The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

A feisty Biden blasts GOP foes

Immigration and border security split Democrats

The tax bill’s Finance fracture

Biden’s ‘unusual’ decision to lead SOTU with Ukraine

THE TOP

A feisty Biden blasts GOP foes

Happy Friday morning.

SOTU: If you are a casual political observer, you tuned into the State of the Union Thursday night and saw a feisty President Joe Biden deliver a full-throated blast at Republicans and “my predecessor” — former President Donald Trump, his opponent this fall.

Surprisingly, Biden led his address with Ukraine, Jan. 6, abortion and the state of the U.S. economy, all of which he sees as the keys to his reelection campaign.

Biden jousted with Republicans who screamed at him — namely Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — even ad-libbing a line about Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and her alleged murder at the hands of an “illegal” immigrant, which shocked some members of his own party. Biden then spent more than 30 minutes hobnobbing with lawmakers on the House floor, only leaving when they turned the lights out.

Yet nothing Biden said or did Thursday night will have an immediate impact on domestic policy. His big international pitches were for Ukraine aid and a new port on the shores of Gaza to help deliver aid to beleaguered Palestinian civilians, something we’re certain will become a big issue for Hill Republicans in the coming days. We’ve got more from Andrew Desiderio on that below.

Now onto the news: House Democratic leadership is expected to endorse the bipartisan bill to force ByteDance to sell TikTok, another massive blow for the social media giant in advance of a floor vote next week.

The Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously cleared legislation Thursday that would require ByteDance to sell TikTok in order for the enormously popular app to remain available in U.S. markets. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise then announced that the chamber would take up the legislation — authored by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), chair and ranking member of the China select committee — next week.

The bill is likely to be considered under suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority for passage. This shows an unusual level of confidence from the GOP leadership that this bill will sail through the chamber with large bipartisan majorities.

House Democratic leadership sources say it’s nearly inevitable that they will back the legislation and urge their members to vote for it.

In an interview Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries made clear he was leaning in that direction:

Remember: Two of Jeffries’ ranking members — Krishnamoorthi and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) — support the bill. There’s virtually no chance Jeffries would try to overrule a unanimous bipartisan vote and skirt around his ranking members.

Something to watch: But even with Democratic leadership’s support, the bill might not be as easy a lift as GOP leaders think.

Democrats are pushing for Pallone’s data broker bill to get a floor vote alongside the TikTok legislation. Both bills were passed out of committee 50-0 and are a package deal, Democrats say.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), chair of the panel, is a co-sponsor of the data broker legislation, and the two issued a joint release touting its introduction this week.

But Republican aides claim the CMR-Pallone bill — which would prevent data brokers from selling U.S. data to foreign adversaries — has some problems on their side. In response, Democrats are currently threatening to take down the TikTok bill if Republicans don’t hold up their end of the deal, sources familiar with the talks said.

The lobbying flop: House Republican and Democratic insiders were caught off guard by the 50-0 drubbing in the Energy and Commerce Committee. TikTok pushed users to contact lawmakers with pleas not to crack down on the app before the vote. That backfired badly.

It’s very rare to see a company like TikTok, which has an army of lobbyists, caught so flat-footed on legislation. TikTok spent $370,000 lobbying Congress in the fourth quarter of 2023 alone.

TikTok’s payroll includes heavy-hitting lobbyists such as former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) and former Reps. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) and Jeff Denham (R-Calif.).

Yet this has been an extraordinary few days in the long-running TikTok saga, an issue that has bedeviled Washington for years.

Trump signed an executive order in August 2020 banning TikTok unless it was sold to an American company. The order was never enforced due to concerns over possible legal challenges and Biden later withdrew it.

Congress then prohibited TikTok on government-issued phones in December 2022. Yet attempts to pass a ban or force its sale stalled out. Biden’s reelection campaign even recently joined TikTok.

But what to do about TikTok simmered behind the scenes for months. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi quietly lobbied members on their plan, as did McMorris Rodgers and other Republicans on the panel.

The Energy and Commerce Committee held a classified briefing with officials from the FBI, Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence before the panel vote. These officials warned lawmakers that personal information from millions of American TikTok users could be accessed by the Chinese government, we’re told, despite ByteDance’s insistence that can’t happen.

