| | | |  | | By Lisa Kashinsky, Mia McCarthy and Meredith Lee Hill | | Presented by |  | | | IN TODAY'S EDITION:
- Johnson dares conservatives to oppose budget plan
- Senate votes on RFK Jr.
- House GOP leaders talking CR
BUT FIRST: CONGRESS X POLITICO IN MUNICH — Tune in Friday and Saturday for POLITICO programming live from the Munich Security Conference. We'll have interviews with key lawmakers, including Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker, Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham and Senate Intelligence Vice Chair Mark Warner. More details on our coverage and livestream are here.
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Speaker Mike Johnson faces a big test today with conservatives still airing concerns about his budget plan. | AP | BUDGET BATTLE — Speaker Mike Johnson is daring conservatives to sink his budget resolution, setting up a make-or-break moment in the House Budget Committee later today. The speaker emerged from hours of talks Wednesday with two hard-liner holdouts — Reps. Chip Roy and Ralph Norman, both House Freedom Caucus members who also serve on the Budget Committee — saying he would not change his budget blueprint to meet their demands for deeper spending cuts and other adjustments. Neither conservative would commit to voting for the framework in its current form, saying that they still want guarantees that spending cuts will total closer to $2 trillion than the $1.5 trillion floor Johnson proposed. The good news for Johnson: Roy and Norman haven’t ruled out supporting the plan. And if all Budget Committee members are present and voting, GOP leaders can afford to lose two Republicans in a party-line vote — but not three. White House officials have encouraged members to let the process move forward but aren't cracking the whip — as key members of the administration remain divided over whether the one- or two-bill approach is best. Norman told Mia and other reporters Wednesday that Trump administration officials had called him to check in, and the White House was also in constant contact with House GOP leaders over both the sweeping policy package and souring bipartisan government funding talks. Hard-liners are entangling those two major legislative priorities. Roy hinted that conservatives may want assurances on the funding talks in order to support the budget resolution today. Appropriations Chair Tom Cole told Meredith he has not personally heard any requests along those lines, but he made clear he was not thrilled with the suggestion. "If I were them, I would stop worrying about a few billion dollars and start worrying about the trillions of dollars of tax increases they're talking about,” Cole said of the hard-liners. “They’ve got to grow up and decide they're going to be members of Congress instead of TV stars on cable." The back-and-forth is setting up a dramatic day inside 210 Cannon, where it’s likely to remain unclear well into the day whether Budget Chair Jodey Arrington can close the deal and send a budget resolution to the floor. Even if the panel delivers, there are plenty of potholes still to dodge: Norman and Roy aren’t the only conservatives raising doubts, and New York Republicans are getting anxious that the current tax parameters may not provide enough wiggle room to expand the SALT deduction, our Benjamin Guggenheim reports. And you can expect House tax writers to keep pushing for a larger deficit allowance than the $4.5 trillion outlined in the current plan. Meanwhile, senators moved forward with their own budget blueprint Wednesday, which they continue to frame as a back-up plan to the House proposal. It could come to the floor as soon as next week. Get your vote-a-rama snacks ready, folks.
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Learn more about how others are building with open source AI. | | | GOOD THURSDAY MORNING. Follow our live coverage at the Inside Congress blog at politico.com/congress and email your Inside Congress scribes at lkashinsky@politico.com and mmccarthy@politico.com. THE SKED The House is in session and will vote on a bill that would criminalize the act of fleeing from border patrol agents at 10:30 a.m. — Foreign Affairs will have a hearing on USAID programs at 8:30 a.m. — Budget will mark up the GOP budget resolution starting at 10 a.m. The Senate is in session and will vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary and Brooke Rollins to be USDA secretary at 10:30 a.m. Senators will vote to end debate on Howard Lutnick’s nomination as Commerce secretary and Kelly Loeffler as SBA administrator at 1:45 p.m. — Armed Services will have a hearing on defense authorization requests for fiscal 2026, with testimony from United States Northern and Southern Command at 9:30 a.m. — Homeland Security and Government Affairs will have a hearing on eliminating waste from foreign aid at 10 a.m. — HELP will have a confirmation hearing for Linda McMahon as Education secretary at 10 a.m. — Foreign Relations will have a hearing on Syria policy after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad at 10:30 a.m. The rest of the week: The House and Senate are out Friday. Expect the Senate next week to finish Lutnick and Loeffler’s confirmations. THE LEADERSHIP SUITE
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Sen. Mitch McConnell has voted against two of President Donald Trump's nominees. | Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO | John Thune’s Mitch McConnell problem The majority leader’s predecessor was the sole Republican to vote against confirming Tulsi Gabbard as national intelligence director on Wednesday. It’s the second time McConnell has broken ranks with the party he once led to oppose one of Trump’s national security nominees — and then released scathing statements after questioning their qualifications. Even Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who joined McConnell in opposing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, voted in favor of Gabbard. This is more of an optics issue for Thune than a numbers one: Right now, he’s on track to confirm all of Trump’s nominees. But keep an eye on how McConnell, a polio survivor, votes on Kennedy today after delivering an indirect warning to the HHS pick late last year not to undermine the polio vaccine. In any case, Kennedy is poised for confirmation. Hakeem Jeffries plots House Dems’ budget resistance The House minority leader is promising to fight the GOP's budget reconciliation plans "every step of the way," castigating the party for prioritizing "massive tax cuts for their billionaire donors" and "sticking working class Americans and middle class Americans with the bill." Of course, the biggest threat to Republicans’ budget plans right now isn’t the Democrats but the constant infighting within their own party.
