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IN THIS EDITION

Judging Mike Johnson on funding

Inside the room: Sitting down with Gary Gensler

A Senate committee gets unstuck — for now

Capitol Hill x Project 2025

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Judging Mike Johnson on funding

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.

Now, from Jake: Happy Saturday. In the next few days, the congressional leadership will release a three-month clean funding bill, which will keep federal agencies open until December. So yes, these folks are going to ruin our holiday season once again.

We’re going to focus this morning on Speaker Mike Johnson, the central figure in the funding drama thus far.

Just a few weeks ago, Johnson unveiled his government funding plan: a stopgap measure that would keep federal agencies open until March 28 paired with the SAVE Act, which would require voters to prove their U.S. citizenship.

The six-month time horizon was aimed at avoiding a lame-duck spending bill. And Johnson took a special liking to the SAVE Act, which he called “righteous” and legislation that would safeguard elections.

He’ll walk away now with a three-month CR and nothing else.

This was inevitable. We have a few observations on Johnson’s performance:

1) We argued at the outset of this fight that Johnson was making a strategic error. He had two asks – the SAVE Act and a six-month CR. The SAVE Act was never really attainable, since the White House came out with a quick veto threat, and Senate and House Democrats were largely opposed. But had he focused on getting a longer-term CR, it may have been possible.

2) Johnson’s spending package never really had a prayer of passing. Last week, Johnson yanked the bill from floor consideration so he could give House Majority Whip Tom Emmer more time to cobble together votes. Still, the bill failed this week. Johnson would’ve been better suited putting the legislation on the floor last week instead of dragging this story out.

3) Let’s give Johnson credit here. Johnson realizes that he can’t shut the government down. And despite calls from former President Donald Trump to do so, Johnson is putting a clean CR on the floor next week.

What I’m reading/watching/listening to: I am re-reading “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro. I haven’t read it since the summer before I was in grad school, 16 years ago. It recently came out on Kindle.

– Jake Sherman

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.

Inside the room: Sitting down with Gary Gensler

There are few regulators who get as much personal attention from Capitol Hill these days as Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler.

So as we thought through who we’d want to sit down with for the latest Quarterly Vault interview, Gensler made perfect sense for Vault world.

I thought getting Gensler to talk might be tricky, but the SEC was open to the idea when I started putting out feelers in July. It was clear that Gensler was comfortable with the sort of press that comes with a stint like this in Washington. It makes sense since it’s not his first. From July though, things went surprisingly smoothly (and on schedule) for a big interview like this.

On the day of the interview, my Vault coauthor, Brendan Pedersen, and I grabbed coffee and headed to the SEC headquarters. I’d last been to the SEC in person over five years ago when I was covering corporate governance and the ESG debate for CQ Roll Call. So it was fun to be back.

The Hill is a much more open place for reporters than regulatory agencies typically. To interview Gensler, we got to see the building and head up to his office — which had a gorgeous view over D.C.

One of the most interesting things to me about sitting down with Gensler was how he handled the criticism he’s come under. Gensler came off unphased and avoided getting defensive about the pressure he gets from Republicans in particular. Gensler always gets grilled in hearings by GOP lawmakers, and there’s a whole storyline in the presidential race about the interest in firing him from his SEC job.

Here’s a snippet from Gensler:

This was also my first time recording with our podcast equipment for a special audio version of the Gensler interview. It was definitely a new (but fun) challenge constructing an interview so that we’d get what we needed for print while also coming together as a smooth discussion for listeners.

ICYMI, here’s the latest The Vault Quarterly, and here’s our podcast with Gensler. Enjoy!

What I’m listening to: Unfortunately I’m still recovering from the Philadelphia Eagles’ Monday Night Football loss. I was at the game, which was a lot of fun until it really wasn’t.

Anyway, I’ve been listening to the PHLY Eagles Podcast and The Ringer’s Philly Special podcast as I recover and get ready for Sunday’s game against the Saints. Go Birds.

– Laura Weiss

A Senate committee gets unstuck — for now

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hasn’t held a business meeting — a markup, if you will — since April. This week, there was finally a breakthrough.

