View in web browser

PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN

THE TOP

Good Tuesday morning. We’re very excited about this. The Bounceback is a Punchbowl News special project profiling public officials leading their communities out of the pandemic. Our credo is “Power. People. Politics” — and we think this project is a perfect encapsulation of that. 

Please check it out. Our first profile is on Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez.

JAN. 6 UPDATE

Pelosi to meet with committee chairs Jan. 6 probe strategy

Speaker Nancy Pelosi will huddle this morning with a group of her committee chairs to figure out House Democrats’ next move on investigating the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

Pelosi will meet with Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Armed Services Committee Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Homeland Security Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), House Administration Committee Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) to hash out the strategy going forward.

House Democrats passed a bill last month with support from 35 Republicans calling for creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack on the Capitol. However, it was blocked by Senate Republicans, who said Democrats were trying to use the investigation as a political tool against them in 2022.

Now Pelosi must decide how to proceed. House Democrats have several options here: they could amend the original commission bill, put together by Thompson and GOP Rep. John Katko of New York., with changes sought by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and other Senate Republican moderates, and send it back to the Senate for another vote; create a select committee; let the standing committees do their own investigation; or appoint one committee chair to take the lead; a combination of any or all of these.

Thompson said he’s made the pitch to Pelosi that his panel should take the lead in the probe, although the Mississippi Democrat insisted he’s happy to do whatever it takes to get the investigation done properly.

“If I’m offered it [running the investigation], I will. If I’m offered to be on the select committee, I’ll serve,” Thompson said in an interview on Monday night. “My preference is to get the commission done… It’s her call. I have indicated my interest in participation in whatever it is.”

Thompson said he and Pelosi “have [had] a discussion about the options.”

Both Maloney and Lofgren’s panels have hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection on Tuesday. Oversight and Reform will hear from FBI Director Christopher Wray, as well as two Army generals present when officials from the U.S. Capitol Police and the D. C. Metropolitan Police requested National Guard assistance, only to see that request delayed for hours. House Administration will receive testimony U.S.C.P. Inspector General Michael Bolton.

BEHIND THE SCENES

A busy day for party strategizing

There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes party strategizing today:

→ House Democrats will hear from Steve Ricchetti, counselor to President Joe Biden, and Acting OMB Director Shalanda Young about the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan today at 9 a.m. in the Congressional Visitors Center auditorium. 

→ Senate Democrats have Texas Democratic state legislators at their meeting in the Mansfield Room at the Capitol at lunchtime. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will hold his post-lunch availability in the Capitol.

→ The five Senate Republicans in the bipartisan infrastructure working group are set to brief their colleagues on the details of their $1.2 trillion plan. 

A few infrastructure notes:

→ Politico’s Marianne Levine and Burgess Everett report that Republicans are mulling supporting the bipartisan infrastructure plan, and then trying to derail Biden’s agenda after that. 

→ Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is against the bipartisan plan, which illustrates just how difficult it will be to get it through. Every Democrat who says no means another Republican has to say yes. 

→ Republicans have pushed against the inclusion of climate provisions in the bipartisan plan — and now, the left is rebelling. For example, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) are holding a news conference today “to demand climate provisions be included in any infrastructure package.” This is at 11 a.m.

PAGING THE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER!

House committee readies to buck Schumer on China bill

You may recall that over the last few weeks, the Senate spent a lot of time and energy passing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s bill to combat China’s rise.

Well, the House isn’t too interested in Schumer’s bill. They have ideas of their own. This will complicate Schumer’s effort to win quick and clean passage of the legislation in the House.

House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) and Rep. Frank Lucas (Okla.), ranking Republican on the panel, have their own idea on what to do with the National Science Foundation, U.S. research and STEM education funding. And it’s a lot different than the package pushed by Schumer and a bipartisan group of senators — in other words, it costs a lot less money. Tens of billions of dollars less. And it’s less directly focused on countering the rise of China as an economic, technological and military competitor to the United States.

Johnson and Lucas would authorize roughly $73 billion for the NSF over the next five years, with a heavy focus on STEM education programs, from pre-K all the way up to 12th grade. They want to ramp up funding for key STEM programs by more than 50% over the next five years, and steer more money toward minority and underserved communities. Basic research and research on advanced computing and high-tech initiatives would be ratcheted up significantly too.

