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THE TOP
Spending drama sparks tension in House GOP leadership suite
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.
Here’s Mel on the story of the week: Things are getting tense inside the House Republican leadership suite as the GOP struggles to find a path forward on funding the government. Speaker Mike Johnson had to abruptly cancel a floor vote on his six-month stopgap spending bill with the SAVE Act attached this week amid a dozen or so GOP defections and near-unified Democratic opposition.
Johnson’s decision to pull the bill was yet another public blow for the speaker on spending, which has been a sore spot for Republicans throughout the entire 118th Congress. But the real drama right now is taking place behind the scenes, as GOP leadership offices grow increasingly frustrated with the situation – and one another. Here’s a rundown of some of the tension points:
— House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) was not given a heads up about Johnson’s decision to yank the CR from the floor, as we reported Friday. The chair felt extra stung because he had gone along with Johnson’s quixotic plan, even though it was dead on arrival in the Senate. Appropriators have felt like they’re in a tough spot because they don’t love the speaker’s plan but don’t want to throw him under the bus by publicly complaining about it, either.
— In announcing to reporters that he was pulling the bill, Johnson specifically said House Majority Whip Tom Emmer was being tasked with building more support for the plan. Some allies of Emmer felt like the speaker was sending him on a doomed mission. Others brushed aside the remarks, noting Emmer was simply just being asked to do his job.
— The leadership did not gauge how key committee chairs were feeling about Johnson’s CR plan early on in the process. That includes House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who announced Monday evening he was against the bill before even hearing Johnson’s pitch to the conference on Tuesday. But there’s some internal debate about whose responsibility it was to check in on Rogers. Some say the onus was on Johnson, while others believe it was up to the whip.
— During the weekly leadership meeting, Johnson was pressed on what his “Plan B” is for when his CR inevitably fails, but he continued to insist there isn’t one, as we reported Thursday. This has annoyed some top Republicans who see a clean three-month CR as inevitable and wish Johnson would just arrive at that conclusion sooner rather than later.
Of course, the finger-pointing comes as Republicans have grown more anxious about their prospects of holding on to the House in November. And as Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) predicted to us, if they lose the majority there is likely to be a big “shakeup” in leadership, which may explain some of the maneuvering by top Republicans here.
So if you think this September spending fight is messy, then buckle up for a potentially even crazier fall, when Republicans will have their internal leadership elections.
What I’m watching: The new Hulu series, “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” It is trashy reality TV on steroids. And I am absolutely hooked.
— Melanie Zanona
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.
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A smidge of improv on stage during PBN HQ
This week, I had the pleasure of stepping on stage with Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) to talk about news of the day and financial inclusion.
Meeks joined us at the Punchbowl News HQ during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference.
The New York Democrat is a lawmaker who tends to answer the questions you ask him. That’s never a given in Washington, and it makes writing the questions you want to ask higher stakes. I had plenty written!
In at least one way, though, Meeks caught me and my questions unprepared.
I was in the middle of a short introduction when the New York Democrat strode on stage and began to take a seat. I followed his lead. As it happened, I was reciting a quote he gave the New York Times two decades ago about the need for Black communities to access economic development. My plan had been to read the quote and then welcome Meeks on stage to talk about other stuff.
With the man sitting across from me as I finished the short quote — “We have to move toward the economic redistribution of our community more than we have in the past,” — I realized what I was saying sure sounded like the lead-in to a question. I didn’t have one. The question that came out of me, after a beat, was: “How are we doing?”
I remember hearing murmured chuckles in the audience, and Meeks shifted in his seat. Then he responded by saying: “We’ve made improvements. But we’ve still got a long way to go.”
More or less by accident, that exchange set up the financial inclusion conversation that followed nicely. Watch the full interview here.
What I’m watching: I have become minorly obsessed with the show “Couples Therapy” on Showtime. It’s a 4-season documentary following Dr. Orna Guralnik, a psychologist in New York City, and a rotating series of real-life couples.
