Terry Gerton This is the first time in a while that we haven't had to talk about funding for ICE and CBP, but we have plenty of other things to talk about. One of our recurring topics had spent FISA and now the house failed to renew it. They've left for recess and we have a new DNI nominee.
Mitchell Miller So this is an issue where, as you know, passing FISA Section 702 was always going to be somewhat difficult, given lawmakers' various views of how it could be implemented so that it doesn't result on any surveillance picking up Americans overseas. But this has frankly been a big mess that the White House is now trying to clean up. And with the nomination now of Jay Clayton, the federal prosecutor from New York who served as Securities and Exchange Commission chair during the president's first term, President Trump has largely given lawmakers from both parties what they wanted, someone who is not Bill Pulte, who was named acting DNI despite having no intelligence experience. So Clayton's first confirmation hearing has already been scheduled for this Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. One problem, the current DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, is scheduled to leave office this Friday. So it's unclear if Clayton can get confirmed before she leaves, probably not, and Democrats have made it very clear they won't vote to confirm Clayton if Pulte is allowed to be acting DNI even for a day. And basically, everyone here on the Hill has the same question: why did President Trump wait so long to nominate Jay Clayton? Because that would have given him an exit ramp that would have avoided a lot of this. A conflagration that happened last week where the House couldn't get the FISA passed, as you mentioned. They even tried a unanimous consent effort in the Senate, and that failed as well. So it seems to be kind of an unforced error on the part of the White House.
Terry Gerton Mitchell, even when they have a candidate here for the DNI position that everybody can agree to, they still don't really have agreement on the provisions of FISA that they wanna have go forward, do they?
Mitchell Miller Right. I mean, there's still a lot of disagreement among lawmakers, for example, about how much of the legal aspect do you need in terms of getting a warrant, something to actually specifically say this is who we are going after. And some feel it's been kind of a little bit too loosely used by the FBI and other agencies. So there's still a lots of disagreement related to that. A lot of conservatives, particularly in the House have said they want more guardrails related to this, that they feel like there's been a potential for spying on Americans. Now, there is one bright spot related to this lapse that occurred on midnight on Friday. Even though there is a lapse, and it's technically gone dark, that doesn't mean that wiretaps and surveillance allowed under the law originally that have already been approved by the FISA court, that they're now gone. They are still in place. So anything that had been approved before last week can still go into effect. And as lawmakers point out, FISA is responsible for more than 50% of the intel that gets to the president's desk. So Republican leaders are hoping they can work all of this out very soon. And as many of them mentioned, we have the World Cup underway. We have America 250 events underway. So they really want to get this resolved.
Terry Gerton Well, speaking of other unresolved issues, let's talk about reconciliation 3.0. There are rising voices saying that is a no-go. So what has changed in the conversation over the last couple of weeks?
Mitchell Miller Yeah, after a lot of talk about this among Republicans throughout the last few months, now there is quite a bit of skepticism that's come about because the ongoing situation with Iran still causing problems there. Keep in mind that the defense budget for the past fiscal year was close to $840 billion. So if you add in reconciliation, which is $350 billion, the overall defense budget would balloon to $1.5 billion. And many lawmakers even strong supporters of defense have questions about that, and specifically that $350 billion that would be funding through reconciliation. And it was notable last week that Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, who leads GOP Appropriations, as well as Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell (R), last week essentially they said the quiet part out loud. They don't think there can be a reconciliation 3.0. Some still hold out hope. There are some prominent supporters including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) And the House Budget Committee Chair Jody Errington. They and others feel it's important to get some additional items in the reconciliation bill before the midterm elections. They still think that's possible, but I think at this point there are more skeptics than supporters.
Terry Gerton Mitchell Miller is Capitol Hill correspondent for WTOP. Well, Mitchell, that discussion then feeds right into the NDAA. The House has a bill that they've sent forward. The Senate has taken up the conversation. How do those two versions compare?
