Morning Report — Will new funding deal prevent a shutdown?
House conservatives rested over the holidays, traveled to the border last week to issue some policy demands and say they’re ready to rumble.
Congress returns to Washington Tuesday, flirting with cutting off funding for big chunks of the government in 11 days unless demands are met for immigration and border restrictions. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced a deal Sunday on a total amount the government will spend in the new year, breaking one logjam but not necessarily erasing the threat of a shutdown after Jan. 19.
President Biden commended the glimmer of progress, with caveats. “Congressional Republicans must do their job, stop threatening to shut down the government, and fulfill their basic responsibility to fund critical domestic and national security priorities, including my supplemental [funding] request. It’s time for them to act,” he said in a statement.
Welcome to 2024, so much like 2023.
“The president has the existent authority under federal law to stem the flow [of migration],” Johnson told CBS’s “Face the Nation” during an interview broadcast Sunday. “If you instituted, reinstituted the [Trump era] Remain in Mexico policy, for example, it was estimated … that would stem the flow by maybe 70 percent. I mean, that’s a simple measure, an executive order that the White House could undertake. On his first day in office, President Biden came in and issued executive orders that began this chaos.”
Biden ended the Trump policy that required migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court dates. The Supreme Court said he had that authority. House conservatives adopted a measure last year that would reinstate Trump’s policy.
Johnson last week led a delegation of about 60 Republicans to the U.S. southern border. Calling the influx of migrants a “humanitarian catastrophe,” Johnson increased his calls for the president to exercise his executive authority to discourage migrants and asylum seekers from seeking to enter the U.S.
▪ CBS News: Pressured by record migrant crossings last month, the White House weighs whether to restrict a key presidential immigration authority to persuade Republican lawmakers to approve more aid to Ukraine and border funding.
▪ The Hill: Democrats face tough choices in border vs. shutdown scenario.
▪ The Washington Post: Congress has a $1.66 trillion deal to fund the government and not much time to pass it.
Johnson seeks his first major legislative deal as Speaker in an environment in which Freedom Caucus members could end his tenure if he crosses them this year. Ultimatums tied to threats of shutdowns are viewed by many in Congress as politically injurious in an election year. And former President Trump, focused on locking up his party’s nomination, is expected to call the shots on issues he considers his signatures. Immigration and border security are examples.
Johnson’s strategy and clout are being tested.
“Right now I just don’t think he really is serious enough. I don’t think he has the gravitas or has the ability to control the far right,” former Virginia Rep. Denver Riggleman, who said last year that he switched his affiliation from Republican to Independent, told Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power” on Thursday.
“They are actually following the marching orders of Donald Trump. … He is the one pushing the message here and Mike Johnson is just going to be a mouthpiece,” Riggleman predicted.
3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY
▪ The Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 plane that lost a piece of its fuselage in midair on Friday was not being used in long flights over water because a pressurization warning light had gone off during three previous flights. Workers reset the system rather than locating the cause and put the aircraft back in service before Friday’s midair mishap. The plane’s missing piece was found near Portland in a schoolteacher’s backyard and will be retrieved by the National Transportation Safety Board.
▪ Only 13 electric vehicle models now qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit because vehicles made with certain Chinese-made parts are now excluded by the Treasury Department.
▪ “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s epic about the creator of the atomic bomb, reigned at the 81st Golden Globe Awards on Sunday. On the small screen, “Succession” racked up four awards. Check out a full list of winners.
PRIVACY, SECRECY, SECURITY: Lawmakers from both parties want a better explanation about why 70-year-old Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s intensive care hospitalization beginning Jan. 1 after an unnamed medical procedure on Dec. 22 was not disclosed to the president and White House aides until Thursday, Jan. 4, leaving key members of Congress and the public in the dark until late Friday. His medical issue remains a mystery. Former Vice President Pence told CNN the episode amounts to a “dereliction of duty.” Biden spoke by phone with Austin on Saturday and the secretary, in a statement Saturday, conceded he “could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed,” adding, “I commit to doing better.” The Pentagon parceled out a few more details on Sunday, and said Austin is “recovering well” while also performing his duties while in the intensive care unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
LEADING THE DAY
POLITICS
Among Republican presidential aspirants, all eyes are on caucus goers in Iowa next week and New Hampshire’s GOP primary on Jan. 23.
The next few weeks will cement a narrative. Is Trump unbeatable for the nomination — or might Nikki Haley,a former South Carolina governor who has stumbled in the past two weeks, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who sharpened his recent performances, dent Trump’s steely armor?
Trump in Iowa over the weekend demanded release of those jailed for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, calling them “hostages.” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), an eager Trump ally who would like to be his running mate, echoed that language during a fiery NBC News interview on Sunday (Reuters).
