It’s no longer just conservatives threatening to block floor action when they don’t get their way.

A group of four New York lawmakers threw a tranche of unrelated bills into limbo Tuesday afternoon, trying to squeeze GOP leadership to make changes to a tax proposal that Speaker Mike Johnson had hoped to pass through the chamber quickly. They were considering opposing a so-called rule vote, which would have ground floor action to a halt. It’s a tactic conservatives have embraced in recent months, when they feel leadership isn’t properly prioritizing their goals.

And while Johnson was ultimately able to stave off another episode of the near-constant chaos that consumes his thin majority, the centrist coalition is threatening to tank other bills as the talks with Johnson drag on.

“The point that has been made multiple times this Congress is that there are strength in numbers. But for us that delivered the majority, this is the issue that matters,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said, asked if the group would use a similar hardball tactic in the future.

The group of New York Republicans and members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — who have their own issues with the tax bill — are now expected to meet with Johnson and members of the Ways & Means Committee, which negotiated the bipartisan tax bill, later Tuesday as they try to figure out a path forward.

New York Republicans want some sort of fix to State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction to go along with the tax bill, a particular burden to their constituents where property taxes are higher. One involved Republican said Johnson and others are trying to temper the tensions amid an ongoing clash between the New Yorkers and other members of leadership.

Meanwhile, members of the Freedom Caucus are privately pushing leadership to make concessions over an expansion of the child tax credit.

“We’re having conversations about some of their concerns, some of our concerns and seeing if we can get a little kumbaya,” said Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).

House Republican leaders had been expected to call a vote on the bill this week, likely under suspension — a process that requires a two-thirds vote threshold but allows them to bypass GOP opponents by leaning on Democrats to help pass the bill.

That is leaving opponents of the tax bill looking for other points of leverage. Republicans threatening to tank their own party’s unrelated legislation has become a much more common practice this Congress, given frequent rebellions and an incredibly thin majority.

Conservative rabble rousers used the tactic under both Johnson and his predecessor Kevin McCarthy to express their displeasure over a debt deal last year and, more recently, short-term spending patches that have passed with Democratic support.

Some members left the vote shaking their heads, lamenting they can’t even do the basic practice of passing a rule these days. Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) said they are “calling this the SALT rebellion.”

“It’s like the Whiskey Rebellion. Let’s see if the federal troops will crush it,” Zinke added, referring to tax protests on distilled spirits that turned violent when George Washington was president.

Katherine Tully McManus, Benjamin Guggenheim, Daniella Diaz and Nicholas Wu contributed reporting.

Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday savaged a bipartisan border security deal that senators are working to finalize this week, calling it insufficient to secure the southern border.

“It seems the authority to shut down the border would kick in only after as many as 5,000 illegal crossings happen a day. Why? Why would we do that?” he asked during a press conference. “That would be surrender. The goal should be zero illegal crossings a day.”

Asked about rumblings of the deal, which the speaker said he’s yet to see the text of, Johnson said: “I hope some of this is not true.” Johnson has repeatedly criticized the deal in the last week, saying in a statement it could be “dead on arrival” in the House if the rumors about its contents were true.

“What’s been suggested is in this bill is not enough to secure the border,” he added.

The bill’s advocates say that the actual amount of illegal crossings would be much lower. The Department of Homeland Security would be required to shut down illegal crossings if the daily average of encounters surpasses 5,000 migrants or if a one-day total surpasses 8,500. DHS would have the authority to shut the border down at 4,000 encounters per day, however, and Biden has signaled he would aggressively use that authority.

Once the mandatory shutdown is enforced, it would take two weeks of starkly lower illegal crossings (about 2,000) to reopen the border to crossings other than asylum appointments at ports of entry. As a result of high illegal crossing numbers, the border shutdown could continue for weeks or months until the numbers go down.

Johnson is due to deliver a floor speech on border security later on Tuesday. The speaker denied that House objections to the legislation was being done to aid former President Donald Trump in his bid to return to the White House.

