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Bowman reverses after calling reports of Oct. 7 sexual assaults in Israel ‘propaganda’

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In the weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Rep. Jamaal Bowman not only publicly cast doubt on reports that Israeli women were raped, but also called those accusations “propaganda.”

“There was propaganda used in the beginning of the siege,” Bowman (D-N.Y.)told aNov. 17 rally of about 50 pro-Palestinian protesters in Westchester, according to a post on TikTok reviewed by POLITICO. “There’s still no evidence of beheaded babies or raped women. But they still keep using that lie [for] propaganda.”

Asked about those remarks on Thursday outside the House floor, Bowman declined to talk about them on the record.

“I’m focused on my votes and other things. I’m not talking,” he said. When asked if he still doubted those claims, he added: “I’m not talking about that now. My team will get back to you.”

In a statement after his brief interview with POLITICO, Bowman contradicted his previous remarks. He and his team did not deny that he made them. The “propaganda” comment was one of several comments he’s had to walk back on in recent months, including raising conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“As I said at this rally, what Hamas did on October 7th is a war crime and they must release all the hostages,” he said. “The UN confirmed that Hamas committed rape and sexual violence, a reprehensible fact that I condemn entirely. I also voted yes on Resolution 966, which officially condemns the rape and sexual violence committed by Hamas. So let me be clear, and ensure my words are not twisted: I always stand against sexual violence in all forms and stand for peace for all.”

Multiple reports of Hamas’ sexual violence during Oct. 7 emerged soon after the attack. A number of Bowman’s Democratic colleagues have decried sexual assaults during the attack going back to Oct. 9, when Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) asserted the attack included “the rape and killing of women, along with the murder of children and the elderly.”

On Oct. 23, the Israeli government showed dozens of foreign reporters a 43-minute video of the atrocities, including children getting killed and some Israelis being decapitated.

“[One] clip showed an Israeli woman inspecting a partially burned woman’s corpse to see if it was a family member,” The Guardianreported that day. “The victim’s dress was pulled up to her waist and her underpants had been removed. Maj. Gen. Mickey Edelstein, who briefed reporters after the viewing, said authorities had evidence of rape.”

A few weeks later, on Nov. 10, the British newspaper also reported that evidence of several incidents of sexual assault and rape were reportedly obtained via video footage taken by Hamas, Israeli civilians and emergency responders. Survivors and witnesses said they had seen women getting raped at a concert site in the Israeli desert.

Four days later, around 150 lawmakers attended a screening of footage from the Oct. 7 attacks, hosted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. While Bowman participated in House votes that day, a spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether he attended the briefing.

In the months since Bowman’s November remarks, evidence of the Oct. 7 rapes has grown substantially. The Physicians for Human Rights Israel published a paper about the “sexual and gender-based violence” that day, a U.N. envoy said there was “reasonable grounds” to believe the claims and President Joe Biden said that he condemned Hamas’ use of “rape, sexual violence, terrorism and the torture of Israeli women and girls.” The BBC also reported in December that they had talked to numerous people who had collected the bodies of victims and said they had “seen multiple signs of sexual assault, including broken pelvises, bruises, cuts and tears.”

In a local press interview on the sidelines of that Nov. 17 rally, Bowman did not repeat the claims calling the rapes and beheadings “propaganda.” Instead, he said: “what happened on Oct. 7 was horrible, and I condemn that and we condemn that.”

Bowman, who lost the support of the progressive pro-Israel group J Street in January because of his “singling out” of Israel for responsibility for the war and his embrace of anti-Israel activist Norman Finkelstein, is facing a serious primary challenger who is targeting the Squad member for his stance on Israel.

Bowman also has come under fire recently for his past comments about the Sept. 11 attacks. In late January, he said he should not have raised conspiracy theories years earlier about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “It’s obvious to everyone, especially the far-right MAGA Republicans I take on every day in Congress, that I will always stand up and fight against misinformation and harmful conspiracy theories,” he told CNN at the time.

