On The Money: Trump dismisses ‘phony Emoluments Clause’ after Doral criticism | Senate Dems signal support for domestic spending package | House panel to consider vaping tax

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THE BIG DEAL–Trump dismisses ‘phony Emoluments Clause’ after Doral criticism: President Trump on Monday dismissed criticism that his since-reversed plan to host the Group of Seven (G-7) summit at his Doral property would have led to an ethics violation.

“I don’t think you people, with this phony Emoluments Clause — and by the way, I would say that it’s cost anywhere from $2 billion to $5 billion to be president,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House

{mosads}Trump offered a lengthy defense of using his Doral resort near Miami to host next year’s G-7 summit, and lashed out amid questions about the backlash to his earlier decision.

Trump insisted that he would not have profited off hosting world leaders, scores of journalists and other staff at his family’s property near Miami. The president announced Saturday the White House would find a new location for the summit following criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

“It would have been the best G-7 ever,” Trump told reporters.

Background:

• The Emoluments Clause prohibits elected federal officials from receiving gifts or contributions from foreign governments. 

• Trump has repeatedly claimed the presidency has cost him billions of dollars.

• Democrats have long alleged that Trump has used the presidency to bolster his business empire, citing frequent stays by administration officials and foreign representatives at Trump branded properties.

• A lawsuit filed by congressional Democrats alleging Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause is working its way through the court system.

 

ON TAP TOMORROW

• The Brookings Institution hosts an event entitled “How millennials think differently about climate change and national debt: Lessons for policymakers,” 9 a.m.

• The House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing entitled “The End of Affordable Housing? A Review of the Trump Administration’s Plans to Change Housing Finance in America,” 10 a.m.

• The Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing on oversight of the Consolidated Audit Trail, 10 a.m.

• The House Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to consider a bill to amend the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), 10 a.m.

• A House Financial Services subcommittee holds a hearing entitled “An Examination of the Decline of Minority Depository Institutions and the Impact on Underserved Communities,” 2 p.m.

• The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosts an event entitled “Trump’s tax reform happened: Now what? A panel discussion on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” 2 p.m.

 

LEADING THE DAY

Senate Dems signal they’ll support domestic spending package: Top Senate Democrats signaled on Monday that they will support moving a package of four non-controversial government spending bills, breaking a months-long stalemate. 

“The first package of bills, four of the five are not controversial. …On those four moving forward would be fine thing,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said from the Senate floor.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, added that the plan was “exactly what Sen. Shelby and I said should be done.”

The takeaway: This bodes well for Republicans, who have teed up two packages of spending bills for the floor this week. 

• The first, according to a release from Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), would include Transportation-Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Justice and Science, Agriculture and Interior. Each of the four bills passed out of the committee with bipartisan support. 

• The second package that Republicans want to move this week would include defense spending. 

• But Schumer indicated on Monday that there were several appropriations bills, including defense, that Democrats would not support.

 

Warren unveils education plan quadrupling federal funding for public schools: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)  is proposing a plan to quadruple federal funding for public schools with incentives for states to fund poor and rich schools more equally.

• Warren’s plan would quadruple Title I funding — equivalent to an additional $450 billion — over the next 10 years for pre-K-12 public schools. 

• Warren also plans to invest an additional $100 billion over ten years in “excellence grants” to public schools, and an additional $50 billion in repairing and upgrading school buildings. 

• In an effort to incentivize states to fund schools more equally, the new Title I funding would be conditioned on states “chipping in more funding and adopting and implementing more progressive funding formulas, so that more resources go to the schools and students that really need them.”

 

House Dems ask judge to dismiss them from Trump lawsuit over New York tax return law: House Democrats on Monday urged a federal judge to dismiss them from President Trump’s lawsuit challenging a New York law that allows congressional committees to request his state tax returns.

The Democratic-led Ways and Means Committee, Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and committee aide Andrew Grossman — who are all named as defendants in the lawsuit — argued that Trump hasn’t been harmed by them and that they are immune from the lawsuit under the Constitution’s speech or debate clause.

The House’s lawyers noted that the Ways and Means Committee is participating in the House’s impeachment inquiry of Trump, and that the committee’s deliberations related to any actions it could take as part of that inquiry are protected from a legal challenge.

Recap: New York enacted a law in July, known as the TRUST Act, that allows the chairs of Congress’s tax committees to request public officials’ state tax returns from the commissioner of the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance.

Shortly after the bill’s enactment, Trump filed a lawsuit in an effort to block the committee from obtaining his New York tax returns. Neal has not yet requested Trump’s state tax returns, and has been more focused on trying to obtain the president’s federal tax returns. The Democrats’ filing states that the Ways and Means Committee hasn’t yet decided whether or not it will request Trump’s state tax returns.

The Hill’s Naomi Jagoda has the latest in the court fight.

 

GOOD TO KNOW

• The House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to consider a bill on Wednesday that would impose a tax on the nicotine used in vaping, Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) announced Monday.

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and entrepreneur Andrew Yang’s fight over jobs and automation at the last Democratic debate highlighted the divide over the contentious issue, including among experts.

 

ODDS AND ENDS

• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in the midst of a public relations blitz as criticism of the company he founded rises in Washington.

• A group of Senate Democrats introduced legislation Monday that would block the Trump administration from holding meetings with foreign heads of state at Trump-owned properties.