House Republicans took the first step toward holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress — dramatically escalating their standoff with the Justice Department.

The Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Thursday to recommend that the full House hold Garland in contempt. The Oversight Committee is expected to take a similar step on Thursday night. The referral still requires a majority on the House floor before it goes to a U.S. attorney, which means it needs to win over more than a dozen politically vulnerable Republican centrists who have expressed unease about their party’s growing antagonism toward the DOJ.

The move stems from the Justice Department defying House Republican subpoenas for audio of then-special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Joe Biden. The White House informed GOP lawmakers on Thursday morning that the president had asserted executive privilege over the recordings.

Biden’s effort effectively precludes any criminal prosecution of Garland for failing to comply with the Hill subpoenas. But Republicans vowed to move forward with the contempt recommendation anyway — taking a symbolic shot at an administration official who has become their frequent rhetorical targets. And Republicans aren’t ruling out a lawsuit to try to get the recordings.

“We think it’s important we, as an oversight body, see all the evidence,” Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told reporters about the decision to move forward with the contempt proceedings.

Republicans have homed in on Hur’s investigation of Biden’s handling of classified documents as part of a sweeping impeachment inquiry into the president, which has largely focused on the business deals of his family members. Though the impeachment effort has essentially stalled, as Republicans lack the clear evidence centrists have said they need to vote for removing the president, GOP investigators are continuing their probe behind the scenes.

Hur warned in his report released by the Justice Department earlier this year that Biden could be perceived by jurors as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” — a description that sparked fierce criticism from Biden and congressional Democrats.

But Republicans have seized on the phrase, and requested the transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden, as well as the audio and other documents referenced in the former special counsel’s report. While the Justice Department provided access to the requested documents, and handed over the transcript, it has pushed back strongly against releasing the audio.

“This is an impeachment inquiry. … We are investigating very legitimate questions,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). “It is critically important for the purposes of this body to determine where we’re going to go with an impeachment inquiry, or any legislative inquiry, to determine what the president’s demeanor was during that interview.”

If a majority of the House did vote to hold Garland in contempt, the matter would then be referred to U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, who is under the umbrella of the DOJ. Graves would determine whether to pursue criminal charges or set it aside, and would take executive privilege into account.

Democrats accused Republicans of focusing on Hur’s findings to try to revive a politically motivated impeachment effort. And they believe the GOP wants the audio so that it can be used by the Trump campaign in ads heading into the November election.

House Democrats also tried, and failed, to amend the GOP’s Garland contempt resolution, including to note that the committee has “serious concerns about the competency of Donald Trump.” Republicans, who run the panel, rejected those amendments.

“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Why do my Republican colleagues need this audio file at all? …They think they can manipulate President Biden’s voice to make it to the next Trump for president ad,” Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) said on Thursday.

Thursday’s back-and-forth comes after a weeks-long battle between Republicans and the Justice Department for the Hur audio. Both Jordan and Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) subpoenaed the audio, and warned that they would initiate contempt proceedings against Garland unless the Justice Department complied.

But the DOJ raised a myriad of concerns about giving the audio to Congress, including that it could negatively impact cooperation with future investigations. Officials also said Republicans hadn’t made an adequate case for what they would get from the audio that they couldn’t get from the transcript.

“The Committees’ needs are plainly insufficient to outweigh the deleterious effects that productions of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future,” Garland wrote in a letter to Biden on Wednesday.

The Navy’s top civilian leader came under fire Thursday from Republicans who argued the service isn’t doing enough to fix shipbuilding programs plagued by delays, with one senator even suggesting he should be fired over it.

Republicans at a Senate Armed Services Committee accused Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro of prioritizing climate change over Navy shipbuilding. Del Toro flatly rejected the criticism, arguing that he’s made progress to rein in over-budget and past-schedule ship programs.

The fireworks began with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who criticized Navy plans that keep the fleet under 300 warships through the end of the decade while China far outpaces the U.S. in shipbuilding. Sullivan argued Del Toro is more focused on climate change and asked the Navy leader if he should resign or be fired over ship delays.

