| Good morning, Early Birds. If you missed the Gridiron this year … maybe it was for the best. Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us. In today's edition: How President Biden is managing the war in Ukraine … the Senate, as early as today, could confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to be the next Supreme Court justice ... the Biden White House and DOJ are still walking a tightrope on police reform … but first … | Trump claims he didn't receive many calls while his supporters attacked the Capitol |  Former president Donald Trump, seen here in 2016 at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, continues to deny any responsibility for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) | | | More than a year after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob that led to five deaths and hundreds injured, former president Donald Trump appears hardly chastened. In a wide-ranging interview at Mar-a-Lago with our colleague Josh Dawsey, Trump expressed regret over his decision not to march to the Capitol with his supporters and defended his 187 minutes of silence during the attack, claiming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and others were responsible for ending the deadly violence. Trump blamed Pelosi for the events of Jan. 6, falsely claiming she was in charge of security at the Capitol, on at least a dozen occasions during Josh's 45-minute interview with him. | - "I thought it was a shame, and I kept asking why isn't she doing something about it? Why isn't Nancy Pelosi doing something about it? And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge," Trump told Josh. "I hated seeing it. I hated seeing it. And I said, it's got to be taken care of, and I assumed they were taking care of it."
| | It's unclear what Trump thinks Pelosi should have done during a time when her own safety was at risk. She, like other lawmakers, was escorted to a secure location while his supporters attacked the Capitol and battled police. Some of the rioters ransacked her office while calling out her name. | - "The former president's desperate lies aside, the Speaker was no more in charge of the security of the U.S. Capitol that day than Mitch McConnell," Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, told Josh in response to Trump's claims.
| | Josh writes that during the interview, Trump stood by the false claims he made about the 2020 election at the rally on Jan. 6 and defiantly said he "deserved more credit for drawing such a large crowd to the Ellipse — and that he pressed to march on the Capitol with his supporters but was stopped by his security detail the Secret Service." | - "Secret Service said I couldn't go. I would have gone there in a minute," Trump said.
| | Trump declined to say whether he would testify before a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault — "it depends what the request is" — and that he didn't remember 'getting very many' phone calls the day of the siege. | - "This was not from the standpoint of telephone calls, I don't remember getting very many," he said, later adding, "Why would I care about who called me? If congressmen were calling me, what difference did it make? There was nothing secretive about it. There was no secret."
| | "The former president praised organizers of the rally, some of whom have now received subpoenas from federal authorities, and repeatedly bragged about the size of the crowd was on the Ellipse when questioned about the events of Jan. 6," Josh reports. He also said he spoke during his presidency with Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but was unaware of her advocacy for overturning the election results. Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner voluntarily testified before the Jan. 6 committee earlier this week, despite other former Trump aides refusing to meet with the panel. Trump called their lengthy interviews with investigators a "shame and harassment." Josh reports that "he insisted he did not know what [Ivanka] had told the members. He said he also did not know what her husband Jared Kushner had told the committee, and that he had offered the couple 'privilege' if they wanted it. They declined, Trump said." And about those White House call logs: "Trump said he had not destroyed any call logs from the afternoon on Jan. 6 and took part in no phone calls on 'burner phones,' even though there is a more than seven-hour gap in his White House phone," Josh reports. Other takeaways from the Trump interview: | - Trump asked Josh whether he should endorse David McCormick — whom he met with later on Wednesday at Mar-a-Lago — or Mehmet Oz in the Republican primary to replacing retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). He said he would be making a decision in "about a week," noting that he was torn. "They all come here," he said.
- He laid into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying he would prefer even Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) — who twice voted to remove Trump from office — as the Republican Senate leader.
- He claimed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been accused of taking anti-democrats actions, had called him this week and credited him for Orban's election victory on Sunday, "After I endorsed him, he went up like a rocket ship," Trump said.
| | |  | At the White House | | Biden at war: Inside a deliberate yet impulsive Ukraine strategy |  President Biden speaks outside the Royal Castle about the war in Ukraine on March 26, in Warsaw, Poland. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) | | - "Biden had just delivered a forceful speech March 26 in Poland's capital — seeking to rally the world against Russia's war in Ukraine — before careening off-script in the final minute of his remarks to seemingly call for the removal of Russian President Vladimir Putin: 'For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.'"
- "Offstage — as their motorcade idled, waiting to spirit the U.S. president back to Air Force One and back to Washington — Biden's team raced to clean up his ad-lib."
- "The 37-minute scramble to clarify Biden's nine-word gaffe, details of which have not been previously reported, illustrates the singular role Biden has played during Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine — at times emotional and freewheeling, at other times carefully choreographed and deliberate, but frequently a central player in helping to marshal the West's response to Russia."
| | |  | From the courts | | Senate expected to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court today |  Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is sworn in for her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 21. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo, File) | | | Happening today: The Senate is expected to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black female Supreme Court Justice. Here's what to expect: | - 11 a.m. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) will hold a cloture vote.
- 1:45 p.m. The final vote to confirm Jackson's nomination will occur in the afternoon.
| | |  | In the agencies | | Biden's executive order on policing is still up in the air |  Black Lives Matter protesters march in Louisville. (Darron Cummings/AP Photo, File) | | | M.I.A.: "The Biden White House is struggling to reshape an executive order on police accountability three months after a leaked draft drew sharp opposition from law enforcement groups, putting the initiative at risk at a time when violent crime is rising and civil rights groups have expressed frustration over the pace of reform," our colleagues David Nakamura, Mark Berman and Annie Linskey report. | - "Police organizations said they remain in talks with Biden's domestic policy adviser, Susan E. Rice, and other senior aides… The parties have reached general agreement on some key issues, including creating national standards for the accreditation of police departments and a decertification registry of officers who commit violations."
- "But the most contentious questions remain unresolved — such as whether the White House would call for stricter use-of-force standards or changes to qualified legal immunity for officers, which protects them being sued as individuals over alleged misconduct."
| | |  | The Data | | - "One particularly significant version of this law is moving through the legislature in Oklahoma, which already has a trigger ban. Legislators are proposing to revise that existing trigger law so that, even if Roe is not completely overturned, a full abortion ban would still take effect."
- That legislation is "awaiting action from Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt," the Oklahoman's Carmen Forman reports. "If Stitt signs the legislation into law, Oklahoma could have one of the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country."
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