The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

WH deal with House GOP sets tricky week — and potentially weekend vote

Thune world adds some outside muscle

Werfel is playing the long game

Top former generals to slam Afghanistan withdrawal

What to watch in Ohio and Illinois

THE TOP

WH deal with House GOP sets tricky week — and potentially weekend vote

Happy Tuesday morning.

White House officials and top aides to the Big Four congressional leaders reached a deal on Homeland Security funding on Monday night, setting up a contentious week on Capitol Hill.

This is the final piece of a massive six-bill minibus package of FY2024 spending bills. The package includes the Defense, Labor-HHS, Legislative Branch, Financial Services-General Government and State-Foreign Operations, as well as Homeland Security. In total, it’s about three-quarters of federal discretionary spending. Funding for these bills ends at midnight Friday.

The agreement on the DHS bill — actually a continuing resolution to fund the department through Sept. 30 — involved a lot of back and forth between the Biden administration and Speaker Mike Johnson’s aides. In fact, House and Senate staffers thought they were nearing an agreement on a yearlong stopgap for DHS on Saturday night, but the administration was unhappy with the contours of the bill, forcing a reset of the negotiations.

The hangup: The White House wanted more flexibility to shuffle around money within DHS between now and the end of the fiscal year. Senior House Republican leadership aides wanted more funding for detention beds for undocumented migrants and Border Patrol agents.

For the White House, the negotiations were led by OMB Director Shalanda Young — a longtime senior House Appropriations Committee aide — and Shuwanza Goff, the top White House legislative liaison who served for years in the Democratic leadership.

In a sign of internal party tensions, Democratic aides told us Monday evening that the deal was cut between House Republicans and the White House, preferring to keep a bit of distance from the final accord. There also was an “angry call” Sunday night between White House aides and Senate Democratic staffers upset over the last-minute maneuvering by senior administration officials, according to multiple sources.

It’s now up to the House leadership, legislative counsel and Appropriations Committee staffers to put the text of this agreement together quickly. Every bill besides the Homeland CR has essentially been done now for days.

Yet Johnson is going to have a difficult week. The House GOP leadership has promised to give lawmakers 72 hours to read the funding legislation before a vote. At this point, it seems as if the DHS legislation will be ready for review on Wednesday. This would peg a House vote on the six-bill package at some point on Saturday, which is after the shutdown deadline.

Johnson can try to convince Republicans to shrink the 72 hours, but he’ll get major pushback from conservative hardliners already opposed to the measure. Remember: the package represents roughly $1 trillion in spending, and the final agreement was cut behind closed doors with no member input. Johnson would be hard-pressed to argue that a vote should be expedited.

TikTok news: It’s also shaping up to be an important week for the fate of the House-passed bill to force social media app TikTok to divest from its Chinese-based parent ByteDance or face a U.S. ban.

National security officials are scheduled to brief members of the Senate Commerce and Intelligence committees Wednesday to “provide an update on the threat posed by foreign adversaries’ exploitation of Americans’ sensitive data, including related to TikTok,” according to an aide. We scooped this Monday in the PM edition.

The briefers for the classified session will include officials from the Justice Department, the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. House members got two similar briefings before voting on their TikTok bill.

Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) — who chair the Commerce and Intelligence panels, respectively — are co-hosting the briefing. Warner supports the House bill, while Cantwell prefers a different approach.

Warner was previously hesitant about naming a private company in legislation, but conversations with DOJ lawyers alleviated those concerns. DOJ has been leading the administration’s divestment push, and some DOJ officials will brief Senate aides later today on TikTok.

The big question now is whether Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will bring up the House bill for a floor vote. That Cantwell and Warner aren’t aligned complicates Schumer’s calculus.

Last Friday, aides to Schumer told Democratic legislative directors during a conference call that the majority leader wants input from senators about not just the House-passed TikTok bill but also other legislation addressing foreign technology threats, according to two people familiar with the call.

The Schumer aides also referenced our reporting about Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the top Republican on the Commerce Committee, saying he wants a Commerce hearing on the House TikTok bill.

Schumer isn’t yet committing to putting a bill on the floor. This could change if the White House makes a more concerted push for a Senate vote. So far, Biden is only saying he supports the bill. Absent presidential heft, Schumer won’t be in any rush.