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| | | POLICY RUNDOWN SHAKY SPENDING TALKS — House GOP leaders are privately saying they’ll likely pursue a continuing resolution that funds the government at current levels through the end of the fiscal year, along with wildfire aid and other additions, a person who was granted anonymity to discuss the conversations told Meredith. But Cole says he has not yet been told to stop working on a toplines deal with Democrats and that he has requested a meeting with Johnson to discuss next steps. Cole said bipartisan negotiations are still on track, even as Johnson has sounded a sour note on Democrats’ offers. GREENE IGNORES THE DOGE BAIT — Firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene led her first subcommittee meeting on DOGE without any major mishaps, largely ignoring Democrats’ attempts to spur fights over Elon Musk, our Hailey Fuchs reports. Greene said the subcommittee has finalized the date for a hearing on whether federally-funded news organizations PBS and NPR engage in political bias in their coverage. She’s also planning a hearing on USAID, which she proposes to abolish in legislation she introduced this week. GREENLAND’S NEW DEAL — Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz took a cold, hard look at Trump’s Arctic annexation target at a hearing that saw lots of discussion of critical minerals, icebreaker fleets and the merits of the Louisiana Purchase. The underlying question, as posed by our Ben Jacobs: Is targeting Greenland “about owning lithium or just about owning the libs?” DRUG COST DEBATE RETURNS — House Energy and Commerce is spotlighting revived, bipartisan talks on lowering prescription drug costs, according to a staff memo reviewed by our Ben Leonard. A subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on Feb. 26, although that date could change. DEMS DOUBLE DOWN ON DEI — Rep. Jonathan Jackson has launched the Congressional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Caucus to safeguard the “human and civil rights of all Americans,” our Shia Kapos scooped. The new group is forming as the Trump administration takes aim at federal DEI programs. SPOTTED:
- Trump’s chief economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, was in the speaker’s office as Johnson was talking to hard-liners about their reconciliation demands and trying to sort through souring bipartisan government funding talks, per Meredith.
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and GOP members of his state’s House delegation met with the speaker about border money, also per Meredith.
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THE BEST OF THE REST My Fellow Members of Congress: This Is a Naked Power Grab, from Rep. Rosa DeLauro in the New York Times Bernie Sanders launches high-profile offensive against ‘the oligarchy,' by Holly Otterbein The Senate Has an 18-Year Perfect Ethics Streak, Says the Senate, from Dave Levinthal at NOTUS
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Learn more about how others are building with open source AI. | | | CAMPAIGN CORNER MONEY, PLEASE — Rep. Frank Pallone hosted a fundraiser at the Rubell Museum that brought in $1.5 million for the DCCC on Wednesday night, a person familiar with the event tells our Nicholas Wu. Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark, Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene, Energy and Commerce Committee members and donors were there. JOB BOARD Mae Eldahshoury is now comms director for Rep. Summer Lee. She previously was deputy comms director for Rep. Ayanna Pressley and is a Jon Ossoff alum. Landon Heid, a tech policy staffer for the House Select Committee on China, has been nominated to replace Thea D. Rozman Kendler as assistant secretary of commerce for export administration at the Bureau of Industry and Security. Joseph Ciccone is now senior legislative representative for the County of Los Angeles' Washington office. He most recently was deputy chief of staff and legislative director for former Rep. Grace Napolitano. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) … Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) (5-0) … Chip Smith … former Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas) … George Kundanis … Lila Nieves-Lee … Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center … Bill McCarren … i360’s Brian Szmytke … Jeanne Mancini … Mae Stevens … Alex Hinson … Raven Reeder … Meta’s Alex Burgos … POLITICO’s Daniel Payne … Emily Minster of Rep. Yassamin Ansari’s office … Kirby Eule of Touchdown Strategies … Peter Laudeman of U.S. Wheat Associates … NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson TRIVIA WEDNESDAY’S ANSWER: Brian Caudill correctly answered that Sen. Daniel Inouye’s son was the lead singer of the band Marginal Man. TODAY’S QUESTION, from Brian: Which member of Congress was a bassist in the Boston-area grunge band Red Bliss? The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Inside Congress. Send your answers to insidecongress@politico.com. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | |
