Principals

☞ White House: Biden will unveil his fiscal year 2024 budget later this week during a speech in Philadelphia this week. Your annual reminder: White House budgets are mostly messaging exercises that rarely if ever become law.

☞ Chuck Schumer: The Senate has teed up a handful of confirmations and will likely vote on the resolution undoing changes to the D.C. criminal code on Wednesday, though a precise time hasn’t been settled yet.

☞ Mitch McConnell: The Senate minority leader and other Republicans will no doubt take a victory lap once the D.C. crime resolution passes the Senate (which is widely expected).

☞ Kevin McCarthy: The House is getting ready to take up a Senate-passed measure offered by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. that would direct the intelligence community to declassify and make public information about the origins of COVID-19.

☞ Hakeem Jeffries: The House minority leader declined to criticize Biden over his plans to sign a Republican-led bill that would reverse changes to the D.C. criminal code if it passes the Senate. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi didn’t hold back, however, saying he should have alerted House Democrats before they voted against the bill.

Biden visited Selma, Ala. to renew a plea for sweeping voting rights legislation as he commemorated “Bloody Sunday” at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. In his address, Biden warned that the right to vote “remains under assault” thanks to decisions by the Supreme Court and state-level restrictions enacted since 2020. Biden has faced criticism from civil rights activists for not doing enough to prioritize voting reforms after legislation on the issue crashed into the Senate filibuster last year.

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, one of Donald Trump’s loudest Republican critics, said he wouldn’t enter the 2024 presidential race. In a New York Times op-ed, Hogan wrote that “the stakes are too high for me to risk being part of another multicar pileup that could potentially help Mr. Trump recapture the nomination.”

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. told “Fox News Sunday” he plans to introduce a bipartisan bill this week that would let the government screen and potentially ban foreign technology, including platforms like TikTok. He told Semafor in an interview last month that the legislation would provide a new “framework” for reviewing foreign tech so the government isn’t taking a “whack-a-mole” approach. “We need to get ahead of the game rather than chasing these technologies after the fact,” he said then.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg went after his critics on the right, including Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, who have lambasted him over the East Palestine derailment, suggesting they don’t actually care about the “forgotten middle of the country” in a CNN interview. “You think Tucker Carlson knows the difference between a T.J. Maxx and a Kohl’s?” Buttigieg asked rhetorically.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va. isn’t endorsing Biden for reelection just yet. “Let’s see who’s involved. Let’s wait until we say who all the players are,” he said yesterday on CBS, adding that he wouldn’t make any endorsements or announce plans for his “political future” until the end of the year.

— Morgan Chalfant

Punchbowl News: The White House counsel’s office and Republican-led House Oversight Committee are in a bureaucratic squabble over documents related to the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Playbook: Ron DeSantis was known to former House colleagues as a good hitter on the congressional baseball team and as a “workhorse” who was also frustrated by the internal politics of Congress, according to Politico, which has a deep dive on the Florida governor’s time in the House.

The Early 202: House Oversight Committee Democrats are accusing committee Republicans of echoing white supremacist rhetoric in hearings. The Washington Post also profiles McCarthy’s chief of staff Dan Meyer, a former lobbyist who is widely respected among both parties in Washington.

A Taiwan invasion isn’t the only scenario that has Washington on edge

THE NEWS

A blockade cutting the country off from food and fuel. Cyberattacks slamming critical infrastructure. Social media saturated with disinformation as panicked citizens try to make sense of the crisis.

Lawmakers have come away from recent private meetings in Taiwan concerned not just about the prospect of a Chinese invasion, but a wide range of ways in which Beijing could try to pressure and isolate the island.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., who traveled to Taipei as part of a bipartisan delegation last month, said one official there expressed concerns that China’s navy could halt Taiwan’s crucial energy imports, rather than attempt to take over an island bristling with weapons.

“A porcupine can’t be eaten but it can be starved,” Auchincloss said the official told him.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the China select committee, told Semafor his recent trip to the Island left him with newfound concerns about Beijing’s ability to inundate Taiwan with misinformation and propaganda — what Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen has referred to as “cognitive warfare” — as well as cyberattacks.

