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IN THIS EDITION

Trump, Johnson to huddle with House Republicans as frustration grows

Ossoff gears up for fight of his political life in 2026

Rounds wants government to use AI more for research

Indicted Texas Democrat suddenly popular with Trump officials

THE TOP

Trump, Johnson to huddle with House Republicans as frustration grows

Happy Thursday morning.

News: Speaker Mike Johnson will go to the White House with a group of House Republicans today to meet with President Donald Trump about the budget resolution.

It’s not even five weeks into the 119th Congress and the White House and Senate Republicans are already growing tired of waiting for House Republicans to get their act together.

How do you think the Republican trifecta is doing?

The House and the Senate, both controlled by Republicans for the first time in six years, find themselves at loggerheads on the most important issue facing Congress this year — the future of Trump’s legislative agenda.

As Johnson and the House Republican Conference search for common ground between unyielding conservative hardliners and everyone else, the Senate has gotten tired of waiting.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced that he’s going to mark up his own $300 billion budget resolution next week, throwing a massive wrench into Johnson’s plans. Graham announced the budget-resolution markup as Johnson insisted that the House needs to move first.

The Senate’s budget plan won’t look at all like what the House is envisioning. Graham’s proposal would include $150 billion for the Pentagon and other defense programs, plus $150 billion for border security, including Trump’s border wall. There’ll also be energy policy provisions. Graham says the new spending will be offset by cuts to mandatory programs, but he didn’t say which ones.

Graham and Senate Majority Leader John Thune want to hand Trump an early win on the border, defense spending and energy policy — something the president might find attractive. Senate GOP leaders plan to return to extension of the 2017 tax cuts later this year with a second reconciliation package. If the Senate passes its budget resolution before the House moves, it would put the Senate in the driver’s seat in dictating the legislative contours of the 119th Congress.

Meanwhile, Johnson, House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) want a single reconciliation package that includes the totality of Trump’s agenda, everything from border security to energy to tax cuts. House Republicans think one bill is easier to pass than two.

Graham’s gamble — and it is one — may not make it through the House. Graham and Thune admitted as much during the Senate GOP lunch Wednesday, according to multiple Republican senators who attended the session. Yet Graham and Thune insisted that something had to be done, adding that they had little faith in Johnson or House GOP leaders.

This Senate drama shows how badly Johnson is getting squeezed on every side, just weeks after he barely survived a vote to be speaker. And that was only because of Trump’s direct intervention.

Conservative hardliners spoke up in a closed party meeting Wednesday, telling Johnson that they want two reconciliation bills, not one. A number of conservative hardliners — Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and others — are backchanneling with Senate Republicans to urge them to spoil the speaker’s plans.

So far, Trump has deferred to Johnson’s one-bill strategy. But the president has left the door open to the idea that two bills may be easier. And there are White House aides who privately agree with Graham, not Johnson.

Today’s White House meeting is a risk for Johnson, as hardliners will undoubtedly use the opportunity to make their case to Trump that the speaker’s strategy is terribly misguided.

This disagreement between House and Senate Republicans is getting heated. Smith, who last Congress passed a tax bill that was ignored by the Senate, has said Graham is wasting his time on a process that won’t go anywhere.

There are also very important policy implications to this clash.

The two-bill approach basically punts tax reform to the second half of 2025. Given the volatile nature of the House, it seems plausible that Republicans have just one chance to get something big through the chamber. In other words, the two-bill approach dramatically raises the chances that Congress will still be working on extending the 2017 cuts late into the fall.

There are other impacts as well. Government funding runs out on March 14. Democrats — increasingly dismayed by Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative — are taking a harder line on FY2025 spending bills. And House and Senate Republicans still can’t agree among themselves on what the topline spending figure for next year should be.

A reconciliation package that includes defense and border security funding could potentially take some pressure off appropriators. Funding approved in that package doesn’t have to be included in an FY2025 spending deal. So it’s a safety valve in this scenario, some lawmakers have suggested to us. Yet Democrats may be so upset by the offsets Republicans chose to cover the cost of the package that can’t make a government-funding deal.

A California-related disaster aid package still has to be drafted and passed. And then there’s the real pressure point — raising the debt limit. There’s no way House and Senate GOP leaders can do this without Democratic votes. But what can they offer Democrats except more funding for social programs, which is exactly what hardline conservatives are trying to cut? Trump won’t want any problems here, however.

House and Senate Democratic leaders are coming under increasing pressure from their own rank-and-file lawmakers to take a tougher line with Trump and Republicans as well. That internal Democratic pressure is only going to ratchet up in the coming months, making compromise everywhere harder to achieve.

– Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan, Laura Weiss and Melanie Zanona

Our tax policy summit is one week away on Thursday, Feb. 13! Our summit will feature Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), Danielle Rolfes from KPMG, and an expert panel with leaders like Kodiak Hill-Davis, Paolo Mastrangelo, and Portia Allen-Kyle. Join us for discussions and networking with Capitol Hill and financial sector leaders. Register now to save your seat!

SENATE MAP

Ossoff gears up for fight of his political life in 2026

It’s only February 2025 but the blockbuster 2026 Georgia Senate race is heating up.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.), the most endangered Senate Democratic incumbent, is already facing GOP attack ads on his home airwaves. And top Senate Republicans are kicking off a lobbying campaign to convince popular two-term GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to mount a challenge to Ossoff.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and NRSC Chair Tim Scott have personally met with Kemp in a bid to get him to run. But it’s still an open question whether the 61-year-old Republican governor even wants to be a senator and the GOP persuasion efforts remain in their initial stages.

