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Why California, other western states face growing pressure to reduce water consumption

Story at a glance

• Despite the deluge of rain that hit California earlier this winter, more water conservation is needed to help the West meet challenges wrought by decades of drought. 

• Thanks to climate change, reliable sources of water are under threat from unpredictable weather.

• Going forward, cuts will fall largely on the agricultural sector, experts say.  

The major storms that hit California earlier this winter dumped more than 32 trillion gallons of water on the state, helped boost some of the region’s reservoirs and increased snowpack in key mountains throughout the West.  

But despite this temporary reprieve, the region will need to work on water conservation and reducing demand given climate change.  

Global warming has worsened aridification in the West. Coupled with growing demand from a rising population, it is depleting the Colorado River, which supplies water to seven states and helps feed the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead.  

“If we want to have a stable Colorado River system going forward, we have to reduce consumptive use, there’s no way around it,” said Eric Balken, executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute.   

“We can’t increase the supply and so the only part we have control over is the demand part of the equation. And it’s a tall order.” 

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Climate change brings warmer and unpredictable weather that is a threat to the once reliable supply of snowpack melting into rivers. Warmer temperatures increase evaporation from reservoirs and compound a host of other factors that jeopardize the west’s water supply. 

Reducing demand is the “big knob that we have on the system and ultimately, we may put ourselves in a position where we don’t have a choice,” said Adrian Harpold, an associate professor of mountain ecohydrology at the University of Nevada, Reno.   

The seven states that draw water from the Colorado River are working to reach an agreement by the end of the month to conserve 2 million acre-feet or more of Colorado River water in 2023.  

That’s in addition to cuts that already took effect in Arizona this month, first announced last August by the Bureau of Reclamation. The cuts reduced Arizona’s supply by 21 percent, Nevada’s by 8 percent, and Mexico’s by 7 percent.  

Should the states fail to come up with an agreement by Jan. 31, the federal government will step in.  

“There’s been an overallocation of water from the Colorado River for certainly the last 30 years, if not longer,” said Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences and professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis.  

Decades ago, some states were not using their full allocations. But demands and allocations have been higher than inflows over the last 20 to 40 years, Lund explained.  

“Unless we get an unexpected deluge, we’re going to have to actually reduce water use in the Lower Colorado River Basin by a substantial amount, probably by 20 or maybe even 30 percent,” Lund said. “Reducing water use is the only way to get our way out of this.”  

To meet the growing water crisis in the West, some proposed partial solutions include increasing desalination efforts, but the process is costly and requires lots of energy.  

Increasing managed aquifer recharge projects, or helping surface water seep into aqueducts more efficiently, is also an option for some regions.  

But the main problem for the Lower Colorado River Basin is that there’s no water to recharge, Lund said.  

The Role of Agriculture  

Around 80 percent of the Colorado River’s water goes toward agriculture. Over the years, a number of farmers have already adjusted to the growing shortages.  

Some have switched to growing less water intensive crops, while others have implemented new irrigation techniques to cut down on water waste.  

Still, more is needed.  

“When we talk about conservation, urban conservation is good, it’s fine. But even if you just dried up all the cities and made everybody move away, you would still not have reduced water enough to avoid the shortfall,” said Lund, pointing to the importance of agricultural cuts.  

Going forward, land fallowing, or setting aside arable land for one or more years before it’s cultivated again, would conserve a significant amount of water, although some growers would prefer to avoid this option.  

Choosing to grow different crops and singling out the best areas suited for agriculture can also help the sector conserve water.  

However, any future cuts will ultimately need to weigh the demands of rural agricultural areas and those in more urban regions.  

“We really need to think about the economic impacts of these decisions in a way that really considers people’s socioeconomic standing and vulnerable populations,” said Harpold.  

For those hit the hardest, turning to alternative economic bases could be an option. If cuts are imposed at the federal level, the government could allocate some money to communities to help them transition. 

The Inflation Reduction Act passed last year includes $4 billion in funding for water management and conservation efforts in the Colorado River Basin and other areas facing similar drought levels.  

Overall, “we have to be rethinking the way we manage water in the West,” said Balken. “We can’t let a good winter stop that important work.”  

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Twenty-four GOP senators warn they will oppose debt limit increase without fiscal reforms

Nearly half of the Senate Republican Conference has signed on to a letter to President Biden warning they will not vote for any bill to raise the nation’s debt limit unless it’s connected to spending cuts to address the nation’s $31 trillion debt.  

The letter, led by conservative Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Budd (R-N.C.), says it is the policy of the Republican conference that any increase in the debt ceiling must be accompanied by cuts in federal spending or “meaningful structural reform in spending.”  

“We, the undersigned members of the Senate Republican Conference, write to express our outright opposition to a debt-ceiling hike without real structural spending reform that reduces deficit spending and brings fiscal sanity back to Washington,” the senators wrote.

They cited the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, which would automatically provide continuing appropriations to fund government if Congress fails to pass spending legislation by the end-of-year deadline, and the Full Faith and Credit Act, which would prioritize federal payments in case Congress doesn’t raise the debt limit, as “meaningful structural reform.” 

“We do not intend to vote for a debt-ceiling increase without structural reforms to address current and future fiscal realities, actually enforce the budget and spending rules on the books, and manage out-of-control government policies,” they wrote. 

The letter, which was not signed by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), gives public support to Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) effort to negotiate fiscal reforms with the White House in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.  

Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.) signed the letter but Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), two other influential members of McConnell’s leadership team, did not.  

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Graham floats potential compromise on qualified immunity

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is floating a possible compromise on what was one of the key holdups in the negotiations surrounding policing reform legislation after the death of George Floyd in 2020.

The death of Tyre Nichols, 29, at the hands of police in Memphis earlier this month has sparked a renewed push for policing reform legislation. But one of the main obstacles to an agreement between Republicans and Democrats has long been the issue of qualified immunity. 

Qualified immunity is the rule that shields law enforcement from liability in civil lawsuits unless accusers can prove that the allegations amount to a violation of constitutional rights and those rights are “clearly established.” It is a hurdle that a number of activists and some lawmakers say is unclear in many police misconduct cases.