“I feel compelled to ask, if a Marine platoon commander gets relieved because one of his Marines loses a rifle and a Navy captain gets relieved because his crew hits another ship while the captain is asleep, should the secretary of the Navy be relieved or resign for failing on his number one mission — shipbuilding — particularly when he is spending so much time on issues that are not even part of his [legal] responsibilities?” Sullivan asked.

Del Toro told Sullivan that he spends “75 percent of my time on shipbuilding,” yet called fighting the effects of climate change a major issue for Navy readiness.

“Actually, a good leader, what they do is to actually take assessment of the conditions that exist when one comes in. And you know well, senator, that the acquisition issues we’re dealing with go back decades,” Del Toro said. “What I’m trying to do, and have been doing from the day that I became secretary, was to be honest, transparent and deeply committed to turning things around. And that’s exactly what I’ve done.”

The session was unusually acrimonious for the traditionally bipartisan committee. After several rounds of tense questioning that saw Republicans interrupt Del Toro, Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) made a plea for civility from committee rank-and-file.

“This committee has operated for many years based on a mutual respect for the witnesses and the senators,” Reed told senators. “The level of argumentation at this point, I think, is something we haven’t seen in a long time.”

Del Toro faced intense backlash from GOP senators over his focus on climate change, though concerns about shipbuilding delays — and whether the service’s budget for ships is enough — are bipartisan. A recent Navy review found delays of up to several years in the service’s top programs, including construction of aircraft carriers, submarines and a new frigate.

Del Toro argued that decades of Navy policy have led to this point and has highlighted the impacts of the pandemic and worker shortages as major recent hurdles. He also dinged defense contractors for using profits to repurchase stock, arguing some companies are putting shareholder interests over the needs of their customer, the Navy.

But Republicans aimed to put the onus on Del Toro, pointing to his emphasis on climate change. The Pentagon has noted that extreme weather and rising sea levels will harm military readiness and has sought to mitigate those effects. But some Republicans argue those efforts and other Biden-era policies — such as efforts to promote diversity and country extremism in the ranks — are distracting the military from its main mission of deterring China and Russia.

North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer, the top Republican on the Armed Services Seapower panel, pointed to China’s rapid naval buildup.

“I see a really big problem that’s not being addressed nearly as enthusiastically as climate change is with the Navy,” Cramer said.

Del Toro argued that climate policies are not “interfering with the things that we’re doing actually to deterring China.” He also pointed to Navy operations in the Middle East since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in October, which included protecting commercial shipping in the Red Sea and defeating drone and missile attacks by Iran and its proxies.

“For the past six and a half months, our Navy and Marine Corps has proved to the world how capable we are. We are the very best,” he said. “But that also includes worrying in the future about the impact that climate has on our installation readiness.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) piled on, criticizing Del Toro and Pentagon leadership over diversity, equity and inclusion policies that he argued hurt recruiting. He also pressed Del Toro on Covid vaccine mandates, which have since been overturned but forced out several thousand personnel who refused the shot.

“You have recruitment challenges. You refused to admit that DEI’s a part of this. You’re firing qualified people who are well trained,” Schmitt told Del Toro. “And you sit here so smugly to act like none of that has any impact on the readiness of our Navy.”

Schmitt then asked Del Toro if he believed “that climate change is a bigger threat to the American people than a nuclear holocaust.”

“Of course not,” Del Toro shot back. Schmitt concluded that “Teddy Roosevelt in Admiral Nimitz would be rolling in their grave” over his equivocation on the issues.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joined 10 other Democrats in defying Joe Biden and passed a measure that would undo SEC guidance on cryptocurrency accounting, sending the measure to the president’s desk on Thursday with stronger-than-expected bipartisan support.

The Senate voted 60-38 to back the effort, which would undo a rule that directs companies to mark digital assets as liabilities on their balance sheets. The White House has already said Biden would veto it, his first axing of a standalone crypto measure.

