Category: kevin mccarthy

Senate, House Republicans on collision course over defense spending 

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

Senate Republicans are looking for a way to get around the caps on defense spending set by the debt limit deal that President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) negotiated last month, putting them on a collision course with House Republicans.

Republican defense hawks on the Senate Appropriations Committee vented their frustration with the allocations for the Defense Department set by Senate Democrats and House Republicans, which represents an increase of more than 3 percent over current spending levels. 

“If you’re looking at China’s navy and you think now’s the time to shrink our Navy, you sure as hell shouldn’t be in the Navy. We go from 298 ships under this budget deal to eventually 291. ... You sunk the Navy. The Congress has sunk eight ships. How many fighter squadrons have we parked because of this deal?” fumed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) at a committee hearing Thursday morning. 

“GDP to defense spending is going to be at a historic low under this deal,” he said, arguing that the defense spending cap will also hurt Ukraine in its war against Russia. “There’s not a penny in this deal to help them keep fighting. Do you really want to be judged in history as having, at a moment of consequence to defeat Putin, to pull all the money for Ukraine?” 

Graham suggested Thursday afternoon that Senate Republicans may attempt to renegotiate the defense spending cap set by the debt limit law later this year. 

“There will be conversation among senators and hopefully the House to increase our spending to deter China. Reducing the size of the U.S. Navy doesn’t deter China,” he said. 

Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the top-ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said she was concerned that "the new debt limit law caps regular defense funding in fiscal year 2024 at the inadequate level requested by the president" and that it "fails to meet the security challenges facing our nation.”

House Republicans have proposed $826 billion for the annual defense appropriations bill, while Senate Democrats have proposed $823 billion for the defense spending bill, keeping in line with the spending caps McCarthy negotiated with Biden.  

Those numbers don’t include defense spending spread across other departments, including the Department of Energy, which oversees the nation’s nuclear arsenal; the Department of Homeland Security; and money allocated for military construction and veterans affairs. 

Graham and Collins are hoping to increase defense spending levels later in the year — possibly by passing a supplemental defense spending bill that includes money for Ukraine — but McCarthy has already poured cold water on the deal.  

“I’m not going to prejudge what some of them [in the Senate] do, but if they think they’re writing a supplemental because they want to go around an agreement we just made, it’s not going anywhere,” he told Punchbowl News earlier this month. 

Adding fuel to the fire, House Republicans have proposed cutting an additional $119 billion from discretionary spending by setting spending targets for the annual spending bills that cumulatively fall well below the caps that Biden and McCarthy agreed to for those programs — $886 billion for defense and $703.7 for nondefense programs.  

House Republicans are proposing finding those additional savings by cutting from nondefense discretionary spending programs, which will likely put pressure on the Department of Homeland Security. 

Meeting the House Republican targets for nondefense programs could entail spending cuts ranging between 15 percent to 30 percent for the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Interior, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.  

Such a showdown over spending levels heightens the chances of Senate Democrats and House Republicans failing to agree, and then not passing the regular spending bills, which means they would have to resort to a stopgap spending measure. If they fail to pass all 12 appropriations bills by Dec. 31, that would trigger an across-the-board, 1-percent rescission for all defense and nondefense discretionary spending.  

Senate Republicans warn the 1-percent spending sequester would hit defense programs harder than nondefense programs. 

Graham and Collins also spoke out Thursday against the spending allocations Senate Democrats set for homeland security. 

Homeland Security Department funding is under pressure because of the spending cap Biden and McCarthy agreed to as part of the debt limit deal.  

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said the debt limit deal squeezed federal funding priorities across the board.  

“We were given a top-line [spending number] that was extremely challenging and difficult,” she said. “I would dare say no one on this committee, certainly Sen. Collins or I, would have negotiated that agreement. We were not in the room but we have been given that order.” 

Graham said that under the spending caps agreed to last month, the Homeland Security Department would not have enough money to stem the flow of fentanyl and other drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. 

“If you’ve looked at the border and you feel like we can spend less on homeland security, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive. This place is falling apart. and fentanyl is killing Americans. We need more, not less, to address that,” he said.  

Graham suggested that the consequences of the spending caps would be severe if kept in place over the long-term. 

“We’re in a tough spot. I like the idea we’re not going to be perpetually bound by this,” he said. 

Collins raised similar concerns.  

“Due to the inadequacy of funding for Homeland Security and the need for additional defense funding, unfortunately I cannot support the 302(b) allocations,” Collins said of the money proposed for the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. 

“Our crisis at the southern border continues. We are on pace for another 2.2 million encounters with migrants this fiscal year,” she added. “Despite this ongoing calamity, the proposed 302(b) allocation would actually reduce funding for the Department of Homeland Security, limiting our ability to have sufficient personnel and technology at the southern border.” 

Graham and Collins made their comments in reaction to the $56.9 billion in budget authority that Senate Democrats proposed for the annual Homeland Security appropriations bill.  

The Republican-controlled House Appropriations panel has approved $63.9 billion in budget authority for homeland security appropriations. 

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, told colleagues at the hearing Thursday morning that he agrees with Graham and Collins that the defense funding levels set forth by the Senate and House are “inadequate.”  

“Am I happy with the defense number? No. I think it’s inadequate, quite frankly,” he said. 

He later told The Hill that he found it ironic that Republicans, who usually like to bill themselves as fiscal hawks, are the ones now looking to get around the spending caps. 

“I just felt like we had flipped positions today. Democrats were able to take the conservative [debt limit] number, and Republicans wanted the more liberal number,” he said.  

Republicans rage over Hunter Biden — with some notable exceptions

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

Republican lawmakers are venting their frustration over what they say is an overly lenient plea agreement between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors, further escalating GOP tensions with the Justice Department.   

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday led the backlash from Republican lawmakers.   

“It continues to show the two-tier system in America,” McCarthy told reporters, echoing the arguments Republicans deployed after the Justice Department earlier this month unsealed a 37-count indictment against former President Trump.  

“If you are the president’s leading political opponent, the DOJ tries to literally put you in jail and give you prison time. But if you are the president’s son, you get a sweetheart deal,” McCarthy said.   

Biden agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanors for failing to pay income taxes in 2017 and 2018. He also agreed to enter a pretrial diversion program for possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user or addicted to a controlled substance.   

