Speaker Mike Johnson drew a hard line on border talks during a private Wednesday meeting with GOP senators — setting parameters that have little chance of going anywhere on their side of the Capitol.

The new speaker told Senate Republicans at a party lunch that he wants GOP border negotiators to push for as much as possible of the conservative House-passed border bill known as H.R. 2, according to senators who were in the room. That proposal is a nonstarter with the Senate’s Democratic leaders.

It wasn’t the only blow that Johnson delivered to senators’ shaky bipartisan border talks.Johnson also told GOP senators that he’s not committed to taking up a big sweeping package even if they can pass it — and even if it includes some border policy changes — “until he knows exactly what it looks like,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

What’s more, Johnson said it’s the House GOP’s preference to pass each provision separately on the House floor, arguing that he “did not think he had the votes to do them all” together, said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). Senators in both parties are hoping to pass a package tying together Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the border as a comprehensive national security package, hoping it can get enough votes from both parties if everything is lumped together.

Johnson’s hard line is a further challenge for that proposal, which already faced a significant uphill climb. In border negotiations, Republicans are struggling to get Democrats to budge on much more than raising the asylum standard, and Senate Democrats have already panned proposals that resemble H.R. 2. The House’s immigration bill would significantly tighten the asylum process, fund continued building of a border wall and ramp up technological monitoring along the northern and southern borders.

Pushing for its inclusion may buck up Republicans in Congress but will absolutely alienate Democrats.

“He wants as much of H.R. 2 as you can. And I’m all for H.R. 2. But it’s a double-edged sword,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “If we pass H.R. 2 and make it part of the package, you may not get a single Democratic vote in the House.”

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell met with Johnson for about 30 minutes before the meeting with the Senate GOP. Johnson did continue to advocate for funding Ukraine in the lunch, repeating his view that Congress can’t let Russian President Vladimir Putin march through Europe, according to a person briefed on the meeting.

“He understands the need for the priorities for the supplemental,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of the border negotiators. “Now the question is how they package it. We have a view here that we really need to send that out in a package.”

Conservative senators left the meeting with the inkling that the border negotiations were struggling at the moment and that a massive, $100 billion spending package was unlikely to pass Congress at all. Some on the right immediately left the lunch and trudged to a press conference with House conservatives, where they took an even harder line on where bipartisan border talks currently stand. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, declared: “that’s dead on arrival in the House.”

“I’d say you’d have to be a real optimist to see how this is going to work,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.).

There are still a few of those left. Kennedy and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-La.) still thought the Senate would pass a supplemental bill in the end, despite the divergent views in the two chambers.

And some thought Johnson would end up giving the Senate’s bid serious consideration.

The speaker “was upbeat about being able to put together a package and he understands that he’s not going to get everything that was in H.R. 2, but he’s going to do his best to try to get as much as possible,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).

Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is pushing her colleagues to impeach Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — again.

The Georgia firebrand on Wednesday introduced her second Mayorkas impeachment resolution in one month, which she’s aiming to force a vote on within two legislative days. Greene’s last attempt to eject Mayorkas failed, with the vote instead sending her impeachment resolution to the Homeland Security Committee, which has been investigating the senior Biden administration official for his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border for months.

All House Democrats voted to send her last motion to the panel, along with eight House Republicans. It’s unlikely that the math has changed enough for the vote to succeed this time. There’s still a larger swath within the conference that isn’t yet on board with what would be a historic step to boot a Cabinet official.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), one of the eight, teed off on Greene shortly before she made her motion on Wednesday. While McClintock said he agreed with the actions Greene is accusing Mayorkas of, he doesn’t believe they meet the bar of an impeachment offense.

“If Ms. Greene is successful in redefining impeachment, then the next time Democrats have the majority we can expect this new definition to be turned against the conservatives on the Supreme Court and any future Republican administration,” McClintock said.

Greene’s move comes after Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told Republicans behind closed doors on Wednesday that Republicans could soon vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

McClintock added that Greene was “tainting this serious impeachment inquiry with a shoot-from-the-hip stunt.”

House Democrats named Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) as their new co-chair of the DPCC, the caucus’ messaging arm, in a 132-71 vote on Wednesday morning.