The committee went right from the classified briefing to the markup on the TikTok bill, a huge advantage for the legislation’s supporters. Pallone — who hadn’t announced his position — ended up backing it, as did all the other Democrats.

TikTok’s allies on and off Capitol Hill are convinced that the “fix is in.” They expect a big bipartisan vote on the House floor, followed by Senate approval. There will be legal challenges, of course, since this legislation is aimed at a single company.

But will TikTok launch a scorched-earth strategy to pressure members and senators as it did on Thursday? It didn’t work then, but there’s a long way to go before this bill ends up on Biden’s desk.

— Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

Immigration and border security split Democrats

House Democrats are struggling to find their message on border security and immigration even as they push to win the House majority in November.

With former President Donald Trump on his way to the Republican nomination, there’s almost no limit to how hardline GOP lawmakers can get on these issues. Trump has called for deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, large-scale raids to capture them and even limits on birthright citizenship, among other proposals. While Republican incumbents and candidates will have to own all this, there’s also some room for them to moderate. And Americans have turned increasingly negative on immigration, which strengthens the GOP position.

Meanwhile, House Democrats are struggling to find their way on the topic, in large part because President Joe Biden struggled too — at least until the bipartisan Senate border security and immigration talks kicked off. The most vulnerable Democrats want Biden to be more aggressive in using executive orders to respond to the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, while progressives and pro-immigration groups angrily counter that would just play into Republican hands.

Thirty-seven Democrats voted in favor of a GOP-led bill on Thursday that would detain undocumented immigrants accused of theft or burglary. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) and named for Laken Riley, a college student allegedly murdered by an undocumented immigrant last month.

Despite disagreements with some of the provisions in the bill, many frontline Democrats — including those running for other offices — begrudgingly backed the measure. Democratic leaders privately told their members to “do whatever they need to do on this,” said a senior Democratic aide, a sign of how sensitive the politics were for Democrats here.

“This is an awful situation,” Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), who voted for the bill, told us. “There is some symbolism, and I think symbolism matters.”

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), who also voted for the bill, said he didn’t have any red lines for the Biden administration when it came to border and immigration policy.

“We need to provide resources for our border patrol agents. We need to directly attack the fentanyl crisis, and we need to address the broken asylum process,” Horsford said.

Republicans have been hammering the Biden administration for being weak on immigration and border security, accusing vulnerable Democrats of supporting an open-borders agenda.

A February Gallup poll found that 28% of Americans saw immigration as the most important issue this election, which is up dramatically from January.

During his State of the Union address on Thursday, Biden bashed Republicans for blowing up the bipartisan Senate proposal, which included billions of dollars for more border agents while also overhauling the troubled asylum system.

Progressive view: Progressive Democrats and Hispanic lawmakers have warned their colleagues about going too far on immigration, bucking their own party on efforts to take hardline measures on the issue.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has attacked the administration for proposing harsh immigration reform proposals while excluding them from conversations on the issue.

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) dismissed Republicans’ bills on the border as unserious, as well as his frontline colleagues’ support for them.

“These are messaging bills by the majority party to try and campaign on them,” Ruiz told us. “Frontline members are just eliminating that threat, knowing it’s not going anywhere in the Senate.”

Some House Democrats also said they were disappointed that Biden referred to Riley’s alleged killer as an “illegal” during his address, calling that rhetoric dangerous.

“The rhetoric President Biden used tonight was dangerously close to language from Donald Trump that puts a target on the backs of Latinos everywhere,” tweeted Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas). “Democrats shouldn’t be taking our cues from MAGA extremism.”

On the trail: Immigration was the main issue in Rep. Tom Suozzi’s (D-N.Y.) special election last month.

Suozzi went on the offensive to talk about the border. Speaker Mike Johnson even accused him of copying the GOP’s messaging on the issue, but it clearly helped Suozzi win his old seat back.

“He sounded like a Republican talking about border and immigration because that’s the top issue on the hearts and minds of everybody,” Johnson claimed.

But Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) rejected the need for Democrats to play up Republican talking points on the border, pointing to Suozzi calling the flow of illegal immigration an “invasion.”

“I didn’t like that, and I don’t think we need to say that,” Jayapal said. “I think it’s wrong to say that.”

