The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

Harris chooses fellow ideological traveler to take on Trump and Vance

Rosen’s old-school Senate campaign

Bush loses in another blow to Squad

The Vault: Torres tells Powell to ‘immediately’ cut rates

GOP embraces Kent with eye toward November

THE TOP

Harris chooses fellow ideological traveler to take on Trump and Vance

Happy Wednesday morning.

Big Capitol Hill news: Speaker Mike Johnson has installed several veteran Republican oversight operators atop the House task force investigating the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

Frederick Hill will be the staff director. Hill is a veteran of the House Oversight Committee and was a key aide in Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) chairmanship of the panel in the early days of the Obama administration.

Lauren Holmes will be deputy staff director. Holmes is also an Oversight alum who is now the general counsel of the House Small Business Committee. Like many in House GOP legal circles, she graduated from George Mason University’s law school.

Bill Burck will be one of two special counsels. Burck is about as high profile as they come in Republican leader circles. A lawyer with a pair of degrees from Yale, Burck is the global managing partner of Quinn Emanuel. He has represented Don McGahn, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus and former Special Counsel Robert Hur.

The task force’s other special counsel is Jon Skladany. Skladany, also a George Mason law graduate, was staff director to the House Oversight Committee. He’s currently special counsel at Jenner and Block. Skladany has run previous investigations into the Secret Service.

Hill and Holmes traveled to Butler, Pa., last week to visit the site of the attempted assassination. The pair also met with Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), the task force chair.

A few quick observations: That Johnson made these appointments shows his team’s intricate involvement in this panel. And that Republicans have tapped seasoned figures shows the influence the GOP will exert on this committee.

Walzing into 2024 race: In tapping Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen a fellow ideological traveler, a politician who has shifted his views on a host of topics to fit the Democratic Party of the moment.

The 60-year-old Walz has been in public office for 17 years, spending much of his congressional tenure safely in the ideological middle of the House Democratic Caucus. In Congress, Walz occasionally sided with Republicans on gun laws, earning an A mark from the NRA while also working with the GOP to craft agriculture policy critical to his southern Minnesota district.

Progressives, however, say he’s one of theirs: a champion of free college tuition, free school lunches and transgender rights. To the left — including the Democratic Socialists of America — Walz is a welcome departure from the corporate Democrats that the base has come to loathe.

But to his detractors, Walz is a progressive ideologue who let BLM protestors burn Minneapolis to the ground, issued driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants and aligned with progressives on transgender policy.

Much like Harris, the once crusading anti-crime district attorney, Walz can be everything to everybody at the same time. Walz’s stances give fodder to his conservative detractors and hope to his liberal supporters, yet he doesn’t fit neatly into either political camp.

This, in many ways, is a blessing and a curse for the Harris-Walz ticket. Republicans have sharply criticized Harris for shifting her view on a number of issues, including fracking and single-payer health care. Walz will likewise get hit by the Trump campaign on his leftward turn, especially as Minnesota governor.

For example, in 2006, Walz campaigned on sending undocumented immigrants back to their home country to reapply for citizenship. As governor, he signed a bill last year allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.

But the working hypothesis about the race is that none of this truly matters. Former President Donald Trump has been on every side of nearly every contemporary political issue under the sun. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) bashed Trump before becoming a Trumpian. So let’s not go overboard about shifting on critical issues of the day.

The political calculation behind choosing Walz isn’t terribly complex to comprehend. Team Harris thinks that they can put Pennsylvania in play with or without Gov. Josh Shapiro on the ticket. At Tuesday evening’s rally in Philadelphia, Shapiro proved himself to be a more-than-able orator willing to boost the Harris-Walz ticket from the outside.

Harris’ vibes with Walz aside, the thinking is that the Minnesota governor can help Harris win critical Midwest states and serve as a very-affable contrast to the more cerebral Vance.

And how about Shapiro? There are those in the Democratic Party who say that Harris committed political malpractice by not putting Shapiro on the ticket. And, of course, if Harris loses Pennsylvania, it will have been. But we heard from several House Democrats who were truly worried about the union vote if Shapiro made it onto the ticket. Harris needed to put any down-ballot drama behind her.

Let’s note one other fascinating dynamic at play in this race. Three of the four top candidates — Harris, Walz and Vance — came from humble beginnings. Vance maybe even more than the two Democrats, although Harris and Walz went to far more modest colleges than Vance.

Yet Trump — beloved by the middle class and the non-college educated — is the son of a mega-rich New York developer and landlord. Trump also does nothing but play up his own billionaire status.

— Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

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Fill out this form to enter the raffle. Winners will be announced in September.

THE SENATE MAP

Rosen’s old-school Senate campaign

LAS VEGAS — Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) is doing something that her fellow vulnerable Democratic senators are strategically avoiding.

She’s running a traditional, old-school Democratic campaign.

Rosen is seeking a second term by not only touting her bipartisan credentials in securing infrastructure investments but also using the presidential race and national issues like abortion as a way to boost Democratic turnout — a combination that Senate Democrats in other battleground states are shunning.

“A lot of this election is about a choice — not just for freedom … but the choice of what we invest in,” Rosen said in an interview here after campaigning with the left-leaning veterans group VoteVets Tuesday.

In Nevada, this strategy could work in Rosen’s favor as she faces off against Republican nominee Sam Brown. To win statewide, Democrats need to juice turnout in the metropolitan hubs of Las Vegas and Reno, especially among hospitality workers and unions. Democrats have a major advantage on that front because of the political machine set into motion by the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

This will be crucial for Rosen in what her campaign expects will be an extremely tight race. Two years ago, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) defeated Republican Adam Laxalt by fewer than 8,000 votes.

Schumer’s view: Rosen’s emphasis on what Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer refers to as “implementation” of landmark bills from the last Congress is a way for her to localize the race. It could also help insulate Rosen from criticisms about Nevada’s economy, which has been generally worse than the rest of the country post-Covid.

“We have broadband going in places in rural Nevada, in places all across Nevada, that we’ve never had before because of the bipartisan infrastructure law,” Rosen said. “And high-speed rail that’s going to connect Los Angeles to Las Vegas is going to bring billions of dollars in economic impact… Sam Brown would have voted against that.”

In many of the battleground states, including Nevada, the Senate GOP challenger is running behind former President Donald Trump. Democrats credit this to their efforts to remind voters about what incumbents brought home for their state.

Yet this week, Brown told us the federal spending Rosen supported “directly resulted in higher prices for everyday things.”

Brown also criticized the high-speed rail project as a “giveaway” to a “New York hedge fund billionaire peddling a train boondoggle with ticket prices so high that working-class families won’t be able to afford to use it.”

“[Rosen] may call this reckless spending an ‘investment,’ but everyday Nevadans know it’s just another corporate giveaway to a political donor,” Brown said.

A different kind of battleground: In one respect, Rosen is running her race a lot like Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) — focusing on the local impact of Congress’ big-ticket legislation and insisting they have their own brand distinct from that of the national Democratic Party.

But unlike Montana and Ohio, where Trump will win handily, Nevada is actually a tight contest at the presidential level. And unlike Tester and Brown, Rosen is eager to talk about and campaign for the top of the Democratic ticket — and link it directly to the issue of which party controls the Senate.

Rosen did exactly that when talking about abortion, an issue Democrats believe will benefit their candidates up and down the ballot. And abortion will quite literally be on the ballot in Nevada — voters will choose whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution. In this case, Rosen is nationalizing the issue.

“The only way to protect women from dying in emergency room parking lots or back-alley abortions is to protect our Senate Democratic majority,” Rosen said. “And that’s what we’re going to do in Nevada when I get reelected.”

— Andrew Desiderio

THE CAMPAIGN

Bush loses in another blow to Squad

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) won’t be returning to Congress next year after she lost her 1st District Democratic primary to Wesley Bell.

Bell won handily, topping Bush 51.2%-45.6%.

Bush, one of the most progressive members in the House, joins Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) as the second Squad member to fall to a primary challenger this year. It’s a major blow to the group of progressives who swept into power in recent years vowing to shake up the Democratic Party.

Bell ran as a progressive prosecutor — he serves as the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney — who would fight for constituents and avoid the drama that surrounded Bush’s time in office.

Most notably, Bush is under FBI investigation for allegedly misusing campaign funds. Bush has denied any wrongdoing surrounding the employment of her husband for security purposes.

Plus, Bush’s stringent anti-Israel views attracted the attention of AIPAC’s super PAC. United Democracy Project made Bush’s race a top priority and spent more than $9 million to defeat the incumbent.

House Democratic leadership endorsed Bush and House Minority Whip Katherine Clark even stumped for Bush in the race’s closing days. But it wasn’t enough to stave off Bush’s defeat.

Washington: In Washington’s 4th District, Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) appears to be in a tough spot. Newhouse looks poised to advance to the general election along with fellow Republican Jerrod Sessler, who’s backed by former President Donald Trump.

