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THE SENATE

Inside Senate Republicans’ decision to unload on Tuberville

Nine months of pent-up anger — and a contentious lunch meeting — gave way to an extraordinary fight Wednesday night between Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and his GOP colleagues on the Senate floor.

Republican defense hawks unleashed their fury on Tuberville. They spent four-plus hours haranguing him as they tried to confirm dozens of the more than 300 military promotions the Alabama GOP senator has been blocking over his opposition to the Pentagon’s abortion policy.

“Their careers are being punished over a policy dispute they had nothing to do with and that they have no power to resolve,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), a Marine reservist who co-led the offensive on the floor.

It was a moment months in the making. But one that came together abruptly on Wednesday after GOP senators tussled over their party’s inaction on the crisis during a private meeting, according to multiple sources.

“We’re each getting calls from military families that are being impacted by this hold, and we recognize that there is personal suffering as well as issues of military readiness,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told us late Wednesday. “So we need to act.”

But it quickly became clear that not even a parade of angry GOP hawks could convince Tuberville to back off. Tuberville stayed on the floor the entire night, objecting to each promotion as his fellow Republicans extolled the credentials of 61 different nominees.

Republicans prefaced their remarks on the floor by saying they, like Tuberville, oppose the Pentagon’s abortion policy. But they quickly abandoned any niceties as the evening dragged on, vowing to continue pressing their case in the coming days.

As Tuberville continued to object, Sullivan said at one point that Tuberville was on a “national security suicide mission.”

Three hours in and dozens of objections later, Sullivan lost it: “Xi Jinping is loving this. So is Putin. How dumb can we be, man?”

Just past 10 p.m., Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), an Army combat veteran who co-led the floor effort, insinuated that Tuberville isn’t a man of his word.

“We have done the best we can to honor the request of a fellow senator that these nominations be brought to the floor and voted on individually,” she said. “I really respect men of their word. I do not respect men who do not honor their word.”

So why now?

Sullivan and other Republicans were using procedural tactics over the last week to force floor votes on individual high-level military promotions as a way to circumvent Tuberville’s blockade. The war in Israel also played a role because several CENTCOM positions are among those Tuberville is blocking.

But Sullivan said there’s been no progress toward a solution. “The world is a dangerous place,” Sullivan added, “so tonight we’re taking a different approach.”

Republicans had been sitting on the sidelines while Democrats took to the Senate floor on a near-weekly basis all year to hammer Republicans for “enabling” Tuberville. Some GOP senators spoke out against Tuberville’s tactics, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but Tuberville never faced real pressure to back down.

Last week, things began to change. We scooped that Democrats were crafting a resolution that would temporarily allow many of the stalled promotions to be confirmed en bloc. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has since announced he’d bring it to the floor.

Republicans are skittish about this, fearing it could set a precedent that weakens individual senators’ power. At the GOP lunch Wednesday, senators complained that they didn’t have a strategy of their own to counter it. Ernst had told us she worried Democrats would try to “shove [a rules change] down our throats” if Tuberville’s blockade continues.

By 6 p.m., Sullivan and Ernst had commandeered the floor, and the nine-month saga entered a new phase with an entirely different strategy: Publicly shame Tuberville.

“We’ve been reading off these names just as fast as our staff can get them to us,” Ernst said, underscoring the last-minute nature of the proposal.

Schumer reiterated he still plans to hold a vote on the resolution. Tuberville’s continued intransigence could lead some Republicans to support it as a last resort.

— Andrew Desiderio

Is the Biden impeachment inquiry entering the home stretch?

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) is signaling his panel’s impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is entering the final phase. That got us thinking: With a looming government shutdown deadline in two weeks, could Speaker Mike Johnson entice his far-right flank to put up with a continuing resolution if he offers major action on impeachment?

The idea isn’t concrete yet, to be sure. And many Democrats we spoke to don’t see how Republicans can wrap up the impeachment inquiry so quickly.

But Johnson has made clear that he intends to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open until mid-January. This could incense a small band of conservatives who oppose CRs in any form.