Critics, including banking groups and crypto executives, say the guidance could discourage banks from holding those digital assets. They contend that it should have gone through the SEC’s rulemaking process instead of being issued as guidance, which involves less public input.

“New York State already has a strong law on the books, and they weren’t consulted on this regulation,” Schumer said in a statement after the vote.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who led the effort in the Senate to kill the guidance, said it “puts consumers at risk.”

The rollback drew support from 11 Democrats: Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Gary Peters of Michigan, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Jon Tester of Montana, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Schumer. Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who aligns with Democrats, also backed the effort.

The SEC guidance “will limit options for consumers and leave them with less, not more consumer protection in cases of bankruptcy,” Gillibrand said.

Most Democrats and investor protection groups say the guidance safeguards consumers and the broader financial system. They also point to a Government Accountability Office report that found the SEC should have sent the guidance to Congress for review, but did not need to subject it to notice and comment.

“Today’s vote — coming more than two years after the SEC wrote the bulletin and applying to a staff bulletin, rather than a rule — is far outside the scope of the CRA,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a top crypto critic, said on the Senate floor Thursday. “We should not be holding this vote, and all by itself that is a good enough reason to vote no.”

Warren added that the guidance “simply clarifies how companies should account” in their financial disclosures for the “unique risks of crypto.”

The House approved the measure last week with the help of 21 Democrats. Members, aides and lobbyists have eyed the tallies as possible bellwethers for a vote next week on House Republicans’ flagship crypto package.

Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) has a rare feat in modern congressional terms: Forcing floor consideration of legislation — on this occasion, a bill he crafted that would provide tax relief for losses due to federally declared disasters.

He invoked a rarely successful procedural tool, the so-called discharge petition, to compel a floor vote on his legislation aimed at helping victims of hurricanes, wildfires and the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment. The Florida Republican hit 218 signatories — a majority of the House — of supporters on Wednesday, according to the chamber clerk.

Discharge petitions rarely succeed. The last one to hit the necessary number of signatures to force floor consideration concerned the Export-Import Bank, back in 2015. Steube called for the Senate to act swiftly once it passes the House.

Democratic Whip Katherine Clark called on Democrats to sign onto the discharge petition in a meeting Wednesday, a person familiar told POLITICO. More Democrats have signed onto the petition than Republicans.

“I am grateful for the motivation and support of 217 of my bipartisan colleagues as we join forces to deliver tax relief for Americans all across the country,” Steube said in a statement. “That’s a testament to how important this issue is for ALL of our constituents.”

Speaker Mike Johnson’s office did not immediately comment, though he is currently not among the signatories of the petition.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole handed out funding caps Thursday for each of his 12 subcommittees, with overall totals that undercut bipartisan agreements struck last year during debt limit negotiations.

The levels would boost defense budgets by about 1 percent in the fiscal year that begins in October, while cutting non-defense funding by roughly 6 percent, Cole said. Those allocations are far lower than Senate leaders in both parties are seeking, foreshadowing yet another multi-month funding clash expected to drag beyond the November election.

With markups of appropriations bills planned for next week, House Republicans are working under spending caps set in the debt limit deal President Joe Biden reached last year with then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy. But they are ignoring other pieces of the agreement.

“I wish I could do better,” Cole told reporters after meeting privately with GOP appropriators Thursday morning. “These are not phony numbers. These are the numbers of the law, first of all.”

The new chair is expected to publicly announce each of the dozen totals Thursday, along with a markup agenda.

The totals Cole divulged Thursday are expected to change, as the Congressional Budget Office releases information on how housing receipts will affect federal cash and the cost of veteran health services, among other things.

“This is where we’re going to start,” Cole said. “We’re going to start with what’s written in the law.”

House appropriators are expected to begin fiscal 2025 markups next week with the measure that would fund military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs going first in subcommittee Tuesday, followed by a full committee markup Thursday. Cole said appropriators also hope to approve their slate of funding totals next week.

Top Senate appropriators are already discussing whether they need to exceed the funding limit set by last year’s debt deal for the Pentagon, arguing that it’s too low to keep pace with inflation and military readiness needs.