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He entered Ohio’s Senate GOP race a frontrunner. He ended it an afterthought.

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SALEM, Ohio — When Donald Trump’s team invited Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose last summer to a gathering of Republican elected officials at the former president’s Bedminster golf club, it was a big moment for the Senate hopeful.

But it came with a condition — LaRose would have to endorse Trump’s presidential comeback bid, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation.

LaRose had just told POLITICO two weeks earlier that he did not plan to back a presidential candidate any time soon. But then he did, just hours before the dinner.

His forced endorsement of Trump wasn’t reciprocated. The former president instead backed another candidate in Ohio’s GOP Senate primary. And LaRose’s sudden reversal became one in a series of flip-flops that ended with a distant third-place finish in Tuesday’s primary to face Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

It was a dramatic fall from public favor for a man who had won reelection to his state post less than two years ago. LaRose had started the three-way race with a commanding polling lead and priceless name ID as a well-liked secretary of state.

But with his future on the line, LaRose moved away from his past reputation as a pragmatic establishment conservative and tried to push into an occupied MAGA lane. He ultimately ended up with little support from either faction.

On Tuesday, his attempt at higher office flamed out, ending with less than 17 percent of the vote. He was behind both the victor who ultimately won Trump’s coveted endorsement, Bernie Moreno, and the Trump skeptic who won over the state GOP’s old guard, state Sen. Matt Dolan.

But LaRose won’t disappear from the public eye. He has nearly three years left in his term as secretary of state — a lifetime in politics. What he learns from the Senate run and how he positions himself in that time, especially during the spotlight of the 2024 election he’ll oversee, will help determine his political future.

For now, the implosion of LaRose’s campaign holds lessons for other Republicans trying to keep up with a fast-evolving party dominated by Trumpism. As the Ohio Senate race turned into a proxy warbetween the MAGA movement and the old school GOP trying to claw its way back into power, LaRose first appeared to try to straddle the lines. Then he made a play for the MAGA crowd.

He got trounced.

“LaRose kind of wanted to have it both ways,” said Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), a conservative congressmember who considered a Senate run himself but ultimately endorsed Moreno.

A spokesperson disputed that LaRose had changed, saying he’d always been a strong supporter of Trump.

“An Ohio Republican that stands with President Trump on his policies,” LaRose told reporters when asked about his ideological alignment in the final days of the race. But he shrugged off labels: “There’s no box that you can necessarily put me in.”

All three candidates in the race to face Brown have at times seemed wary of Trump. Dolan remained consistent in his assertion that Trump did not win the 2020 election and bore blame for the events of Jan. 6, 2021. He was the only one of the three to not seek Trump’s endorsement.

Moreno had also been critical of Trump, both before his 2016 election and in the aftermath of Jan. 6. But he pivoted hard to embrace Trump, especially during his 2022 Senate run, which he ended after meeting with the former president and endorsing now-Sen. J.D. Vance. Both Moreno and Vance shirked their past Trump criticisms to go all-in on supporting the former president.

LaRose’s relationship with Trump has also evolved over time.

In 2019 he called a Trump tweet “racist”. As Ohio’s chief elections official, LaRose insisted the state’s 2020 elections were fair and accurate, that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in mail voting, and any Republican who suggested otherwise was “irresponsible.”

But in seeking reelection in 2022 with a primary challenge from the right, he accepted Trump’s endorsement — and his language about the 2020 election began to shift. By February 2022, he said “President Trump is right to say voter fraud is a serious problem.”

LaRose easily won reelection in 2022. Fresh off that success, he entered the Senate race in July 2023 as the early frontrunner, starting off with a large lead over both Dolan and Moreno, who were already in the race. Even Moreno’s own internal polling from March 2023 showed LaRose with a 17-point lead over Moreno.

LaRose’s team, in fact, was so confident that in the summer of 2023, one of his consultants approached Moreno’s campaign with a proposal: Drop out and LaRose would endorse Moreno for another office. Moreno’s team declined, according to two people familiar with the call from LaRose’s consultant.

LaRose, meanwhile, was raising money as he became a major backer of a constitutional amendment that effectively served as a stand in for an abortion referendum that would be placed on the ballot that fall.

That vote failed badly. Meanwhile, Moreno was maneuvering to block LaRose from drawing MAGA support while also preventing him from pulling in help from the GOP establishment that was coalescing behind Dolan.

Both Moreno and Dolan are wealthy, but LaRose needed funds. Moreno’s campaign reached out to wealthy donors in GOP big-money circles — the kind who give to Americans for Prosperity and American Opportunity Alliance — to show them data on LaRose’s lack of a path forward, urging them to at least stay neutral in the race if they didn’t want to back Moreno, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

And as LaRose embraced the MAGA movement, some former donors moved to support Dolan instead. Jimmy and Dee Haslam, the owners of the Cleveland Browns and major GOP donors, publicly backed Dolan in a letter that praised him for not “catering to the extreme.”

They had donated to LaRose in the past but now began working to drum up support for Dolan from other major donors. By the end of the campaign, LaRose had so little money that he never aired a single TV ad.

Moreno’s team pounced on any opening to cast LaRose as anti-Trump as both candidates jockeyed for the former president’s endorsement.

When LaRose appeared to defend former Vice President Mike Pence’s actions on Jan. 6, Moreno’s allies immediately brought it to the attention of Trump’s orbit. LaRose quickly walked his comments back via a spokesperson. When old tweets from LaRose’s communications aide insulting Trump surfaced, LaRose abruptly fired the man. The aide was well-liked in Ohio GOP circles, and his ouster drew quick rebuke — and helped further sever LaRose’s ties to the establishment.

By the time LaRose officially entered the race, he had sent mixed messages about whether he would endorse Trump in the presidential primary — or whether a reciprocal endorsement would even matter.

LaRose had declined to endorse anyone in 2020, saying it was inappropriate for the state’s top elections official to do so.

In the spring of 2023, LaRose was caught on tape telling a group of Ohio Republicans behind closed doors that the Trump endorsement carries less weight than it once did and that there is “60 percent of the party that doesn’t care who he endorses.”

In an interview shortly before his mid-July launch, LaRose told POLITICO he wanted the Trump endorsement but wouldn’t beg for it, and that he wasn’t ready to endorse the president himself.

“There’s an Ohioan running for president, too,” he said, referring to Vivek Ramaswamy. “I want to hear what Vivek has to say some more and see how he does. We’ll see and time will pass and I’ll make a decision about who I’m going to endorse at a later date.”

Then came the Trump dinner. LaRose endorsed the former president just hours before the event in New Jersey.

But he got nothing in return. Trump endorsed Moreno in December, and the three-way race quickly became a showdown between Moreno and Dolan.

“Dolan clearly had the moderate lane and Bernie had a pretty good lock on the conservative Trump lane,” said Davidson, the Ohio congressmember. “And, you know, there really isn’t a third way that has a lot of momentum right now.”

By the time Trump came to rally for Moreno in the closing days of the race, LaRose had become an afterthought. Trump devoted parts of his 90-minute speech to ripping Dolan — and did not mention LaRose once.

Yet few Republicans expect LaRose to fade into obscurity.

He still has most of his second term as the state’s chief elections official ahead of him. Trump hadn’t attacked LaRose during the election, noted LaRose’s spokesperson, Rick Gorka, which “shows that there’s a respect for Frank.” And running the 2024 election will give him an opportunity to remain visible.

“He’s a young man, so I’m sure we’ll see him again in some statewide race,” Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) said.

And if LaRose was sending mixed signals before about the power of Trumpism, he is not now. On Thursday, he endorsed Moreno’s Senate bid, drawing praise from Moreno who called him “a good conservative.” It was the typical course of action for a defeated primary candidate, but it earned him kudos from the party.

“Frank LaRose is a good man, a talented politician, and has a bright future in Republican politics,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who chairs the Senate campaign arm. “The reality is, President Trump’s endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”

Zach Montellaro contributed.