But with more than half the votes counted, Sessler is running ahead of Newhouse. And another Trump-endorsed Republican, Tiffany Smiley, also notched roughly 20% of the vote and is in third.

So with a significant number of Republicans voting against Newhouse in the primary, the general election may be an uphill battle. Remember: Newhouse voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 attack.

Michigan: As expected, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) will face off against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) in the state’s blockbuster Senate race. Both Slotkin and Rogers easily dispatched primary opponents.

In the state’s 8th District, Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet appears poised to take on unsuccessful 2022 Republican candidate Paul Junge in the election to fill retiring Rep. Dan Kildee’s (D-Mich.) seat.

In the 7th District race to fill Slotkin’s seat, Democrat Curtis Hertel will face Republican Tom Barrett. Both the 7th and 8th districts are key toss-up campaigns in the battle for the House.

— Max Cohen

The Vault: Torres tells Powell to ‘immediately’ cut rates

First in The Vault: Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) is calling on Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell to “immediately” cut interest rates.

In a letter sent yesterday to the U.S. central bank – shared exclusively with Punchbowl News – Torres argued that the Fed was risking a recession by waiting as late as September to lower interest rates from their highest level since 2000. Markets swooned on Monday over fears of a global economic downturn after the Fed punted on a July rate cut. Stocks largely recovered on Tuesday, but we’re not out of the woods.

“Time is running out. The longer the Fed takes to cut interest rates, the greater the risk of a recession,” Torres wrote. “We may be fast approaching the point of no return.”

Read the full letter here.

Plenty of Democrats have called for the Fed to cut rates this year. Even some Senate Republicans told us last week that the time to cut was approaching.

When the Fed decided not to cut in the last week of July – even while strongly suggesting a cut was on the table for September – lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned that the Fed had made a “serious mistake” by continuing to wait.

What Torres is calling for here is different. The Federal Open Market Committee, which sets interest rate policy for the Fed, isn’t scheduled to meet again until September. An immediate cut to rates would require an emergency meeting, which is typically reserved for a full-blown crisis.

The last emergency meeting convened by the Fed was in March 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic first walloped the United States. For now, that approach appears unlikely, with FOMC officials like Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee telling the New York Times that there’s “nothing in the Fed’s mandate that’s about making sure the stock market is comfortable.”

We should also note that the economic impact of interest rate moves is slow. Looser credit conditions would take weeks or months to settle into the economy, even if the Fed chose to cut rates by 50 or 75 basis points than the usual 25 bps.

— Brendan Pedersen

THE CAMPAIGN

GOP embraces Kent with eye toward November

Republicans are reluctantly embracing controversial right-wing candidate Joe Kent, who is vying to unseat a vulnerable Democrat this fall in what is likely to be one of the most competitive House races in the country.

In Washington State’s 3rd District top-two primary Tuesday night, Kent bested Republican Leslie Lewallen, a former King County prosecutor who tried to appeal to GOP voters worried about Kent’s electability.

Kent will take on Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) in November. It’s a rematch in a district former president Donald Trump carried by several points in 2020. Republicans are eager to win it back.

Kent has pushed Jan. 6 conspiracy theories and railed against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. But he beat former Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) in a primary last cycle and went on to lose in the general election.

Herrera Beutler voted to impeach Trump, although she had support from GOP leadership. Even after Kent prevailed in the primary, party leaders were loath to spend money on him.

And there have been signs of lingering unease about Kent inside the GOP. Several sitting Republican lawmakers, as well as McCarthy, donated to Lewallen over Kent this cycle.

But top Republicans believe — or hope — things will be different this time around. Several GOP operatives tell us Kent, a retired Special Forces combat veteran endorsed by Trump, has been more receptive to their advice about how to run a successful campaign and has toned down some of his rhetoric. (We’d just note there have been several instances where that has not been the case.)

The NRCC is expected to devote resources to boosting Kent this fall, though it’s still too early to say what that will look like.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats aren’t buying the idea that Kent has softened his image. Dan Gottlieb, a DCCC spokesman, called Kent a “proud conspiracy theorist with ties to white nationalism” who has “spent years spreading his dangerous agenda.” Here’s more:

Meanwhile, in an opening salvo to the general election, Gluesenkamp Perez is already out with a new ad declaring Kent as “still too extreme for Southwest Washington.” Here’s the ad, shared exclusively with Punchbowl News.

— Melanie Zanona

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