President Joe Biden’s decision to strike the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen is reigniting the long-simmering congressional battle over war powers — and it’s become a rare point of consensus for progressives and hardline conservatives.

While the action had support on the Hill — military hawks and many conservatives praised the strikes, with many calling them overdue — a significant swath of both the left and the right quickly condemned the Biden administration for not seeking an explicit green light from Congress. They argued it’s a requirement under the War Powers Act. Those factions have long aligned on curtailing sprawling war powers and military operations across the world over the past two decades.

“Their argument is that the attack on the ships were an attack on the United States,” said Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). “If there’s time to build an international coalition, there should have been time to come to Congress.”

She added in a brief interview that “I understand the challenge of a Congress that is so divided, but I still think that we can’t just skip over” the need to get authorization.

Lawmakers could try to block further military action through legislation, though next steps are unclear at the moment, especially since leaders in both parties largely backed Biden’s decision to strike the Houthis after months of attacks on ships in the Red Sea. Still, Democratic dissent over the Yemen strikes represents more bad news for Biden entering an election year, given existing intraparty clashes over Biden’s support for Israel.

The coalition of countries that conducted the strikes invoked “the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense, consistent with the UN Charter.” And experts say he was within his rights to take action without an official declaration from Congress since the Houthis were explicitly targeting American ships with drones and missiles.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said the strikes further inflamed progressive fears about a widening conflict in the Middle East, beyond the existing one between Israel and Hamas.

But “[Biden] still has to get our approval. So that’s yet to happen, so that’s the issue,” he said in an interview. “I don’t know if there’ll be additional actions by the U.S. or not, with the Houthis, but certainly we want to send a message.”

Pocan stopped short of saying Congress should try to stop the president from further action, however.

“It’s way too early to start using words like rebuke,” Pocan said. “I think what we did is we put out a very preemptive [statement] to say: ‘Hey, hey, hey, don’t go too far down this path.’”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) noted in an interview that the House previously voted to cut off support for war efforts in Yemen but that “we’ll see if it materializes” following these latest strikes.

Right now, that seems unlikely. Biden isn’t yet seeing pushback from most members of his party, or members of GOP leadership. National security-oriented Democrats on Capitol Hill were quick to defend Biden’s decision as a reasonable response to Houthi attacks.

“I look forward to continued consultation with the Administration on this decision, as required by law, and encourage the President to persist in his efforts to keep this conflict from spreading further in the region,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) in a statement, praising Biden’s “precise action against these increasingly dangerous provocations.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) called the strikes “necessary and proportional” in a statement.

Battles over war powers authorizations have intensified in recent years, as lawmakers have sought to claw back authorities that Congress granted to the president after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Biden has notably backed efforts to rewrite expansive war powers, but lawmakers have disagreed over certain details, like under what conditions the president should still have the authority to launch strikes.

The House voted in a bipartisan way to repeal two decades-old authorizations in 2021, though they never became law. And the Senate then muscled through a repeal of Congress’ 1991 Gulf War and 2002 Iraq War authorizations for military action in Iraq last year, though the House hasn’t yet acted on the legislation.

House Foreign Affairs Chair Mike McCaul (R-Texas), has led recent efforts to reform existing war powers. In the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel, he announced he was drafting an authorization for Biden to strike Hezbollah and other Iran-backed proxies in the Middle East.

On Friday, McCaul echoed accusations that the Houthi are coordinating with Iran and argued Biden has the constitutional authority to go even further, such as striking Iranian ships in self-defense.

“I do commend the administration for finally hitting back,” McCaul said on Fox News. “It’s about time. They only understand one thing in that part of the world. It is force and it is power.”

Whatever consensus exists to pare back war powers, there’s a larger bipartisan group that’s been reluctant to tinker with them. Conservative Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who founded the War Powers Caucus with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), said they face “an uphill battle” against moderates and hawks.

“You’ve got war hawks from both parties … and you’ve got this massive group of middle people who aren’t paying any attention at all,” Biggs said in an interview.

Speaker Mike Johnson defied his right flank Friday morning, suggesting that he would maintain a bipartisan spending deal that they despise.

Delivering a written statement to reporters, Johnson nodded to conservative anger about the agreement that he negotiated with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. But he added that “our top line agreement remains.”

“We are getting our next steps together and we are working toward a robust appropriations process,” Johnson said. He declined to answer further questions.

Conservatives have criticized the speaker both publicly and privately over the deal this week, calling on him to negotiate a new agreement with steeper funding cuts. That fury from his right flank grew Friday morning, with another lawmaker raising the idea of booting Johnson from the speakership.

“That is a failing, losing strategy and I will never support it. I’ll fight it as much as possible. Even if I have to go so far to vacate the chair. And there’s others that agree with me,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told reporters after a meeting with Johnson earlier Friday, referring to the process that would remove a speaker. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has also floated the idea.

Just an hour before his announcement, Johnson met with a group comprised of mostly House GOP centrists, who emphasized that a government shutdown would be damaging to members fighting for reelection in battleground districts. Some also argued that reneging on his bipartisan budget deal with congressional leaders hurt his brand moving forward, according to a GOP lawmaker who was in the room, granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal discussions.