DeSantis and Haley have stepped up attacks on Trump. The Hill’s Jared Gans reports the ramped-up aggression has become more pronounced. “I wish the former president would actually debate,” DeSantis told CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday. “The idea that he can go and just read off the Teleprompter for 45 minutes and then go back, you know, back home, that doesn’t cut it in Iowa. And that doesn’t cut it in a lot of these states. And so, let’s go. Get on the stage and let’s have the debate of ideas and I hope Donald Trump will be willing to do that.”
The Hill’s Niall Stanage breaks down where each candidate stands before the Iowa caucuses in a week.
▪ The New York Times: Trump takes aim at Haley as the primary enters its final phase in Iowa.
▪ ABC News: Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched a new “Truth” ad that draws a contrast with Haley.
▪ The Washington Post: Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy increasingly embraces fringe theories, far-right claims in Iowa.
Biden’s reelection strategy — kicking off with lofty speeches and promises of rigorous pacing — has some Democrats worried, including former President Obama, The Washington Post reports. Biden’s low poll numbers are ominous and the general election could begin in weeks rather than months. His March 7 State of the Union address, usually the largest audience a president reaches in a single televised event, is scheduled late compared with predecessors. His fundraising is strong, but his campaign organization, especially in some key battleground states, appears slow to gel.
“They’re way behind,” said former Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod last month during the podcast, Hacks on Tap. “And it’s not surprising because most of the people who are running the campaign are in the White House and not at the campaign, and I think those divided attentions have hurt them.”
Biden’s campaign defended its strategy as smart on drawing contrasts with Trump, and on track with its ground game in key states. Quentin Fulks, principal deputy campaign manager for Biden’s reelection bid, on Sunday defended Biden’s approach and stressed that Obama and the president are in sync.
“We’re going to continue to do what we need to do in order to be competitive and in order to make sure we’re growing the infrastructure that we need to win,” Fulks told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “President Obama and President Biden talk frequently, as do the campaign and former operatives from President Biden’s administration and his campaign,” he added.
▪ The Hill: Democrats question whether Biden should agree to debate Trump.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: Biden has a second-term wish list. Congress could spoil his plans.
© The Associated Press / Evan Vucci | President Biden traveled in July to South Carolina and returns today for a campaign address in the Palmetto State.
2024 ROUNDUP
▪ Florida GOP Party Chair Christian Ziegler will face GOP state and county leaders today in Tallahassee. He could be ousted over allegations of rape, among other accusations, although no charges have been filed.
▪ Rep. John Curtis, one of the GOP’s leading voices on fighting climate change, is running for retiring Sen. Mitt Romney’s Utah Senate seat, though he did not mention climate in announcing his bid.
▪ “We don’t want to be a national laughing stock”: This is how Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) blew her safe seat, Politico reports.
▪ Police are investigating an incident involving Boebert and her former husband, Jayson Boebert, at a restaurant in Silt, Colo., on Saturday night. This is not Boebert’s first highly publicized interaction with law enforcement. In September, she was escorted out of a production of “Beetlejuice” at the Denver Performing Arts Center after fellow patrons complained about some of her alleged disruptive behavior.
▪ The Supreme Court’s decision to hear a case that could restrict access to medication abortion promises to keep the issue central in this year’s election season.
▪ Trump wins back the anti-abortion movement as activists plot 2025 crackdowns.
WHERE AND WHEN
The House meets Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
The Senate will convene today at 3 p.m.
The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 8 a.m. Biden heads to Charleston, S.C., for a campaign speech at 12:30 p.m. at Mother Emanuel AME Church. The president will fly to Dallas to attend an evening wake for Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), who died Dec. 31 at age 89. The president will return to the White House after midnight.
Vice President Harris is in Washington and has no public events.
The secretary of State is in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to meet with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at 11 a.m. local time. Blinken meetswith Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, at 6:10 p.m. local time. His next stop is Israel.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will speak at 2 p.m. at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in Vienna, Va.
ZOOM IN
© The Associated Press / Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | Former President Trump, pictured at the New York Supreme Court last month, is expected to appear again in court in New York this week.
TRUMP WORLD
Trump’s legal woes will be in the spotlight this week with important court dates in the former president’s civil and criminal cases coming just days ahead of the official start of the 2024 primary season. Trump is expected to appear in court twice this week, including during Tuesday’s arguments at the federal appeals court in Washington about his claim of immunity from charges over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. On Thursday, Trump plans to attend closing arguments in Manhattan in New York state’s $250 million civil fraud trial against him and his real estate company (Bloomberg News and CNN).
▪ The New York Times: The New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) on Friday asked the judge who had overseen Trump’s civil fraud trial to penalize the former president about $370 million.