Democrats wanted it axed in talks over a policing reform package in 2020, but Republicans insisted the protections stay.

But Graham floated on social media that while he doesn’t believe individual officers should have civil lawsuits filed against them, he does believe that police departments should face liability for the actions of their officers.

“I oppose civil lawsuits against individual officers,” Graham said on Twitter. “However, holding police departments accountable makes sense and they should face liability for the misconduct of their officers.”

The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in June 2020, but negotiations for a package that could clear the evenly divided Senate collapsed later. The brutality of the beating taken by Nichols, seen in police videos released last week, has renewed the ambition of legislators to get a reform package passed.

Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), one of Democrats’ lead negotiators on the policing reform bill in 2020, plans to reintroduce a version of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act as soon as this week, according to Politico. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) suggested over the weekend that Booker and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the Senate Republican lead on the bill two years ago, should come back together to negotiate a compromise on a new policing reform bill.

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Juan Williams: Republicans’ troubles start with failing to catch a ‘red wave’

What if there had been a “red wave” for Republicans in the midterm elections?

With a wave election that gave Republicans a larger margin in the House, Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) would be gone. But with today’s slim GOP majority, the mocking of Santos grows louder by the day, as stories pile up about the lies he told to win office.

If the expected wave had washed over the midterms, then House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) could reject as suicidal any Republican who would put the U.S. economy at risk by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. He’d say how silly it is to demand spending cuts without saying what will be cut.

With a bigger majority, McCarthy would have been spared an embarrassing week of reality-TV-like far-right bickering and threats verging on fistfights that led to his election as a weak speaker.

If there had been a red wave, the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) would not be the poster children of the GOP.

In the first month of the new Congress, the absence of a red wave has unleashed self-destructive GOP politics. It is a perfect fit with President Biden’s description of Republicans as a party under the control of MAGA Trump extremism “that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

And most Republicans in Congress, as well as the core of Republican voters, remain loyal to Trump.

Last week the Morning Consult 2024 GOP Primary Tracker had 49 percent of Republicans supporting Trump’s candidacy to be the party’s next presidential nominee. A trio of polls released in the past week — by Emerson College, Harvard CAPS and Morning Consult — all showed Trump leading Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) by double digits for the nomination among GOP voters.

The GOP’s base of radical Trump voters can determine the outcome of Republican primaries, but three straight elections offer evidence that they weigh down Republicans in House, Senate and presidential elections. They are distancing the party from the future of American politics.

The few remaining congressional Republicans anywhere close to middle-of-the-road politics know they are at risk.

There are 18 House Republicans from congressional districts that Biden won in 2020. Their voters can see the nation’s economy is improving, according to economic data released last week. Their voters can see the U.S. is making a stand against Russian aggression in Ukraine.

But the far-right appetite for extremism and chaos leads Republicans in Congress to embrace bad behavior.

Last week, Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) passed out dummy grenades carrying the GOP’s elephant logo. He had to attach a note saying the grenades do not contain explosives.

The temptation to match Mills’s behavior is a trap for Republican politicians.

If they condemn the conspiracy theories, the threatening behavior and the lies, they risk being condemned on many conservative radio shows and social media. Those programs are winning ratings and profits with programming that panders to the Trump base.

The success of the conservative-media echo chamber has convinced too many GOP politicians that a small but reliable, hard-core segment of GOP voters will similarly reward them for media-ready shows of rudeness and anger over a political system that defeated Trump.

As a strategy for winning elections in 2024, the current Republican bad behavior is comically bad news for Republicans. Exit polls from last year’s midterms showed moderate and independent voters effectively holding up a stop sign to all of that. Moderates, about 30 to 40 percent of the electorate, favor Democrats by 15 percentage points. Independent voters, about 30 percent of voters, favored Democrats by 2 percentage points.

These are the same moderate and independent voters who put Biden in the White House in 2020.

Republicans need to attract those voters. But the hard-right base of the GOP can’t move on from Trump-led radicalism based on the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Among Republicans planning to vote in November’s midterm election, 65 percent told NBC News they do not think Joe Biden was legitimately elected president. Among “Trump-first” Republicans, the number was 95 percent.

A majority of Republican voters — nearly 60 percent — said a year ago that it was not important to investigate the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by armed radicals trying to prevent Biden from replacing Trump. In fact, by June 2022, more than half of Republicans believed the Jan. 6 violence was led by liberals. In January, 75 percent of Republicans said it was “time to move on.”

Meanwhile, according to Politifact, 66 percent of all voters agree that Biden was legitimately elected president. What’s more significant is a majority of voters — including a majority of independents — thinks Trump’s actions after the 2020 election constitute a crime; significantly, that number increased among independents between July and December of last year.

The Republicans’ basic strategy for the next two years is to attack Biden even when the President has success. They can also see the party has opened itself to strong counterattacks by Biden and congressional Democrats, especially on the top issue for voters, the economy.

Biden is already making campaign-style speeches about Republicans who, he claims, “want to cut your Social Security and Medicare.” He also spoke about House GOP proposals to replace the current tax code with a 30 percent sales tax and do away with the Internal Revenue Service.

It all comes back to the GOP’s failure to produce a red wave. Without a strong majority, Speaker McCarthy is in a position where he cannot afford to alienate any of the extremists in his caucus or even free himself from the mockery of Santos.

McCarthy embodies today’s GOP as a captive of kooks, grifters and aspiring authoritarians — and as a result, he may very well be leading the party to defeat in 2024.

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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The Hill's Morning Report — Biden, McCarthy to meet amid 2024 backdrop

Editor’s note: The Hill’s Morning Report is our daily newsletter that dives deep into Washington’s agenda. To subscribe, click here or fill out the box below.

Both political parties this week will put actions behind narratives they believe could mold the future of American politics.

President Biden starts the week by reminding Americans specifically how the Democratic Party, working with some Republicans, sought to untangle East Coast infrastructure bottlenecks. And by Friday in Philadelphia, the president and Vice President Harris, along with the Democratic National Committee a day later, are expected to lean into the 2024 presidential race.

