Speaker Mike Johnson rapidly reversed plans to endorse Rep. Matt Rosendale in Montana’s critical Senate race after receiving heavy blowback from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Rosendale, a top leadership antagonist, is preparing to launch his campaign against veteran Tim Sheehy in the competitive race against Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) — one of the GOP’s best pickup opportunities. Johnson had planned to boost Rosendale in the primary, a move directly at odds with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who are backing Sheehy.

But “upon reflection, the speaker withdrew his endorsement largely based on the reality that Rosendale is the weaker candidate by far against Tester,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.).

Johnson informed a Republican senator about his decision to not follow through with the planned endorsement, according to a person familiar with the matter. Endorsing Rosendale also could have raised the ire of former President Donald Trump, whom the congressman famously snubbed on the House floor when Trump sought to speak to him on the telephone during the speakership race more than a year ago.

A Johnson adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the speaker was sympathetic to Rosendale and had considered a possible endorsement. But after reflecting on it with his political team and others, he decided sending a contribution was most appropriate.

“The Speaker has committed to sending a check from his leadership PAC to Congressman Rosendale, as he has for other House colleagues and friends, but he has not made any endorsements in Senate races. He is singularly focused on growing the House majority,” Greg Steele, Johnson’s communications director, said in a statement.

Rosendale voted for an emergency Israel aid bill this week that did not have spending cuts or offsets, a move that boosted the embattled speaker but is out of character with Rosendale’s budget-cutting persona. Some Republicans privately expressed concerns that Rosendale’s vote for the legislation could be viewed as a trade for Johnson’s endorsement, according to a second person familiar with the private conversations.

The speaker’s plans to endorse Rosendale were first reported by Punchbowl News. Johnson’s reversal was first reported by POLITICO.

Rosendale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The federal budget gap is expected to top $1.6 trillion this year and grow by another $1 trillion over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

In its latest 10-year outlook for the federal budget and the economy, the federal forecaster said the widening deficit, or the difference between how much money the government spends and takes in, is largely driven by a greater share of federal spending on net interest costs, an aging population, and higher spending on mandatory programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Federal spending on net interest costs, in particular, is ballooning. Beginning next year, the amount of money that the government spends on servicing federal debt is expected to be greater in relation to the size of the economy than at any other point since 1940, according to the budget office.

CBO’s deficit projections are still lower than last year’s estimate, thanks in part to the bipartisan debt limit deal Congress passed last summer, greater economic output and stagnant government funding more than four months into fiscal 2024.

Relative to the size of the economy, federal debt is expected to rise from 99 percent this year to 116 percent of GDP in the next decade, blowing past its historical high and skyrocketing to 172 percent of GDP by 2054.

Those debt projections are lower than the budget office’s past forecast, as well. Last year CBO predicted the debt-to-GDP ratio could reach 129 percent of GDP within a decade, and 192 percent within 30 years.

On the heels of a now-doomed border security deal in the Senate that sought to curb immigration, the budget office also notes that higher immigration is contributing to a bigger workforce, boosting economic growth and increasing revenue by about $1 trillion over a decade. CBO expects a surge in immigration to last through 2026, and projects that the labor force will have 5.2 million more people in 2033 compared to the agency’s projections last year.

The economy “grew strongly” in 2023, compared with the previous year, CBO notes. The budget office also said inflation should continue slowing this year, in line with the Federal Reserve’s long-run goal of 2 percent, while the central bank is expected to reduce interest rates in the coming months. Inflation then “ticks up” slightly in 2025, the budget office predicts, before falling slightly.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Matt Gaetz led the GOP push that ejected Kevin McCarthy from the speakership. Now he’s turning to his next target: Booting another fellow Republican from the House entirely.

The Florida Republican is slated to headline a campaign rally next week with Darren Bailey, the GOP primary rival of Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Bost is a longtime foe of Gaetz’s inside the GOP conference, but the rally amounts to an escalation of their mutual disdain.

“I helped defeat Liz Cheney when she faced a strong challenger in her race, and I’m confident we can do the same when we hit the trail in Southern Illinois,” Gaetz said in a statement first provided to POLITICO, while praising Bailey as “an upgrade over the lackluster Republican incumbent.”

