The Battle Over the Border Bill Has Begun, But May Already Be Over

In theory, Wednesday will see a procedural vote on the border bill that was hammered out by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and announced over the weekend. But don't count your chickens quite yet, since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) may choose not to move forward if he thinks he's just going to end up with egg on his face.

There are some very important players who have come out in favor of the bill. Joe Biden is among them; he issued a statement yesterday that reads, in part: "Now we've reached an agreement on a bipartisan national security deal that includes the toughest and fairest set of border reforms in decades. I strongly support it." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also threw his weight behind it, declaring:

The national security legislation we're preparing to take up will invest heavily in the capabilities and capacity America and our allies need to regain the upper hand over this emerging axis of authoritarians. Make no mistake: the gauntlet has been thrown. And America needs to pick it up.

Also backing the deal is the union that represents border patrol agents. This is being treated as a "big deal" because the union twice endorsed Donald Trump for president. But really, c'mon. Of course they are going to back a deal that means $20 billion in new spending, primarily on border patrol agents.

And now, the opponents of the bill, of which there are only two worth noting. First, on the blue side, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is very unhappy about the bill, in part because it too fully reflects conservative priorities, and in part because all three senators who negotiated the bill are white (and, therefore, not members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus). Undoubtedly, Schumer tapped Murphy because the Senator is a veteran negotiator, a close ally, and is chair of the Senate's Subcommittee on Homeland Security. However, it might have made things more palatable if Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) had been a part of the team, since he is Latino and is from a border state. In any event, presumably the votes of some CHC members will not be gettable. This is also going to make some of the other Democrats, particularly those who are liberal and/or people of color, reluctant.

And on the red side, the key opponent, of course, is Donald Trump, who spent Monday raging about the bill. On "Truth" Social, he decreed: "Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill" (note that we would put [sic]s in there to indicate all the grammar errors, but then it would be unreadable). Trump also promised to "fight the bill all the way." And, most significantly, appearing on a right-wing radio show, he said of Lankford: "I think this is a very bad bill for his career." There is no Republican in the Senate or the House who missed the threat implied by that last comment, and so yesterday GOP members were coming out of the woodwork to slam the bill.

With all of this said, Lankford did a masterful job in negotiations. He knew well that Democrats really want money for the various foreign situations, and they really want to defang the immigration issue as best they possibly can, so he extracted more concessions than would be possible at practically any other time. It's going to be tough for Republican members to walk away from that, knowing that even if Trump becomes president again, they're not going to get a better bill (or, likely, any bill). It is also the case that many of them want the money for Ukraine and/or Israel, and this may be the last chance to get it.

From the Democratic side, meanwhile, it remains the case that they really want the foreign money and they really want to say "Hey! We did something on immigration!" heading into the 2024 cycle. Further, while the CHC is opposed as an entity, not all Latino and Latina members are upset. In particular, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who just so happens to be running for the U.S. Senate in a border state, has come out strongly in favor. So, maybe the majority of Democrats who have reservations will, in the end, swallow hard and vote "yea."

All of this is to say that if you had to bet, you should bet the bill won't make it past the Senate. But, it could. And if it does, then House Republicans will face a real day of reckoning. (Z)

Today's the Day for Nevada

Well, it's one of the days for Nevada, at least, as voters there will cast their ballots in the state's primaries. Ultimately, the day is somewhat meaningless, as the results are already known. On the Republican side, Nikki Haley will get zero delegates, since the Republicans chose to award their delegates this year via a caucus, which will be held on Thursday. And on the Democratic side, Joe Biden will get all 36 delegates, since he has no serious competition.

With that said, there are a couple of things to watch for, at least if you squint hard. On the Republican side, Haley cannot lose to Donald Trump, since he's not on the ballot. However, she is up against Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who qualified for the ballot before suspending their campaigns. It would be pretty embarrassing for either of them to be competitive with her, although that is somewhat unlikely. Considerably more likely is an outcome made possible by a quirky element of Nevada election law: Haley could lose to "none of these candidates." The Haley campaign is already bracing for this possibility by reminding everyone that the candidate has spent no time or money in Nevada, because she decided not to "participate in a process that was rigged for Trump."

