The last season of the Chuck and Mitch show

An evening recap of the action on Capitol Hill and preview of the day ahead

Apr 25, 2024 View in browser   By Burgess Everett With an assist from Daniella Diaz Schumer says he still has high hopes for more bipartisan legislation this year — including a sputtering tax deal: “We could still do it.” | Francis Chung/POLITICO LET’S MAKE (ANOTHER) DEAL? The surprising bipartisanship between Senate and House leaders on the foreign aid bill, spending deals and FISA reauthorization is now in the rearview mirror, and a lot of rank-and-file members say that era of legislating is done for. Chuck Schumer isn’t letting it go quietly, though. By now you’re familiar with his list: The Senate majority leader name-checked cannabis banking, rail safety, $35 insulin, and the House-passed tax bill during an interview this week. That’s on top of the soon-to-expire FAA bill and the September farm and spending bill deadlines. “The closer you get to the election, the harder it is, but I'm going to keep trying to get some bipartisan things done,” Schumer said. “Bipartisanship still is not dead.” All of this is unlikely to happen without buy-in from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is increasingly going to prioritize leaving his successor with a Senate majority now that Ukraine is funded. What does McConnell think of the prospect of future election year bipartisanship? You’ll be shocked to find out McConnell is being circumspect. “We’ll see,” he said when asked about Schumer’s to-do list. “We have cats and dogs that are important, like the FAA reauthorization, that sort of thing. Every time I think, surely that's it for this year, something pops up. So, who knows?” McConnell said in a separate interview. Not a no, but definitely not a yes. Schumer and the GOP: The Senate majority leader has kept up some relationships with the GOP rank-and-file since the big bipartisan bills of 2021 and 2022 — for instance, with Sens. Mike Rounds and Todd Young on AI. Whether something even modest happens in 2024 might depend on folks like them. “Well, I have to talk to my Republican colleagues. You know, I have different Republicans in here all the time on different bills,” Schumer explained, gesturing to his office. He’s not at the point where he wants to jam the Senate GOP with the tax bill, though some Democrats think the bill’s prospects improve if Schumer schedules an uncertain floor vote. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the top Finance Committee Republican, said this week he still has issues with the bill. “I’d love to get tax done. That’s a problem with Crapo. But maybe we can get it done,” Schumer said. “We could still do it. You might be able to come up with a compromise. You might have some new element that goes in there.” McConnell the gatekeeper: Schumer attributed some of the last years of success to working with McConnell, even when he wasn’t always supportive. He recalled “conversations with McConnell when I said: ‘Maybe you can’t be for this, but don’t tell your people not to work with us.’” When McConnell wants to stop something, he’s pretty damn good at it. That’s how he got the “Grim Reaper” nickname from Democrats — many of whom now praise him for his work on Ukraine and other bipartisan bills. He did some deals, particularly on the debt ceiling, in part to head off any hint that moderate Democrats might gut the filibuster. He also didn’t see issues like infrastructure and microchip funding as particularly partisan. Has McConnell mellowed? This was once the guy who shut down much of Democrats’ agenda in divided government and blocked a Supreme Court seat from being filled. He said “one of my great pet peeves” is an old quote about his priority of making Barack Obama a one-term president, which he said is often used without subsequent comments saying he would be willing to work with Obama. “I think you can't ignore the facts of each situation,” McConnell said of clinching bipartisan deals. “I always tried to find places where we can have an outcome if we can reach an agreement.” “I read that one of my colleagues said my job was to be with whatever position was the majority position of my conference,” McConnell added. “I can tell you, if I had had a Hastert Rule, we would have never raised the debt ceiling and never funded the government.” GOOD EVENING! Welcome to Inside Congress, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Thursday, April 26, where you can feel free to start happy hour … as soon as you finish this email.   THE GOLD STANDARD OF POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries—finance, defense, technology, healthcare, energy—equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists. Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other—with teams embedded in the world’s most active legislative and regulatory power centers. From Brussels to Washington, New York to London, Sacramento to Paris, we bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY.     ZELENSKYY’S CALL LIST Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has received an awful lot of love from Capitol Hill leaders over the past two years. Zelenskyy has addressed Congress and met with Speaker Mike Johnson. And McConnell and Schumer have both visited Kiev, including Schumer’s trek this winter when aid prospects didn’t look so good. So Zelenskyy returned the warmth on Thursday after Biden signed the Ukraine bill. He called Johnson and gave him his “sincere gratitude” for pushing through the $60 billion in aid and invited the speaker to Ukraine. He also spoke to Schumer (on his flip phone, naturally) and spoke about the “urgency of sending the next defense packages.” And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will speak to him soon. And in their conversation this week Zelenskyy told McConnell about the situation on the ground and the need for more air defenses. About that … YOLO MITCH During our interview this week, the GOP leader this week gave a preview of what the last two years of his term might look like. He’ll be out of elected leadership and taking on his party’s anti-interventionist wing, and as Zelenskyy made clear above, Ukraine is going to need more help. McConnell wants to focus on increasing defense funding, highlighting that he believes both parties are coming around to bumping it up after years of parity between non-defense and defense spending. “We are nowhere near doing what we need to do in the defense budget, and that's gonna be my main focus when I'm out of this particular job, which requires you to keep your mouth shut a lot,” McConnell said. After we observed he hasn’t exactly been keeping his mouth shut as much as he used to, he indicated he’s ready to mix it up with reporters even more in a few months: “I may start hanging around in the hall out here. You never can tell.” HUDDLE HOTDISH Angela Alsobrooks is getting a little help from her friends in Maryland’s Senate race. Lisa Murkowski ran into Mary Peltola at the Anchorage airport. Ted Cruz has an extremely cute office thief of the Texas flag QUICK LINKS  Foreign Aid Package Comes With New Sanctions Risks for Companies, by Dylan Tokar at the Wall Street Journal Cole tweaks earmark guidelines to curb GOP political headaches, by Caitlin and Jennifer Wisconsin GOP Senate candidate says Republicans 'making a mistake' by not discussing health care, by Fox News’ Kyle Morris   THE GOLD STANDARD OF POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. POLITICO Pro dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries—finance, defense, technology, healthcare, energy—equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists. Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other—with teams embedded in the world’s most active legislative and regulatory power centers. From Brussels to Washington, New York to London, Sacramento to Paris, we bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY.     TRANSITIONS  Send your transitions to insidecongress@politico.com and we’ll include! TOMORROW IN CONGRESS The House is out. The Senate is out. FRIDAY AROUND THE HILL Zzz. TRIVIA WEDNESDAY’S ANSWER: Ben Howard was the first to correctly guess that Alexander Hamilton was the political figure involved in America's first sex scandal. TODAY’S QUESTION, from the Hill team: This former senator was famous for his trailblazing career and being in-laws with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Who is it? The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Inside Congress. Send your answers to insidecongress@politico.com. GET INSIDE CONGRESS emailed to your phone each evening.   Follow us

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