What to Know in Washington: House GOP Feels Bullish on Majority

The GOP isn’t about to give up the House.

“Republicans in 2024 are going to grow our majority,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (N.C.) insisted in remarks to reporters at this week’s House GOP retreat at West Virginia’s Greenbrier Resort.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), flanked by Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), at the House GOP retreat in West Virginia yesterday.

His remarks run counter to predictions by many non-partisan observers that Democrats are well-positioned to take the chamber in the November elections. Hudson argued, “We’ve got one of the best political environments we’ve seen in decades because President Joe Biden and the Democrats have failed.”

Both parties have projected optimism about the next election, but the level of bullishness from the House GOP is noticeably growing.

“After redistricting, a lot of people thought the Republicans would be behind, but it’s actually been a wash overall,” Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) told reporters at the retreat. Johnson touted fundraising for vulnerable Republicans and what he characterized as an “extraordinary” class of new recruits.

With the House in play, Republicans huddled at the century-old resort to plot how to expand their numbers. Bloomberg Government’s Maeve Sheehey offers are five arguments they believe will help them win in November. Read them here.

BIDEN’S AGENDA

• The president will host Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar at 10:30 a.m. for a bilateral meeting and deliver remarks at the Friends of Ireland Luncheon around 12:30 p.m.
• Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold a briefing around 2:30 p.m.

CONGRESS’ SCHEDULE

• The House and Senate are out until Tuesday.
• For more details read BGOV’s Congress Tracker.

People, Power, and Politics

Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg

TikTok creators hold signs behind Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) during a news conference outside the Capitol on March 12.

TIKTOK’S strategy to send in social media influencers to a policy fight shined a light on a growing component of influence campaigns, one that usually eludes federal lobbying disclosures, prompting some lobbyists to call for updated rules.

• Not every piece of legislation has the built-in advantage of targeting a social media giant, like the sell-or-be-banned measure, but lobbyists say such platforms are increasingly a staple of influence campaigns. Read more.
• Senate Delays: Senators on both sides of the aisle swatted down the idea of fast-tracking the legislation that would force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the app within six months, reducing its prospects of becoming law. Read more.

NORTH CAROLINA glimmers as a prize in presidential politics. To help give Biden a shot, Democrats are running candidates in local races in small towns that used to go uncontested and encouraging voters to vote the party line up and down the ballot.

• They’re also highlighting issues, such as development concerns, along with national ones such as abortion. Read more.

SEN. BOB MENENDEZ’S constitutional challenge to his indictment on charges of bribery and acting as a foreign agent on behalf of the government of Egypt was rejected by a federal court, a blow to the New Jersey Democrat. Read more.

GOP CANDIDATES and their multimillion-dollar backers have zeroed in on security on the Mexico border as the leading issue in Ohio’s March 19 primaries, making those races the first statewide test of how immigration politics will factor in to the 2024 elections. Read more.

DONALD TRUMP’S first criminal trial may not begin March 25 as planned, after attorneys for the Manhattan district attorney and the former president told a judge they’d received thousands of new pages of evidence from federal prosecutors.

• Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said yesterday they received some 31,000 pages of records tied to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who is expected to testify at trial. Read more.
• Documents Case: Meanwhile, Trump lost his bid to have charges that he mishandled classified documents dropped on grounds they’re too vague. The ruling is one of the first major pre-trial actions that US District Judge Aileen Cannon has taken so far. Read more.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR, 70, has faced little public pressure from progressives to retire ahead of the election in which Republicans may regain control of the White House, Senate, or both—even as the justice said at recently that she’s been “tired.” Read more.

Also Happening on the Hill

LAWMAKERS are weighing a stopgap Homeland funding bill that would run through the end of September, as border issues hold up a six-bill spending package due March 22. The measure would run for the rest of the fiscal year, two people familiar said.

• The impasse highlights the difficulty lawmakers have had negotiating bills touching on border security issues. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Republicans are broadly unwilling to meet in the middle on those issues.
• Appropriations Chair Patty Murphy (D-Wash.) warned earlier yesterday that lawmakers would have to consider a stopgap for Homeland Security funds “pretty soon” if members don’t reach an agreement. Read more.

SENATE TAX WRITERS are scrambling to save the House-passed business and child tax legislation stagnating in the body. Several Finance Committee members said despite the stalemate, the bill still has a route to passage — they’re just not sure what that is. Read more.

FLORIDA’S GOP SENATORS urged the White House to label Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua — tied to the exodus of 7 million Venezuelans in the past decade — as a transnational criminal organization in an effort to curb the gang’s alleged expansion into the US. Read more.

LEGISLATION to allow year-round sales of gasoline with a higher blend of corn ethanol has hit a roadblock in the Senate despite backing from agriculture and petroleum oil firms, said Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), the bill’s author. Read more.

DEMOCRATS objected to the Export-Import Bank’s vote to provide a $500 million loan guarantee for an oil and gas development in Bahrain, claiming it would worsen climate change and undermine America’s credibility in its campaign to reduce emissions. Read more.

Defense & Foreign Affairs

HAMAS has proposed what it’s calling a “comprehensive” cease-fire deal, in a bid to move forward talks with Israel as their war in Gaza rages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the militant group is still making unrealistic demands, the country’s war cabinet is expected to discuss the matter today.

• Hamas proposes that Israeli women, children, elderly, and ill hostages can be freed in exchange for the release of 700-1,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, Reuters reported. Read more.

THE WHITE HOUSE sanctioned two Israeli settlements in the West Bank yesterday and called on the country to do more to end violence against Palestinians there, as tensions continue between the two governments over the war in the Gaza Strip. Read more.

THE LEADER of Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they will expand their anti-ship attacks to Israel-linked ships in the Indian Ocean using the Cape of Good Hope route. He said the Houthis carried out three attacks in the Indian Ocean this week. Read more.

The FCC is investigating whether mobile devices in the US that receive and process signals from satellites controlled by foreign adversaries are violating federal rules. But it is not clear whether the practice poses a security threat, the FCC said. Read more.

What Else We’re Watching

A RECENT PICKUP in inflation isn’t likely to shift Federal Reserve policymakers’ forecasts for three interest-rate cuts this year and four in 2025, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Read more.

STATES are increasingly enacting laws requiring hospitals and other providers to alert them of smaller mergers or acquisitions, supporting the work of federal antitrust regulators investigating the health-care sector. Read more.

INDUSTRY STANDARD SETTERS that will establish uniform protocols for sharing consumer data under the CFPB’s open banking proposal can’t be controlled by only a few big players, agency head Rohit Chopra said. Read more.

UNITED AIRLINES is close to securing at least three dozen Airbus A321neo jets from aircraft lessors, as it looks to replace Boeing 737 Max 10 orders that are years behind schedule, people familiar with the matter said. Read more.

To contact the reporters on this story: Brandon Lee in Washington at blee@bgov.com; Jeannie Baumann in Washington at jbaumann@bloombergindustry.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kayla Sharpe at ksharpe@bloombergindustry.com