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By Ali Bianco |
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THE CATCH-UP |
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With a razor-thin majority, House GOP leaders will need virtually everyone to back all of these bills to clear them on the floor. | Francis Chung/POLITICO |
The House is kicking off a blockbuster week. It’s no doubt going to be a massive lift for Speaker Mike Johnson. But it’s going to be an equally trying week for the House GOP’s moderates. With just four days to go before House lawmakers head for the exits and back to their districts for the August recess, the slate of GOP priorities on deck this week cover every inch of their agenda under a nail-biting timeline. The floor will see the annual must-pass defense policy package, a government funding bill that would extend beyond the midterms, the budget resolution for reconciliation 3.0 and a GOP-led stock-trading ban. How much of this gets done will depend entirely on how well GOP leaders are able to corral the caucus — which at the moment, feels a bit like herding cats. We’ve already seen what’s at stake here for Johnson and co. after GOP hardliners froze the House floor over immigration enforcement and the SAVE America Act, leading to an early recess for July 4. And there’s considerable doubt that all four of the bills on deck this week can clear the floor. It’s all coming at a precarious time for the incumbents with the most to win or lose come November. The deaths of three service members in Jordan and Iraq this weekend have likely upped the stakes on the crucial NDAA — which is already facing high levels of Democratic opposition, making GOP unity all the more crucial — and the budget resolution’s whopping $73 billion in defense spending. Moderates will have to weigh requests from leaders — and President Donald Trump himself, in his latest Truth post — to greenlight the defense bill and billions in additional funding for the Iran war, while watching a fresh rebound in gas prices, with the average once again hitting $4 a gallon, per NYT. It may be a harder pitch for the moderates sounding the alarm on affordability — among them Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who Trump has called out by name before. He recently declined an invite to Camp David to talk through the funding pitch.
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Several key Republicans already voiced skepticism about what exactly the money will be for. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will be among those testifying, albeit on the Senate side, tomorrow on the budget request, where we can expect an onslaught of questions to that effect. Beyond the Iran war, the budget resolution’s inclusion of portions of the SAVE Act will also force an uncomfortable up-or-down vote for moderates on Trump’s marquee policy. It’s a red-meat proposal bound to whip the base into a frenzy ahead of November, but voters on the margins are deeply divided, a recent POLITICO poll found — and it’s those voters that could make the difference in these seats. There’s also the risk that hardliners might continue to drive GOP leaders to attach the SAVE Act to everything this week, which would keep the elections bill front and center (as Trump would like) while moderates try their best to beat the drum on other policy pushes like the GOP-led stock trading ban. But given the sheer amount of to-dos on GOP leadership’s calendar, it’s also not hard to see that bill becoming the first casualty of the tight timeline. The biggest reprieve for the caucus will come via the CR to fund the government into early December, which, if the GOP can clear it, will nullify any politically perilous shutdown just weeks before the midterms. That vote could come as soon as tomorrow, with the rest following Wednesday, per POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill. With a razor-thin majority, House GOP leaders will need virtually everyone to back all of these bills to clear them on the floor. But first, all of this will be subject to a procedural vote, which the House Rules Committee will tee up when it meets at 2 p.m. Good Monday afternoon. This is Ali Bianco. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Send me your thoughts at abianco@politico.com. NEWS FROM ACROSS THE PLAYBOOK FAMILY: Starting today, ADAM WREN, DASHA BURNS and WILL STEAKIN take over as co-authors of Playbook in Washington, with an official relaunch set for Aug. 31. Burns will also anchor a refreshed Playbook Podcast, and MEGAN MESSERLY will join Playbook as a contributor to the newsletter and podcast. Read the full announcement.
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A message from Anthropic: Helping a Boston restaurant owner support his team
Running a restaurant means financial pressure and moving parts. At Shy Bird, owner Eli Feldman uses Claude to help solve problems from kitchen organization to manager coaching, so he can give more to the people who make the restaurant run. Learn more. |
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7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. WAR REPORT: The U.S. launched a new round of airstrikes against Iran today, as both sides edge closer to a full-blown war following the ceasefire’s breakdown, per AP. Mediators are working overtime to get another ceasefire on the table, concerned about prolonged economic disruption in the region and possible escalation, WSJ’s Summer Said and Benoit Faucon report. Qatar is pushing for a 10-day pause and to end the block on the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon also released the names of two U.S. service members who were killed during Iran’s strikes on Jordan: 25-year-old First Lt. Tyler James Feehan of Hawaii and 19-year-old Pvt. Isabella Gonzales of Texas. 2. TRAIL MIX: Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) announced this morning he’s jumping into the race to succeed the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, setting him up for a potential clash with Trump-endorsed Sen. Darline Graham, POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill reports. Fry was quickly singled out as a possible entrant, in part due to his close ties to the president. He’ll run for his House seat and in the Senate special election. … Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is the latest to throw her support behind Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, marking the highest-profile progressive endorsement in the tense primary, MS NOW’s Ali Vitali scoops. 3. BIG SPENDERS?: “Ken Paxton Scrambles to Win Back the GOP’s Big-Dollar Donors,” by WSJ’s Elizabeth Findell: “[Billionaire businessman Bob Rowling’s] hesitation highlights the bind confronting a bloc of deep-pocketed Texans weighing how involved to get in the race. Many can’t stomach [State AG Ken Paxton] … Paxton’s success hinges, in part, on winning them back. … After Paxton’s nomination, donors at one major Republican fundraising organization asked that their money not go to him—because his office had sued so many of them, and because they feared he could misuse it.”