Two key House committees are expected to advance resolutions holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress on Thursday, including in an evening meeting pushed back to allow Trump allies to visit his trial in New York.

Both the Judiciary and Oversight committees are looking to hold Garland in contempt over the Justice Department’s rejection of their subpoenas for recordings of audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel on his handling of government documents.

The DOJ released transcripts of many hours of interviews between Biden and Robert Hur, but has remained consistent in rejecting attempts to garner the audio files.

Judiciary meets Thursday at 10 a.m. to consider the contempt resolution. Oversight’s meeting has been moved to 8 p.m. to accommodate some members’ travel to the Big Apple.

But first, Trump: A group of House Republicans are headed to New York City on Thursday for former President Donald Trump’s trial. Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) is expected to attend, along with Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and a handful of other allies.

Speaker Mike Johnson visited the trial earlier this week, and multiple senators have also made the trip. And as our colleague Kierra Frazier said Monday: “With [Trump] barred from publicly commenting on witness testimony in his hush money trial, he’s letting his Republican friends do the talking — and attacking — for him.”

Meanwhile, on the floor: The House is expected to vote Thursday on a bill aimed at compelling Biden to deliver heavy bombs to Israel amid its ongoing war with Hamas. The measure would freeze budgets for the offices of the Defense secretary, secretary of State and National Security Council if Biden doesn’t deliver the weapons being withheld, and it also includes language condemning “the Biden Administration’s decision to pause certain arms transfers to Israel.”

House Democratic leaders have whipped against the legislation, and the White House has also weighed in with a veto threat.

Despite Democratic divisions on the war in Gaza, those within the caucus only expect a small number of defectors to vote with Republicans.

Anthony Adragna contributed to this report. 

The House passed legislation Wednesday that would curb the ability of local D.C. judges to reduce sentences for younger criminals and bar local government officials from changing sentencing laws, thanks in part to the support of 18 Democrats.

The final tally was 225-181.

The bill, led by Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), has little chance of becoming law. The Biden administration indicated it strongly opposed the measure even as it stopped short of formally threatening a veto.

Local D.C. government officials roundly condemned the measure, with Democratic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton calling it a “radical, undemocratic and paternalistic bill” on the House floor.

Efforts to influence local Washington governance matters are not new this Congress. President Joe Biden signed a repeal in March 2023 of changes to the D.C. criminal code after it passed both chambers of Congress on a bipartisan basis.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin is open to reinstating the blue slip on circuit court nominees next year, a proposal that would restore significant power to the minority party to block the White House’s judicial nominees.

Durbin (D-Ill.) said during a committee markup last week that he’d entertain conversations around restoring the blue slip — which home-state senators could use to effectively veto certain nominees — but only if it is bipartisan and agreed to before Election Day. Such a deal would be a high-stakes gamble for both sides, since neither would know who would benefit from the policy change or if future leaders would honor it.

“If there’s any members of the committee that want to start an active conversation along those lines, I’d be glad to join it,” Durbin said. “If we are going to do anything on blue slips on circuit court judges, I think there’s one premise: We should do it prospectively, not knowing the outcome of an election that may change the presidency or may not. That is a fair way to approach it.”

Republicans signaled they’re willing to have the discussion. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the panel, said in a brief interview in the Capitol that he hopes “we can find a way forward to have a little bit of a check and balance on the committee.”

Until 2017, Judiciary Committee chairs didn’t move circuit court nominees unless both home-state senators signed off on the candidate. But then-Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) stopped honoring that precedent for circuit court nominees, accusing Democrats of using it as a makeshift filibuster.

After that, the Trump administration and Senate Republicans moved circuit court nominees over objections from Democrats. The Biden administration and Senate Democrats followed suit.

Restoring the blue slip would amount to a seismic shift in the White House’s and Senate’s ability to confirm judges and would restore a significant point of minority power. It would engender pushback from progressives, who have long bemoaned that Democrats should be doing away with all blue slips rather than restoring those already gone. For that reason, and others, such a policy change is far from certain.