One other note: We want to congratulate our friends at C-SPAN for 45 years of continuous coverage of Congress. The House of Representatives went on the air on March 19, 1979. And nothing has ever been the same!

— Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio

Happening today at 9 a.m. ET: The Summit: The Digital Payments Economy explores how digital payments support consumers, small businesses and the economy.

The half-day event will feature a one-on-one interview with House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), a panel conversation with speakers from a variety of industries and a fireside chat on innovation in payments and how the ecosystem supports consumers, enables small businesses and powers economies. There’s still time to RSVP!

GOP LEADER RACE

Thune world adds some outside muscle

New: Johnny DeStefano, a longtime Republican operator, is running an outside group linked to Senate Minority Whip John Thune’s bid for Senate GOP leader.

The group is called New Heights for America. And the way outside non-profit groups are structured, they can’t have any official link to Thune or his staff. But there are a few things here worth considering.

→	Also joining DeStefano in running this non-profit is Paula Dukes. Dukes is a longtime GOP fundraiser who has been around Thune’s orbit for 13 years.

→	The group can raise unlimited, undisclosed sums of money from large donors. This will help the South Dakota Republican build a base of large-dollar donors who would otherwise be limited on what they can give to Thune-affiliated hard-dollar groups.

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DeStefano is a long-time operative with a deep history in GOP politics. He worked for former Speaker John Boehner. DeStefano later served in the Trump White House as director of the Office of Public Liaison and counselor to the president. DeStefano wielded power for then-President Donald Trump, overseeing the appointment of scores of people to government posts.

→

Having a C4 could be very beneficial for both Thune and Republicans in the 2024 campaign season. The group’s connection to Thune will help the South Dakota Republican build chits as he ramps up his run for Senate GOP leader. And like other similar groups, this C4 will be able to spend money on issue ads, as well as funneling money to super PACs and other entities.

Thune, of course, is in a marathon race to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the next Congress. So far, it’s a head-to-head race against Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Other Republicans, such as Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.) and NRSC Chair Steve Daines, may jump in at some point.

— Jake Sherman

Werfel is playing the long game

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel’s mission isn’t an easy one. Werfel is selling a vision of a bigger, modernized IRS in the face of a partisan Hill fight that could reshape its trajectory.

Werfel made his case for IRS funding in a speech and Q&A on Monday night marking his one-year anniversary leading the agency.

“New funds are catalyzing a new era for the IRS,” Werfel said.

What a year it’s been for Werfel. The long-term funding from Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act is being cut back to placate congressional Republicans who love to rail against the funding.

Werfel was adamant that the remaining $60 billion is a good investment, and that he’s using it to propel the IRS forward. In his speech, Werfel presented a vision of a modernized, more digital IRS that can better provide taxpayer assistance, scrutinize high-income taxpayers more likely to be dodging taxes and implement tax laws fairly.

For one, Werfel said the agency will use funding to make sure taxpayers can do everything they need to tax-wise digitally, if they choose.

And on his own future? Werfel enjoyed a relatively smooth Senate confirmation last year. But given the sharp divide on IRS funding and Werfel’s role shaping how it’s spent, we checked in on what his plans would be if Donald Trump wins the presidency in November.

The IRS commissioner doesn’t sound like he’s going anywhere. Here’s Werfel:

Werfel added that he tries not to think about politics or who sits in the White House, instead focusing on his “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to transform the IRS.

Some of the IRS funding is bipartisan, to be clear. Updating technology and expanding taxpayer services are generally harmonious topics for lawmakers. But the November elections could determine a lot given how divisive the IRS enforcement funding is around Capitol Hill. This makes up the bulk of the IRA funds.

Werfel also told reporters after the speech that with IRA funding, the agency is creating a “new baseline” of the size and scale of its workforce, technology, data security and AI expertise. The Biden administration wants to keep the dollars flowing when the $60 billion left of IRA money winds down, a proposal that Republicans panned.

— Laura Weiss

Top former generals to slam Afghanistan withdrawal

Retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former Central Command commander, will share their serious concerns today about how the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing — kicking off at 1 p.m. — marks the first time the two high-profile retired generals will publicly testify on Capitol Hill since leaving their posts. The proceedings are expected to shine a light on the divergences in strategy within the Biden administration on the Afghanistan pullout.

