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December 19, 2023
Punchbowl News Presents
Introducing Tech – our newest policy vertical. From high-profile interviews with industry influencers & policymakers to key lobbying updates, Punchbowl News Tech will be your go-to for timely technology insights.
PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Tuesday morning.
Just 17 Republicans showed up for Senate votes Monday night — and only 61 senators total. It’s yet another sign that the Senate’s negotiations on border security and immigration aren’t going to lead to a floor vote this week. If it wasn’t clear already, reality is setting in that this will be a January story.
And the senators who actually showed up had some pretty stern warnings about what next month could look like.
While the negotiators are still citing “progress,” the January pile-up on a massive foreign-aid supplemental and FY 2024 appropriations is coming into greater focus. The Big Four party leaders and the White House have yet to decide on a topline for the 12 annual spending bills. Plus, kicking the foreign-aid package to January gives former President Donald Trump an opening to tank everything.
That’s why Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he wants to get a bill out the door “as quickly as possible.” Congress is “playing with fire,” Murphy added, as Ukraine’s “peril becomes more serious and more immediate.” The White House said Monday the Pentagon has enough money left for one more Ukraine aid package — and that’s it.
But that dire situation hasn’t accelerated the timetable for a Senate deal. Negotiators keep emphasizing to us the complexities of immigration law and the importance of spending enough time to get it right. Murphy said the bipartisan group hasn’t yet decided how they’re going to roll out any agreement to the public, including whether that starts with a framework or delays until there’s bill text — if that happens.
Fast-forward to January: Congress will have 10 days to avert a partial government shutdown once lawmakers return to town. Senators are already talking about pairing a funding bill with the supplemental package, which could create a whole new set of problems. At the same time, Trump will be aggressively campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire. The 2024 GOP presidential nomination race formally kicks off on Jan. 15 in Iowa.
Republican senators on Monday roundly condemned the former president’s remarks about immigrants over the weekend. Trump said undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” It reminded them that Trump continues to have huge sway among the GOP base and could very well put enough pressure on Republicans — particularly in the House — to kill any bipartisan deal.
“Anybody on the outside who is looking at running for public office, particularly the presidency, should be trying to fix the situations we’ve got right now, not creating problems for people trying to solve them,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a Trump skeptic, said when asked about the former president’s role.
Rounds was among the 17 Republican senators who showed up Monday night. He’s undoubtedly part of the universe of GOP senators who could vote for an eventual border security-for-Ukraine package. It almost seemed as if these 17 voting Monday included most, if not all, of the Republicans who’d even consider backing such a deal in the end.
January will also be dominated by appropriations and the potential for two separate shutdown deadlines. Senate Minority Whip John Thune said Democratic leaders “wasted” the last two months by not passing more FY 2024 spending bills. The result, Thune said, is that “you’re gonna have a huge fight over spending — both in January and in February.” All while trying to pass the supplemental.
We’ll note that conservatives blocked action for weeks on a bipartisan minibus spending package, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s scheduling decisions in the weeks since have also come under scrutiny.
When asked about the lack of agreement on a topline spending number, Thune threw up his hands and responded: “Yeah, that’s a problem.” And it’s safe to say Senate Republicans are looking at the House with negative confidence.
The House has passed seven of the 12 annual spending bills, while the Senate has approved only three. But Senate Appropriations cleared all of its bills on a bipartisan basis, something that House Appropriations wasn’t able to do.
Could the looming January pile-up have been avoided? Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the chief GOP border negotiator, made the point Monday night that if the White House had come to the negotiating table sooner, the year-end scramble and impending January time crunch could have been sidestepped. Republicans released their initial offer in early November, and the bipartisan talks didn’t get serious until the White House jumped in earlier this month.
Here’s Lankford:
The result is a hesitance by members from both parties to publish a framework or even publicly comment on what’s on the table before the Christmas break. This would allow opponents on the left and the right to bludgeon the agreement before the Senate gets a chance to vote on it.
However, there are very real frustrations about the potential emerging deal. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who has openly questioned the White House’s strategy, lamented Monday night that he still doesn’t have any definitive answers about the changes to immigration and border-security policy that are under consideration. And he criticized the White House for its willingness to entertain provisions that are “very similar to those under President Donald Trump, authored by Stephen Miller.”
— Andrew Desiderio, Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
Don’t miss: The end-of-year review of our sentiment-tracking poll, The Canvass, lands later this morning. We’ll recap K Street leaders and top Capitol Hill staffers’ key predictions for what was undoubtedly an erratic year. We’ll also share their expectations for 2024. Check your inboxes and Punchbowl.news later this morning.