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Senate sends $1.2T funding package to Biden, thwarting partial shutdown

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A colossal $1.2 trillion spending package is finally off to President Joe Biden’s desk, with Congress concluding a tumultuous government funding cycle and skirting a shutdown after midnight.

The Senate cleared the six-bill funding bundle in a 74-24 vote early Saturday morning, following votes on a dozen Republican amendments and proposals, none of which were successful. The House approved the package earlier on Friday, with more Democrats voting for the massive measure than Republicans as Speaker Mike Johnson faces a new threat to his gavel.

Almost halfway through the fiscal year, the legislation will deliver fresh budgets and a steady funding stream to the Pentagon and many non-defense agencies through September. The final passage vote caps off an especially rancorous government funding battle that began more than a year ago when House conservatives started demanding deep spending cuts from then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, despite the reality that the Democrat-led Senate and Biden would never agree to severe reductions.

“And after all of that delay — how different ultimately was the outcome?” Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday on the floor.

In the end, the funding legislation hews closely to the spending levels McCarthy struck with Biden last summer under the bipartisan debt limit agreement, forged before the former speaker disavowed those totals at the behest of his right flank and still lost his gavel last fall. The funding package also leaves out the controversial policy stipulations House Republicans included in their own versions of the funding bills.

It got Congress “nowhere,” Murray said, “when House Republicans stopped everything to renegotiate the deal they struck with the president, when they insisted on partisan poison pills, when they listened to the loudest voices on the far right — who, let’s be real, were never going to vote for any bipartisan funding bill.”

As part of the deal to vote on passage of the package, Senate leaders agreed to hold a vote by April 19 on a bill from Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) that would bar the Biden administration from carrying out new EPA rules on tailpipe emissions.

Before final passage, the Senate defeated amendments that would block the release of special immigrant visas, bar the Biden administration from waiving sanctions on Iran and force DHS to detain immigrants accused of crimes like shoplifting. The Senate also rejected an amendment that would cut off federal funding for schools that allow transgender students to play on women’s sports teams, as well as a proposal to bar immigrants accused of assaulting a law enforcement officer from becoming legal U.S. residents or citizens.

Adoption of any amendments would have prompted a multi-day government funding lapse, since the package would be sent back to the House, which adjourned for a two-week recess. Murray opposed many of the amendments with the same message: “Just like the previous vote, this is a procedural vote that will cause a shutdown.”

The spending package could be the last government funding action seen in Congress for a while, at least until lawmakers are likely forced to pass a stopgap spending bill later this year that heads off yet another shutdown threat at the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1. With a presidential battle looming in November, serious work on funding bills for next fiscal year is unlikely until after Election Day.

“The only problem we’ve got now is just the calendar — going into the election year,” said Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the top Republican on the appropriations panel that funds the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction projects.

Boozman predicted deal-making for the upcoming fiscal year will still be less challenging than what appropriators have just struggled through.

“With a new House, it just takes time to get everything settled. But going through this, I think the next go-round it’ll be easier,” he said.

In the House, Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said negotiations on the funding package were especially difficult because Democrats are new to their role as the chamber’s minority party.

“It is always difficult for those who lose the majority to kind of understand that they’ve lost control,” said Díaz-Balart, who chairs the appropriations panel that funds the State Department and Foreign Operations. “It was a very difficult process. Obviously. It’s taken six months.”

Overall defense funding will increase by about 3 percent under the package, while non-defense funding will remain about even with current levels, because of those bipartisan budget caps that Biden and Johnson reinforced in January.

Both sides celebrated several funding increases for their respective priorities under those tight budget constraints.

Republicans lauded spending bumps for the Pentagon and DHS, including funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold 42,000 people in detention at one time and for 22,000 Border Patrol agents. Democrats touted increased funding for schools serving low-income students, Head Start and child care, along with boosts for research on cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Both the House and Senate are now headed out for a two-week recess. When they return, other priorities will quickly consume both chambers.

