Biden and company raise the stakes on Johnson
Plus: How a Senate Democrat will call the GOP’s bluff on IVF, snippets from my exclusive Hill Harper interview and notes on the vice president’s voting rights meeting.
1) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the White House meeting on government funding and the national security supplemental bill was the most intense Oval Office confab he’d ever encountered. He told reporters this was due to the urgency of supporting Ukraine and the risks to American preeminence if Congress fails to act. President Biden summoned Vice President Kamala Harris and Schumer, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to discuss a path forward to keep the government open and pass international aid for US allies.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
“This is an existential moment for the free world as it relates to being there for our democratic allies in Ukraine, in Israel and in the Indo-Pacific,” Jeffries said after the meeting. He added that he was “cautiously optimistic” that a shutdown would be averted this week.
“The first priority of the country is our border and making it secure,” Speaker Johnson said after the meeting without a bit of irony after congressional Republicans blocked floor action on the harshest border crackdown in decades earlier this month. Johnson also privately met with Biden after the Big Four discussion, which fulfilled a request the speaker made several weeks ago.
“We should reflect on the mistakes of the Obama-Biden administration—the failure to respond forcefully to aggression,” McConnell said this morning in a floor speech criticizing the two most recent Democratic presidents for what he sees as enabling President Vladimir Putin of Russia. “And we should resolve to not make these same mistakes again.”
“I see no reason why we can’t get the first tranche of bills done this week,” Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters this afternoon. She added that some of the bill text would be posted within the next day or two and said appropriators, “We’re in better shape than people realize.” We shall see!
HOW WE GOT HERE
Oct. 1, 2023: The 2024 fiscal year started. The House (335-91) and Senate (88-9) passed the first of three short-term extensions the day before to avoid a shutdown. The House vote triggered the motion to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
Oct. 20, 2023: The White House submitted a $106 billion supplemental funding request for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific and US border security. House Republicans would hold up this request, demanding new border policies be passed first. A bipartisan group negotiated a deal for four months but the agreement fell apart after former President Donald Trump told congressional Republicans not to give Democrats or President Biden a policy win.
Nov. 2, 2023: The House passed a $14.3 billion supplemental aid package for Israel that Speaker Johnson offset with cuts to the IRS funding Democrats passed in the Inflation Reduction Act to audit big corporations and tax cheats (226-196). Leader Schumer refused to bring it to the Senate floor.
Nov. 14, 2023: The House passed the second extension three days before the first was set to expire (336-95). The Senate would approve the bill the next day (87-11); President Biden signed it into law the following day. What’s unique about this extension is that Speaker Johnson split the 12 appropriations bills into two deadlines, with four due on Jan. 19, 2024, and the other eight due two weeks later. Johnson said this was to avoid the other leaders combining the dozen funding bills into one (aka an “omnibus”), which House conservatives hate.
Jan. 7, 2024: Congressional leaders announced a deal on the funding cap for the dozen appropriations bills to enable negotiators to haggle out the details of each separate bill before the next deadline.
Jan. 18, 2024: The House voted on another extension that maintained the same two-deadline structure of the last one (314-108). The new deadlines were Mar. 1, 2024 (this Friday!), and Mar. 8, 2024. The Senate approved it the same day (77-18) and Biden signed it the next.
Feb 6, 2024: Speaker Johnson put another Israel supplemental on the floor under suspension of the rules, a process that required a two-thirds majority vote. The $17.6 billion excluded the IRS cuts but was rejected by all but 46 House Democrats and received a veto threat from President Biden because it lacked aid for his other international priorities or the border deal the House GOP initially demanded.
Feb. 13, 2024: After working through Super Bowl weekend, the Senate passed a version of the national security supplemental bill (70-29) without the border deal. The House gaveled out for recess a day early without taking up the bill after GOP leadership realized they lacked the votes to advance an unrelated bill.
Feb. 24, 2024: The second anniversary of the war in Ukraine—days after Ukrainian troops were forced to withdraw from Avdiivka, a town in eastern Ukraine, due to low supplies and as US officials say Russia is receiving drones, bombs and artillery from Iran.