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THE SPEAKER
House GOP news: Retreat location and Johnson’s border trip
News: House Republicans are planning to hold their annual legislative retreat at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.
In recent years, Republicans have held their retreats in Florida, in both Orlando and Ponte Vedra Beach.
But Speaker Mike Johnson’s team wanted the retreat to be held closer to Washington this year, according to multiple sources familiar with the planning process.
The House GOP retreat is scheduled to be March 13-15.
The Greenbrier, which bills itself as “America’s resort,” is owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, likely the next Republican senator from the Mountain State.
House Republicans held their 2018 retreat at the Greenbrier. It was quite eventful. A chartered train carrying lawmakers to the resort struck a garbage truck and killed a man on the way to the weekend. Then Speaker Paul Ryan was evacuated from the train and brought to the Greenbrier by motorcade.
The Greenbrier is also the home of the Cold War-era bunker designed to house Congress in the case of a nuclear attack.
Also news: Johnson is planning a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in January, according to multiple sources familiar with the planning.
Of course, Congress is likely to be wrestling with changes to border policy in January as part of its quest to approve a foreign aid package.
– Jake Sherman
PERSONNEL NEWS
Punchbowl News is growing!
The Punchbowl News family is growing! We’re thrilled to welcome Laura Weiss, who will be covering all things financial services, banking and tax. Laura joins Financial Services Reporter Brendan Pedersen as we launch our first-ever policy membership platform: The Vault.
Premium Policy: The Vault will expand our already relentless financial services coverage, offering members an inside look at the corridors of power deciding financial services policy in Washington. Members will have access to expanded weekly coverage, quarterly briefings, exclusive interviews and more.
Laura comes to us from CQ Roll Call, where she has covered the ins-and-outs of tax and economic policy on Capitol Hill for the last two years. Before that, Laura reported on ESG and corporate governance for CQ since 2017, even launching a newsletter on the topic. She’s a graduate of Dartmouth College and was managing editor of The Dartmouth, America’s oldest college newspaper.
And we’re hiring: We’re looking for a digital producer to lead production on our new weekly policy newsletter. Apply here.
THE MONEY GAME
Jeffries fundraises for New Dems in NYC, Stefanik raises $500K in Fla.
News: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries headlined a fundraiser on Monday night in New York City to raise cash for the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund.
The event raised more than $100,000 for the fund, which is the political arm of the center-left New Democrat Coalition. The group is playing in a number of open House Democratic primaries to elect candidates who align with the pro-business policies of the New Dems.
Under New Dem Chair Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), the organization launched a national finance committee for the first time in its history. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) is the finance chair and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) serves as the vice chair.
Also news: House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik raised $500,000 in South Florida Monday.
Stefanik had a lunch in Palm Beach hosted by Paul Packer, Laura Perlmutter, Bruce Toll and Joe Pizza. Tickets ranged from $3,300 to $25,000 for hosts.
Stefanik also had a reception in Boca Raton, Fla., with David Friedman, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, and NORPAC, a pro-Israel PAC.
And Stefanik met with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
What Biden is up to tonight: President Joe Biden is heading to Bethesda tonight for a campaign reception with Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore. The event is expected to bring in more than $1.3 million. The money will go to the Biden Victory Fund, which splits donations between Biden’s reelection campaign, the DNC and state Democratic parties.
Moore, 45, is a rising Democratic star. A former Army paratrooper and business executive, Moore is Maryland’s first Black governor and only the third in U.S. history.
— Max Cohen, Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan
THE CAMPAIGN
OK, that hurts! In a new ad airing in Iowa, Nikki Haley says “Congress is the most exclusive nursing home in America.” Tell that to the 26-year-old Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), 34-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) or 39-year-old House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik.
The spot also says President Joe Biden is too old – he’s 81.
News: The Congressional Hispanic Caucus BOLD PAC is endorsing former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) in the special election to fill former Rep. George Santos’ (R-N.Y.) seat. Check out the full endorsement here.
Also: Vote Vets Action Fund has a new ad blaming Senate Republicans for holding up aid to Ukraine. The spot, which is running here in D.C., says Republicans are holding up cash for Kyiv “just to push Trump’s anti-immigrant wish list.” And the commercial also says that U.S. troops could end up fighting the war in Ukraine. Here’s the ad.
– Jake Sherman and Max Cohen
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Punchbowl News Presents
Introducing Tech – our newest policy vertical. From high-profile interviews with industry influencers & policymakers to key lobbying updates, Punchbowl News Tech will be your go-to for timely technology insights.
Read our first Tech Quarterly now