And a note of caution for Johnson: We’ve been here before. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy officially launched the impeachment inquiry into Biden in September. Many saw the move as an attempt by McCarthy to throw a bone to his right-wing detractors. But the appeal fell flat and McCarthy was ousted less than a month later after passing a short-term funding bill.

Comer, for his part, has ramped up his investigative work in recent weeks by releasing records of payments from Biden family members to the president.

“We’re in the downhill phase of this investigation,” Comer told right-wing podcast host Benny Johnson recently, expressing a desire to issue a final impeachment report “as soon as possible.”

But two key payments are classified as loan repayments from his brother James Biden. And House GOP investigators have yet to reveal any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Joe Biden, despite claims of a “smoking gun.”

What’s next: Under Johnson, a key ally of impeachment investigator and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the House is taking a more aggressive stance on the matter. The speaker indicated to Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he believes Biden has engaged in bribery — there’s no evidence quite yet. Comer repeated the bribery claim on Hannity last night.

Johnson has also signaled he’s willing to subpoena Hunter Biden to come before Congress, arguing “desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Who else thinks this probe is ending in impeachment? House Republicans themselves. Hannity asked an audience of GOP lawmakers Wednesday night to raise their hands if they thought Biden would be impeached. The whole room agreed.

House Democrats say they’re waiting for more overt cues from the majority before they start intensely planning how to respond to the next steps on impeachment.

“The last two hot flashes were about how President Joe Biden, when he was a private citizen, made a private loan to his brother, which was repaid,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the panel’s top Democrat, told us. “That hardly sounds like an impeachable offense to me. I think it’s a wild goose chase in a desperate search for something to hang their hat on.”

Comer told us last month that he wasn’t likely to hold more hearings — the first one didn’t go as planned — and would instead focus on more controlled settings like transcribed interviews or depositions.

— Max Cohen

Tim Scott’s plan to ‘revitalize’ US capital markets

News: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) will release a framework today outlining a vision for Republican-led reform of U.S. capital markets. The Securities and Exchange Commission is on the menu.

Scott is the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee and a GOP presidential candidate. But this approach is in some ways a departure from previous Republican attempts at reform of capital market rules — see the JOBS Act. Scott is calling his bill the Empowering Main Street in America Act, and you can read a fact sheet on it here.

The clearest objective here is reining in the SEC, the federal markets regulator led by Chair Gary Gensler. Republicans have frequently butted up against Gensler over the past two years.

Scott promises to change that by mandating the SEC chair testify twice in both chambers of Congress, issue more reports to Congress and use more robust cost-benefit analysis tied to proposed regulations.

Beyond the SEC, we’re told the Scott plan is aimed at reforming both public and private markets. Prior efforts have focused mostly on public markets. Scott’s emphasis on private markets is intended to make it easier for a wider spectrum of small businesses to access capital.

The legislative text doesn’t quite exist yet. Scott’s team wants feedback from industry and other market participants before putting pen to paper. We’ll keep you posted.

Housing scoop: TransUnion is mounting another effort to stop the Federal Housing Finance Agency from changing its credit report requirements for mortgages.

In a letter we obtained, TransUnion urges the Federal Housing Finance Agency to abandon its plan for a “bi-merge,” which would reduce the number of credit reports a borrower needs in order for a mortgage to be sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The credit bureau — one of the three big ones, along with Experian and Equifax — argues the shift will reduce access to credit, citing internal research. The FHFA under the Biden administration has argued the shift to bi-merge would expand mortgage access, but it delayed the transition in September.

Here’s the core of TransUnion’s warning:

Senate Republicans led by Scott back in October urged the FHFA to change course in the bi-merge process.

— Brendan Pedersen

THE CAMPAIGN

Do you like skiing? Will you be hankering for a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyo., in March? Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) has you covered.

Kuster is hosting her “spring ski weekend” March 15-18 with special guests Reps. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.). You’ll need deep pockets for this one. For PACs, it will cost $2,500. If you’re digging into your own pocket, it will set you back $1,500.

— Jake Sherman

MOMENTS

10 a.m.: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.

11 a.m.: House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu will hold a post-meeting press conference.

Noon: Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with the Dominican Republic’s President Luis Abinader.

1:30 p.m.: Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby will brief.

2:45 p.m.: Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with Chilean President Gabriel Boric.

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