House Republicans will be under growing pressure to take up the Senate-passed foreign aid funding package, for example, and Johnson may have to defend his speakership after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed a motion to strip him of his gavel on Friday.

“All the precious rules are being broken,” Greene said earlier in the week, deriding the funding package before announcing her plan to challenge Johnson’s post.

House Republicans will soon look to elect a new top appropriator, after House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas) announced plans Friday to give up her gavel early, asking her colleagues to choose a successor soon so she can step down. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior Republican appropriator, is widely seen as the frontrunner for the position.

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Border amendment fights push Senate closer to midnight shutdown deadline

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The Senate is at a temporary stalemate on government funding with only hours until a shutdown deadline hits at midnight, as Republicans demand multiple amendment votes related to the border and immigration.

Several GOP senators said there are roughly 10-12 amendments that are still being discussed, leaving the House-passed government funding bill in limbo. All 100 senators must come to an agreement in order to vote on the massive spending package before the Friday-night deadline.

If Senate leadership fails to land an agreement on amendments, it’s likely a Republican would object to moving forward on Friday and kick the vote into the weekend, prompting at least a brief partial shutdown.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said “all 49 Republicans are ready and willing to vote now” but blamed holdups on Democrats denying two specific GOP amendment requests.

“They especially don’t want to vote on the Laken Riley amendment, which would insist on justice for the murder of Laken Riley and similarly situated illegal criminals, and they don’t want to vote on the amendment that would prohibit charter flights for illegal aliens into the country,” Cotton said.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said the situation is “still up in the air” and pointed to a number of amendment requests, including one to block the Biden administration from lifting sanctions on Iran.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said several of the amendments have “an immigration flavor.” Lee added that Republicans want some of their amendments requests to be slimmed down to a majority threshold, while others would have a 60-vote threshold.

Senators are slated to begin a two-week recess after they pass the funding legislation. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has a procedural motion to tee up a vote on the bill Sunday, if senators can’t reach an agreement sooner.

Even if Democratic leadership grants amendment votes, it’s unlikely any would be adopted. Changing the bill now would virtually guarantee a brief shutdown, since the House has already left town.

Jennifer Scholtes and Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

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Granger announces plans to leave powerful spending perch early

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House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger plans to give up her gavel early, asking Republicans on Friday to choose a successor soon so she can step down.

In a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday, the Texas Republican asked the GOP Steering Committee and the rest of the conference to elect a new chair “as soon as possible.” Granger, who isn’t running for reelection next year, said she plans to serve out the remainder of her term in the House and serve as “chair emeritus.”

Granger’s announcement comes just hours after the House passed a massive $1.2 trillion funding package to stave off a shutdown at midnight, finally closing out funding needs on a fiscal year that started five months ago. It’s likely the last major spending deal that she will oversee as Congress barrels toward a presidential election. Reps. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) and Tom Cole (R-Okla.) have already signaled they will run for chair.

“Recognizing that an election year often results in final appropriations bills not getting enacted until well into the next fiscal year, it is important that I do everything in my power to ensure a seamless transition” before work on spending bills for the next fiscal year begins in earnest, she wrote.

Aderholt is the most senior Republican on the committee, after Granger. Cole is the current vice chair.

Granger announced in November that she would not run for reelection to the House this year. She is 81 years old and has represented Texas’ 12th Congressional District since 1997, when she became the first Republican woman to represent Texas in the House.

She went on to become the first Republican woman to serve in several other prominent roles, including on the Defense spending subcommittee, going on to lead the influential panel that oversees military funding.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

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Four questions about the newest effort to oust Mike Johnson, answered

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) threw the GOP-led House into fresh chaos Friday by filing a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson, just half a year into his speakership.

Many Republicans and Democrats alike slammed the move as counterproductive — and few are sure it would even succeed at this point. “So unfortunate, no respect for the integrity of the House,” former Speaker Nancy Pelosi told POLITICO. “But a logical consequence of what [Kevin] McCarthy had to do to get elected speaker.”