Meanwhile, the other (small) thing to watch for is how fully Biden crushes his competition. He took 96% of the vote in South Carolina, and he may do better than that in Nevada, since one of his nominal "challengers," Dean Phillips, botched the paperwork and did not make the ballot. On the other hand, there are 11 non-Marianne-Williamson candidates who weren't on the ballot in South Carolina, including one named Superpayaseria Crystalroc. So, if Nevadans are looking to cast a protest vote, they'll have a lot more options than in the Palmetto State.

Anyhow, we'll have an item on it tomorrow, even if the whole thing is kind of a waste of time and money. Who knows what we'll do, in terms of writing something interesting, once we get to primaries where all the little fish have finally seen the light and dropped out. (Z)

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Because Joe Biden isn't. Oh, he will probably watch the Super Bowl this weekend, either at the White House or at his residence in Delaware. After all, we hear he's a huge Taylor Swift fan. However, for the second year in a row, he has declined to sit for the pre-Super Bowl presidential interview that has become "traditional" in the last decade or so.

Normally, a politician is thrilled to get access to millions of voters, free of charge. So, why isn't Biden champing at the bit? The official explanation from the White House is that politics fatigue is a real phenomenon, and that there are many people who become resentful when the allegedly apolitical world of sports is infringed upon by political considerations. The administration thinks that it's going to be difficult to do much good this far out from the election, but that by crashing the Super Bowl party, Biden '24 might do itself some harm.

We do not disagree with this assessment, but we also suspect it's not the full story. Biden, of course, doesn't do great interviews, and he sits for considerably fewer of them than most presidents. Further, there are a number of touchy issues that are currently on the radar. He would surely get some tough-to-nearly-unanswerable questions about Israel and/or the border. One can understand a desire to avoid such questions until those situations have matured a bit more.

Of course, Donald Trump never met a PR opportunity he didn't like. And so, he's already volunteered to take Biden's place, promising it will be "RATINGS GOLD!" We have news for you, Donald—the Super Bowl is ratings gold with or without you. It does not appear that CBS is going to take Trump up on the offer, which is really too bad, because he rarely sits for interviews outside of ultra-friendly, softball-tossing right-wing media outlets. He only made the offer yesterday, though, so there is still time for the CBS bigwigs to change their minds. (Z)

Today's Episode of "How the House Turns"

We had an item yesterday about the members of the Squad, and their prospects for reelection. Everything in that piece was pretty standard for the world of politics—some Squad members have managed to make themselves fairly bulletproof, others have some weaknesses and have drawn challenges from the center-left.

Now, we'll direct our attention to the other side of the aisle, where there tends to be much more drama of a soap-operaesque sort (our spell check doesn't like "operaesque" any better than it liked "degerrymandering"—tough luck, spell check). To start, the right-wing equivalent of the Squad is the "Gaetz Eight," the group of Republican members who joined with the Democrats to expel Kevin McCarthy from the speakership. McCarthy may be out of Congress now, but he hasn't forgiven or forgotten. And so, he and his allies are working hard to recruit primary challengers to try and unseat Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and his seven friends.

Thus far, two of the eight have strong challengers: Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Bob Good (R-VA). Those challengers are going to find themselves benefiting from McCarthy's vast network of donors. The former speaker and his advisers think that Eli Crane (R-AZ) is, like Mace and Good, particularly vulnerable to a challenge, and so finding someone to do that is the top priority right now. The remaining quintet, including Gaetz, might not be targeted this cycle if a viable opponent cannot be found. However, Team McCarthy promises they will be back next cycle, and the cycle after that, and the cycle after that, until vengeance has been wrought upon all eight apostates.