For months, the committee’s top Republican, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, was refusing to consent to a business meeting unless a House-passed bill imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court was included on the agenda. We first reported this.

Democrats refused. They accused Risch of holding the committee hostage. They noted that the White House opposes the ICC bill, though it received bipartisan support in the House.

And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called instead for a bipartisan negotiation on a bill that could become law. Republicans said that was a smokescreen because Democrats didn’t want to further exacerbate their party’s Israel tensions.

It was a standstill. Until it wasn’t.

This past Tuesday, the committee quietly noticed a business meeting for next Wednesday, Sept. 25. Included on the agenda? The ICC sanctions bill.

Five months later, the dispute was suddenly over.

Behind the scenes: Risch played hardball. He stuck to his position, and Democrats eventually caved. Democrats tried to pressure Risch to back down by raising alarm about the growing backlog of State Department nominees, including ambassadorships. They argued Risch’s move was unprecedented for a committee that usually rises above partisan tensions.

But at a certain point, the current trajectory became unsustainable and Democrats reasoned that it was better to give Risch what he wanted than to let this drag on. Plus, the negotiation that Schumer and top Democrats wanted wasn’t going anywhere.

Risch, for his part, wasn’t gloating when I asked him about it this past week.

But Risch got what he wanted, I reminded him. He didn’t have to give up anything.

Recognize this about Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.): He’s not a partisan warrior by nature. He hates playing in the mud, so to speak. And he’s retiring in a few short months after a nearly four-decade career in Congress, so he doesn’t want to spend his remaining days in the Senate locked in this kind of paralysis.

Plus, it might not be all that bad to mark up the ICC sanctions bill. Foreign Relations Committee’s markups take place in a small ornate room one floor down from the Senate chamber. There are no cameras. Reporters are allowed in, but seating is very limited.

And senators can offer amendments during the markup. So the final product — if it even passes out of the committee — could look much different than the original bill. Risch said it’ll be a “free-for-all.”

What I’m reading: The AP had a good story this week on Senate Minority Whip John Thune and how he’s navigating Donald Trump’s GOP in his bid to become Republican leader.

The story included this funny anecdote about Thune’s days as a high school basketball player. Apparently he was a ball hog!

— Andrew Desiderio

Capitol Hill x Project 2025

This week Max and I explored the Hill dynamics of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

House Democrats have increasingly made it a key messaging point — both to hammer former President Donald Trump and warn voters of the conservative think tank’s rightwing vision for the country.

This week alone, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer held Project 2025 news conferences, as well as Assistant House Democratic Leader Joe Neguse.

Next week, House Democrats are planning to hold a public presentation about Project 2025. And Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) are trying to get the word out beyond Washington.

Project 2025 is a 922-page blueprint of conservative policy proposals that range from outlawing most abortion care to removing protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender. It also recommends harsh cuts to government spending and continuing Trump’s border wall.

Providing suggestions to future GOP administrations is not a new concept from the Heritage Foundation, but this cycle’s agenda has gotten a unique amount of attention.

The Heritage Foundation actually put out a similar plan during the 2016 election cycle ahead of Trump’s first presidency.

Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, saying that he had no involvement in crafting the blueprint, although at least 140 people who worked in his administration helped draft it, according to CNN.

Still, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), a co-chair of the Harris campaign, told us that she felt that the Democratic messaging to tie Trump to some of the far-right ideas was effective.

“More Americans are now familiar with it,” Escobar said. “The more that we can educate the American people and demonstrate to them that Republicans are absolutely, completely endorsing the terrifying policies in there, the better.”

And so far, it seems like Republicans are following Trump’s suit by distancing themselves from Project 2025.

It was surprising to see some mainstream Republicans like Reps. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) rebuke Heritage entirely for drifting further right in recent years.

Even Republicans close to the think tank, like Reps. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), told us they haven’t read what’s in the blueprint.

It’s clear we will continue hearing a lot about Project 2025 up until November. We will see how the messaging shifts or expands as the election draws closer.

What I’m listening to: This week I have been listening to a lot of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” album. It’s still great a month after its release.

— Mica Soellner