Morning Report — House-Senate border battle intensifies 

Impeachment and taxes marked the start of the workweek in the House, as a Republican-led committee advanced impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and negotiators prepared a $78 billion tax deal. 

After a marathon, daylong meeting, the House Homeland Security Committee voted just after midnight today to advance its impeachment case against Mayorkas to the full chamber, moving one step closer to impeaching the first Cabinet member in almost 150 years. Democrats slammed the 18-15 vote as politically motivated, pointing out that GOP lawmakers were trying to oust Mayorkas for supposedly neglecting to secure the southern border, while at the same time opposing a bipartisan package under negotiation in the Senate — where Mayorkas is a key player — that would seek to improve border security (The Hill and The Washington Post). 

It’s unclear that articles of impeachment will clear the full House. And the effort faces an even tougher road in the Senate. The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports Senate Democrats are likely to bury the articles in a committee if they are approved by the House, allowing vulnerable members to avoid a tough vote in an election year. Senate Democrats could vote immediately to dismiss articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, something many in the caucus would be happy to do, but insiders predict Democrats will likely try to refer the matter to a special Senate committee to review the impeachment articles, postponing the vote until after Election Day. 

Mayorkas vigorously defended his record in a lengthy letter to lawmakers but did not testify in person (The Hill). 

“You claim that we have failed to enforce our immigration laws. That is false,” Mayorkas wrote. “We have provided Congress and your committee hours of testimony, thousands of documents, hundreds of briefings, and much more information that demonstrates quite clearly how we are enforcing the law.” 

He noted that in three years, President Biden has removed more migrants than in the entirety of the Trump administration — a period that included the pandemic. 

SENATE REPUBLICANS ARE WARNING their House colleagues not to send their articles, saying the House has set too low a threshold for impeachment and the matter won’t go anywhere in the Senate. Senate Republicans say the House’s split-screen — opposing a border deal while gunning for Mayorkas’s impeachment — is colored by presidential election politics and a lack of seriousness. 

The bipartisan border component is expected to be released this week, writes The Hill’s Al Weaver, but a series of remarks by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has further raised the possibility that the bill may die a quick death if the Senate advances it in the coming days. 

“In many respects, there’s a parallel,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) quipped to The Hill. “If they’re torpedoing a bill whose contents they haven’t seen yet, it’s very similar to targeting a member of the administration without doing their homework to find precisely why he should be impeached. I don’t agree with it, but at least they’re consistent.” 

“They’re taking a fast track to condemning something they know nothing about, and they’re taking a fast track to using impeachment without doing their homework,” Tillis added. 

TAXES AND MORE TAXES: The House could vote on a $78 billion tax deal as soon as this week that includes business deduction and a bump in the child tax credit. But the measure’s sticker price, which is covered by the cancellation of a different business tax credit, likely obscures the plan’s true cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars. 

The Hill’s Tobias Burns explains that the business breaks in the deal, which allow businesses to pay less now and more in the future, are likely to be extended before the tax code resets at the end of 2025. Future revenue owed to the government may never actually come in, and the longer-term deficit could balloon as a result of the deal. 

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Cabinet: Attorney General Merrick Garland, 71, on Saturday will undergo back surgery and transfer authority temporarily to deputy Lisa Monaco. The Justice Department’s disclosure Wednesday contrasted with the Pentagon’s opaque handling of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization for prostate surgery Dec. 22 and post-surgical complications this month, which required emergency treatment. 

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LEADING THE DAY 

POLITICS 

Candidates Trump and Biden have dueling narratives about why they’re better stewards of the economy. The former president blames Biden’s economic agenda for inflation, and, as he did during his term in the Oval Office, recently said Wall Street’s rally was a mark of his influence. Trump has also knocked Wall Street, saying last month that record highs in financial markets were just making “rich people richer.” 

Once a New York borrower and investor before entering politics, Trump counts among his supporters many business chiefs as well as everyday workers who embrace his “outsider” persona and aspirational sales pitch about success and money. 

Biden seeks a second term arguing he can “finish the job” of shaping an economy for the middle class (and the planet) while offering “some breathing room” for seniors and families. He says the wealthy should pay more. 

TRUMP IS PRACTICED at laying claim to stock market gains. Biden, aware of the current surge in stock valuations on his watch, ignores investor exuberance as distinct from the way most Americans experience the economy, The Hill’s Alex Gangitano writes. He prefers to herald repaired roads and bridges, new broadband, lower prescription drug prices, relief from student debt and ebbing inflation. In other words, he’s wedded to his Bidenomics elixir to get Americans closer to their economic goals. 

BIDEN’S JOB APPROVAL remains underwater, with nearly 60 percent of Americans saying they disapprove of his economic performance, according to months of surveys. Trump’s base tells pollsters they remember their wallets as fatter when he was president. Biden and his campaign advisers think voters are gradually acknowledging an expansive era with plentiful jobs, wage increases, robust consumer spending and less sticker shock.  