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A message from Anthropic:  
Helping a Boston restaurant owner support his team
Running a restaurant comes with pressure. At Shy Bird, Claude helps Eli Feldman do more for his team. Learn more. |
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4. TOMORROW IN ARIZONA: Rep. Andy Biggs has been a bona fide hard-liner during his time in Congress — both as a staunch Trump ally, and a former House Freedom Caucus leader. But in Arizona he’s billing himself as a dealmaker who can reach across the aisle, trying to reach the moderate voters who ultimately cast the deciding vote in Arizona’s statewide contests and have rejected previous GOP firebrands like Kari Lake and Blake Masters, NYT’s Reis Thebault and Kellen Browning report from Phoenix. “I can be conservative and keep my principles, and still do what’s right for the state by looking for the points of agreement,” Biggs told the NYT. On the flip side: The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich has a long read on Sen. Mark Kelly — and how he’s largely gained goodwill by way of his spouse, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, and her story of political violence that captured the country in 2011. “Interviewing Giffords and Kelly was like nothing I’ve ever experienced in 25 years of reporting on politics,” Leibovich writes. “How would their unparalleled dynamic play within the merciless spectacle of a presidential campaign?” 5. LIVE FROM NEW YORK: “Mamdani’s mojo comes with some blind spots,” by POLITICO’s Joe Anuta: “The mayor, through a mix of deliberate action and bureaucratic blunders, has alienated many leaders in the Black, Latino and Jewish communities. And he and his administration have seemed to go out of their way to jab at the descendants of Italian and Irish immigrants … But in riding a wave of victories, [Zohran Mamdani] risks drifting away from a longstanding rule of elected office: try to win over your enemies and skeptics. One day, you might need them.” 6. CUTTING DEEP: “Trump’s funding cuts created ‘the perfect storm’ that slowed the government’s cyclosporiasis response,” by CNN’s Blake Ellis and colleagues: “The government’s reaction to the cyclospora outbreak has been undermined by massive budget and staffing cuts under [Trump], CNN has found – including nearly $30 million in funding that disappeared from [Dr. Joel Barratt’s] CDC division when Trump axed the US Agency for International Development. While Trump justified cuts to USAID by portraying it as a wasteful agency helping foreign nations, millions of dollars that it spent on global malaria prevention also indirectly benefited cyclospora work in the United States.” 7. ACROSS THE POND: Andy Burnham was officially appointed the U.K.’s new prime minister, after Keir Starmer announced he would step down last month and cleared the path for the Labour Party’s “King of the North” to take over. Burnham used his first call to ring up Trump, and invited him to Manchester, per POLITICO’s Felicia Schwartz. Officials in the U.K. don’t expect the change will come with a substantial shift in how the PM’s office approaches their relationship with Trump, and Burnham recently told podcaster Gary Lineker that working with Trump is “respecting the office, the relationship, the U.K.-U.S. relationship. Where you disagree, do it. But do it in a way that is kind of meeting him where he’s at,” per NYT’s Michael Shear. |
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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DON THE BUILDER — “Trump continues overhaul of White House grounds with new Rose Garden statues,” by WaPo’s Dan Diamond and Olivia George: “President Donald Trump installed a statue of Thomas Jefferson in the Rose Garden last week … The bronze, life-size statue depicts the nation’s third president seated with a draft of the Declaration of Independence. It was sculpted by George Lundeen … The piece brings to five the number of sculptures Trump has installed in the Rose Garden, joining George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, as well as a sculpture called “Freedom’s Charge,” which honors Revolutionary War soldiers.” WEDDING — Retired Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a Newsmax contributor and former national security adviser for the Trump 2020 campaign, and U.S. Navy Commander Arlene Gonzales, a surgical nurse at the Portsmouth U.S. Naval Hospital, got married on July 4. The couple, who met on a dating app, wed at the Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach. Pic via Dustin Lewis Images WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Dylan Jones, senior manager of government relations at BWXT, and Sofia Herring Jones, member services and coalitions director for the House Committee on Agriculture Majority, welcomed Josephine Catherine Jones on July 8. Pic Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Giuseppe Macri and deputy editor Garrett Ross. |
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