And speaking of Mace, this is not the only drama in which she is involved. Somebody (very possibly someone linked to McCarthy) has been chatting with The Daily Beast, and has revealed that there is rather a lot of turnover among members of Mace's staff. To be more precise, she had nine staffers in her Washington office as of November 1 of last year, and since then all nine have either been fired or have quit. And all have said unflattering things about their departures, using words like "abusive," "toxic," "delusional" and "demoralizing."

Now, allow us to pause here and note that there have been numerous stories of this sort about women who are or were members of Congress (Mace, Katie Porter, Kyrsten Sinema, Kamala Harris, etc.) but very few about men. It is entirely possible there's some underlying sexism in this story in any or all of the following ways:

• Such stories only get written when it's a woman
• Such behavior is only perceived as problematic when it's a woman
• Staffers only respond badly to such behavior when it's a woman
• Women are compelled to be more aggressive/assertive than men, so as to be taken seriously

In this case, however, we think that it's not about Mace's gender. Some of the specific stories related to the Daily Beast are pretty shocking, like Mace not allowing Catholic staffers to take an hour off to attend services on Good Friday, or Mace's new chief-of-staff calling the Capitol police on one of the fired staffers for... reasons unknown. Said one anonymous witness to that incident: "At that moment, I felt the most unsafe I ever had on the Hill, when I realized she was using the Capitol Police to intimidate staff."

And finally, a story that's somewhat unusual and dramatic, but at least not in a negative way. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) had previously announced her retirement from the House, but now she has changed her mind, and will file to run for reelection. "As someone who grew up under tyranny," she explained. "I understand the significance of these challenging times for our Republic, and if my fellow Hoosiers and God decide, I will be honored to continue fighting for them."

Exactly what that means is anyone's guess. Spartz is certainly a conservative, but she's also known for bucking the party line far more often than is normal, especially for a Republican member. So maybe she wants to be around to rein in Donald Trump if he is reelected. Or maybe she wants to be around to rein in Joe Biden if HE is reelected. People who know Spartz say she might have been referring to the "tyranny" of the national debt. Possibly also a factor is that she was born in Ukraine and grew up there, coming to the U.S. at 22. Maybe she wants to stay in the House to keep voting for aid to Ukraine. Who knows? In any case, having "retired," she encouraged a couple of serious competitors to jump into the race, and they say they're not getting out. So, she'll have a tougher row to hoe than otherwise would be the case. However, as an incumbent, she's still going to be the favorite to keep the seat. (Z)

Here Comes Da Judges

The new Senate will be seated on January 3 of next year. That means there are 333 days left that Joe Biden can be (reasonably) assured of a Democratic-majority Senate. It also means that he's got to hustle if he wants to seat as many federal judges as Donald Trump did in his 4 years.

The raw numbers are as follows. Trump seated 234 judges, while Biden just saw his 175th judge confirmed. Biden has actually already outpaced first-term Barack Obama, but he's obviously 59 behind Trump. There are currently 57 vacancies, and there will surely be at least two more in the next 11 months, so equaling Trump is, at very least, mathematically possible.

Of course, the more important question is: Is it actually possible? That's much harder to say. To start, Biden has to actually come up with nominees; thus far he's tapped someone for only 23 of the open seats. Once his staff rounds up another 34+ candidates, there are the following additional challenges to overcome:

• A lot of Senate floor time is being taken up right now with budget matters.
  
  
• As we get closer to election season, the Senate will be in session less, so that members can campaign.
  
  
• Not all Democratic votes are a sure thing right now. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Jon Tester (D-MT) are going to be leery of voting for anyone controversial as they mount their reelection bids. And Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema are even wilder wild cards right now than usual.
  
  
• Republicans are going to do some amount of obstruction. Already, Democrats are complaining that Republican members are abusing the blue slip process, by which a member can veto a nominee who would serve in their home state. It's not a coincidence that a sizable number of the open seats without a nominee are in red states, particularly Texas, Louisiana and Missouri. Further, once nominees actually reach the voting stage, Republican members can drag things out, if they see fit. That, of course, leaves less time for consideration of other nominees.