Milley has publicly said he believes the U.S. embassy in Kabul should have been evacuated quicker. Milley described the fall of Kabul to the Taliban as “a strategic failure.” McKenzie has also said he has “a lot of regrets” about the pullout and has criticized the speed of evacuation of U.S. personnel.

In an opening statement, Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) will point out how President Joe Biden’s top military advisers — including Milley and McKenzie — “issued dire warnings about the withdrawal’s disastrous consequences.”

McCaul will add that his investigation has uncovered significant shortcomings in U.S. planning that led to the chaotic withdrawal in August 2021.

“The State Department’s request for an emergency evacuation was not transmitted to the DOD until August 16th – the day after the Taliban surrounded Kabul and the embassy was evacuated,” McCaul will say.

The withdrawal culminated in a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members and hundreds of Afghans.

“I will not rest until I get to the bottom of this tragedy. You deserve answers,” McCaul will say about the terrorist attack. “The American people deserve answers. And I intend to uncover them.”

McCaul’s Afghanistan oversight has taken a back seat to other more headline-grabbing House GOP probes, such as the Biden impeachment inquiry. Yet the McCaul investigation is widely seen on the Hill as the most serious of the various House GOP inquiries into Biden’s presidency.

Former President Donald Trump and the Taliban reached an agreement in February 2020 to pull U.S. combat troops out of Afghanistan by the following year if certain conditions were met.

When Biden came into office in January 2021, he was determined to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan as well, but he delayed the pullout until September. That was a full 20 years after the 9/11 attacks and the start of the American-led military campaign in the war-torn country.

At that time, Biden and senior administration officials reasoned that maintaining a military presence in the nation would continue to put troops at risk. But top U.S. officials admit the rapid Taliban takeover of the country in 2021 took them by surprise.

— Max Cohen

THE CAMPAIGN

What to watch in Ohio and Illinois

Congressional primary voters head to the polls today in Ohio and Illinois. Here are the top storylines we’re tracking.

Can MAGA world push Moreno over the finish line? The Ohio Senate GOP primary is a major test of former President Donald Trump’s power in key congressional primaries. Trump has backed businessman Bernie Moreno and rallied for him alongside other MAGA world figures in Ohio this weekend. But despite locking up Trump’s vaunted endorsement, Moreno hasn’t pulled away from more establishment candidate state Sen. Matt Dolan.

A damaging story about a profile on a dating site linked to Moreno has rocked the race in the final days. The profile seemed to have someone posing as Moreno looking for a gay date. Moreno has said it was an intern playing a prank on him. Sensing an opportunity, Democratic groups are spending to boost Moreno in the hope he’s an easier opponent for Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Secretary of State Frank LaRose is running a distant third in the race.

Will Bost hold off a right-wing opponent? House Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Mike Bost (R-Ill.) is fending off a primary challenge from Darren Bailey. Bost crucially secured Trump’s endorsement in the race. But Bost’s own House colleagues, such as Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Mary Miller (R-Ill.), are lining up behind Bailey.

Which Republican will emerge to face Kaptur? Ohio’s 9th District has become an obsession for Republicans trying to unseat Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio). The district went for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. While last cycle’s failed GOP candidate J.R. Majewski dropped out — much to the relief of the NRCC — there’s still a bitter contest between state Rep. Derek Merrin and former state Rep. Craig Riedel.

Merrin is backed by Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump and the Congressional Leadership Fund. But Merrin only entered the race in late December after Republicans ditched Riedel for critiquing Trump. Riedel has been running attack ads accusing Merrin of being too close to disgraced Ohio pol Larry Householder.

Who will replace Bill Johnson? The primary for the June special election to fill former Rep. Bill Johnson’s (R-Ohio) seat is today. Johnson left his safe red seat to become president of Youngstown State University. The winner of the GOP primary is the heavy favorite to come to D.C. to finish Johnson’s term.

The top contenders are state Sen. Michael Rulli — who’s backed by more center-right types like Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), the Republican Main Street Partnership and former Ohio GOP Chair Jane Timken — and state Rep. Reggie Stoltzfus, who’s endorsed by right-wing Reps. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) and Scott Perry (R-Pa.).

— Max Cohen

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