MORGAN’S VIEW

A number of U.S. defense officials have recently downplayed the possibility that China might storm Taiwan in the near future because of the intense military toll it would entail. Colin Kahl, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, told Congress last week for instance that he did not think an attack would occur before 2027.

But experts on Asian security have long worried that China, which claims Taiwan as part of its own territory, could use other coercive measures short of a full-scale invasion to try and achieve its goal of reunifying with the island.

Those could include a combination of cyberattacks, information warfare, and economic strangulation. Though an all-out blockade of the island would likely require hundreds of ships, planes, and submarines, even a partial one could seal Taiwan off from critical imports like fuel.

“There has been an enormous amount of attention paid to whether China will invade,” Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund, said. “And I think there has been not enough attention paid to what we call gray zone scenarios.”
Thanks to their recent visits, those sorts of threats increasingly appear to be on lawmakers’ radars, too.

Fresh off his own trip to the island, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., told Semafor he was “persuaded” that China was most likely to target Taiwan with “economic coercion” or “aggressive action short of an actual invasion.” Auchincloss said he was most concerned China might attempt “a de facto if not formal blockade” of Taiwan while blasting its citizens with disinformation.

“TikTok, YouTube, as well as traditional media are being used by the Chinese mainland to try to degrade morale,” he said. “It is very pervasive and pernicious.”

KNOW MORE

Lawmakers are still exploring ways the U.S. can help Taiwan withstand China’s non-military pressure tactics, most of which likely would not prompt the U.S. to risk a global war by responding with force. Gallagher said he would like the U.S. and Taiwan to deepen their cooperation on cybersecurity. On the economic front, lawmakers are eying trade policy as a potential lever.

The U.S. is already holding bilateral trade talks with Taiwan, including meetings in Taipei in January. But Auchincloss told Semafor the U.S. should strive to help Taiwan “achieve energy independence” to help pre-empt a Chinese blockade. Young, meanwhile, is a co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill designed to counter “economic coercion” by China by allowing the U.S. to reduce tariffs on goods and waive requirements for export financing to help impacted countries.

While Washington is grappling with these “gray zone” threats, the possibility of an all-out invasion still looms large. Gallagher returned from his trip conveying concerns from the Taiwanese about delays in billions of dollars of military assistance and said it’s imperative for the U.S. to move “heaven and Earth to arm Taiwan to the teeth.”

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

Some U.S. officials and military brass are still deeply concerned that China might try an invasion sooner rather than later. A four-star U.S. Air Force general recently made headlines for predicting war with China over Taiwan by 2025.

THE VIEW FROM CHINA

In a statement to Semafor, a Chinese embassy official accused U.S. lawmakers of meddling in its “internal affairs” with their trips to Taiwan and urged them to “immediately stop any form of official engagement with Taiwan and immediately stop sending wrong signals to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”

It’s Ron DeSantis vs. Gavin Newsom in California

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mocked California’s “poor governance” during a swing through Southern California, part of a book tour that’s putting him in front of large, rapt Republican crowds.

“Your governor is very concerned about what we’re doing in Florida,” DeSantis said in a Sunday afternoon speech at the Ronald Reagan Library. California Gov. Gavin Newsom had bought ads in Florida last year, attacking DeSantis and welcoming would-be refugees from his state’s abortion and LGBT rights laws. It kickstarted a feud that DeSantis has relished since.

“Growing up in Florida, I never remember seeing a California license plate,” DeSantis told the Sunday crowd of more than 1000, at an event that sold out within a day. “Until, like, the last four or five years, people beat a path to California. You didn’t beat a path away from California.”

“You’re going to get smoked by Trump,” Newsom said in a statement before the speech.

DeSantis talked at length about his state’s economic expansion and his battle with “a company down the road in Burbank.” He gave no new hints about seeking the presidency, but when he wasn’t comparing California and Florida growth rates, he took a national view.