A Durbin spokesperson said any changes to the policy would not apply until the next Congress. By requiring the parties to agree before Election Day, both Republicans and Democrats would be taking a risk — that they would be the ones to benefit and the incoming administration and next year’s Senate leadership would abide by the terms. A White House official said it’s up to the committee to make its own rules on blue slips.

Graham wasn’t the only Republican who might be open to the idea. Even Grassley — who said he could be the committee’s chair again if Republicans retake the majority — said he might support such a move.

“I think it’s a good thing to have the blue slip back to where it was,” he said.

Grassley saw the elimination of blue slips as a piece of a larger strategy helmed by GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.

“McConnell had a good plan going and the blue slip for the circuit judges was standing in the way and he wanted to get as many circuit judges on as you could get. And that’s part of the reason it was revised and effectively eliminated,” the Iowa Republican said Wednesday.

The enormous roster of judges the Senate confirmed during the Trump years was a key piece of McConnell’s legacy: his laser focus on installing as many conservative judges as possible.

“McConnell obviously won’t be leader next time. There’ll be a new leader, and that new leader could be a majority leader,” Grassley said, acknowledging that the landscape for judicial strategy is already changing.

Members of both sides of the Judiciary Committee have bemoaned the current circuit court nomination and confirmation process. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C) was sharply critical of the committee advancing the nomination of Kevin Ritz to the Sixth Circuit over the objections of Republican Tennessee Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty.

“We have politicized circuit court nominees,” he said.

But he also warned that Democrats are building up ill will now and any changes to the blue slip process should take place before next year.

“I think the only way you could take Democrats seriously, you just can’t say: ‘Prospectively next Congress,’” he said in a hallway interview. “Why don’t we start today? And then get people like me who would uphold it going into the next Congress? Because I’m gonna be there and I’m gonna be on Judiciary. But the fact is they’re not willing to do that.”

In the hearing, Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Cory Booker of New Jersey also indicated they were open to the conversation.

Whitehouse said “a lot of us got burned hard by that rules change” during the Trump administration and that Democrats were shown “disrespect.”

“I’m more than happy to consider trying to undo that and figure out a way to go forward,” he added.

“This happened to me under the Trump administration,” Booker echoed. “I’m happy to meet with anybody that wants to try to figure out a way out of this mess, because I think that what my colleagues are putting out on the other side of the dais is absolutely right. This is wrong and I believe we should get back to where we were before.”

A large House GOP group is discussing a trip to New York to back up Donald Trump at his hush money trial, according to four Republicans familiar with the matter — joining a growing GOP trend.

Those lawmakers considering a Thursday visit, which is not yet finalized, include a chunk of the House Freedom Caucus, two of those people told POLITICO, granted anonymity to discuss fluid discussions. Members of that conservative group are being particularly tight-lipped in case a busy House schedule this week delays their plans.

Roughly 16 people from the House Freedom Caucus are eyeing a trip to New York, one of those people said. Chair Bob Good (R-Va.), whose primary opponent has made Good’s initial backing of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a wedge issue in the race, is among those included in the discussions, according to that person.

“Every Republican should go support President Trump,” said Good, who declined to comment on whether he was making the trip and whether he has spoken to the former president about attending.

Trump has had a packed list of notable GOP names acting as surrogates as they visit the scene of his trial. They include Speaker Mike Johnson, Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and past GOP presidential candidates Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Many have attacked both the case and the judge while Trump himself remains under a judge-mandated gag order, with some specifying they decided to come themselves and that Trump did not ask them to do so. The gag order also blocks the former president from “directing others” to publicly criticize those involved in the case.

Underscoring the political sensitivity of the trip, a typically media friendly Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) echoed Good in refusing to discuss the potential visit. He warned: “You won’t find anybody who will say anything.”

But Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the group, acknowledged that there were “conversations” about going up to New York to support Trump. However, he added, they were juggling that with the need to be in D.C.

