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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN

THE TOP

Breaking overnight … NYT: “Biden Administration to Impose Tough Sanctions on Russia,” by Julian Barnes, David Sanger and Lara Jakes: “The Biden administration is set to announce on Thursday a string of long-awaited measures against Russia, including far-reaching financial sanctions, for the hacking of government and private networks and a range of other activity, according to people who have been briefed on the moves.

“The sanctions will be among what President Biden’s aides say are ‘seen and unseen’ steps in response to the hacking, known as SolarWinds; to the C.I.A.’s assessment that Russia offered to pay bounties to militants in Afghanistan to kill American troops; and to Russia’s yearslong effort to interfere in United States elections, according to American officials and others who have been briefed on the actions.

“The moves will include the expulsion of a limited number of diplomats, much like the Obama administration did in response to the Russian efforts to influence the election five years ago. But it is unclear whether this set of actions will prove sufficient to deter Russia from further hacking, influence operations or efforts to threaten European countries.

“The sanctions are meant to cut deeper than previous efforts to punish Russia for interfering in elections, targeting the country’s sovereign debt, according to people briefed on the matter. Administration officials were determined to draft a response that would impose real costs on Moscow, as many previous rounds of sanctions have been shrugged off.”

→ Now, this is a topic the Biden administration will find bipartisan agreement on. And it comes on top of Biden’s announcement that he’ll pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by Sept. 11, ending the longest war in American history. Two big foreign policy moves in one week by the new president as tries to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward “great power” competition with Russia and China.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga arrives in Washington Friday. He’s the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Biden became president, and much of their discussions will focus on China’s growing clout.

Here are a few interesting data points to illustrate where the power is in the Republican Party right now (as if there’s much doubt):

→ This is new: Sarah Huckabee Sanders will speak at the House Republican retreat next weekend in Orlando. She and Ari Fleischer are two of the main speakers, and they’ll discuss communications strategy for the party. Both are former White House press secretaries, but Sanders is the frontrunner to become the next governor of Arkansas.

→ Some of the Republicans who led the objections to President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory — objections that were at the heart of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol — have raised massive sums of money in the first quarter of 2021. This comes despite being cut off from most corporate PAC money and derided in the press.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) raised $5.3 million in the first quarter. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) raised $3 million. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) pulled in $27.1 million. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) raised $3.2 million — and it was her first quarter in the House.

WaPo columnist James Hohmann: “Republicans will keep up the craziness until they pay a real price”

CAPITOL SECURITY

Where is the security spending bill?

A spending package to pay for security upgrades to the Capitol complex in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 attack is hung up in high-level talks between the House and Senate Democratic leadership, and no one seems quite sure when it will be done.

But it’s been nearly 100 days since the insurrection by supporters of former President Donald Trump, and some lawmakers — particularly on the House side — are anxious for some action on the issue. 

House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told us on Tuesday that she thought the new security package could be released this month, but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) wasn’t so sure of that timetable Wednesday. “I don’t know if it will be ready in the work period of the next two weeks, but I do believe it will be ready shortly thereafter,” Hoyer said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and senior House Democrats, including DeLauro, have put together the framework of a roughly $2 billion package, based largely on the recommendations of former Army Lt. General Russel Honore’s security review. Pelosi asked Honore to conduct the review and his team recommended hiring hundreds of additional U.S. Capitol Police officers, creating a rapid response force for emergency situations and putting more physical barriers, including retractable fencing around the Capitol grounds. There will also be more security for lawmakers back home in their states and districts as needed, or for when they travel to and from Capitol Hill.

Senate Democratic leaders, though, haven’t signed off on the House plan yet, according to several sources familiar with the issue. The price tag has drawn concerns. And some senators want to add unrelated legislative provisions to the package since it’s considered a “must-pass bill," several sources said.

As we said, this is being handled at a very high level and the talks are between Pelosi and Schumer’s teams. There are a huge number of considerations for the two leaders to balance. The U.S. Capitol Police will be overhauled as it faces the most serious crisis in its long history. Pelosi and Schumer must determine the right trade-off between protecting lawmakers, congressional aides, Capitol employees and journalists who work in the complex every day with the public’s right to have access to Congress and the historic Capitol grounds.

BTW: House Administration has a hearing today on the USCP’s inspector general report dealing with the response to the Jan. 6 attack. 

PUNCHBOWL NEWS SNEAK PEEK 

An exclusive excerpt from Susan Page’s "Madam Speaker"

One book we’re really looking forward to is Susan Page’s “Madam Speaker” about Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Page interviewed Pelosi 10 times, and dug very deep into her life, how she views power and Congress.

