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IN THIS EDITION

The pact: Schumer and McConnell lock arms to pass foreign aid package

News: Behind the scenes of the State Department’s Afghanistan response

Pa. House incumbents survive primary challenges

Johnson heads to Columbia University

THE TOP

The pact: Schumer and McConnell lock arms to pass foreign aid package

Happy Wednesday morning.

Late Tuesday night, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, finally bringing to an end Congress’ months-long standoff over Ukraine.

The legislation also requires TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, within a year or face a U.S. ban. And it authorizes the seizure of Russian sovereign assets to be used for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

The 79-18 vote sends the massive national security package to President Joe Biden’s desk. Thirty-one Republicans voted for the bill this time, compared to just 22 who supported a similar version back in February.

Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barrasso was the only member of the GOP leadership to oppose it. Three Republicans were absent — Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) and Tim Scott (S.C.).

Biden said he’d sign the legislation today so that arms shipments to Ukrainian forces could begin “this week.”

The Trump bump: Oddly enough, some GOP senators believe that former President Donald Trump actually enabled passage of this bill in the end — or at least gave some political cover to those who flipped from “no” to “yes.”

While Trump has declared his opposition to new Ukraine aid, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee didn’t try to kill this measure as he did successfully with the bipartisan border security deal a few months ago.

Instead, Trump issued a vague statement about European nations doing more to help Ukraine. And Trump later defended Speaker Mike Johnson amid calls from some hardline GOP conservatives to topple the speaker.

To many Senate Republicans, that was as much of a green light as they’d get from Trump to vote for this bill.

“They worked President Trump around to a position where he pretty much gave everybody a pass,” said a GOP senator who requested anonymity. “We’re not willing to tell Trump, ‘Mr. President, this time I can’t be with you. I’m sorry — just 99 percent of the time.’”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who’s running to replace Mitch McConnell as Senate GOP leader, said his interpretation of Trump’s remarks was that he’s “supportive of it.” Cornyn called Johnson “a profile in courage” for putting Ukraine funding on the House floor after months of delay.

Trump’s closest Hill allies didn’t fault Trump for not taking a whack at the legislation. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a very vocal opponent of the bill, said Trump could have potentially reduced the number of GOP “yes” votes but couldn’t have defeated it outright.

“What Donald Trump did was he stayed out of it,” Vance told us. “I think it was smart politically because he’s not president of the United States. What’s smart for him is to maintain flexibility.”

Schumer behind the scenes: Republican infighting over Ukraine dominated the headlines, but the key to passing this bill was that House and Senate Democrats remained united on the issue. McConnell even pointed this out Tuesday as he was lamenting the GOP divisions.

For his part, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer offered strong praise for McConnell as the Senate prepared to vote on Tuesday night, showing how important that leader-to-leader channel had become.

“McConnell and I locked arms on this,” Schumer told us in an interview. “We saw it the same way early on.”

Shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, McConnell approached Schumer and asked him not to separate Israel aid from any Ukraine funding.

This was in McConnell’s interest because it insulated him from his party’s divisions over Ukraine and made any aid package easier to pass. Schumer would also eventually face progressive anger over the staggering number of Palestinian casualties from Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

“We made a pact that we were never going to split them,” Schumer told us. “And that pact never broke in all the times the House and some of the righties in his own caucus were saying just do Israel.”

In the ensuing months, Schumer and McConnell spoke multiple times per week to strategize over how to get a comprehensive aid package through the Senate. The two grew closer over their shared desire to get it over the finish line. In the meantime, they were able to get government funding and FISA reauthorization done, too.

“I never wanted to give up on this, even in the lowest moments — and there were many,” Schumer added.

On TikTok: In mid-March, after the House passed its TikTok bill, four key lawmakers spent an hour in a SCIF to map out a strategy for passing the bill in the Senate, we’re told.

Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the chair and ranking member of the House’s China select committee, met with Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Vice Chair Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on the issue. Rubio voted no on the aid package.