Trahan and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) were vying for the spot vacated by Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who had stepped down weeks before launching his longshot bid for president.

Trahan, who represents a north-central Massachusetts district, has served in the House since 2019. She’s quietly risen through the party’s ranks, serving as a member of House Minority Whip Katherine Clark’s whip team, a member of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and on the Regional Leadership Council advising on the implementation of major legislation from the last Congress.

She’ll join Reps. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) as co-chairs of the messaging arm. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) is its chair.

Neguse told POLITICO he was looking forward to working with Trahan.

“She’s been a friend and a treasured colleague and I think she’ll do a wonderful job communicating our work to put people over politics each and every day,” he said.

House Republicans are preparing to vote on formalizing their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden in the coming weeks, Majority Whip Tom Emmer told GOP lawmakers on Wednesday morning.

Emmer (R-Minn.) addressed House Republicans in a closed-door meeting as they near the end of their months-long probe of the president’s connections to his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings. So far, the investigation has failed to yield any tangible proof that the First Son influenced his father’s decisions as president or vice president.

Republicans still remain short of the votes to ultimately impeach Joe Biden. But formalizing the inquiry — something they sidestepped earlier this year because of divisions within their conference — would both give them something to show to a restless right flank and strengthen their subpoena power.

And, unlike a vote to try booting Biden from office, Republicans in swing districts say they would now support the incremental step to formalize the inquiry.

“I think that the American public deserves to see more facts. There’s certainly a lot of smoke,” said Biden-district Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), adding that formalizing it would give the inquiry “more teeth.”

It’s a critical moment for the investigation, as Republicans want to make a decision as soon as January on whether to formally pursue articles of impeachment. And before then, they’ve got a weeks weeks-long stretch of key depositions. They are pressing for a closed-door interview with Hunter Biden sometime next month, though on Tuesday they rejected an offer by his counsel to appear at a public hearing instead.

“He’ll get a public hearing after he does a deposition. He doesn’t get to set the rules. … We have sent him a lawful subpoena. We expect to see him in on Dec. 13,” Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said, adding that Hunter Biden isn’t “going to tell the House Oversight Committee what to do.”

In addition to Hunter Biden, House Republicans have also subpoenaed James Biden, the president’s brother, a Hunter Biden business partner, a former White House official, and others. They’ve also requested voluntary interviews with several Biden family members.

And Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said Wednesday he will hold a hearing with IRS whistleblowers, who have claimed that the Justice Department meddled with the years-long federal probe into Hunter Biden.

“Now we’ve reached the point where we need to hear from a handful of really key witnesses in this. The chairmen have issued a few dozen subpoenas and we expect them to be complied with in an expeditious manner,” Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Wednesday.

Another reason House Republicans want to formally vote to open an impeachment inquiry is to overcome a Trump-era order that bars any administration from engaging in such an inquiry, including subpoenas, if the full chamber has not voted to approve it. That order dates back to 2019, when House Democrats delayed for months before voting to authorize the inquiry that led to Donald Trump’s first impeachment.

And the White House specifically cited that Trump-era decision in a recent letter to Comer and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), which rebuffed their subpoenas and interview requests.

“You also claim the mantle of an ‘impeachment inquiry’ knowing full well that the Constitution requires that the full House authorize an impeachment inquiry before a committee may utilize compulsory process pursuant to the impeachment power — a step the Republican House Majority has so far refused to take,” White House counsel Richard Sauber wrote in a letter earlier this month.

Kyle Cheney contributed.

Nearly 90 House Republicans say they plan or are likely to support voting to expel George Santos from Congress. That means it’s a near-certainty the indicted lawmaker will be out this week.

A POLITICO internal whip count has found that more than 75 House Republicans say they plan to vote for Santos’ expulsion, while a dozen say they are likely to support his removal. If all Democrats vote to boot him, as expected, then lawmakers will reach the two-thirds vote threshold required to remove the New York Republican from the House.

The vote would set a new precedent. The House has only expelled five members in history, three due to supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War. The other two were both convicted before their colleagues voted to boot them from Congress.

