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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN

THE TOP

If you’re someone who is interested in facts and reality, you’ll come to the same conclusion we have: It would be difficult to overstate how bad a week this was for House Republicans. 

→ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) continued her seemingly endless string of bizarre behavior and took to yelling at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in the Capitol hallway over terrorists, antifa and why they should have some kind of debate. Democrats want to have the House Ethics Committee investigate the incident. 

→ Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) suggested that video footage from the Jan. 6 insurrection looked like a typical Capitol tour. We have no clue what he meant and we’re not going to try to figure it out. We’re not sure what kind of Capitol tour he’s been on, but they don’t normally involve a deadly riot by thousands of Donald Trump supporters.

→ The Republican Conference booted Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from leadership, making her both a martyr and a media superstar.

→ House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told the White House press corps after meeting with President Joe Biden that “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the president’s election. That is all over with.” Setting aside the fact that a big chunk of the Republican Party is supporting a GOP-run election “audit” in Arizona — including Rep. Elise Stefanik — there’s McCarthy’s interactions with Trump, who questions the legitimacy of Biden’s election nearly every day.

Welcome to Friday. Republicans have the opportunity to put an end to this horrid week by filling the empty slot on their leadership team.

There’s really no suspense here: Stefanik, a 36-year-old New Yorker, is going to become the House Republican Conference chair today. She’ll probably have the support of 75% of House Republicans, and that’s a pretty healthy margin to become the No. 3 GOP leader.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) is running, but that’s really all we have to note here. He’s going to get whacked — a tradition for Freedom Caucus members, who make a lot of noise, but can never win anything that’s not given to them (Come at us, you know it’s true!)

Stefanik will get a seat at the leadership table. The conference chair’s role is nominally to be in charge of messaging, but since each lawmaker says what they want and every leadership office decides on its own message, it’s a bit of an amorphous role. 

Here are questions that we have about the addition of Stefanik to the leadership table:

→ What does she bring to the leadership? If one thing has been made clear this week, it’s that McCarthy, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Stefanik are getting in the bunker together with their eye on one goal: winning the majority. How does Stefanik see the path to the majority? She has made strides in recent years in recruiting women to run for office. But that’s political. Now, even though she’s in the minority, Stefanik will be involved in some legislative decisions. Can House Republicans sign onto an infrastructure deal? Can they vote for a police reform deal? These are big questions with big implications.

McCarthy doesn’t make decisions in a vacuum — it’s just not his style. He’s an invariant chatter and a constant checker-inner. He’s had some of the same voices around his leadership table for a while — Scalise for seven years, and NRCC Chair Tom Emmer of Minnesota for two. Stefanik will be a new edition and will thus be a more prominent voice. Let’s see how she fits in and influences his strategy and tactics.

→ Does Stefanik really want to be Education and Labor chair? Stefanik has run this leadership race telling colleagues she’ll serve one term as conference chair, and then shift to the Education and Labor Committee, where she wants to be the chair in a GOP majority. Stefanik could get that chairmanship if that happens, despite the fact that she’d have to jump over a handful of more senior Republicans to get it. 

But politicians have a history of making promises they don’t keep when it comes to their future plans. Paul Ryan said he wouldn’t become speaker. Beto O’Rourke swore he wasn’t going to run for president. Marco Rubio announced his retirement from the Senate to run for president, then unretired when he didn’t win. We don’t have the space — and you don’t have the attention span — to review all of the times politicians made term-limit pledges that they eventually broke.

Stefanik is saying she wants to be Ed and Labor chair now, but let’s just see where the chips fall in the fourth quarter of 2022, when she’ll have to make that decision. 

→ Will she bring in dough? Stefanik has a massive warchest, and she has proven very adept at raising money. A big function of modern party leadership is how much cash you can bring in. The NRCC certainly will want Stefanik in the mix, as will the Congressional Leadership Fund and American Action Network. We’re interested to see what Stefanik will do. Where will she spend more time, on the hard or soft dollar side? 