Biden will be in Baltimore today and in New York City on Tuesday to tout federal road and tunnel projects made possible through last year’s enactment of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure law. By Friday, Biden and Harris will be in Philadelphia in battleground Pennsylvania for appearances that lean into an anticipated reelection campaign and ahead of a national party vote scheduled on Saturday to decide the Democrats’ 2024 lineup of state primaries (New Jersey Monitor).  

At the same time, Republicans in Congress will hold the first in a series of investigations they championed as priorities this year. Early polling suggests most Americans believe the new House majority may be inflexible and determined to investigate Biden rather than concentrating on other issues (NBC News). 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will meet with Biden on Wednesday at the White House (The Hill). He wants to begin negotiating federal spending and debt, since his far-right colleagues say they won’t increase federal borrowing without achieving deep spending reductions in a proposed swap. Biden says the borrowing-or-spending cuts power play is a no-go. Democrats have urged Republicans to specify programs they would slash. McCarthy, wary of getting on the wrong side of senior voters, now says Social Security and Medicare, roughly a third of the total federal budget, are off the table for cuts (The Hill). Under pressure, the Speaker has softened threats from some colleagues, promising the U.S. will not default on its obligations (ABC News).

“I want to find a reasonable and a responsible way that we can lift the debt ceiling but take control of this runaway spending,” McCarthy told CBS’s “Face the Nation,” later adding, “I don’t think there’s anyone in America who doesn’t agree that there’s some wasteful Washington spending that we can eliminate.”

While McCarthy ponders the debt ceiling Rubik’s Cube, his GOP colleagues on Wednesday will officially launch promised investigations, with the aim of weakening the Biden administration as well as Democratic candidates. 

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) says his panel on Wednesday will probe “rampant waste of taxpayer dollars” in federal pandemic relief programs (CNN). The Trump administration was in charge as pandemic stimulus checks and loan programs rolled out in 2020 and 2021. The Biden administration overhauled the distribution of available vaccines and American Rescue Plan Act funding with assistance from states, Congress and the private sector.

The week will also reveal new economic clues: The Federal Reserve on Wednesday is expected to hike interest rates for the eighth time since 2022 to continue battling inflation (The Hill). The U.S. employment picture in January, which included prominent layoff announcements in the tech sector and beyond, could come into clearer focus with a Labor Department jobs report on Friday (CNN).

By the weekend, Biden and his team, along with lawmakers and the news media, will be mobilizing for the annual State of the Union address on Feb. 7, which starts an unofficial countdown clock headed toward the 2024 elections.  

Related Articles

▪ Washington Monthly: Are Republicans forgetting what former President Trump taught them about Social Security and Medicare?

▪ The New York Times: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), political arsonist, has new powers. What will he do with them?

▪ Politico: GOP national sales tax talk backfires, as Democrats see political gold.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS 

The discovery of classified documents at the homes of Biden, Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence prompts new discussions on Capitol Hill and in the media about possible reforms that could prevent future mishandling of sensitive materials as well as overclassification by the government, The Hill’s Brett Samuels and Al Weaver report. 

▪ Axios: Calls mount for reform of laws on classified documents. 

▪ NBC News: On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sparred over classified documents and the “weaponization” of the FBI. 

▪ CBS News: Public sees Biden cooperating with documents investigation; job approval remains unchanged — poll.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that the way Biden and Pence ended up with classified documents at their respective residences must be clarified (The Hill). He said while Pence has denied any involvement in transporting documents to his home after serving during the Trump administration, Biden may have taken documents home during his time as a senator while commuting by train. 

“The chain of custody in each of these issues is going to be important,” Turner said. “It certainly should be part of the Department of Justice investigation. How did these documents get where they were going and where we ultimately found them but also what happened to them in the interim?”

A big priority for House Republicans in the next few months is the debt ceiling, as congressional leaders must find a fix for the U.S. hitting its debt limit before June to avoid default. But in spite of all the tough talk in Washington around the debt ceiling, there are signs that the can will be kicked further down the road.

House GOP leaders are considering proposing a short-term extension of the federal debt ceiling to delay the risk of a default until Sept. 30, Bloomberg News reports, in a step that would allow more time to resolve an impasse with Democrats — but it isn’t clear whether the Democratic-controlled Senate or even the White House would agree to briefly putting off a reckoning on the debt ceiling.

The Washington Post: Mint the coin? Buy back bonds? Seven “gimmicks” for dodging the debt limit.

Biden this week marked the beginning of his working relationship with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who he’ll have to rely on when it comes to Republican threats of spending cuts and a showdown over the country’s debt ceiling. Before now, Biden and Jeffries did not have a close relationship and had never met one on one, a source close to Jeffries told The Hill, adding that those dynamics offer the Democrats a clean slate and predicted the pair will become close.

They are “very similar people with a very similar background,” the source said, adding that “they’re both from working class families with hard working parents that instilled the right values in them.”

The Congressional Black Caucus on Sunday said its members want a meeting this week with the president to urge him to “jumpstart negotiations now” with Congress to enact federal legislation to reform policing. “The brutal beating of Tyre Nichols was murder and is a grim reminder that we still have a long way to go in solving systemic police violence in America,” the caucus said in a statement (The Hill).

Ben Crump, lawyer for the Nichols family, also called on Congress to pass federal police reforms in the wake of the 29-year-old’s death in Memphis, Tenn., last week (The Hill). “Shame on us if we don’t use his tragic death to finally get the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed,” Crump, who also leads the Floyd family legal team, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We told President Biden that when he talked to us.” Crump placed the onus on Biden to spark a renewed push for policing reform, saying the president should “marshall the United States Senate” and “try to get the House to re-engage.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is seeking to carve out a new role for himself now that he’s no longer the powerbroker he was in last year’s 50-50 Senate, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. Manchin now envisions a role for himself as a shuttle diplomat working to bridge the partisan divide between Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and McCarthy, whom Manchin describes as a friend. But whether Manchin can get any Democrats to follow his lead is a big question. The West Virginia senator does have some leverage over fellow Democrats in that they desperately need him to run for reelection to keep his seat, as Republicans think West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) is looking seriously at a Manchin challenge.  