▪ ABC News: Despite Supreme Court appeal, Trump is certified as a candidate on the Colorado GOP ballot.
▪ Axios: Trump’s courtroom and campaign calendar collision is here.
AT LEAST TWO DOZEN JAN. 6 DEFENDANTS are seeking to delay their cases until the Supreme Court decides whether an obstruction charge used to prosecute scores of rioters was legitimately applied by the Justice Department, court filings show. Some defendants are seeking pauses in their upcoming trials or sentencing hearings, while others already sentenced are hoping to be released from prison or punt their upcoming surrenders.
If successful, the requests could cause months-long delays and pose new challenges for prosecutors as the third anniversary of the Capitol attack passes, and the high court’s eventual ruling threatens to derail the cases of hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants charged under the statute — including Trump (The Hill).
NBC News: Here’s why Trump can’t use the “idiot” defense other Jan. 6 defendants often lean on. While capitol rioters and their lawyers often concede they were “gullible” for believing 2020 election lies, Trump’s lawyers have to argue his concerns were fact-based and reasonable.
ELSEWHERE
© The Associated Press / Evelyn Hockstein | Secretary of State Antony Blinken, pictured Sunday in Abu Dhabi, is on a weeklong tour of the Middle East.
INTERNATIONAL
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Sunday Israel-Hamas war currently concentrated in Gaza “could easily metastasize” beyond the Palestinian territory as “profound tension” in the region raises the prospect of a wider conflict. Such fighting would “cause even more insecurity and suffering,” Blinken told reporters in Doha, Qatar. Blinken is roughly halfway through a nine-stop tour around the Middle East, his fourth diplomatic mission since the war began (ABC News).
The secretary assured Arab leaders on Sunday that Washington opposes the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank, as he looked to kickstart talks on Gaza’s post-war future. Israel’s months-long military campaign in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks has turned much of Gaza to rubble and left its 2.3 million residents on the verge of starvation, according to aid workers (The Hill). Meanwhile, Israeli defense officials and former senior intelligence officers have said they expect fighting in Gaza to continue for at least a year, raising the prospect of thousands more civilian casualties, a deepening humanitarian crisis and a continuing grave threat to regional stability (The Guardian).
▪ The Times of Israel: Three months into the war, the Israeli military said it dismantled Hamas’s “military framework” in north Gaza.
▪ The New York Times: Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, and a second reporter were killed in what officials in the territory said was an Israeli airstrike. Two others were wounded.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive did not go as planned, but 2023 was not entirely a loss in its war against Russia. The Hill’s Brad Dress writes Kyiv scored a major victory last year in the sea while global attention was focused on ground movements. In the Black Sea, Ukraine forced the Russian fleet to retreat from the historic headquarters of Sevastopol in Crimea after hitting ships and key buildings repeatedly with drones and missiles. That was a personal blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who lauded the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made the Black Sea victories a central part of his pitch to Western allies and supporters in the past couple of months — a sign of Ukrainian strength after the ground counteroffensive launched in June largely failed.
“This is huge,” said Olga Lautman, nonresident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “They literally shifted the balance in the Black Sea. … Besides practically reopening the Black Sea, they’ve taken out Russia’s navy and pushed them out for the most part. And the attacks continue.”
OPINION
■ Republicans, don’t reject border progress. Some in the House GOP want to preserve the chaos as a campaign issue rather than solving the problem, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.
■ Where is the voice to unite a divided America? by David Von Drehle, deputy opinion editor and columnist, The Washington Post.
THE CLOSER
© The Associated Press / Elaine Thompson | Orcas, known as killer whales, have acted together to damage yachts and sailing vessels in recent months.
And finally … Beware those close encounters. A pair of stray dogs recently tore bumpers off vehicles and clawed paint jobs at a Houston auto dealership (perhaps in pursuit of stray cats). The canines left behind $350,000 in damages before being nabbed.
“We have never seen something like this — dogs attacking cars and causing damage,” sales manager Gaby Fakhoury told reporters. Both dogs were captured by animal rescuers.
Killer whales, acting in concert off Spain and Portugal, last month sank a yacht in 45 minutes and have disabled ship rudders and capsized sailing vessels with alarming frequency. Sailors, eager to out-tech the 6-ton hunters, are sharing details of encounters and experimenting with deterrence maneuvers. One suggestion: blast heavy metal music through underwater speakers. Hmmm.
Canada recently issued a moose warning for drivers who are stopping on highways this winter: Don’t let them lick your vehicles. Yes, you read that right. Moose want to lick the salt off the surfaces of autos and roadways in the depths of winter. Not safe for drivers and risky for the moose.
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