Rank and file tries to wrest power back

IN THIS EDITION

The rank and file wrestles power back

Thune eyes vote to advance next funding package

What we’re watching

New ad buy backs ‘America First’ foreign aid

Clark’s comms director is leaving the Hill

THE TOP

The rank and file wrestles power back

Happy Monday morning.

News: Top lawmakers from both parties are trying to schedule a Capitol Hill visit for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his upcoming trip to Washington, according to multiple sources.

The crown prince will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday morning. The president will later host a White House dinner for the Saudi leader. We’ve already reported that the White House has invited lawmakers, top administration officials and business leaders.

A Capitol Hill visit isn’t yet locked in, but lawmakers are targeting Tuesday afternoon.

House look. The last several weeks can be viewed as Speaker Mike Johnson flexing unprecedented muscle (for him) in ruling over the House. Johnson kept the House out of session for 54 days during the shutdown. He refused to swear in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) despite Democratic outrage. Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune lobbied President Donald Trump against cutting a deal with Democrats during the shutdown.

But now, the dynamic is shifting, and rank-and-file members are getting some power back. Let’s go through the ways.

1) The House is expected to vote this week on the discharge petition demanding the Justice Department release the full Jeffrey Epstein files. The House GOP leadership says they don’t care about the petition. And now — knowing he was going to lose anyway — neither does Trump.

But make no mistake about it — this vote will be a reflection of rank-and-file Republican unhappiness over how Johnson and Trump have handled the investigation into the disgraced financier. The question then becomes what will Senate Republicans do? More below.

2) A bipartisan group of House members are trying to push their way into the Senate talks to renew the Obamacare tax credits.

3) Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) will put House Democratic leaders in an uncomfortable position when she forces a vote tonight on her non-binding resolution to have the House “disapprove” of Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.). Garcia retired and engineered his chief of staff to be the only other person on the ballot. We have to see how Republicans respond here.

4) And in a sign of the complex politics that Johnson and Thune will have to confront in the coming months, the House will vote this week on a resolution repealing a provision in the FY2026 Legislative Branch funding bill that allows senators to sue the Justice Department for millions of dollars if their phone records were obtained as part of the Jan. 6 investigation. This should pass the House with close to unanimous support.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Johnson said he’s talked to Thune about the issue and is convinced that the senators who inserted the language in the bill had “pure” motivations. Johnson said Senate Republicans were trying to prevent the government from snooping on lawmakers.

Johnson: “Many of them had to come out of pocket for attorney’s fees and stuff to defend themselves. But look, I think we need to adjust the dates on it so that the optics are better.”

Good luck to Johnson on getting this on an upcoming appropriations bill, however.

Let’s go deeper on Epstein. The House will vote Tuesday on the discharge petition calling on the Justice Department to release the full Epstein files.

Changing tack, Trump said Sunday that House Republicans should back the petition authored by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). Most House Republicans weren’t waiting on Trump to say this — they were planning to vote this way regardless.

Trump and the White House have been all over the map on the Epstein resolution. White House officials heavily lobbied Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to take her name off the petition. That failed, and the petition reached the magic 218-signature threshold, a stunning setback for GOP leaders. Trump’s post seems like an attempt to acknowledge the coming reality. The only question now is what the final number will be.

The House Epstein’s bill faces a very poor outlook in the Senate, where GOP leaders have no interest in holding a vote on it. But what happens if there are 400 votes in the House for this petition?

GOP apathy won’t stop Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats from trying to make Republican senators uncomfortable. We expect Democrats to offer multiple unanimous-consent requests on the Senate floor to try to pass the bill outright or at least force a roll-call vote on it. This will require an objection from the GOP side and likely a highlight reel’s worth of fiery exchanges.

MTG vs. Trump. On Friday night, Trump called for a primary challenge to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). This was a seismic shock for the MAGA movement, where MTG was one of the first and most vocal of the Trump faithful.

MTG has undergone a remarkable political transformation in recent weeks, publicly lambasting Trump and her party for failing to address affordability concerns, as well as hiding the ball on the Epstein files.

The White House chalks MTG’s newfound persona up to sour grapes that Trump didn’t back her to run for Senate or governor. MTG strongly denies this. The White House has been peeved, to put it lightly, that MTG is going on television — specifically “The View” — and railing on Trump. MTG said she’s been getting death threats since the break with Trump.

On CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, MTG told CNN’s Dana Bash that she wanted to end the “toxic fighting in politics” and regrets her own heated rhetoric — which is remarkable, because that’s what MTG’s entire career and public persona was built on.

What to make of this clash between Trump and MTG? Part of it is the conservative base vs. the White House over Epstein, a fight that’s been going on for months. MTG — who signed onto the Epstein petition — feels like she is on the right side of the scandal. Meanwhile, Trump says he is the MAGA movement, and what he says goes.

Part of this is a warning to every other House Republican. If Trump will turn on MTG, he will turn on anyone who crosses him.

— Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio

We’re thrilled to announce our upcoming partnership with the American Fintech Council! Join us on Nov. 18 as co-author of the vault, Brendan Pedersen, and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) will discuss open banking and more. Tickets to the policy summit are available now!

THE SENATE

Thune eyes vote to advance next funding package

The Senate has a short week on tap, with senators returning Tuesday and likely to head out for the Thanksgiving recess on Thursday afternoon.

As we detailed above, the House’s bill to compel the release of Jeffrey Epstein files will dominate the conversation both on and off the floor.

We’ll note that back in September, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer engineered a rarely-used procedural maneuver to force a vote on a similar Epstein bill as part of the annual defense policy bill. GOP Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) were the only Republicans to vote with Democrats on the measure.

There’s also likely to be new action on government funding, as well as continued fallout from last week’s bipartisan deal that ended the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

Approps. With the shutdown in the rear-view mirror, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is eager to tee up the next slate of full-year FY2026 funding bills. Thune said last week he’ll move to combine the Defense, Labor-HHS, Commerce-Justice-Science and Transportation-HUD bills into one “minibus.” The Interior funding bill could also be in the mix.

The Senate could hold an initial procedural vote on the effort at some point this week, we’re told. Thune intends to use last month’s failed procedural vote on the FY2026 Defense appropriations bill as the vehicle for this funding package.

Moving forward will require 60 votes, but it’s unclear whether enough Democratic senators will be ready to formally kick off the floor process, especially as the Democratic Caucus is still reeling over last week’s shutdown-ending deal.

Thune will also need unanimous consent to group the funding bills together. That’s going to be extremely difficult, with objections expected on both sides of the aisle. We scooped last month that Democratic leaders were surveying senators for objections to packaging the funding bills together, with the exception of the Interior measure.

The Senate could try to bypass the objectors by voting to suspend the rules — which requires a two-thirds vote — but the GOP leadership is generally hesitant to go down that path.

It’s important to note that these are the Senate versions of each funding bill, so they haven’t yet been conferenced with the House. The bipartisan deal that ended the shutdown included three full-year funding bills that were already negotiated with the House, paired with a CR that extended funding for all other agencies until Jan. 30.

Dem in-fighting. It’s been a week since eight Senate Democrats joined Republicans in voting to reopen the government, prompting fierce backlash from progressives.

That tension continued over the weekend and seems likely to last a while longer — a big problem for Schumer.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who helped craft that shutdown-ending deal, fired back at a state representative who interrupted her speech during a New Hampshire Democratic Party event on Friday.

And Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), one of the eight, pushed back on House Democrats calling for Schumer to be ousted from his leadership role.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Kaine said those House members should “let senators do what we need to do to keep this country moving forward.”

While Schumer’s job isn’t in any real jeopardy, the infighting will make it much more difficult for him to manage the upcoming appropriations fights.

For example, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on ABC’s “This Week” that Democrats shouldn’t vote to fund the Justice Department when it’s engaging in “witch hunts” against Democrats.

Murphy said Democrats “can’t continue to be split like this” and that Schumer “is gonna have to explain to us how we’re gonna run the caucus differently [and] how we’re gonna be more united.”

— Andrew Desiderio

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What we’re watching

Monday: The House Rules Committee will meet at 3 p.m.

Tuesday: The House Financial Services Committee will have a hearing on the future of deposit insurance. The House Budget Committee will have a hearing on oversight of the Congressional Budget Office.

Wednesday: The Senate Finance Committee will have a hearing on nominations, including Arjun Mody to be deputy Social Security commissioner.

The House Administration Committee will have a hearing on the STOCK Act.

Thursday: The Senate Finance Committee will have a hearing on a number of nominations, including L. Brent Bozell III to be U.S. ambassador to South Africa.

– Jake Sherman

THE AIRWAVES

New ad buy backs ‘America First’ foreign aid

News: The Campaign for America First International Assistance is launching a $175,000 ad buy with the aim of getting vulnerable House Republicans to back targeted U.S. foreign aid programs.

The buy is running in the districts of three of the most electorally at-risk House incumbents: GOP Reps. Gabe Evans (Colo.), Ryan Mackenzie (Pa.) and Juan Ciscomani (Ariz.).

The ads hail the Republicans for supporting “American First international assistance,” crediting the members with feeding starving children and combating China.

President Donald Trump’s administration has cut foreign ad programs drastically, evidenced by the absorption of USAID into the State Department.

—Max Cohen

… AND THERE’S MORE

Clark’s comms director is leaving the Hill

There’s a shake up in the top ranks of House Minority Whip Katherine Clark’s office.

Kathryn Alexander, who has been with Clark for seven years – including as communications director – is leaving the Massachusetts Democrat’s office. Joy Lee, a former aide to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi will take over as communications director.

The Campaign. Eric Flores, who is running against Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) in South Texas, has a new ad up in the Corpus Christi media market. Flores is presenting himself as President Donald Trump’s “backup” in Congress.

Watch the ad here.

– Jake Sherman

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