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October 30, 2023
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PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Monday morning.
Welcome to the first full week of Mike Johnson’s speakership.
Israel will be at the top of Congress’ agenda.
The Senate is moving toward confirming Jack Lew to be the U.S. ambassador in Jerusalem.
The House comes back Wednesday and the latter part of this week will be dedicated to moving a number of Israel-related bills — resolutions on antisemitism, new sanctions on Iranian oil sales and legislation sending $14 billion-plus in aid to Israel. Also up — three GOP-drafted FY2024 appropriations bills.
We’re going to focus this morning on the aid package to Israel and the politics surrounding it.
Israeli forces stepped up their ground operations in Gaza over the weekend, including heavy air and artillery strikes. There were clashes between Israeli military units and Palestinians in the West Bank as well. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning. Biden pledged continued U.S. support while pressing Netanyahu to allow more humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.
House Republicans are planning to try to offset the $14 billion for Israel with spending cuts elsewhere. The White House has sought this as emergency funding, and it’s unheard of for Congress to seek such cuts. Republicans haven’t said what programs they’ll cut yet, which will be a critical part of this debate.
The House GOP’s goal here is to maximize the vote on their side while splintering Democrats. The decision by Johnson’s leadership team to seek budget cuts to offset the Israel money has pretty broad implications.
No. 1: Biden and the Senate want to couple Israel and Ukraine aid together. Johnson’s play here pretty much guarantees that the Louisiana Republican is putting the House on a collision course with the Senate and White House. Senate Democrats may not agree with the GOP pay-for, especially if it targets the Inflation Reduction Act or other Democratic-favored programs.
It also raises questions about whether any further Ukraine funding can pass the House, an enormously important question. The White House has pushed to have the two combined — with Taiwan aid and border-security money, too — due in part to the growing anti-Ukraine funding sentiment among GOP lawmakers. Johnson, however, has been surprisingly bullish on Ukraine aid. There’s still a majority backing Ukraine with Democrats and pro-Ukraine Republicans, but Johnson — like former Speaker Kevin McCarthy before him — faces a challenge in letting that vote occur.
No. 2: If the House adopts an Israel aid bill, the spotlight will be on the Senate GOP Conference, which is bitterly divided over whether assistance for Israel and Ukraine should be grouped into one package.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants Ukraine funding included, and about half of the GOP Conference agrees with him. So, in theory, an effort by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to add Ukraine aid to the House-passed bill could clear the 60-vote threshold with the requisite GOP support.
But there will be a lot of pressure on Senate Republicans to back up Johnson and House Republicans — which they can do using the filibuster.
“We don’t have enough [industrial base] capacity to support a three-front war,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who has been leading the charge on de-linking Ukraine and Israel, claimed Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We’ve got to focus, and I think we should be focusing on Israel and Taiwan.”
At the same time, many GOP senators realize this could be their last chance to pass additional Ukraine aid. The White House’s $60 billion request would cover a full year and remove the funding issue from presidential campaign politics. That’s the hope, anyway.
McConnell, who has been vocally pushing back against those in his party who want to cut off Ukraine, could try to bring along enough GOP senators to back a push to add money for Kyiv to the Israel package.
No. 3: Biden and White House officials argue that Ukraine and Israel are tied together, echoing McConnell in noting that Iran is the common thread in both conflicts. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made the same argument too.
“Like President Biden said when he addressed the nation from the Oval Office, Hamas and Putin both want to viciously annihilate a neighboring democracy. In fact, Russian officials met with Hamas representatives in Moscow just this week,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.
“For American national security, it is critical to stand with Israel as they defend themselves against Hamas terrorists who unleashed pure evil on October 7th; and to stand with Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russian brutality — carried out in part with Iranian weapons — and Russia’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children.”
— Jake Sherman, Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan
November Events: Join Punchbowl News managing editor Heather Caygle next week on Thursday, Nov. 9 at 9 a.m. ET. She’s discussing measures to address the opioid crisis with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). RSVP now!
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What to watch this week
There are a bunch of issues to keep an eye on this week.
1) There are potentially three privileged resolutions that could come up in the House this week. These include an expulsion motion against Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) offered by Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) and several other New York Republicans; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, mostly over the Michigan Democrat’s comments about Israel; and Rep. Becca Balint’s (D-Vt.) censure motion against MTG.
Speaker Mike Johnson said on a House Republican Conference call Sunday night that he wants to beat Democrats on policy.
2) On the House Republican call, GOP leadership announced that they’ll have multiple votes on Wednesday on appropriations bills — Legislative, Interior-EPA and Transportation-HUD. We’ll note Wednesday is a fly-in day, so that’s unusual.