New York: 2024 looks very dark for Senate Democrats.

The addition of Republican Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), and Thomas Massie (Ky.) to the House Rules Committee — one of the concessions that helped McCarthy secure the gavel — means that the frequent antagonists of leadership have the opportunity to create significant barriers to getting legislation to the House floor. But as The Hill’s Emily Brooks reports, the three congressmen forecast that if they use their leverage, it will be to enforce the kind of open-process demands that fueled resistance to McCarthy in the drawn-out Speakership battle. 

“I’m ready and fully prepared to vote for rules on bills that I’ll be a ‘hell no’ on the bill when it gets to the floor,” Massie said. 

The House Intelligence Committee has changed with the retirement of its prior ranking member and removal of its former chairman, write The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch and Mike Lillis, and some lawmakers hope the panel will shed its  partisan image. The committee launched with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) at the helm in the last Congress, both national figures whose epic battles,  waged predominantly over issues related to Trump, came to symbolize the panel’s shift from a rare bastion of bipartisan cooperation to an arena of partisan warfare. 

➤ POLITICS

Gov. Chris Sununu (R) at the Republican Governors Association meeting last year.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he is considering a White House bid in 2024, making him the latest high-profile Republican to consider challenging Trump in the primaries.

“I really don’t have a timeline,” he said. “I’m spending a lot of time naturally trying to grow the party as Republicans, talk to independents, talk to the next generation of potential Republican voters that right now no one is really reaching out to.”

Another likely GOP candidate is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has yet to announce his candidacy but has lined up advisers in key early primary states, including Iowa and New Hampshire (The Washington Post).

Support for another Trump bid for the presidency among GOP-aligned voters declined across a number of CNN polls on the topic last year. In July, 44 percent wanted Trump to be the party’s nominee, but by December, only 38 percent said the same.

Trump this weekend hit the campaign trail in South Carolina and New Hampshire after a sedate start to his White House bid after its November kickoff. He criticized a possible run by DeSantis, saying, “If he runs, that’s fine. I’m way up in the polls” and asserting he was responsible for the Florida governor’s political rise (The Hill and The Guardian). 

“He’s going to have to do what he wants to do, but he may run,” Trump added. “I do think it would be a great act of disloyalty because, you know, I got him in. He had no chance. His political life was over.”

▪ Time: Trump delivered a bitter speech in New Hampshire filled with falsehoods.

▪ The New York Times: The former president, now free to post again on Facebook and Twitter, has increasingly amplified far-right accounts on Truth Social. Experts on extremism worry that he will bring this approach to a far wider audience.

▪ Vox: Trump struggled with identity at his first public campaign stop.

Trump’s biggest applause in New Hampshire on Saturday came 45 minutes into his speech, when he introduced a new proposal to crack down on critical race theory in public school classrooms. He also drew an enthusiastic response when he proposed a constitutional amendment for congressional term limits (Axios).

The former president’s education platform, which he unveiled on Thursday, calls for cutting federal funds to any education program that involves “critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children.” He’s not the only Republican who views education as a winning issue in the 2024 race, The Hill’s Julia Manchester writes, as DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, both seen as top potential challengers to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, have made headlines in recent weeks with their own education-related actions.

DeSantis sparked controversy most recently by rejecting an Advanced Placement African American studies course, while Youngkin launched an investigation into multiple Northern Virginia schools for not giving students the news that they had qualified for National Merit Scholarships in a timely fashion.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest, a race for a Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin could determine the future of abortion rights in a state likely to play a crucial role in the 2024 presidential election, writes The Hill’s Caroline Vakil. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has a 4-3 conservative majority, but conservative Justice Patience Roggensack is opting not to seek another term, evenly splitting the court along ideological lines. When voters head to the polls for a February primary, Wisconsin-based Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki said that anger following the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year is still motivating people and will likely play a crucial role in this year’s state judicial race.

“The midterms did not go the way Republicans thought they would, and I really believe that one of the main reasons behind that was the Dobbs decision. Nothing has fundamentally changed in the landscape,” Zepecki told The Hill. “That means that all of a sudden the voters who are passionate about abortion in November of last year aren’t gonna go, ‘Oh, well, we did what we could. Oh, well, we’ll just live with this.’”

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Ukrainian officials are breaking new ground — and possibly reshaping the future of cyberwarfare — as they seek to convince the International Criminal Court in the Hague to investigate whether certain Russian cyberattacks could constitute war crimes, writes The Hill’s Ines Kagubare. Cyberattacks have increasingly become a part of modern warfare, and have been repeatedly used by Russian forces amid the country’s war in Ukraine to target critical infrastructure.

While such attacks are not listed as a form of war crime under the Geneva Conventions, legal experts and researchers have previously made the case for the court to prosecute Russian cyberattacks — but the reported push from Ukrainian officials marks the first time a sovereign government has made such a request to the court.

“News that Ukrainian officials are weighing cyberattacks as potential war crimes is reflective of how seriously governments are taking these growing and evolving threats,” said Paul Martini, CEO and chief technology officer at cybersecurity firm iboss.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Time may be on Russia’s side, some Western backers of Ukraine worry.

▪ The New York Times: Russia and Ukraine battle for control of villages near the key city of Bakhmut.

▪ Politico EU: In divided Russia, “compassion has become civil resistance.”

How long can the U.S. continue to supply Ukraine from its own weapons stockpiles without hindering its own security? The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell and Brad Dress report a roundup of concerns heard among analysts. With nearly $27 billion in weapons committed to Kyiv since the start of Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, attack on the country, Washington shows no sign of slowing down on the lethal aid packages. But experts question what that might mean for U.S. military readiness should another conflict pop up with China in the near future.  

▪ The Washington Post: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fires party chair in latest scandal for Conservatives.

▪ The New York Times: Nazi soldiers buried a treasure. Nearly 80 years later, in a small village in the Netherlands, the search goes on.

▪ The Washington Post: Radioactive needle in a haystack: Tiny capsule lost in rural Australia.