“We must reject as President Reagan did the idea that self government can be subcontracted out to a technocratic elite in a far distant capital or even a place like Davos, Switzerland,” said DeSantis.

Most major and minor GOP candidates for president — not Trump — have spoken at the Reagan Library since 2020. DeSantis generated the most interest, and the only considerable group of protesters, some waving LGBT pride flags at the bottom of the hill where guests enter the museum.

His closed-press speech to Orange County Republicans, later on Sunday, was at a hotel directly across the street from Disneyland.

—David Weigel

For more reporting and analysis from Weigel, sign up for his twice-weekly politics newsletter Americana.

What we heard from the big 2024 names at CPAC

CPAC 2023 was Donald Trump territory, but a few of his potential 2024 rivals — Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Vivek Ramaswamy, and even the lesser-known Perry Johnson — delivered speeches as well, making it one of the biggest cattle calls yet for the field. Here were some of the themes that stood out.

Battle of the anti-woke: Nikki Haley declared that “wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic — hands down.” Ramaswamy, the author of “Woke, Inc,” railed against the “new culture of fear in America,” declared the country to be in the midst “of a national identity crisis” and promised to shut down and replace the FBI. Pompeo, meanwhile, once again went after American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten (whom he’s previously declared to be “the most dangerous person in the world”).

The event reflected the movement’s increased focus on transgender issues and Trump issued a one-liner that received the loudest applause among 2024 hopefuls: “We will keep men out of women’s sports,” he broadly declared.

Law-and-order. Crime and border issues featured heavily in candidate speeches. Trump detailed a series of sweeping policy proposals, including signing a “reconciliation bill … for a massive increase in border patrol,” enacting “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” and sending in “federal assets” to cities experiencing high crime.

“My administration will crack down on these out-of-control monsters, young though they may be, and impose tough consequences on juvenile criminals,” Trump added.

Spending. During his speech on Friday, Pompeo attacked overspending in both parties, pointing to a rare area where Republican 2024 candidates may look to attack Trump.

“[The] Trump administration — the administration I served — added $8 trillion in new debt,” Pompeo told attendees. “This is indecent and can’t continue. Earning back that trust will be hard work.”

Haley also contrasted spending policies during her CPAC speech, though she focused more on President Joe Biden’s time in office. Later in the weekend, however, Haley tied the argument to Trump more directly during a speech at a private donor retreat hosted by Club for Growth, noting that “a third of our debt happened under just two Republicans,” Trump and George W. Bush.

Trump versus the GOP. Trump told his supporters he would be “your retribution,” and much of that rage seemed directed at his own party.

“We had a Republican Party that was ruled by freaks, neocons, globalists, open border zealots, and fools, but we are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush,” Trump said, adding that “people are tired of RINOs and globalists. They want to see America First.”

Trump told the crowd that they would not return to leaders “that want to destroy our great Social Security system,” raise the age for retirement benefits, and cut Medicare. It was the latest sign of his campaign’s offensive against potential rivals’ past support for entitlement cuts, especially DeSantis.

— Shelby Talcott

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Three years ago, the global economy was on the cusp of shutting down as the coronavirus spread. Semafor Business and Finance editor Liz Hoffman tracked the story for the Wall Street Journal. Liz’s breathtaking new book, Crash Landing, tells the story of how CEOs battled an economic catastrophe for which there was no playbook. It comes out on March 7 and you can pre-order here.

Michael Ricci served as communications director for then-Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and recently joined the bipartisan public affairs firm Seven Letter. He also advised former House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner.

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: House Oversight Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio says he wants to know why Dr. Anthony Fauci was “so consumed” with disproving the theory that COVID-19 may have leaked from a Chinese lab. The committee’s select subcommittee on the pandemic is preparing for its first hearing on the virus’ origins.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: Paul Manafort, Trump’s one-time 2016 campaign chairman, agreed to pay $3.15 million to settle a civil suit brought by the Justice Department concerning his failure to declare foreign bank accounts.

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— Steve Clemons