The plea deal, however, divided Republican leaders, just as Trump’s indictment drew mixed responses from GOP lawmakers last week.   

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to comment about Biden’s legal problems as he walked to the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon.   

His opening remarks on the floor made no mention of the president’s son and focused instead on what he called “the Biden administration’s radical nominees” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing.   

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) also held back from lashing out at the Justice Department, pointing out that the U.S. attorney who cut the deal was a Trump appointee.   

“The justice system, I guess, has got to work its way out. He’s going to plead to a couple tax evasion charges and a gun charge. I don’t know that this is necessarily the end of the road for him, probably not. At least the preliminary stage of it is done,” Thune told reporters.  

Asked about Republican criticisms of a two-tiered system and a sweetheart deal, Thune said: “I don’t know what else they got on him, but I do think the American people have to be convinced that the justice system treats everybody equally under the law.”  

“This was a — my understanding is at least — Trump-appointed U.S. attorney. So we’ll see where it goes from here,” he added.   

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wasn’t in the mood Tuesday to delve into the political wrangling over Hunter Biden’s plea deal.  

“I don’t have any reaction, ask me about something else,” she said. 

On the other side of the Capitol, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) echoed McCarthy’s claim of a “two-tiered system of justice.”   

“Hunter Biden is getting away with a slap on the wrist when growing evidence uncovered by the House Oversight Committee reveals the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery,” he said.    

Republican lawmakers for months have pushed allegations based on anonymous sources that Biden received preferential treatment from the Internal Revenue Service and was involved in a bribery scheme with a Ukrainian energy company.   

But those thinly sourced claims were left unaddressed by a document outlining the plea agreement that U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee, filed with the U.S. district court in Wilmington, Del.  

Comer vowed to continue his investigation, pledging: “We will not rest until the full extent of President Biden’s involvement in the family’s schemes are revealed.”  

The Republican National Committee on Tuesday tweeted out a video clip of one of Hunter Biden’s attorneys telling MSNBC he didn’t remember prosecutors ever asking about Biden’s infamous laptop.   

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has highlighted unverified allegations by an anonymous foreign national that the Bidens were involved in a bribery scheme, pointed out that Weiss, the U.S. attorney, said his investigation of Hunter Biden is ongoing.   

Asked if he expected additional charges, Grassley said: “All I know is what Weiss said, the case is still open.”   

“Today’s plea deal cannot be the final word given the significant body of evidence that the FBI and Justice Department has at its disposal. It certainly won’t be for me,” he said in a statement released earlier Tuesday.  

He said he and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sent material, including bank records, to the U.S. attorney, and it "doesn’t look to me like Weiss gave much credit to it with this very weak result that was announced today.”  

Johnson, who has worked closely with Grassley, said “it stinks to high heaven.”  

“The fact that they have now an IRS whistleblower coming forward and saying that the entire IRS investigatory team almost in unprecedented fashion was pulled off the case [and it] sounds like there’s allegations that they on purpose they allowed the statute of limitations to expire on more serious charges — there’s so many things that I would want investigated in terms of Hunter Biden,” he said.

Other Republican senators joined in the attacks on the Justice Department.   

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) called the plea deal “a slap on the wrist.”   

“This doesn’t show equal justice. It’s a mockery of our legal system by a family that has no respect for our laws,” he said.  

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who has endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, called it “nothing more than a wrist slap from his dad’s DOJ.”  

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) called the deal “troubling.”   

Lee retweeted criticisms of the agreement circulated by Brett Tolman, the executive director of Right On Crime, a conservative advocacy group, who said pretrial diversion programs normally exclude offenses involving the brandishing a firearm.  

Many Senate and House Republicans lashed out against Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith last week after the Justice Department charged Trump with violations of the Espionage Act and conspiring to obstruct justice.  

They also argued the lack of charges against President Biden, who kept classified documents from his service in the Senate and vice president in the Obama administration, showed the federal prosecution of Trump was motivated by politics.   

“So Hunter Biden gets a special plea deal, slap on the wrist — probably won’t do a day of time — while DOJ charges Trump as a spy and tries to put him in prison forever. Two standards of ‘justice,’” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) tweeted in response to the deal.   

One Senate Republican aide said Hunter Biden appeared to get a fairly lenient deal from the Justice Department but pointed out he cooperated with prosecutors, in contrast to Trump.

“Of course, Hunter got off easy, but he cooperated, unlike Trump,” the aide said, noting the special counsel’s indictment against the former president alleges Trump deliberately misled his lawyer about cooperating with a grand jury subpoena.   

Democrats on Tuesday argued the charges against Biden, coming just a week after the prosecutors unsealed the indictment of Trump, shows the Justice Department is applying the law fairly.   

“Neither Hunter Biden nor Donald Trump are above the law. They’re both held responsible and are going to go through the process. Joe Biden’s son just did, just completed it,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). 

Emily Brooks and Al Weaver contributed.

GOP unrest: Conservatives threaten to tank party’s 2024 spending bills

Posted on (Updated by Mike Lillis

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is seeking to appease his conservative agitators by targeting next year’s federal spending at last year’s levels.

It’s not going well. 

A long list of conservatives left Washington this week accusing McCarthy and other GOP leaders of using budgetary “gimmicks” to create the false impression that they’re cutting 2024 outlays back to 2022 levels, rather than adopting the fundamental budget changes to realize those reductions and rein in deficit spending over the long haul.

The hard-liners are already threatening to oppose their own party’s spending bills when they hit the House floor later this year, undermining the Republicans’ leverage in the looming budget fight while heightening the chances of a government shutdown. 

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The internal clash would also be an enormous headache for the Speaker, who’s already under fire from conservatives for his handling of the debt ceiling debate and faces intense pressure to hold the line on spending in the coming battle over government funding.

“He's not doing ‘22 spending levels; he’s talking ‘22 spending levels,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), former head of the far-right Freedom Caucus, said Thursday. “Talk is cheap.”

Biggs and a number of other conservatives fear that GOP appropriators intend to use a budgetary tool known as a rescission in the drafting of their 2024 spending bills. Rescissions essentially claw back spending that Congress has already appropriated for future programs, allowing appropriators to claim they're funding the government at one level while actually spending at another. The hard-liners say that mechanism will lead to higher deficits than they're ready to support. 