That Republican centrist said they warned Johnson that he would look “weak” if he succumbed to the demands of his right wing.

“We’ve got to govern. … And, by the way, I think 90 or 95 percent of us are fully in sync on this,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is in a district President Joe Biden won in 2020.

Asked about the ouster threat, Bacon warned that it was inescapable given the thin majority. But he added of conservatives’ warnings: “Most of us can’t stand any of this stuff. I would say the majority of the majority we’re angry about this shit. We’re tired of it.”

Conservatives had met with the GOP leader earlier this week, asking him to abandon the bipartisan deal and work out new spending terms with them. That plan would have raised the odds of a partial government shutdown — since the Democratic-controlled Senate would almost certainly reject it — which is set to kick in on Jan. 20. Johnson hasn’t addressed if he will try to pass a stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, which will be necessary to avoid a partial shutdown. Schumer has indicated that the Senate will vote on such legislation next week.

Johnson’s statement follows a chaotic 24 hours of speculation about whether he would back out of the bipartisan agreement he announced with other congressional leaders on Sunday. Members of the House Freedom Caucus and their allies emerged from his office Thursday claiming that they were renegotiating the deal.

Conservatives have fumed that the agreement doesn’t do enough to cut spending — it’s almost identical to the funding agreement former Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck with President Joe Biden last year — or enact new border changes. They’ve also accused Johnson of sidelining them in the negotiations, a perennial complaint from the right flank during McCarthy’s speakership.

Johnson was spotted chatting with members of the Freedom Caucus on the floor during votes on both Thursday and Friday as they tried to push him to reject his own spending deal. And some conservative hardliners are vowing they will keep working to figure out an alternative plan, which would include a short-term funding patch, ahead of next week’s shutdown deadline.

“I think we need to have the Republican priorities on border security baked into this government funding discussion. And that was what I was just chatting with the speaker about,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told reporters.

For his part, Johnson argued that the bipartisan deal was the best agreement he could get given the House GOP’s thin margins. He’s said that if he had more leeway, the agreement would look different. His lack of negotiating power was just a reality of the narrow majority, he argued.

“I don’t agree with the announced deal between the Senate and the House. … I’ve vehemently opposed it publicly and privately and I’ll continue to do so,” House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) said on Friday.

But Good dismissed speculation about ousting Johnson, calling it a “ridiculous supposition that someone who has been a speaker for two-and-a-half months … would be treated the same as someone who was in that position for years.”

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

In vintage contrarian style, Sen. Rand Paul’s big move in the presidential race is an anti-endorsement of Nikki Haley. And he’s considering whether to campaign against her as she gains steam in New Hampshire.

The Kentucky Republican criticized Haley’s foreign policy stances as those of the “Dick Cheney, John McCain wing of the party” in an interview on Friday morning and said she’s the only candidate the senator would not be comfortable with as the GOP nominee. Paul might even consider supporting independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. if Haley wins the nomination.

The libertarian-leaning senator is using his considerable national following to try and spike her candidacy. He calls himself “Never Nikki” and has launched a website criticizing her policy positions.

“The people who like the stuff that I’ve been doing need to be aware,” said Paul, who advocates cutting foreign aid and government spending overall. “I don’t want her to gain any traction without people knowing fully about her record.”

Paul’s unique position in the primary reflects his often lonely views on foreign policy and spending. And it it is a change of tactics for him to get involved at all. In recent interviews, he’s been studiously neutral on the GOP field.

But Haley’s rising poll numbers in New Hampshire and interest in the approaching early state contests helped motivate him to get involved.

Paul said it was a “possibility” that he will physically campaign against Haley or run ads against her. He said former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to drop out will likely benefit Haley and will make New Hampshire a tight race. So he decided this week “to make sure everybody knew where I stood anyway before the voting started.”

Paul ran for president himself in 2016, eventually endorsing Donald Trump and again supporting the former president in 2020. This time around Paul said he’d be comfortable if Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or Vivek Ramaswamy won the nomination. And he put RFK Jr. in the mix too.

But on the issue of foreign policy, Paul said Haley’s stances are disqualifying, criticizing the former U.N. ambassador for her positions on Ukraine and foreign aid and warning she’s aligned with Republicans that might want to “bomb Tehran tomorrow.” Paul’s anti-interventionist streak more closely aligns with the other three candidates, who are skeptical of sending more money to Ukraine — something that Paul opposes entirely.

“I do like a lot of the aspects of at least three people on the Republican side as well as Bobby Kennedy. I’m absolutely dead certain Nikki Haley would be wrong for our country,” Paul said in the interview. “And I do have some voice. I want to make sure my voice is heard.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, is escalating his standoff with former President Donald Trump over foreign government payments his businesses received during his presidency.

Raskin, in a Friday letter to Trump, is demanding the former president return roughly $7.8 million, following a report released by Democrats last week that found his businesses accepted at least that amount from foreign governments during his time in office.

The Maryland Democrat is also asking Trump to turn over to Congress a “full accounting of the money, benefits and other emoluments ‘of any kind whatever’ you pocketed from foreign governments or their agents during your term as President and that you return the total sum of these foreign emoluments to the American people by writing a check to the U.S.”

