The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

Inside a key meeting in Johnson’s office

Lawmakers head to Munich facing questions on Ukraine, Trump, NATO

Jackson Lee faces serious challenger in upcoming primary

W&M Dems’ DC dinner rakes in $3M

THE TOP

Inside a key meeting in Johnson’s office

Happy Friday morning.

The House is gone until Feb. 28, which is just three days ahead of the first government funding deadline. The Senate is out of session too. Andrew Desiderio, our chief Senate reporter and foreign policy scribe, is in Munich, where dozens of lawmakers are attending the Munich Security Conference. More on that below.

News: Speaker Mike Johnson hosted an animated and at times heated meeting in the Capitol Wednesday afternoon during which hardline conservatives warred with appropriators and GOP leadership over the pending FY2024 funding bills — including whether House Republicans should force a government shutdown in order to try to win policy fights.

In attendance were conservative hardliners including Reps. Byron Donalds (Fla.), Chip Roy (Texas), Michael Cloud (Texas) and House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (Va.).

Johnson was there, as were Appropriations Committee cardinals — subcommittee chairs — Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), Tom Cole (Okla.), David Joyce (Ohio) and Robert Aderholt (Ala.). Vulnerable GOP lawmakers such as Reps. Mike Garcia (Calif.) and Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.) were also in the room.

This was a long meeting with spats of yelling. But the basic gist is this — appropriators effectively told the hardline conservatives that they have no chance of exacting the kinds of “poison pill” riders that the House approved in GOP-only spending bills. The cardinals argued that a government shutdown was idiotic and would only hurt House Republicans.

Republican leaders and appropriators have urged conservatives to focus on one or two achievable goals — something modest on border security, for example — and to drop their focus on other poison-pill amendments. House and Senate appropriators have been negotiating daily on the bills, lawmakers and aides said.

The conservatives angrily accused Johnson and GOP appropriators of “surrendering” and giving up too easily on Republican priorities.

On several occasions, the conservative hardliners suggested that Republicans should simply provoke a shutdown or enact a full-year CR to ensure a 1% cut in government spending.

Remember: Under last spring’s debt-limit deal, there’s a 1% across-the-board spending cut if all 12 spending bills aren’t signed into law by April 30. This cut — roughly $50 billion total — will fall far more heavily on non-defense spending than defense. Conservatives’ goal for months has been to string the appropriations process along until that cut kicks in.

Johnson effectively has three choices right now to avoid a partial shutdown on March 1 — He can push for a stopgap bill to give appropriators more time to craft spending bills; he can put a full-year CR on the floor; or he can try to pass compromise bills with Democrats. Two of those options — a stopgap or compromise bills — could cost Johnson the speakership.

The frustration on the right is palpable right now. In conservatives’ view, they’re about to have to swallow a minibus or an omnibus. This isn’t what they bargained for.

Here’s Roy:

Donalds, who was particularly animated in the meeting, told Johnson he doesn’t think Republicans would lose a shutdown fight with President Joe Biden because “Barack Obama actually had control over the bully pulpit. Joe Biden does not.”

More news: Ten House members (five from each party) have drafted a compromise Ukraine-Taiwan-Israel-border security bill. You can read the text here, and the summary here.

The 10 members — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.) Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Chavez-DeRemer, Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Ed Case (D-Hawaii), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Don Davis (D-N.C.) and Jim Costa (D-Calif.) — want to offer an alternative to the Senate’s $95 billion foreign-aid bill, which Johnson declared “dead on arrival” in the House. Their proposal would only cover a one-year period.

The proposal calls for nearly $48 billion in new aid for Ukraine, $10.4 billion for Israel, $5.4 billion for the Indo-Pacific including Taiwan and $2.4 billion to support U.S. operations in the Middle East, especially against the Houthis. Overall, this is $66 billion in “defense-only” support for the U.S. allies.