“The idea of saying that we’re marking to 2022, but we're going to buy up to 2023 marks with rescissions, just — to me that's disingenuous,” Biggs said. 

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) speaks to reporters before a press conference held by the House Freedom Caucus regarding the proposed Biden-McCarthy debt limit deal on Tuesday, May 30, 2023.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), another Freedom Caucus member, agreed. 

“My understanding is they're going to use ‘23 numbers, and then through rescissions, get back to ‘22 numbers. So if they don't get the rescission, then they don’t get the ‘22 number,” Buck said. “The whole predicate is, ‘We're going to do this with rescissions,’ and then the rescissions don't happen, and then everyone says, ‘Well, that wasn't my fault.’”

Buck said he hasn’t voted for any appropriations bill “in a long time.” And without more drastic cuts and fundamental structural changes, he’ll likely oppose this year’s bills, too. 

“To go off the cliff at the ‘22 pace is not much different to me than going off the cliff at the ‘23 pace,” he said.

The opposition is significant because Democrats are already up in arms that McCarthy is targeting 2024 spending figures below the caps he negotiated with President Biden in this month's debt ceiling agreement. They’re vowing to oppose any appropriations bills that fall below those figures — leaving McCarthy with little room for GOP defections given the Republicans' slim House majority. 

“It's our view that a resolution was reached, and was voted on in a bipartisan way, and at the end of the day, any spending agreement that is arrived at by the end of the year has to be consistent with the resolution of the default crisis,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters Thursday in the Capitol. 

“Otherwise, what was it all for?”

The issue of government spending has been at the center of the battle this year between McCarthy and the hard-line conservatives, who had sought in January to win a promise from the Speaker to cut 2024 spending down to 2022 levels — a reduction of roughly $130 billion from current spending. The conservatives were furious that, as part of this month’s debt ceiling deal between McCarthy and Biden, next year’s spending came in above that figure, essentially frozen at 2023 levels with a 1 percent increase slated for 2025. 

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McCarthy has responded by claiming the topline figure he negotiated with Biden was merely a ceiling, not an objective. He’s instructed appropriators to target 2024 funding below that cap, and Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, announced this week that she’ll do just that. 

“The Fiscal Responsibility Act set a topline spending cap – a ceiling, not a floor – for Fiscal Year 2024 bills,” Granger said in a statement Monday. “That is why I will use this opportunity to mark-up appropriations bills that limit new spending to the Fiscal Year 2022 topline level.”

Yet the conservatives are far from convinced. 

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) hailed Granger for putting out the statement. “But what I'm hearing,” he quickly added, “is that the intention is to claim 2022 [levels], and then utilize rescissions to take it back up to 2023, and claim that's some kind of a victory.” 

“We need true 2022 levels, and then we ought to be utilizing targeted cuts and rescissions to go beneath that, not pretend 2022 levels plussed-up with rescissions,” he said.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.)

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) speaks to reporters as he heads to the House Chamber for a series of votes on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. (Greg Nash)

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) delivered a similar warning this week, saying the key issue is “the paradigm around what constitutes 2022 spending levels.”

“We don't think you oughta be able to buy your way into those spending levels with rescissions. We think that you ought to appropriate to that level. Because if you're only able to get to the 2022 levels with rescissions, then the budgetary process is void of the programmatic reforms that are necessary,” Gaetz said. 

“My concern with [Granger's] statement is that it seems still that 2022 levels are a term of art, rather than a term of math,” he continued. “I'm worried that Chair Granger's statement reflects a willingness to only get to 2022 spending levels through rescissions, which is not going to be palatable for my crew.”

Neither Granger’s office nor McCarthy’s responded to requests for comment Thursday.

The conservative criticisms have raised new questions about McCarthy’s ability to keep the confidence of his restive conference while cutting deals with Democrats to fund the government and prevent a shutdown. The Speaker has said the hard-liners are being unrealistic about governing in a divided Washington — but his arguments have failed to make those conservatives back down. 

“Nobody wants a shutdown,” Gaetz said. “But we’re not gonna vote for budgetary gimmicks and deception as a strategy for funding the government.”

Mychael Schnell contributed. 

House GOP inches closer to Mayorkas impeachment amid discord in conference

Posted on (Updated by Rebecca Beitsch

House Republicans inched closer this week toward impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, officially launching an investigation that would serve as the basis for any inquiry.

But conservative supporters of the effort still face enormous hurdles, including a reluctance of leadership to take such a drastic step and the continued opposition from more moderate lawmakers in the GOP conference — barriers that even the loudest Mayorkas critics have been forced to acknowledge. 

On Wednesday, Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee said they would review Mayorkas’s performance through a five-phase plan, which Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said could be completed in a matter of 11 or 12 weeks.

“His policies have resulted in a humanitarian crisis this country has never seen,” Green said at a press conference.  

“Today's hearing will begin the process of digging into all of the details. The cause and effect of Alejandro Mayorkas’s dereliction of duty. I hope the American people will listen intently. I hope the press will report this, honestly. I hope the president of the United States, the commander in chief charged with the security and protection of this country, will listen. He can't possibly know of all of these failures of Mayorkas and have not fired him already.”

It’s a process that faces a complex path in the House — and one that’s already highlighted several layers of division within the GOP conference. Not only is there discord between impeachment supporters and opponents, but there’s also growing tension among Mayorkas’s most vocal critics, all of whom seem to want to play a prominent role in the effort to oust him. 

“We don't have the votes,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said Tuesday. Asked what would change the minds of the Republican opponents, he offered a biting criticism of his centrist colleagues.  

“An embrace of logic and reason,” he said.  

Green’s presser was followed by a hearing titled “Open Borders, Closed Case: Secretary Mayorkas’ Dereliction of Duty on the Border Crisis.”

Democrats argued the hearing’s name alone shows Republicans have already reached a conclusion on whether to take the dramatic step of impeaching a cabinet secretary — an action not seen since the 1870s.

“You may have a difference of opinion as to how the United States should process our asylum applicants. But the notion that that difference of a policy opinion would be the basis for a quote unquote, ‘case closed’ that Secretary Mayorkas is violating his duty, is preposterous and it is not any basis for impeachment,” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who before entering Congress worked as lead counsel for the first impeachment inquiry against former President Trump.

The move, six months into GOP leadership of the House, follows wrangling within the conference over how speedily to pursue the topic.