Warner came out in support of the House’s TikTok bill — authored by Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi — and worked to get it through the Senate, eventually winning over a skeptical Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). The divestiture period was lengthened from six months to a year at Cantwell’s request.

— Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan

May Events! Join us next week on Wednesday, May 1 at 9 a.m. ET for a conversation with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). Punchbowl News founder and CEO Anna Palmer and senior congressional reporter Andrew Desiderio will sit down with DeLauro to discuss the news of the day, national security modernization and warfighter readiness in the United States. Afterward, Henry Brooks, president of Power & Controls at Collins Aerospace, will join Anna for a fireside chat. RSVP here!

AFGHANISTAN OVERSIGHT

News: Behind the scenes of the State Department’s Afghanistan response

News: Transcribed interviews of top State Department officials reveal how the rapid fall of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 took the Biden administration by surprise as they strived to maintain a diplomatic presence in Kabul.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday released interviews with then-spokesperson Ned Price, then-acting Undersecretary for Management Carol Perez and Chief of Staff Suzy George.

The State officials’ testimony reveals how fast-moving the situation in Afghanistan was as the United States prepared to withdraw its combat units in adherence with the Doha Agreement negotiated under former President Donald Trump. State leadership wanted to keep the U.S. embassy in Kabul open right up until Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Aug. 15, 2021.

The transcript release is the latest step in House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul’s (R-Texas) investigation into the disastrous U.S. withdrawal. As other House GOP oversight efforts flounder, McCaul’s probe into Secretary of State Antony Blinken is seen as a more serious pursuit.

Here are our takeaways:

Carol Perez: Perez’s role was to protect American civilians in the diplomatic corps present in Afghanistan.

Perez told investigators that as the situation was “relatively” quiet in Kabul in spring 2021, she thought embassy work could continue in the capital. Here’s a relevant portion of Perez’s interview that shows how top State officials were surprised by the security situation in Afghanistan:

As Perez noted, the Kabul embassy was a hardened facility with measures in place to deter attacks. Although the top priority of the State Department was to maintain a presence in Afghanistan to advance U.S. interests, there was contingency planning in the event of an evacuation.

Ned Price: During the withdrawal, Price was the top spokesperson for the department and now serves as the deputy to the U.S. representative to the United Nations.

A sign of how fluid the situation was — Price said that he recalled State wanted to keep a diplomatic presence in Kabul as late as Aug. 14, 2021. That same day, President Joe Biden initiated the evacuation of U.S. civilians from Afghanistan.

Price criticized the Doha Agreement as an “erratic policy” that left the United States with “no good options.” Price said that the Biden administration realized the Taliban’s adherence to the agreement was “uneven,” but justified the withdrawal decision to avoid a resumption of attacks on U.S. troops.

Price also defended the interagency review of the withdrawal as robust.

Suzy George: George was Blinken’s chief of staff during the Afghanistan withdrawal. But George — whose job duties don’t involve policy or Afghanistan planning — repeatedly told investigators that she couldn’t recall key details about the situation in 2021.

George also testified that there was concern among State colleagues that the Trump administration didn’t plan enough for the Afghanistan withdrawal.

The administration’s view: State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told us in a statement that it was the correct decision to end the Afghan war. Miller also praised the State officials who have been interviewed for working to evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan allies in “a massive and extremely challenging military, diplomatic, and humanitarian undertaking conducted under extraordinary circumstances.”

— Max Cohen

ELECTIONS 2024

Pa. House incumbents survive primary challenges

The results are in for Pennsylvania’s primaries. Here’s our roundup of the races and what to look out for in November.

PA-01: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick handily defeats rightwing challenger

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick easily won his primary against far-right candidate Mark Houck, taking more than 82% of the vote. The race was called by the Associated Press less than 15 minutes after polls closed. Yikes!

Fitzpatrick will face Democrat Ashley Ehasz in November in a seat that backed President Joe Biden in 2020. Ehasz is a U.S. Army veteran who lost to Fitzpatrick by roughly 10 points in 2022.