▪ Reuters: Blast kills at least 19 worshippers at mosque in Pakistan’s Peshawar.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will step into a hotbed of violence and political strife when he lands in Israel today amid signs of the chronic challenges that have kept the Middle East among America’s most urgent global concerns despite the Biden administration’s attempt to reengineer its foreign policy. His visit to Israel and the West Bank will mark the highest-profile U.S. engagement with the new government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to date. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, critics say, has taken steps to weaken the country’s democratic system and further inflame the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Blinken began his three-day visit to the Middle East in Egypt on Sunday (The Washington Post and Reuters).

▪ Reuters: Israel seals synagogue shooter’s home; Netanyahu vows crackdown.

▪ Bloomberg News: Israel vows tough action as violence with Palestinians escalates.

▪ Haaretz: 2,000 Israeli high schoolers protest in Tel Aviv against judicial overhaul plans.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Israel strikes Iran amid an international push to contain Tehran.

OPINION

■ In Israel, India, and elsewhere the civilization state is taking over, by Bruno Maçães, contributor, Time. https://bit.ly/3RfPwvG 

■ The economy keeps defying media expectations. It’s part of a pattern, by Jennifer Rubin, columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3Dq1Sf4

WHERE AND WHEN

📲 Ask The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will convene at noon.

The Senate meets at 3 p.m. 

The president, in Delaware, will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9 a.m. Biden will travel at 12:50 p.m. from New Castle, Del., to Baltimore, Md., to describe at 2:45 p.m. the federal support enacted last year to replace the 150-year-old Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel, and anticipated improvements for commuters between Washington, D.C., and  New Jersey. The president will arrive at the White House at 4:05 p.m.

The vice president will travel to Raleigh, N.C., for an event promoting federal support for small businesses. She will fly back to Washington this afternoon.

The secretary of state this morning met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo, Egypt, and with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry. Blinken and Shoukry held a joint press conference. The secretary traveled to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the two spoke with the press. Blinken is scheduled to meet with Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, President Isaac Herzog and other senior leaders in Jerusalem in the afternoon and evening (The Jerusalem Post).  

First lady Jill Biden will visit New York’s U.S. Army Garrison Fort Drum at 12:30 p.m. as part of the Joining Forces initiative, accompanied by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff is in Berlin, where he joins special envoys and coordinators at the Topography of Terror Museum for a tour and discussion about combating antisemitism around the world. He’ll visit the Museum of Jewish Life and meet staff members from the U.S. Embassy. Emhoff will be a guest at a dinner hosted by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutman with guests from the community along with other government officials.   

ELSEWHERE

➤ HEALTH & PANDEMIC

The Food and Drug Administration plans to revise a policy that excluded most gay and bisexual men from blood donation, instead adopting an approach that will screen donors depending on their recent sexual activity, agency officials announced Friday. The move follows years of criticism from LGBTQ advocates, who have described the prohibition as unscientific and discriminatory. Federal officials have long justified the exclusion of gay and bisexual men, which was put in place in the 1980s, as a way to keep HIV out of the blood supply. In 2015, the agency allowed gay and bisexual men to donate if they had not had sexual contact with other men for the previous year, and that period was reduced to three months during the COVID-19 pandemic (The Hill). 

South Carolina attorney Christopher Hanson, who has advocated changes in the FDA’s blood donation policies on behalf of an LGBTQ health center in Washington, D.C., told The New York Times the agency’s proposal was an important step forward.

“It’s an entirely powerful experience because you are giving blood to save lives,” Hanson said. “Knowing when you’re in a monogamous marriage that you’re being denied that ability, I said to myself, ‘I need to find other ways to help people.’”

▪ The Washington Post: What new questions will I be asked when I donate blood?

▪ The Atlantic: The flu-ification of COVID-19 policy is almost complete as health officials transition to annual shots.

▪ Reuters: World Health Organization maintains highest alert over COVID-19, but sees hope ahead.

▪ PBS: An FDA advisory panel endorsed a one-shot approach to COVID-19 vaccination. Here’s what that means.

Information about the availability of COVID-19 vaccine and booster shots can be found at Vaccines.gov.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,107,646. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 3,756 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

And finally … Gridirons and hard courts, as in sports, sports, sports!  

🏈  Readers almost assuredly know this by now, but just in case, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs will face off in Super Bowl LVII on Feb. 12.

The Eagles on Sunday beat the shorthanded San Francisco 49ers, 31-7, for the NFC championship (Philadelphia Inquirer) and the Chiefs topped the Cincinnati Bengals with a late field goal in a down-to-the-wire AFC title game (The Washington Post and CNN).

Details, details: The Super Bowl will be played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., and broadcast by Fox at 6:30 p.m. ET. Halftime features Rihanna, plus pre-show performances by Emmy-winning actor Sheryl Lee Ralph, country music star Chris Stapleton and R&B crooner Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds (CNN).

Yahoo Sports: How to watch the 2023 Super Bowl.

🎾 Also on Sunday, Novak Djokovic of Serbia beat Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in straight sets, 6-3 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5), to win a 10th Australian Open title and a record-equaling 22nd Grand Slam. At 35, Djokovic lost a single set during the competition Down Under this year. After winning, he went to the players’ box and sobbed, the significance and emotion of his achievement overcoming him. Even as he returned to his seat on the court, he hid his face in a towel and the television cameras picked up the sound of his crying. 

“Not playing last year [because of Australian COVID-19 vaccination requirements], coming back this year. I want to thank all the people who made me feel welcome, made me feel comfortable,” Djokovic said. “Only the team and family knows what we’ve been through these last four to five weeks and this is the biggest victory of my life considering those circumstances” (CNN).

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What three hard-line conservatives plan to do with their seats on the Rules Committee

The addition of Republican Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), and Thomas Massie (Ky.) to the House Rules Committee — one of the concessions from Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that helped him secure the gavel — means that the frequent antagonists of leadership have the opportunity to create significant barriers to getting legislation to the House floor. 

But the three say that if they use their leverage, it will be to enforce the kind of open-process demands that fueled resistance to McCarthy in the drawn-out Speakership battle.

“We just need to make sure that we’re applying the rules, the germaneness rules, the, you know, single-subject rules, and then figure out how that’s all gonna get down to the floor under the right rules. Is it going to be a structured rule, an open rule?” Roy said.