While a slew of lawmakers introduced impeachment resolutions days after the contentious vote to give the gavel to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the most recent effort was offered by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a sign of discontent among those eager to speed ahead.

It also comes as border numbers have dropped in the weeks following the May lifting of a policy that allowed the U.S. to quickly deny entry to would-be asylum seekers, bucking widespread predictions of a surge of migrants. The repeal of that policy, however, was paired with the reintroduction of consequences for those caught wrongly crossing the border.

“The number of Border Patrol encounters have plummeted by 70 percent since the Biden administration ended Title 42 last month. The number of overall border encounters have dropped by 50 percent in that time, due in large part to [Homeland Security's] hard work under Secretary Mayorkas’s leadership,” ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said during the hearing.

“Calling a hearing and saying ‘case closed’ before you’ve heard any testimony is not legitimate oversight. ... It’s about House Republican leadership catering to its most extreme MAGA members, who want to impeach someone — anyone at all. It’s about trying to make good on GOP backroom deals to elect a Speaker, raise the debt ceiling and stave off a mutiny in the Republican ranks.”

The House Homeland Security Committee doesn’t have the power to ignite an impeachment inquiry. That task falls to the House Judiciary Committee.

Green has cast the investigation as an effort that will be handed off to the other panel and ultimately brought to fruition by Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). 

The firebrand Georgia congresswoman, however, offered her impeachment resolution with a tweet that included an emoji of a slice of cake, a reference to earlier comments that the debt ceiling package would be more appealing if it included “dessert” like an impeachment of Mayorkas or FBI Director Christopher Wray. 

The move was a reflection of impatience from some in the GOP, even as McCarthy has largely stuck to comments he made while visiting the border late last year stressing the need to investigate. 

“I know people are very frustrated with [Mayorkas],” McCarthy told CNN last month, but added that any impeachment process shouldn’t be pursued “for political reasons.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), former head of the far-right Freedom Caucus, suggested the Speaker is moving closer toward backing the impeachment effort. 

"McCarthy has loosened up on that. Whereas quite some time ago he was a no, now he’s kinda saying — kinda saying — yes,” Biggs said. Other reluctant Republicans are also shifting, he said. 

“There are people who were an absolute ‘no’ on it even a few weeks ago, and now told me that they're moveable,” he said. “There's probably two or three people that I'm trying to work on, see if I can move them my way. And if those two or three come along, I think then we're ready to go.”

Green sidestepped questions over whether the caucus would be able to secure the votes to impeach Mayorkas. 

“I would say it’s intuitively obvious to the casual observer, that Republicans are individualists and we think independently, we’re not robots being told by a Speaker how to vote,” he said in a nod to the standstill on the House floor led by a group of far-right members who stalled a vote on a GOP bill on gas stoves as a way to voice frustration with McCarthy's handling of the debt ceiling. 

“And so, there are many people with differences of opinions about this. And, you know, I'm in a leadership position, and from my leadership position, the direction of our committee is to get to the facts.”

The Department of Homeland Security has pushed back on GOP arguments and has largely blamed Congress for issues at the border.

“The immigration system has been terribly broken and outdated for decades. That is something about which everyone agrees, and it is my hope that they take that problem, and they fix it once and for all. In the meantime, within a broken system, we are doing everything that we can to increase its efficiency, to provide humanitarian relief when the law permits and to also deliver an enforcement consequence when the law dictates,” Mayorkas said earlier this year during an appearance on MSNBC.

“That is exactly what we are doing, and as far as I am concerned, I will continue to do that with tremendous pride with the people with whom I work."  

Green said his five-point plan includes investigations into cartels as well as the financial cost associated with migration.

“The guy has got to go,” Green said.

“We're going to hold him accountable. And if the president picks another guy that does this kind of stuff, we'll do what we have to do there too.”

Senate GOP leaders break with House on Trump indictment  

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

Editor's note: This report has been updated to clarify that the indictment accuses former President Trump of showing a classified document about attacking Iran to a writer without security clearance.

Senate Republican leaders, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are staying quiet about former President Trump’s indictment on 37 criminal charges, letting him twist in the wind and breaking with House Republican leaders who have rushed to Trump’s defense.   

McConnell, who is careful not to comment on Trump or even repeat his name in public, has said to his GOP colleagues that he wants his party to turn the page on the former president, whom he sees as a flawed general election candidate and a drag on Senate Republican candidates.    

The Senate GOP leader’s top deputies — Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — have also indicated they don’t want Trump to win the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.   

They, along with McConnell, are letting Trump’s legal troubles unfold without coming to the former president’s defense, in contrast to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who both issued statements Thursday criticizing the Justice Department before the indictment was unsealed to the public.   

“They want him to go away, so they wouldn’t be very upset if this is the thing that finally takes him out,” a former Senate Republican aide said about the Senate Republican leaders’ silence on Trump’s indictment.  

Republican senators were more outspoken in defending Trump in April, after liberal Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg unveiled an indictment charging him with 34 felony counts related to business records fraud.   

Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) declined to express confidence in Bragg when asked about him in late March.  

Special prosecutor Jack Smith, whom Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped in November to investigate Trump, has more credibility among Republicans.   

“Jack Smith is very credible,” said the former Senate GOP aide.  

“There is the reflection that he may have actually found finally the silver bullet” to end Trump’s political career, the former aide said, noting that Smith has a tape of Trump acknowledging that he had retained classified documents after leaving office that he didn’t declassify while president.   

A Senate Republican aide said the indictment is “pretty damning.”  

“The documents that he did have, and who he was showing them to and where he was storing them, is all pretty damning,” the aide said. “I don’t know if it will make a difference in the political landscape, but it certainly seems pretty bad.”  

The indictment accuses Trump of showing a classified document laying out the military strategy for an attack against Iran to a writer who didn’t have security clearance.   

The former president also showed a sensitive military map to a staffer for his political action committee.  

Photos included in the indictment showed that Trump haphazardly stashed boxes of sensitive materials around his residence at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, including in a ballroom, a bathroom, a shower, office space and his bedroom.  

One photo showed documents scattered across the floor of a storage room.   

Nevertheless, House Republican leaders are speaking out forcefully against the indictment.   

“This is going to disrupt the nation because it goes to the core of equal justice for all, which is not being seen today. And we’re not going to stand for it,” McCarthy told Fox News in an interview Friday.  