The bad blood between Gaetz and Bost is well-known in the House, spilling into view during a House GOP meeting last year where Bost exploded in rage at Gaetz for trying to address colleagues after engineering McCarthy’s firing. That clash culminated with Bost, a Marine veteran, lunging towards Gaetz after the firebrand ignored his cries to sit down.

Bost, meanwhile, appears unfazed by Gaetz’s visit to his backyard.

Asked if he considered Gaetz a threat, Bost replied: “I never considered Matt a threat. I considered him an ass, but never a threat.”

Bost will be the third sitting House Republican whom Gaetz has actively campaigned against. The Floridian previously held rallies against former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) before the party excommunicated her for criticizing Donald Trump and his influence on GOP leaders.

Gaetz also worked to unseat a fellow Floridian, former Rep. Ross Spano (R), whose reelection bid in 2020 was hurt by a Justice Department investigation into how he financed his 2018 campaign.

Bost, however, is a tougher enemy for Gaetz. Unlike Cheney and Spano, he isn’t plagued by a federal probe or feuds with Trump. He has a strong conservative record, and many of his GOP colleagues will be eager to try to protect him.

The Illinoisan has sought to argue that he is someone who can get things done, unlike his challenger. He’s gotten a boost from McCarthy, who has previously visited Illinois to show support.

Bost’s southern Illinois district is deep red. Trump carried it by 43 points in 2020, so the winner of the primary is all but certain to coast to victory in the fall. And Gaetz isn’t the only incumbent wading into the intraparty contest; Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) is supporting Bailey, after Bost supported former Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) during a Miller-Davis primary fight in 2022.

Bailey is a far-right state senator who lost the Illinois governor’s race by 13 points in 2022 and adopts a staunchly populist message. Democrats were so eager to run against him in 2022’s gubernatorial race that the Democratic Governors Association spent money to help him win the GOP primary.

Ally Mutnick contributed.

Correction: An earlier edition of this post incorrectly identified the timing of Gaetz’s appearance for Bailey.

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a package that included aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and provisions to beef up border security, a long-coming conclusion to tortuous bipartisan negotiations.

The bill failed to advance 49-50, falling short of the 60-vote threshold. The defeat officially ends the unsuccessful talks to shore up border protections that went on for four months.

Republicans had initially demanded border policy changes in exchange for Ukraine aid, but abandoned that trade-off this week quickly after the border deal was announced, deeming it inadequate. House Republican leadership also said the bill was dead on arrival in that chamber, turning more GOP senators against it.

Four Republicans voted to advance the bill, including lead Republican border negotiator Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) as well as Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). The measure also lost five Democrats, including Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Some on the left had voiced concerns over the border policy immigration provisions included in the bill, and Sanders is against unconditional aid to Israel, which the package also included.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer harshly criticized Senate Republicans over their border about-face before the vote on Wednesday, attributing the switch to opposition from former President Donald Trump. He changed his own vote to no as the bill’s failure became clear, a necessary move to preserve his right to call up the vote again at a later date.

“Why have Republicans backed off on border when they know it’s the right thing to do?” Schumer said on the floor Wednesday morning. “Two words: Donald Trump.”

Senate Democratic leadership is now planning a vote, possibly later Wednesday, to advance a bill only including Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan funding — with no border policy provisions or funding included.

It’s not yet clear whether there will be the necessary support to advance that foreign-assistance-only bill, either. Some Senate Republicans Wednesday morning wanted clarifications on whether amendments will be allowed and on what terms.

The Senate is slated to leave town on Thursday, starting a two-week recess over the weekend.

House Republicans acknowledge this week was embarrassing, with back-to-back failed votes on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and sending aid to Israel.

But instead of raging against Speaker Mike Johnson and other leaders, Republicans are responding to the unsightly spectacle with a that’s-just-life-now shrug.

Many Republican lawmakers appear to have accepted life in their tiny majority. They understand their party is dysfunctional and the House GOP has internal disagreements on just about everything. And they know that reality will haunt them until the end of the year — at least.

“Everything’s gonna be really tenuous as we go forward here, especially over the next four weeks as we try to fund the government,” said Rep. Kevin Hern, the Oklahoma Republican who leads the conservative Republican Study Committee.

He waved off questions about whether Republican leaders had fumbled the votes: “There’s obviously always going to be a story about whether the votes were whipped correctly or not.”

