Chuck Schumer moved to wrap up debate on the no-border supplemental spending bill on Friday, putting aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan one step closer to passage. The Senate advanced the $95 billion bill by a 64-19 vote.

Fourteen Republicans voted yes on the measure. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), who caucuses with Democrats, voted against due to concerns over aid to Israel.

Now, the Senate is in for a laggard series of weekend votes before moving on to final passage. That will include a critical vote on Sunday to overcome a filibuster on the bill. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has vowed to object to a time agreement that could speed up progress, meaning senators will have to run out the clock on debate between each vote, since any one senator can object to a time agreement.

That not only slows the bill down, but also means there’s little prospect of a comprehensive series of votes on amendments. Those are most easily scheduled by unanimous agreement among all senators.

“I hope our Republican colleagues can work with us to reach an agreement on amendments, so we can move this process along,” Schumer said Friday. ”Democrats are willing to consider reasonable and fair amendments here on the floor, as we’ve shown on many occasions in the past three years.”

A previous version of the supplemental spending bill that included border spending and policy changes was blocked in the Senate earlier this week. Despite nuking that version of the bill, many Senate Republicans remain adamant that they will not support further aid to Ukraine unless border policy changes are included — this time by amendment.

Absent an agreement with Paul, the Senate’s weekend schedule would likely look something like this:

Saturday: An in-between day for debate on the bill.
Sunday: A vote on whether or not to advance an amendment that changes the underlying text of the bill to the language in the borderless foreign aid legislation. That vote would take 60 votes to pass.
Monday: If the above passes, the Senate would move to a vote on actually approving that amendment, which would take a simple majority. The Senate would then take one more procedural vote to advance the bill further. That would take 60 votes

A final passage vote — which would take a simple majority — could happen either Tuesday or Wednesday.
And if there was any hope for Paul to come around, he told reporters in the Capitol on Friday night that because of “global warming … hell freezing over is going to be a while.”

Schumer repeatedly warned Senate Republicans that he would keep the Senate in session until work on the supplemental was done. That plan will now eat into both the weekend — including Super Bowl Sunday — and a planned two-week recess that was slated to begin next week. Members aren’t especially excited about that reality, but are proceeding nonetheless.

“People are accepting it for what it is,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

Senate Democrats say they aren’t worried about fresh allegations that President Joe Biden’s memory is failing. Instead, they’re criticizing Special Counsel Robert Hur for what they’re calling gratuitous attacks.

Hur’s report, released publicly on Thursday, recommended no charges for Biden over his handling of classified documents but indicated a jury might perceive the president to be a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” The report by the Trump-appointed former U.S. attorney for Maryland said Biden had trouble remembering when his term as vice president started and ended and couldn’t recall when his son, Beau, passed away.

The last point, in particular, inflamed Senate Democrats.

“What you have is a grandstander not a prosecutor,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said in a brief interview, adding he expected the U.S. would see Biden “very vigorously engaged” as the campaign season heats up.

“It is outrageous the way he disrespected and maligned the president,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said. “What he said about the president not remembering the death of his beloved son is just so despicable.”

Republicans immediately argued the report was further evidence that Biden was not up for another four years of leading the country. Speaker Mike Johnson said bluntly in a Thursday statement that “he is not fit to be President.”

Democrats rebutted on Friday by also saying they haven’t noticed the same issues in personal interactions with Biden. Smith said she spent the bulk of a day traveling recently with Biden and found him to be “at the very top of his game, all the way through it, both in private and in person.” She hit the special prosecutor as “a Trump appointee who, clearly in my mind, when you look at it, has a political ax to grind.”

“I think this issue of age is already out there, and when November comes, it’s going to be a choice between two people,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chair of the Armed Services Committee. “I was with a congressional leadership about two weeks ago, and no one walked out of that meeting, saying, ‘Oh, my God, it was like he wasn’t in charge.’”

And several Democrats said this was just a flash in the pan, as Republicans have been coming at Biden over his age for a while. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), one of the most endangered Senate Democrats, said in an interview that he’d yet to review the report but that: “People have been talking about his age for a while. It is what it is.” Asked if he had concerns with regards to Biden’s memory, Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said: “He’s dealing with that. That’s an issue that is well known. It’s not new.”

But how could Biden reassure Americans concerned with his age and memory? “It’s good for him to get out and show himself as much as possible at this point,” Welch replied.

Even those Democrats who acknowledged Biden might have a problem were quick to say that Trump wasn’t any better off.

“Trump is going on 78. And the President is 81 years old. Is that meaningful? Of course not, it’s the same. They are older folks, and they’re our choices,” said Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)

“Trump doesn’t know if he’s talking about Haley or Pelosi or anything,” he continued, referring to a recent Trump flub. “So we can keep talking back and forth, but it comes back to the very core choice that we have as a nation: Do we want order over chaos? Do we want the truth over lying? Do we want virtue over just corruption and sleaze?”