From Wall Street to Main Street, many will listen carefully this afternoon to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, hoping to gather clues from his scheduled news conference about whether the central bank will cut interest rates between March and November. 

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ZOOM IN 

INTERNATIONAL  

HAMAS’S POLITICAL CHIEF SAID the group was considering a proposal to pause the fighting in Gaza and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners on Tuesday, a potentially promising sign for a deal that was immediately followed by a reminder of the hurdles ahead. Ismail Haniyeh suggested his openness to a deal but stuck to longstanding demands for the total withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately rejected. 

Described as a bare-bones “framework,” what Qatar presented to Hamas is said to be a two- or three-page document with bullet points that proposes a six-week pause in the war in Gaza for Hamas to exchange some hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The deal was brokered by representatives from four nations — the U.S., Israel, Qatar and Egypt (The Washington Post and Reuters).  

Although it was expected that Israel would struggle to accept the terms, Egypt, Qatar and the U.S. are hoping to see if the two sides can be persuaded to accept a ceasefire lasting at least a month, but Netanyahu poured cold water on any deal that would require Israeli soldiers to leave Gaza permanently without a clear military victory (The Guardian).  

EXPERTS SAY THE MILITARY MISSION that brought U.S. troops, now under fire from Iran-linked groups in Iraq and Syria, to the Middle East is largely complete. But the question of where and when to withdraw them is more complicated. The issue has taken on greater urgency after three U.S. service members were killed in a drone attack in Jordan on Sunday. The troops in Iraq and Syria are said by U.S. officials to be part of an operation to keep the Islamic State from regaining a foothold in the region.  

But with the group largely degraded, American soldiers now find themselves targeted by other adversaries, who say the attacks will continue as long as Washington maintains its support for Israel’s war in Gaza (The Washington Post). 

On Tuesday, an Iran-linked militia in Iraq, which the Pentagon said was likely responsible for a lethal drone attack Sunday that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan, announced it was suspending military operations in Iraq under pressure from the Iraqi government and from Iran (The New York Times).  

The move followed Biden’s comment Tuesday that he had decided how the U.S. will retaliate for the drone killings. He declined to share details with reporters. When asked if he holds Iran responsible for the attack, the president said he does “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it,” (NBC News). 

CNN analysis: The Red Sea crisis tests China’s global ambitions.  

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ELSEWHERE 

STATE WATCH 

Ohio: GOP lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation in Ohio to approve executions using nitrogen gas, as was used last week in Alabama, in addition to lethal injection. Three states — Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma — have approved the use of nitrogen gas in capital punishment. Ohio has not executed an inmate since 2018 and currently has 129 people on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that provides data and analysis on capital punishment. 

Oregon: Leaders who are focused on downtown Portland on Tuesday declared a 90-day state of emergency for public health and safety because of fentanyl. People addicted to the powerful opioid who interact with first responders in Portland’s downtown will be triaged for intervention and various assistance through a new command center. 

Iowa: In an example of a two-decade trend observed in various states, Iowa Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird, in her first year, used her office to bring or join lawsuits or file briefs against the federal government on a host of issues, with mixed results, according to an analysis by The Des Moines Register.  

Trend: More than half the states have pending bills designed to protect against deepfakes and AI in elections, primarily through disclosure, according to Pluribus News. Public Citizen points to at least 14 states in which leaders in both parties want to safeguard voters and elections from AI-generated falsehoods and fictions, otherwise known as deepfakes (NBC News). On Tuesday, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) ordered the state to study and create guidelines for ethical uses of generative AI. 

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THE CLOSER 

And finally … It used to be verboten and taboo, saddled with hefty penalties for possession and possible career-ending consequences if detected on a work-required drug test, all disproportionately affecting communities of color. But through legalization and decriminalization in many states, marijuana’s image changed — and it became a profit-maker for governments. 

Now, 11 Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are calling on Biden to completely deschedule marijuana, arguing the White House’s recommendations to the Drug Enforcement Administration to reschedule the drug do not go far enough to address the harm that has occurred from the current system. 

Rescheduling the drug or removing it entirely would have significant implications for the marijuana industry and for cannabis users, some of whom consume it for medical purposes. Since 1971, cannabis has been under Schedule I, along with drugs like heroin and LSD, which the government formally considers to have high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Even so, 40 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized some form of cannabis, for either recreational or medical use, leaving consumers and business owners to operate in a patchwork of changing laws across the country (The Hill and NBC News). 

“Marijuana’s placement in the [Controlled Substances Act] has had a devastating impact on our communities and is increasingly out of step with state law and public opinion,” the senators wrote. 

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