— Mica Soellner and John Bresnahan

The tax bill’s Finance fracture

It’s a tale of the twisted politics around the bipartisan tax bill: Two notable Finance Committee Republicans are staking opposite positions on a bill that many lawmakers like but key members of the Senate GOP seem eager to kill.

Both Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) are thought of as dealmakers. Young is playing to type and looking for ways to get the package of business tax incentives and an expansion of the child tax credit into law. But Tillis, tossing aside his inclination to find common ground, has come out as one of the deal’s toughest critics.

After the tax bill consumed the conversation at GOP lunch this week, several senators said they believe the bulk of Republicans want changes before backing the bill. That includes Finance ranking member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). But the big question is whether there would be at least 10 Republicans who would support the deal if it gets a vote.

The Tillis question: Hill aides, lawmakers and K Street wranglers alike have puzzled over Tillis’ motives for digging in against the tax bill, given he likes to cut deals and is usually in step with the business world.

Not this time. Tillis told us the “fake pay-for” — cutting off employee retention tax credit claims amid massive fraud — is a primary driver of his opposition. Notably, Tillis also argued that acting on these priorities ahead of the expiration of the Trump tax cuts next year is a negotiating misstep no matter who wins in November:

And there’s another dynamic at play: Hesitance to break with Crapo, a respected panel leader set to wield power in next year’s tax fight.

“I hope my colleagues will do what I’ll do, and that’s to support Crapo to say we should not allow them to get on the bill [absent changes],” Tillis said. “I don’t have any intention of undermining any discussions he’s trying to have.”

Young steps out: Meanwhile, Young put himself front and center this week in trying to get the tax bill over the finish line, even over his own colleagues’ objections.

Young’s backing won’t shock tax watchers. He’s one of the biggest Hill allies of full, upfront deductions for research and development costs, a piece of this bill that lots of businesses are clamoring for.

But Young’s push to lobby colleagues and leadership is a big move, particularly for a Finance member.

If Young can coax more GOP senators to go public with their support for the bill, it’s the sort that would make Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer more likely to hold a floor vote.

— Laura Weiss and Andrew Desiderio

SOTU WRAP

Biden’s ‘unusual’ decision to lead SOTU with Ukraine

President Joe Biden kicked off his election-year State of the Union address with an appeal for Ukraine aid and a nod to history — eschewing the domestic issues that usually dominate these speeches at the outset.

“My purpose tonight is to both wake up this Congress, and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either,” Biden declared.

It was “a bit unusual,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) acknowledged after Biden’s speech. But it was deliberate. Lawmakers haven’t passed new Ukraine assistance since the last Congress, more than 14 months ago. And Ukraine’s military is suffering battlefield setbacks as Washington debates the issue.

Biden’s oft-stated promise that the United States won’t abandon Ukraine is in serious jeopardy — and largely outside his control.

“Here we are in an election year where America is not at war, and yet he started with an international crisis that we have in Ukraine — elevating it,” Cardin said. “He wants Americans to know that our leadership globally, particularly what’s happening in Ukraine today, is very much similar to the challenges we had during World War II.”

Biden’s appeal came in the form of several repetitions of the phrase, “History is watching” — a clear message to Speaker Mike Johnson, who’s under pressure to act urgently on Ukraine aid.

Dems’ Gaza strife: Biden came into this year’s address with progressives reminding him everywhere he goes of their discontent with his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.

The president delivered a slightly harsher assessment of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, even as he emphasized that Hamas started the war and hides behind civilian infrastructure, complicating Israeli efforts to destroy the terrorist organization.

His announcement that the United States would construct a temporary port off the coast of Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid was seen as a direct criticism of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Biden administration has said Netanyahu isn’t doing enough to allow the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

Biden’s progressive critics welcomed these moves, but it’s too early to say whether it will dampen the steady uproar from the left.

— Andrew Desiderio

… AND THERE’S MORE

News: Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker will deliver the keynote address at the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund’s annual retreat in Cambridge, Md., this weekend.

Also: Building America’s Future has a new ad on Laken Riley, the young woman who was murdered by an undocumented migrant. This is the first time we’ve seen her mentioned in a political ad.

— Max Cohen

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