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March 20, 2023
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PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Monday morning from Orlando, Fla., and Washington.
House Republicans are in Orlando this week for their annual legislative retreat. If you’re registered for the getaway – either as a lawmaker, aide or member of the media – please join us this evening at 5:30 p.m. Jake will be interviewing House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik. This is the second year in a row we’ve held interviews at the GOP and Democratic retreats.
The backdrop: House Republicans arrived here Sunday seeking to talk about their future – the upcoming debt limit and government spending fight, investigations into President Joe Biden, a signature energy package and the outlook for the 118th Congress.
Instead, former President Donald Trump is once again dominating the political landscape. This time, it’s Trump’s potential indictment by the Manhattan district attorney’s office over an alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
We have no idea whether Trump will be arrested Tuesday. Trump often makes things up as he goes along. But it’s safe to say he faces significant legal peril between the cases in New York, Atlanta and the federal special counsel probes.
It’s how House Republicans are responding to this that matters to us, however. They’ve turned a potential Trump indictment into a rallying cry. They don’t mention Daniels or Trump’s payment to her. Their issue is the possibility that “woke, George Soros-funded” District Attorney Alvin Bragg could indict Trump.
Shortly after Trump proclaimed that he could be charged by Bragg as early as Tuesday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said House committees – which he controls – would “immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”
On Sunday, McCarthy promised House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) would take action on the issue Monday. McCarthy didn’t specify what that action would be.
Stefanik called Trump’s legal peril “unAmerican.” Jordan said this: “God Bless President Trump. Real America knows this is all a sham.”
This isn’t surprising. In the universe of Republican politics, the House GOP conference is the most loyal to Trump. Most Senate Republicans want nothing to do with the ex-president after Jan. 6. Many GOP governors seem sick of him. But House Republicans have oriented their politics around Trump since his first run for the White House, and they continue to do so.
McCarthy, speaking in Orlando, repeatedly called for calm, breaking with Trump’s demands that his supporters protest and “take your country back” in the event the former president is indicted.
“I don’t think people should protest this, no,” McCarthy said of a potential Trump indictment. “No one should harm one another on this.”
Despite another Trump-related crisis swirling around them, there are a host of hugely important items that House Republicans have to deal with in the coming months.
First, several mid-sized banks have failed recently, spurring concerns about the safety of the U.S. banking system. Biden is calling on Congress to give federal regulators new powers to claw back executive pay from mismanaged banks. Republicans are divided on whether Congress should grant the FDIC new powers to insure all bank deposits.
Second, House Republicans will try to pass an FY 2024 budget resolution in the coming weeks (more on this below). GOP leaders have hammered the president for being late on his budget. Republicans now have to release their own proposal by early April to avoid looking like complete hypocrites. And then they have to pass it.
| → | hird, the debt limit. Since Biden and McCarthy met Feb. 1, the pair haven’t had any meaningful contact about raising the federal government’s borrowing authority. McCarthy told reporters he confronted Biden last Friday over the lack of a second meeting on the debt limit. |
“I sat down with him and said, ‘You said you’d meet with me again. Every day that passes, you put the economy in jeopardy,’” McCarthy told reporters Sunday of his exchange with the president. Biden countered that he was still waiting on the House GOP budget proposal, McCarthy recounted.
New: Join Punchbowl News founders Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman on Thursday, April 20, at 9 a.m. EST as they interview Problem Solvers Caucus Co-Chairs Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.). The interview will dive into news of the day as well as the challenges facing small business owners. This conversation is the first in a three-part series, “Small Business, America’s Future,” presented by Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices. RSVP!
Also remember: We’ll have House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) at an event March 28. He is a man in the news, as you may know. Register here.
– Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Max Cohen
SPENDING FIGHT
DeLauro: House GOP budget plan would ‘put people at risk’
Armed with new estimates from federal agencies, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, says House Republicans’ plans to cut tens of billions of dollars in government spending – back to FY 2022 levels – would “put people at risk,” including millions of seniors, veterans and low-income Americans.
DeLauro wrote to Cabinet secretaries and agency heads back in mid-January seeking their response to House GOP plans to slash spending by $130 billion or more next year in order to get back to FY 2022 funding levels. Remember, Kevin McCarthy agreed to make these cuts as part of his bid for the speakership. McCarthy and other top Republicans have vowed Social Security and Medicare won’t be cut, and the Pentagon budget will be largely spared.
Yet that means huge cuts across non-defense discretionary spending, as well as Medicaid and other entitlement programs. DeLauro is trying to spell out what the scale of those cuts could be – and who would be impacted.
You can read the agencies’ responses here. They were released just as we went to press. There’ll be lots more discussion of this issue as Cabinet secretaries testify this week before House and Senate panels over President Joe Biden’s FY 2024 budget request. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, USTR Katherine Tai and OMB Director Shalanda Young will all be appearing.
Here’s DeLauro this morning:
According to Biden administration estimates, more than 400,000 families could face eviction from Section 8 housing. Meals on Wheels could be cut for 1 million seniors. Air traffic control towers would need to be shut down at one-third of airports, and rail safety inspections would be reduced. Roughly 11,000 FBI personnel could be laid off. Suicide and crisis hotlines and drug treatment programs would be cut, impacting tens of thousands of individuals. At the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “over 5,000 personnel would have to take 36 furlough days.” Drought-relief measures would be curtailed.