But enough House Republicans and Democrats have determined that the damning Ethics Committee report, which found “sufficient evidence” of criminal wrongdoing earlier this month, is enough to trigger his removal. And many Republicans are confident the vote will succeed.

“George Santos is toast,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) as he walked into a whip meeting on Tuesday night.

“For many members, I predict most Republican members, that time for process is behind us. We expect there to be a sufficient number of yes votes come Thursday,” said Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.).

There are two motions to expel Santos this week, one led by Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) and another by Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia of California and Dan Goldman of New York. The Democratic resolution was introduced under certain rules Tuesday that triggers a floor vote no later than Thursday, but many GOP members are not expected to back a Democratic-led effort.

Rather, Guest’s motion is the one to watch. He told POLITICO Tuesday that GOP leadership has given him assurances that his resolution would receive a vote on the floor this week. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), flanked by other New York Republicans, moved on Tuesday night to force a vote on Guest’s resolution by Thursday. Vote timing could still shift, as GOP leadership debates the best path forward.

That’s not all that’s happening Thursday; Santos is also expected to hold a press conference that morning. He has repeatedly vowed he will not resign, reiterating that position Tuesday night on the House floor while bashing the bipartisan Ethics report as “littered with hyperbole and littered with biased opinions.”

Expelling Santos became a major topic of discussion at a closed-door House GOP conference meeting Wednesday morning, according to one person in the room. Freedom Caucus members were leading the defense of Santos, with Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) saying Republicans should first focus on lying Democrats.

Still, there are plenty of Republicans who have reservations about kicking the New York Republican out of the House before a conviction (Santos faces a slew of federal fraud charges and his trial is slated to begin next September). Multiple GOP lawmakers worried that doing so would further hurt the institution, stripping members of their due process.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, sent a letter to his colleagues Tuesday, raising concerns about how Santos’ case is being handled by the Ethics Committee. He plans to oppose removing Santos.

“Full media disclosure combined with intention to move straight to expulsion appears weaponized to me,” Higgans wrote in part, arguing the report was filled with “conjecture, opinion, and pejorative language that no professional investigative report should include.”

Others argued that without a conviction, it was not their place to make the decision for Santos’ constituents. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), another Freedom Caucus member, said he would also vote against booting Santos, adding “that’s for the people of New York to decide.”

More than a dozen other House Republicans said they felt the Ethics Committee report was significant due process for Santos. Many argued he had a right to a court date but serving in Congress was a privilege, one Santos no longer deserves.

“It’s a good new precedent that we should set here — that one holds themselves to a minimum standard as they are campaigning for an office like this,” LaLota said. “This is an individual who lied about every single thing about himself and his background. And the new precedent should be: When you lie about everything we will expel you.”

House Republicans continue to hope the New York Republican will resign. But they fear he wants to force his colleagues to proceed with a vote, and cast himself as some sort of martyr in the process.

Speaker Mike Johnson told Republicans during a meeting this week that he had talked with Santos to lay out options other than expulsion, including resigning. And in remarks to the press Wednesday morning, he said GOP leadership would not whip the vote and would “allow people to vote their conscience.”

“I personally have real reservations about doing this. I’m concerned about a precedent that may be set for that,” Johnson added.

The speaker didn’t tell Republicans that he had explicitly urged Santos to resign, according to Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern (R-Okla.). Instead, the speaker told Santos that doing so would be “an option that would prevent a lot of people from having to take some very tough votes.”

Nicholas Wu, Katherine Tully-McManus, Daniella Diaz, Anthony Adragna, Caitlin Emma, Jen Scholtes and Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of Rep. Clay Higgins.

Tommy Tuberville said in an interview on Wednesday he’s considering dropping his months-long holds on military promotions “soon, but not today.”

The Alabama GOP senator said he and other Armed Services Committee members are “getting close” to a resolution and will be holding more meetings on the subject later Wednesday with Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and other members of the panel.

“Trying to get some kind of resolution before we get home for Christmas, we’ve got a couple of weeks,” Tuberville said. “We’ve got to do this the right way. It’s been 10 months. I want to get this over with too, if we do it the right way.”

