“Speaker Mike Johnson has released bills to send tens of billions of dollars in aid to Israel, Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific, setting up a vote Saturday on the long-awaited priority,” Punchbowl News reports.
“Here are the bills: Israel, Ukraine and Indo-Pacific. Here’s a fact sheet from the House Appropriations Committee.”
“The legislation clocks in at $95 billion in defense, economic and humanitarian funding, similar to what the Senate approved two months ago.”
“This is a major victory for President Joe Biden, who has been lobbying for months for aid to Kyiv. But it nearly guarantees that hardline Republicans will seek to oust Speaker Mike Johnson.”
Punchbowl News: “When Johnson first floated his plan for a GOP foreign aid bill on Monday, the Louisiana Republican’s aides understood that they’d need votes from Democrats to get it across the finish line. Republican leaders presented Johnson’s decision as the responsible move to get much-needed funding to embattled U.S. allies at a critical moment.”
“The theory of the case in both parties’ leadership was that Johnson would be able to remain speaker after Republicans and Democrats joined together to table a motion to vacate. It’s not terribly sustainable politically, but GOP leadership aides appeared comfortable with the odd arrangement.”
“Yet Johnson now finds himself slipping into an old habit that infuriates his leadership colleagues and senior Republicans. He’s taking meetings with all comers in the GOP conference, mulling different pathways to change his proposed plan in order to mollify the hardliners. To some inside the Republican leadership, Johnson started with a solid offer and now is undermining his own position by negotiating with conservatives who’ll never vote for the proposal no matter what’s in it.”
Playbook: “When and if a bill appears, we’ll know if he caved. But know this: If Johnson wants the bill to make it to Joe Biden’s desk — and we’re told he does — he’ll have to hold firm and face up to a potential motion to vacate.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson’s elaborate plan for pushing aid to Ukraine through the House over his own party’s objections relies on an unusual strategy: He is counting on House Democrats and their leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, to provide the votes necessary to clear the way for it to come to the floor,” the New York Times reports.
“If Democrats were to provide those crucial votes, it would mark the second time in two years that Republican leaders have had to turn to the minority party to rescue them from their own recalcitrant right-wing colleagues in order to allow major legislation to be debated and voted on.”
“Given Republicans’ tiny margin of control, Mr. Johnson will need their support on the aid itself. But before he even gets to that, he will need their votes on a procedural motion, known as a rule, to even bring the legislation to the floor — an unconventional expectation of the minority party.”
Politico: Capitol Hill stays in waiting mode on Johnson’s foreign aid bill text.
“Speaker Mike Johnson’s weakened position inside the House GOP conference has sparked delicate internal discussions about who could potentially replace him if he can’t hang on to the job – whether it’s in this Congress or the next one, according to interviews with over a dozen Republican lawmakers and aides,” CNN reports.
“While no one is looking to challenge the Louisiana Republican outright and few are even interested in taking the reins of the chaotic and razor-thin majority, there’s a widespread belief that there could be another leadership shakeup in the future – and some Republicans are quietly positioning themselves for such a scenario.”
CNN: House Democrats keep options open as effort to oust Johnson grows.
What initially seemed like a jury selection process in the hush-money trial that could drag on for as long as weeks shifted quickly into productive mode yesterday afternoon. By the end of the day, seven of the 18 jurors (12 jurors + 6 alternates) had been selected, and the judge was telling them to plan on being back Monday for opening statements.
The trial stood in recess on Wednesday. That gives the judge Thursday and Friday to complete jury selection. Monday opening statements could still get pushed back if things go slower than expected the rest of this week, but only by a day or so. In short, the trial remains on track despite some early misgivings.
The trial judge issued his show cause order, setting a hearing for next Wednesday on whether Trump violated the terms of the gag order against him and should be sanctioned for it, as prosecutors are arguing.
The order itself contains a big, bold-faced warning to Trump at the top: “Warning: Your failure to appear in court may result in your immediate arrest and imprisonment for contempt of court.”
“Representatives for the firm that posted a $175 million bond for Donald Trump pushed back against objections raised by New York’s attorney general, saying in a court filing late Monday that the deal is ‘adequately secured’ by the former president’s cash,” the Washington Post reports.
“The filing sets the stage for a court hearing next week in Trump’s New York civil fraud case, where Justice Arthur Engoron will decide whether the bond has met state requirements — allowing Trump to appeal a massive civil judgment and preventing state authorities from seizing his properties in the meantime.”
“Israel is vowing to retaliate against Iran, risking further expanding the shadow war between the two foes into a direct conflict after an Iranian attack over the weekend sent hundreds of drones and missiles toward Israel,” the AP reports.
“Israeli officials have not said how or when they might strike. But as countries around the world urge Israel to show restraint and the threat of a multi-front war mounts, it’s clear that a direct Israeli attack on Iranian soil would lead to major fallout.”
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) “is prepared to blame his wife at his bribery trial for withholding information from him about gifts they allegedly accepted from businessmen seeking favors, a newly unsealed court document shows,” Bloomberg reports.
“The revelation came Tuesday in a portion of a March court filing in which lawyers for the New Jersey Democrat asked a US judge to try him separately from his wife, Nadine. They are accused of accepting bribes of cash, gold bars and a car to help three businessmen and the Egyptian government. Menendez is also accused of acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.”
Politico: “Just ask a Ukrainian soldier if he still believes the West will stand by Kyiv ‘for as long as it takes.’ That pledge rings hollow when it’s been four weeks since your artillery unit last had a shell to fire, as one serviceman complained from the front lines. It’s not just that Ukraine’s forces are running out of ammunition.”
