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IN THIS EDITION

A head-spinning week for GOP hawks

Inside the Senate’s vote-a-rama

House GOP targets the one CFPB rule banks don’t hate

Big week ahead for government funding

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A head-spinning week for GOP hawks

Welcome to The Readback, our weekend digest featuring the best of Punchbowl News this week. Here, we share a quick roundup of all our scoops, analysis and Capitol Hill insight you won’t find anywhere else. We’ve also included a few of our favorite outside reads from the week.

Trump, Zelensky and Putin: Few things irritate GOP senators more than when President Donald Trump talks about Ukraine and Russia.

That dynamic was on full display this past week when the president went on several extended riffs — both at the presidential podium and on his social media accounts — about the war in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump’s comments ranged from factually inaccurate, like his suggestion that Ukraine “started” the war, to an outright parroting of Russian propaganda, including calling Zelensky a “dictator” and saying there should be new elections in Ukraine.

To be sure, there are a lot of Senate Republicans, especially those first elected in the last few cycles, who agree with Trump’s posture on Russia and Ukraine. They believe American taxpayer dollars are being wasted on a conflict that’s essentially a stalemate. Most lawmakers, regardless of party, are more than happy to engage in thoughtful debate on point.

But that’s not what this is.

Senate Republicans writ-large remain a hawkish bunch. And they’ve never quite understood Trump’s hostility toward Ukraine — a nation invaded by a U.S. adversary — and his years-long deference to Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin, whose forces have been credibly accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine.

So not only was it a frustrating and head-spinning week for the party’s more traditional Reagan-esque hawks. But, as we wrote on Wednesday, it was clear they were watching their influence slip away in real-time as Trump was trampling on decades of GOP foreign policy orthodoxy.

Riyadh rendezvous: We started the week off asking GOP senators what they thought of the Trump administration’s talks with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, which were led by their former colleague, Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Several Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, told us it was imperative for Ukraine and the Europeans to be at the negotiating table but said they were fine with the preliminary Rubio-led effort. They also like the idea of a critical minerals pact between the United States and Ukraine, as Trump’s team has proposed.

At the same time, Republicans expressed concern that an eventual “deal” with the Russians to end the war would be a lopsided one. In other words, it would be something Putin could claim as a victory or even a draw. Trump’s disparaging of Zelensky and friendliness toward Putin throughout the week certainly fed into those fears.

But the most jarring moments came when we asked Republicans to respond specifically to Trump’s claim that Ukraine “started” the war and that Zelensky should have somehow tried to strike an agreement with Putin to end the three-year-long conflict.

It makes no sense for Republicans to criticize Trump directly for these comments, no matter how outlandish. There’s a lot that Republicans want to get done this Congress with Trump, including budget reconciliation — so it benefits nobody for their leadership to speak out.

Some Republicans, however, found a way to push back against Trump by simply stating objective facts. For example, Thune’s response to Trump saying Zelensky “started” the war was as follows: “Russia is the aggressor here, there’s no question about that.”

Thune is right. There isn’t any question about that whatsoever. But Republicans, especially the defense hawks, are now living in a world where speaking out against Russian aggression is a lot less popular than it once was on their side of the aisle.

What I’m watching: The new season of The White Lotus began last week, and I’m already hooked.

— Andrew Desiderio

You can find The Readback in your inbox every Saturday at 8 a.m. And don’t hesitate to reach out to readback@punchbowl.news with feedback. Enjoy The Readback.

Inside the Senate’s vote-a-rama

The big event this week in the Senate was the vote-a-rama, the all-night amendment slog that Republicans had to endure before passing their budget resolution.

The Senate started voting at 7 p.m. on Thursday and wrapped up at 4:46 a.m. on Friday. Senators could offer unlimited amendments to the budget resolution, creating the conditions for a brutal night of voting.

Some senators passed the time by catching a glimpse of the USA-Canada hockey game in the cloakroom. Others hunkered down and spent most of their time at their desk on the Senate floor. Either way, by the time 5 a.m. came, most were relieved to finally be done with the marathon session.

