Former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer is one step closer to becoming Labor secretary after the Senate HELP Committee advanced her to a full floor vote. She needed at least one Democrat to rescue her nomination.

The panel voted 13-9 on Thursday to advance Chavez-DeRemer after Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) joined Republicans in supporting President Donald Trump’s pick to lead DOL.

The trio’s support offset a “no” vote from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who ultimately voted against Chavez-DeRemer because of her previous co-sponsorship of the PRO Act.

Kaine said he would support Chavez-DeRemer because she is likely better than any alternative Trump would nominate in her place — pointing to his first term Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who resigned in 2019 amid renewed scrutiny of his handling of a sex crimes case involving Jeffrey Epstein when he was a federal prosecutor.

“I have some concerns … but it just gets worse from here,” he said.

The nomination will now head to the Senate floor, where Chavez-DeRemer is almost certain to be confirmed despite the prospect of additional “no” votes from Republicans concerned about her labor background.

The shutdown blame game is in full swing on Capitol Hill — a tried-and-true negative sign for stalled government funding talks.

State of play: GOP leaders won’t put language in their funding bills to stop President Donald Trump and Elon Musk from clawing back money Congress previously approved — something Democrats have been demanding in exchange for backing a spending deal.

That leaves Democrats with a choice: Give in or force a shutdown after March 14.

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democratic appropriator in her chamber, said protecting Congress’ power of the purse is “the absolute bare minimum, and it’s frankly not asking a whole lot.”

Still, critically, she insisted Democrats don’t want a shutdown. Her Democratic colleagues aren’t saying they want that outcome, either. Instead, they’re arguing that responsibility for funding the government rests squarely with the Republican trifecta.

Republicans will need at least seven Democratic senators to join them to get any spending plan to Trump’s desk. And the GOP is all but guaranteed to require Democratic help in the House, too. Signs point to party leaders needing at least a short-term stopgap bill to avoid a funding lapse, and Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Wednesday on CNN that a funding patch through the end of the fiscal year could be in play. But House conservatives tend not to support stopgaps as a matter of principle.

The GOP is more than ready to blame Democrats if they don’t help, leaving the minority party to decide whether it’s worth gambling that voters would support a shutdown if it means standing up to Musk and Trump.

Perception is key here, particularly if there’s a prolonged shutdown. If voters blame Republicans for grinding the government to a halt, Democrats grow their limited leverage. But if the GOP succeeds in turning public opinion against Democrats, the minority party will likely have to move quickly to end the shutdown, with little or nothing to show for it.

What else we’re watching:

• Budget resolution update: Majority Leader John Thune said leadership would hold meetings next week to vibe check the House budget and hear what changes Senate Republicans want to make. But Johnson said in the CNN interview Wednesday night that he didn’t expect the Senate to change his budget resolution, and he ruled out some of the steepest potential cuts to Medicaid.
• Labor secretary vote: Lori Chavez-DeRemer is poised to move one step closer to confirmation when the Senate HELP Committee votes at 9:30 a.m. on whether to advance her nomination. Majority Whip John Barrasso told reporters the Senate would likely confirm Chavez-DeRemer next week.
• HALT Fentanyl Act in Senate: The Senate Judiciary Committee is marking up legislation this morning that would make tougher sentences for fentanyl traffickers permanent. The House passed its version of the bill earlier this month with significant Democratic support, and it has a good chance of passing the GOP-led Senate.

Lawrence Ukenye and Ben Leonard contributed to this report.

Speaker Mike Johnson has ruled out some of the biggest potential cuts to Medicaid for Republicans’ party-line package to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The House has targeted at least $880 billion in savings from the Energy and Commerce Committee, a task that is expected to require significant reductions to Medicaid spending. That has spurred significant concern among centrist Republicans, many of whom have a lot of Medicaid recipients in their districts.

In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlin Collins Wednesday night, Johnson ruled out putting per-capita caps on Medicaid in the eventual budget reconciliation bill. Those caps would mean the federal government would pay a share of states’ Medicaid costs based on their population, instead of the program being an open-ended entitlement. He also said that changes to the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage are off the table — a move that would cut into the share of federal payments for Medicaid, a joint state-federal program.

Both of those are options that could produce some of the most significant potential savings from the Medicaid program — but they also would have shifted significant costs to states and led to benefit cuts.

“We’re not going to cut into those programs that way,” Johnson said when asked if he would cap federal funding or reduce match rates. “We’re talking about finding efficiencies in every program, not cutting benefits for people who rightly deserve them.”

Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) has told POLITICO that he wasn’t sure if per capita caps would get enough votes to become law, and GOP lawmakers have gotten assurances behind closed doors about protecting certain services. But Johnson’s red line Wednesday was the most definitive Republican leaders have been publicly so far about not entertaining specific major Medicaid changes. They’ve mainly said any reductions would go after fraud, waste and abuse.

GOP leaders this month told senior Republicans that Trump wasn’t yet on board with significant Medicaid cuts. Republicans have been increasingly eyeing other potential options to fund the president’s agenda, including extending Trump-era tax cuts.

The speaker also said in the interview that he does not expect the Senate to make changes to the House’s budget resolution, which was barely adopted by the House’s slim Republican majority Tuesday night. But senators have already noted there will be issues on components like the debt ceiling, the current proposed spending reductions and tax cuts.

“I don’t think they will,” Johnson said when asked if he thinks the Senate would change the budget resolution. “I think they understand the necessity of letting the House lead on this. We’ve got a smaller margin than they do for the first time in the modern era.”

Ahead of the March 14 government funding deadline, Johnson noted that Congress will likely have to pass a stopgap funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or a CR, in place of individual appropriations bills. Spending negotiations have stalled, and Johnson called Democrats’ requests to rein in Trump and Elon Musk’s power over federal funding in exchange for support on appropriations bills “crazy.”

Johnson added that he expects it to be a clean continuing resolution “but with some of those changes to adapt to the new realities here,” including some of the federal funding changes from the Department of Government Efficiency.

“It may be an entire year-long CR, with some anomalies on it,” Johnson said. “It’s not what we prefer, we would like to do individual appropriations bills.”

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be solicitor general told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that presidents might rightfully defy court orders in “extreme cases.”

“Generally, if there’s a direct court order that binds a federal or state official, they should follow it,” D. John Sauer said at his confirmation hearing, in response to questioning by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the committee’s ranking member.

When Durbin questioned whether Sauer could envision an exception, Sauer replied by citing two Supreme Court decisions that were eventually overturned: a 1944 decision that upheld the constitutionality of the internment of Japanese civilians during World War II and the 1857 decision that upheld slavery.

“I suppose you could imagine hypotheticals in extreme cases like the Korematsu decision, the Dred Scott decision,” he said.

Referring to the Korematsu case, Durbin responded: “As bad as it was, that court order was followed for years, was it not?”

“I just wonder whether some historians might think we’d be better off if it hadn’t been followed,” Sauer said.

If confirmed as solicitor general, Sauer will be the top Justice Department lawyer representing the Trump administration at the Supreme Court. He previously was one of Trump’s personal lawyers, most notably arguing the case last year in which the high court granted Trump broad immunity in one of the federal criminal cases brought against him.

Sauer also declined Wednesday to provide a concrete answer to a question by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) regarding an argument Sauer made during the immunity litigation.

Sauer argued to a federal appeals panel that a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political adversary could be criminally prosecuted only if he were first impeached and convicted by the Senate.

If Trump were to order the use of violence against a political opponent, Schiff asked, “Will that continue to be your position as a lawyer for the United States? Will you represent to the court that any prosecution should be dismissed if the president is not first impeached?”

Sauer didn’t provide a direct response, instead saying: “The hypothetical you’ve offered, respectfully, is so outlandish, I don’t know if I’m positioned to address it.”

Speaker Mike Johnson met with Elon Musk late Tuesday night at the White House, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss a private meeting. It comes as the Department of Government Efficiency’s slash-and-burn cuts across the federal government are fueling growing tensions with Republican members of Congress.

Musk and DOGE, which the tech billionaire helms, have been targets of recent town hall anger in some Republican-held districts. A growing number of Republican lawmakers, in quiet conversations on Capitol Hill and increasingly in public, have questioned DOGE’s tactics and called on the office to operate in a more methodical method.

Johnson met with Musk two weeks ago alongside Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who is chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency — an effort designed to complement and amplify Musk’s DOGE.

Progressives are naming California Rep. Lateefah Simon, a rising Democratic star, to deliver their response to President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress next week, according to a statement provided first to POLITICO.

“I’m honored to speak on behalf of the Working Families Party,” Simon said in a statement. “We need a government that is run by and for working people, not billionaires — and that’s what the WFP is fighting for.”

Simon, who is serving her first term and represents a district centered around Oakland, California, is expected to focus on the impact of Trump and Elon Musk’s dramatic overhaul of the federal government, according to a spokesperson. She is also likely to talk about her recent visit to labs at the University of California, Berkeley and the effects of cuts at the National Institutes of Health on disease research.

The Working Families Party response to the State of the Union or the president’s joint address has generally given the party’s left flank an opportunity to provide counter-programming apart from Democrats’ main rebuttal speech. The progressive organization also gave rebuttal speeches to former President Joe Biden’s joint addresses, causing some controversy among Democrats who chafed at the left-flank pressure.