Scalise tweeted Thursday evening “this sham indictment is the continuation of the endless political persecution of Donald Trump.”  

Former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), a one-time advisor to McConnell’s leadership team and whose home state will host the second contest of next year’s Republican presidential primary, said the Department of Justice’s indictment may prove too much for Trump to overcome.  

“At some point there’s a straw that breaks the camel’s back, and there’s a whole lot of straws on the back of Donald Trump right now,” he said.  

Gregg called the legal problems facing Trump clearly “outside the norm for a major leader of our nation.”  

A New York jury last month found Trump liable for sexual abuse and awarded his accuser, the writer E. Jean Carroll, a $5 million judgment.   

“Most Republicans want somebody else, even Trump people want somebody else, because they want to win and they recognize Trump is incapable of winning a general election at this point,” Gregg said.   

He said Senate Republican leaders should call on the GOP to move past the former president.  

“I would be advising them to say, ‘Listen, we have to move on as a party. Let Donald Trump work through his legal issues, which are considerable, but we as a party need to move on, and let’s find ourselves a candidate for president who can win,’” he said.  

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Friday evening said the charges brought by the Department of Justice are “quite serious and cannot be casually dismissed.”

She said in a statement that “mishandling classified documents is a federal crime because it can expose national secrets, as well as the sources and methods they were obtained through.”

Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, joined fellow Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in being the only two Republican senators to criticize Trump shortly after the indictment became public.

Romney, who voted twice to convict Trump on impeachment charges in 2020 and 2021, defended the Justice Department from criticisms voiced by other Republicans that it is acting unfairly.

“By all appearances, the Justice Department and special counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr. Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others,” Romney said in a statement.  

“Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so,” he said.   

Senate conservatives have come to Trump’s defense, notably Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah).   

“The Biden administration’s actions can only be compared to the type of oppressive tactics routinely seen in nations such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, which are absolutely alien and unacceptable in America,” Lee said in a statement. “It is an affront to our country’s glorious 246-year legacy of independence from tyranny, for the incumbent president of the United States to leverage the machinery of justice against a political rival.”   

Cruz, speaking on his "The Verdict" podcast, called the indictment “an assault on democracy,” “garbage” and “a political attack from a thoroughly corrupted and weaponized Department of Justice.”  

Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the third-ranking member of the Senate GOP leadership, who voted against the debt deal and is seen within the Senate GOP conference as someone who has tried to ally himself with its most conservative members, also criticized the indictment.   

“This indictment certainly looks like an unequal application of justice,” he said in a statement, pointing out that “large amounts of classified materials were found in President Biden’s garage in Delaware” yet “no indictment.”   

Yet many other Republican senators, particularly those more closely allied with McConnell, are staying conspicuously quiet about Trump’s legal travails.  

One GOP senator who requested anonymity defended the Justice Department, pushing back on accusations that because Garland is a Biden appointee, the prosecution is necessarily motivated by politics.   

“Where do you draw the line?” the senator said. “Everybody owes their job to someone.  

“We have to trust our institutions, and there’s not a lot of trust right now,” the senator added.  

Updated at 10:47 a.m. EDT.

McConnell, McCarthy finally jell with debt limit fight 

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

The relationship between Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) jelled this month as they worked together on a debt ceiling deal.

McConnell played an instrumental role as adviser to McCarthy and President Biden during months of stalemate, when the president refused to negotiate directly with the Speaker. 

The veteran Kentucky deal-maker helped break the impasse when he called Biden directly after a May 9 meeting of the top four congressional leaders and informed the president bluntly that he needed to cut a deal with McCarthy, according to a person familiar with the conversation. 

“There was a lot of back-channel communication, and I think what Speaker McCarthy asked for and what he got was the support from the Republicans over here, which produced some leverage. Every time Biden said he wasn’t going to negotiate or it was going to be clean debt ceiling or nothing, the fact that [Senate Republicans] also said ‘no debt ceiling’ strengthened his hand,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to McConnell’s leadership team.  

McCarthy also won plaudits from McConnell and other GOP senators by winning passage in April of a GOP plan to raise the debt ceiling and cut $4.8 trillion from the deficit.

“I was very pleasantly surprised because we saw the Speaker’s election, and it wasn’t exactly a well-oiled machine,” said Cornyn, referring to the 15 votes McCarthy needed to win election as House Speaker.

McCarthy’s struggles prompted worries in the Senate that he would have a tough time passing legislation. Those doubts were a major factor in the decision by some GOP senators to support the $1.7 trillion omnibus package McConnell negotiated with Biden and congressional Democrats at the end of 2022. Senators feared McCarthy wouldn’t be able to move spending bills if they got punted into this year. 

The lack of trust was so severe that McCarthy met with Senate Republicans in the Senate’s famed Mansfield Room on Dec. 21 to plead with them to have faith in his ability to lead.  

“He talked about how we need to work better together than we have in the past,” then-Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) told reporters after the meeting. 

McConnell played a major role in unifying the Senate GOP conference behind McCarthy as their lead negotiator on the debt limit, despite those doubts.

After Biden invited McCarthy, McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) to the White House for a meeting that made little progress, McConnell called the president to deliver a blunt message.   

He told Biden he needed to “shrink the room” and had to work with McCarthy directly, according to an Associated Press report that was confirmed by a person familiar with the conversation. He made it clear he would not intervene to hash out a last-minute deal like he did in 2011.  

Cornyn said House passage of the GOP debt-limit plan caught Biden off guard.

“Because he was able to keep his troops together, I think that stunned Biden folks because they thought [House Republicans] were going to collapse and be unsuccessful,” he said. 

Senate Republicans and GOP aides believe the rapport that McCarthy and McConnell developed will pay dividends going forward as they tackle other tough issues, like avoiding a government shutdown and providing more military and economic aid for Ukraine.   

Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who advised McConnell’s political campaigns, said the teamwork developed during the debt limit fight was “quite important and shows the strategic awareness of both men.” 

“The role he played was an adviser to both Biden and McCarthy and the advice was very simple, and he had been giving it publicly: These two guys are going to have to cut a deal,” Jennings said.  

“McConnell was the clear-eyed person here. ... I think this was a great moment for Republican Party unity,” he added.  

McConnell for years was the top Republican in Washington, but now he is ceding more of the spotlight to McCarthy, who had little leverage when he was in the House minority.