Johnson has shown more willingness to push ahead on uncertain floor votes than some of his predecessors, a tactic that leads to more public flops. He planned to put dual spy powers bills on the floor until his conference shouted the idea down, clearly miscounted the Mayorkas impeachment vote due to full Democratic attendance and has watched as his hardliners have blocked several bills from even coming to the floor. But in this case, even some of his loudest critics declined to blame Johnson for the current mess.

Johnson is largely getting a pass on Mayorkas, particularly, because Republicans are confident they can deliver on impeachment once Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) returns, since his ongoing cancer treatment made him the only absence in a tied vote. However, GOP lawmakers aren’t giving the three House Republicans who voted with Democrats on the measure the same leeway.

“I’m frustrated with three Republicans who did not vote to impeach,” said House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.). “Yes, it was somewhat of an embarrassment that we apparently didn’t know what the count might be and that we lost that by one vote, essentially. But it seems as if we can get it done next week.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) dismissed any frustration at all, stating that the vote put her own colleagues on the record. So the base knows who blocked them from taking action on President Joe Biden’s border chief.

“We have three Republican members, one that nobody really cares about because he’s retiring … [as] for the other two, (Mike) Gallagher and (Tom) McClintock, I’m sure they’re hearing from their constituents and maybe they’re finding out how important it is to impeach Mayorkas, even though they seem to have their own personal issues with it,” Greene told reporters Wednesday.

One House Republican, requesting anonymity to speak frankly, said the conference’s vote fumbles make them look like a “monkey trying to have relations with a football.” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) lamented that Democrats seem to stick together and “we don’t.”

“Ken Buck is leaving. I don’t understand that. He could have done it just for the Republican party,” he said, referring to another Republican who voted against impeaching Mayorkas.

That isn’t to say that every Republican was excusing Johnson. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has been a frequent critic of the new GOP leader, publicly lashed out at Johnson and his supporters: “Name one thing that’s improved under the new Speaker.”

Still, most of the conference is more concerned that the public failure could be a sign of more troubles to come, with two government funding deadlines just a few weeks away. And they’re not happy about giving voters more reason to think that their Republican majority isn’t able to govern, let alone fumbling their border message.

“The personality of the conference is that we want to push forward for things we truly believe in, but then we trip ourselves up over some nonsensical things from time to time,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said, adding Republicans should be asking themselves “what are we doing right now that is going to guarantee we are going to stay in the majority.”

Johnson, who critics have previously theorized is in over his head, insisted he wasn’t to blame for the twin setbacks on Wednesday, saying they were a “reflection on the body itself.”

“Last night was a setback. But democracy is messy,” he told reporters in a press conference. “You’re seeing the messy sausage making the process of democracy play out. And it’s not always pretty, but the job will be done at the end of the day.”

And some members signaled they aren’t concerned at all. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) responded that it’s “like this every year” when asked about House dysfunction, and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a typical leadership critic, said he didn’t “have any beef” with Johnson bringing Mayorkas impeachment to the floor.

“If that makes us look dysfunctional, I can think of far more examples than that,” Biggs added.

Any lingering irritation over the Mayorkas vote was mostly turned on Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who ultimately opposed impeachment, despite the two other Republicans opposing the vote. Johnson and his leadership team had crowded in a circle in a corner of the House floor Wednesday evening, realizing as Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) was pushed onto the House floor in a wheelchair that they didn’t have the numbers.

Johnson and other leaders quickly turned their focus on the Wisconsin Republican, pressuring him to change his vote. But Gallagher, who chairs the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, refused to back down, noting that he has “consistently whipped no” on this issue. In other words, he’d told GOP leaders about his intention to vote against impeachment — they just hadn’t counted on full Democratic attendance.

“I want to fix the problems at the southern border. And I want to be a team player … I felt it was a matter of principle for me,” said Gallagher, noting that he’s taken “unpopular votes before” when asked about what kind of blowback he is getting now. “I just didn’t want to contradict the arguments I’d made in opposition to Trump impeachment.”

As Gallagher was telling a gaggle of reporters that he respected his colleagues’ difference of opinions, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), leaned into the circle and remarked to him: “I have respect for you.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed reporting.

Speaker Mike Johnson is eyeing a floor vote on a revised spy powers bill next week, four people familiar with the discussion told POLITICO.

