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IN THIS EDITION

Barrasso charts his own path to power

ActBlue donations surge in Q1

What Republicans are saying about Trump’s immunity claim

The US economy is on a tear. Will it keep up?

THE TOP

Barrasso charts his own path to power

Happy Thursday morning.

Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barrasso was the only member of the GOP leadership who voted against the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan on Tuesday.

This is a familiar position for the Wyoming Republican.

Throughout this Congress, Barrasso has opposed nearly all of the big-ticket items that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and top Republicans have tried to shepherd through the chamber.

That includes must-pass measures such as the Fiscal Responsibility Act — the debt-limit increase and two-year spending deal — and the FY2024 appropriations bills. Barrasso also publicly panned the bipartisan border deal that McConnell wanted to clinch in order to unlock Ukraine funding.

Yet Barrasso is running unopposed to be the GOP whip, a job that will require him to convince as much of the conference as possible to vote for or against a particular measure. To the extent that opposing his leadership on high-profile legislation and seeking the whip job are in conflict with each other, Barrasso doesn’t see it that way.

“It is what members want — to make sure that we have a consensus in the conference before bringing something to the floor,” Barrasso told us. “And the goal, of course, is to be in the majority to be doing that, not trying to find a minority to join a large number of Democrats.”

The 71-year-old Barrasso represents an increasingly hardline conservative faction of the Senate GOP conference. This group — which has grown dramatically during the Trump era — is demanding a bigger say in what happens within the conference, as well as less cooperation with Democrats. They’re more populist and purist, just like the GOP base, and they’re seeking a complete overhaul of the way the conference does business.

But as McConnell said earlier this week following the 79-18 vote on the foreign aid package, it’s often not that simple. McConnell is routinely forced to rely on a handful of GOP senators to join with nearly every Democrat on must-pass legislation. That’s anathema to conservatives, who believe Republican leaders should be guided exclusively by what the majority of the conference wants.

“If I viewed that as my responsibility, we would never raise the debt ceiling and we would never fund the government,” McConnell said. “I’ve been on the short side, among Republicans, on both of those issues… They don’t like to raise the debt ceiling, they don’t like to fund the government. But we have to do both.”

McConnell has extended that doctrine to legislation that isn’t considered “must-pass.” Just look at the first two years of Biden’s presidency. McConnell was instrumental in bringing along just enough Republicans to pass landmark legislation such as the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the gun safety law and the CHIPS and Science Act.

Barrasso voted against all of those. And through his leadership campaign, Barrasso is making clear that he wants to chart a different course:

Zooming out: Barrasso, first appointed to the Senate in June 2007, is running for his third full term this November. Barrasso has chaired the Indian Affairs and Environment and Public Works committees, and he’s currently the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources panel.

An orthopedic surgeon before entering politics, Barrasso first joined the Republican leadership in 2010 as GOP conference vice chair. He served as Republican Policy Committee chair from 2012 to 2018 and then moved up to Republican Conference chair, the No. 3 post.

Messaging is an important part of Barrasso’s current job. At the weekly GOP leadership press conference, Barrasso frequently begins his remarks with the words “Joe Biden” or “the Democrats” as he tries to highlight everything from the economy to energy to foreign policy that he believes are being mishandled.

Barrasso voted against the foreign aid package not because he opposes the bill on its own, but because it didn’t include any provisions to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. This, of course, was the GOP leadership’s message for months — no foreign aid without border security. Barrasso was the only one to stick with that to the end.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who chairs the Energy Committee and works closely with Barrasso, said he understands when his GOP counterpart is pushing a partisan position and when he’s being conciliatory. Manchin called Barrasso his “partner” in running the panel but acknowledged that the Wyoming Republican is also “hyper-partisan” at times.

“John is strong, he’s tough. You know where he comes from, you know what he represents. He’s all Wyoming, and that’s what we’re supposed to be,” Manchin said.

Manchin, however, added that Hill Republicans are in a difficult position due to Trump’s grip on the party. When we noted that Barrasso lines up with Trump on virtually all of these issues, Manchin offered this thought:

“Well, you know, leadership changes people sometimes.”

— Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan

THE MONEY GAME

ActBlue donations surge in Q1

News: Democratic donors gave a total of $151 million to House and Senate races through the ActBlue fundraising platform in the first quarter of 2024.

The ActBlue data reveals an increase from the same point four years ago, indicating growing Democratic grassroots support as the 2024 election season heats up.

Compared to Q1 2020, ActBlue donors gave 20% more to Senate races in Q1 2024. And donations to House races in the first quarter of 2024 grew by 29% compared to four years ago.