The two split publicly over last year’s omnibus spending package, which McConnell backed as a win for the Defense Department. McCarthy opposed it and even asked Senate Republicans to block it to give the incoming House GOP majority a chance to renegotiate the spending levels.  

Aides said they met regularly throughout 2021 and 2022, but McConnell and McCarthy rarely appeared together in public. 

Each leader has a very different relationship with former President Donald Trump.  

McConnell excoriated Trump on the Senate floor after his 2021 impeachment trial for fanning unsubstantiated claims that Biden won the 2020 presidential election because of widespread fraud.  

He said the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was spurred by “the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole” that Trump “kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”  

McCarthy, by contrast, joined a majority of the House Republican conference in voting on Jan. 6 to sustain objections to the certification of the 2020 election.  

They also split over a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package Biden signed into law in November 2021. 

McConnell hailed the law as a major win for his home state, which is set to receive more than $2.2 billion for its transportation needs, while McCarthy whipped his House GOP colleagues to oppose it.  

And while McConnell voted for a bipartisan bill to address gun violence after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and a bipartisan bill to invest tens of billions of dollars in the domestic semi-conductor manufacturing industry, McCarthy voted against both of them.  

McCarthy panned the Chips and Science Act as a “$280 billion blank check” to the semiconductor industry.  

Those votes fueled concerns among Senate Republicans about McCarthy’s willingness to stand up to conservatives in his conference.  

Asked about those doubts, Jennings observed: “The House Republicans are a diverse and rowdy bunch.” 

“Were there questions about how they would all end up jelling and working together? Sure. That’s natural,” he said. “I think there was some basic wondering. … I don’t think it’s fair to couch it as, ‘Oh everybody thought McCarthy was weak or whatever.’ I think that’s what the punditry was."  

Don’t Believe the Hype: McCarthy Totally Dodged Questions About Holding Russiagaters Accountable

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy threw conservative media outlets into disarray on Tuesday, with many suggesting Representative Adam Schiff should be removed from Congress.

McCarthy’s comments came in response to a reporter asking what accountability looks like following the release of the Durham Report.

Durham’s report, details of which were released earlier this week, found that the FBI did not have enough “factual evidence” to investigate allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and revealed that they and the Department of Justice “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law.”

“You have pledged, if the GOP takes the majority in the House, that you would investigate the findings of the Durham investigation. Now that the report has been released, what does accountability look like?” a reporter asked.

McCarthy replied that House Republicans are looking to have Durham testify “so we can look at it more” and made the following comments about Democrat Adam Schiff:

“You remember when he told the American people he had proof? Remember when he told him he didn’t know the whistleblower and what he put America through and openly lied to us? And now it’s proven in this as well,” he continued.

“It raises a lot of questions about his character, his standing inside of Congress, or whether he should even be in Congress.”

RELATED: GOP Sen. Hawley Demands Prosecution of Democrats, Hillary Clinton After Durham Report Reveals FBI Used False Intelligence to Launch Trump-Russia Probe

Will McCarthy Kick Schiff Out of Congress?

Apologies for being a Debbie Downer here, but does anyone in their right mind think Kevin McCarthy has the intestinal fortitude to expel Adam Schiff from Congress? Or that he could whip up the two-thirds necessary to do so?

Even in the above video clip alone, there is some hedging.

Why does anybody have to “look at it more” with Durham’s testimony as McCarthy states, even as the report itself has “proven” Schiff  “openly lied”?

The report has been released to the public. His lies have been on record for years. His leaks have been readily transparent during that time. We’ve all seen it. It is “proven,” as McCarthy states.

Representative Schiff (D-CA) had repeatedly stated for years through friendly media outlets that there was “direct evidence” of collusion.

“I think there is direct evidence in the emails from the Russians through their intermediary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what is described in writing as the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump,” Schiff said during a CBS interview in March of 2019.

Direct evidence. He knew there was no such thing but he fed it to the media regardless.

Schiff would also claim that he had “more than circumstantial evidence” of collusion. He still hasn’t shown that alleged evidence.

Back in 2020, The Political Insider reported on transcripts of the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe showing Obama officials testifying time and again that they had no evidence of collusion.

Now, according to Durham, “The FBI had no information in its holding indicating that any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with any Russian intelligence officials.”

But don’t you worry, the Speaker of the House and his fellow Republicans are going to “look at it more.”

And to show he’s super-serious about holding Schiff accountable, McCarthy has issued a strongly worded … tweet. A tweet showing a letter from the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government inviting Durham to testify next week.

“If you’re concerned about threats to our democracy, you are right to be angry over the coordinated campaign to lie to the American public for years about Russia collusion—peddled at the highest levels of government, from Adam Schiff to the DOJ—to try to influence an election,” McCarthy wrote.

“This is why Republicans created a @Weaponization Committee—to get to the bottom of this abuse of power and bring accountability.”

RELATED: Transcripts Show Obama Officials Admitting Time After Time They Had No Evidence Of Russia Collusion

If You Can Dodge a Wrench, You Can Dodge Accountability

It would appear Kevin McCarthy’s big plan to deal with one of the biggest peddlers of Russian collusion misinformation – misinformation that would dog President Trump for years and undermine the entirety of his administration – is to have Durham testify about his already published report, hold committee hearings, tweet about them, and of course, “look at it more.”

Willing to bet he’ll even send out some fundraising emails. That’ll put Schiff in his place.

In an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, McCarthy continued to dodge on what accountability looks like.

“Will there be accountability here?” she asked.

“There has to be,” McCarthy replied, but failing to note what form that would take.

“Maria, it’s not just me who knew. You knew it. And you got criticized for speaking the truth. And that’s what’s wrong. Is CNN talking about this? Is the White House talking about this?”

Why would they talk about it? They know Republicans will kick the can down the road with letters and hearings but with ultimately nobody being held accountable for their actions.

“Why is this individual still in Congress?” McCarthy asked, seemingly unaware that he, as Speaker of the House, is obviously the most powerful person in a position to do something about it.

Do you know who might want to look into that? Somebody with the ability to call into action Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 of the Constitution which states “each House may … punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.”

Prove you mean what you say, Speaker McCarthy. Call a vote. Even if it fails … do something. Force the media to talk about the vote, to talk about Schiff’s lies.