→ Can Republicans turn it around? The stated goal of dumping Cheney was so House Republicans can begin to focus on Democrats — in other words, stop talking about Trump. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has figured it out; the Kentucky Republican says he’s looking forward, not backward. He and Trump despise each other, so that’s not going to be a formula that works for the House leadership. The ultimate question is this: How does this reformulated House GOP team turn the page from Trump and talk about the Democrats? That was their problem with Cheney — they didn’t think they could do it. Let’s see if they can with Cheney gone.

One of Stefanik’s nominators today will be Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), one of the female freshman Republicans that Stefanik helped bring to Congress in 2020. Here’s what Hinson plans to say: “Republicans have a strong agenda for this country… We as a conference have a very important story to tell. Elise is the right person to unify us so that we can best tell it to the American people. Let’s unite behind Elise and unite behind a goal I know we all share — taking back the House in 2022.”

LET’S MAKE A DEAL

Does $800 billion + no tax increases = a deal?

Here’s a question that’s worth asking: Is President Joe Biden willing to do a $800 billion “hard infrastructure” bill with no tax increases — just increased “user fees,” “repurposed” Covid relief funds and collecting unpaid taxes —  if Senate Republicans pledge to deliver 40 or so votes to help pass it? Would the White House take the deal even if progressives objected? And how would Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Democrats react? 

White House officials aren’t saying what their response would be just yet, but we could find out soon. Biden met with Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and a group of senior Republicans in the Oval Office on Thursday, and in public and private, both sides say it went well. 

“I am very encouraged by our meeting with President Biden today,” Capito said in a statement Thursday night. “We had another positive and substantive discussion about how to address our nation’s infrastructure challenges in a bipartisan way. We listened to one another, and I felt that the president was receptive to our ideas and viewpoints.”

Senate Republicans have offered a $568 billion infrastructure package with no tax increases. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has already signaled that the GOP could up that offer to the $600 billion to $800 billion range.

Biden “seems sincerely interested in a deal,” said a GOP senator involved in the talks. “He doesn’t have the votes needed for his big proposal — even using reconciliation.”

This is in reference to the American Jobs Plan, Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan. That proposal — which Biden would pay for by raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% — has the strong backing of Schumer and Senate Democrats.

Yet Republicans are vehemently opposed since it rolls back their 2017 tax cut. And thanks to Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Schumer doesn’t have the votes to get rid of the filibuster.

Which leads us back to Capito, McConnell and what Senate Republicans do next. If Capito and McConnell up the offer to the $800 billion range — which is probably the maximum they could do — how would Biden and Schumer respond? How would Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) react? What if Republicans offered additional funding for IRS enforcement, which the Biden administration feels could bring in huge returns for the government?

The White House could take that offer, and then shift focus to passing the American Family Plan, the president’s $1.5 trillion proposal focused on social welfare programs. With a bipartisan infrastructure deal already in his pocket, Biden would be in position to pressure moderate Democrats to go along with using reconciliation to pass that measure. That would go a long way toward mollifying progressives.

A deal still seems unlikely, and Democrats will be forced to do this on their own. 

But with so much at stake, Senate Republicans are convinced that the White House is willing to play ball with them on an infrastructure package, at least for now.

“I think this is a serious discussion,” a senior Senate GOP aide said. “I’m not saying [Biden] is 100% locked into a bipartisan deal. Far from it. But this feels a lot different from the Covid bill ‘negotiations.’”

JAN. 6 FALLOUT

House Dems may force votes on security funding, Jan. 6 commission

House Democrats are moving toward forcing votes next week on two big issues related to the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol: a $2 billion-plus package to beef up Capitol security, and the creation of a bipartisan commission modeled after the 9/11 panel to look into what happened on that horrible day.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) already announced on Thursday that the House would vote next week on the security supplemental package after bipartisan and bicameral talks on the measure fell apart.

Democratic leadership aides say the vote “will be tight" on the security spending bill, as Pelosi and her top lieutenants can only lose three votes. But they believe they can get it through.

However, without a bipartisan deal in place, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will stall the bill in that chamber, which would leave it up to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to find an agreement all sides can accept.

On the Jan. 6 commission, Homeland Security Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), the ranking member on the panel, are making progress on a potential compromise, GOP and Democratic lawmakers and aides said. The big hangup here is that McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) want the commission to look at issues beyond Jan. 6, such as violent protests involving the Black Lives Matter movement last summer. Pelosi and all Democrats are adamantly opposed to this. 

