📝 The Readback: Looking back at a hectic week in the House

IN THIS EDITION

A huge week for the House

Rain and recess

Crypto’s war chest speaks for itself

The House’s disappearing class of 2018

THE TOP

A huge week for the House

Welcome to The Readback, our weekend digest featuring the best of Punchbowl News this week – a quick roundup of all our scoops, analysis and Capitol Hill insight you won’t find anywhere else. We’ve also included a few of our favorite outside reads from the week.

Happy Memorial Day weekend! The House is in recess, a fact that wasn’t guaranteed heading into this week. But House Republicans managed to pass their reconciliation bill before Speaker Mike Johnson’s self-imposed deadline and hit the road.

The reconciliation package — which cuts taxes, funds border security and guts hundreds of billions of dollars in spending on programs like Medicaid and SNAP — is now in for another wild ride through the Senate. We’ll be tracking that every step of the way.

But here in The Readback, we want to take a moment to recap how the House got here — the ups, the downs, the deal-cutting and the late-night haggling. Over the course of the last week, Johnson and President Donald Trump turned a bill facing major obstacles into a done deal. Here were some of the key moments.

Sunday. The week kicked off early. After a failed vote the week before, the House Budget Committee met at 10 p.m. to try again to clear the reconciliation bill.

Johnson was in Cannon, where the Budget Committee meets, negotiating with four hardline conservatives who had initially voted “no” on the bill. 10 p.m. came and went, but Budget wasn’t getting underway.

Finally, after about 25 minutes of delay, things kicked off and the hardliners voted “present” — allowing the bill to clear the committee but signaling that Johnson’s problems were far from over.

Monday. The conservatives — largely House Freedom Caucus members — were opposing the bill, but they weren’t its only obstacles. Six blue-state Republicans were also demanding that the bill allow more deductions for state and local taxes, or SALT.

We kept hearing that the SALT group hadn’t gotten a new offer from the House GOP leadership as the days went by. Finally, the group planned to meet late Monday night.

Johnson made an offer to the SALT crew, but they weren’t happy with the deal yet.

Tuesday. It was time for Trump. The president came to Capitol Hill for House Republicans’ morning conference meeting.

Having the president at the Capitol is a unique experience. Members are more punctual than ever, security is high and the halls are packed to the gills with reporters. This meeting was especially newsy. With more than enough holdouts to kill the bill, Trump’s message was clear — it was time to get in line.

SALT members bristled. After Trump told them to take the deal on the table and specifically called out Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), multiple members of the group texted Johnson to say they would vote “no.” But the pressure helped shake something loose — the SALT crew had sketched out a deal with Johnson by the night’s end.

The House GOP leadership was also homing in on IRA credit changes to placate holdouts.

Wednesday. The House Rules Committee convened at 1 a.m. to tee up the reconciliation bill for the floor. Yes, you read that right. It was the soonest possible time that House GOP leaders could call the Rules meeting, and they were committed to a strategy of relentless speed.

But HFC members were still opposed. It was time to meet with Trump again, but this time on his turf. Caucus members and GOP leaders went to the White House at 3 p.m. The White House released a statement of administration policy saying opposition to the bill would be a betrayal, continuing the message that the time for haggling was over.

Reporters were staked out at the Capitol for the HFC members’ return when we heard they’d gone to HFC Chair Andy Harris’ (R-Md.) office in Longworth. When I arrived, there were already dozens of reporters and TV cameras in the hallway to hear from the bill’s final holdouts. HFC members’ rhetoric began to soften.

Still, we were waiting for Republicans to drop a manager’s amendment with the deals Johnson had been cutting all week. We’d been hearing it was coming soon literally all day.

Finally, the text dropped around 9 p.m. while I was staked out at the speaker’s office.

Thursday. All the bill’s opponents had quieted down, and House Republicans were moving to the floor, working through all the necessary steps and debate time overnight.

I was in the press gallery that overlooks the House floor when the final vote on the bill began. Things were looking up for House GOP leaders as the votes rolled in.