Oh, and as luck would have it, Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) on Wednesday introduced a resolution to have Schiff expelled from Congress.

“The Durham Report makes clear that the Russian Collusion was a lie from day one and Schiff knowingly used his position in an attempt to divide our country,” Paulina said in a statement.

She added that Schiff “is a dishonor to the House of Representatives.”

Paulina is taking appropriate action. Will McCarthy back her up?

To his credit, the Speaker did remove Schiff from the House Intelligence Committee earlier this year for leaking classified information in order to propagate the Russia collusion hoax.

“Schiff has lied to the American public,” he succinctly stated.

Now he’s got even more proof. Perhaps we’ve moved past the ‘let’s look into it more’ phase, Mr. Speaker.

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‘Stop, stop’: GOP bashes Biden for taking off during debt showdown

Posted on (Updated by Alex Gangitano

Republicans are blasting President Biden for leaving Washington for Asia on Wednesday without significant progress on debt limit negotiations, as the country inches toward a deadline on defaulting that could prove catastrophic on the financial system.

Biden will be in Japan for this weekend’s Group of Seven (G-7) summit but has canceled the latter portion of his trip, which included stops in Papua New Guinea and Australia, to be back in the nation’s capital and resume talks with congressional leaders. 

Even with the shortened trip, lawmakers criticized Biden for taking off at all.

“Here we are on the brink of a Biden default. And I think we saw the helicopters going across here, and I said I think he’s leaving now to go to Japan. I’m like stop, stop,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said during an outdoor press conference at the Capitol on Wednesday.

She criticized the president for priding himself on being a good negotiator yet not negotiating with Republicans between the beginning of February until last week, when he brought leaders to the table again.

“Mr. President, cancel your trip to Japan. Stay at the table,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D). “Good grief, Mr. President, when is enough, enough? Shame on anyone, on anyone, who refuses to act. Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy and this entire team have been responsible, reasonable and sensible. Time is short, Mr. President. Let’s get this done.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who has gone toe-to-toe with Biden on some key policy issues, said the president “should not leave, and he should worry about the debt limit here at home.”

After his meeting with Biden and other congressional leaders Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was asked if Biden should even be attending the G-7 and responded that the president can make his own decisions about his time. 

The White House maintains Biden can be president anywhere, a line they often use when he heads out of Washington.

But on the day of Biden's departure, McCarthy slightly changed his tune, saying, “I think he can” conduct international business while dealing with the debt ceiling before suggesting that the president should not have taken the trip.

“I think America wants an American president focused on American problems,” the California Republican said.

Biden delivered last-minute, unexpected remarks just before take off where he tried to assure the nation that leaders could come to an agreement before the country could default on its debt on June. 1 He referred to his shortened trip, indicating that would return Sunday after the G-7. His absence disrupted another international event — a planned Quad Leaders' summit in Sydney was canceled once Biden determined he would not attend.

When questioned about Biden’s indication that he can return to Washington on Sunday, have a press conference and finish the deal, McCarthy poked at the president for not engaging in talks between Feb. 1 and last week.

“It’s doable, but this is for a guy who didn’t want to meet with us for 97 days, and leaves the country and says he wants to come back Sunday to have a press conference? I really want a president that’s engaged and working through it,” the Speaker said.

The White House brushed off Republican criticism over Biden leaving Washington at all, highlighting the significance of the G-7.

“One of the responsibilities that an American president has is our leadership on the global stage, which is incredibly important and critical,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on the way to Japan, by way of Alaska, on Wednesday. “There are critical issues, yes, domestically, but also internationally that the president has to take on.”

McCarthy at the White House on Tuesday outlined that Biden had “changed the scope” of who is involved in talks, appointing White House officials, including his Office of Management and Budget director, to work directly with members of the Speaker’s team as they try to reach an agreement.

Biden on Wednesday said that group met last night and will meet again Wednesday as well as in the days following. Biden added he will be in “constant contact” with his team while at the G-7 and in touch with the Speaker.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan defended the decision to cancel the second leg of the trip when questioned about the White House previously insisting that Biden can do the job of president anywhere — right before they announced the trip would be cut short.

“As we were getting prepared to take off on this trip, he … made the determination that in the balance of his time, he needed to be back in Washington for the closing days before the deadline to ensure the United States does not go over a cliff,” Sullivan said.

“The president is confident that we can avoid default, but the reason he’s going back is to make sure that happens. So what he will tell [allies] is he is going home to do what a president does,” Sullivan said, adding that Biden will express confidence to allies that he can strike a deal.

Vice President Harris is set to provide an update to reporters on preventing default Thursday, alongside the director of the National Economic Council Director, Lael Brainard, indicating that she is also stepping in while the president is away.

That’s still not enough for lawmakers.

“[Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen] said the U.S. could default as early as June 1, which is 16 days away. With this as a backdrop, President Biden is planning to hop on a plane to Japan tomorrow,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Tuesday. “He can't fly halfway around the globe just as negotiations are gaining momentum.” 

Meanwhile, some Democrats defended the president’s decision to leave town.

"I don't think he's the one sitting in the room doing the negotiations. I think he's the one, hopefully, leading the people in the room negotiating, but he can do that via Zoom or via telephone call,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said. “Look, there's a lot of shit going on in the world he needs to be tending to, too.”

Similarly, Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said Biden’s trip to the G-7 is a high priority.

“President Biden has a G-7 meeting, which is an effort to establish global security. It's a very high priority,” he said. “I hope that Speaker McCarthy doesn't try to use that [against him]."

Democratic senators urge Biden to use 14th Amendment to raise debt limit

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

A group of Democratic senators led by Sen. Tina Smith (Minn.) are circulating a letter urging President Biden to invoke his constitutional authority under the 14th Amendment to raise the nation’s debt limit without having to pass legislation through Congress.  

These senators say the spending reforms that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has demanded in exchange for raising the debt limit are unacceptable and that Biden should circumvent Republican lawmakers by raising the debt limit unilaterally, something that has never been done before and would almost certainly be challenged in court.  

“We write to urgently request that you prepare to exercise your authority under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which clearly states: ‘the validity of the public debt of the United States...shall not be questioned.’ Using this authority would allow the United States to continue to pay its bills on-time, without delay, preventing a global economic catastrophe,” they write in a letter currently circulating through the Senate Democratic conference. 

