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Johnson’s big Ukraine gamble

Senate bracing for ‘pile-up’ with impeachment, FISA on tap

Sinema, Hawley, Young quietly working to get tax bill to 60 votes

House Dems to pick new messaging chief

THE TOP

Johnson’s big Ukraine gamble

Happy Tuesday morning.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s foreign aid plan is one gigantic gamble.

On paper, the plan makes sense. Johnson is holding separate votes on what’s expected to be tens of billions of dollars in proposed aid for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. And he’s loading up a separate portion of the package with GOP sweeteners — the REPO Act, a TikTok ban, and economic and humanitarian loans to Ukraine. This will come after a series of votes this week on bills and resolutions buttressing Israel in any faceoff with Iran.

House GOP leaders hope to release text on the aid package today. Then, in theory, the House will vote on the aid package by Friday evening, before members are scheduled to leave for a weeklong recess. This is the ideal timetable. It’s far from certain it can come together at this point.

We’re going to walk you through, step by step, all of the potential problems we see over the next few days.

Immediate. It’s in the House GOP leadership’s interest to get the text of this bill out quickly. Otherwise, opposition can begin to balloon. We’re already seeing some trouble spots for Johnson on the right.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told us Monday night that he’s opposed to the construction of the package. Jordan is a heavyweight with conservatives, so his views get a lot of attention.

The House Freedom Caucus — of course — is already against the proposal. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) went from a yes to a possible no in a couple of hours. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) wants to add H.R. 2, the House GOP’s harsh border security measure.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and his whip team are going to have quite the job of neutralizing conservative opposition. Johnson, Emmer and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise only have 72 hours to assemble a coalition to pass the rule and underlying bill — perhaps even using different groups of GOP lawmakers to do so.

Democrats. There’s no way around this — Democrats are going to be key in getting the foreign aid package out of the House. And Johnson needs to keep this in mind throughout the process.

White House officials and Hill Democrats were taken aback when we reported that Johnson told House Republicans that he’d allow amendment votes on the measure. This wasn’t part of the conversation that Johnson had with President Joe Biden on Monday, according to multiple sources.

The challenges here for Johnson are multifaceted. He has to structure an amendment process that assuages Republicans who want to change the bill. But Johnson needs Democrats to support the rule in both the Rules Committee and on the floor. Thus Johnson has to make sure that any amendments are germane and don’t present Democrats with a series of politically dicey votes.

On the floor. Once Johnson gets this bill to the floor, GOP leadership is going to have to manage the process very carefully. Not only do they have to pass the rule with Democratic votes — a rarely used tactic — but they also have to work to defeat poison-pill amendments that would sink the legislation in the Senate. This isn’t something GOP leaders have been adept at during this Congress, to say the least.

What if Johnson loses? We’re not making a prediction here, but Johnson’s plan can blow up in his face. If the vote count starts to flag or hardliners rise up in opposition, there might be a movement to force Johnson to back away from this plan. Yet for Johnson, this scheme is the best of a lot of bad options.

If the plan falls apart, Johnson will have to try to move these aid bills on suspension, which requires a two-thirds majority for passage. We think he’d be hard-pressed to get that level of support at this point.

Motion to vacate. There’s one thing that’s out of Johnson’s control: Whether GOP hardliners look to oust him for passing a Ukraine aid bill with no offsets and few legislative wins. Johnson said Monday “I don’t spend my time worrying about the motion to vacate.”

The GOP leadership seems to think that the governing dynamics have changed so appreciably in recent months that Johnson can keep his defections down to single digits if Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) or another Republican moves to oust him. Of course, he’d need Democratic help to stay in the job. And that’s not a terribly sustainable proposition at this point. But with Johnson’s soon-to-be one-seat cushion, all bets are off.

Johnson’s press conference with former President Donald Trump on Friday definitely helped him, but it won’t be enough to save him. Trump is in a New York City criminal court this week for his hush money criminal trial, so he has his own issues.

— Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

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Punchbowl News Founder and CEO Anna Palmer will sit down with Rounds to discuss the news of the day and the role AI plays across different industries. Afterward, Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs at Google, will join Anna for a fireside chat about what it will take to unlock AI’s potential. RSVP here!

