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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN
WITH MAX COHEN AND CHRISTIAN HALL

THE TOP

Happy Wednesday, and welcome to December. 

This is a volatile, busy and quick-moving legislative session, and we have significant updates on almost all the key priorities. It’s safe to say that Congress is off to a slow start on dealing with several of these high-profile, must-pass issues. Behind the scenes, though, there was some progress Tuesday night on beginning the process of wrapping up the National Defense Authorization Act. 

→ Government funding: This is the biggest immediate challenge. Government funding expires on Dec. 3, which is this Friday — yes, as in the day after tomorrow. Both sides have pledged to avoid a shutdown, but neither is making huge concessions right now, especially Republicans. 

This is new: the two sides are still negotiating on a stopgap funding bill. Democrats made Republicans a new offer on Tuesday night. They said they would support a continuing resolution until Jan. 28, which would give both parties almost two months to put together an omnibus package covering all 12 annual spending bills. 

However, Republicans haven’t accepted this proposal yet. They want the CR to run until at least mid-February, and they’re looking for Democrats to agree to no “poison pills” — meaning policy riders — on the full-year bills. To be honest, there isn’t much incentive for Republicans to go along with full-year bills considering short-term legislation locks in Trump-era policies. Long-term funding bills allow Democrats to jack up spending and enact new policy preferences. So the GOP will use these CR fights to put even more pressure on Democrats.

A deal is still expected as soon as today, which would give the Senate time to clear the legislation before any “lapse in appropriations.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has included the CR on the list of possible votes for Wednesday, so Democratic leaders are ready to get moving.

→ NDAA: After two days of posturing by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as a failed procedural vote, there was a flurry of activity late Tuesday night that signaled the annual defense policy bill could get wrapped up by the Senate as soon as today. There would still have to be a conference with the House, but we have some news on that too.

Senate leaders were “hotlining” a proposed unanimous consent agreement calling for votes on 21 amendments, which would then be followed by a vote on final passage. The potential objections are on the GOP side, so Democrats were waiting to find out if they had a deal. If so, there will be a mini “vote-a-rama” in the Senate today.

Senate Democrats also noted the list of proposed amendments includes one from Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and other GOP senators calling for mandatory sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 project, a Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline. The House-passed NDAA includes this provision. The Biden administration has waived sanctions on the project in order not to upset the German government, which is in favor of the pipeline. But the dispute over it has turned into a political headache for the White House, and Senate Democrats are going to allow this vote in order to get the must-pass NDAA legislation through the chamber finally.

Now for our news on NDAA: House Armed Services Committee Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told us that his panel is in touch with its Senate counterparts in order to be ready to move to resolve differences between the two chambers as quickly as possible and get to a final vote.

“We’re proceeding to get an overall agreement as they’re doing that,” Smith said in reference to the proposed Senate amendment votes. “We’re trying to be ready.”

Smith added: “We’re unlikely to be able to get into a conference committee at this point, as I said. So we’re pre-conferencing and having discussions in order to be ready.” 

In other words, the House is going to have to swallow whatever the Senate does.

→ Debt limit: Very little has been made public here, and many of McConnell and Schumer’s allies are in the dark about what the two leaders are negotiating when it comes to lifting the borrowing cap by Dec. 15. Here’s what we do know: Schumer and McConnell are talking, and those discussions center around a long-term lift of the debt ceiling. Both Democrats and Republicans want to lift the limit beyond the 2022 elections. But McConnell is under a lot of pressure to force Democrats to commit to raising the debt limit by a dollar amount instead of allowing a suspension of the borrowing limit to a date certain. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), a key figure on the Republican side of the debt ceiling fight, said he would be opposed to workarounds that would allow Democrats to avoid putting a number on their debt limit increase. “I think this is about accountability,” Toomey said. 

→ BBB: On the Build Back Better Act, President Joe Biden’s top legislative priority, much of the Senate drama remains focused on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and his daily utterances, moods and musings. Yet there was also a long discussion among Democrats as well over the fate of the state-and-local tax deduction (SALT), a key issue, although no deal yet. So a lot of work still has to be done before Democrats reach consensus. Schumer keeps saying he wants this done before Christmas, so he has 24 days left. 

Manchin met separately with Schumer and McConnell yesterday, although he said little upon leaving their respective offices. Schumer has told his Democratic colleagues that he’d like to begin floor debate on the package in two weeks, with a December deadline for completion, but Manchin hasn’t committed to that timeline yet.

