Principals

1. Senate poised to pass Ukraine aid
2. Election Day in New York
3. Trump’s RNC pick
4. Tax bill jitters
5. Surveillance tool debate
6. Biden’s Rafah warning

PDB: Inside Democrats’ 2024 backup plan

Senate about to town … New data this morning expected to show inflation slowing … Trump asks SCOTUS to suspend Jan. 6 immunity ruling

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Senate to send Ukraine aid to uncertain future in House

The Senate is on the verge of passing the foreign aid package with billions in funding for Ukraine and Israel. The vote — which began at 5:15 a.m. this morning — currently stands at 69-29. Several Republicans voted with Democrats, bucking a last-ditch campaign from some conservatives to raise doubts about the measure. But House Speaker Mike Johnson is signaling it’s going nowhere fast in the House due to a lack of border security measures (after Republicans rejected a bipartisan compromise last week). “In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters,” Johnson said in a statement last night. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the Senate’s biggest defense hawks, surprised by announcing he would vote against the measure because it did not include border security measures. He also backed a call from former President Trump to structure the package as a loan to Ukraine, despite the fact much of the money goes to the Pentagon to replace weapons used by Ukraine.

It’s a coin flip in New York’s border-focused special

Voters will determine George Santos’ successor in New York’s 3rd district today, and it’s anyone’s guess who wins. The migrant crisis has dominated the conversation on the ground, Semafor’s David Weigel and Kadia Goba report, with Democrat Tom Suozzi pitching himself as a pragmatic border hawk and Republican Mazi Pilip highlighting an old Suozzi quote bragging that he “kicked ICE out of Nassau County.” Suozzi leads in several recent polls — barely — but Democrats’ early vote share looks only modestly improved from 2022, when Santos defeated Robert Zimmerman by 7.6 points. That early vote could play an especially decisive role, however, after a snowstorm blanketed the region overnight and closed schools. The stakes are particularly high given Republicans’ slender House majority and Democrats’ shaky confidence. Some Democrats are also quietly warning not to read too much into the results — Long Island has been a red-trending outlier compared to suburbs elsewhere. “I don’t think it’s necessary in terms of the math that goes towards winning back the House,” said Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., who has campaigned extensively for Suozzi. “But I think it would be a great morale booster.”

Donald Trump backs new RNC chair and co-chair

Donald Trump wants to put the RNC on a family plan. The former president endorsed North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley, a “stop the steal” stalwart, to replace current RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, while nominating his own daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to serve as co-chair. He also said campaign aide Chris LaCivita should take a position as Chief Operating Officer. Prominent MAGA figures have long been out on McDaniel — who did not announce her departure before Trump’s announcement — for months and Trump signaled in the lead-up to his announcement he wanted a shakeup as well. “Every penny will be used properly,” he said in a statement announcing his decision on Monday. “New Day.” McDaniel, a longtime Trump loyalist, did not merit a mention.

Why K Street is fretting about the tax bill

K Street is getting anxious about Wyden-Smith. Senate Finance Republicans led by ranking member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho continue demanding numerous changes and a formal markup of the tax bill, even though it passed the House last month by a wide bipartisan margin and enjoys wide support from the business community. “It’s kind of odd to me because [Senate Finance Republicans] are acting like they’re in the majority when they’re not,” a GOP lobbyist told Semafor. “I think we’re worried their strategy is to delay, delay, delay until it’s killed. So I think the way you undo that is you start having other [Republican] members come out in support.” Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith recently said he “had to move forward” with the bill without support from Crapo because “time is of the essence to get this done.” The bill’s Democratic co-author, Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, is meanwhile urging Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to call a vote on it this month.

— Joseph Zeballos-Roig

Can the House pass a bill extending a key but controversial surveillance tool?

House Republicans are taking up yet another divisive issue within their caucus: Legislation to extend section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A compromise bill from the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees would reauthorize the surveillance program, which expires in April, for five years and set up a new set of guardrails to prevent potential abuses. But the measure wouldn’t require warrants for searches on American data, an idea the initial Judiciary proposal included and the Biden administration opposed. The House Freedom Caucus, which opposed a short-term extension of the law last year and demanded “significant reforms,” is holding a press conference later today, while the House Rules Committee is slated to meet Wednesday to consider the bill. Politico reports that Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio is collecting signatures for a letter urging House leaders to use the legislation to bar data brokers from selling consumer data to law enforcement. Any controversial amendments could sink support for the bill from key leaders.