Lawmakers got their first taste of a more open rules process last week with a modified open rule on a bill to limit the president’s ability to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Any member could submit an amendment for the first time in seven years. More than 140 amendments were submitted, and 56 of them got votes in fast-moving marathon floor sessions over two days.

“We’re actually being the people’s house,” Roy said.

The House Rules Committee gets final say over legislation before it heads to a final vote, crafting the process that governs consideration of each bill and how much input members can have on the floor. It was central to the group 20 hard-line conservatives who pushed the Speakership election into a historic four-day saga over demands for rules change demands and policy priorities.

One of the concessions from McCarthy, according to a person familiar with the deal, was to name three House Freedom Caucus or “Freedom Caucus-adjacent” members to the Rules Committee. Massie is not a member of the confrontational conservative group like Roy and Norman, but frequently votes with them.

Roy said repeatedly during the Speakership fight that he was not necessarily pining to be on the Rules Committee, which will require more time in Washington and away from his family, but was willing to do so if it meant ensuring the panel did not waive process agreements — like single-subject bills and a rule requiring 72 hours from release of final bill text to a floor vote — as had become commonplace. 

Lawmakers frequently bemoaned spending bills thousands of pages long being released just hours before a final vote, ushered through the Rules Committee with waived rules and not open to amend on the floor.

With nine Republican members to four Democratic members set to be on the panel, the three together could derail bills if they do not conform to their standards — “veto power,” as Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) put it in an MSNBC interview last week.

Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), the top Democrat on the panel, summed up the tricky dynamic in a one-word tweet: “Yikes.” 

Republicans on the Rules Committee held their first meeting on Thursday, during which Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) laid out the committee’s processes for the new members.

“I don’t see it as us against them,” Norman said. “Guy Reschenthaler” — a Pennsylvania Republican also on the committee — “is a straight thinking, good guy. Tom Cole, I think he’s a veteran who’s done this a lot longer than we have.”

The threat of the three defecting could itself prevent Republican leadership from attempting what Massie called “creative” rules.

“There’s a few rules in the past that were a little too creative that I already expressed displeasure with before joining the committee,” Massie said. “If there was any doubt, they know where I stand on some of the shenanigans that have happened over the last 10 years.”

He mentioned a 2018 instance where a rule for the must-pass farm bill included language preventing a vote for the rest of a year on any war powers resolution limiting U.S. involvement in Yemen.

But the libertarian-conservative Massie, who has often been a lone “no” vote on floor measures, says that he does not plan to use his position on the Rules Committee to try to sway policy or final outcomes.

“I’m ready and fully prepared to vote for rules on bills that I’ll be a ‘hell no’ on the bill when it gets to the floor,” Massie said.

Norman, though, said that he could foresee using his influence not only to enforce structural rules but also to get more favorable policies. One of Norman’s major sticking points during the Speakership battle was wanting the House to pass a plan to balance the budget in seven to 10 years.

There could be times, though, when the three hard-liners are asked to be flexible on House rules. 

Congress this year must deal with a looming debt limit deadline in early June, as well as measures to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, the farm bill and annual government spending. And it has a history of waiting until the last minute to strike a deal and take action.

“My default position is going to be a better be damn good thing like, you know, a 9/11 attack or something, If you’re going to be waiving the 72 hours. We cannot start that game,” Roy said.

But, Roy added, he will “never say never.”

“We will not accept, as an example with the omnibus 4,155 pages long, getting it the night before,” Norman said. 

“There’s something that’s pretty simple that’s got some urgency to it, then present it, and then let us make the judgment call,” Norman continued. “But in Washington, D.C., a lot of things proposed as urgent that are not urgent. It’s kind of like, beauty’s in the eyes of the beholder.”

Mychael Schnell contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden gets to know new partner in House in Hakeem Jeffries

President Biden this week marked the beginning of his working relationship with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who he’ll have to rely on when it comes to Republican threats of spending cuts and a showdown over the country’s debt ceiling. 

The new Democratic leader’s role is also a generational shift after 20 years of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) reign. But Jeffries, who is the first Black person to lead either party in Congress in U.S. history, is no complete stranger to Biden world having been a campaign surrogate in 2020. 

Jeffries this week made his first visit to the White House since taking on his new leadership role, huddling with Biden and other Democrats to discuss the party’s goals for the new Congress.

Before now, Biden and Jeffries did not have a close relationship and had never met one-on-one, a source close to Jeffries said. But the source said those dynamics offer the Democrats a clean slate and predicted the pair will become close.

They are “very similar people with a very similar background,” the source said, adding that “they’re both from working class families with hard working parents that instilled the right values in them.” 

Jeffries, the hip hop loving Brooklynite, is nearly 30 years the president’s junior, and up until now, Biden, 80, has largely worked on the leadership level with his contemporaries while serving as president. Pelosi, 82, stepped down with the purpose of making room for the next generation of leaders. 

Also at the White House meeting on Tuesday was Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), 72, with whom Biden has a longstanding and close relationship. The other House members with Jeffries were also all newer faces to Biden — Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (Calif.), both of whom rose with Jeffries when the old guard stepped down at the end of the last Congress.

The White House describes Biden’s relationship with Jeffries as a partnership.

“The president sees … Leader Jeffries as a vital partner in this and is looking forward to continuing to work with the congressman and also is proud to work with the congressman closely as we push forward on our shared agenda, our shared priorities, in that 118th Congress,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

One area that Jeffries can help Biden get some legislative priorities in order is the New York Democrats’ reportedly smooth working relationship with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has sometimes faced a cool reception from the president.

Biden has said he hopes to work with McCarthy in good faith, but is also refusing to negotiate on the debt ceiling — a hot button issue that will be a point of contention for months as Republicans demand accompanying spending cuts. 

The president is set to lay out his goals for working with Congress at his State of the Union, which is slated for Feb. 7 and will be Jeffries’s first as Democratic leader. 

Biden in those remarks will likely also confront Republicans head on, especially hardline GOP lawmakers who have in recent days championed bills like tougher restrictions on abortions and a national, 30-percent sales tax.