But there was some last-minute drama. Two Republicans voted no and then a third, Harris, cast his vote as present. It closed at a 215-214-1 tally to applause from the GOP side. Johnson made it by the narrowest of margins.

The odd thing was that two House Republicans missed the vote, which was unexpected. Both said they were nearly there when the vote ended, and Johnson said they’d been sleeping. After all, the House had been voting and working all night. It was nearly 7 a.m. at this point. Pretty sure that after the vote finally wrapped, a lot of House members, staffers and reporters got some much-needed sleep.

What I’m watching: The Philadelphia Eagles notched our latest victory — the tush push is here to stay. The team was ready with a highlight reel. Great watching during a slow stretch staking out the speaker’s office!

– Laura Weiss

You can find The Readback in your inbox every Saturday at 8 a.m. And don’t hesitate to reach out to readback@punchbowl.news with feedback. Enjoy The Readback.

Rain and recess

Someone recently asked me, on a particularly dreary day, if I even go to Capitol Hill when it’s that rainy.

“If lawmakers are there, we’re there,” I said. In rain, in snow, in heat. It’s practically the Punchbowl News creed.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we don’t love recess, or that we never stop somewhere else on our way into the Capitol.

This past Wednesday, which I’ll note was the rainiest day this week, I got to divert myself to our townhouse for a breakfast-time briefing with readers.

It was good to remember how many players in policy making are off-Hill. As soon as I walked in, I ran into a public interest lawyer who I’d been chatting with for years but never got to meet in person.

I got to catch up with or meet some really great policy and communications professionals, plus all-around fans of Punchbowl News.

Although I want readers to feel that every bit of information I’m putting out is valuable, I love that these gatherings allow me to hear new perspectives from attendees on the happenings of Capitol Hill. Honestly, I even like getting questions I don’t know the answers to.

Both are great indicators of the stories I could seek out next, and the ways I can leverage my daily access to lawmakers to better inform the public.

Before I even realized how much time had passed, we had to take our seats for the briefing. I talked about the House-passed reconciliation bill’s approach to spectrum and a moratorium on state regulation of artificial intelligence.

My favorite part, though, was listening to the questions that my colleagues Sammi Handler and Brendan Pedersen received. When I just look at their finished stories, I don’t always get to hear how broad their knowledge is on topics that I, once again, know almost nothing about.

They handled questions much more deftly than I think I generally do, and I learned as much listening to them as I hope the audience did.

After we finished, I was hoping to chat even more with readers. But I looked at my watch and realized I was already late to a hearing. With only a day and a half to go until lawmakers would be heading out for this Memorial Day recess, I had to go gather news.

So, I plunged back out into the rain. Lucky me.

What I’m listening to: Funk. I came across a suggested playlist of classics from Herbie Hancock, Parliament, Sly & the Family Stone and a whole bunch of other artists I now might have to look into. I’d forgotten that the genre is an absolutely perfect background to write to.

– Ben Brody

Crypto’s war chest speaks for itself

Earlier this week, Andrew Desiderio and I wrote about a key episode in the Democratic Party’s deepening cold war over the crypto industry: a senior Senate staff meeting on Monday that touched on stablecoin reform. The story hinged on a political Rashomon effect.

Just hours before the Senate held a key procedural vote on the GENIUS Act, co-sponsor Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-N.Y.) chief of staff, Jess Fassler, discussed the bill with fellow aides.

Fassler also invoked Gillibrand’s role as chair of the DSCC as he urged some Democrats to ease off their attacks over the bill — to end what Democratic insiders refer to as the “circular firing squad.” This is when progressives and moderates go to war over policy.

Some staffers in the room took that message as a plain and rational call for unity ahead of the 2026 midterms. Others heard a threat about ignoring the risks of crypto’s political spending.

Just about every lawmaker on Capitol Hill knows the crypto industry spent heavily on the 2024 election and is likely to do so again in 2026. That kind of concentration of campaign spending power is unlike anything we’ve ever seen in American politics from a new-ish sector of the economy. It has its own gravitational pull. More and more, I can see the impact in my daily work.