To that end, Republicans are navigating a myriad of dynamics with the House schedule, including two high-profile committee votes on holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress that are expected to eat up a decent chunk of Thursday. The House will also vote on reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday, keeping members in town. The Trump trial isn’t slated to be in session on Friday, when the House has a lighter schedule.

The trial could go to the jury as soon as Monday, if prosecution rests on Thursday.

And there’s an extra level of sensitivity. Some of the House Republicans involved in the discussions — including Good, Norman and Roy — didn’t initially endorse Trump in the presidential primary.

Asked about making the trek, Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said it depended on the schedule, pointing to both Thursday’s contempt markup and an unrelated hearing on Wednesday.

“I want to be there with President Trump,” Jordan said in a brief interview, “but it’s also important to get these two hearings as well.”

House Democrats are projecting confidence that they’ll be able to limit floor defections this week on GOP legislation that’s aimed at compelling President Joe Biden to deliver heavy bombs to Israel amid its ongoing war with Hamas.

Democratic lawmakers, including several staunchly pro-Israel ones, view the bill as a poorly-drafted attempt to jam Biden — even as they view his support of the key U.S. ally as unwavering despite his pause on the heavy bomb shipment. The White House has urged Democrats on the fence to vote no, working to keep the number of defections to a minimum even as lawmakers were loath to admit the lobbying would sway their votes.

“This bill is very ill-advised, and it’s not in Israel’s best interest,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), former House majority leader, told POLITICO. “I think — I hope — there aren’t going to be a lot of Democratic defections.”

House Republicans are expected to bring up their legislation compelling Biden to deliver the weapons for a vote as soon as Thursday. The measure freezes budgets for the offices of the defense secretary, secretary of state and National Security Council if Biden doesn’t deliver the weapons that are being withheld, and it also includes language condemning “the Biden Administration’s decision to pause certain arms transfers to Israel.”

Biden and Speaker Mike Johnson haven’t spoken this week about Israel or other matters, according to a person familiar who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

“I think that you will see that Democrats will vote no on this, because we understand it’s a political ploy,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the party’s top member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He delivered a presentation opposing the legislation at Wednesday’s private Democratic caucus meeting.

House Democratic leaders have also whipped against the legislation, and the White House has weighed in with a veto threat too.

“Overwhelmingly Democrats will reject this overly political bill,” Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said on Wednesday.

Not every Democratic lawmaker was ready to tip their hands on how they’d vote, however, and many rejected the idea that White House lobbying would affect their decision.

“It’s an unserious piece of legislation, and one that is cynically designed to divide people,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a staunch Israel ally who nevertheless didn’t reveal whether she’d ultimately support it.

She wasn’t alone.

“I’m gonna just reject the entire premise of your question because the idea of Democratic defections — we vote how we want to,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.). “We’re a free-thinking caucus. Sometimes we agree. Sometimes we disagree. Certainly it’s important to hear the opinion of the White House.”

The GOP-led legislative effort comes as the Biden administration informally notified Congress of a potential $1 billion sale of weapons to Israel, an announcement made soon after it said the president would veto the House bill in the unlikely event it reached his desk.

Republicans strongly rejected the Democratic characterizations of the legislation and said Biden could avoid the showdown with Congress by delivering the congressionally-approved weapons.

“If he wants to change course on that, he should come talk to us or put something on the floor. But Israel’s being held to a double standard right now,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), a member of the Intelligence Committee, said. “If, after 9/11, people tried to dictate to us how to protect ourselves from al-Qaeda, I think you know how we would have responded.”

Despite that push, many Democrats see the bill as a politicized attempt to micromanage the president’s ability to navigate foreign affairs.

“It’s sort of a nakedly partisan effort to attack Biden,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.). “The United States had a 200-plus year tradition of the President — the executive branch — taking the lead on foreign policy. This would be a bill that preempts that in very dangerous ways, including defunding key national security and defense leaders, which is insane. It’s a ridiculous bill and it deserves to be voted down.”

Nicholas Wu and Olivia Beavers contributed.