The signatories on the letter so far include Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).  

More debt ceiling coverage from The Hill:

The lawmakers warned they will not accept any concessions attached to the debt limit that cut federal assistance for low-income Americans without raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.  

“We cannot reach a budget agreement that increases the suffering of millions of Americans who are already living in desperation. At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we must ask billionaires and large corporations who are doing phenomenally well to start paying their fair share of taxes,” they wrote in response to proposals by House Republicans to increase work requirements for people who rely on Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. 

The Democratic senators warned that Republican proposals in a House-passed bill to raise the debt limit could push as many as 21 million people off of Medicaid and deny nutrition assistance to 1.7 million women, infants and children. 

The lawmakers also blustered at House Republicans’ demands to attach major permitting reforms for fossil-fuel attraction projects to debt-limit legislation.  

“We also cannot allow these budget negotiations to undermine the historic clean energy and environmental justice investments made by Congress and your administration by allowing fossil fuel companies to unleash a flood of dirty energy projects that will worsen the climate crisis and disproportionately impact frontline communities. We must continue the transition from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy,” they wrote.  

Merkley said the letter is intended to assure Biden that he will have support on Capitol Hill if he decides to use the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit in the absence of a deal with McCarthy.  

“It’s important because Kevin McCarthy has two main requests: attack ordinary, working families across America by cutting the foundations for health care, housing, education and good-paying jobs, and unleash fossil fuels on America. And both of those are absolutely unacceptable,” he said.  

"I want the president to see that he has the support in the Senate to use the 14th Amendment," he said. "He has support to say no to outrageous demands from the radical right."

Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen, however, warned last week that invoking the 14th Amendment would be a "constitutional crisis" and would spur a legal battle. 

House Republicans find their groove as challenges loom

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

After a rocky start to their new majority, House Republicans have gotten in a groove, notching wins that squeeze Democrats and President Biden. But as they approach 100 days in power, with debt ceiling negotiations and major legislation on the horizon, the challenge will be to keep the conference in harmony.

The drawn-out election of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in January had observers wondering whether the caucus could get agreement on major issues with a five-seat majority. Pushback from moderates led to a scramble to get enough votes to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and forced a delay on a border and immigration bill that had been expected to have an early floor vote.

In the last several weeks, though, the House GOP notched some victories in sending legislation to Biden and dividing Democrats.

Biden reversed his position to back a disapproval of D.C. crime legislation — blindsiding House Democrats. The president is also expected to issue his first veto over a House GOP-led measure to nullify a federal rule over considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards in investments.

In committee probes, House Oversight Committee Republicans received long-sought access to the Treasury Department suspicious activity reports concerning businesses connected to Biden’s family members. And Border Patrol chief Raúl Ortiz said at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that the U.S. does not have “operational control” of the southern border, breaking with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and boosting House GOP arguments that could build a foundation for impeachment of the secretary.

“We've had some big wins,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). “And it's all rooted in fighting for the families who are struggling and following through on our promises. We ran on a very specific agenda. We talked about addressing inflation and lowering energy costs and confronting crime in communities, and securing the border, and having a parent's Bill of Rights.”

“Our conference is very unified right now,” Scalise added.

Speaker race connected caucus

Members say that as messy as the Speaker race was at the time, it helped to build relationships across factions of the conference. 

Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a McCarthy ally who was deeply involved in negotiations during that saga, told The Hill that he did not know hardline Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) very well beforehand. But now, he has a “tremendous amount of respect” for him. 

“It was a healthy exercise of talking to each other and getting to know each other and build more trust,” Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said of the Speaker election. “The trust we built there is going to continue to pay dividends for us this year.”

Still, high-profile controversies have overshadowed some of the House GOP’s successes. 

McCarthy gave Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to Capitol security footage from Jan. 6, 2021, and Carlson’s use of it to portray the riot as “mostly peaceful chaos” sparked bipartisan outrage. The Speaker has declined to support removing Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from office over his admitted lies and questions about his finances until investigations into him are complete, breaking with a number of Santos’s House GOP colleagues in New York.

And major legislative issues coming up could test the House GOP’s harmony.

“We've got some really, really challenging things ahead, whether it's [the Federal Aviation Administration funding] bill, the farm bill, FISA authorization – we obviously have the budget and debt ceiling things that are on the horizon,” Graves said. “But I'm confident that we've got a good foundation and we can continue working through these issues with some of these members.”

Budget, debt limit loom large

House Republicans gathered Sunday to start strategizing about what comes next at their annual issues conference in Orlando, Fla., which runs through Tuesday.

One of the top items is certain to be debt limit negotiations. Biden has called on the House GOP to release their budget before engaging in negotiations, but McCarthy has said the White House’s delay in releasing a budget created a domino effect.

The House Freedom Caucus, though, recently released a blueprint for budget cuts as a condition for considering a vote to raise the debt ceiling. While it is likelier to be more aggressive than the House GOP Budget Committee’s eventual plan, the hardline group indicated it is open to negotiation

“One of the big keys is to have that open channel of communication and have all voices heard and for that to be sincere, not just window dressing, but for it to be real,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus. “I know I don't always get my way, but I gotta have a say. And I think if everybody feels like they're given a fair shake, and you know, this is the best thing that we can get under the circumstances, that goes a long way to bringing people on board.”

Those open channels of communication – which include regular meetings with McCarthy and the heads of the caucuses – marks a change from previous GOP Speakers, Perry said.

Energy bill brings a test

Later this month, Republicans will bring a vote on their first major legislative package that McCarthy designated as  H.R. 1: The Lower Energy Costs Act, a sweeping bill led by Scalise aimed at boosting energy production and streamlining the permitting process.

Republicans see boosting energy production as widely popular in the GOP, and one that touches on a number of other priorities. Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said it will be “dead on arrival” in the Senate, but could mark a starting point in negotiations on potential permitting reform.

“Energy has been at the heart of a lot of the conversations families have been having about the high cost of everything, from inflation to things at the grocery store,” Scalise said.

But even though the issue is popular, the package will test party unity, with members saying there is still work to be done to usher it across the finish line in a slim majority.

“As with most big bills, you're threading a needle. You've got issues all over the place on the right on the left, that you've got to deal with,” Graves said. “So there are still ongoing conversations with a number of folks, making sure that we're striking that right balance.”

Mychael Schnell contributed.