THE SENATE

Senate bracing for ‘pile-up’ with impeachment, FISA on tap

You may want to cancel those weekend plans because the Senate is in for a rough one ahead of a scheduled weeklong recess.

The Senate has two — potentially three — contentious issues to address before skipping town. And it’s pretty much guaranteed at this point that senators won’t be catching their usual Thursday afternoon flights home.

Later today, House Republicans will formally present the articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate, setting up a Wednesday vote on a motion to table or dismiss the trial. After that, the Senate will need to pass a reauthorization of FISA Section 702 before the Friday night deadline. Already, opponents are throwing up potential roadblocks that are threatening weekend work.

And if the House is able to pass a foreign aid bill within the next week or so, it’s difficult to see the Senate leaving for recess without addressing it in some way.

“There’s going to be a bit of a pile-up, I think,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune said.

Let’s start with impeachment. The House managers will read the impeachment articles on the Senate floor at around 2 p.m. On Wednesday, the Senate will convene as a court of impeachment and is expected to vote on a handful of motions, including to end the trial outright.

Senate Democrats expect that they’ll be able to shut it down fairly quickly, perhaps even with the help of some Republicans.

FISA. This is going to be tricky. The votes will be there in the end, but it may take a while — possibly into the weekend. Already, supporters of reauthorizing the program are warning that a lapse would be catastrophic. But securing a time agreement to vote on final passage for the FISA bill before the Friday night deadline will be difficult.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) opposes FISA reauthorization and told reporters Monday that he’ll be pushing for amendment votes similar to the warrant requirement that narrowly failed in the House on Friday. Paul suggested he’d be unbothered by a temporary lapse in Section 702 authority. So it sounds like Paul won’t agree to collapse time unless he gets what he wants here.

And it’s not just Paul. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), for example, has vowed that he’ll do everything he can to stop the House bill from becoming law. But when we talked with Wyden Monday night, he wouldn’t commit to any delay tactics.

“I’m waiting to see what the procedure is going to look like,” Wyden said. “But I’m very much opposed to this bill.”

Foreign aid. As we explained above, Speaker Mike Johnson has several hurdles to clear before he can claim victory on a foreign aid package. But if he can get a bill through his chamber, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will have a decision to make.

Of course, any bill that passes the House will have likely done so because of sufficient Democratic support. So as long as the bill includes funding for both Ukraine and Israel — and is free of poison pills — Schumer will be hard-pressed to simply ignore it.

In the meantime, Senate Democratic and GOP leaders alike are continuing to call on Johnson to take up the Senate-passed foreign aid bill, arguing it’s the fastest and most efficient way to deliver aid to U.S. allies.

— Andrew Desiderio

Sinema, Hawley, Young quietly working to get tax bill to 60 votes

News: A group of senators is informally working behind the scenes to secure enough votes to pass the Wyden-Smith tax bill.

The group includes Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.), all of whom support the tax package and are trying to overcome an intense pressure campaign from Senate GOP leaders who want to see the bill defeated.

At the center of the talks is Hawley’s push to include his Senate-approved legislation that reauthorizes a radiation compensation program. Other potential changes are being considered as well. Some of these were discussed during a call between Hawley’s office and a dozen trade organizations on Monday, according to a source familiar with the call.

The senators hope to show Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer they can bring along enough votes for passage. Last week, Schumer said he’d take up the tax bill if the votes were there, but there haven’t been enough public GOP backers so far.

This push is far from a slam dunk. Supporters of the Smith-Wyden tax bill have been trying to do whatever they can to find traction with Senate Republicans, but the outlook is extremely dim with tax filing season over — not to mention the all-out offensive from GOP leaders.

Here are some of the challenges the proponents face:

Werfel’s trip to the Hill: IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel will appear at the Senate Finance Committee this morning, and we’ve got your sneak peek at his message to senators.

In his written testimony, Werfel repeatedly points to the $60 billion in IRS funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act as enabling the agency’s improvements critical to future projects, according to a copy of his remarks we obtained. Read it in full here.