Tuberville told the Senate GOP this week that he will find a solution to his military holds over the Pentagon’s abortion policy in order to head off a vote that would circumvent his blockade, according to multiple sources.

Republicans said afterward they weren’t sure exactly what he will do to achieve that, though they’ve pitched shifting his holds to civilian nominees or supporting a lawsuit against the Pentagon.

One idea, proposed by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), would clear lower-level promotions while preserving Tuberville’s holds on four-star generals and requiring individual roll call votes, according to people familiar with the offer. Tuberville confirmed that Sullivan presented him with that proposal and he is working closely with his colleague on a path forward, but said he’s “not yet” ready to commit to one strategy and that it wouldn’t be exactly that solution.

“That’s his idea. But I’m the one that’s got the holds,” Tuberville said. “He’s got some good ideas.”

Sullivan said Wednesday that he was unsure where Tuberville would land but made clear yet again that he is tired of the impasse.

“I sat down with him on the way forward. I’ve been working Sen. Tuberville for a long time on this. But at a certain point? I’ve been 100 percent that someone needs to stand up for the troops,” Sullivan said on Wednesday. “No one’s speaking for them. I’m speaking for them.”

Republicans believe there are likely 60 votes to end-around Tuberville on the Senate floor by passing a resolution devised by Reed and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) that would allow the stalled military promotions to proceed en bloc, according to people familiar with party strategy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could force that vote in December if there’s no other agreement to get out of the impasse.

Joe Gould contributed to this report.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke in personal terms against the rise of antisemitism in the United States following the October attacks by Hamas in Israel.

“No matter what our beliefs are, no matter where we stand on the war in Gaza, all of us must condemn antisemitism with full-throated clarity whenever we see it before it metastasizes into something even worse,” Schumer said in lengthy floor remarks. “Because right now, that’s what Jewish Americans fear most.”

Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in U.S. history, added: “This is no intellectual exercise for us. For many Jewish people, it feels like a matter of survival, informed once again by history — in this case, very personal history to me.”

In more than 30 minutes of remarks, Schumer alluded — without naming the lawmaker — to the use of the slogan “from the river to the sea” that led to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) being censured by the House earlier in November.

“For Jewish people all across the world, the history of our trauma going back many generations is central to any discussion about our future,” Schumer said. “When Jewish people hear chants like ‘from the river to the sea,’ — a founding slogan of Hamas, a terrorist group that is not shy about their goal to eradicate the Jewish people in Israel and around the globe — we are alarmed.”

Schumer said his “fervent plea” is that young Americans learn the history of the Jewish people and “reject the illogical and antisemitic double standard that is once again being applied to the plight of Jewish victims and hostages, to some of the actions of the Israeli government, and even to the very existence of a Jewish state” and why Jewish Americans defend Israel.

The majority leader also referenced the shooting of three Palestinian students in Burlington, Vt. and stressed: “The Arab American community is a vital part of our nation and of my city, and I condemn unequivocally any vitriol and hatred against them.”

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Schumer’s speech “extraordinary” and voiced support for the Democratic leader’s comments against the rise in antisemitism. “I want to compliment him for providing a history lesson for Americans about the history of the Jewish people,” McConnell said on the floor. “I share his disgust at the alarming rise of antisemitism in America and around the world in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.”

A Republican at the center of the House fight over renewing Ukraine aid is making his case for a slimmed down funding package that can win GOP support.

Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) laid out the potential solution in a new memo obtained by POLITICO and plans to circulate it among House Republicans. The proposal focuses primarily on military aid that can deliver a “knock-out punch” in the fight with Russia and simultaneously address GOP concerns about the conflict’s endgame, as well as the $61.4 billion price tag of President Joe Biden’s latest Ukraine proposal.

“When they see this, I think they’re going to be amenable to the answers I’m providing here,” Garcia said in an interview. “They know $61 billion is not the right number.”

The new effort comes after Garcia criticized a White House response to an earlier memo outlining concerns that he and other House Republicans say must be addressed before approving more funding for Ukraine.

An increasing number of Republicans have opposed new Ukraine funding, including Garcia. But the California Republican argues most of those Republicans can still be won over with a smaller aid package and a clear endgame for the war.

