A lunchtime newsletter featuring political analysis on the stories driving the day.

with research by Caroline Anders

A lunchtime newsletter featuring political analysis on the stories driving the day.

Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Until this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s handling of the case of WNBA star Brittney Griner’s case suggested the former KGB officer had coldly calculated his authoritarian regime could outplay and outlast the United States, where public pressure can drive policy.

And why not? That’s also the approach on display when it comes to his war in Ukraine and the resulting international sanctions Putin has defiantly — but also angrily — denounced, while shrugging off the economic damage, as well as reports of heavy Russian losses and accounts of war crimes.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines explained Putin’s attitude to the Senate Armed Services Committee back in May.

Thus far, the coalition has held. There are definite signs of war fatigue in Europe, predictions of greater resistance in Congress to new billions in aid for Ukraine, while Russia leverages Western European thirst for its energy exports to inflict pain on U.S. allies. But it has held.

In the Griner case, Putin has mostly shrugged off American complaints that the WNBA star, who plays in Russia during the league’s off season, was wrongfully detained, a formal designation that makes her case the responsibility of the special U.S. presidential envoy for hostage affairs.

And he had watched as President Biden came under growing public pressure from families of Americans held overseas to do more for their relatives, including Griner, who has pleaded guilty to bringing a small amount of cannabis oil into Russia.

On Wednesday, two things happened.

The Phoenix Mercury star testified that she was pressured to sign documents in Russian, which she does not speak, and received no explanation of her rights or access to a lawyer. She faces 10 years in prison.

And Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the surprise disclosure that the United States had made “a substantial proposal” to Moscow “weeks ago” to spring Griner and another American, security consultant Paul Whelan, from Russian detention.

At the Associated Press, Matthew Lee and Eric Tucker noted that Blinken “did not offer details on the proposed deal outlined to the Russians, though a person familiar with the matter said the U.S. government has offered to trade convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for Whelan and Griner.”

Blinken, who had publicly canceled a February meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov over the war in Ukraine and made a point of shunning him ever since, said he’d be in touch with his counterpart to discuss the matter and other issues in the bilateral relationship.

Moscow said Thursday there was no agreement yet and indulged in what seemed like a little trolling, my colleagues Tyler Pager, Abigail Hauslohner, Karen DeYoung, Shane Harris and Robyn Dixon noted in a big piece on the U.S. strategy.

That might sound a little like the diplomatic “I can’t, I’m washing my hair that night.” But look closely at another Russian response, this one from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, as reported by Reuters.

“So far, there are no agreements in this area,” Peskov told reporters in Moscow. “When discussing such topics, you don't conduct information attacks.”

Information attacks? Does someone sound like they got wrong-footed here? Is this like when, in the run up to Russia’s expanded war in Ukraine, the Biden administration repeatedly released classified intelligence about Moscow’s intent and capabilities to galvanize global opposition?

My colleagues, citing an anonymous Biden administration official, reported the United States went public hoping to restart stalled closed-door negotiations. As a general matter, though, prisoner exchanges tend to happen after conviction.

Which raises the uncomfortable question of to what degree Russia detained Griner tactically, with Bout in mind.

Over at the Guardian, Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth had a bit more Thursday on the prisoner swamp scenario.

“Whelan lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov told the Guardian on Thursday he believed Moscow wanted Bout to be part of a swap for his client.”

“According to Zherebenkov, Russia in 2020 proposed to exchange Whelan for Bout and the Russian pilot /Konstantin Yaroshenko, an offer he claimed was rejected by the US.”

“Zherebenkov said that at the time, an American diplomat met Whelan in prison and said that the trade was ‘unrealistic because Russia will start to kidnap our citizens, illegally accuse them and then trade for them.’”

“Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the end of Roe v. Wade represents a “major loss of rights” for women, a Washington Post-Schar School poll finds, but those who support abortion access are less certain they will vote this fall — a sign of the challenges facing Democrats who hope the issue will motivate their base in the midterms,” Hannah Knowles, Emily Guskin and Scott Clement report.

“Overall consumer spending climbed 1.1 percent in June, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Friday, a significant uptick from the 0.2 percent recorded in May. The BEA’s numbers show that consumers are still spending, albeit more strategically — cutting out unnecessary expenditures to afford fuel and food while inflation hovers at 40-year highs,” Jaclyn Peiser reports.

“Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) declined to commit to backing President Biden for a second term during a podcast interview this week, saying, ‘We just have to wait and see.’ Manchin said it isn’t clear to him that Biden will run again, and he suggested that he could be influenced by the candidate Republicans pick as their nominee,” John Wagner and Mariana Alfaro report.

