House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to be fired over using a group Signal chat to discuss war plans.

“His behavior shocks the conscience, risked American lives and likely violated the law,” Jeffries said in a Tuesday letter to President Donald Trump. “Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should be fired immediately.”

Hegseth and other top national security officials had used the unsecured group chat to discuss plans to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen and had inadvertently added a journalist, sparking the imbroglio. Some of those officials had faced pointed questioning from Hill Democrats on Tuesday, and the minority party has sought to capitalize on the damaging revelations stemming from the incident.

Jeffries’ letter follows calls from other Democrats for the officials to step down. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that both Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz should resign. But top Hill Republicans like Speaker Mike Johnson have backed Hegseth and the other Trump officials amid the debacle, with Johnson telling reporters Tuesday that it was a “mistake” but wouldn’t happen again.

Republican leaders are aiming to bring legislation adding more federal judges to a House vote during the week of April 7, according to two people who were granted anonymity to discuss internal plans.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) confirmed in a brief interview that his team had spoken with Republican leadership about plans to call a vote on the JUDGES Act, which he introduced this Congress. A similar bill passed both chambers last session, but former President Joe Biden vetoed the measure after Donald Trump won the election in November.

Issa’s bill, which passed out of committee earlier this month, would add dozens of new seats on federal district courts before the end of 2035 over a staggered timeline. Congress has not added new district court judges in more than two decades.

The push to add more lower-court judges comes as Trump and his allies lash out at a string of unfavorable rulings from district judges who have sought to block some of his second-term initiatives.

House Republicans don’t have the votes to impeach those judges — as Trump, GOP megadonor Elon Musk and other hard-liners have suggested — so Speaker Mike Johnson has been looking for alternatives. Those include hearings and putting some judiciary-related bills on the House floor in coming weeks, including another Issa bill meant to rein in nationwide injunctions.

Johnson told Judiciary Committee Republicans in a closed-door meeting Tuesday that he was coordinating his strategy with the White House and focused his remarks on how House Republicans can work with panel members to hold “activist” judges accountable, according to three Republicans granted anonymity to describe the private meeting.

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) also said he had spoken with House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) as part of an effort to understand how Republicans could use the fiscal 2026 government funding process to achieve their goals with the courts.

In a new video, Capitol Hill Bureau Chief and Senior Washington Columnist Rachael Bade discusses the big question on everyone’s minds at the White House right now: Is President Donald Trump going to fire national security adviser Mike Waltz for sharing what looks like a war plan in a group chat?

Waltz inadvertently added a reporter to a highly sensitive Signal conversation with himself and other top Trump officials, where they discussed U.S. plans to bomb the Houthis in Yemen.

A person very close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO last night: “Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing: Mike Waltz is a f–ing idiot.”

Ultimately, Waltz’s fate is going to be Trump’s call. This morning, he told NBC that he still has confidence in Waltz — but that could change on a dime.

Want to know the four key dynamics to watch as the scandal unfolds? Watch the video here.

Captain Ahab had Moby Dick. Wile E. Coyote had Road Runner. Senate Democrats have Susan Collins.

Even as ticket-splitting rates have plummeted, Collins has stymied all previous Democratic attempts to oust her from her Maine Senate seat and she remains the only Republican senator left standing in a state that Donald Trump lost in 2024. A rare GOP moderate, she frequently crosses party lines, voting to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial and against confirming his Defense secretary four years later.

That has made her unpopular with some Trump voters, but Collins’ path has always been to make up for her weakness on her right flank by bringing in an impressive number of moderate Democrats and cleaning up with independents. In the midterms, Democrats are hoping she’s become so unpalatable that her coalition collapses.

A Public Policy Polling survey, commissioned by a top Democratic super PAC and shared first with POLITICO, is giving them reason for optimism. Collins’ approval rating is underwater by 37 points with 24 percent approving of her and 61 percent disapproving, per the survey of 569 registered Maine voters. The crosstabs show she is being pinched on both sides — she’s upside down with Kamala Harris voters 17/71 and with Trump voters at 30/52.

“A big part of Collins’ problem is that when it comes to Trump her approach is just antagonizing everyone,” the pollster wrote in the memo, noting that 81 percent “of Harris voters think she votes with Trump too often” and 73 percent of “of Trump voters think she doesn’t vote with Trump often enough.”

Her overall favorability rating was underwater at 19/65. Similarly among independents it was upside down at 19/66.

The poll, which had a sample size split nearly evenly among Democrats, independents and Republicans and was conducted on March 20-21 on behalf of Senate Majority PAC, a group with close ties to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It has a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.

But Collins still has one massive advantage: Democrats are likely to have a hard time recruiting a candidate to go against her. There is a wide open governor’s race that looks far more enticing than challenging a formidable incumbent. One prominent Democrat, former state Senate President Troy Jackson, is exploring a run for governor and moderate Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, a former Collins staffer, is highly unlikely to challenge her.