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Three months ago, most Senate Republicans were resolute: No way in heck were they sending money to Ukraine without simultaneously securing the border. Yet on Thursday, 17 of them advanced a bill that would do just that.

It’s a head-snapping reversal that has many Republicans reconsidering the negotiating tactics they took just a few months ago. The Senate GOP went through a months-long circle of denying straightforward foreign aid legislation, asking for a border bill, negotiating one, rejecting it and now wanting border amendments on a package that looks a lot like the first one. In the interim, Russia has continued pounding Ukraine and killing people while Israel’s war with Hamas continues unabated.

One Senate Republican, granted anonymity to discuss the matter, said that some Republicans thought adding border security would eventually help them get Ukraine assistance past conservative opposition. But there was a major flaw in the plan: They didn’t realize Trump would move to kill it.

“We’d have been smarter to do it four to five months ago. But we Republicans insisted on a border bill to be part of the deal. We could have saved a lot of time if President Trump had just told Fox and others he didn’t want the bill,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). “It’s just unfortunate that aid that’s so desperately needed in Ukraine and Israel has been held up while we go through our politics.”

There’s always been a strong contingent of pro-Ukraine Republicans in the Senate, but the solidification of Trump’s presidential bid over the past few months seems to have tamped those numbers down. Simultaneously, the ouster of Kevin McCarthy and the installation of new Speaker Mike Johnson made the path to passage in the House exponentially tougher.

In short, that wasted time mattered politically. What once could have passed both chambers of Congress last fall now looks increasingly impossible.

“The Republicans did a very effective job of reminding people around the country we have a crisis at the border. So we did well with the messaging — until…” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska.), pointedly trailing off. “And right now we’ve got nothing but message.”

And it came at the cost of progress on other legislation, namely bills to fund the government.

“I have said from the beginning, that I don’t understand why Sen. Schumer didn’t immediately keep bringing appropriations bills to the floor,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), ranking member on the Appropriations Committee. “I think we could have gotten all of them across the Senate floor.”

Still, other Republicans didn’t want to discuss the internal debacle. Asked why the Senate didn’t just start passing this bill months ago, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) replied: “I don’t think that’s a fair question.”

The tension flared up on the Senate floor on Thursday afternoon, as Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) questioned why Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) voted to block consideration of the border deal the day before if he wanted border amendment votes on the more straightforward package. Graham responded that the “fix is in” and that Senate leaders gave the game away by immediately pivoting to a borderless national security supplemental.

“It would have been helpful to sit down and see if we could improve the bill. Spend some time, give people a chance to vent, slow things down. Not just jump into Ukraine,” Graham said in an interview, referring to the border legislation. “Leadership on both sides seems to think that we’ve done enough on the border. They’re gonna be surprised. We’ve lost votes on our side.”

Now, pro-Ukraine Republicans are in a tough spot: moving forward with a deal without border security and bracing for intraparty criticism. History could easily repeat itself: Trump could turn on them and try to further scuttle the deal.

And conservative senators are already prepared to continue the circular attacks.

“The Republican base of conservative voters wants to control our southern border, number one. And, number two, doesn’t want us to give up on the southern border and immediately ship $100 billion overseas. So I relish the fact of these people going home and talking to regular people at home. It’s incredibly unpopular,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who is aiming to delay the foreign aid package as long as he can.

As the Senate lurches forward on a national security funding package, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he’ll use “every available legislative tool” to get such legislation on the House floor.

It’s an unsubtle nod to the discharge petition, which Democrats could theoretically use to force a floor vote if Speaker Mike Johnson declines to take up the legislation. However, it requires a majority of House members to sign on to the petition, which means at least a handful of Republicans would have to sign on to give it teeth.

“House Democrats are prepared to use every available legislative tool to make sure we get comprehensive national security legislation over the finish line,” Jeffries said in a statement while House Democrats gathered at their yearly issues conference in Leesburg, Virginia.

The Senate is hoping to pass a foreign aid supplemental spending package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan without border security measures, overcoming a key hurdle Thursday, though senators are still negotiating the terms. Johnson did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment on the latest package in the Senate.

Jeffries called on Johnson to “move to consider parallel national security legislation immediately.”

If Johnson declines to take it up, then Democrats’ main tool to force action is the discharge petition. It’s unclear if any Republicans would sign to one, however; centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) didn’t close the door to the possibility when asked on Thursday.

“I know we need to get aid to Israel quickly, and it’s in our national security interests to keep Ukraine independent and help Ukrainians defeat Russia’s barbaric invasion by sending them military weapons. I’ll work with the likeminded folks and the Speaker to determine what is best way to move forward,” Bacon said.

Others in Democratic leadership are ready to move, too. California Rep. Ted Lieu, the vice-chair of the Democratic caucus, said it was up to Jeffries but “I personally support (a discharge petition).”

“We are open to all of the possibilities,” echoed Rep. Ann Kuster, chair of the New Democratic Coalition. “Our members want to vote on that bill and we’re ready to put up the votes now.”