“Russia’s Foreign Ministry has been drawing up plans to try to weaken its Western adversaries, including the United States, and leverage the Ukraine war to forge a global order free from what it sees as American dominance, according to a secret Foreign Ministry document,” the Washington Post reports.
“House Republicans in Arizona on Wednesday scuttled another effort to repeal the state’s 1864 law banning abortion, defying pressure from prominent Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump, who had urged them to toss the ban that many voters viewed as extreme and archaic,” the New York Times reports.
Said Speaker Ben Toma (R): “The last thing we should be doing today is rushing a bill through the legislative process to repeal a law that has been enacted and reaffirmed by the Legislature several times.”
“The Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling last week to uphold the Civil War-era near-total abortion ban infuriated supporters of abortion rights, exhilarated abortion opponents and set off a political firestorm in Arizona, where Republicans narrowly control both houses of the State Legislature but foresaw a grave political threat. Repealing it would revert Arizona to a 15-week abortion ban.”
Reuters: “The law, which would take effect within 60 days, imposes a sentence of two to five years for anyone found guilty of inducing an abortion except for a doctor who deems it necessary to save the life of the mother.”
Los Angeles Times: Abortion ban has supercharged Arizona politics. What will GOP legislators do?
“Donald Trump could have cleared up confusion and hastened the arrival of National Guard troops to quell the Capitol riot if he’d called Pentagon leaders on Jan. 6, 2021, according to recent closed-door congressional testimony by two former leaders of the D.C. guard,” Politico reports.
“But Trump never called any military leaders on Jan. 6, per testimony from senior administration officials to the Jan. 6 select committee — a fact that the panel emphasized in its final report that concluded Trump was uniquely responsible for the violent Capitol attack by his supporters. Rather, he was observing the riot on TV and calling allies in his quest to subvert the 2020 election, as outlined by committee witnesses and White House records.”
“As he kicked off a series of events in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, President Joe Biden freely ripped into his nemesis,” NBC News reports.
“From his hometown, Scranton, Biden chided Donald Trump about his past tax plan for giving tax breaks to billionaires and his comments about Social Security. He joked about Trump’s personal financial predicament. He accused Trump of ballooning the federal debt, razzed him for suggesting that injecting bleach could battle Covid-19 and called him ‘Donald Herbert Hoover Trump.’”
“What Biden didn’t do is touch the lowest-hanging fruit of all — the fact that at the same time, Trump was sitting in a New York City courtroom, the first president or former president in history to stand criminal trial.”
“Donald Trump repeatedly ranted about wind power during a fundraising dinner with oil and gas industry executives last week, falsely claiming that the renewable-energy source is unreliable, unattractive and bad for the environment,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “I hate wind.”
“Trump’s comments reveal how he is wooing potential donors with his long-standing hostility to wind farms and pledges to halt this form of renewable energy if he returns to office. His stance poses a potential threat to one of the linchpins of America’s clean energy transition, according to more than a dozen Trump allies, energy experts and offshore wind industry officials.”
Washington Post: “He was a publicity hound and a tabloid star. He was a developer who bragged about his acquisitions and exaggerated his wealth, emblazoning his name on towers that scraped the sky. He was a Queens boy made good — with no small amount of help from his father’s money — bursting onto the Manhattan scene through sheer force of personality.”
“Donald Trump was, in short, a certain type of New Yorker — brash, boorish, bombastic.”
“But now, in a New York trial that began Monday — Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up an alleged hush money payment to an adult-film star during the 2016 election — the former president’s long-running and turbulent love affair with the city seems to have finally run into irreconcilable differences.”
“Some members of Congress who led the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot acknowledge they’ve talked to their families about their safety — and the risk of their arrest — if Trump wins a second term in November,” CBS News reports.
“House Democrats who helped lead the House Jan. 6 select committee and some of the police witnesses who testified before it predicted they’d be targeted for retribution by a future Trump administration.”
“Trump raised the prospect of future arrests of some of the Jan. 6 committee participants in a social media post on March 18.”
The New York Times reports that Melania Trump — who was visibly furious with her husband after the first reports broke that her husband paid a porn star “hush money” — is now supposedly “angry” with the “disgrace” of a criminal trial playing out in Manhattan.
From the report: “But Mrs. Trump, the former first lady, shares his view that the trial itself is unfair, according to several people familiar with her thinking. In private, she has called the proceedings “a disgrace” tantamount to election interference, according to a person with direct knowledge of her comments who could not speak publicly out of fear of jeopardizing a personal relationship with the Trumps.”
Excuse me for being cynical, but this reads like it was sourced directly from a member of Donald Trump’s legal team.
When news of the scandal first broke in 2018, Melania Trump left Washington, D.C. for several weeks for Mar-a-Lago and returned only to travel to the State of the Union address in separate cars.
If Melania Trump were truly concerned for her husband’s “persecution” — as he regularly puts it — she might at least make an appearance in the courtroom or stand by his side at a campaign event.
But she’s nowhere to be seen.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA) suggested to reporters that it was a “mathematical possibility” that Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) could become Speaker of the House this year.
It speaks volumes about the incredibly weak position Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) finds himself in.
After Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) resigns at the end of this week — giving Republicans a two seat majority — Johnson will almost certainly need Democrats to save his job if Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) motion to oust him comes up for a vote.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-NJ) and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) have said they would help save Johnson’s job in that scenario.
And that won’t come free. Democrats will insist Johnson make concessions to them on important policy matters.
While Johnson claims to be a champion of conservative priorities, the reality is that he’ll only remain in his job past this week if Democrats bail him out.
That would make Johnson no more than a “coalition speaker” despite the technical Republican majority.
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