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With assists from POLITICO’s Congress team

PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off next week for the holidays but back to our normal schedule on Tuesday, Jan. 2.

HOLY TOLEDO

No 2024 House race has been more chaotic in 2023 than the developing Republican primary in Ohio’s 9th District, where party leaders are scrambling to avoid blowing a second consecutive opportunity to knock off longtime Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur.

The drama has surrounded candidate J.R. Majewski, who lost handily to Kaptur despite running in a newly redrawn and more competitive district after the AP reported that he fabricated having served in Afghanistan — part of a resume “defined by exaggerations, conspiracy theories, talk of violent action against the U.S. government and occasional financial duress.”

Now Majewski is back, and his candidacy has taken on new life after a competing GOP candidate, Craig Riedel, was caught on tape slamming former President Donald Trump. House Republican leaders have now managed to recruit a third candidate, state Rep. Derek Merrin, but there is still deep anxiety that Majewski could slip through a split field and again imperil the GOP’s chances against Kaptur.

The frustration is such that three former NRCC staffers are providing the first account of Majewski’s interactions with the national party committee around the time that his alleged deceptions were first exposed in September 2022 — interactions, they say, that underscore his unfitness for the Republican ticket.

Matters came to a head in a four-hour meeting at the NRCC’s Capitol Hill headquarters, where Majewski pushed back on the AP’s claims to party officials. But, when pressed, he couldn’t point to anyone who could verify that he had actually served in combat.

“J.R. had no defense to point to that he had served in Afghanistan,” said one of the staffers present. Majewski, who continues to deny he fabricated any aspect of his military service, asked the NRCC to put out a statement denouncing the AP, but the committee declined to do so, according to the former staffers, and soon pulled its advertising out of his race.

The candidate became emotional at times during the meeting, the three staffers said, breaking down in tears for “an uncomfortable period of time,” one said, as they pressed him on the allegations.

The meeting at NRCC headquarters was just one of several difficult conversations the committee had with Majewski through the cycle. The staffers said he also misled the party about his involvement in espousing the QAnon conspiracy theory, which the committee requested that he stop doing.

Said Majewski in a statement, “While the DC Swamp is focused on distracting voters with defamatory statements and baseless lies, I remain proud of my service to this country and am focused on representing the issues important to the people in the 9th district of Ohio and look forward to promoting the America first agenda of Donald Trump and helping our communities become more prosperous, secure and safe.”

— Daniel Lippman

GOOD EVENING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Thursday, Dec. 21, where we are counting down until presents!

WHAT’S COMING IN JANUARY

Happy Huddle Holidays! The Senate and House are finally out and won’t come back until the second week of January. But it’s not going to be a Happy New Year: Lawmakers left themselves quite the mess to clean up.

Both chambers punted just about everything on their 2023 to-do list into 2024, and some of the biggest items will be coming to a head in January, meaning there will be a lot to do as soon as members come back and not a lot of time to do it.

Funding the government: You recall that Congress passed what we at Huddle are calling a “stepstool CR” last month — as in, it’s laddered, with only only two steps. The first step arrives on Jan. 19, when funding expires for all agencies included in the Agriculture-FDA, Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD bills. Funding for the rest of the government — including the Pentagon and some of the government’s biggest domestic programs — expires on Feb. 2.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled repeatedly that if the two chambers can’t figure out how to get full-year appropriations bills to President Joe Biden’s desk, he’ll consider a year-long CR. Republicans insist they won’t swallow an omnibus, where all 12 appropriations bills are passed at once.

“I think if [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer decides to drop an omnibus on everybody, I think this time, a lot of people are gonna say no,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), an appropriator, told reporters this week. In that case, he added, “we may end up with” a full-year CR.

Clinching a Ukraine/Israel/border deal: Senate negotiators said they are committed to working through the holidays to figure out a framework for a supplemental funding package that would link foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel with changes to border policy in order to win Republican votes. The negotiators have made some progress on changes to asylum standards but continue to disagree on dialing back presidential powers dealing with immigration.

Senators on both sides remain optimistic that the negotiators can figure something out by the time lawmakers come back in January. But even if a deal can squeeze through the Senate, it remains unclear if it will pass muster in the GOP-majority House, where members are deeply skeptical of Ukraine funding and a half-load border compromise.

“We’re not going to solve the supplemental bill problem … until the president puts his cards on the table,” Kennedy said. “I think everybody, including my Democratic colleagues, are waiting to see exactly what he’s willing to do.”

Impeachment inquiry continues: The House voted to formalize its impeachment inquiry into Biden shortly before the House recessed, and GOP leaders have signaled they want to finish their investigation in January, then move quickly to compile a report on their findings and make a decision whether or not to draft actual articles of impeachment.

That final step could happen by the end of January, but it could also get kicked into February if scheduled interviews are delayed. GOP investigators also want to move next month on holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a scheduled deposition.

Enjoy the holidays, folks: January’s going to be a grind.

— Daniella Diaz, with assist from Ursula Perano, Jennifer Scholtes and Jordain Carney

We at Huddle … agree with this.

QUICK LINKS

Republicans’ headache: Cutting a border deal with a DHS chief they loathe, from Burgess Everett, Myah Ward and Jennifer Haberkorn

Johnson pushes Biden for executive action on border, from Olivia Beavers

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries marks one year as top House Democrat, from Kevin Frey at at NY1

TRANSITIONS

Michael Helmer is now legislative assistant for Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). He most recently was legislative director for Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas).

TOMORROW IN CONGRESS

The House and Senate are out.

FRIDAY AROUND THE HILL

Quiet.

WEDNESDAY’S ANSWER: The Fort Wilson Riot was the battle that took place at the Philadelphia home of James Wilson, a future constitutional architect and Supreme Court justice.

TODAY’S QUESTION: Which senator began the tradition now known as the candy desk, and when?

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

GET HUDDLE emailed to your phone each evening.

Follow Daniella on X at @DaniellaMicaela.