The Social Security Administration “would be forced to close field offices and reduce access to in-person services, and people applying for disability benefits would wait an additional 2 months for the processing of claims,” DeLauro added. And “[a]n estimated 2 million vulnerable individuals and families, including rural and underserved populations, would lose access to health care services through Community Health Centers.”
Now we’re not going to go over potential Pentagon budget cuts here because Republicans insist they’re only going after waste, fraud and abuse at the Defense Department, but Democrats will push on this issue as well.
The importance of what DeLauro is trying to spell out here is that it’s easy to call for spending cuts in the abstract. But actually doing it is really hard. Which is why it doesn’t happen.
And remember: The Senate – including many of their Senate GOP colleagues – will never agree to such cuts. This is especially important for the 18 House Republicans sitting in seats that Biden won in 2020. They may be forced to back potential budget cuts that never come close to being enacted. But it will make for good material for Democratic campaign ads in 2024.
– John Bresnahan
INSIDE THE HOUSE GOP
Inside the room: What NRCC Chair Richard Hudson told Republicans
We’re going to be bringing you inside the room all week from the retreat here in Orlando.
Up first: NRCC Chair Richard Hudson gave a political presentation Sunday alongside CLF President Dan Conston.
Hudson, who’s in charge of the House GOP’s political operation, said the following:
| → | Hudson presented the NRCC’s list of targeted Democrats to the House Republican Conference for the first time. It includes 37 House Democrats. |
| → | Hudson tried to make the case that Democrats’ image is damaged. Despite a surprisingly good showing by Democrats in November, Hudson says their swing district members were forced to spend a lot of money and are more vulnerable now than at this point last cycle. |
| → | Hudson argued for hybrid ads – spots that are jointly financed by the NRCC and individual campaigns. But he said that campaigns have to raise enough money. Hudson called Conston’s CLF a “powerhouse” but added that individual campaigns need to raise money to be able to compete. |
| → | He also used the D.C. crime bill episode as a way House Republicans forced Democrats to take a tricky vote. The NRCC has used the vote against Democrats nationwide. |
Here are slides from Hudson’s presentation to House Republicans. These are exclusive to Punchbowl News. You won’t be seeing them anywhere else.
Stick with us this week as we continue to cover the House GOP retreat in Orlando.
– Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
PRESENTED BY THE AMERICAN INVESTMENT COUNCIL
62% of the investments that private equity makes are in small businesses, with 46% in companies smaller than 100 people.
The week ahead in investigations
It’s subpoena deadline time. The big day to watch this week is Thursday, March 23, when House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has set a deadline for his subpoenas to top tech companies.
Jordan is probing the content moderation policies of the tech giants as Republicans investigate possible bias against conservative views. Jordan, who also chairs the Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee, subpoenaed the chief executives of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft back in February.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy also forecasted that Jordan would be busy with another investigation this week. This potential probe would look into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as we wrote above.
We should expect action from Jordan sometime Monday, McCarthy said.
Letter deadlines: House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) is continuing to look into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.
The Kentucky Republican has given White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients until March 21 to provide information on whether the White House quashed a public statement from the National Archives on the discovery of Biden’s classified documents.
– Max Cohen
📅
What we’re watching
Wednesday: The Senate Armed Services Committee will have a hearing on the military’s recruiting challenges with the undersecretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force.
Senate HELP will have a hearing on Moderna’s pricing of the Covid-19 vaccine. Stéphane Bancel, the CEO of Moderna, will testify. EPA Administrator Michael Regan will be in front of the Senate EPW Committee to testify on the president’s budget.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will testify in front of Senate Appropriations and Senate Foreign Relations on the 2024 budget request. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra will testify to Senate Finance and Senate Appropriations on the president’s budget. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will be in front of Senate Appropriations.
Thursday: The Senate Armed Services Committee will have a hearing on the budget priorities of Southern and Northern Command. Gen. Glen VanHerck and Gen. Laura Richardson will testify.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley will testify at House Appropriations. Blinken will testify at House Foreign Affairs.
House Judiciary and House Oversight will have a joint hearing on the ATF.
House Armed Services will have a hearing on the Middle East and Africa with Assistant Secretary of Defense Celeste Wallander; Gen. Erik Kurilla, the commander of Central Command; and Gen. Michael Langley, the commander of U.S. Africa Command.
OMB Director Shalanda Young will testify about the president’s budget to the House Budget Committee.
House Energy and Commerce has its hearing on TikTok with CEO Shou Zi Chew.
Senate Appropriations will have a hearing on DOT’s budget with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Senate Finance will have a hearing on trade policy with USTR Katherine Tai. House Appropriations has a number of hearings. Appropriators will hold a hearing with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, they will hear from USCP Chief Thomas Manger and from Blinken.
The China select committee will have a hearing on the Uyghur genocide.
Friday: House Ways and Means will hear from Tai.
– Jake Sherman
PRESENTED BY THE AMERICAN INVESTMENT COUNCIL
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