HOUSE GOP’S IMPEACHMENT CAUCUS TURNS ON MCCONNELL

When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell splashed cold water on House conservatives’ flirtation with an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, it went mostly unnoticed in Washington — because his comments came amid a public freeze-up that raised new fears about the Kentucky Republican’s health.

But McConnell’s thoughts about impeachment aren’t under the radar anymore.

After The New York Times recently resurfaced his response, which was quickly picked up by conservative media, several members of the House’s right flank took the opportunity to chide the Senate GOP leader as too cautious, or even too protective of a president he’s occasionally cut deals with.

What McConnell really said: When our bureau chief Burgess Everett asked whether a House inquiry into Biden had any merit, McConnell said that a constant flow of impeachment probes isn’t “good for the country.”

The Senate Republican leader also pointed a finger at Democrats for setting Congress down the path of normalizing impeachments, adding that he was “not surprised” to see the House GOP open the door on Biden after former President Donald Trump’s impeachments.

But the new media attention was fueled by his comments that trying to oust a president should be “rare” and that an impeachment competition wasn’t good for America — not his blame of Democrats. So conservatives hit back.

“That kind of thinking makes us into losers and allows Democrats to bully us. How about doing the right thing for a change? It is past time to open up an impeachment inquiry into the Biden crime syndicate,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) told us of McConnell’s comments.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said that “impeachments honestly are likely too rare.”

“The executive branch must be checked by the legislative branch when it abuses power — an all too common practice now, particularly in the Biden administration,” he added.

Sharper jabs: Some on the House GOP conference’s right flank went even further, aiming barbs directly at McConnell or his recent health scare.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said that “we hope the leader is feeling better and back to his faculties soon.”

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) tweeted that McConnell “is not and has not been acting in the best interest of the American people for a long time,” adding that “Senate leaders like McConnell should stop trying to blockade us.” (Luna shared a screenshot of a headline from a far-right website that mischaracterizes McConnell’s remarks — but underscores how they are viewed in that sphere.)

The old strain is back: House vs. Senate tensions are hardly new to the Hill, but this latest round of bad blood between McConnell and conservatives across the Capitol is coming at a particularly stressful time.

The House GOP conference is moving toward launching an inquiry into Biden as soon as next month, focused largely on the overseas business dealings of his son Hunter, though they don’t yet have the votes to launch a formal investigation — much less impeach.

Even if House Republicans do get there, impeachment would go nowhere in the Democratic Senate.

McConnell, importantly, has not weighed in directly on whether he would support a Biden impeachment effort. And his warning about making impeachments routine echoes worries we’ve heard from other Senate GOP leaders.

– Jordain Carney

Related read: McConnell in Winter: Inside the GOP Leader’s Attempt to Thwart Trump, by Jonathan Martin

GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Monday, Aug. 14, where we sincerely wish all of you (we see those out-of-the-office messages) the best of August breaks.

HOUSE GOP STIFF-ARMS UKRAINE AID REQUEST

No one thought House Republicans, dozens of whom voted to cut off all military aid to Ukraine, were going to embrace the White House’s $40 billion supplemental spending request. But Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) put it more bluntly: His colleagues see the package as DOA in its current form.

“It’s going to need a lot of work,” Waltz told reporters on Friday of the request, which includes money for Ukraine, disaster aid and the southern border. “I am a little frustrated to see the administration lump all of these things together. I think they deserve separate debate, separate discussion.”

With House Republicans poised to start talking this week about resolving their internal tensions over government funding, Waltz said he’d like to see that play out before lawmakers even begin to address the supplemental request.

Where does that leave the cash — and the GOP? The likeliest path to passage for the White House’s emergency funding pitch remains attaching the money to any stopgap patch that passes to keep the government funded beyond the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

But a skeptical Waltz noted that he’s never voted for a so-called continuing resolution, calling the short-term measures “just a bad way to do business.” Which means that the calendar may well turn to winter before the funding request sees its final votes.

Expect this to come up when House Republicans hold a call at 6 p.m. Monday on spending.