BY THE NUMBERS
Here’s how the $95 billion supplemental the Senate passed breaks down:
Ukraine aid: $60 billion
Israel aid: $14.1 billion
Humanitarian aid (Gaza, West Bank, Ukraine and other conflict zones): $9.2 billion
Indo-Pacific support: $4.8 billion
The legislation also includes resources for US Central Command operations in the Red Sea, support for displaced Ukrainians and funding to help nonprofits and places of worship enhance security. A provision to address the fentanyl crisis was attached to the bill too.
2) I profiled Hill Harper in the newsletter as The Good Doctor actor challenges Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Michigan. I wrote it after two extensive interviews with the candidate. During our wide-ranging conversations with Harper, we discussed his progressive policy priorities, the historic underrepresentation of Black senators in Congress, the war in Gaza amid an active grassroots campaign against President Biden ahead of today's Michigan presidential primary, the border crisis and how he would have voted on the border bill congressional Republicans blocked earlier this month. I hope you learn something new about what drives Harper and the present situation in a battleground state that could determine which party wins the Senate majority and holds the presidency.
SNIPPETS
On the anti-Biden “uncommitted” campaign: “Here, in particular, you have the largest Arab and Muslim population outside the Middle East. And they don’t want to feel that their voice is taken for granted. They want to feel that they have a voice in the process as well. This strategy is to show folks how powerful and unified they can be.”
On Black representation: “I think there’s a lot of Michiganders, no matter what the race is, that I hear as I go all across the state that talk about they’re not happy about [Michigan not having a Black representative in Congress for the first time in 57 years]. And they know that diversity and inclusion matters in terms of what folks are fighting for and what experience they bring to the table.”
On the parallels between acting and politics: “This is a season of service for me. It’s a different way because, obviously as an actor, the one thing you develop that I think serves me extremely well running for office is empathy—you learn to work in someone else’s shoes.”
3) Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) will ask for unanimous consent to pass a bill that would protect fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization for every American who wants to become a parent through assisted reproductive technology. Specifically, it would shield parents and doctors from punishment for seeking or providing IVF treatment in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that embryos created through IVF are considered children. Duckworth, during a press conference with other Senate Democrats, shared her personal IVF story and said she looked forward to seeing if her Republican colleagues who say they support IVF will grant consent. (All it takes is one senator to block the bill, so it’s unlikely to pass.)
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
“We face a lot of tough calls as senators. This [bill] just isn’t one of them,” Duckworth told reporters.
ASKED AND ANSWERED
Once Upon a Hill: Would the legislation congressional Democrats have proposed to restore Roe v. Wade also cover fertility treatments like IVF or birth control?
Mini Timmaraju: I think there are lots of efforts right now to explore what can be done at the federal level in addition to ensure and enshrine access to contraception, including IVF as a solution.
There is a right-to-contraception bill that the House has voted has voted on that many of the Republicans who are saying they support IVF did not support. And there are a few other legislative vehicles that are in the works and that have been filed. I know [Rep.] Susan Wild [D-Penn.) has a bill with Tammy Duckworth in the Senate that would enshrine IVF.
The solution is complex. I think the Women’s Health Protection Act is a core start—codifying Roe is the baseline of what we need.
The connection to so folks are clear between Roe and Dobbs and this IVF attack is they’re all predicated by extremist MAGA Republican beliefs that life begins at conception and the so-called personhood movement, which would, frankly, if you follow its logical conclusions, support policy outcomes that restrict not just abortion access, but birth control and IVF and reproductive technologies. So you're not wrong to say the solution is likely more complex, but we have those solutions at the ready and they're authored by House Democrats.
Mini Timmaraju is the president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All
Once Upon a Hill: Can you talk about the role of the GOP’s anti-science movement in facilitating some of the rulings we’ve seen with the Alabama Supreme Court case and the Dobbs decision?
Jennifer McClellan: I think the main point here is you have politicians in some cases, judges and advocates who are not doctors, who don’t have a medical degree, who have never done medical research, who don’t fully understand how reproductive health works, making decisions that impact reproductive health decisions. They don't understand the science. They don't understand the medicine and I would argue they don’t want to. And so that is what we are seeing.