There’s no doubt that Kemp represents Ossoff’s most formidable competitor and would clear the GOP primary field if he does run. Yet Republicans acknowledge that knocking off Ossoff is no easy feat.

The first-term senator will have access to huge sums of cash in what may become the most expensive Senate race ever. There’s skepticism that President Donald Trump’s winning 2024 coalition will turn out in similar numbers in a midterm year. And Ossoff is regarded as a disciplined politician with a head-down approach focusing on bipartisan legislative wins.

Ossoff declined an interview request, but the Georgia Democrat sent over a statement touting his constituent services and pledging to expand his electoral coalition during the campaign.

“Our campaign will be the most aggressive turnout effort in state history,” Ossoff said in a statement. “We’ll be huge and efficient and totally relentless.”

The 37-year-old incumbent, who won his seat in 2021 along with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), is far more likely to introduce bills with conservative GOP senators than to appear on cable news.

Just this week, Ossoff and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) unveiled a bill to support human trafficking victims. Ossoff has also worked with Blackburn on legislation tackling online child exploitation, in addition to partnering with former Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) on federal prison reform. Through his bipartisan work, he’s even won plaudits from Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

But these topics are unlikely to be the animating issues of the 2026 midterms.

A recent Americans For Prosperity ad, part of a $400,000 ad buy targeting Ossoff, calls on the Democrat to renew the Trump tax cuts. AFP says the ad is just the start of a seven-figure commitment to mobilize a grassroots effort to hold Ossoff accountable.

The NRSC also has Ossoff in their sights and slammed him even after he voted for the Laken Riley Act last month, accusing Ossoff of flip-flopping on the measure.

The NRSC is pointing to March 2024, when all Senate Democrats opposed a procedural vote that would have offered a GOP amendment to prohibit undocumented immigrants charged or accused of certain burglary crimes from obtaining legal status. This differs from the enacted version of the Laken Riley Act, which requires federal law enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants accused of crimes like burglary, theft or assaulting law enforcement.

“Jon Ossoff’s spineless complacency with his Party’s open border policies enabled a criminal illegal alien to murder a young woman in his own state,” NRSC spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez said in a statement.

Republicans see Ossoff’s tendency to go along with the Democratic Party line, as well as his 2024 vote to restrict arms sales to Israel, as big liabilities next year. Plus the retirement announcement by Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters — the only other Democratic incumbent running in a state that President Donald Trump won last year — makes Ossoff the top target for Senate Republicans.

Democrats feeling confident: DSCC Chair Kirsten Gillibrand told us she has “every faith he will hold his seat” and hailed Ossoff as “an extraordinarily strong and effective senator.”

“Ossoff will be just fine,” Warnock told us. “I’ll put him up against whoever they put up.”

We’ll note that Ossoff currently has $5 million on hand, per his latest FEC filing.

— Max Cohen and John Bresnahan

BORDER WATCH

Indicted Texas Democrat suddenly popular with Trump officials

Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife were indicted in May 2024 on a series of federal corruption charges including bribery, money laundering, wire fraud and failing to register as a foreign agent.

Federal prosecutors accused the 69-year-old Cuellar — a career politician — of using “sham contracts” and fake invoices to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from an Azerbaijani oil company and a Mexican bank over a years-long period.

Cuellar represents a district that sits on the south Texas border, and he often breaks with Democrats on immigration and border issues. That’s true even for culture war bills at times.

But now, with President Donald Trump in office – and House Republicans barely holding onto a razor-thin margin where every vote counts – Cuellar is becoming a hot commodity among top administration officials.

In an interview on Wednesday, Cuellar told us that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, are all seeking meetings with him. Cuellar has also reached out to Homan independently over the past few months.

“We’re talking about immigration,” Cuellar said of the Trump administration officials, Cuellar also noted that he has had a long relationship with Homan. “We’ve known each other for many, many years.”

Cuellar added that these conversations took place around Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

The 11-term lawmaker is one of only two Texas Democrats serving on the House Appropriations Committee. He sits on the Defense, Homeland Security and MilCon-VA subcommittees on that panel.

When asked whether Cuellar or his defense attorneys have spoken to administration officials about his criminal case, the Texas Democrat insisted, “That has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.”

Cuellar was indicted on April 30, more than two years after his home was raided by FBI agents. Cuellar stepped aside as ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on the Appropriations Committee, but there has been little other fallout within the House Democratic Caucus. Cuellar won reelection in November, defeating Republican Jay Furman despite a bad year for Democrats.

Cuellar’s criminal case isn’t going anywhere fast either. The case is currently scheduled to go to trial in late September. There’s been very little action in the case docket beyond the logistics of the treatment of classified information and rescheduling the start of the trial.

— Mica Soellner and John Bresnahan

THE MONEY GAME

Miller raises $7.5 million in 2 nights for GOP

Republican lobbyist Jeff Miller hosted back-to-back fundraisers Tuesday and Wednesday nights in D.C. He raised $4 million for House Republicans at an event on Wednesday that included Speaker Mike Johnson and all the House GOP committee chairs.

On Tuesday night, Miller raised $3.5 million for Senate Republicans at an event that featured Senate Majority Leader John Thune, NRSC Chair Tim Scott and other GOP leaders.

Miller, the founder of Miller Strategies, was a finance chair for President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

— Jake Sherman

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