“Going into the final days of tax season, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding has enabled the IRS to have one of its best filing seasons ever in terms of customer service,” Werfel says.

But don’t expect that to impress GOP senators. We expect them to slam the IRA funding anyway.

Direct File: Another topic that’ll draw attention at the hearing is the IRS pilot of a free, online tax filing system. In his testimony, Werfel says the IRS saw “an extremely successful filing season” giving taxpayers a range of options for doing their taxes, including the government-run tool.

The GOP has been critical of Direct File. Crapo plans to argue that the program is a “redundant government-run tax preparation project, complete with all attendant inefficiencies and conflicts-of-interest” that demands more oversight, according to excerpts of his opening remarks for the hearing.

Punchbowl News Premium subscribers got the news of Werfel’s testimony first in a text Monday evening. Learn more about subscribing here.

— Laura Weiss and Andrew Desiderio

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

House Dems to pick new messaging chief

Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) are all vying to lead their caucus’ messaging strategy in a critical election year.

House Democrats will hold an election this morning to elect a new Democratic Policy and Communications Committee chair to replace Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), who was elected assistant leader last month.

Remember, because this can get confusing: There’s the group’s chair and then below that, three co-chairs. We jokingly call the lead chair the “Chair of Chairs.”

Several members told us they think Dingell is the frontrunner. But Escobar and Underwood, who already serve as DPCC co-chairs, have been making late gains.

All three candidates will make their case in a closed-door caucus meeting today. They can also defer to other members to talk on their behalf.

Here’s a look at the candidates:

Dingell: Dingell has spoken to every single member of the Democratic caucus and has led a member whip operation to shore up support.

She previously served as DPCC co-chair in 2018 and 2020 but was term-limited out. The Michigan Democrat also chairs the Heartland Caucus.

On Monday, Dingell passed out Michigan-based chocolates to members to remind them to vote for her.

“I’m working hard,” Dingell told us. “I think it’s important to have a battleground state voice at the table.”

Escobar: Escobar has been making calls to members for weeks and has handed out license plate-themed cookies to promote her candidacy.

Escobar’s campaign is about making communications more efficient, less expensive and more innovative. Escobar will pitch tailoring messages to different platforms to boost each member’s profile and audience.

“I’m feeling good,” Escobar told us. “I’m ready to have this election behind us.”

Underwood: Underwood currently serves as DPCC co-chair, having held the position since 2022.

Underwood is the first Black woman serving in Democratic leadership since Rep. Shirley Chisholm (N.Y.) in the 1970s.

Underwood declined to comment on the race.

Other Democratic leadership news: Wonder what the previous DPCC chair is up to? Now-Assistant Leader Neguse hosted a dinner conversation with FTC Chair Lina Khan Monday night. More than 50 Democratic members attended, including Reps. Steny Hoyer (Md.), Steven Horsford (Nev.) and Pramila Jayapal (Wash.).

– Mica Soellner

… AND THERE’S MORE

The Money Game: Speaker Mike Johnson’s campaign accounts took in $17.5 million for his reelection, leadership fund and the House GOP’s joint-fundraising vehicle…. Senate Minority Whip John Thune raised more than $511,000 last quarter and has $18 million on hand. That’s a huge chunk of cash for a guy who’s trying to show that he has the chops to be the next GOP leader.

Hedge fund tycoon Ken Griffin of Citadel gave $7.5 million to SLF. We scooped Monday that Griffin gave $4 million to CLF. … Retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) has $10.1 million on hand. She spent $50,000 on security services last quarter.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) has $12.8 million on hand after raising $1.2 million last quarter. … Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has $11 million on hand.

Eric Hovde, a Republican running for Senate in Wisconsin, raised $9 million — $8 million of which came from himself. … George Whitesides, who’s running against Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), raised $1.34 million in Q1 and has $3 million on hand.

Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) raised $643,000 in Q1 and has a pretty hefty $5.2 million on hand. … Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) raised $1.3 million in the first quarter, after a five-way primary. Gonzales has $1.5 million on hand.

– Jake Sherman and Max Cohen

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