On border security, the Homeland Security secretary would be allowed to “suspend the entry of inadmissible aliens” in order to help achieve “operational control of the border.” Immigration officials could immediately detain and expel inadmissible migrants who cross over the U.S.-Mexico border or enter the country by other means. Asylum standards would be toughened, and the “Remain in Mexico” policy would be implemented for one year as well.

While GOP leaders will come under tremendous pressure from the growing anti-Ukraine faction in their conference to reject this proposal, there’s still a majority of House members who want to back Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

Progressive Democrats will strongly oppose the Israel funding due to the war in Gaza and lack of Palestinian aid, but again, Israel still has majority support on the Hill.

So this proposal is designed to up the ante for Johnson and the House GOP leadership.

— Jake Sherman, Mica Soellner and John Bresnahan

WASHINGTON X THE WORLD

Lawmakers head to Munich facing questions on Ukraine, Trump, NATO

MUNICH — The annual Munich Security Conference kicks off today with Western leaders warning that the post-World War II world order is at grave risk of destabilizing.

The war in Ukraine is at an inflection point, and there are real concerns about the durability of the Western coalition backing Kyiv, especially the United States’ role. Former President Donald Trump is threatening to abandon U.S. treaty commitments to NATO if member nations don’t pay up. And violence in the Middle East is escalating as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza grinds on.

“You could argue this is the most dangerous time for our country and for the democratic world,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told us in an interview this week.

Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are all scheduled to make appearances in Munich.

But foreign leaders will be turning their attention chiefly to the nearly four dozen members of Congress who will be spending Presidents Day weekend here. They’re looking for assurances that Congress will be able to send a Ukraine aid package to President Joe Biden’s desk.

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who chair the Senate NATO Observer Group, told us their goal here is to reaffirm Congress’ commitment to both Ukraine and NATO.

“I don’t try to explain [Trump’s comments], and most of my counterparts in Europe lived through four years of Donald Trump, too,” Shaheen said. “So they know that that’s not a position that I share or support, and that most members of Congress don’t share.”

Tillis, who has been actively pushing back against anti-Ukraine Republicans, said he’ll “remind everybody that we have three co-equal branches of government, and our commitment to NATO runs through Congress as much as it runs through the White House.”

Yet Tillis also noted that lawmakers from both parties share Trump’s underlying frustration that so many NATO members still aren’t spending the minimum 2% of GDP on defense.

The Ukraine factor: Giving assurances about U.S. support for Ukraine will be difficult, to say the least.

The conference is convening just days after the Senate, on a 70-29 vote, passed a massive aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, including bolstered defenses for the Middle East.

However, Speaker Mike Johnson has effectively declared the Senate bill dead on arrival. Johnson — faced with growing opposition to Ukraine aid inside the House GOP Conference — said he has no plans to act on the issue any time soon.

Still, there are plenty of defense hawks in the House Republican Conference who want to see Ukraine aid pushed through, despite the complications presented by election-year politics.

Some of them, including House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio), will appear here. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has vowed to use “every available legislative tool” to get the Senate package to Biden’s desk, is the highest-ranking Democrat in the delegation.

Separately, Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) will be leading what’s dubbed the “CODEL McCain,” named after the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who brought a group of senators here every year.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Sen. Jim Risch (Idaho), the panel’s top Republican, will also attend, along with Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.).

A wild card: Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) will be among those joining the Sullivan-Whitehouse CODEL, and he’s scheduled to have a speaking engagement on Sunday.

Vance isn’t your typical lawmaker who attends these sorts of gatherings, given his closeness to Trump and his strong opposition to Ukraine aid. Vance will be walking into the lion’s den here, and he knows it.

Next stops: Several lawmakers are continuing on to other countries after the Munich conference. Some are going to the Middle East, while others are staying in Europe.