When asked if Democrats were talking to Republicans about how to address the supplemental, including if any would sign on to a discharge petition, Kuster responded: “Those conversations are happening.”

Olivia Beavers contributed to this report.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise will return to Washington next week after undergoing treatment for blood cancer — giving Republicans a critical boost in the effort to impeach Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Scalise’s office, in a statement, said that the Louisiana Republican is in “complete remission,” “has been medically cleared to resume travel” and “will be returning to Washington next week for votes.”

House Republicans had predicted, after narrowly failing to impeach Mayorkas this week, that they would try again next week. Scalise’s return means a repeat vote could now happen as soon as Tuesday.

Republicans want to move quickly to hold a re-do vote, and for good reason: The special election to replace expelled GOP Rep. George Santos occurs on Tuesday. If Democrats are able to flip the seat it would give them 213 votes, further narrowing the GOP’s majority once Santos’ successor is sworn in.

Scalise’s office announced last month that he would be working remotely until February as he underwent treatment for blood cancer. Combined with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s end-of-the-year retirement from Congress and Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) recovering from a car accident, Republicans’ already narrow majority had become paper thin.

The retirement of Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins plus Rogers’ return gave Republicans more breathing room. But the vote to impeach Mayorkas failed 214-216 after GOP leadership miscalculated Democratic attendance, with Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) leaving the hospital to cast a vote against Mayorkas’ impeachment.

Three GOP Republicans — Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Tom McClintock (Calif.) and Mike Gallagher (Wis.) — opposed impeaching Mayorkas, arguing that Republicans’ charges of breach of trust and refusing to comply with the law didn’t meet the constitutional bar for impeachment. With Green returning to vote, that left the tally at a tie. A fourth Republican, conference vice chair Blake Moore (Utah), then flipped his vote from yes to no — a procedural step that helps Republicans bring the impeachment articles back up.

With Scalise’s return, the vote would be 216-215 in favor of impeaching Mayorkas, assuming full attendance and no one besides Moore changing their final vote. Republicans will have to ensure they have no absences during the redo to avoid another potential embarrassing flop on the floor.

The Senate advanced the national security supplemental delivering tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, putting the legislation on the potential path to passage in the coming days.

After months of bipartisan handwringing, enough Republican senators voted to advance the bill to put it over the 60-vote threshold, after they rejected a version that included border policy changes on Wednesday. But there’s a ways to go yet — senators are still negotiating the terms of eventual passage.

Schumer described the vote as a “good first step,” but said leadership has yet to reach an agreement with Senate Republicans on amendments. That leaves timing for the final passage in limbo.

“For the information of senators, we are going to keep working on this bill until the job is done,” Schumer said, in a not-so-subtle threat to keep senators in over the weekend, or until the supplemental is passed in full.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in characteristic fashion, said Thursday he is planning to object to any attempts to speed up passage of the aid bill unless it addresses the southern border in a way he finds adequate.

“There seems to be a lot of willingness by the Democrats to give us amendments,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said Thursday. “It’s whether we can get everyone [in the GOP] around a strategy of supporting a certain menu of amendments. I think the answer there is going to be no.”

Seventeen Republican senators voted to advance the legislation, and GOP leaders are hoping some hawkish Republicans will flip their votes on final passage. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, was the only non-Republican to vote against advancing the bill.

The Republican senators who supported advancing the legislation were: GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Joni Ernst of Iowa, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Todd Young of Indiana, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Jerry Moran of Kansas.

The Senate is slated to leave town this weekend for a two-week recess after five straight weeks in session. Multiple members have trips planned abroad or other weekend engagements they’re itching to get to. But there is a growing sense among senators that if they want to ever finish work on the aid bill, they could be subject to multiple rounds of amendment votes over the weekend absent an agreement among 100 senators.

Those votes would likely be subject to a 60-vote threshold, meaning they’d be difficult to pass. if they were adopted, they could change the underlying bill so much that final passage would become more uncertain.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said leaders should accommodate senators who want to improve the bill and potentially vote for it, rather than opponents who just want failed amendment votes — unless there’s an agreement to speed things up.

Despite almost universally rejecting a bipartisan deal on border policy changes, many GOP senators are still unwilling to advance Ukraine aid unless it’s in exchange for more conservative immigration changes that they would prefer. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who negotiated that previous bipartisan deal, said Thursday that he’s not yet sure whether he’d vote to advance the bill.

The other option is that the foreign assistance bill fails in the Senate — and the bipartisan priorities of Ukraine and Israel aid along with it. It’s not clear whether Senate leadership would then be willing to break the package up into standalone pieces, which is what House Republican leadership has pushed for some time.

Democratic leadership has stressed that it will keep senators in town until the supplemental is resolved.

“The plane hasn’t landed. We’re circling the airport. We’re not sure what airport we’re circling,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “We’re still talking … the conference is split.”

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.