— Morgan Chalfant

Biden warns Netanyahu on Rafah

It looks like Joe Biden is done keeping his warnings to Israel private. Speaking at the White House Monday, the president said the U.S. would oppose Israel’s anticipated invasion of Rafah without “a credible plan for ensuring the safety and support of more than one million people sheltering there.” It was a repeat of the message he delivered on a call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday, delivered this time to the cameras; Biden also emphasized that the war had already killed “too many” Palestinian civilians. The tensions between Biden and Netanyahu have increasingly spilled into the open in recent weeks, with the president calling Israel’s conduct of its war “over the top” on Friday. According to NBC, Biden has told confidants he is trying to get his Israeli counterpart to accept a ceasefire, but Netanyahu is “giving him hell.” Top U.S. officials reportedly believe that the refugees now hunkered in Rafah “have nowhere to go” after being driven south by the military operation. Behind closed doors, Israel is currently “proposing the creation of sprawling tent cities in Gaza” to solve the issue, according to the Wall Street Journal. The news comes as a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to stop supplying Israel with fighter jet parts over human-rights concerns, spotlighting growing European opposition to arms transfers to Israel.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: House GOP leadership aides say they have a couple of options on the path forward for the foreign aid bill, including splitting up the package to hold separate votes in each piece. They could also attempt to amend the bill by attaching border security provisions to it, but that would likely involve reviving the partisan House border bill H.R. 2, which has no chance of passing the Senate.

Playbook: Kari Lake, the GOP candidate who is running for U.S. Senate in Arizona, is getting an endorsement from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Axios: House Republicans are beginning a potentially “monthslong” effort to keep the focus on President Biden’s age, following special counsel Robert Hur’s report. They’re planning hearings and possible subpoenas.

White House

• President Biden and Vice President Harris will have lunch today.
• Asked whether Biden should take a cognitive test in addition to his standard physical, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre seemed to brush off the question. “The president proves every day how he operates, how he thinks,” she said.
• Biden quipped about his memory on Monday, telling a crowd at the National Association of Counties that “I’ve been around — I know it don’t look like it, but I’ve been around a while.” He paused and smiled, adding, “I do remember that.”

Congress

• The House is back in session with votes scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

• Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s cancer is in remission and that he’ll be back for action on the Hill this week. Speaking of which…
• Republicans are planning their second vote to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday. In theory Scalise’s return could break last week’s tie, assuming everyone else votes the same way they did last week.
• Today, the House Oversight Committee is expected to interview Hunter Biden’s former business associate Tony Bobulinski, who during the 2020 presidential campaign claimed that President Biden stood to profit from his family’s overseas business dealings. The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. cast doubt on Bobulinski’s credibility ahead of the planned interview.
• The three Republican-led House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry into Biden are giving the Justice Department until Feb. 19 to provide documents and audio and video recordings related to special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of sensitive documents. Hur is expected to testify before the Judiciary Committee.
• Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska will replace Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. as the lead Republican on the congressional trip to the Munich Security Conference, after Graham canceled plans to attend the conference in order to travel to the southern border. — NBC
• A resolution from Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. and Eric Schmitt, R-Mo. congratulates the Kansas City Chiefs on their back-to-back Super Bowl victories.
• Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concerns about the Biden campaign’s decision to join TikTok, suggesting it sends a mixed message about the national security concerns related to the app. “I think that we still need to find a way to follow India, which has prohibited TikTok,” he said. “I’m a little worried about a mixed message.” — Reuters

Inside the Beltway

The controversial deal that would relocate the Washington Wizards and Capitals arena across the Potomac to Virginia appears doomed. The state Senate version of the bill failed on Monday, and Senate Democrats plan to block the House bill.