Shaheen and Tillis are leading a separate group to Hungary on Sunday, where they’ll press that country’s leaders to approve Sweden’s accession to NATO. Shaheen told us that Hungary hasn’t “always acted in good faith with respect to the activities of both the EU and NATO.” And senators have raised concerns recently about democratic backsliding in Hungary.

— Andrew Desiderio

THE CAMPAIGN

Jackson Lee faces serious challenger in upcoming primary

For the first time in three decades, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) is facing a serious primary challenger who could topple one of the longest-serving House incumbents.

Jackson Lee will take on former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards in the March 5 Democratic primary. You’ll remember, Jackson Lee spent the majority of last year running for Houston mayor before losing in a landslide to former state Sen. John Whitmire.

Until now, Jackson Lee has cruised to reelection since first coming to Congress in 1995, handily defeating the few primary challengers she’s faced. But Jackson Lee’s focus on the mayoral race until late last year has been a boon for Edwards.

“What has resulted from [Jackson Lee] saying that she wanted to come home has been people having an openness to want something different and new, whereas they otherwise might not,” Edwards told us in an interview. “It’s been 30 years since we’ve had new leadership.”

Edwards has been able to build momentum in her campaign — and, most importantly, a sizable financial advantage — due to Jackson Lee’s late shift back to the House race.

Edwards ended 2023 with $856,000 cash on hand, raising about $272,000 in the fourth quarter. Jackson Lee brought in $23,000 in Q4, ending the year with about $223,000 cash on hand.

Edwards previously ran for Senate in 2020 in a bid against GOP Sen. John Cornyn but lost in the primary. She’s a municipal finance attorney and has a law degree from Harvard.

The challenger criticized Jackson Lee for not doing enough to pass more legislation while holding office.

“One of the big distinguishing elements between Congresswoman Jackson Lee and me will be my emphasis on offering and passing policy in Congress,” Edwards said. “She has not passed a lot of legislation and when you’re looking at transformative change, a lot of that comes through legislation.”

Jackson Lee’s response?

“I’m enthusiastic,” Jackson Lee told us about the primary challenge. “We are diverse in our support and my record is very evident that I’m the person who delivers and that’s what our community needs — a member that delivers. We’re excited about things.”

Delegation Democrats weigh in:

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Neighboring Houston-area Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas): “[Jackson Lee] just got out of another campaign, so didn’t have enough time to fundraise,” Garcia told us. “She barely won the majority of votes from that particular district in the mayor’s race… so people were saying those are indicators that she may have a real race on her hands.”

→	Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas): “I’m all for new, young and progressive voices and that’s something I encourage in all cases,” Casar told us. “But Ms. Jackson Lee has been one of the legendary progressive voices in this building for a long time and I’m going to continue to support her.”

— Mica Soellner

MONEY GAME

W&M Dems’ DC dinner rakes in $3M

House Ways and Means Committee Democrats pulled in nearly $3.1 million at a big annual fundraiser Thursday night for the party’s push to win the House.

The D.C. dinner for the DCCC is a yearly affair, and Ways and Means is a prime post for fundraising. About $1 million came in over the last week to hit this year’s tally.

The panel’s top Democrat, Richie Neal (D-Mass.), hosted the event along with the committee’s full roster, including DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was a special guest.

— Laura Weiss

THE CAMPAIGN

Big GOP fundraising weekend in Florida coming up

We scooped in Midday Thursday that the House Republican leadership’s Elected Leadership Committee — that well-oiled machine — would be holding a retreat this weekend in Miami.

Following that kumbaya, the NRCC has its winter fundraiser in Miami — a big event on the House Republican political calendar.

The schedule includes a political briefing, a “top investors” reception for those who donated $10,000 or more or PACs that gave $30,000 or more. Members usually use this NRCC weekend to hold their own private events on the sidelines at the Ritz-Carlton.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik is holding a big-dollar fundraiser in Palm Beach, Fla., after the retreat. Here’s the invite.

— Jake Sherman

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