Congress
Capitol agenda: Dems’ big wins could prolong the shutdown
It’s officially the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, and about a dozen Democrats are itching to find a way out.
But after Democrats’ sweeping victories Tuesday night, their colleagues are waking up this morning and wondering: Are we really going to cave now?
The big wins in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere stand to complicate efforts to reopen the government. It’s hard to see most Democrats wanting to temper their momentum immediately after witnessing a massive voter backlash to President Donald Trump and Republicans.
“Tonight’s results are a repudiation of the Trump agenda,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that called it “a good night for Democrats and our fight to lower costs, improve healthcare, and reach a better future for American families.”
The Democrats searching for an exit to the shutdown had their say during a two-hour-plus caucus lunch Tuesday that ended with grim faces and tight lips. Expect voices like Sen. Chris Murphy’s to carry weight Wednesday.
“Maybe the take is that (a) people think Trump is out of control; and (b) people like Dems when we’re taking a stand and fighting for what we believe in — as we have been for the last month,” Murphy (D-Conn.) posted on X Tuesday night.
Now it’s Republicans’ turn to have a long awkward meal. GOP senators are headed to the White House Wednesday morning for a breakfast meeting with Trump, who is unlikely to be in a jovial mood given the GOP’s electoral drubbing.
Senators can expect the president to rekindle his push to kill the filibuster as two senior Republicans granted anonymity to speak candidly say he is getting increasingly unhappy as the shutdown drags on.
He hinted as much in a late-night Truth Social post: ‘“TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,’ according to Pollsters.”
But GOP senators made clear Tuesday he won’t have a very receptive audience if he makes a hard sell on going “nuclear,” with many favoring the 60-vote status quo.
“Simply going to make the Senate a mini version of the House is not what any of us really want to do,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said.
What else we’re watching:
— Congress gets more info on strikes: The White House is starting to provide Congress more information about U.S. maritime strikes as GOP senators threaten to side with Democrats to restrict Trump’s war powers. Senate Armed Services ranking member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said Tuesday that last week’s bipartisan public admonishment of the administration for not providing the legal rationale for the strikes on alleged drug traffickers prompted DOD officials to provide lawmakers “some new material to read.” He doesn’t think it covered most unanswered questions.
— Boozman, Booker meet with crypto czar: Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) plan to speak Wednesday afternoon with White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks as lawmakers look to finalize the committee’s portion of a sweeping crypto market structure bill.
Connor O’Brien, Jordain Carney, Katherine Tully-McManus, Jasper Goodman, Meredith Lee Hill, Nicholas Wu and Kelly Garrity contributed to this report.
Congress
Shutdown end in sight after spending package clears key House hurdle
A spending package that would fund the vast majority of the federal government cleared a key procedural vote Tuesday, setting up votes later in the day to send the measure to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature.
Final passage of the measure, which also includes a funding patch for the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 13, would end the partial government shutdown that began Saturday.
Republicans stayed mostly united on the 217-215 test vote to advance the package that would fund the Pentagon and departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Education through Sept. 30 and less than two weeks of funding for Homeland Security Department.
The short-term DHS funding is intended to give lawmakers time to negotiate reforms to how ICE and CBP officers execute the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown, with the hope of tamping down instances where federal officers have killed U.S. citizens. Republicans have their own demands, such as blocking federal funding on “sanctuary cities” that don’t cooperate with federal enforcement agencies.
The largely unified GOP vote came on the heels of a White House whip operation that headed off a handful of defections from within Speaker Mike Johnson’s party. Trump’s call for there to be no changes to the package in the House helped quell an effort from hard-line conservatives to attach a partisan elections bill, known as the SAVE Act, to the rule.
Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Majority Leader Steve Scalise also did some personal whipping on the House floor during the vote series, circulating between some of the most hard-line members of the Republican Conference in the leadup to and during the rule vote. It was a nail-biter for the leaders, with the vote held open for nearly an hour as they tried to bring their GOP colleagues in line.
Final passage of the Senate-passed $1.2 trillion funding package is expected Tuesday afternoon on a bipartisan vote.
Congress
No filibuster deal with House conservatives, Thune says
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Tuesday he has made no decisions about bypassing Senate filibuster rules to skirt the normal 60-vote margin required to advance legislation in the chamber.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said Monday she had White House-brokered “assurances” that the Senate would allow for a “standing” or “talking” filibuster that could allow the SAVE Act, a House-passed elections bill pushed by conservative hard-liners, to be enacted into law.
Thune was not party to Luna’s conversation with President Donald Trump, which prompted Luna to indicate she would support a massive spending bill moving through the House on Tuesday. Many GOP senators have long opposed weakening the 60-vote margin, believing it would open the door to far-reaching Democratic policies.
“Some of our colleagues in the Senate are interested in it,” Thune said. “We will have a conversation about it. Nothing decided.”
Congress
House GOP leaders set noon deadline for Clintons to reach deal on testifying
Speaker Mike Johnson said in an interview Tuesday morning that Republicans have given Bill and Hillary Clinton a noon deadline Tuesday to provide details of how they plan to comply with a pair of subpoenas issued by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which have until this point gone unheeded.
Otherwise, Johnson said, Republicans will move forward with votes later this week to hold the former president and secretary of state in criminal contempt of Congress.
“We’re holding off until noon,” Johnson said. “They have a deadline until noon to work out the details, and if it’s not done satisfactorily, then we’ll proceed with the contempt.”
Majority Leader Steve Scalise also said in an interview that, if the details aren’t provided, then Republicans will proceed with a vote Wednesday as leadership had initially intended before the Clintons surprised Capitol Hill by reversing course. They had for months been resisting subpoenas to testify in the House Oversight investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying the process was invalid and designed to embarrass and put them in prison.
According to a person granted anonymity to share internal discussions between the Oversight Committee and the Clintons’ legal team, the GOP-led panel is seeking clarification that the Clintons will accept the standard deposition terms for which they were originally subpoenaed. That includes transcribed, filmed depositions to take place in February, with no time limits.
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