Post Politics Now: Harris to meet with abortion providers; Biden heading to Asia

Today, House Democrats approved legislation that would bolster the federal government’s ability to target gas price-gouging. The bill seems unlikely to pass in the evenly divided Senate but was intended to send a message that the party cares about the pinch Americans are feeling at the pump and from ongoing inflation. The Senate voted to send a $40 billion Ukraine aid bill to President Biden’s desk.

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Biden, meanwhile, is headed to Asia on his first trip to the region since becoming president following a meeting with the leaders of Sweden and Finland in a show of support for their bids to join NATO. Vice President Harris plans to meet virtually with a group of abortion providers from the White House complex as the Supreme Court weighs the fate of Roe v. Wade.

And counting continues in Pennsylvania in the too-close-to-call Republican primary for U.S. Senate in which celebrity physician Mehmet Oz has a narrow lead over rival David McCormick. Former president Donald Trump has urged Oz to declare victory.

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First lady’s trip to Latin America sets stage for next month’s Summit of the Americas

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First lady Jill Biden stood in the Presidential Palace in Quito, Ecuador, on Thursday and urged the U.S. ally not to ignore the brutality on display in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“We’ve seen countries rise up against tyrants and offer shelter to their neighbors,” the first lady said, all but naming Russian President Vladimir Putin by name, as she spoke of her experience visiting Ukrainian refugees and meeting with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, less than two weeks before. “Yes, we are connected — especially in the Americas. If one nation is vulnerable to authoritarianism, or a health crisis, or poverty, it won’t be long before those same problems reach all of us.”

Biden is on the second day of her multination tour of Latin America, which will take her to visit three solid U.S. allies: Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica.

The events occurring 7,000 miles away in Ukraine, she said, were far closer than they may appear for this unstable region, where neighboring countries may be ruled by dictators, a new wave of socialist presidents or relatively conservative proponents of U.S. style democracy, like Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso.

Biden was on a mission to set the stage for the Summit of the Americas, which the United States will host early next month; the first time since the inaugural summit in 1984.

But the lead-up to the summit has not been free from controversy. The United States’ ban of the nondemocratic rulers of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba has led to threatened boycotts from other Latin leaders, including by Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The first lady’s visit to three of the United States’ best partners is a way of ensuring “at least a minimal presence” at the summit, says Ryan C. Berg, a senior fellow in the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) — who agrees with the dictators being barred.”

To that point, Biden told the crowd, “When nations here in South America embrace democracy, they become the living proof that governments can deliver for the people that they represent — inspiring others to follow their lead.”