“That’s absurd,” Johnson said. “We’re trying to use every ounce of leverage that we have to make sure this issue is addressed.”

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

Battleground state senators typically slow down after winning a competitive race. But after two victories in a row, Mark Kelly is keeping his foot on the gas.

The Arizona Democrat is going all-out to help Senate Democrats keep their majority, traveling across the country to aid vulnerable colleagues. He raised $89 million for his own reelection campaign in 2022 (just two years after his first race), won both and is now trying to help his colleagues keep the majority for a third straight cycle.

“I’m not a take it easy kind of person,” he said in an interview Monday about his travels. “I’m gonna work really hard to do my part to [keep the Senate and the presidency]. And if that means traveling around, multiple times to a bunch of different states? Yeah, I’m gonna do that.”

Kelly visited two critical must-win battlegrounds over the weekend, helping raise six figures apiece for Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). In three days, he visited Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland, doing nine events.

To date, Kelly has raised or contributed more than $1.8 million for Democratic candidates and incumbents, as well as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, since the start of the cycle. He’s doing events and contributing money for state parties in battlegrounds and has been to Montana, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin and Virginia this cycle.

That’s a lot for someone who does not run Senate Democrats’ campaign arm and is not in party leadership.

“Do I like it? Uh, I’m OK with it. I like flying the space shuttle. I like flying airplanes off of an aircraft carrier. I flew an F-16 A few months ago. I liked that. That was fun. I’m OK with this,” Kelly deadpanned when asked if he enjoys being an in-demand campaigner.

“I do enjoy getting out there. And meeting folks and helping my colleagues. I enjoy that part of it. But you know, it’s also time that I’m giving up with my grandkid.”

Democrats will need all the help they can get: They may have to run the table on their incumbents to keep the majority after Joe Manchin’s retirement.

Kelly is a disciplined campaigner, quick on his feet with few gaffes. His campaign strategy involved raising a lot of money and defining himself — and sometimes his opponents — before they know what hit them. He also found strategic ways to break with President Joe Biden.

After those tough races, he’s currently one of the better-known Senate Democrats. His biography as an astronaut, veteran and gun safety advocate married to former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) is an asset as well.

So it’s a reasonable question: Does he aspire to lead the DSCC, join leadership or maybe even look at national office? “My goal right now is to make sure we hold on to the Senate,” Kelly answered. “And that Joe Biden gets reelected. That’s what I’m working on.”

Kelly’s political formula has been successful in Arizona, though it will be hard to replicate this cycle.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) has not announced her intentions on pursuing reelection. But if she runs, Sinema would find herself in a three-way race against 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego.

Kelly isn’t getting ahead of Sinema’s decision-making, but he’ll comfortably criticize Lake, who is backed by GOP leaders in Washington and unsuccessfully sought to overturn her 2022 election loss. He said that race won’t be easy but he believes his state does not “want the chaos politics.”

“Her race for governor and the aftermath, and what she has shown the people of Arizona of her character, and how she would govern? I just don’t see Arizonans electing her,” Kelly said. “We’re not a state that’s, I believe, going to be comfortable electing Kari Lake.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is clarifying her comments from a Sunday TV interview, when she suggested an investigation was needed into connections between the pro-ceasefire protests and Russian influence.

The California Democrat told CNN that some protestors calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war “are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia.” She did not present direct evidence for her comments. She had added that she didn’t think the protests were “plants” but thought while “some financing should be investigated” by the FBI, “apart from that, let’s just say it’s all spontaneous and sincere.”

Her office then further explained those comments Monday, saying she supported Americans’ rights to “peaceful protest.”

“Informed by three decades on the House Intelligence Committee, Speaker Pelosi is acutely aware of how foreign adversaries meddle in American politics to sow division and impact our elections, and she wants to see further investigation ahead of the 2024 election,” a Pelosi spokesperson said in a statement.

Russia had interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Donald Trump, including through cyberattacks carried out on the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the dissemination of disinformation through social media.

