Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.
In today’s edition, we examine the political implications of the Biden administration's decision to reclassify marijuana. Plus, national political correspondent Steve Kornacki breaks down how Donald Trump seems to have broken through his 2020 polling ceiling.
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Biden administration plans to reclassify marijuana, easing restrictions nationwide
By Julie Tsirkin, Monica Alba and Adam Wollner
President Joe Biden is making a big election-year move on weed.
His administration will take a historic step toward easing federal restrictions on cannabis, with plans to announce an interim rule soon reclassifying the drug for the first time since the Controlled Substances Act was enacted more than 50 years ago, four sources with knowledge of the decision tell NBC News.
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The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve an opinion by the Department of Health and Human Services that marijuana should be reclassified from the strictest Schedule I to the less stringent Schedule III, the first time that the U.S. government would acknowledge its potential medical benefits and begin studying them in earnest.
What rescheduling means: Since 1971, marijuana has been in the same category as heroin, methamphetamines and LSD. Schedule III substances include Tylenol with codeine, steroids and testosterone.
By rescheduling cannabis, the drug would now be studied and researched to identify concrete medical benefits, opening the door for pharmaceutical companies to get involved with the sale and distribution of medical marijuana in states where it is legal.
Years in the making: Biden directed HHS in October 2022 — just before the midterm elections — to review marijuana’s classification. He also took executive action to pardon thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law.
Biden even made history this past spring by referring to marijuana for the first time in a State of the Union address.
When Biden served as vice president, the Obama White House was opposed to any legalization of marijuana because it would “pose significant health and safety risks to all Americans.” But Biden said he would “decriminalize cannabis use” during the 2020 campaign.
Growing public support: Biden hopes his position on pot will provide him with a boost six months out from the election.
A Gallup poll from October of last year found that a record 70% of adults said the use of marijuana should be legal. That number stood at 79% among those under the age of 35 and 72% among people of color — critical voting blocs that Biden has lost ground with over the past four years.
Where Trump stands: Former President Donald Trump has stated that the issue of marijuana legalization should be left up to each state.
He has acknowledged that legalizing marijuana is a “pretty popular thing” among voters, but also questioned its helpfulness to people who use it. The Trump administration took several anti-cannabis actions, including rescinding an Obama-era policy that directed officials not to pursue marijuana-related prosecutions in states where the drug is legal.
Trump trial, Day 9: Judge threatens Trump with jail after holding him in contempt for violating gag order
The judge presiding over the hush money case on Tuesday held Trump in criminal contempt over a series of posts on Truth Social that he said violated a gag order barring any attacks on jurors and witnesses and warned the former president he could be jailed for further violations.
Judge Juan Merchan ruled Trump in contempt for nine violations of his gag order, with a fine of $1,000 for each instance. He warned in the decision that he would not tolerate further violations of the order and said “if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances,” he would impose “an incarceratory punishment.”
Meanwhile, a key witness took the stand to describe in detail how the hush money transactions at the center of the trial came together. prosecutors called on Keith Davidson, the lawyer who represented both Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, two women who said they had sexual encounters with Trump and were paid to keep quiet about their allegations during the 2016 presidential election. Trump has denied both women’s claims.
Eric Trump was in court with his father on Tuesday, the first time a Trump family member has shown up in court since the trial began over two weeks ago.
Trump may be breaking through his 2020 polling ceiling
By Steve Kornacki
This week’s national CNN poll marks the continuation of a trend that’s become apparent in one survey after another this year: Trump’s level of support is markedly and consistently higher than it ever was in the 2020 campaign.
CNN’s poll has the former president at 49% and Biden at 43% among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup. That 6-point Trump edge may itself be an outlier, as no other recent poll has him ahead by such a margin. But what isn’t much of an outlier is the finding that Trump’s own level of support is in the high-40s. CNN’s previous poll in January also had Trump at 49%. And at least five reputable nonpartisan surveys since late March have also shown Trump running at or above 47%.
This is a far cry from the last Trump-Biden campaign. From the first day of 2020 right up to Election Day, there were just five reputable nonpartisan polls total that ever showed Trump reaching 47%. In none of these did Trump poll above 47%.
Our own NBC News poll earlier this month put Trump at 46%, and in our previous poll in January he was at 47%. Compare this to the 11 polls we sponsored in 2020 — in none of them did Trump break 44%.
Another way of measuring this: In the RealClearPolitics national polling average, Trump is currently at 46.6%. And his high-water mark this year in the RCP average is 47.8%, a level he reached late last month. By comparison, in 2020, Trump’s average support topped out at 45.6%, which he briefly attained in the early days of the pandemic. From April onward, he never surpassed 44.2%. Trump ended up outperforming his poll numbers on Election Day, winning 46.8% of the vote nationally.
All of this speaks to the question of Trump’s ceiling. With so many voters turned off to him (for years now, our poll has found at least 50% of them expressing a negative view of Trump), is there a critical chunk of them that simply won’t vote for him, no matter how discontented with Biden they may feel?
In 2020, polling consistently indicated this was the case. It was almost universally accepted — and turned out to be true — that Trump would soundly lose the popular vote to Biden and that his only chance of victory would come through an Electoral College bank shot.
Biden’s own level of support throughout the 2020 campaign was notable, too. He regularly attained outright majorities. Here, for instance, is how Biden’s support looked in NBC News’ 2020 polling.
But so far this year, Biden has notched just 42% and 44% support in our polling. And his RealClearPolitics average has yet to exceed 46.5%.
Whether it’s enough to reverse the outcome remains to be seen, but the numbers this time around are telling us that Trump’s ceiling may be higher than it used to be, and that Biden’s may have been lowered.
🗞️ Today’s top stories
- 🕛 Trump in Time: During Trump’s long interviews with Time magazine, he first said he didn’t think there would be political violence in 2024 because he’ll win the presidential election. But in a subsequent conversation, he said that “if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.” Read more →
- ⚖️ Case by case: Trump’s campaign said he would consider case-by-case pardons for those convicted for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, rather than a blanket pardon, if elected. Read more →
- ⁉️ Revisionist history: Trump keeps saying that the GOP’s stance on abortion has always been about leaving the issue to the states. But the party has consistently pushed for national restrictions on the procedure. Read more →
- 💲Across state lines: Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s advocacy group is donating $500,000 to the campaign behind a Florida ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. The announcement comes one day before Florida’s six-week abortion ban goes into effect. Read more →
- 📣 protest watch: NBC News’ live blog is keeping tabs on the pro-Palestinian protests at colleges across the country, including at Columbia, where protestors stormed and occupied a university building overnight. Read more →
- 🔴🔵 Motion to cooperate: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is struggling to find Republicans to back her bid to boot Speaker Johnson, as House Democrats say they’ll come to his rescue if she tries to follow through. Read more →
- 🛹 Taking legislating to the extreme: What are some House Republicans doing as their party navigates a razor-thin majority? Two plan to skydive over Normandy to commemorate D-Day, and others can’t quit their similarly risky hobbies, The Wall Street Journal reports. Read more →
That’s all from The Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com
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