Welcome to the online version of Political officeAn evening newsletter that brings you the latest report and analysis of the NBC News Policy team from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign campaign.
Happy Monday! It’s another week of stopping in Washington. We have the last ones where things are ahead of Friday’s government financing deadline. In addition, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy going to Saudi Arabia, Alexander Smith examines how the country has become an unexpected diplomatic force.
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– Adam Wollner
The two big questions looming on the closure fight
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: the Congress runs to avoid the government’s stops on the financing deadline.
The speaker Mike Johnson published a Stopgap bill during the weekend to maintain government lights until the end of September. The measure, which the Democrats had not started Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong and Frank Thorp V Report.
He will have to pass the house and the Senate led by the GOP and be signed by President Donald Trump before midnight Friday to avoid closing.
There are two major questions that will determine if it becomes a reality.
Can Johnson unite the republicans of the house? Johnson is considering a Tuesday vote in the House on continuous resolution – and says that it is based solely on the support of the Republicans to adopt it.
This is a major challenge in the House, where the Republicans hold a majority 218-214. This means that Johnson can afford only one defection, assuming that all Democrats oppose the bill and that all members are present. And he has already lost a vote: the representative Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Clearly indicated that he will not support the Stopgap bill.
The challenge for Johnson will be to keep other conservative tax hawks in the lap, as well as for the Republicans who would prefer to see a bigger boost for defense expenses. As he did during the race of his speaker and the budgetary resolution votes earlier this year, Johnson has a key voice in his corner: Trump, who publicly urged the Republicans of the Congress to support the continuous resolution.
Some Democrats in the House could eventually support the bill and give Johnson more breathing room, but party leaders in the room are against the measure.
Will the Senate Democrats vote for this? If the bill manages to get out of the chamber, the pressure would then be the responsibility of the Democrats of the Senate.
The Republicans have a majority of 53-47 in the Senate, so they will need the support of the Democrats to cross the threshold of 60 vote. And as in the House, a Kentucky Republican, Senator Rand Paul, has already said that he would vote against him.
Democrats demanded railing on Trump and the attempts by billionaire Elon Musk to reduce federal spending, and they are under pressure from their base to resist administration more.
The Stopgap financing bill is one of the few main laws on which they will have a lever effect this year in Washington controlled by the GOP. But voting to the extent and allowing a closure, even if it occurs under a republican trifecta, could cause even more pain in federal labor and those that count on government services.
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What to know of the Trump presidency today
- Major scholarships Tip MondayContinuing a sale that gathered steam last week as shaken investors were starting to focus on the prospect of a significant fall in American growth in the middle of persistent inflation and a vacillating labor market.
- Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford said It would charge 25% more To Americans who receive Canada electricity in response to Trump’s trade war.
- Immigration and customs’ application agents expelled fewer immigrants in February than they did under the Biden administration during the same month a year ago, According to ice data obtained by NBC News This has not been reported before.
- Friday evening, around 80,000 health and social services employees received emails providing them.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Expand research on the links between vaccines and autismAlthough such links have been largely demystified.
- Trump’s best advisers started Deducting potential sites for a presidential library in southern Florida.
Before the summit of Rubio-Zelenskyy, Saudi Arabia appears to be an improbable global stand
By Alexander Smith
Saudi Arabia will organize a key summit on Tuesday between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who tries to repair relations with Washington after his disastrous oval office with President Donald Trump and vice-president JD Vance.
It is another coup d’etat with a soft power for a country that has deliberately cultivated a reputation as a diplomatic Go-Betweward. Whether it is to welcome US officials for negotiations to end the Ukraine War, orchestrate discussions on the future of Gaza or deploy the red carpet for Trump’s first foreign trip, Saudi Arabia has appeared in recent years as an improbable power broker.
Less than five years ago, the hope of the presidency, Joe Biden, described the kingdom as “pariah” and, even after important reforms, the rights defense groups say that the authoritarian state of the Gulf still has an “abyssal” file of human rights.
The Tuesday summit comes when the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is trying to transform the image of Saudi Arabia of a deeply conservative and oil -rich theocracy whose officials murdered the American Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, in 2018, in a regional giant built on diplomacy, business, tourism, entertainment and sports.
Trump revealed last week that the first foreign visit to his second term would be from Saudi Arabia, as in his first administration. Like then, he said that in return, the Saudis had agreed to invest a sum of Bonanza in American companies, this time 1 Billion of dollars.
This relationship has raised questions about the links between Riyadh and the Trump family. Senator Ron Wyden, D-ear., The former president of the Senate finance committee, raised last year “problems of obvious conflict of interest” concerning the investment of 2 billion dollars of Saudi Arabia in a fund managed by the son-in-law of Trump, Jared Kushner, who denied such a conflict.
More about the Russian-Ukraine war: Courtney Kube report, Kristen Welker and Carol E. Lee The fact that Trump has told assistants that a mineral agreement between the United States and Ukraine would not be enough to restart aid and the sharing of information with Ukraine.
Trump wants assurances that Zelenskyy is willing to make peaces in peace with Russia, such as the abandonment of the territory. And he wants Zelenskyy to make a movement towards the elections in Ukraine and perhaps towards the resignation of his head of countries.
🗞️ The other best stories today
- ❓ Who is Amy Gleason? The White House said that Amy Gleason, health care technologist, is the administrator of Doge in an acting, but its role in the department is not yet clear. Learn more →
- 💻 X-Ed Out: Elon Musk said that his social media site X was the target of a “massive cyber attack” among the reports according to which users had trouble accessing the site. Learn more →
- 💲 Billionaire Battle Royale: Musk and liberal mega-donors like George Soros have poured millions of dollars in the race of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin next month, the first major election of the battlefield since 2024. Learn more →
- ⚖️ Scotus Watch: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case contesting a Colorado law which prohibits conversion therapy. Learn more →
- 🏈 We love sport and we don’t care who knows: The New York Times explores how the contenders for the potential democratic presidential election in 2028 spoke of their sports fandom while the party seeks to make breakthroughs with male voters. Learn more →
It’s all of the political bureau for the moment. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Bridget Bowman.
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