Democrats seized the opportunity to accuse Republicans of cutting taxes for billionaires, focusing their amendments on a populist economic message. It was telling that the Democratic approach largely ignored the substance of the GOP bill, which centered around defense, border and immigration enforcement.

We had a chance to sit down with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday to hear the New York Democrat’s strategy. Schumer asserted that tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts to Medicaid were unpopular nationally and would boost Democratic chances in 2026.

“If we keep hammering away at this issue, we will drive Trump’s numbers down,” Schumer told us.

But the Democratic approach seemed aimed more at the House GOP budget plan, which seeks to contain all the tax provisions and potential Medicaid cuts, than the “skinny” Senate plan that’s part one of a two-bill approach.

The split between the Senate and House GOP on the best path forward will truly kick into gear next week when the House votes on its bill. And Democrats seem to be relishing the chance to take down the “one, big beautiful bill.”

What I’m reading: “Yellowface” by R.F. Kuang. It’s an intriguing read exploring the writing industry with twist after twist!

– Max Cohen

House GOP targets the one CFPB rule banks don’t hate

House Republican leadership announced a slate of regulations they’d be targeting with Congressional Review Act challenges in the coming weeks. One of the rules in peril, from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, caught my eye, and not for the reason you may think.

Republicans and the banking industry have made no secret of their distaste for the currently shuttered consumer watchdog.

But the rule being targeted by House Republican leadership is, ironically, one of the few items published by the CFPB last year that the banking industry actively supported. The CRA challenge here wouldn’t be a win for the Big Banks but for Big Tech.

The CFPB published a rule in November that would formalize the agency’s supervision of large, nonbank companies that do payments. That includes digital wallets and peer-to-peer payment apps.

One of the oldest gripes in banking is the encroachment of non-bank actors in core bank businesses. Payments is a big one. So the industry hailed the CFPB’s “larger participants” payment rule as something that could level the playing field between regulated banks and less-regulated tech firms.

Both the American Bankers Association and Consumer Bankers Association thanked the CFPB for proposing this rule in 2024. “It is essential that the same consumer protections that are provided by banks to their customers be provided by nonbanks to their own customers when those nonbanks offer the same services,” the two trades wrote in a joint letter.

Womp womp, says House Republican leadership. If banks are looking for help against a tech onslaught, they may need to look elsewhere.

What I’m watching: I just started the third and final season of Somebody Somewhere on Max with my girlfriend. Funny! Sad! Hopeful! The most Midwestern-y thing on television! It’s a strong recommendation from me.

– Brendan Pedersen

Big week ahead for government funding

Government funding runs out on March 14, and there’s no deal in sight.

Reconciliation took up most of the oxygen on Capitol Hill this week. On the sidelines, though, anxiety is rising over the March deadline to fund the government.

Typically, the heads of the appropriations committees come together on topline numbers and then the subcommittees get to work writing the bills. That takes some time, so it’s crunch time for appropriators to get to work. But there are still no toplines.

The problem, as we reported this week, isn’t really a disagreement over numbers. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told us negotiators are “within very close, striking distance,” on the toplines.

The issue is that Democrats need guarantees that the Trump administration will follow through on the funding agreement that Congress reaches. This all goes back to how Democrats have been sounding the alarm over the DOGE cuts, saying President Donald Trump is violating appropriations law.

Republicans aren’t eager to agree to those demands. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said negotiators are at an “impasse.”

Even if the four corners reach an agreement on these assurances and topline numbers, there’s still likely to be some disagreement over the details. The GOP is already looking at how they may codify the DOGE cuts in spending bills.

Then there’s Plan B. Some House Republicans are increasingly looking to go ahead with a full-year continuing resolution, rather than full-year appropriations, but that also complicates matters.

It doesn’t look like Democrats will agree to a clean, full-year CR, as Murray warned on the Senate floor that it would mean Congress’ funding directives fall away. That would give Trump and Elon Musk more control over how appropriations are spent, which is exactly what Democrats are trying to avoid.

The major question when the House gets back next week is whether appropriators and leadership can get over these hurdles. Otherwise, there may be a shutdown on the horizon.

What I’m watching: Summer House on Bravo. The new drama unfolding this season in the Hamptons is a refreshing break from the drama on Capitol Hill.

– Samantha Handler