Biden is going to run, in part, on having seated lots of judges. And while there really isn't much difference between, say, 230 judges and 234 judges, there is a lot of difference between "I seated as many as/more than Trump" and "I seated fewer than Trump." So, the White House is very motivated here. So are Chuck Schumer and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL). All three men know how to play the game, having been playing it for 136 years, collectively. So, don't bet against them. (Z)

Better Update Your Resume, Ronna

As we have noted many times, the respective chairs of the Republican and Democratic parties have two jobs: (1) win elections and (2) raise money. And since #2 is really just an aspect of #1, you can just boil it down to "win elections," if you really want.

By either, or both, standards, Ronna Romney McDaniel has been a terrible chair of the RNC. Since she took office in January of 2017, the Republicans have had three cycles where they underperformed expectations, and have gone 0-1 in presidential elections. Fundraising has also been anemic, such that the central party has less money in its coffers right now than at any time in the last decade ($8 million, and $1 million of debt).

Normally, in these circumstances, McDaniel would have been out of work long ago. However, her one trump card has been, well, Donald Trump. He runs the Party, and as long as he wants her to stay, she can stay. The members of the Republican National Committee kowtow to him at all turns and, besides, they know the disastrous record of the last 7 years is really his fault, not hers.

Unfortunately for McDaniel, she appears to have officially lost the former president's support. This weekend, he was interviewed on one of the right-wing networks where he's willing to appear, and was asked about her performance. He said: "I think she did great when she ran Michigan for me. I think she did OK, initially, in the RNC. I would say right now, there'll probably be some changes made."

Why the change in Trump's thinking? He did not say, but we can come up with at least four plausible explanations:

1. As he so often does, he has tired of a loyalist, and wants to switch to someone shiny and new.
2. As he so often does, he's creating a scapegoat for his own failures.
3. Someone in his inner circle has gotten to him and convinced him McDaniel needs to go.
4. He's punishing Uncle Mitt, who has been sharply critical of Trump in the past few weeks.

The Donald is mercurial, of course, and could change his mind at the drop of a (MAGA) hat. That said, he's alluded to his disenchantment with McDaniel several times in the past month or so, and if a change is going to be made in 2024, it needs to be made before things really heat up. So, if she can hang on until May or so, she's probably OK until the end of her current term (January 2025). But until May dawns, she should be very nervous. (Z)

New Hampshire Might Count, After All

While Ronna Romney McDaniel was making one kind of news this weekend, her Democratic counterpart Jaime Harrison was making a very different sort of news. Speaking at an election night event in South Carolina, Harrison said that the "punishment" imposed on New Hampshire might be reversed, and that the state's delegates to the Democratic National Convention might be seated after all, despite defying DNC rules about South Carolina going first.

And actually, that doesn't quite do justice to Harrison's remarks, which were uttered in a very public conversation with Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC). Here's the whole exchange:

Clyburn: I believe, Jaime, that it's time for us to ask our Rules committee not to hold the state law in New Hampshire against our Democrats. They worked hard, and they won a victory. And I would like to see as a sign of us all coming together... Let the Rules Committee figure out a way.

Harrison: When the boss speaks (laughs). We'll have to work on that, congressman.

It's possible that was spontaneous, but doesn't it feel a little bit scripted to you? It certainly does to us.

Anyhow, if Harrison really wants to make this happen, he can make it happen. And, in fact, now that he's come out in support of the notion, it would be very hard for him to back off. So, plan on there being some New Hampshirites in Chicago on August 19. This will mean that Joe Biden and the blue team will have made their statement about the importance of Black voters while not penalizing (and, presumably, not aggravating) New Hampshire Democrats in a meaningful way. This seems like a very Bidenesque, veteran politico maneuver to us (and no, the spell check doesn't like "Bidenesque," either). (Z)

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