The Biden administration is heading into this week’s Senate impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas projecting confidence that the Democratic-controlled chamber will quickly dispose of the matter.

Privately, they aren’t scrambling either.

White House officials have not reached out to the few moderate Senate Republicans most likely to side with them in the first impeachment of a Cabinet secretary in nearly 150 years.

“We speak to the administration from time to time. We haven’t spoken on that topic,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) last week.

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Vice President Kamala Harris lambasted Donald Trump on Friday as being responsible for erasing abortion rights in the country, one of her most direct attacks on the former president so far as abortion has taken center stage in the upcoming election.

“We all must understand who is to blame. Former President Donald Trump did this,” Harris said at a campaign event in Tucson, Arizona. “During his campaign in 2016, Donald Trump said women should be punished for seeking an abortion.”

Harris’ campaign trip to Arizona comes just days after the state’s high court upheld a 160-year-old law outlawing abortions unless the patient’s life is in danger. Harris blamed Trump in a statement following the ruling, saying, “It’s a reality because of Donald Trump, who brags about being ‘proudly the person responsible' for overturning Roe v. Wade.”

Trump criticized the Arizona ruling as going too far, just days after he said abortion should be left up to states to decide and that he wouldn’t support a federal ban on the procedure. He doubled down in a Truth Social post just hours before Harris’ event Friday, calling for Arizona officials “to remedy what has happened.”

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The Biden administration is moving to expand background checks for gun purchases, fulfilling a key demand of advocates following the deadly shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas.

The final rule, expected to be submitted Thursday to the Federal Register by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, would eliminate a loophole that has allowed sales of guns without background checks of guns outside of brick-and-mortar stores.

The rule was issued under a provision of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. It requires that anyone who sells guns for profit to have a license and that buyers be subject to a background check, including at firearms shows and flea markets. The administration had been working on the rule since last spring. Once publicized, it will take effect in 30 days.

The so-called gun show loophole has for years allowed unlicensed gun dealers to sell firearms without background checks at gun shows, on the internet and out of their homes. The new rule, the most sweeping expansion of firearms background checks in decades, will apply to more than 20,000 individuals engaged in unlicensed gun dealing and affect “tens and tens of thousands of gun sales” each year, an administration official told reporters during a call previewing the announcement.

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Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Tucson, Arizona on Friday just days after the state’s Supreme Court upheld one of the nation’s most far-reaching abortion bans, according to an aide to President Joe Biden.

The campaign trip, which was already in the works prior to the court decision, will likely take on a heightened focus on abortion rights and access. On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a 160-year old law that outlawed abortion at any stage unless the life of the mother was in danger. There are no exceptions for either rape or incest.

Abortion rights groups said last week that they have enough signatures to put an abortion access ballot initiative up for a vote this November.

Former President Donald Trump announced he would support state-based decisions on abortion laws on Monday. The Biden campaign has accused Trump of not ruling out a national ban and pledged to lay every state-specific anti-abortion measure at his feet.

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NEW YORK — A New York appeals court judge on Monday rejected Donald Trump’s bid to delay his April 15 hush money criminal trial while he fights to move the case out of Manhattan — foiling the former president’s latest attempt to put off the historic trial.

Justice Lizbeth González of the state’s mid-level appeals court made her ruling after an emergency hearing in which Trump’s lawyers asked to postpone the trial indefinitely while they seek a change of venue. Trump was seeking an emergency stay, a court order that would prevent the trial from starting on time.

The hush money trial is the first of Trump’s four criminal indictments slated to go to trial and would be the first criminal trial ever of a former president.

Trump lawyer Emil Bove argued that the presumptive Republican nominee faces “real potential prejudice” as a defendant in heavily Democratic Manhattan. Citing defense surveys and a review of media coverage, Bove argued that jury selection, scheduled to start next Monday, “cannot proceed in a fair manner.”

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When Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for a television interview over the weekend, she took a step no other administration official had done so far: She did not rule out “consequences” for Israel if it launched a full-scale invasion of Rafah in its war against Hamas.

It was the latest in a series of blunt remarks from Harris criticizing Israel's military campaign. And she has consistently gone further than President Joe Biden by at least half a step.