The move would almost certainly renew lingering tensions within the House GOP over what to do about Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Act (FISA), after deep divisions forced Republicans to punt the issue late last year. Johnson’s handling of how to reauthorize surveillance powers also led to widespread criticism of his leadership.

The new plan isn’t final, the people cautioned, noting that the bill is still being negotiated and could fall apart because of GOP divisions.

The bill under discussion would largely align with legislation rolled out last year by the House Intelligence Committee, according to three people, who noted that there would be some changes. Negotiators want to roll out legislation as soon as Thursday, one of those people said, and move it through the Rules Committee on Tuesday.

Judiciary Committee members and other privacy hawks would then be allowed to offer amendments that would require a warrant before searching for Americans’ information collected under the program. Section 702 authority is meant to target non-citizens abroad but has sparked controversy because of its ability to sweep in American information.

Republicans on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees revived a working group last month after leadership requested that they try to work out the differences between two bills to renew the surveillance authorities. Leadership also added its own members to the group. The existence of the working group, and its revival, was first reported by POLITICO.

Congress technically has until mid-April to decide what to do about Section 702. But privacy hawks say Johnson would prefer to move sooner rather than later. And those lawmakers are worried that if they don’t move quickly, intelligence community allies could try to attach a relatively straightforward reauthorization to next month’s government funding deadline, that wouldn’t include the sweeping new limits they are pushing for.

Intelligence and Judiciary Committee Republicans spent months talking behind the scenes last year, but ultimately each panel drafted its own bill on 702 reauthorization.

Beyond differences over warrant requirement for U.S. person searches — the Judiciary bill required one, the Intelligence legislation did not — the two bills differed widely in scope. The Judiciary bill proposed a sweeping spy powers overhaul that would go well beyond just Section 702. Critics argued last year that the Judiciary bill would effectively neuter the 702 program, rendering it unworkable.

Those divisions, particularly over the warrant requirement, haven’t been resolved.

“I think we’re really going to have to do something sooner rather than later,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a member of the working group, said in a brief interview. He added that lawmakers are “still working.”

Senate Republicans and their allies are planning a massive TV ad buy in Ohio as they try to unseat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and its allied group American Crossroads, are booking nearly $83 million worth of air time this fall, according to plans shared first with POLITICO. This is the second state where the groups have reservations after Montana.

Ohio and Montana are the top two GOP targets on the Senate map in 2024. Three Republicans are in a heated March 19 primary to take on Brown: businessman Bernie Moreno, state Sen. Matt Dolan and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

SLF will invest $57.5 million from Sept. 3 until Election Day. American Crossroads will spend $25 million from Sept. 17 to Oct. 21.

“Ohio was an important win for us in 2022 and we feel good about our prospects in 2024,” said Senate Leadership Fund President and CEO Steven Law. “Democrat Sherrod Brown has spent decades in DC pushing his liberal agenda while ignoring a growing conservative constituency back home. Now, these voters are ready to send Brown packing.”

The NRSC is staying neutral in the primary, and its leaders believe any of the three could take down Brown.

Moreno has the endorsement of former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). Moreno and Dolan can self-fund, and LaRose has a super PAC that went negative on Moreno this week.

The Club for Growth made its first spend in the race, dropping some $850,000 for Moreno, according to AdImpact. That spot touts his endorsement from Trump.

SLF’s Democratic counterpart, the Senate Majority PAC, laid down ad buys late last month in Nevada and Montana.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin is calling on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from a case focused on former President Donald Trump’s eligibility for the 2024 ballot.

The nation’s highest court will hear oral arguments Thursday in Donald J. Trump v. Norma Anderson, a Colorado case about whether Trump engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6 and, under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, could no longer seek the presidency.

“Given questions surrounding his wife’s involvement, Justice Thomas should recuse himself so there’s no question of bias,” Durbin posted on social media Wednesday.

His wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, had been called to testify before the Jan. 6 Committee behind closed doors. She had exchanged texts with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows related to an effort to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.

Fourteenth Amendment cases in both Colorado and Maine have led to debate over the applicability of the insurrection clause and thrust the Supreme Court into potentially deciding whether or not Trump can remain on the ballot for the 2024 presidential election.

Thomas has a track record of recusal from cases touching the Jan. 6 insurrection. Back in October 2023, Thomas bowed out of a case about the Jan. 6 Committee’s power to investigate.