said Kim had initially expressed some interest in joining the all-Democratic group. Membership in CAPAC might have functioned as a useful platform for a junior lawmaker with hopes of closing the gap between the Republican Party and Asian Americans and between the U.S. and East Asia.

But Kim ultimately opted against joining, Chu said, after realizing she would have been outvoted by the groups executive board on any major decision.

Wu reported from Washington.

Read more:
This Korean American Republican is trying to educate her party in ... - POLITICO

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on the 2024 convention in Milwaukee

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel discusses the 2024 Republican National Convention coming to Milwaukee.

Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON The next presidential election will take shape on the shores of Lake Michigan now that Democrats have chosen Chicago to host their 2024 national convention, taking place a month after Republicans will gather in Milwaukee to nominate their presidential nominee.

National Democrats will convene in the Democratic stronghold of Illinois four years after organizing and then calling off the 2020 national convention that was supposed to take place in Milwaukee but was ultimately carried out mostly virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee gave a nod to the importance of Wisconsin and other Midwestern states to its presidential strategy.

"The DNC is returning to the Midwest, a critical Democratic stronghold: Illinois along with Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota part of the blue wall were crucial to the 2020 victory of President Biden and Vice President Harris and to Democrats success in the 2022 midterm elections," party officials said in a statement.

More: Wisconsin House delegation seeks 50% bump in money to cover Milwaukee's security costs for the Republican National Convention

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Madison who will likely be on the ballot in 2024, said Tuesday the recent state Supreme Court race underscored the region's role in Democratic victories.

"The decisive results we saw in our Supreme Court race last week prove that Democrats win when they invest in the Midwest. Thats exactly what our party is doing by hosting our convention here," Baldwin tweeted.

The decision was announced Tuesday after President Joe Biden signaled his support of Chicago over Atlanta and New York City.

Chicago is a great choice to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention, said Biden, who has said he plans to run for re-election in 2024. Democrats will gather to showcase our historic progress including building an economy from the middle out and bottom up, not from the top down."

The Democrats' national convention will take place at the United Center in downtown Chicago from August 19-22 in 2024. Republicans will gather in Milwaukee from July 15 to July 18 largely at Fiserv Forum in the city's downtown.

Fiserv Forum will serve as the centerpiece for the convention, along with a newly expanded Wisconsin Center. Delegates are expected to be housed within 30 minutes of the main convention sites.

More: Milwaukee will host a Republican presidential primary debate, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel confirms

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who lobbied heavily for the Republicans to bring their convention to the city, said Milwaukee could also benefit from the Democratic convention in Chicago.

With the Republicans selecting Milwaukee and Democrats choosing Chicago, it is clear the Midwest is front-and-center this Presidential election cycle. Im happy for Chicago, and I will certainly extend an invitation to Democratic convention goers to come on up to Milwaukee.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in December: "We look forward to our continued work with the beautiful city of Milwaukee to make this convention week a success. Republicans will stand united in Milwaukee in 2024 to share our message of freedom and opportunity with the world."

The local host committee, headed by Reince Priebus, a former White House chief of staff under ex-President Donald Trump, is responsible for raising funds for the event, with a target of $65 million.

On Tuesday, McDaniel said "we look forward to the DNCs convention where their radical agenda will be on full display for the world to see."

"Voters will soundly reject whichever out-of-touch liberal the Democrats nominate in Chicago and instead elect our Republican nominee as the next President of the United States," she said.

Alison Dirr of the Journal Sentinel contributed.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

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Chicago to host DNC a month after Republicans gather in Milwaukee - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel