House Republicans are already deriding the Senate’s bid for a vote on bipartisan immigration legislation as a political ploy that’s doomed — in the extremely unlikely event it even reaches their chamber.

“Leader Schumer is trying give [sic] his vulnerable members cover by bringing a vote on a bill which has already failed once in the Senate because it would actually codify many of the disastrous Biden open border policies that created this crisis in the first place,” Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team said in a statement. “Should it reach the House, the bill would be dead on arrival.”

That Senate immigration bill, forged over months of bipartisan negotiations as part of a broader package of foreign aid that subsequently passed on its own, will get a floor vote this week, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Sunday.

The House GOP leaders’ opposition should not come as a surprise. They have long expressed a preference for their chamber-passed more hardline immigration measure, H.R. 2, which has been a nonstarter for congressional Democrats.

“If Senate Democrats were actually serious about solving the problem and ending the border catastrophe, they would bring up H.R. 2 and pass it this week,” the GOP leaders said in their statement.

However, no one on the Hill expects the Senate’s border deal to make it across the Capitol to the House. A handful of Senate progressives are expected to oppose their own leaders’ move to call up the negotiated bill — viewing its policy as too extreme — and Republicans have indicated they view the floor action as a move to boost endangered Democratic incumbents who are getting hammered by their opponents on immigration.

Jon Tester recently became the first Democratic senator to sign onto a stringent GOP immigration bill. He isn’t happy that Republicans are accusing him of a late-stage transformation into a border hawk.

“They’re full of shit. And whoever told you that, you can say ‘Jon Tester said you’re full of shit,’” the Montana Democrat said in an interview, responding to GOP claims that his support for the Laken Riley Act — named for the nursing student killed earlier this year by an undocumented immigrant — was an act of political expediency.

“I firmly believe in my heart of hearts that if you’re here and you’re undocumented … and you break the law, you should be shipped back,” Tester added. He indicated in March he’d support the legislation as a standalone bill.

Republicans counter that Tester joined other Democrats to rule out the addition of new immigration restrictions to a must-pass spending bill. Meanwhile, the GOP is running millions of dollars in ads hitting him for “supporting Biden’s border disaster.”

The episode underscores the core challenge facing this year’s Senate Democratic hopefuls in red and purple states: They must carve out distance from President Joe Biden to keep running ahead of his numbers — while dodging political hits that they’re shifting gears purely to win reelection.

Because Biden is no sure bet in November and may offer Democrats little coattails to ride, Senate hopefuls across the country are hoping to defuse a sustained GOP campaign linking them to Biden. And with little must-pass business scheduled the rest of the year and a divided Congress, Democrats will have plenty of opportunities to emphasize strategic differences with their party’s leader.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is pushing Biden to beef up tariffs against China and ban Chinese electric vehicles. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) is challenging Biden’s Israel weapons policy and opposing a key judicial nominee. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a Senate candidate, is urging Biden to take tougher border action. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) helped pause a global trade deal.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) wants Biden to reconsider an LNG export pause while harmonizing with Brown on tariffs and Rosen on Israel. And Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), a Senate candidate, just launched an ad saying he “stood up to the president when he was wrong.”

Then there’s Tester, whose state Biden lost by 16 points in 2020. Tester didn’t play up his beefs with the administration too much the first two years of Biden’s presidency, but he’s fighting Biden’s regulations on multiple fronts these days and working to burnish a tough image on immigration.

He chastised Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to “step up” last month — though Tester did not support Mayorkas’ impeachment. He says voters shouldn’t judge him on a procedural vote with a funding lapse hanging over lawmakers’ heads: “That was a government shutdown vote, it wasn’t a Laken Riley vote.”

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the GOP’s campaign arm chief, responded: “Where was he when we needed him, when the vote really counted? … [T]he politics back home have changed, and Tester’s changed his position.”

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who occasionally works closely with Brown but supports his GOP opponent, is more measured than Daines when talking about his home-state colleague: “Do I doubt Sherrod’s sincerity? No. But I think the big mistake that Sherrod has made on manufacturing policy is he got way too pregnant on the green energy stuff.”

Brown responded that the nation “should ban electric vehicles from China. So, the tariffs help, and [Biden’s] made them better, but we should do more.”

“I’m not going to get into a political debate with the guy who has already endorsed my opponent,” Brown said of Vance’s comments. “I’ve taken on presidents in both parties.”

The pro-tariff stance he and other vulnerable colleagues have taken also aligns with former President Donald Trump’s — not bad for their crossover appeal. Casey said “a lot of people back home expect that type of aggressive action, especially with predatory China.”

And in Nevada, where Biden is struggling against Trump, Rosen has split with Biden on everything from environmental and mining regulations to solar tariffs. She said in a statement she hasn’t “been afraid to break with my own party to do what is right for my state.”

Creating distance from an embattled president is not a new tactic, but it’s always harder in years when the White House is on the ballot. Plus, most of the Senate GOP’s candidates are political novices with no voting record to create a clear contrast. Democratic incumbents, on the other hand, spent two years in a 50-50 majority where unity was paramount, leaving them with lots of votes supporting Biden’s position.

“The president is grateful that their common values mean they are overwhelmingly united on the same agenda based on standing up for the middle class and our freedoms, and respects when his colleagues have different views from his own,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said of Democratic dissent.

Most of those lawmakers see little upside in totally running away from the president anyway, due to the strong correlation between voters’ presidential and Senate choices. Brown, for example, hasn’t decided on joining Tester in backing the Laken Riley Act, which would detain and remove undocumented immigrants arrested for theft-related offenses.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) summed up the meaning of Tester’s move: “He’s more conservative on some issues than I am. And I respect it.”

“In tough states, it’s not unusual for the candidates to split from the president’s party — both sides of the aisle,” Durbin said.

House Republicans are eyeing a court fight as their next step in their ongoing standoff with the Justice Department.

Republicans on the Judiciary and Oversight committees voted on Thursday to advance resolutions holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for refusing to hand over the audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with former special counsel Robert Hur. Hours earlier, Biden effectively headed them off by asserting executive privilege over that audio — bringing the chances that Garland would face criminal charges for defying subpoenas to near zero.

But they are hinting they already have a back up plan: Duking it out in the courts.

“I think that’s very likely,” Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said Friday in a brief interview about filing a lawsuit.

Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) added that House GOP attorneys are skeptical that Biden’s executive privilege claim will hold up in court, since the Justice Department did turn over the transcript.

“Hopefully we’ll find out if that’ll hold up in court very soon,” Comer said.

There’s an obvious drawback to Republicans going the judicial route: A lawsuit would drag out for months, if not longer. Plus, there’s no guarantee they will win and Republicans are at risk of losing the House majority in the November election.

At least one other GOP lawmaker wants to try a different route, as well. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said during the unruly Oversight meeting on Thursday night that absent DOJ action she would try to force a vote within 10 days on “inherent contempt” against Garland. It’s a rarely used tool that would let the House sergeant at arms take Garland into custody for a congressional proceeding.

“I fully intend in 10 days after this passes out of committee to hold … Garland in inherent contempt of Congress if the Department of Justice doesn’t do its job,” she said during the committee meeting. She reiterated that pledge to reporters Friday morning.

Garland hasn’t weighed in on that possibility, and neither have most other House Republicans. But the attorney general did preemptively push back on the GOP’s likely legal argument in a letter he sent to Biden dated Wednesday.

“The department’s disclosure of the transcripts of the interviews does not constitute a waiver and does not preclude an assertion of privilege with respect to the audio recordings,” Garland wrote, adding that “interpreting the production of the transcripts as a waiver of privilege would incentivize less Executive Branch cooperation and broader privilege assertions.”

House GOP leadership hasn’t yet said if, or when, it will hold a vote on the floor on the two contempt resolutions, where they will need near GOP unity. As of early Friday afternoon, neither resolution has been slated to come up next week — though leadership hasn’t yet released the official schedule and can easily add more items.

Progressive icon Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Friday hit back at Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) — who’s assumed a more middle-of-the-road image recently — for describing a nasty House Oversight Committee hearing as worse than the Jerry Springer Show.

“I understand you likely would not have stood up for your colleague and seem to be confused about racism and misogyny being a ‘both sides’ issue,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “But I stand up to bullies, instead of becoming one.”

The clapback came after Fetterman linked to an article detailing the hearing, which contained pointed personal barbs by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) against several lawmakers of color. The Pennsylvania Democrat wrote: “In the past, I’ve described the U.S. House as The Jerry Springer Show. Today, I’m apologizing to The Jerry Springer Show.”

POLITICO has reached out to Fetterman’s office, which did not immediately return the request for comment.

Ocasio-Cortez spoke out passionately on Friday morning in the aftermath of Greene’s attacks against her and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who is Black.

“A person is either have to accept and normalize the indignity of that treatment or feel like they have to defend themselves because the institution will not and that is why rules are important,” she told repoters. “That’s why structure is important. And that’s why [House Oversight Chair] James Comer’s leadership has been one of the biggest failures in the country over the last year.”

Fetterman’s tough talk on border security and his ironclad support for Israel have rankled progressives since he came into office — and drawn warm words from the same Republicans who fought to defeat him in his successful 2022 Senate bid.

Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.

Texas Democratic lawmakers aired fury on Friday over Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to pardon Daniel Perry, who was convicted of murdering a protester in a Black Lives Matter protest in Austin, Texas.

Perry was convicted of fatally shooting protester Garrett Foster, a former mechanic in the U.S. Air Force, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Abbott pardoned Perry on Thursday after a recommendation from the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles. Both Perry and Foster are white.

Among the reactions from Texas Democrats:

“By aligning yourself with someone that is racist, you’re saying that this is who I am and these are my values,” Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) said in an interview. “[Abbott] thinks it’s going to make him a hero, and in some corners it will make him a hero.”

“But you choose to make your buddy someone that calls black people monkeys. That is, that is beyond F’d up,” Veasey added, referring to Perry’s social media history and text messages, which included racist comments.

“Texas is leading the way in the [descent] to hell,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas).

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), one of two members who represent Austin, where the murder happened, called Abbott’s decision a “horrible abdication.”

“Gov. Abbott keeps on finding the newest and, and craziest ways to be the biggest hypocrite in the state,” Casar said. “And it’s just actually a horrible abdication of our duty as elected officials to be issuing pardons and putting people in or out of jail based on how they vote or or what their views are on the world. I mean, that’s just actually — that’s medieval stuff.”

“It’s just another political stunt for Abbott,” said Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas). “I mean, clearly he murdered somebody and he’s getting away with it. It’s a shame. It shows you how divisive things are that we pardon hardened criminals and let them roam free.”

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) referenced Perry’s offensive social media posts in a statement after the pardon.

“Before Daniel Perry murdered a veteran in 2020, he told a friend he ‘might go to Dallas to shoot looters.’ A year before, he wrote, ‘to [sic] bad we can’t get paid for hunting Muslims,’” Castro said on Thursday. “Governor Abbott’s alliance with white nationalists is putting dangerous people on our streets.”

Even by the standards of the often chaotic House Oversight Committee, its Thursday night meeting was a mess.

Members of the panel ultimately advanced a contempt of Congress resolution against Attorney General Merrick Garland on a party-line vote, but the far more striking takeaway was the personal attacks and theatrics lobbed between lawmakers in both parties — as Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) struggled unsuccessfully to gain control for more than an hour.

By far the most contentious moment happened early on, after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) insulted what she called “fake eyelashes” worn by Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas). That prompted outrage and yells from Democrats — Greene eventually agreed to strike those words from the record but refused to apologize.

“I don’t think you know what you’re here for,” Greene said to Crockett. “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”

But that wasn’t the end of the jabs. Crockett then, under the guise of a parliamentary inquiry, asked Comer if referring to another member as having “a bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?” — a not-so-subtle jab at Greene.

Comer seemed confused as ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) appeared to try and stifle a laugh. “Uh, what now?” Comer asked. “I have no idea what you just said.”

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) clapped back that the freshman Democrat was “out of control” and told her to “calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Crockett said. “If I come and talk shit about her, y’all gonna have a problem.”

At another point in the heated back-and-forth, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called Greene’s comment to Crockett “absolutely unacceptable — how dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?”

“Are your feelings hurt? Awww,” Greene replied. “Why don’t you debate me?”

Ocasio-Cortez then replied: “I think it’s pretty self-evident.” And Greene responded: “Yeah, you don’t have enough intelligence,” prompting another request to take the formal step of taking down a record of the personal attack.

When the committee voted to let Greene keep speaking after the lengthy verbal scuffle, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) — who has her own rocky relationship with the Georgian — voted with Democrats.

It wasn’t the only surreal moment from the hearing. At another moment, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) dramatically read from a Comer fundraising email referencing former President Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal trial in New York — as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) smiled.

He also offered to do a dramatic reading of President Joe Biden’s interview with former special counsel Robert Hur while wearing a Biden mask that, he noted after prompting from a GOP colleague, he could get off Etsy.

“Stand with Comer,” Moskowitz said, reading from the email and prompting cries of “yay” from the GOP side of the room.

The Florida Democrat responded: “You sure about that?”

That wasn’t all. After Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) displayed a picture of Trump with his eyes closed amid reports of the former president repeatedly falling asleep during his New York trial, Boebert defended the GOP’s presumptive nominee. She was among a group of House Republicans who attended the trial earlier in the day, delaying the hearing.

“I think he’s praying, but if he is sleeping, [he] certainly looks pretty as he sleeps,” Boebert said. “I know when I fall asleep on airplanes my mouth kind of drops open. His mouth is kind of tight-lipped, so maybe it’s just a somber moment of thought.”

Even lawmakers who aren’t in the committee got in on the action, calling out from the audience. That got pushback from one member of the panel, who alleged that “we have some members in the room who are drinking inside the hearing room, who are not members of this hearing.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Speaker Mike Johnson has two open seats to fill on the House Intelligence Committee. But he’s dragging his feet as he faces conflicting pressures — from conservatives, Donald Trump and current panel membership — over potential replacements.

The House Freedom Caucus is pushing Johnson to pick their former leader, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), according to five Republicans tied to the committee who are familiar with the discussions, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. And those same Republicans, which include several lawmakers, believe Trump is also lobbying the GOP leader to tap Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), his former White House medical adviser.

Since it’s a select committee, Johnson can name anyone he wants to the panel unilaterally. But the speaker is obviously in a politically vulnerable position given his paper-thin margin and a challenge to his leadership last week that was only defeated due to Democratic support. He can’t simply ignore the demands of either his right flank or Trump, who just supported him during that dethroning effort.

The idea of Perry coming onto the panel gives those GOP Intelligence Committee members debilitating heartburn.Those Republicans argue the former Freedom Caucus chair is all but ineligible, noting there is a conflict since he is involved in a federal investigation into efforts to subvert the 2020 election by Trump and his allies.

The panel has oversight powers over the FBI, which seized Perry’s cell phone in August 2022. And Perry sought to litigate what the federal investigators would be able to access on his phone, which the Republicans say makes picking him for Intel out of the equation.

And Perry’s allies are open about their push. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus board, dismissed the idea of a conflict of interest.

“The FBI investigation has offered us B.S. over January 6 … which is part of the problems we have at the FBI. So if there’s more oversight of the FBI, that is a good thing. Not a bad thing,” Donalds said, adding: “I didn’t didn’t realize that the Intel Committee is the end-all-be-all of what happens in Congress. These guys are pissing me off.”

Perry, for his part, wouldn’t directly comment on the pushback. “I’ve not been asked to do anything. And I’d be honored to serve,” he said.

Jackson is a more palatable option for the panel Republicans. That’s partly because the Texan serves on the House Armed Services Committee, which one Republican noted that he has used to build a pre-existing relationship with the Intel panel. And Jackson has voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a litmus test in many of their minds since they played a major role in crafting the final package.

“If you notice, members [of the panel] are typically not bomb throwers,” said Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), who is on the committee and spoke broadly about membership expectations. “It’s the difference between being a show horse and a workhorse. And so I think those are the considerations. Everybody wants to be on there.”

Lawmakers have raised two other potential options: either Johnson leaves the seats open until next year to avoid blowback or appoints placeholders to fill at least one of the seats.

“It is too much effort and political capital, so better to leave them open and start in January,” one of the Republicans, granted anonymity, said.

It’s possible that’s the speaker’s plan, given one of the seats has sat empty for eight months. That opening dates back to mid-September and the retirement of former Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), while a second opened up after Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) left the House last month.

Three of the Republicans said it wouldn’t impact their ability to get committee work done if they don’t fill it for the rest of the term. Republicans currently have a one seat majority on the panel, though much of its work has been bipartisan under the tenure of Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio.) and ranking member Jim Himes (D-Conn.).

But if they do fill it, one Republican predicted that one spot would go to Jackson, a retired Navy Rear Admiral who has made his interest clear.

“I’ve been interested in it since my first year here. You don’t get it your freshman year, generally, but I made it well known to [former Speaker Kevin] McCarthy that I wanted it and I worked it up and put the packages together. And I’ve been doing that since day one. So the answer is yes,” Jackson said. He has also expressed his interest to Johnson, he added.

Asked if Trump is lobbying for him, Jackson said he wasn’t sure.

There are also discussions about putting in placeholders to temporarily fill the seat. Two of the Republicans pointed to retiring Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), who they said is a serious contender and a former Freedom Caucus member. Plus, there is a broader desire to have another GOP woman on the panel to join Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).

Still, at least one Republican shared some broader frustration that politics is boxing out lawmakers who they say truly deserve a seat on the panel. Some members pointed to Reps. August Pfluger (R-Texas) and Julia Letlow (R-La.) as examples.

“I know Trump is weighing in heavily for Ronny, but I think that is unfair,” this Republican said, citing how other members have sought to be on the panel for years.

Other Republicans were afraid the politicization of the appointment process was going to drag the panel back into partisan fighting — a regularity during the chairship of both Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) that members are eager to avoid. A lot of that animosity was driven by a split over Trump, who was closely allied with Nunes and despised Schiff, who led the first impeachment inquiry into the former president.

But with new leadership on both sides, members have patched up their differences and are fighting to protect the equilibrium they have built.

“Scott, I know, does want to be on Intel. He’s wanted to be on for quite some time. There are other members that want to be on. I think the speaker needs to make a decision, but it’s the speaker’s decision. It is not a decision of the Intelligence Committee. … And he has to make that independent of what everybody else thinks,” Donalds said.

The House has delivered a bipartisan rebuke of the Biden administration’s pledge to withhold certain heavy bombs from Israel amid its ongoing conflict in Gaza, passing a bill designed to compel delivery of the weapons.

But Democrats largely held the line amid heavy lobbying against the GOP-led bill from the White House and their party’s leadership against what many deemed a poorly crafted, political ploy to divide them. Only 16 Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the legislation, which the Biden administration has threatened to veto.

Ultimately, the measure passed 224-187.

President Joe Biden’s pause on shipments of heavy bombs to Israel’s conservative government, made on CNN last week, has divided Democrats – causing particular agita among vulnerable and staunchly pro-Israel members. Even so, senior Democrats in and out of the administration tamped down on defections through a concerted pressure campaign throughout the week.

“This administration wants to dictate how Israel executes the war that they were thrust into,” House Foreign Affairs Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said on the floor as he advocated for the measure. “[Israel] did not ask for this war. They did not start this war. Hamas started this war.”

The legislation would slash budgets for the offices of the defense secretary, secretary of state and National Security Council if Biden doesn’t deliver the stalled heavy bombs. It also includes language that would condemn “the Biden administration’s decision to pause certain arms transfers to Israel.”

Three conservatives joined most Democrats in voting no: Reps. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

Prior to passage, the full House GOP leadership team pressured Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to take up the legislation for an up-or-down vote, something the New York Democrat indicated his chamber has no plans to do.

“They are clearly making this decision to appeal to a small subset and element in their party,” Speaker Mike Johnson said of Democrats. “The president himself and Leader Schumer both within just the last several weeks were saying that we should stand with Israel. They were using the right language and now they are doing a complete about-face. Why?”

Even if the Senate were to take up the measure, which Schumer indicated Wednesday won’t become law — “the president has already said he’d veto it, so it’s not going anywhere” — Democratic leaders said they would be able to sustain a presidential veto.

“We will sustain the President’s veto, as we have done consistently throughout the 118th Congress,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday.

Bipartisan support for the key U.S. ally has been apparent throughout the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Almost all House members backed a resolution expressing support for Israel in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack last fall, while lawmakers came together to provide billions of dollars in aid as part of a package that included support for Ukraine and Taiwan, as well.

Many of Israel’s fiercest advocates of Israel blasted the bill. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) called it “pseudo pro-Israel” legislation.

“This is just a communicative act,” he said on the floor. “This resolution has poison pills, including condemning Biden by name, in a clear effort to get as little Democratic support as possible.”

The California Democrat added he was working with McCaul on a “much better response” that would be considered through the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Nicholas Wu contributed.