On SALT, Schumer chaired a meeting in his office that included Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and others. Sanders and Menendez have objected to a House plan to raise the SALT deduction cap from $10,000 to $80,000, arguing it’s a giveaway to the rich. Sanders and Menendez had been in agreement on an alternative proposal, although they later fell apart over a disagreement on what to do with the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue it brings in. Now the pair is working on two different plans, although neither is ready yet. So Democrats continue to struggle with a unified approach to this issue even as Republicans hit them over it. GOP senators will hold a press conference at noon today to do just that.

THE WORKFORCE FEATURING ANTONIO TIJERINO

Our fourth and final profile of The Workforce is out today, featuring Hispanic Heritage Foundation President and CEO Antonio Tijerino. 

Antonio Tijerino is a leader on workforce issues focused on making sure that Latinos are prepared to enter the job market with the skills needed for a wide variety of careers. He has helped shape the Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s mission to include education, workforce, social impact and culture.

Make sure to check out Antonio’s profile here and catch up on the other three profiles as well! 

BEHIND THE SCENES

A sneak peek at the House Republican Conference meeting today

House Republicans are heading across the street to the Capitol Hill Club for a closed political meeting. 

A few things are likely to go down:

→ House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is expected to address the intra-party squabbling between Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Their Twitter fight was entertaining for about one minute. But then it became quite embarrassing for a party that’s trying to convince voters they deserve to be back in the majority. Quite frankly, even the leadership is embarrassed by this, and would like to ignore it and that shows. McCarthy won’t dwell on this; he’ll say Republicans have to stick together. He spoke to Mace and Greene Tuesday, although that didn’t seem to have a huge impact on Greene.

Quite notably, GOP leadership has not publicly announced a news conference for after their meeting. Perhaps they will later this morning, or maybe they just don’t want to appear publicly today. 

→ Republican leaders will go through the latest battleground polling. Here are two nuggets from the poll that leaders will discuss with House GOP lawmakers: “The top two issues for independent voters in battleground seats are jobs and the economy, followed by inflation and the cost of living. … Eighty percent of voters in battleground seats agree that parents should have a say in what is taught in their children’s schools.”

→ The GOP leadership will also run through the list of Democratic retirements. 

→ The leaders will call for donations in a so-called “altar call.”

Also: Donald Trump Jr. raised $255,000 at an AIken, S.C., fundraiser for Gov. Henry McMaster Monday. McMaster was an early booster of former President Donald Trump. A source told us it was McMaster’s biggest fundraiser.

DOWNTOWN DOWNLOAD

→ Ballard Partners, the lobbying shop that was among the top operators in the Trump era, signed up the city of Largo, Fla., to lobby on “infrastructure grants” and “EV charging stations.” Brian Ballard, the founder of the firm, is a big figure in Florida politics. Also lobbying for Largo is Ana Cruz, who was former Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson’s (D-Fla.) regional director.

FRONTS

MOMENTS

9 a.m.: House Democrats and House Republicans have their respective closed party meetings.

9:30 a.m.: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.

10:15 a.m.: House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries and Vice Chair Pete Aguilar will hold a news conference.

12:35 p.m.: Biden will speak about supply chains ahead of the holiday season.

1:30 p.m.: Jen Psaki and Dr. Anthony Fauci will brief. … VP Kamala Harris will hold a National Space Council meeting at the United States Institute of Peace.

2:30 p.m.: Biden will speak to commemorate World AIDS Day.

5:30 p.m.: The Bidens, Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will hold a menorah lighting ceremony at the White House.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “Appeals Court Questions Trump’s Bid for Secrecy on Jan. 6 Papers,” by Charlie Savage

→ “What to Watch in the Supreme Court Oral Arguments on the Right to Abortion,” by Adam Liptak

→ “Democrats’ Bill Would Go Far Toward ‘Patching the Holes’ in Health Coverage,” by Reed Abelson, Sarah Kliff, Margot Sanger-Katz and Sheryl Gay Stolberg

WaPo

→ “Stricter coronavirus testing being weighed for all travelers to U.S.,” by Lena Sun and Tyler Pager

→ “CNN suspends Chris Cuomo ‘indefinitely’ after documents detail help he gave his brother,” by Sarah Ellison and Jeremy Barr

Bloomberg

→ “U.S.’s Blinken to Meet Russia’s Lavrov as Tensions Flare,” by Henry Meyer and Nick Wadhams

Politico

→ “Congress closes in on sexual misconduct reform, 4 years after its #MeToo moment,” by Marianne LeVine

→ “Dems’ paid leave push faces last stand,” by Burgess Everett and Eleanor Mueller

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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images