Under the plan, the U.S. would provide weapons and munitions that deliver a decisive battlefield advantage. He estimates the munitions package could fall within the range of $15-20 billion for all of fiscal 2024, a much lower figure than Biden’s supplemental request.

His plan says munitions and other weapons shouldn’t come at the expense of U.S. needs or commitments to Israel or Taiwan. It also calls for continued end-use monitoring of weapons sent to Ukraine.

The memo argues that the U.S. should discontinue humanitarian aid and also cut off direct budgetary support to Ukraine, instead pressuring European nations to carry those responsibilities.

Garcia also says the U.S. and allies should endorse a “maximum pressure” posture on economic sanctions, including a full ban on Russian oil and minerals, and calls for enactment of legislation to use seized Russian assets to fund the war effort.

As the Senate prepares to debate Biden’s $106 billion aid proposal for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific and border security, Garcia says his plan could serve as the blueprint for an alternative House proposal.

“The problem we have in the House is that we’re going to get flat footed if we don’t actually put something forward that represents where we want it to be,” he said. “So, I’m trying to use this paper as the forcing function.”

More than 50 lawmakers are urging congressional leaders to avoid linking a soon-to-expire surveillance program to a massive defense policy bill.

The letter — spearheaded by Reps. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) — comes as Congress has a matter of weeks before the end-of-the-year deadline to reauthorize Section 702. The authority is meant to target the communications of foreigners abroad but has run into controversy because of its ability to sweep in Americans.

“A temporary extension would be entirely unnecessary, and it would be an inexcusable violation of the public’s trust to quietly greenlight an authority that has been flagrantly abused,” Davidson, Lofgren and 52 other lawmakers wrote in the letter, first reported by POLITICO.

Leadership hasn’t publicly indicated they intend to link a short-term extension of the surveillance power to the National Defense Authorization Act. But lawmakers and aides involved in the surveillance debate say they are likely to need more time and pointed to attaching a temporary extension to the defense bill, which also has to pass by the end of the year, as one way to accomplish that.

However, the group warned leadership that attaching a short-term 702 extension to the NDAA would “undermine the credibility of any legislation employed for this reauthorization,” indicating it could threaten the defense bill’s ultimate passage. Members tasked with negotiating the defense measure are scheduled to meet Wednesday, with the bill expected to be finalized this week.

“If Section 702 is to be reauthorized for even a single day, it must be through standalone legislation subject to robust, open debate and amendment,” the bipartisan group wrote in their letter.

In addition to linking 702 to the NDAA, the group is also urging leadership to oppose attaching it to another “must-pass” bill.

And these members aren’t the only ones not sold on a short-term extension.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) declined this week to say if he would back a temporary extension, telling reporters: “It would be disappointing if this authority were to lapse.”

Privacy advocates on-and-off Capitol Hill also grew concerned over the weekend that Speaker Mike Johnson could try to link a forthcoming reauthorization from the House Intelligence Committee, which will include narrower changes than they are hoping for, to the defense bill.

“It would be unwise and dangerous for Members of Congress to greenlight another major surveillance reauthorization without carefully considering and enacting robust reforms. That includes through the NDAA process,” Lofgren said in a statement.

Davidson, in a statement, added that, “Congress must allow opportunity for open debate, amendments, and reform prior to any” surveillance reauthorization.

But Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) tweeted this week that Johnson told him he would bring up 702 reauthorization as a stand-alone bill. Neither spokespeople for Johnson nor Gaetz responded to a question Tuesday about if that meant he wouldn’t try to attach a short-term extension to the defense bill.

The potential for a one-to-two-month stopgap comes as the House is entering the last month before the deadline without an agreed upon path forward.

Both the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees are moving forward with their own bills. While the two panels have agreed on several areas — including penalties, changes to the surveillance court and reporting requirements — they are divided on when a warrant should be required for searching 702-collected data for Americans.

Jordan told POLITICO that he will have a committee vote on his forthcoming bill next Wednesday, Dec. 6. The Intelligence Committee is also expected to soon release its bill.

Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.