Read the full letter.

Raskin’s letter is unlikely to spark Trump to return any money, or provide congressional Democrats with a fuller accounting of payments from foreign governments his businesses received during his presidency. But it could point to one investigative lane for Democrats if they win back the House majority in November, which would put Raskin in line to be the Oversight chair.

The Trump Organization didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

But in a statement last week responding to the Democratic report, they said that foreign profits during Trump’s presidency were donated to the Treasury Department, while also pointing out that one Chinese tenant in Trump Tower signed a 20-year lease in 2008, years before the Trump presidency. The statement also noted an inability to stop people from booking through third party platforms.

Democrats and some ethics officials have previously argued that Trump violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which forbids a president from profiting from foreign governments, after he didn’t divest himself from his real estate empire and other business holdings.

Raskin, in his letter Friday, added that “the Constitution imposes a categorical prohibition on a president’s receipt of any payments from foreign governments without Congress’s consent — a prohibition that extends to all revenues, and not merely profits — attributable to spending by foreign governments.”

Asked during an Iowa town hall hosted by Fox News, if he would divest from his businesses if he wins a second term, Trump defended the payments.

“I don’t get free money. … I was doing services for that,” he said. “People were staying in these massive hotels, these beautiful hotels because I have the best hotels, I have the best clubs. I have the best clubs. I have great stuff, and they stay there and they pay. I don’t get $8 million for doing nothing.”

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown raised $6.6 million in the last three months, according to numbers first shared with POLITICO, a huge sum which will be critical in his challenging reelection campaign.

And the three-term Democrat has $14.6 million on hand heading into what’s likely to be the toughest race of his career. He’s a top target in the battle for the Senate majority, as his state has drifted right over the past decade and left him as the only statewide elected Democrat.

Brown will face the winner of a GOP primary featuring Secretary of State Frank LaRose, state Sen. Matt Dolan and businessman Bernie Moreno, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Dolan and Moreno have the ability to significantly self-fund their campaigns.

“Sherrod Brown is fighting for Ohio while his opponents fight for the title of largest self-funder — that’s why Sherrod continues to have the momentum in this race,” said campaign manager Rachel Petri.

Brown’s fundraising will be critical, as candidates get better rates on ads than super PACs that may support his GOP opponent. And Brown will have to do a lot on his own to win Ohio, which is unlikely to be contested by President Joe Biden and has backed Trump in two successive elections.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also announced this week it was investing more than $10 million in the field in Ohio and Montana, another red state where Biden will likely lose. Democrats currently hold a 51-49 majority. But the retirement of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) almost certainly gives Republicans an automatic pick-up, making the reelection campaigns of Brown and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) absolutely vital for keeping the majority.

Conservative hardliners are actively trying to renegotiate Speaker Mike Johnson’s bipartisan spending deal — ratcheting up the odds of a partial government shutdown next week.

Johnson huddled with House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) and roughly a dozen other members of his right flank on Thursday. Those hardliners emerged from the meeting optimistic that they’ll convince Johnson to walk away from the agreement he announced with other congressional leaders to fund the government for this fiscal year.

“It’s not going to be the current deal,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told reporters after leaving the meeting.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) added that “there’s going to be a new deal drawn up, and that’s what we’re in the process of doing.”

Johnson, leaving the meeting, said he had made no commitments to the conservatives, but that discussions are ongoing.

“We’re having thoughtful conversations about funding options and priorities. … While those conversations are going on, I’ve made no commitments, so if you hear otherwise it’s just simply not true,” Johnson said, adding that there would be additional meetings.

Other members of the right flank were careful not to pin down Johnson as siding with them in favor of scrapping the funding deal, which preserves the bipartisan funding levels that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed to in last year’s debt limit deal.

But conservatives characterized the meeting as a productive step toward getting House Republicans toward a consensus on an alternate plan. A partial shutdown would kick in on Jan. 19 if Congress does not act. Any new deal that would win over Johnson’s right flank is likely to hit a wall in the Senate.

“The consensus in the room is that we need to cut spending year after year and we need to secure the border,” Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.).

Good added that “there was 100 percent consensus in the room with everyone that was meeting with the speaker that the deal is terrible.”

Across the Capitol in the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to start work on a short-term spending patch that would be designed to give top appropriators time to finish writing funding bills that adhere to the recently released Schumer-Johnson agreement.

The Senate GOP’s chief member on Appropriations, Susan Collins of Maine, said in an interview that renegotiating that accord would be “extremely difficult.”

“I certainly hope that’s not true,” Collins said of House conservatives’ claims to push Johnson their way, “because it increases the chances of a government shutdown.”

Burgess Everett contributed.

Amid a firestorm of controversy on Capitol Hill over Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the defense chief shouldn’t step aside.

“I do not believe Secretary Austin should resign,” he told reporters Thursday.

Jeffries said he needed more information before he could fully comment on how House Democrats would approach the matter, but that he looked forward to being briefed by the Biden administration “on the steps they’ve put in place moving forward” to rectify the issues in the chain of command.