Yet Democrats have a lot more leverage here. A sizable block of House Republicans are prepared to cross the aisle and vote for a Jan. 6 commission, even if McCarthy and McConnell don’t sign off Pelosi’s plan for the panel. A senior House GOP lawmaker estimated that “20-ish” Republicans are prepared to bolt, but Democrats think it could be even higher.

If there’s a big bipartisan vote for the commission in the House, it would make it harder for McConnell to just bottle it up. Remember, eight Senate Republicans voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. And some of their Senate GOP Republicans who didn’t may be prepared to back a commission. 

TAKE OFF YOUR MASK, CAPITOL HILL

The Office of the Attending Physician has issued new guidelines for mask wearing in the Capitol. Huzzah!

MOMENTS

9:50 a.m.: President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris will get the daily intelligence briefing.

12:30 p.m.: Jen Psaki and CEA Chair Cecilia Rouse will brief.

3 p.m.: Biden will meet with six Dreamers.

4:30 p.m.: Biden will get his economic briefing.

Note: Harris will travel to New York for her daughter’s graduation.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “Beneath Joe Biden’s Folksy Demeanor, a Short Fuse and an Obsession With Details,” by Mike Shear, Katie Rogers and Annie Karni: “Avoiding Mr. Biden’s ire during one of his decision-making seminars means not only going beyond the vague talking points that he will reject, but also steering clear of responses laced with acronyms or too much policy minutiae, which will prompt an outburst of frustration, often laced with profanity.

“Let’s talk plain English here, he will often snap.

“Interviews with more than two dozen current and former Biden associates provide an early look into how Mr. Biden operates as president — how he deliberates, whom he consults for advice and what drives his decisions as he settles into the office he has chased for more than three decades.

“What emerges is a portrait of a president with a short fuse, who is obsessed with getting the details right — sometimes to a fault, including when he angered allies and adversaries alike by repeatedly delaying a decision on whether to allow more refugees into the United States.”

→ Washington Memo: “Removing Masks Becomes the First Bipartisan Activity of Biden’s Washington,” by Katie Rogers in Charleston, W.Va., and Nick Fandos in D.C.

→ “Trump’s ‘Fringe Benefits’ for Employees Are Under Scrutiny,” by Jonah Bromwich, Ben Protess and William Rashbaum: “State prosecutors in Manhattan investigating former President Donald J. Trump and his family business are examining the extent to which Mr. Trump handed out valuable benefits to some of his executives and whether taxes were paid on those perks, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

“The scrutiny of how the Trump organization handled what are known as fringe benefits is a growing aspect of the broader investigation.

“As part of that line of inquiry, the prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office recently subpoenaed the records of an Upper West Side private school, seeking information about tuition payments Mr. Trump made on behalf of one of his top executives, according to two of the people familiar with the matter.

“The subpoena sought information from Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School related to tens of thousands of dollars in tuition payments that Mr. Trump made over several years for at least one grandchild of the Trump organization’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg.”

WaPo

→ “As Colonial Pipeline recovers from cyberattack, leaders point to a ‘wake-up call’ for U.S. energy infrastructure,” by Aaron Gregg, Sean Sullivan and Stephanie Hunt

AP

→ “Israeli tanks pound Gaza ahead of possible ground incursion,” by Fares Akram and Joseph Krauss in Gaza City, Gaza Strip 

Politico

→ “’Doesn’t matter’: Democrats reject GOP’s debt limit demands,” by Burgess Everett, Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes

Ars Technica

→ “Congress fires warning shot at NASA after SpaceX Moon lander award,” by Eric Berger: “On Wednesday, a US senator added an amendment to unrelated science legislation that would impose significant restrictions on NASA and its plans to return to the Moon.

“The amendment was spurred by NASA’s decision in April to select SpaceX as its sole provider of a human landing system for the Artemis Program. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from the state of Washington, where Blue Origin is based, authored the legislation. Owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin led a lunar lander bid that was rejected by NASA.”

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