DIFI BACK ON DEMS’ WORRY LIST

Another prolonged absence from work by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) could have devastating consequences for her party, one of her colleagues acknowledged to reporters on Friday.

Feinstein has “been very brave” to keep up an abridged schedule despite her health challenges, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said — as he observed that her absence had effectively wiped out Democrats’ Judiciary Committee majority, stalling judicial confirmations for months.

“Whether it’s departure from the Senate or departure from the committee or just unavailability that she can’t be in the Judiciary Committee, that gives Leader McConnell the prerogative to take away our majority from Judiciary,” Whitehouse said Friday. “And the notion that he wouldn’t do that I think is fantastical.”

A refresher: Feinstein, 90, was briefly hospitalized last week after a fall in her San Francisco home. A spokesperson said that Feinstein’s scans were clear after she was hospitalized for about two hours. But the episode put Democrats back on high alert with Feinstein, who spent nearly three months away from Washington this spring as she recovered from shingles.

The stakes: Another extended Feinstein leave from the committee would put Senate Democrats back in a holding pattern on one of the few priorities they can work on without cooperation from the House — confirming judges.

SCOTUS watch: Whitehouse said a Senate vote on his committee-passed Supreme Court ethics legislation is “under consideration,” but he has no firm date to announce. He called the latest ProPublica reporting on Justice Clarence Thomas’ luxury travel financed by billionaires “just a little bit into the iceberg but there’s, I think, still more to come” and vowed that the committee would continue investigating.

TUBERVILLE’S TWO MILITARY MOODS

Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s blockade of scores of Pentagon promotions is roiling Washington — and dividing his own party. But back in Alabama, the conservative is keeping up business-as-usual appearances with a slew of promotional appearances promoting the military.

He’s already hit up Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery and announced scores of informational sessions for service academies. A Tuberville aide said the visits are part of his regular work as an Armed Services Committee member and unrelated to the senator’s holds on hundreds of military promotions.

It’s all about optics: The aura of normalcy is politically valuable for Tuberville as he contends with growing intra-GOP tension and an increasingly frustrated Biden administration over his decision to stall promotions for the military’s top brass in protest of a Defense Department policy permitting paid leave for abortions.

Tuberville, who’s given no indications of softening on his holds, has said that he’d heed pushback from Alabamians on the blockade but would resist outside pressure. In fact, the senator’s military outreach comes as new polling conducted by Democratic polling firm PPP on behalf of VoteVets Action Fund found 58 percent of state residents think Tuberville “has made his point” and should drop his holds, compared to 29 percent who do not.

Here’s how Democratic staffers are spending their recess: with a training on “emotional intelligence.” The session, put on by the office of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Office of Employee Assistance, will include discussion of “a wide range of emotional and social skills influencing how we perceive and express ourselves, manage relationships, how to use emotions effectively in decision making and how to cope with challenges in the workplace.”

Watch out Chuck Grassley: Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper (D) predicted a “great corn crop” in front of some stalks in Yuma, Colo.

Allright, Sen. Grassley, where does one get their very own “Assume Deer Dead” hat?

QUICK LINKS

Alabama lost a voting rights case at the Supreme Court. It’s still trying to win, by NPR’s Hansi Lo Wang

Fulton Trump indictments: How we got here and what’s ahead, from Tamar Hallerman and Bill Rankin at the Atlantic Journal Constitution

GOP finds tough Kansas foe in Democrat Sharice Davids, by Caleigh Kelly in The Hill

Black Women Pursue Historic Change In Competitive Senate Bids, by Greg Giroux in Bloomberg Government

TRANSITIONS

Got a new gig on the Hill? Leaving for something else? Let us know!

TODAY IN CONGRESS

The House is out.

The Senate is out.

AROUND THE HILL

*crickets*

FRIDAY’S ANSWER: Benjamin Wainer was first to identify William Goebel of Kentucky as the only sitting U.S. governor ever assassinated while in office.

TODAY’S QUESTION from Benjamin: Alongside actress Sophia Loren, which U.S. President and which foreign leader won a Grammy Award in 2004 for their recording of Peter and the Wolf?

The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Huddle. Send your answers to [email protected].

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