At the end of last year, she said Israel had a right to defend itself but criticized its methods in the aftermath of Oct. 7. In Selma this month, she called the humanitarian situation in the region a “catastrophe.” And in the interview this weekend, she didn’t dismiss a possible backlash as the administration continues to warn Israel against a major invasion of Rafah.

The West Wing has supported Harris’ willingness to nudge out slightly ahead of Biden, who spent decades as one of the Senate’s foremost supporters of Israel and has been loath to appear like he is turning his back on the country even amid his growing disdain for its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, two administration officials not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions said Harris’ remarks have created more space for Biden to slowly — and privately — offer his own rebukes of Netanyahu and his conduct of the war.

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Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday pushed back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Ukraine had a hand in a terrorist attack in Moscow that killed at least 133 people.

"No," Harris said, when asked by ABC’s Rachel Scott if the U.S. had any evidence of Ukrainian involvement in the attack on a concert hall in Russia’s capital Friday night. "And first, let me start by saying what has happened is an act of terrorism and the number of people who've been killed is obviously a tragedy and we should all send our condolences to those families."

"No, there is no, whatsoever, any evidence and, in fact, what we know to be the case is that ISIS-K is actually, by all accounts, responsible for what happened," Harris added.

Putin suggested Ukrainian forces were involved during a televised address Saturday night. Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the massacre, while the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan has claimed responsibility for what’s become one of the deadliest attacks on Russian soil in recent years.

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Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday announced new gun safety initiatives from Parkland, Florida, after walking through the old Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School building, where 17 people were killed by a gunman in 2018.

The vice president was in the state Saturday to meet with victims’ families and to see the high school, which was preserved as evidence for the shooter’s trial that concluded in late 2022. The building will be demolished this summer.

Harris, who spent hours inside the building on Saturday, walked up to the podium for her remarks as the Parkland families stood behind her holding photos of their late children.

“I will say thank you to the leaders of this community, starting with these families. This school is soon going to be torn down. But the memory of it will never be erased,” Harris said. “And let us through the courage and the call to action of these families find it in ourselves to consider what they’ve been through as some level of motivation and inspiration for all of us.”

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Vice President Kamala Harris walked through a former crime scene in Florida on Saturday and met with affected families, more than six years after a gunman killed 14 students and three teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

No one has occupied the building since the 2018 shooting in Parkland, Florida. It remains untouched, with coursework still scattered on desks from that day. Harris, accompanied by Greg Jackson and Rob Wilcox, the deputy directors of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, saw shattered glass, walls covered with bullet holes and blood-stained floors as she walks the path of the shooter. Officials will demolish the building this summer.

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter, Jaime, was killed in the shooting, helped push the White House to show up for a walkthrough and met with Harris. A senior adviser to Brady United Against Gun Violence, he talked with POLITICO about why he sees this moment as vital for the gun violence movement.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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MIAMI — President Joe Biden’s campaign is giving Florida Democrats a few encouraging signs that the conservative-leaning state — once a key battleground that both parties intensely fought over — still matters.

But only a few.

Vice President Kamala Harris will visit Parkland, Florida, on Saturday to address gun safety. Biden's reelect will launch digital ads on the Affordable Care Act targeting several demographics and will go on the air to reach Latino voters. And the campaign also intends to hire three senior-level staff for the state.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried told reporters earlier this week that the state party had “complete confirmation that the Biden campaign, as well as national surrogates and national partners, will be investing dollars here.”

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When Nikki Haley exited the presidential race earlier this month, she issued what sounded like an ultimatum: Donald Trump needed to “earn the votes of those who did not support him,” and it was “now his time for choosing.”

So far, Trump hasn’t chosen to do much for the sake of reconciliation after calling for the party to come together. In fact, he hasn’t reached out to Haley or some of her top allies at all.

Art Pope would know. The former chair of Americans for Prosperity, the anti-Trump Republican outfit that boosted Haley in the primary, and a top GOP donor who backed Haley himself, told POLITICO the Trump campaign hasn’t reached out to him.

It’s been less than two weeks since Haley dropped out. But the lack of contact is indicative of rifts that persist even after Trump officially became the presumptive nominee this week. Trump beat Haley decisively. But the voters who supported her include whole swaths of Trump-averse conservatives who have suggested they may not throw their votes to him in the fall, a liability for the former president.

