The White House is sure to attempt to prevent Hope Hicks and Annie Donaldson from complying with the House Judiciary Committee’s requests. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
House Democrats on Tuesday issued subpoenas for Hope Hicks, the president’s former adviser and confidant, as well as former White House deputy counsel Annie Donaldson.
The House Judiciary Committee subpoenas request documents from Hicks and Donaldson by June 4, and they request that Hicks testify on June 19 and Donaldson on June 24.
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The new push to compel documents and testimony from the former West Wing officials comes amid an increasingly pitched confrontation between House Democrats and the White House, which has tried to block testimony from current and former aides.
Donaldson’s notes on the chaotic atmosphere in the West Wing after special counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment were among Mueller’s most vivid evidence of the president’s state of mind during the Russia probe.
The White House is sure to attempt to prevent Hicks and Donaldson from complying with the committee’s requests, which come on the same day Donaldson’s former boss, ex-White House Counsel Don McGahn, complied with President Donald Trump’s demand that he disobey a Judiciary Committee subpoena to testify.
The White House has mounted an aggressive legal effort to block any current or former aides from testifying as part of the Judiciary Committee’s investigation of potential obstruction of justice and other alleged abuses of power by Trump.
They’ve accused House Democrats of attempting to mount a “do-over” of Mueller’s investigation, which found insufficient evidence to charge any Trump associates with conspiring with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election.
Mueller’s report also painted a detailed portrait of efforts by Trump — many of which were catalogued by McGahn and Donaldson — to interfere with Mueller’s investigation. Though Mueller indicated he was unable to bring charges against Trump because of longstanding Justice Department policies, he described multiple instances in which Trump’s actions satisfied the legal criteria for obstruction of justice.
Hicks was at Trump’s side for several of the instances that Mueller identified as possible examples of obstruction. Donaldson was featured in Mueller’s report repeatedly because of notes she took on the president’s comments and statements around when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey and Mueller was appointed.
“Is this the beginning of the end?” Donaldson wrote, on May 9, 2017, which Mueller indicated she said “because she was worried that the decision to terminate Comey and the manner in which it was carried out would be the end of the presidency.”
Hicks and Donaldson were among a batch of 81 Trump-associated individuals and entities that the House Judiciary Committee requested documents and testimony from in March.
In addition to its subpoenas for McGahn, Hicks and Donaldson, the panel has also subpoenaed the Justice Department for access to the full Mueller report and its underlying evidence.
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Warning: The following post contains spoilers for the finale ofGame of Thrones.
Game of Thrones may have come to an underwhelming end, but the memes keep on giving. The film boys are out, and they have takes.
While not all fans were pumped with how the show ended, it has always been visually stunning, aside from a few wayward beverages. From the incredibly detailed costumes to the shots of sweeping landscapes, we can at least agree on one thing: Game of Thrones is beautiful. But one cinephile took to Twitter to emphasize just how amazing the one scene in the finale was.
Fresh off her murderous rampage after destroying the city she tried to liberate, Daenerys turns to face her army of Unsullied and Dothraki soldiers. As she walks toward her force, her dragon opens his wings and takes flight, and the queen appears to have dragon wings sprouting from her back, too.
We get it. Daenerys is basically a dragon, because she’s the mother of dragons. It’s like, super on the nose.
But Twitter user @jhilll1181 captioned the clip, “This shot is brilliant and should be shown in any film study class.”
Stunning? Sure. Beautiful? Hell yeah. But brilliant? OK.
The tweet quickly became a copypasta, and other Twitter users posted what they believed were brilliant shots that should be taught in every film studies class.
The next time you reminisce about your Film Theory 101 class, check yourself before sharing it on Twitter or risk getting meme’d. The North remembers, and Twitter never forgets.
Per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the two sides are finalizing a one-year deal.
Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter
Soon-to-be Buccaneers’ DT Ndamukong Suh was interested in playing for Tampa’s new defensive coordinator Todd Bowles. Plus, no state tax in Florida, making a deal there more attractive. So Suh expected to wind up back in Florida, as a Buc, his third team in the past three seasons.
The Miami Dolphins cut bait on the 32-year-old last March, releasing him three years into his six-year, $114 million deal. By doing so, the team ate $9.1 million in dead money in 2018 and have $13.1 million in dead money on the books in 2019, such was their desire to move on.
Many expected the five-time Pro Bowler to have a short stay in Los Angeles. The Rams started the offseason with just under $17.9 million to spend this offseason and already let Lamarcus Joyer and Rodger Safford walk.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Safford agreed to a four-year, $44 million deal with the Tennessee Titans. Joyner got a four-year deal from the Oakland Raiders, per Schefter. The writing was on the wall by that point.
Ryan Kartje @Ryan_Kartje
Les Snead said that they’re “projecting” that Ndamukong Suh will be out of their price range.
Suh was more of a luxury than a necessity for the NFC champions. One could argue he fell somewhat short of expectations as well.