Others were blunter: “Would I support it? Are you fucking kidding me?” asked Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), one of the most endangered House Republicans.

But what did Greene’s Friday move actually mean? Here are some answers:

What did Marjorie Taylor Greene just do?

Greene filed a motion to vacate — the same procedural move used last year to oust McCarthy that threw the GOP conference into a internecine maelstrom as they searched for a new leader.

What Greene did not do was trigger action on the motion, or start any kind of clock for the House to consider her proposal to boot Johnson from the speakership. It doesn’t guarantee action on the proposal at all.

Greene said Friday she was not looking for a repeat of the weeks of mayhem that followed the removal and will be trying to formulate a plan for electing a new leader before triggering the resolution. The House is set to go on a two-week Easter and Passover recess, which will either give Greene time to rally allies against Johnson or for opponents — including some Democrats — to come together to defeat her proposal.

Greene said Friday she believes GOP voters do not “want to see a Republican speaker that’s held in place by Democrats.”

Her charge against Johnson: He has passed multiple spending bills without the majority of Republicans in support, leaning heavily on Democratic votes.

Why is ‘privilege’ important to this resolution?

It’s wonky, but deeming something privileged is a way to go around House leadership and compel a floor vote. In practice, leaders must schedule votes on privileged items within two legislative days.

The tool has been used frequently — and prominently — this Congress. Members used it boot McCarthy, as well as to force votes to censure Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.). Members also expelled former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) using a privileged resolution.

McCarthy agreed to set the threshold at just one member to force a vote on a motion to vacate as part of his initial bargain with hard-line conservatives to win the speakership. According to the Congressional Research Service, lawmakers raised 140 questions of the privileges of the House between 1995 and 2015 — of which, 73 percent were deemed valid.

Is the House definitely going to vote on this in two weeks?

There’s no guarantee of that. Greene had the option to speed up consideration of her proposal, but instead chose a slow path that will loom over House Republicans as they head home for recess.

Greene could have called up her resolution on the House floor Friday and forced a decision sooner. Instead, she is sitting on what amounts to a threat against Johnson’s leadership.

“I’m not saying that it won’t happen in two weeks, or it won’t happen in a month, or who knows when,” Greene said Friday.

Remember: Even during recess, there are legislative days. Pro forma sessions count as legislative days, but there’s no expectation for any action before the House returns in April.

If they do, will Johnson definitely get the ax?

In short, no. Many of the eight GOP “rebels” who tossed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last fall indicated they weren’t on board yet with this latest effort.

Democrats are floating the idea of helping Johnson hold onto the gavel if he promises a floor vote on aid to Ukraine, as many have sought for months. “If Speaker Johnson has a plan for aid to Ukraine, I’m sure a lot of Democrats would love to hear about it,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told POLITICO.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries didn’t commit to saving Johnson, despite allusions to the possibility previously, saying that conversation would need to happen among House Democrats. “That was an observation not a declaration,” he told reporters of previously suggesting Democrats might save Johnson

Asked by a POLITICO reporter Friday if he was worried about the motion to vacate threat, Johnson merely shook his head.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

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Johnson’s margin drops to one vote as Gallagher heads for early exit

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Speaker Mike Johnson is about to drop to a one-vote majority, as retiring Rep. Mike Gallagher has decided he will exit the House as soon as next month, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The Wisconsin Republican announced earlier this year that he would not seek reelection, which came on the heels of receiving blowback for voting against impeaching Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. His allies, however, say he was long jaded by the antics of the House following the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Gallagher’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

The timing couldn’t be worse for Johnson, who is now potentially facing a vote on his ouster in the coming weeks. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed the so-called motion to vacate on Friday, over Johnson working with Democrats to pass a massive spending bill, but it’s unclear when she’ll try to force the vote on the floor.

It also further fuels conference concerns over its trajectory headed into the November election. Fewer mainstream Republicans like Gallagher means a larger share of GOP hardliners are more empowered to take on their own party.