Fitzpatrick’s victory is a boost for Republican hopes of retaining the blue-leaning seat. A win by Houck would’ve likely turned off moderate and independent voters.

PA-10: Janelle Stelson will take on GOP Rep. Scott Perry in November

Janelle Stelson won a convincing victory in the six-person Democratic primary for Perry’s central Pennsylvania district.

Stelson, a former local TV anchor, is seeking to attract independent and moderate Republican voters by arguing Perry is too far right for the district. Perry is the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus who played a significant role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

We previously reported that Stelson was the frontrunner and had gotten some early support from Hill Democrats. Stelson also has the backing of the New Democrat Coalition’s campaign arm, Elect Democratic Women and EMILYs List.

Democrats still face an uphill battle in trying to dethrone Perry. Perry has strong congressional allies in the form of House conservatives. This district leans R+4.

PA-12: Rep. Summer Lee brushes off mainstream Democratic challenger

Rep. Summer Lee, a freshman Squad member, beat out center-left challenger Bhavini Patel by roughly 20 points in a sign of progressive strength in Pittsburgh. Patel had tried to portray Lee’s views on Israel as out of step with the district and argued that the leftist wasn’t fully supportive of Biden’s agenda.

But Lee had the support of House Democratic leadership and welcomed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to the district in the closing days of the race. Lee’s win is the first setback in what will be a busy summer for pro-Israel voices trying to knock off House progressives who have been sharply critical of the nation’s war against Hamas.

— Mica Soellner and Max Cohen

CONGRESS ON CAMPUS

Johnson heads to Columbia University

Speaker Mike Johnson will go to Columbia University in New York today to speak with Jewish students in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests happening on campus.

Johnson will hold a news conference at 3:45 p.m. to discuss “the troubling rise of virulent antisemitism on America’s college campuses,” according to his office.

Johnson’s visit comes as college campuses across the nation grapple with student protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Congress approved more than $26 billion in new Israeli aid on Tuesday night while also backing humanitarian support for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians trapped by the Gaza fighting.

Since last Wednesday, Columbia University students have set up tent encampments to express solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Protesters have also called for the school to divest in Israel and a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

The sometimes chaotic scene at Columbia has attracted national attention, prompting bipartisan calls for the university’s president to step down. Dozens of protestors have been arrested amid a rise in antisemitic harassment and intimidation.

The scrutiny comes just after Columbia University President Nemat Shafik’s recent testimony on Capitol Hill where she condemned antisemitism and defended her record of cracking down on the issue.

Hill response: House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik led a letter to Shafik this week calling on her to resign. The letter was signed by every New York House Republican.

New York GOP Reps. Anthony D’Esposito and Mike Lawler visited Columbia’s campus Tuesday, as well as Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Kathy Manning (D-N.C.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.). The four Democrats called on the school’s leadership to discipline students who have allegedly harassed Jewish students.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) went as far as to compare the campus protests to the infamous 2017 pro-white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Va.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) criticized Shafik for canceling in-person classes: “What Columbia University needs is not an appeaser of antisemitism but a leader who will fight with moral clarity against it.”

As we reported Monday, we expect more hearings on the topic of antisemitism on campuses by the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

Lawmakers may also start to introduce bills to strip federal funding from schools they feel aren’t doing enough to fight antisemitism.

— Mica Soellner

THE CAMPAIGN

News: The Congressional Black Caucus PAC is endorsing a slate of endangered House Democrats who represent districts with a Black voting-age population of 8% or more.

The newly endorsed candidates — whom the CBC PAC calls Frontline Progress Protectors — are Democratic Reps. Nikki Budzinski (Ill.), Frank Mrvan (Ind.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Greg Landsman (Ohio), Susie Lee (Nev.), Pat Ryan (N.Y.), Hillary Scholten (Mich.) and Eric Sorensen (Ill.).

These members joined vulnerable CBC members — Reps. Don Davis (D-N.C.), Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.), Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) and Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio) — who were already on the endorsement list.

— Max Cohen

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