Economy

• Over at the New York Times, Nate Silver takes his stab at answering the eternal question: “Why does everyone think the economy stinks?” He concludes there’s not much mystery: People’s feelings mostly match the real-world data. Americans aren’t that gloomy when surveys ask about jobs or business conditions, but sentiment plummeted in surveys that ask about inflation. Thankfully for Biden, those results are starting to turn around a bit.
• Relatedly: The number of Americans who think their household financial situation will be better in a year has risen to its highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, per a new survey from the New York Fed.
• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is headed to Pittsburgh and Detroit today and tomorrow, respectively, to champion President Biden’s push to lower drug costs and support small businesses.

Courts

• Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to keep his federal election interference trial on hold by blocking a lower court ruling that rejected his claims of immunity from prosecution. “Without immunity from criminal prosecution, the Presidency as we know it will cease to exist,” his lawyers wrote in asking the high court to intervene.
• Trump intends to attend a hearing in Atlanta this Thursday regarding allegations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis carried on an improper personal relationship with one of her prosecutors on the election subversion case, Nathan Wade. — WaPo
• Trump attended a closed-door hearing with Judge Aileen Cannon Monday in the classified documents criminal case against him.
• A federal judge in Texas dismissed PhRMA’s lawsuit that aimed to halt Medicare drug price negotiations.

On the Trail

• Nikki Haley called Donald Trump’s comments about her husband’s military deployment “disgusting.” In a campaign speech on Saturday, Trump insinuated Haley’s husband, who is serving in Africa with the Army National Guard, deployed to avoid being a part of Haley’s campaign. “Where’s her husband? Oh, he’s away. He’s away. What happened to her husband?” Trump asked a crowd.
• AIPAC is endorsing prosecutor Wesley Bell’s primary challenge against “squad” member Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo. — New York Times

National Security

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin canceled a planned trip to Brussels after his hospitalization at Walter Reed. Doctors John Maddox and Gregory Chesnut said in a statement Monday afternoon that Austin “underwent non-surgical procedures under general anesthesia to address his bladder issue” and is expected to resume his official duties today.

White House spokesperson John Kirby said Monday that nothing has changed about TikTok use from a national security perspective. This comes after Biden’s reelection campaign launched an account on the platform. — Reuters

Foreign Policy

• The State Department has not threatened to cut off aid to Israel in reaction to the high number of civilian casualties in the Israel-Hamas war, spokesman Matt Miller said, adding that the department thinks its current approach is the best way to influence Israel’s behavior. But asked if they were happy with the results, Miller said, “In many cases no, absolutely we are not.”
• Donald Trump’s comments about not defending NATO allies that fail to meet defense spending targets continue to reverberate in Europe. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz posted on X that “any relativisation” of NATO’s mutual defense clause “is irresponsible and dangerous.” He continued: “Nobody is allowed to play or do deals with Europe’s security. We will strengthen NATO for the security of Europe.”

Technology

• China is betting on new “chiplet” technology to make its semiconductor industry more self-sufficient as it faces ongoing U.S. sanctions blocking the import of certain materials and machines to make the most advanced chips. Unlike traditional chips, which cram all components onto one chip, chiplets break chips down into smaller, specialized modules.
• Artificial intelligence models chose to initiate arms races, deploy nuclear weapons, and escalate to war in a series of conflict simulations, a new study found.

Media

Bob Edwards, a longtime host of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” passed away at the age of 76.

Big Read

Special counsel Robert Hur’s damning report (calling Biden a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”) might have forced Democrats’ hand on coming up with a 2024 backup plan. Politico’s Charlie Mahtesian and Steven Shepard take a spin through what that plan might actually look like. The TL;DR is this: Biden is unlikely to step aside, so barring incapacitation, he’ll almost certainly be on the ticket. “But there is a path that enables him to leave with dignity and on his terms,” Mahtesian and Shepard write. He could win his primary and then release his delegates to a different nominee, setting the scene for an uncharacteristically chaotic Democratic convention.

Blindspot

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: GOP Senate candidate in Arizona Kari Lake received endorsements from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

What the Right isn’t reading: Gaetz refused to watch the Super Bowl because of the “Black national anthem” performance.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

Reporters: Kadia Goba, Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Nick LaLota is a Republican congressman from New York. He texted Semafor about the headline of yesterday’s newsletter.

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