And unfortunately, a decade ago, when a lot of these restrictions were being put in place for access to abortion or access to contraception that were legal under Roe [v. Wade], whether it was a ultrasound requirement before an abortion. The medical community did not get involved because they thought, “That's politics. That's not our space.”
We need to make sure that scientists, that medical professionals have a seat at the table and are explaining here the practical implications of these bills ot court cases or are these legal arguments that you are making.
Jennifer McClellan is the US Representative for Virginia’s 4th congressional district and a member of the House Science and Technology Committee
Judy Chu: One of the prime examples that I can think of is [Texas US District Matthew Kacsmaryk], who decided to outlaw mifepristone. And he upended the whole FDA process, which should have been so respected because this is science in action. This is a drug that has been used successfully for 20 years and now is involved in half of the abortions for women.
But he did not follow the science. He had his own political agenda and upended this FDA approval and just think about the implications for every other FDA drug. If some other judge comes along that doesn’t like a particular drug, can they undo that drug as a legitimate drug? So, that is a decision that will have so many implications—even in states like mine, California, which have upheld the constitutionality of abortion, will be affected, and so many women will lose the ability to have an abortion.
Judy Chu is the US Representative for California’s 32nd congressional district and the chair of the Contraception, Family Planning and Education Task Force of the Pro-Choice Caucus
4) Vice President Harris will travel to Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to commemorate the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. During the visit, she will join the march across Edmund Pettus Bridge and give remarks to honor the civil rights movement's legacy. Harris will also discuss her ongoing work to achieve justice for all and encourage Americans to fight against attacks on fundamental freedoms nationwide. Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will join her. In related news: Harris convened voting rights leaders to discuss the fight for voting rights and other fundamental freedoms at the White House this afternoon. (The administration will hold three days of action later this year to address voting rights before the 2024 election.)
ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN
Bloody Sunday was a march in Selma in 1965 for the 600 people attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where state and local law enforcement officers beat peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs and sprayed them with tear gas. The marchers protested the lack of justice for the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was beaten by troopers and fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper the previous month. The late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights icon, suffered a skull fracture and was one of nearly 60 people treated for injuries at the local hospital. Harris traveled to Alabama in 2022 when she marked the anniversary of Bloody Sunday by meeting with civil rights leaders, joining a historic march in Selma and calling on Congress to pass voting rights legislation.
5) Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff announced $1.7 billion in new nutrition-related commitments as part of a White House initiative to end hunger and reduce diet-related diseases by 2030. The 141 commitments result from a nationwide call to action to stakeholders across all of society to help advance the administration’s goal. New commitments include a two-year Harlem Globetrotters national public awareness campaign on the connection between good nutrition and healthy physical activity and Food Forward. (This nonprofit will recover 290 million pounds of fresh fruits and veggies that would otherwise go to waste.) Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) joined the second gentleman with White House officials, Chef Jose Andres and WNBA star Elena Della Donne—the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition co-chairs.
OK, WHAT ELSE?
The event included an exhibition with four displays representing four organizations that made commitments in today’s announcement:
1/ Dion’s Chicago Dream: This nonprofit fights food insecurity by offering fresh produce to the doorstep of Chicagoland residents.
2/ International Dairy Foods Association and Agrimark: They discussed reducing added sugars in school lunch milks.
3/ Epic: This Wisconsin software developer focused on “food screening” for patients and staffers demoed their app.
4/ California Office of First Partner and California Department of Food and Agriculture: California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom has led an initiative to connect school districts with local farms so more school meals are fresh and nutritious.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
“Sports play a unique and critical role in uniting our country and our world.
They have the ability to bring people together and encourage us to live active and healthy lives,” Emhoff said. “And as Second Gentleman, I have proudly led on sports diplomacy and met with athletes all over the world, including leading the Presidential Delegation to the Women’s World Cup in New Zealand and meeting amazing NBA and WNBA players at All-Star Weekend in Indiana.”