The chamber will vote on Israel funding, new sanctions on Iranian oil and antisemitism resolutions Thursday and Friday, as we discussed in more detail above.
3) The House Republican Conference has scheduled the election to replace Johnson as vice chair of the conference. The candidate forum will be held Nov. 7, followed by the election the following day. There’s a sizable field of Republicans running here, we’ll have more throughout the week.
4) The Senate Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow morning on the White House’s $105 billion national security supplemental funding request. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are scheduled to testify.
5) Jack Lew’s nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to Israel could be voted up as soon as this week. The Senate will vote on a judicial nominee this evening and will begin processing Lew’s nomination on Tuesday.
6) Senators are aiming to wrap up the first three-bill FY2024 spending package this week, as well. The long-stalled minibus includes three largely non-controversial funding bills — Military Construction/VA, Agriculture and Transportation-HUD — but some GOP senators delayed the process as they sought amendment votes. The Senate still has several more amendment votes to take before moving to final passage.
7) News: Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) is trying to change the motion to vacate. Miller, a first-term lawmaker, has a new resolution that would force 112 members of the majority or minority to sign onto a resolution to try to boot the speaker.
We’ll have to see whether this resolution — which is not privileged — will come up for a vote. But it does show the lingering frustration in the conference over the eight Republicans who voted with Democrats to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
8) McCarthy left newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson a private note in the speaker’s suite before the California Republican turned the space over. Johnson has taken the suite on the second floor of the Capitol over from McCarthy and is in the midst of hiring a staff.
9) We have scooped three of Johnson’s big hires: Hayden Haynes, Johnson’s former personal office chief, as the speaker’s chief of staff; Courtney Butcher, who most recently served as member services director for the House Republican Conference, as member services director; and Chris Bien, who worked on the floor for McCarthy, as floor director. Johnson moved quickly to lock up three of his top four staffers — except for policy director — in part to beat back on the criticism that he did not have an experienced team.
Johnson still has to hire a communications director and policy director. Team Johnson has been flooded with resumes.
— Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio
PRESENTED BY COMCAST
Internet Essentials from Comcast provided Kevin access to the world. The Hidden Genius Project gave him the skills to succeed. Now he’s a youth educator guiding the next generation.
Learn more about Kevin’s story.
Government shutdown (still) likely, K Street leaders say
Most K Street leaders (82%) say there will likely be a government shutdown between now and January 2024, according to our recent survey, The Canvass.
As a reminder, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted from his role as speaker over his decision in September to negotiate a continuing resolution with Democrats to keep the federal government open. That CR expires in just 18 days — on Nov. 17.
Newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson has already said he wants a stopgap funding bill until January or April of next year. Many House conservatives seem to be willing to give him time to settle in, and so are open to a CR for now. But there’s already been some pushback in the Senate, where appropriators don’t want to go into next year still operating under a short-term continuing resolution.
Breaking down this month’s survey by party affiliation, there isn’t much daylight between Democratic or GOP lobbyists — 85% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans say a shutdown in 2023 is likely. The survey was conducted Oct. 2 to Oct. 20 in partnership with LSG.
This survey was fielded shortly after Congress narrowly avoided a government shutdown at the end of September and continued for much of the duration of the chaotic speaker race.
Senior staffers on Capitol Hill were generally aligned with K Street on the likelihood of a shutdown when we asked them the same question in September — 92% predicted there would be one this year.
Interested in being a part of our survey? The Canvass provides anonymous insights each month from top Capitol Hill staffers and K Street leaders on key issues facing Washington. Sign up here if you work on K Street. And click here to sign up if you’re a senior congressional staffer.
— Robert O’Shaughnessy
PUNCHBOWL NEWS EVENTS
Did you miss our event with Arkansas Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman in Little Rock, Ark. on Friday? Catch up on the whole event here.
THE CAMPAIGN
New: The NRSC is airing a new ad reminding voters that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is definitely a Democrat. Manchin, the most conservative Senate Democrat, has flirted recently with dropping his party affiliation and running for reelection as an independent.
The NRSC is having none of it. “If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it’s a duck,” the ad’s narrator says. Check out the ad below.
Manchin, for his part, hasn’t announced yet if he’s running for reelection in the heavily Republican state. In 2018, Manchin defied political gravity by beating Republican Patrick Morrisey by 3 points — just two years after former President Donald Trump won West Virginia by 42 points.
— Max Cohen
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Presented by Apollo Global Management
One size rarely fits all. That’s why Apollo provides custom capital solutions designed to help companies achieve their ambitious business goals. Think Credit New