The panel is also marking up another bill, the Department of Energy Science for the Future Act, which would dramatically upgrade DOE’s Office of Science. This office includes the national labs network and associated research facilities. The proposal would pour billions in additional federal funding into this program, including for basic materials and energy research, climate change, and advanced computing, among a host of research initiatives. The budget for this office would rise by 40% during the next five years, to nearly $11 billion annually, under the House plan.

“The Science, Space, and Technology Committee has been working diligently for over a year with the scientific community and various stakeholders on bipartisan legislation to advance the United States scientific enterprise and global leadership,” Johnson said in a statement.

In an interview, Lucas downplayed any disagreement with Schumer’s bill. That package cost roughly $250 billion, and it focuses squarely on responding to China’s rise as a U.S. peer. The House effort is less directly pitched that way, although China’s prowess is clearly on everyone’s minds.

“I’m happy that the majority leader of the United States Senate has made it clear he wants this to happen. That means something is going to happen,” Lucas added. “We’ll do our work in committee in a bipartisan way, we’ll take our bill across the floor, and then we’ll work out differences with the Senate. It’s called legislating. It doesn’t happen that much any more, but it can happen.”

Of note: WaPo: “Countries lavish subsidies and perks on semiconductor manufacturers as a global chip war heats up,” by Jeanne Whalen

STATE OF THE ART

Trump running for speaker? Pelosi PAC says so

Check out this fundraising appeal from PAC to the Future — Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership PAC — which says former President Donald Trump wants to be speaker. News to us!

MOMENTS

All times EDT

5 a.m.: President Joe Biden met with Belgian King Phillipe and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.

6:15 a.m.: Biden will meet with European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

6:50 a.m.: Biden will participate in the U.S.-E.U. summit.

8:40 a.m.: Biden will leave Brussels for Geneva.

10 a.m.: House Minority Whip Steve Scalise and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik will hold a news conference.

10:10 a.m.: House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries and Vice Chair Pete Aguilar will hold a media availability.

10:15 a.m.: Biden will arrive in Geneva.

10:25 a.m.: Biden will meet with Swiss President Guy Parmelin.

1 p.m.: Vice President Kamala Harris will speak at an event about “providing access to capital to small businesses.” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will also participate. 

4 p.m.: Harris will meet with “immigrant women who work in the care economy on the ninth anniversary of the creation of the DACA program.”

6:30 p.m.: Harris will host a dinner for women senators at the Naval Observatory.

CLIP FILE

NYT

Front page

→ “Trump Pressed Official to Wield Justice Dept. to Back Election Claims,” by Katie Benner: “An hour before President Donald J. Trump announced in December that William P. Barr would step down as attorney general, the president began pressuring Mr. Barr’s eventual replacement to have the Justice Department take up his false claims of election fraud.

“Mr. Trump sent an email via his assistant to Jeffrey A. Rosen, the incoming acting attorney general, that contained documents purporting to show evidence of election fraud in northern Michigan — the same claims that a federal judge had thrown out a week earlier in a lawsuit filed by one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers.

“Another email from Mr. Trump to Mr. Rosen followed two weeks later, again via the president’s assistant, that included a draft of a brief that Mr. Trump wanted the Justice Department to file to the Supreme Court. It argued, among other things, that state officials had used the pandemic to weaken election security and pave the way for widespread election fraud.”

→ “Shift in Israel Provides Biden a Chance for Better Ties,” by Michael Crowley

WaPo

→ “NATO expands focus to China, a win for Biden in his first trip to the battered alliance,” by Michael Birnbaum, Anne Gearan and Ashley Parker in Brussels

→ “Former congressman Dana Rohrabacher says he protested outside the Capitol on Jan. 6,” by Felicia Sonmez

→ “2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades. So far, 2021 is worse,” by Reis Thebault, Joe Fox and Andrew Ba Tran

WSJ

→ “Oil Price Hits Pandemic High as Investors Bet on Green Energy,” by Amrith Ramkumar and Joe Wallace

AP

→ “US military guns keep vanishing, some used in street crimes,” by Kristin M. Hall, James Laporta, Justin Pritchard and Justin Myers

Politico

→ “Pompeo launches political group ahead of summer campaign blitz,” by Alex Isenstadt

Enjoying Punchbowl News AM?

Subscribe 10 friends with your unique link (below) and get a Punchbowl News hat!

Your referral link is: 

You can see all the rewards in here!

Or share via

You currently have: 0 referrals

Editorial photos provided by Getty Images