Here is a juicy nugget about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death:

"Mitch McConnell is not a force for good in our country,” Pelosi told me. “He is an enabler of some of the worst stuff, and an instigator of some of it on his own.” The two congressional leaders had never had a particularly good relationship. Now there was bitterness from a new dispute between them, one not reported at the time. When Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September, Pelosi proposed that the groundbreaking feminist lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. She would have been the first woman in history to be so honored. 

McConnell rejected the idea on the grounds that there was no precedent for such treatment of a justice. When William Howard Taft had lain in state in 1930, he had been not only the chief justice but also president, McConnell noted. 

He wasn’t swayed by the argument that Ginsburg had achieved an iconic status in American culture, especially for women and girls. McConnell’s refusal meant that Ginsburg’s flag-draped coffin was placed not in the Rotunda, which connects the House and Senate, but in Statuary Hall, on the House side. 

McConnell and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy didn’t accept invitations to attend the service for her."

Page also wrote that Pelosi calls McConnell "Moscow Mitch"  because she knows it gets under his skin.

Buy Page’s book.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

Jonathan Lemire is writing a book

Jonathan Lemire — AP’s White House reporter and a frequent presence on MSNBC — is writing “THE BIG LIE: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics after 2020.” The book will deliver “a comprehensive look at how Donald Trump and the Republicans’ false claims of election malfeasance have upended party politics across the spectrum and challenged President Biden’s White House.” Flatiron is the publisher. There is no release date, as of yet.

THE MONEY GAME

→ Nina Turner of Ohio, who is running to replace Marcia Fudge, raised $1.5 million and has $1.17 million on hand.

→ Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) raised $175,763. He has $2.5 million on hand. He is up for re-election in 2024.

→ Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) raised $95,762 and has $2.1 million on hand. His victory committee took in $856,413.

→ Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) raised $320,287 and has $1.7 million on hand. Leahy is up for re-election and hasn’t announced whether he’s running again. 

→ Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) raised $202,147 and has $1 million on hand. He’s up for re-election in 2022.

→ Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) — the top Republican on Financial Services — has $1.6 million on hand and raised $185,663.

→ Former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has $1 million on hand. He isn’t running for anything, but is rumored to be in the mix for an ambassadorship.

BTW: Today is the filing deadline for first-quarter campaign finance reports. There’s barely any repercussion for filing late. But we’ll be keeping a very close eye on this today.

MOMENTS

10:15 a.m.: President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris will receive the daily intelligence briefing.

10:30 a.m.: Connecticut Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal will speak about gun violence at the Senate Swamp.

10:45 a.m.: Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s weekly news conference. 

11:30 a.m.: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s weekly news conference.

11:45 a.m.: Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) and Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) will announce a new SALT Caucus at the House Triangle. 

12:30 p.m.: Biden and Harris will have lunch. … Jen Psaki will brief the press.

2 p.m.: Biden and Harris will meet with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus’s executive committee.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “House Panel Advances Bill to Study Reparations in Historic Vote,” by Nick Fandos

→ “How the Capitol Riot Suspects Are Challenging the Charges,” by Alan Feuer

WaPo

→ “The war in Afghanistan: Promises to win, but no vision for victory,” by Craig Whitlock

→ “U.S. could have 300 million extra vaccine doses by end of July, raising concerns over hoarding,” by Adam Taylor

WSJ

→ “Democratic Lawmakers to Present Plan to Expand Supreme Court,” by Jess Bravin

→ “Biden Administration Proposes Reversing Ban on Federal Funds for Clinics That Refer Abortions,” by Michelle Hackman

→ “American-JetBlue Alliance Draws Increased Scrutiny From Justice Department,” by Brent Kendall and Alison Snider

LAT

→ “Kamala Harris faces diplomatic pitfalls in tackling migration from Central America,” by Noah Bierman and Tracy Wilkinson: “Republicans have been pounding Vice President Kamala Harris for weeks, asking when she’ll travel to Central America and Mexico to begin face-to-face talks about curbing the flow of migrants seeking to enter the United States.

“Behind the scenes, Harris’ advisors have a different question: Who can she meet with?

“Worries over extensive government corruption in the region, particularly in Honduras, underscore the challenge Harris faces in leading the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts to reduce immigration from the countries that make up the so-called Northern Triangle, which also includes El Salvador and Guatemala. While Harris is supposed to focus on the conditions that drive so many people to leave home, such as poverty and violence, some of the leaders she must meet are considered complicit in those problems.”

AP

→ “J&J vaccine to remain in limbo while officials seek evidence,” by Lauran Neergaard and Mike Stobbe 

Politico

→ “Senate’s bipartisan swing at China faces GOP curveballs,” by Andrew Desiderio

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