Zooming out from the congressional money game, ActBlue processed more than 10.7 million contributions in the first quarter totaling $460 million. The average ActBlue donation amount was $42.73. More than 2.4 million donors gave to ActBlue in Q1.

An interesting note of the modern reality of fundraising: Donations from mobile devices comprised 67% of all ActBlue donations in the first quarter.

— Max Cohen

TRUMP AND THE SUPREME COURT

What Republicans are saying about Trump’s immunity claim

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers will try to convince the Supreme Court today that he should be immune from criminal prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

It’s an unprecedented and historic argument — a former president can’t be prosecuted for official acts taken while in office.

And it’s one many congressional Republicans are not eager to weigh in on.

It’s rare for Republicans not to offer Trump full support given his demands for loyalty, especially on something this significant. And congressional Republicans aren’t always so shy about offering their opinions to the justices.

As we reported earlier this month, the reticence to back a brief supporting Trump’s immunity claim stands in contrast to the GOP rallying around the former president’s effort to stop Colorado from keeping off the 2024 presidential ballot.

Forty-one GOP senators and 136 House members signed onto the Colorado case brief, including the leadership in both chambers. In the immunity case, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) submitted a brief that was signed by no other senator and only 26 House members.

So, with lawmakers back in town the past three weeks, we followed up on our reporting. We wanted to hear specifically from GOP lawmakers on what they thought of Trump’s immunity claim and why they didn’t sign Marshall’s brief but got on board with the Colorado one.

Many Republicans drew a sharp distinction between the two cases. They argued Colorado’s actions were overtly political while the immunity case is trickier legal terrain.

“It seemed like it was so extraordinarily tainted by political considerations,” Cornyn said of the Colorado case.

For good measure, Republicans also were quick to bash the prosecutions of Trump, even if they didn’t weigh in on the constitutional merits of his immunity argument. Here’s House Majority Leader Steve Scalise:

Some Republicans engaged more on the question before the high court today.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said the justices need to draw a line somewhere. “It’s gotta be true that presidents for official acts enjoy some degree of immunity, otherwise I don’t know how you govern,” Hawley said.

And Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he wouldn’t be surprised if the justices sent the case back to the lower court and asked it to make a factual determination “of what was challenging the results as a sitting president versus as a candidate.”

“I think presidents who are acting within the scope of their job should have immunity, the question is what is your job and when does it end, when doesn’t it end,” Graham said.

— Dave Clarke

The US economy is on a tear. Will it keep up?

The American economy is on a hot streak. We’ll have a better idea of just how hot it is — and whether that might be a problem — later this morning when the Commerce Department releases Q1 GDP data.

Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal are guessing the U.S. economy will have grown by an annual rate of 2.2% in Q1. That’d technically mark a slowdown from the last quarter of 2023 when GDP clocked in at 3.4%.

But it’s tough to know how much stock to hold in those estimates at this point, frankly. The growth of the U.S. economy has consistently blown past analyst expectations over the last two years. A widely-predicted recession has proven elusive despite historically high interest rates and growing instability abroad.

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve will take a hard look at these figures as they face an increasingly uncertain inflation landscape. Strong GDP growth is generally a good thing, but a hotter economy is harder to shake inflation out of.

Fed Chair Jay Powell said earlier this month that recent higher-than-hoped-for inflation data tied to the Consumer Price Index had “clearly not given us greater confidence” in having price increases under control.

This data dump will dovetail nicely with the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation these days — the personal consumption expenditures index — when it’s released Friday morning. After that, all eyes will turn to the Federal Open Market Committee when Powell announces the Fed’s next interest rate move. Don’t expect a cut anytime soon.

— Brendan Pedersen

THE CAMPAIGN

News: 314 Action Fund, a Democratic group that backs STEM professionals seeking public office, is running a new digital ad in support of state Rep. Janelle Bynum’s primary campaign in Oregon’s 5th District. Bynum is running against Jamie McLeod-Skinner — who lost to now-Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer in 2022 — in the Democratic primary.

The digital ad hails Bynum — who was a systems engineer for General Motors — for fighting to protect abortion rights in the state legislature.

Bynum is endorsed by the DCCC, EMILYs List, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, as well as Oregon Democratic Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, Andrea Salinas and Earl Blumenauer.

It’s a crucial district for Democratic hopes of flipping the House. President Joe Biden won the district in 2020 and Chavez-DeRemer is one of the chamber’s most endangered GOP incumbents.

— Max Cohen

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