The Archive
Every issue of the Punchbowl News newsletter, including our special editions, right here at your fingertips.
Join the community, and get the morning edition delivered straight to your inbox.
April 13, 2023
Presented by Wells Fargo
At Wells Fargo, we cover more rural markets than many large banks, and nearly 30% of our branches are in low- or moderate-income census tracts. What we say, we do. See how.
PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Thursday morning.
There are a few behind-the-scenes developments happening on the debt limit that we want to share with you.
No. 1: House Republican leaders have begun informally putting together a debt-limit package they intend to socialize with their rank-and-file members when Congress returns to Washington next week.
The legislation would lift the debt limit until May 2024. Leadership is considering either a cap on non-defense discretionary spending or a cap on overall discretionary spending after reducing it to FY 2022 levels. One cap being considered is $584 billion for non-defense discretionary spending — excluding Veterans Affairs programs.
They’re aiming to limit budget growth to 1% annually for the next 10 years. The House GOP proposal would rescind unspent Covid money, prohibit student loan forgiveness, repeal some green tax credits, institute work requirements for social programs and implement the House Republican energy plan (H.R. 1) and regulation-cutting REINS Act.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) is taking the lead on helping craft the proposal, which would require action by several committees. Graves was deputized by Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Effectively, House Republican leadership is throwing everything at the wall to try to get a debt-limit bill through the chamber even though it has no chance of passing the Senate. House GOP leadership believes that this will jump start negotiations with the White House.
This bill, however, is a GOP wish list.
No. 2: McCarthy will head to New York Monday for a 10 a.m. speech at the New York Stock Exchange on the debt limit.
The big picture is this: McCarthy’s team believes that key players on Wall Street aren’t cognizant of the fact that debt limit and government spending talks are nowhere. McCarthy hasn’t had any discussions with President Joe Biden in more than two months on this issue. And McCarthy wants the finance world to know that Congress won’t hike the debt limit without spending reductions.
Biden and Democratic leaders on the Hill argue that they can’t start negotiating with McCarthy until the speaker puts something on the table. McCarthy hasn’t released a House Republican budget and is just now assembling the debt-limit package we mention above.
McCarthy is heading to the NYSE, in part, because it was where former President Ronald Reagan gave a landmark economic speech in 1985. In that speech, Reagan spoke about the need for Congress to cut spending — something McCarthy is trying to achieve 37 years later.
Here’s a bit of what Reagan said:
McCarthy often says that he came of age as a Republican during the Reagan Revolution.
But remember, another Republican political leader went to New York to talk about spending cuts at the outset of a debt limit fight — former Speaker John Boehner in 2011.
It was in that speech that Boehner announced his standard for a debt limit deal with former President Barack Obama:
Like McCarthy, Boehner wouldn’t consider tax increases, so he was boxed in on the spending side.
That Boehner speech was the kickoff to the debt limit mess that led to the first-ever lowering of the United States’ credit rating. The issue dominated interactions between Obama and Boehner for years.
Remember: The Treasury Department runs out of “extraordinary measures” to stave off a debt default sometime this summer. Wrightson ICAP, which we consider to be the gold standard for debt limit prognosticating, said this this week:
The Congressional Budget Office has a wider window, suggesting extraordinary measures will run out sometime between July to September.
– Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
New next month: Join Punchbowl News Founder and CEO Anna Palmer and Managing Editor Heather Caygle on Tuesday, May 9, at 8:30 a.m. ET for Women Challenging Washington. The event will feature conversations with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), and Reps. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.). Additional speakers to be announced! The conversations will focus on their bipartisan policy work and disrupting partisan culture on Capitol Hill.
Women Challenging Washington is presented by The Network. The event will also feature great networking opportunities and headshots available to all attendees on a first come, first served basis. RSVP and be sure to share the event with your mentor/mentee or friend across the aisle. It’s sure to be an event that you don’t want to miss!
THE SENATE
Feinstein rebuffs calls to resign amid lengthy absence
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said late Wednesday that she remains “committed to the job” amid new calls for her to resign.
The 89-year-old has missed nearly 60 Senate votes while she recovers from shingles back home in California. Feinstein said in a statement that she has asked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to temporarily replace her on the Judiciary Committee in order to allow more than a dozen pending judicial nominees to advance through the panel and onto the Senate floor.