Trust the process: This wasn’t an easy item to report out or write. Democratic chief meetings aren’t as leaky as others. But over the course of a day, we talked to staffers in the room on both sides of the experience.

Even after several calls, I wasn’t sold on the story. The problem was the incentives. The chiefs who didn’t hear a threat worked for senators who backed the bill. The chiefs who were fighting to kill-slash-overhaul the crypto legislation said the subtext was clear. I didn’t feel great about publishing a “some-say-while-others-say” story based solely on accounts who had clear incentives to spin, baby, spin.

Our breakthrough came after a chief, whose office backed the GENIUS Act, confirmed the reaction from inside the room. It may not have been a universal reaction, but it sure didn’t seem to be isolated, either. We published the thing.

I want to credit Fassler for responding on the record to our reporting. I think it’s credible to believe him when he said he didn’t intend to make any threats about outside spending in that meeting.

But again, the crypto industry’s $100-million-plus war chest possesses its own political gravity. The threat to elected officials from the sector is real, no matter how we talk about the policy. The road to crypto regulation was always going to be paved with good intentions.

What I’m still reading: “The Way of Kings,” by Brandon Sanderson. I stand by everything I wrote earlier this month: It’s a good, rich piece of fantasy. It is also one very long book. After 602 pages, I’m just over halfway to the end.

But my patience here is a testament to the story. There are so, so many well-earned beats and twists and excellent moments of character development. I’ve never been so happy to have so much book left to get through.

– Brendan Pedersen

The House’s disappearing class of 2018

I’m very excited to be making my Readback debut! And it’s inspired by a lack of ambition from Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.).

As a huge campaign nerd, I’ve been closely following the House Democrats who were elected during the 2018 wave. Given the opportunity, they almost always jump at the chance to seek higher office and depart the chaotic and dysfunctional place that is the House of Representatives.

This cycle alone, Reps. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), Angie Craig (D-Minn.), Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) are departing the House to run for Senate (or, in Sherrill’s case, governor.) They are some of the biggest stars of 2018.

So I found myself a little bit surprised this week when Golden and Underwood announced they would not run for Senate in 2026.

It’s not totally unexpected. Golden would have had to run against his formidable former boss, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). And Underwood would have to go up against better-funded rivals in a brutal open-seat primary.

Still, they bucked a strong trend and got me wondering just how many members of the Class of 2018 are left in the House nearly eight years later. I decided to do a deep dive.

I limited my research to the 43 Democrats who flipped a GOP-held district in 2018, either by ousting an incumbent or winning an open seat from which a Republican retired.

Here’s what I found: Only 14 members of the class are still in Congress and seeking reelection in 2026. And that includes Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), who was elected as a Democrat but later switched parties; and Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.), who lost his swing seat in 2020 but ran in a safe seat and won in 2024.

Eleven members of the class left or are leaving Congress to seek higher office. Some were successful, like now-Sens. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.). Others, such as former Reps. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.), were not.

Sixteen Democrats lost reelection in either 2020, 2022 or 2024 – that includes former Rep. TJ Cox (D-Calif.), who was indicted for wire fraud after leaving office. Then there’s Rep. Katie Hill (D-Calif.), who resigned in scandal.

Of course, many of the class won tough seats in a favorable political environment. It was harder to hold on to them after 2018. Almost all the 2018ers still left in the House were redistricted into a much safer seat, including Underwood and Reps. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) and Jason Crow (D-Colo.).

Golden, however, will have to hold onto an extremely red district in 2026, and he faces former GOP Gov. Paul LePage.

What I’m reading: “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” by Benjamin Wallace. It’s a fascinating true story about a bottle of 1787 Bordeaux allegedly owned by Thomas Jefferson. It was either miraculously rediscovered intact two centuries later or manufactured by a very talented con artist. I’m not done yet, but all signs are pointing to the latter.

– Ally Mutnick