“The Air Force has grounded its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet today due to a faulty component inside its ejection seat that could prevent the pilot from being able to safely egress from the aircraft during an emergency,” Breaking Defense's Valerie Insinna and Justin Katz report.

“Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake is already telling her supporters not to trust the results of Tuesday’s primary contests in Arizona. Unless, of course, she wins,” Yvonne Wingett Sanchez reports.

“If Lake wins on Tuesday and goes on to take the governorship in this purple state, she has pledged to try to enact election-related policies that could fundamentally upend the way people vote and how their votes are counted. Her stances and comments alarm many current and former election officials and other, more conventional Republicans.”

“Text messages for former President Donald Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are missing for a key period leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to four people briefed on the matter and internal emails,” Carol D. Leonnig and Maria Sacchetti report.

“This discovery of missing records for the senior-most homeland security officials, which has not been previously reported, increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack.”

“A Wisconsin man this week ordered absentee ballots for himself in the names of a mayor and top state lawmaker in what he says was an attempt to expose vulnerabilities in the state’s voting system,” Patrick Marley reports.

“At issue are claims of executive privilege that prosecutors expect the former president to make in order to shield some information from the federal grand jury as the criminal investigation moves deeper into the ranks of White House officials who directly interacted with Trump,” CNN's Evan Perez and Katelyn Polantz report.

“DOJ’s preemptive move is the clearest sign yet that federal investigators are homing in on Trump’s conduct as he tried to prevent the transfer of power to Joe Biden.”

“With updated formulations apparently close at hand, federal officials have decided against expanding eligibility for second boosters of the existing vaccines this summer. The new versions are expected to perform better against the now-dominant Omicron subvariant BA.5, although the data available so far is still preliminary,” the New York Times's Noah Weiland and Sharon LaFraniere report.

“As inflation soared over the last year, Biden and his senior aides repeatedly made clear that they were confident that the Federal Reserve could tame rising prices with higher interest rates and other monetary policy tools,” Jeff Stein and Tony Romm report.

“But with Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell moving aggressively, the White House now faces the prospect that these efforts will prove too much and instead tip the economy into a recession.”

“Top Education Department officials have developed detailed plans to carry out student loan forgiveness for millions of Americans as they wait on President Joe Biden to make a final decision,” according to internal agency documents obtained by Politico's Michael Stratford.

“The documents sketch out the mechanics of how the agency expects to manage and operate a possible mass debt cancellation program on a scale that would be unprecedented in the history of the federal student loan program — if the White House were to give it the green light.”

“The Biden administration disclosed publicly that the United States had made ‘a substantial offer’ to Russia to secure the release of two American prisoners because closed-door negotiations had stalled, an administration official said Thursday,” Tyler Pager, Abigail Hauslohner, Karen DeYoung, Shane Harris and Robyn Dixon report.

“President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke Thursday amid growing tensions between their two countries — most recently over a potential trip to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — but while Chinese officials said Xi aired grievances, the U.S. characterized the call as a basic effort to improve communication,” Cate Cadell, Christian Shepherd and Ellen Nakashima report.

“Here are some ways to think about the economic growth data, against the backdrop of high inflation, a tight labor market and growing risks of a recession,” Alyssa Fowers, Abha Bhattarai and Rachel Siegel report.

“Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips on Thursday said he does not think President Joe Biden should run for reelection in 2024, preferring instead a younger, more ‘dynamic’ Democrat be at the top of the presidential ticket,” MinnPost's Ana Radelat reports.

“In an interview on the Chad Hartman radio show on WCCO-AM, Phillips, who represents Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, was asked if he would support Biden in 2024.”

“No,” Phillips replied, “I think the country would be well-served by a new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats who step up.”

“Let’s imagine that I did share the passion for a third party and wanted to offer guidance on how it might achieve success,” the Bulwark's Tim Miller writes. “The way I see it there are two basic steps for determining viability for a new party in the Trump era.”

“Step One: Answer this question: Does your party offer something that will attract a substantial portion of real-world Trump voters?”

“Step Two: Answer this question again: Does your party offer something that will attract a substantial portion of real-world Trump voters? As it turns out I lied when I said there was a two-part test. It is really only a one-part test but it’s so daunting that I wanted to give it a little bit of time to settle in the ol’ brainy brain.”

The president does not have any public events scheduled this afternoon.

“The D.C. area was treated to a magnificent display including a towering thunderhead, stunning shelf cloud, gorgeous rainbow, amber sunset and bright green fireball,” Capital Weather Gang’s Jason Samenow reports.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.