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for Schumer said: “Per Sen. Feinstein’s wishes, Majority Leader Schumer will ask the Senate next week to allow another Democratic senator to temporarily serve on the Judiciary Committee.”
This would require Schumer to offer an updated organizing resolution on the Senate floor that names a new Democrat to the committee. Republicans could, in theory, block unanimous consent for this and require Schumer to use floor time to pass it, although that’s unlikely to happen. It’s unclear who will be tapped to replace Feinstein.
Feinstein’s absence has deadlocked the Judiciary Committee, halting new judicial confirmations, a key priority for Democrats and the White House since nothing much is happening on the legislative front.
It’s also served to effectively shrink Democrats’ already-slim 51-49 majority on the floor, especially with Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) out while being treated for depression.
The Senate returns from a two-week recess on Monday and Fetterman’s office has announced he will be back in D.C.
In the statement, Feinstein said she intends to return to Washington “as soon as possible” once her doctors believe it’s safe to travel. Feinstein gave no timetable to return but said she remains “committed to the job.”
Feinstein added that she’d initially expected to return to the Capitol by the end of March but was dealing with “continued complications related to my diagnosis.”
The statement came just a few hours after Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) publicly called on Feinstein to step aside. “It is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties,” Khana wrote on Twitter Wednesday, nudging his colleagues to openly talk about the issue as well.
“Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people,” Khanna said.
Khanna previously endorsed Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) to replace Feinstein, who has already said she isn’t seeking reelection in 2024. Still, Khanna’s comments Wednesday add a whole new dimension to the race and come amid growing chatter within the delegation about Feinstein’s future.
If Feinstein resigns before her term is up, Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he’ll appoint a Black woman to fill any vacancy. Several Democrats have told us they expect Newsom to appoint Lee but others have said such a move could be seen as tipping the scales in her favor for the 2024 contest.
Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Katie Porter are also running to replace Feinstein, setting up a three-way race in the state’s jungle primary.
Senior Democrats in the California delegation told us there’s broad concern about Feinstein’s ability to serve, but most have only voiced this privately.
— Andrew Desiderio and Heather Caygle
TIKTOK POLITICS
Conservatives split over TikTok ban: China hawks vs. libertarian doves
The debate over whether to ban or otherwise restrict TikTok in the United States is exposing a rift among conservatives that could complicate efforts to crack down on foreign technology threats.
Majorities in both parties favor taking action against the popular social-media app. But there’s a fascinating intra-party divide taking shape inside the GOP, with fundamental constitutional questions at play.
With conservatives already coming out against a broadly popular and bipartisan plan to address foreign tech, the Republican rift is only serving to highlight the tough path to a legislative result — even after TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s disastrous House testimony hardened lawmakers’ concerns.
The GOP’s divisions took center stage late last month on the Senate floor when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blocked Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) bill to ban TikTok, prompting a fiery back-and-forth between the usually-aligned conservatives.
Paul, a First Amendment absolutist, accused Hawley of “using fear to coax Americans to relinquish our liberties, to regulate our First Amendment rights.” Paul said Republicans would lose elections for a generation if the party embraced a TikTok ban. He also slammed them as hypocrites for “simultaneously” accusing social media companies of censoring conservatives.
In many ways, it’s no surprise that Paul is landing on this side of the debate. For the most part, Paul has stuck to his libertarian views even — and perhaps especially — when it’s unpopular. But Paul is defending TikTok in a way that’s turning even his closest allies against him.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a constitutional lawyer who often partners with Paul, rejected the Kentucky Republican’s assertion that it’s a First Amendment violation to target a specific company for a ban. “I don’t think that’s accurate when the company is owned and controlled by communist China,” Cruz told us.
“I am very concerned about TikTok and I think there is growing bipartisan concern that it is very harmful to kids and it is an instrument of Chinese espionage and propaganda,” Cruz added.
Hawley, who’s also a constitutional lawyer, said Paul was defending the right of the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Americans. Hawley argued that the First Amendment doesn’t apply in this case because he’s not proposing a ban on specific content or speech. Hawley compared it to the efforts of the Trump and Biden administrations to ban Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE from operating in the United States.