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Vice President Kamala Harris called the current classification of marijuana under federal law "absurd" during a White House event on Friday, and said she is looking forward to seeing what the Drug Enforcement Administration decides about moving it to a different category.

"I'm sure DEA is working as quickly as possible and will continue to do so, and we look forward to the product of their work," Harris said at the beginning of a roundtable discussion on cannabis policy with Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.), a handful of people who received pardons from President Joe Biden for low level cannabis offenses and rapper Fat Joe.

The vice president's comments came as anticipation builds for the DEA to release its final decision on the Department of Health and Human Services' recommendation to move marijuana — or cannabis with more than 0.3 percent THC — to a less restrictive schedule under the Controlled Substances Act. Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule I narcotic — the same as LSD and heroin — which means it's deemed to have no acceptable medical uses and a high propensity for abuse.

The White House event is the latest sign that the Biden administration plans to tout its efforts to overhaul federal marijuana policies ahead of the presidential election. Biden also cited his moves to pardon federal marijuana offenders and loosen federal weed restrictions during last week's State of the Union address. A whopping 70 percent of Americans back marijuana legalization, and that position is particularly popular with young voters, a crucial demographic that Biden is struggling to maintain support from.

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CHICAGO — More than three dozen Arab, Muslim and Palestinian-American leaders blasted a White House effort to meet with community organizations in Chicago over the administration's position on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

In a joint letter addressed to the White House, the groups criticized the outreach as a bid to “whitewash months of White House inaction,” arguing there was no point in agreeing to more meetings until President Joe Biden changes his approach to the conflict.

“We are interested in serious action,” the letter sentto the White House and obtained by POLITICO said. “That is what history will judge us by, not more token meetings when every day is of the essence.”

While some leaders still planned to meet with White House officials, several people involved with the letter confirmed they had declined the invitation to the White House meeting. The Coalition for Justice in Palestine, which includes Chicago's six main Arab and Palestinian groups, organized the letter. Dozens more groups and individuals have signed on, including prominent community leaders and Democratic state Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid, the first Palestinian-American to serve in the Illinois General Assembly.

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The Biden administration and its allies used to reserve their criticisms of Israel for private conversations. No longer.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s floor speech Thursday, criticizing Israel for failing to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and calling for a new election there, served as the capstone to a monthslong U.S. pressure campaign that has moved from the shadows into the public sphere. For Schumer, a typically pro-Israel voice and the highest-ranking Jewish official in American history, to make such comments is a green light for any Israel critic to say their piece.

Schumer’s remarks, which he shared beforehand with the White House, come as the Biden administration has intensified its public criticism of Israel’s retaliation against Hamas. Initial full-throated defenses have given way to calls for a six-week cease-fire, the prompt release of hostages held by militants and a greater emphasis on civilian protection.

Together, it’s a signal that sympathetic figures like President Joe Biden and Schumer have lost patience with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war he has led in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

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Vice President Kamala Harris will visit a Planned Parenthood clinic that performs abortions in Minnesota on Thursday, according to two White House officials, as abortion access continues to be a key issue in the upcoming election.

Her visit, first reported by NBC News and confirmed by POLITICO, will mark the first time a vice president or president has been to a clinic that provides the procedure.

A White House official said Harris will walk through through the facility and give remarks to “reject proposals to enact a national abortion ban, outline how the Biden-Harris administration has worked to safeguard reproductive freedoms, and highlight how advocates and elected leaders in states like Minnesota have worked to protect reproductive rights since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”

It comes as part of her nationwide “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour, which was announced in December and kicked off in Wisconsin on the 51st Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Harris has made stops in Arizona, California, Georgia and Michigan, as abortion and contraception access are becoming a key part of President Joe Biden’s reelection strategy.

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Vice President Kamala Harris called for “an immediate cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas fighting during an event Sunday in Alabama that was to commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

"Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate cease-fire at least for the next six weeks, which is currently on the table," she told the Selma crowd, drawing loud applause.

Harris was referring to a six-week pause in the fighting that would allow for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. But the vice president also pressed Israel to do more to increase the flow of aid.

“No excuses,” she said, calling the situation in Gaza a "humanitarian catastrophe."

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