Mitchell Miller Well, they at least at the top part of the list, the $1.15 trillion, they're pretty close there, closer than they have been in the past. But there are a lot of provisions that are very different among them. The Senate wants to get $750 million dollars for Ukraine. And there are a lot of other issues related to the approval of ships and Navy that are in the Senate version and the house is still moving ahead with, as you know, in connection with some of the key issues related to contracting and acquisition. They want to move things more quickly. But overall, the thing that really complicates everything the most between these two versions is the war with Iran. And I spoke about that with Virginia Senator Tim Kaine (D), who is really kind of feeling bad about the fact that he has not voted for the NDAA, which he almost always does, and he explains some of the difficulties in connection with NDAA and reconciliation.
Tim Kaine You're talking about $1.15 billion, but it's like you have a door number two and a door number three. The door number two is, oh, and there's probably going to be a reconciliation bill, but maybe not. And door number three is there's probably going to probably be an Iran war supplement, but maybe not. The reconciliation bill definitely undermines the appropriators because that bill goes to the Budget Committee, not the Appropriations Committee.
Mitchell Miller So expanding on that, what Senator Kaine is saying, at least in his view, is that because of this reconciliation of $350 billion being thrown into this, it complicates everything related to appropriations. And frankly, a lot of people feel it's kind of poisoned the overall appropriations process. You know, the appropriators in the Senate generally are pretty collegial, but they've been unable to get to a top line agreement on the overall budget at this point. And it's just raised some doubts, I think, that have kind of bled down into the committee level related to getting things approved that normally I think would be further along at this point.
Terry Gerton On top of that, you have competing war powers votes that indicate that not everybody's on board with the current operations.
Mitchell Miller Right. You've had a growing number of Republicans joining with Democrats. You had the House approving the War Powers Resolution on Iran and the Senate decided to wait until the House acted on that. But now Senator Kaine and others are looking to move ahead with something in the Senate as well. So there's also the issue of the fact that the White House really hasn't formally presented a supplemental on the war with Iran. So that's yet another question mark that lawmakers have. As they're sorting out, you know, $1.5 trillion, where is this supplemental that could be anywhere from a $100 billion to $200 billion? Still a lot of questions for lawmakers.
Terry Gerton Mitchell, there's clearly some big issues still sitting unresolved on the Hill, but I want to bring you a little closer to ground level and talk about D.C. for a minute. The D. C. mayoral primary is June 16th and it's sort of a local race, but it really has national implications. You've been talking to folks about what's going on in the mayor's race. What are you hearing?
Mitchell Miller Well, this is really interesting. If we look at it from the 30,000 foot view, of course, the president has taken a keen issue in ‘beautifying D.C.' taking all these actions that, you know, maybe in the past would have been done by the D.C. delegate or by the mayor, you know, the whole thing with the reflecting pool, the National Guard being brought into D.C. and a variety of other projects, which we don't necessarily have to get into. But nonetheless, the D.C. Delegate race this time will be the first time in more than three decades that D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton will not be re-elected because she's retiring at the age of 88, the oldest member of the U.S. House, by the way. And I spoke with Julius Hobson, who's an adjunct political professor at George Washington University, about that position. It's a really interesting position, in fact, because it doesn't have a floor vote in the House. Some people think, well, how important can it really be? But as he pointed out, Delegate Norton. Kind of transformed that position and made it truly a member of Congress, sitting on key committees like oversight and transportation. And in his view, kind of having to play legislative defense, that you can't always just get out there and shout to the rooftops, you want to have D.C. Statehood. He says that's, of course, obviously always a goal for DC. But really, he was pointing out that whoever gets elected in this upcoming election in D.C., they are going to have to, even in this highly partisan time, work to get some type of bipartisanship so that they can play this defense with Republicans who strongly want to provide oversight over D.C. as we've seen over the last few years. So he says really this election coming up is probably the most transformative election overall for D.C. since 1974. That goes back to home rule with D.C. just getting implemented, which allowed the district residents to elect their own mayor and D.C. council members. And so it does have a profound impact, these elections, on the overall view of how D.C. Is looked at by the rest of the country and what the president decides to do or not do in connection with Washington D.C. It's I think going to be a very fascinating election.
Terry Gerton It will certainly be change.
Mitchell Miller No doubt about it.
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