Even with a top-tier challenger, Collins knows how to survive. A Public Policy Polling survey conducted in mid-October of 2019 found her approval rating underwater by 15 points with 35 percent approving to 50 percent disapproving.

In that race, she was vastly outraised by her 2020 opponent, then-Maine state House Speaker Sara Gideon. Collins consistently trailed her in the polls and even some in the GOP doubted her ability to prevail. Ultimately, the incumbent won, 51 to 42 percent in November 2020 — even as Trump lost the state and under Maine’s new ranked-choice voting system.

“Chuck Schumer literally ran out of things to spend money on last time he tried to take down Susan Collins and she still won,” said Nick Puglia, a spokesperson for the Senate GOP campaign arm. “In 2026, Mainers will reelect Susan Collins again and no amount of partisan polling or openly begging any Democrat to run against her will change that.”

At a time when the MAGA movement has demanded unwavering loyalty to Trump, Collins could be vulnerable to a primary challenger. But she ran unopposed for the Republican nomination in 2020 and could again avoid a serious challenge in 2026. Trump allies are well aware that Collins is the only Republican who could win the seat, though they don’t control every MAGA activist in the state.

The survey does have some good results for Collins. She still has support from 17 percent of Harris voters, a not insignificant level of crossover appeal. Compare that to Trump, who has an approval rating of just 2 percent with Harris voters.

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Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) mocked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for his wheelchair in remarks that circulated online Tuesday, drawing sharp condemnation from Republicans.

“Y’all know we got Governor Hot Wheels down there. Come on now,” Crockett said at a Human Rights Campaign dinner in Los Angeles Saturday. “And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot ass mess, honey.”

Abbott was paralyzed after a tree fell on him while out running over 40 years ago.

The Texas Republican is a key ally for President Donald Trump and has long clashed with Democrats over gun control, immigration and voting rights, among other issues.

Crockett’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on her remarks.

Crockett has emerged as a vocal member of Congress as the fractured Democratic Party looks for a response to the new Trump administration and has embraced using some profanity in her attacks.

Conservatives were quick to pile on Crockett’s comments Tuesday, with some urging House Speaker Mike Johnson for her censure.

“Recent polling shows Crazy Crockett as one of the leaders of the Democrat Party. This is who they are,” the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm, wrote on X.

Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump wants the debt ceiling dealt with in the party-line package to enact his sweeping domestic agenda, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso told reporters Tuesday.

The issue, according to Barrasso, came up during a meeting earlier this month when Senate Finance Committee Republicans visited the White House to discuss the path forward for the “one big, beautiful bill” that Trump is envisioning to link an overhaul of the tax code to border, energy and defense policies.

“We’ve discussed that with the President … at the White House. He’s called for including it as part of the reconciliation bill,” said Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican who is also a member of the Finance Committee.

The topic is due to come up again later Tuesday afternoon, when Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Speaker Mike Johnson and the top congressional tax writers head back to the White House to meet with Trump administration officials about the reconciliation bill and how to harmonize the House-approved budget blueprint — which would include a debt limit hike — with the Senate’s — which is silent on the matter.

Barrasso, asked if he thinks some of his colleagues will advocate for or against its inclusion, demurred: “Every member will speak for himself,” he said.

Yet even as Trump has signaled privately that he wants a hike of the debt limit inserted into a reconciliation package — which would let him avoid having to make a deal with Democrats to avoid a catastrophic default in the coming months — congressional Republicans remain unsure if they’ll have the votes to include the policy in the bill. Some Senate conservatives have also warned against including it or cautioned they would need to see steep spending cuts to other government programs as a condition of supporting its inclusion.

Time could be running out to come up with a strategy. Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office, plans to release its debt limit forecast Wednesday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who will take part in Tuesday’s White House meeting, has told lawmakers he plans to send his own projection in the first half of May for when the nation will surpass its borrowing authority.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Tuesday Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should “of course” remain in his leadership amid a backlash in the party to the New Yorker’s handling of a recent government funding vote. It’s a notable vote of confidence in Schumer from his longtime legislative partner.

Pelosi had previously criticized Schumer’s handling of the bill, saying in San Francisco last week, “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing.” Schumer and a group of Senate Democrats voted to advance the GOP-written funding bill, incensing their House counterparts who had almost universally opposed the funding bill and pushed for a short-term extension instead.

Schumer responded to Pelosi during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday, saying Democrats had “no leverage point” and that he was prepared to take the heat for an unpopular decision: “I say to people: When you’re on that political mountain, the higher up you climb, the more fiercely the winds blow,” he said, adding, “I had to do the right thing for the country and for our party.”

Pelosi also expressed faith in House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, telling reporters Tuesday that “the more they hear from Hakeem, I think the better for our country.”

