Congress
Capitol agenda: Congress confronts Venezuela fallout
Venezuela will dominate the congressional agenda this week, with Republicans lacking a unified vision on what happens next after the capture of Nicolás Maduro and the Senate poised to vote to limit further attacks without lawmaker approval.
— Briefings incoming: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Dan Caine will brief top lawmakers on this weekend’s Venezuela attack at 5:30 p.m. Monday.
The members receiving the briefing include the top four congressional leaders as well as senior House and Senate members of the Intelligence, Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Relations committees.
Trump himself will speak to House Republicans Tuesday at their annual retreat at the Kennedy Center.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are also working to schedule an all-senators briefing as soon as mid-week, according to two people granted anonymity.
— The big question: Who will ‘run’ Venezuela? Republicans have largely rallied behind the administration’s capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. But there’s some daylight between them when it comes to what happens next — and some emerging distrust with the administration.
Trump, at least initially, praised Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez — now the country’s acting leader — as someone he could work with. His comments were at odds with the wishes of Florida Republican lawmakers who prefer Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. Trump dismissed her as not having the “support” or “respect” to lead the country. Other Republicans including Rep. Bill Huizenga of Michigan and Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana are calling on Trump to look to Edmundo González, who many nations consider the rightful winner of Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election.
Behind the scenes, some Republicans are entering the week, as many Democrats are saying publicly, feeling misled by Rubio and the others in the administration about what the endgame has been for Venezuela. Lawmakers have generally trusted Rubio, their former colleague, but the Venezuela attack is straining the relationship.
Rubio on Sunday was vague on the administration’s transition plans for Venezuela. Instead of outlining Trump’s pledge to “run” the country, he said the U.S. is not occupying Venezuela and is instead implementing a “quarantine that allows us to exert tremendous leverage over what happens next.”
— The war powers vote: Despite some bipartisan misgivings, it doesn’t yet appear there will be a groundswell of GOP opposition to Trump’s move if the Senate votes this week on whether to limit further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval. A November vote on the issue garnered support from just two Republicans, Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).
House Democrats in a private meeting Sunday discussed how they could force Speaker Mike Johnson to hold a vote on war powers, according to three people granted anonymity. House Republicans in December narrowly defeated a resolution to block military action in Venezuela, with Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) breaking with their party to support it.
Massie’s aggressive rebuke of the weekend attack is opening a new front in his primary as he faces off against Trump-backed challenger and former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein.
What else we’re watching:
— Shutdown vibes not so bad: House leaders are hoping to put a three-bill funding package on the floor Thursday covering Commerce-Justice-Science, Interior-Environment and Energy-Water. If the House passes it with Democratic support, it could also become a vehicle for a stop-gap continuing resolution in the Senate.
— Health care action: House Democrats will move as soon as Wednesday to force a vote on extending expired Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal planning. The House could pass the bill by Thursday but it’s on track to die in the Senate.
Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill, Nicholas Wu, Lisa Kashinsky and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
Congress
Lawmakers seek to limit DHS power to shuffle cash in funding bill
Top appropriators on Capitol Hill are seeking to tighten limits around how much money DHS can shift between accounts as they finalize funding bills ahead of the Jan. 30 shutdown deadline.
Rep. Mark Amodei, the Nevada Republican who chairs the DHS funding panel, told reporters Tuesday night that House and Senate appropriators are crafting their spending measure to make it “harder to make the money mobile.” The effort comes as the Trump administration has spent the past year testing the limits of its power to disregard congressional intent and reprogram billions of dollars between accounts.
“We did a bunch of reprogramming,” Amodei said of Republicans in the White House. “It’s like, hey, that’s bullshit.”
To limit the Trump administration’s ability to shift cash, appropriators plan to include tables within the bill that show exactly which accounts should be funded and lower the percentages of cash that can be used for other purposes, Amodei continued.
Appropriators have briefed President Donald Trump’s budget office on the funding bill they hope to pass and have taken OMB’s input into account, Amodei said. Still, he acknowledged that some Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, will not be fond of new restrictions on moving around cash.
“Now I know that the secretary doesn’t like that,” Amodei said. “And it’s like, well, we’ve all got our unlike departments. And so welcome to the club.”
He also divulged that the funding bill will provide enough cash for DHS to keep 44,500 immigrants in detention facilities at any given time. Appropriators will be tracking detention capacity every month and expect the Trump administration to fill that “detention bed” capacity, he added.
“They better, by God, be full,” said Amodei.
Amodei is in the midst of final negotiations with senior Senate appropriators on the DHS funding bill. “We’re real close,” he said. “We want to be able to publish the bill this week.”
Congress
GOP-led Jan. 6 committee sets first hearing for next week
The new Republican-led panel tasked with investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack will hold its first hearing next week, Rep. Barry Loudermilk said in an interview Tuesday — the five-year anniversary of the event.
The Georgia Republican, who is the chair of the select subcommittee, said his panel was still ironing out its list of witnesses, but he anticipated the focus would be the pipe bombs left at the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters the day before the riots at the Capitol.
“It’s gonna be sometime next week,” Loudermilk said. “We’re gonna be really looking at the pipe bomb and the FBI’s investigation — previous investigation. Why did it take five years?”
News of the hearing that would look at the events of that day through the lens of security failures rather than attempts by President Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 election was the culmination of a daylong campaign from Republicans to offer an alternative memory of the Capitol attack.
The White House published a website offering a largely false narrative of what unfolded at the Capitol five years ago — one that blamed then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and forcefully denied Trump’s role in inciting the violence. Democrats and Republicans also fought over the fate of a commemorative plaque mandated by Congress to honor those who protected the Capitol on Jan. 6, with Speaker Mike Johnson maintaining the project was untenable.
Loudermilk said he had not spoken to Johnson about the memorial tablet and hasn’t been following the controversy around it but suggested he wasn’t opposed to its display — something of a break with House GOP leadership have sought to either bury the matter or denigrate the effort.
“I don’t have problem putting it up. I think you need to honor the police,” he said. “I mean, the rank and file police, they were just trying to do their job.”
Congress
Johnson: U.S. military action in Greenland ‘would not be appropriate’
Speaker Mike Johnson Tuesday evening swatted down the idea of any U.S. military action to take over Greenland, just after the White House said President Donald Trump wanted to acquire the territory and would not take military action off the table.
“No, I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday evening.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Tuesday that “utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”
The speaker, who said he hadn’t seen the statement, appeared to not believe the White House would make such a comment. Johnson did say he believed “Greenland is viewed by a lot of people as something that would be a strategic positioning for the U.S.”
Johnson said the issue didn’t come up in conversations with Trump earlier Tuesday at the House GOP retreat.
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