Congress
Jeffries calls on Biden to pardon more Americans
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called on President Joe Biden to pardon more people convicted of nonviolent offenses amid controversy over the president’s pardon of his son, Hunter Biden.
“During his final weeks in office, President Biden should exercise the high level of compassion he has consistently demonstrated throughout his life, including toward his son, and pardon on a case-by-case basis the working-class Americans in the federal prison system whose lives have been ruined by unjustly aggressive prosecutions for nonviolent offenses,” Jeffries said in a statement.
Jeffries’ comments echo the calls from some other Democrats who in recent days have asked Biden to use his clemency powers for more Americans in federal custody besides Hunter and to address sentencing disparities. But it did not pass judgment on the pardon of Hunter Biden itself. Some in the caucus have openly criticized the president since the pardon was issued and said it could tarnish his legacy and open a lane for Donald Trump to issue similar sweeping pardons.
Congress
Ways and Means chair warns he ‘won’t support’ next reconciliation bill without tax provisions
House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith says he won’t get behind the GOP’s next budget reconciliation bill if tax provisions aren’t included.
“I won’t support it unless tax is in it,” the Missouri Republican said in an interview Tuesday morning — a potential warning to GOP leaders who can’t afford defections given their razor-thin majority.
As House Republicans prepare to follow last summer’s tax and spending megabill with passage of a party-line immigration enforcement package as soon as Tuesday night, conversations have turned to what the GOP would put in a third filibuster-skirting reconciliation measure.
House GOP leaders have been meeting with different factions of their conference in recent days and weeks, from moderates to hard-line conservatives, on what they might support. There are talks about cracking down on fraud in health care and other social programs and adding some federal energy permitting provisions.
Leaders may try to revive a number of provisions that were ultimately not included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, such as one that would adjust a property’s purchase point for inflation. Smith said he has a list of priorities that he would “be happy to release” once Speaker Mike Johnson confirms that taxes will be part of the next reconciliation package.
But Smith said Johnson has not yet communicated to him whether his committee would have buy-in.
“I have not been notified whether tax is part of reconciliation yet,” Smith said. “I’d love for the speaker to say tax is going to be a part of it.”
A number of House Republicans — including those in leadership — are voicing concerns that including tax provisions would allow Democrats in the Senate to force floor votes on politically fraught health care amendments, putting vulnerable Republican senators in a difficult spot just before the midterms.
Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who will need to thread this needle on his side of the Capitol on behalf of his members, said in an interview Monday that he didn’t know what discussions were happening in the House.
He said there is “a lot of tax law that would be helpful to do” in a third reconciliation bill, and that “there are a number of reforms of the health care entitlement system — particularly the health care entitlement system — that I think would be very helpful and would not reduce health care access or reduce access to any of our safety net programs.”
Yet Crapo waved off a question about whether some looking for cost savings in Medicare could create difficult votes for senators in tough races.
“These are always battles,” he said. “I think the American people are completely ready to see us deal with waste, fraud and abuse in all government spending.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday that President Donald Trump is “weighing seriously” naming a permanent nominee to be director of national intelligence and that he hopes Trump makes an announcement soon.
Thune’s comments come after Trump’s decision to name Bill Pulte acting director of national intelligence all but quashed the chances of passing a long-term reauthorization of a key surveillance power ahead of a Friday deadline.
The hope is that by naming a permanent nominee who would replace Pulte, enough Democrats would support extending the law known as Section 702.
Tuesday’s the day House Republicans are hoping to put one reconciliation bill behind them and start moving on another.
But like everything else for the House GOP over the past 18 months, it’s not so simple. Party leaders still aren’t sure if they’ll have the votes to send their long-brewing immigration enforcement bill to President Donald Trump.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), for one, said Monday night that he informed the GOP whip team he’s undecided on the procedural vote needed to put the Senate-passed bill on the floor.
“We’re literally bending over backwards just to get back to the status quo and to remove people that are just going to come back in four years under the next administration, because we’re not codifying anything,” Roy said.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, an independent member of the GOP conference, said he’d oppose the bill: “I’ve made clear I will not support it unless reforms have been enacted and that position hasn’t changed.”
Other members are on the GOP watchlist, and with primary elections happening in four states today, attendance will be a concern. At least one Republican on the ballot, Rep. Julie Fedorchak of North Dakota, will be on hand today to vote for the GOP bill.
The uncertainty over what has become known as “Reconciliation 2.0,” however, isn’t stopping House Republicans from gearing up for another, longer-shot party-line bill ahead of the midterms.
The Republican Study Committee hosted the top nonpartisan legislative scoring officials for a Monday night briefing on the fiscal details surrounding the process of assembling that bill.
“We’re still early on in this process, but yes, this is a ‘let’s get ahead of it,’” RSC Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) said. “The better truth we have here, the more accurate that product is, the more we can do.”
In a separate private meeting of senior House Republicans in Speaker Mike Johnson’s office, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) suggested adding some partisan pieces of the regular appropriations process into the bill, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter.
That would not only infuriate Democrats, but it’s already unsettling some Republican appropriators who are wary of further eroding Congress’ power to oversee federal spending on a bipartisan basis.
Harris declined to confirm what he said inside the room. But as an appropriator who also leads the hard-line Freedom Caucus, he said he was all in on Reconciliation 3.0: “Plenty of fraud, waste, and abuse left on the table. We’ll see where that goes.”
Top leaders are speaking more carefully. Johnson acknowledged in an interview Monday night that the appropriations idea “came up today” but added, “I’m not committing to anything. There are lots of ideas on the table.”
Majority Leader Steve Scalise cautioned the entire process is still in flux: “We’re far from agreement on 3.0.”
What else we’re watching:
— GOP HOPES FOR PULTE OFF-RAMP: Republicans are largely leaving it to the Trump administration to figure out a path forward to renew a major government surveillance program before it expires Friday. Democrats are calling on Trump to remove Bill Pulte, an ally of the president’s with no national security experience, as acting director of national intelligence before they support the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Pulte’s future is expected to come up when Johnson speaks with Trump at the White House later today.
— HOUSE WEIGHS INTO CRYPTO TAX DEBATE: House Ways and Means will hold a 2 p.m. hearing today on seven draft bills that, taken together, could establish the rules of the road for taxing cryptocurrency. Chair Jason Smith and other tax writers, however, face an uphill battle to clinch a crypto tax package this year. It would have to be bipartisan, and right now plenty of Democrats are treading carefully on the matter.
Katherine Tully-McManus, Calen Razor and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
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