Speaker Mike Johnson at a Tuesday morning GOP Conference meeting made clear the House will not seek to impeach federal judges, said three people with direct knowledge of his remarks, granted anonymity to share details of private conversations.

Johnson noted that Congress has only voted to impeach judges 15 times throughout history. He also said the House Judiciary Committee is taking lead with hearings — the first scheduled for next week — and the full legislative body will vote soon on a bill from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to rein in nationwide injunctions.

It remains to be seen whether Johnson has a winning strategy of giving members other ways to work out their frustrations with perceived judicial overreach, with so many conservatives clamoring to pursue impeachments — a route also favored by President Donald Trump. House Republicans, however, don’t currently have the votes to impeach any federal judges, anyway.

Johnson will also meet with Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee later this afternoon.

Ray Dalio, a billionaire investor who repeatedly has warned about America’s unsustainable debt trajectory, will brief House Republicans on Tuesday morning, at the invitation of Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).

His appearance comes as Republicans struggle with how to account for the cost of their tax cut plans, with some pushing for an accounting strategy that would zero-out the price tag and others warning that would amount to fiscal fraud.

Just in recent weeks, Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, has said that America’s debt situation could cause an “economic heart attack” and “shocking developments.”

“It is imperative that members of Congress engage with thought leaders like Mr. Dalio, who have extensive, real-world experience that can help guide us as we work to restore fiscal sanity in Washington before it’s too late,” Arrington said ahead of the briefing.

Dalio’s appearance, planned for after the House GOP conference meeting, comes as congressional Republicans are still hashing out some of the big-picture questions on a huge budget package this year, including how much a potential plan might add to deficits.

One particularly large outstanding question is whether Republicans should use a current policy baseline, which would assert that there is no cost to extending the temporary parts of the 2017 Trump tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of this year.

It’s not clear whether the Senate parliamentarian will allow such an approach in a budget reconciliation measure, which is how Republicans plan to pass their agenda. But it would give the GOP more headroom than the traditional current law baseline, which would hold that keeping the expiring provisions would cost $4 trillion or more over a decade.

The budget resolution that passed the House last month uses the current law approach.

Some House deficit hawks haven’t held back in knocking the current policy baseline — and just within recent days, a CBO analysis requested by Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) found that the federal debt would soar if the tax provisions were extended without being offset.

Congressional Republicans are furious about senior Trump administration officials using a group chat to discuss war plans. But they’re not calling for anyone’s head.

Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in The Atlantic he had — presumably by accident — been added to a group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, that was used by several high-level Trump officials to plan the recent attack on the Houthis in Yemen.

There are growing calls within the White House for National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who added Goldberg to the group chat, to resign. But GOP lawmakers have pushed back on the idea, with some defense hawks regarding the former congressmember and Green Beret as a key link to the administration and someone they can trust to be a serious voice in Trump’s circle.

And many Hill Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, are digging in to defend Waltz.

“He was made for that job, and I have full confidence in him,” Johnson told reporters Monday night, hours after separately shrugging off the broader issues with the Signal chat as a “mistake.”

Many lawmakers were shocked — not just because seemingly no one noticed that Goldberg was added to the chat, but that senior officials would discuss sensitive national security information on a platform that could be hacked by foreign adversaries.

“At minimum, it’s totally sloppy,” said Rep. Nick LaLota, a military veteran who previously held top security clearance. Rep. Don Bacon, a member of the House Armed Services committee, said the incident was “unconscionable.”

But Republicans largely dodged questions Monday about launching a congressional investigation, though many said they wanted a briefing. House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast, a Trump ally, called the incident a “mistake” but said that he believed the White House should investigate, not Congress. House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers, when asked if there should be any hearings or probes into the issue, said he’s “still trying to find out what happened.”

Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker was more willing than others to entertain a formal inquiry, saying, “we’ll definitely look into it.”

Keep an eye on a Senate Intelligence hearing today at 10 a.m., which is set to feature testimony from some top national security officials who were reportedly part of the Signal chat: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

What else we’re watching: 

• Talking Tax: Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune will meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett, Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith at the White House around 4 p.m. on Tuesday to discuss the tax portion of the GOP’s massive party-line bill. 
• Johnson meets with Judiciary GOP: Johnson will speak with House Judiciary Republicans on Tuesday to discuss potential alternatives to pursuing impeachments for federal judges who rule against the Trump administration, a person granted anonymity to share details of a private meeting told Hailey. Meanwhile, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan said he briefed the president over the weekend on how his panel plans to review how the federal judiciary is working to stop pieces of the administration’s agenda.
• Schumer faces his members: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will meet with his caucus today, the first time since he sparked widespread intra-party anger by advancing the GOP government funding bill. Senate Democrats have largely quashed questions about if Schumer should step down from leadership, at least publicly. But the Tuesday lunch will still be a test for Schumer, as Democrats try to plot a path forward.

Meredith Lee Hill, Hailey Fuchs and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.