Pelosi’s comments had prompted some criticism from the left, with former Justice Democrats spokesperson Waleed Shahid blasting them in a statement as “unacceptable disinformation being spread by the most powerful Democratic Party leaders about the positions of the vast majority of Democratic Party voters.”

Other liberals seemed inclined to give Pelosi a pass. Former congressional candidate Brianna Wu posted on X that “Pelosi’s wording was not great” but also highlighted the need to investigate “information warfare.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib met with President Joe Biden’s campaign manager last week as the president seeks to patch up relations with key Democratic groups, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Tlaib (D-Mich.) has been an outspoken critic of the Biden administration’s approach to the Israel-Gaza war. Her district includes the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, which has a large Arab American population.

A spokesperson for the progressive lawmaker did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Biden campaign declined to comment.

Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodriguez, had traveled to Michigan last Friday to meet with a wide range of elected officials and local leaders ahead of the Feb. 27 primary, amid flagging support for the president among minority groups seething over the Gaza war. Some of the leaders — including Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Michigan state Rep. Alabas Farhat, a Democrat who represents Dearborn — publicly declined to meet with her in protest.

Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American in Congress, has publicly criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the war, prompting a generally frosty relationship between her and the White House. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had denounced Talib’s comments at the outset of the war, in which she grieved lives lost on both sides and criticized Israel’s “apartheid government” days after the attack, as “repugnant.”

Democratic lawmakers are seeking answers from the Biden administration over its decision to greenlight a pair of recent arms sales to Israel without congressional approval.

Nineteen Democrats called the State Department’s decision to unilaterally approve two emergency sales to Israel move “highly unusual” in a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday and obtained by POLITICO. It highlights a growing divide among Democrats, as progressives especially criticize how President Joe Biden has responded to Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war.

The lawmakers pressed for details about why the emergency sales were needed, which sidestepped the typical process that requires congressional approval, and any steps taken to mitigate civilian harm.

“It is essential for Congress to be able to conduct oversight of these arms transfers and determine whether they are consistent with humanitarian principles and U.S. law, and whether they advance or harm U.S. national security,” the lawmakers wrote, led by progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

“We appreciate that your administration has repeatedly urged the Israeli government to take additional steps to reduce civilian casualties,” the group said to Blinken. “However, we are concerned that these transfers and the administration’s evasion of congressional oversight may be inconsistent with broader U.S. foreign policy goals.”

It’s not the first time the Biden administration has faced open intraparty pushback over how it has handled Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza and mounting Palestinian civilian deaths. Biden immediately faced criticism from Democrats for leaving Congress out of the loop on the two arms sales to Israel. The chairs and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees typically must sign off on foreign weapons sales.

The State Department in December used an emergency designation to approve the sale of 14,000 tank shells to Israel valued at $106 million. That same month, it used the same process to approve a sale of primers, fuzes and charges for Israel’s 155mm artillery shells previously sold by the U.S. The sale of the shells and added equipment totaled $147 million.

State Department officials have defended the move to expedite the sales, noting they have also used the mechanism to speed up weapons transfers for Ukraine, an argument that clearly didn’t sway certain members of Congress.

The Democratic lawmakers also pressed Blinken on whether the U.S. has conducted any vetting of Israel under the Leahy Law, which bars U.S. assistance to foreign militaries that commit gross human rights violations.

“Use of a national emergency waiver does not exempt the U.S. government from assessing whether arms sales are consistent with these policies,” they argued.

In addition to Warren, the letter was signed by Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Fifteen House Democrats also signed on, including Reps. Betty McCollum of Minnesota and Barbara Lee of California, the top Democrats on the House panels that control appropriations to the State Department and the Pentagon.

Oversight of arms transfers will likely be a topic of debate when senators consider a $111 billion emergency aid package for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. Democrats, led by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, are pushing to reverse a proposal by the Biden administration that would allow officials to waive congressional notification requirements for some U.S. military aid to Israel.