Philadelphia City Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke gave the rebuttal speech to Biden last year, and progressive “Squad” member Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) gave the last progressive response to Trump in 2020.

“Working people are looking for leaders who will fight for them, and Rep. Lateefah Simon was born to lead in this moment,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misspelled Nicolas O’Rourke’s name.

House Republicans just barely managed to adopt their budget resolution. Now it has to survive the Senate’s woodchipper.

Quick recap: With GOP Reps. Thomas Massie, Tim Burchett, Warren Davidson and Victoria Spartz firmly opposed, House leaders pulled the budget resolution vote at the last minute Tuesday night, only to reverse course after a wild whip effort and some conversations with President Donald Trump. All but Massie flipped their votes when Republican leaders called members back to the floor.

Now that it’s approved, Senate Republicans are largely prepared to switch to the House’s one-bill track, which would link together defense, energy and border security with an overhaul of the tax code. But during a closed-door GOP lunch on Tuesday, senators discussed needing to negotiate changes to the House budget resolution, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

The potential tweaks include making Trump’s tax cuts permanent, pulling back some of the House’s proposed deep spending cuts and removing the provision to raise the debt ceiling.

Remember: The Senate and the House have to adopt the same budget resolution to move forward, and Speaker Mike Johnson barely squeaked this one through. That all eventually leads to the really difficult part — drafting and passing the bill actually implementing the policy.

Still, Johnson and other House GOP leaders took a victory lap Tuesday night — and some thinly veiled shots at the Senate.

“We’re going to deliver the America First agenda. We’re going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it,” Johnson told reporters. He added that there’s “a lot of work ahead.”

That’s an undersell. The deep concerns that nearly derailed the budget resolution still exist. While hard-liners push for steeper cuts, centrists worry the current levels will mean significant reductions to Medicaid and other safety-net programs. Senators relate to the latter.

“There is going to be a lot of concern about the Medicaid cuts,” GOP Sen. Josh Hawley said in a brief interview.

What else we’re watching:

• Republicans meeting on spending deal: House and Senate Republican leaders will meet Wednesday to hash out a unified plan for approaching government funding negotiations with Democrats. “The best-case scenario is that we walk out united about what we need to do,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said in a brief interview. The shutdown deadline is just over two weeks away.
• Chavez-DeRemer committee vote: Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan first told POLITICO she will vote to advance Lori Chavez-DeRemer through Senate HELP on Thursday, significantly boosting Trump’s Labor secretary nominee’s chances at confirmation. Hassan is the first Democrat on the HELP Committee to say she will vote for Chavez-DeRemer, making up for a potential “no” vote from GOP Sen. Rand Paul.
• GOP brushing off Musk: The speaker on Tuesday brushed off Elon Musk’s attempt to interfere with his budget, saying he had “no concerns” that the tech mogul would affect his whip count. It’s the latest in a growing number of instances of GOP lawmakers breaking with Musk, but the billionaire doesn’t appear to be done wading into legislative business. Musk also suggested in recent days that a government shutdown “sounds great” — which could further complicate already delicate matters for Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

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A group of Senate Democrats crossed the aisle Tuesday to blow a hole in former President Joe Biden’s environmental legacy.

The Senate voted 54-44 on a resolution that would undo an Interior Department rule affecting offshore drilling. Democratic Sens. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada and Jacky Rosen of Nevada joined all Republicans present to overturn the rule.

It was the Senate’s first action this year under the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to kill newly-issued rulemakings by simple majority. Both chambers have a slew of so-called CRA resolutions in the pipeline, with the House poised to vote as soon as tomorrow on rolling back Department of Energy efficiency standards affecting water heaters and regulations implementing a methane leak fee on the oil and gas industry.

The Biden rule the Senate targeted Tuesday currently compels oil and gas companies to produce an archaeological study before they’re allowed to drill, aiming to protect shipwrecks and other undersea cultural sites from drilling damage. Republicans have called it overly burdensome and a waste of money.

Hickenlooper appeared to agree: “It feels like there’s more paperwork without significant benefit. Democrats don’t like red tape any more than Republicans … It doesn’t improve drilling or wind or solar or anything out there, it really just creates work.”

Rosen said of her vote, “I don’t think it’s necessarily just about offshore drilling. We want to right-size regulations.”

Moderate Democrats voted with Republicans last year on several CRA resolutions against Biden rules. But back then, the Democratic president was able to veto them. Measures approved this year will likely become law with House Republicans also voting in favor and President Donald Trump eager to offer his signature.