You’d think the appeal would be watching people talk about their inner lives, and that’s part of it! But in reality, it’s just fascinating to watch an expert operate in her element the way Guralnik does.
— Brendan Pedersen
GOP talks abortion access on the trail
As we inch closer to election season, the political ads are ratcheting up in intensity. This week, we took a deep dive into Republican messaging on a hot-button issue: reproductive rights.
The idea started when I saw an ad from Matt Gunderson, a Republican running in a competitive southern California House seat that leans blue and is represented by Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). In the spot, Gunderson introduces himself as “pro-choice.” It’s rare to hear Republicans use that terminology in campaign messaging, but it showed how far some GOP candidates are going to try to blunt Democratic attacks on abortion rights.
With help from our great friends at the ad tracking firm AdImpact, I got a spreadsheet of all the ads this cycle that touch on abortion.
First off: Democrats are massively, massively outspending Republicans on abortion rights. The numbers are wild: Democratic congressional candidates have spent $101 million on abortion ads this cycle, compared to just $7.4 million from their GOP counterparts.
If you look into the GOP ads, you’ll see some more surprising rhetoric. Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) says in an ad that he believes “health decisions should be made between a woman and her doctor — not Washington.”
Democrats, predictably, aren’t buying this argument. We asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about the GOP ads and he called them “laughable.” Many of these Republicans have sponsored legislation that supports fetal personhood and could restrict reproductive rights.
Republicans barely communicated on the issue of abortion in 2022, betting that the effect of the Dobbs decision — which overturned Roe v. Wade — would be minimal in November. That proved to be a colossal mistake and resulted in an underwhelming midterm performance.
The reporting process led me to reflect on how candidates try to message on issues that are traditionally seen as vulnerabilities for their party. Just like Democrats trying to talk tough on crime and support cops, Republicans are now pledging to protect reproductive rights in an attempt to counterprogram against negative ads. We’ll see if this works out!
What I’m watching: There’s a great trend on Twitter of old-school Barclays Premier League compilation videos. This is peak mid-2000s soccer nostalgia. And I’m here for it.
— Max Cohen
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Dems get tough on the border
I hope everyone survived their first post-recess session week! This week, Max Cohen and I decided to explore a new theme that seems to be occurring across House races: Democrats hitting back at Republicans on the border.
We spoke with several vulnerable House Democrats about their border messaging and took a look at dozens of recent ads from Democratic candidates that talk about getting tough on immigration and border security.
The main message across all of these races is Dems faulting Republicans for tanking the bipartisan Senate border bill earlier this year. Many of the ads link vulnerable GOP lawmakers to former President Donald Trump, who basically killed the legislation with a Truth Social post.
We even saw Vice President Kamala Harris use this line of attack during her debate against Trump this week.
Recent ads from Janelle Bynum, running against Rep. Lori Chavez-Deremer in Oregon’s 5th District, and Kirsten Engel, challenging Rep. Juan Ciscomani in Arizona’s 6th District, connect the GOP incumbents to Trump and the defeat of the bipartisan bill.
Other ads we looked at that didn’t make it into the item included rhetoric about Democrats working toward bipartisan solutions on the border, increasing law enforcement and tackling the fentanyl crisis.
Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) all carried themes in ads that said they would crack down on illegal immigration.
We also caught up with Border Security Task Force Chair Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), who said that he’s been coaching members and candidates who have reached out to him on how to effectively campaign on the border. As we know, Suozzi successfully flipped a seat earlier this year after running a tough-on-the-border message in New York’s 3rd District.
“I think Democrats have always wanted to do something on the border,” Suozzi told us. “In my campaign, I leaned into it very hard and I see a lot of other Democrats are doing that now, as well as at the very top of the ticket.”
Suozzi said the task force will likely meet next week to talk more about their border message heading into the final weeks of the campaign. We’ll see how this theme continues or changes into November.
What I’m listening to: This week I’m listening to DJ and producer John Summit’s album “Comfort in Chaos.” It’s helped me get back into the zone.
— Mica Soellner
Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. Political ads courtesy of AdImpact.
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