On Thursday, during his weekly press conference at the Capitol, Jeffires also took shots at Republicans, echoing one of Biden’s campaign trademarks by labeling a faction of the party as “extreme MAGA” when discussing the 30-percent sales tax proposal that he said would  have a greater impact on everyday Americans while benefiting the wealthy.

“That’s what they’re spending their time doing – team extreme. Extreme MAGA Republicans,” Jeffries told reporters. He added that GOP lawmakers wanted to “lecture us” on fiscal issues while a bulk of the national debt was piled on during the Trump administration. 

Still, Jeffries said he would look for openings to work in a bipartisan fashion, pointing out that he was involved in negotiations on criminal justice reform with the Trump administration, which he said he was never “bashful” about criticizing.

He also noted that he wants to continue “having a very productive relationship with the Speaker,” referring to McCarthy.

From the minority, Jeffries and House Democrats are virtually powerless to influence the chamber’s legislative agenda. But they can call attention to the contrasts between the parties on a host of major issues. 

“I think they have to remind the American people just who’s in charge of the House right now. The same folks who denied the election results, they washed over Jan. 6,” said former Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) who is also a former Democratic Caucus Chair.

“Hakeem knows that they have to help to deliver for the American people, when it comes to the debt ceiling, when it comes to protecting the things that Democrats care about — like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — he’ll have to find ways to do that,” he added. “But I think he’s up to the challenge.”

Other Democrats also agree that Biden and Jeffries will have a positive working relationship moving forward.

“Leader Jeffries is an exemplar in the field of leadership. I believe the president views Leader Jeffries as a thought leader and someone who is respected amongst his peers on both sides of the aisle,” said Brandon Neal, a democratic strategist and former national Democratic National Committee political director.

The generational issue is unlikely to have an impact as Biden is known to take on a mentorship role with younger Democrats, showcased by his relationship with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is 41. The president has said Buttigieg reminds him of his late son Beau Biden, who died in 2015 at the age of 46.

 “I think that the president himself is very adaptable. The…ages may be different, but that connectivity, the ability to relate and to find things that join people together is something that I think the president excels at,” Crowley said.

The source close to Jeffries said the two men would work well together because they have a similar work ethic.

“Jeffries, like Biden, is about getting stuff done. Another reason why they’ll end up with a close working relationship is because they will focus on the end result,” the source said.

Mike Lillis contributed to this report.

Source: TEST FEED1

Manchin sees himself as shuttle diplomat from Democrats to McCarthy

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is seeking to carve out a new role for himself now that he’s no longer the power broker that he was in last year’s 50-50 Senate.  

Manchin now envisions himself as a shuttle diplomat working to bridge the partisan divide between Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), whom Manchin describes as a friend.  

“I’ve always had a good, friendly relationship with Kevin, and he’s in a position now where if we try to work together we can do a lot of good for our country,” Manchin said.  

Manchin is disputing the narrative being pushed by Schumer and other Democrats that McCarthy is tilting too far to the right for Democrats to consider engaging with the new GOP Speaker.

“He wants things to go, he wants things to happen. … We talked about things we could reach an agreement on,” Manchin said after meeting with McCarthy in the Capitol last week.  

“He showed a great interest in trying to get things accomplished,” Manchin added, though he acknowledged that because of the slim House GOP majority and the opposition McCarthy faced from conservatives during his bid to get elected Speaker, he “has a real tough hand.”  

Manchin said McCarthy agreed to protect Social Security and Medicare benefits from cuts, an important issue for the West Virginia senator. Manchin has estimated that about 60 percent of retirees in his state rely almost exclusively on those programs to afford living expenses. 

Fellow Democrats who don’t want to negotiate with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling are “unreasonable,” according to Manchin.

“It’s unreasonable for any senator, any congressperson representing the United States government to say, ‘I’m not going to negotiate,’” he said. “If you can’t communicate and you won’t talk to each other, you got a problem.”

Senate Republicans are cheering on Manchin because they think he’s putting pressure on Biden and Schumer to negotiate a deficit-reduction package with House Republicans in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. 

“I’m certain that some of our leadership in the House probably welcomes input from a Democrat who’s going to support right-of-center policies,” said Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.).

Thune said “I think it does” put pressure on Biden to sit down with McCarthy to hammer out a deal on raising the debt limit.  

“At some point there will be a negotiation. It’s a question not of ‘if’ but ‘when,’” he said.  

Manchin’s jockeying shows that he wants to stay in the middle of Congress’s biggest negotiations. 

He said he also discussed energy permitting reform, one of his top priorities, with McCarthy, one of the few areas of potential common ground between Senate Democrats and House Republicans. 

If Manchin can stay as relevant in Washington’s new environment of divided government, he’ll have more incentive to run for reelection in 2024, even against a potentially tough Republican opponent like Gov. Jim Justice.  

Republican strategists think Justice is looking seriously at challenging Manchin.

One GOP strategist said that Justice “all but declared” his intention to run for Manchin’s seat at his State of the State address this month, when he declared “I surely won’t go away.”  

“You know, in fact, you’re probably either able to find me at home or you may find me in Washington,” he said.  

Justice, who will have to step down as governor at the end of 2024 because of term limits, said this month that he’s “seriously considering running for Senate.” 

Mike Plante, a Democratic strategist based in Charleston, W.Va., suggested that Manchin’s decision to challenge Democratic leaders’ decision not to negotiate with McCarthy is a sign he’s gearing up for another Senate run.  

“Anything Joe Manchin does that underscores his independence from the national party, I think speaks to voters back in West Virginia who are outside of the traditional Democratic base and who identify more with Republicans,” he said. “I know they admire Joe’s independence.” 

Plante said Manchin’s approval rating in the state took a hit after he voted for last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which included prescription drug reform, investments to fight climate change and established a minimum corporate tax.  

But he said that recent national polling shows that most voters, including most independents, don’t want to see that law and its popular prescription drug reforms repealed.  

John Kilwein, a professor of political science at West Virginia University, said Manchin “spanking” Democrats for refusing to negotiate with McCarthy plays well in the state, which former President Trump carried with 69 percent of the vote in 2020.