Since Gallagher announced his retirement, the chair of the Select Committee on China has nabbed a legacy-making moment: House passage of a bipartisan bill that would force TikTok in the U.S. to sever its ties to the Chinese government.

Gallagher has said he plans to continue working on national security issues as part of the private sector.

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House Dems could have Johnson’s back on ouster threat — if Ukraine aid gets a vote

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House Democrats say Mike Johnson has an option to control his future over a motion to vacate from Marjorie Taylor Green: putting a Ukraine aid package on the floor.

Several Democrats from across the ideological spectrum said in interviews with POLITICO they would motion to table Greene’s resolution — if it came to a vote — if Johnson put a Ukraine aid package on the House floor for a vote.

All Democrats previously voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy along with a group of Republicans last fall.

“I think Speaker Johnson should demonstrate a willingness to govern in a way that is helpful to the plight of democracy and our allies across the world,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who said she’d vote to set aside the motion if the Senate-passed foreign aid bill came up for a vote.

“If Taylor Greene puts forth a motion to vacate because there’s a bill on the floor that we have the ability to vote on — the Senate-passed Ukraine bill — I would absolutely vote to table,” she said.

“It’s not a question of saving Mike Johnson,” seconded Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). “I’ll make a common cause and an alliance with anybody in Congress who will try to save the Ukrainian people at this point.”

And in recent days, Johnson has indicated privately to some Democratic lawmakers he would put a Ukraine aid bill up for a vote after lawmakers came back from their Easter recess. Johnson has signaled that foreign aid would be the House’s next priority after wrapping up government funding this week.

“I had a very positive conversation with Speaker Johnson today where he assured me that the Ukraine aid the package would come to the floor,” Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) told POLITICO on Thursday. “And I feel confident with that.”

Democratic leadership indicated they would first hear out their members before deciding on a plan of action.

“It’s a joke, she is an embarrassment,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters. “We will have a conversation about it soon.”

Anthony Adragna contributed to this report

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Mike Lee moves to block expansion of Senate leadership staff

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Mike Lee is taking his battle with Senate leadership to new lengths.

The Utah Republican proposed an amendment to the spending bill that would dismantle the pay structure for some top staffers to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to a copy of the amendment obtained by POLITICO.

A number of top staffers for Schumer and McConnell are paid as “consultants,” and Lee’s amendment would block the use of the practice.

Lee refers to Schumer and McConnell as “The Firm” and has been railing against their work together on the Senate’s foreign aid bill, as well as its annual spending bills. He’s been calling on Republicans to block the spending bill that arrived in the Senate on Friday and took specific aim at the legislation’s potential expansion of leadership staff on Thursday.

“The 1,012-page spending bill doesn’t secure the border, but rest assured — it paves the way for Senate leadership to hire additional staff,” he posted on X.

At issue is a provision in the spending bill’s section on the legislative branch, which would expand the use of consultants on leadership staff. The Senate has paid staff through this designation for more than 20 years, with the amount of total pay gradually increasing to more than $4 million last year, according to Legistorm.

Lee’s amendment would stop that practice entirely. It’s unlikely to pass even if it gets a roll call vote, but nonetheless demonstrates the level of ire on the right toward Senate leaders.

Lee is also one of the most prominent opponents of McConnell as GOP leader, criticizing his leadership style and voting against him in the 2022 leadership elections. McConnell will step down as the Senate’s top Republican later this year, but the next GOP leader would likely benefit from the expansion of Senate consultants.

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House sends $1.2T funding deal to Senate ahead of midnight shutdown cliff

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The House approved a $1.2 trillion funding package on Friday, sending the colossal measure off to the Senate with just hours to spare before federal cash expires for most of the government after midnight.

Speaker Mike Johnson leaned heavily on Democratic votes to pass the package in a 286-134 vote, his usual practice with spending legislation ever since he assumed the gavel five months ago. Just 101 Republicans supported the measure, falling short of a majority of the GOP conference. The vote was held less than 36 hours after more than 1,000 pages of bill text was released in the middle of the night, a fact that infuriated conservatives.

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