“You can watch as many dance videos as you want, whatever,” Hawley told us. “Look, if the only thing TikTok had access to were the videos people put on TikTok, that would be one thing. But we know that’s not how the app works.”
At least one member of the Senate’s “Stand with Rand” gang is undecided. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said his competing desires to crack down on China and to uphold the First Amendment are pulling him in both directions.
“I know a lot of small businesses make a living on it, I know it’s a highly viewed media platform,” Braun told us. “In terms of that libertarian [argument], having government keep its hands off of things, I’m going to be with Rand on that side of it… It just gets a little tougher because of all the things China has been involved with.”
Meanwhile, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he wants to figure out a bipartisan and bicameral approach to TikTok rather than simply pass bills that don’t have a chance of becoming law. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has echoed the national-security concerns surrounding TikTok but hasn’t committed to moving forward with a particular plan.
The White House has endorsed a bipartisan bill from Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) that would allow the administration to take action against foreign tech companies. Some conservatives have said this legislation gives the executive branch too much power to determine what constitutes a national security threat — a dynamic that could weigh on McCarthy as he decides which route to take.
— Andrew Desiderio
PRESENTED BY BAYER
Without the use of pesticides, lower yields will force consumers to pay higher food prices at a time of unprecedented inflation. Learn more.
THE BRAGG SHOW
Republicans want Stefanik to take part in Bragg hearing
News: House Judiciary Committee Republicans are seeking to waive GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik onto the panel for Monday’s hearing in New York City, according to a source familiar with the plans.
GOP lawmakers argue that the hearing is taking place in Stefanik’s home state, despite her district being hours away in the more rural upstate region.
The move follows Democrats’ attempts to waive Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) onto the Judiciary panel for the hearing. The hearing, which will focus on rising crime in the Big Apple, will take place in the freshman’s district.
It’s not totally unusual for non-committee members to get special dispensation to participate in a hearing. These get approved without much fanfare, so we wouldn’t be surprised if Stefanik and Goldman take part Monday without any hiccups.
The hearing comes amid escalated tensions between Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Last week, Jordan subpoenaed former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz as Republicans investigate the criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump by Bragg’s office. Pomerantz led the DA office’s investigation into Trump’s finances until stepping down in February 2022. Earlier this week, Bragg sued Jordan to block enforcement of the subpoena. A federal judge – a Trump appointee – will consider that issue next Wednesday.
— Mica Soellner and Max Cohen
#BIPARTISANSHIP
Lawmakers seek bipartisan plan on paid leave
News: Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) and Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) are pushing House leadership to pursue a federal paid leave policy that can satisfy both parties.
The two lawmakers wrote to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Wednesday, asking them to support their goal of finding bipartisan consensus on this issue. Houlahan and Bice launched the Bipartisan Paid Family Leave Working Group in January.
“It is clear that current policy is not meeting the needs of our economy, businesses, and American families and our Working Group is committed to addressing this challenge in a bipartisan fashion,” Houlahan and Bice wrote. Both women are mothers to two daughters.
While the idea does have some bipartisan support, many Republicans remain opposed, citing the cost of enacting such a program.
And it’s unlikely that top House Republicans will get on board with any new federal programs that are subsidized by the government. But Houlahan and Bice’s task force has piqued the interest of several lawmakers in both parties who support the mission.
Reps. Julia Letlow (R-La.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), Colin Allred (D-Texas) and Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) are also members of the working group.
Paid leave was a major priority for Democrats in the last Congress, particularly former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But universal paid family leave was ultimately dropped from the Inflation Reduction Act due to Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) concerns over the cost.
Earlier this year, President Joe Biden called for expanded access to paid leave programs, marking the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of annual unpaid leave.
— Mica Soellner
Crucial Capitol Hill news AM, Midday, and PM—5 times a week
Join a community of some of the most powerful people in Washington and beyond. Exclusive newsmaker events, parties, in-person and virtual briefings and more.
Subscribe to Premium
The Canvass Year-End Report
And what senior aides and downtown figures believe will happen in 2023.
Check it outEvery single issue of Punchbowl News published, all in one place
Visit the archive
Presented by Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo has donated ~$2 billion over the last five years to help build a sustainable, inclusive future for all by supporting housing affordability, small business growth, financial health, and other community needs. What we say, we do. See how.