“It keeps him in the news and communicates to his electorate, ‘I’m a common-sense guy, I’ll work with anybody. I’ll also reprimand members of my own party who I think are not in a common-sense place,’” Kilwein said.  

Manchin, who is 75, hasn’t yet said whether he will run for a fourth Senate term in 2024. 

But Kilwein questioned whether Manchin is going to have much success bringing McCarthy to the center, given his tenuous hold on the Speaker’s gavel and the power that a small group of conservatives have to call a snap election to remove him from power.  

“I don’t think anybody can talk that wing out of doing this [government] shutdown,” he said. 

Another big question is whether Manchin can get any Democrats to follow his lead in sitting down with McCarthy.  

Schumer has urged President Biden not to attempt any negotiation with McCarthy over raising the debt limit until the Speaker proves he has 218 votes to pass whatever fiscal reforms he wants to attach to debt limit legislation through the House.  

In that way, this year’s political dynamic is very different than 2011 — Manchin’s first year in the Senate — when then-President Obama readily agreed to negotiate with then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) over attaching spending cuts to a debt limit deal.  

Manchin does have some leverage over fellow Democrats in that they desperately need him to run for reelection to keep his West Virginia Senate seat. 

The tensions that built up between Manchin and many Senate Democratic colleagues during his protracted negotiations with Biden and then Schumer over the president’s climate agenda evaporated quickly after Manchin announced last summer that he would vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, which invested $369 billion into building a clean energy economy.  

A Senate Democratic aide says Manchin has free rein to reach out to McCarthy and other Republicans but predicted that he’s not going to bring along more than one or two centrists, like independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), with him.  

“Who else besides Manchin” is reaching out to McCarthy, the aide asked.

Source: TEST FEED1

McConnell, Senate GOP happy to sit out debt limit talks — for now

Senate Republicans say they’re happy to sit out the fight over raising the debt ceiling and cede the negotiations to their colleagues in the House — at least for now.

After a bruising year-end battle to pass the omnibus government spending package; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) using up a large chunk of political capital to help Democrats raise the debt ceiling in 2021; and Republicans taking control of the House, McConnell and members of the Senate GOP caucus neither need nor want to lead the current talks.

And they believe that House Republicans are in a solid position to win concessions that members in the Democrat-controlled upper chamber could not deliver.

They applauded McConnell saying earlier this week that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Republicans will be the ones dealing directly with the White House in debt talks. 

“The public is on the side of doing something. … Until we’re clear on what we’re going to do, I’m glad the House is taking that on. I think there will be many of us in the Senate who will welcome that,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) told reporters.

“We haven’t taken the leadership here to do anything about it and I think that they’re clear. … That’ll be a tricky negotiation over there because someone’s ox is going to get gored along the way,” he added.

But Senate Republicans are still closely watching the talks, waiting to see if McCarthy can unite his narrow majority around a deal and whether that deal is palatable.

A large part of the reason GOP senators are stepping back is simple political reality. Republicans control the House and thus have a better chance of moving their priorities in that chamber.

But part of it is political capital. After years of McConnell taking the lead on talks, the Kentucky Republican spent much of his in the past year-and-a-half to get the omnibus spending bill over the finish line last month and the debt ceiling raised at the end of 2021. 

Both deals prompted blowback and frustration within the Senate GOP, especially the 2021 debt ceiling fight. McConnell said that October that he would not help Democrats raise the borrowing limit again and called for them to do so via budget reconciliation. However, he backtracked on those remarks and cobbled together the needed votes to do just that less than two months later.

Given that history, Republicans are happy to allow McCarthy to serve as the chief negotiator this go-around and try his hand at securing concessions from Democrats. 

“I think the reason he’s taken that position this time around is because he understands that with the Republican House and the Democratic White House, you’re not going to get anything through the Senate that hasn’t been signed off by a Republican House or be willing to get a signature by a Democratic president,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, said of McConnell.

“This is a divided government. … Ultimately, that’s where I think the negotiation needs to start,” Thune added. 

However, there remains consternation on the Senate GOP side concerning how their House counterparts will ultimately handle these talks. 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters this week that he doesn’t “know what page they’re on” when asked if he’s on the same wavelength as the House GOP. 

As part of his bid to win over detractors in his party to win the Speaker’s gavel, McCarthy promised to make spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. But House Republicans haven’t said where those cuts should come from, and there is said to be disagreement among the members. 

Adding to the uncertainty, McCarthy — unlike McConnell, with whom the president served in the Senate — hasn’t swung deals over the years with Biden. He did, however, lay down a marker on Thursday as he told Donald Trump Jr., that Republicans “won’t touch Medicare or Social Security” amid speculation they might attempt to do just that. 

When Biden and McCarthy will engage in substantial discussions remains very much up in the air. Although Biden has indicated that he is ready to sit down with the newly minted GOP Speaker, the White House has insisted that the debt ceiling is not up for negotiation.

Speaking in Virginia on Thursday, Biden laid into House Republicans who are calling to reform the pair of entitlement programs, panning them for creating “chaos” with their efforts. 

“They want to cut your Social Security, Medicare. Now, this is the God’s truth,” Biden said. “It’s almost unbelievable.”

The president’s call has been backed up by other Democratic leaders, but not all rank-and-file members believe it is realistic. 

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who met with McCarthy on Wednesday, argued that the White House’s stance is “unreasonable.” The West Virginia centrist has, however, made clear that he too will not accept cuts to Social Security or Medicare. 

Even with the ballgame out of their hands for the time being, Senate GOP members say they think their colleagues across the Capitol complex can strike a deal that wins support in the upper chamber.

“I don’t think we’re going to have a default,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told The Hill. “I think there’s enough folks over there that understand how significant that is.”

“It’s a matter of having a discussion about how we go down the path of reducing the amount of debt we’re incurring.“ Rounds added. “Now, what is palatable to them is yet to be determined, but I think there are some folks over there that would like the opportunity to have the discussion right now — and now’s as good a time as any to have that discussion.”

Aris Folley contributed. 

Source: TEST FEED1