Last October, Rams head coach Sean McVay spoke highly of Suh’s contributions, per Rams Wire’s Cameron DaSilva: “Yeah, I think he’s been a little bit more. I’ve always had a lot of respect for his game, but I think his ability to really play across the line, really, at any interior spot. He can play off the edge and he’s made a lot of plays, really, at all those spots. So, continue to come away impressed with him.”
The numbers paint a different picture as to his impact.
Although opposing teams focused the lion’s share of their attention on stopping Aaron Donald, Suh’s final numbers (59 combined tackles and 4.5 sacks) weren’t far off what he delivered in his final year with the Dolphins (48 combined tackles and 4.5 sacks).
He didn’t help the Rams’ defensive line reach elite status, either. According to Football Outsiders, Los Angeles ranked 21st in adjusted line yards and 19th in adjusted sack rate.
Given how everything played out, the Rams almost certainly don’t regret signing Suh in the first place, but they’re probably satisfied to watch him leave in free agency.
His days as one of the NFL‘s most feared defensive linemen are clearly over. He’s on the wrong side of 30, and he has one Pro Bowl appearance in the last four years.
At least the Bucs will have a good idea of the player they’re signing. Approaching his 10th season, Suh can be a quality defensive tackle, just not the disruptive presence that led him to earn what was then a record-setting deal from the Dolphins.
Suh became a natural fit for Tampa Bay after the organization announced a mutual parting of ways with Gerald McCoy on Monday.
Buccaneers defensive coordinator Todd Bowles can plug Suh into McCoy’s spot on the defensive line. He’s not the dominant pass-rusher from his peak with the Detroit Lions, but as a one-year rental option at this point in the offseason, the Bucs found an ideal fit for their roster heading into 2019.
Beto O’Rourke’s appearance in a CNN town hall is an opportunity to reassert himself in the Democratic primary – and a reminder to other Democratic hopefuls of how tumultuous the 2020 landscape remains. | Ethan Miller/Getty Images
A candidate who fell victim to ‘great expectations’ faces a big moment of his reboot on CNN Tuesday night.
DAVENPORT, Iowa — No candidate entered the presidential race with loftier expectations than Beto O’Rourke — or fell back so quickly afterward.
Stalled at about 5 percent in national polls, O’Rourke acknowledged recently that he needs to “do a better job” reaching a national audience. When he landed in Iowa this week for his fourth visit to the state, he was met by only a smattering of the press corps that once feasted on everything he said or did.
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Yet despite all that, O’Rourke is quietly assembling a robust staff in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state. His campaign announced Monday that it’s added seven more staffers in early-voting South Carolina. He is offering more detailed policy proposals, eliciting waves of applause at a town hall meeting here Monday.
And in a shift in media strategy, O’Rourke is now aggressively courting national TV. Tonight, he’ll participate in a televised town hall on CNN — his first of the campaign and a big moment in his attempt to regain his charm.
For O’Rourke, the town hall is an opportunity to reassert himself in the Democratic primary. For everyone else, the reintroduction — coming barely two months after his campaign launch — serves as a reminder of how tumultuous the 2020 landscape remains.
“It’s fluid,” said Karen Hicks, a Democratic strategist in New Hampshire. “Everybody’s still trying to find their footing.”
For a candidate who catches a spark, she said, “The question is minimizing the fade: Can you build an organization that has the capacity to capitalize on those moments?”
O’Rourke said the CNN town hall is only “a version” of the many untelevised town halls he’s held. “It’s just going to be broadcast to a lot more people than we have on our Facebook Live stream,” he said Monday.
The importance of the event to the former Texas congressman was apparent as soon as he arrived in eastern Iowa. In addition to Chris Evans and Cynthia Cano, close advisers who regularly travel with him, O’Rourke was accompanied by his campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, and longtime adviser David Wysong.
O’Rourke’s supporters insist they’re not worried about his current polling. They say many voters are still undecided, donating money to or volunteering for multiple candidates. And like other candidates running far behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, O’Rourke remains relatively little known to the electorate, leaving time to make an impression.
Nearly 45 percent of voters nationally have never heard of O’Rourke or have no opinion of him, according to the latest Morning Consult poll. Pete Buttigieg is polling 1 percentage point higher than O’Rourke, at 6 percent, and Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are at 8 percent.
“Great expectations can be deadly in politics,” said a Democratic strategist who spoke with O’Rourke about joining the campaign earlier this year and who is still considering it. “It’s a free media campaign right now, and his free media has been shitty.”
However, the strategist said, “As I hear it, Jen is moving her entire family to El Paso. You don’t do that if the campaign is losing steam. I just don’t think it’s falling apart … If he’s raising at a clip similar to that with which he started, he’s one of three or four candidates right now, maybe five, who are going to be up in multiple states on television two months out [from the Iowa caucuses].”
The $9.4 million O’Rourke raised in the first quarter of the year has allowed him to plant a flag in Iowa, hiring 16 staffers. With turnout expected to be massive next year, his advisers believe O’Rourke can replicate his success courting new voters in last year’s Texas Senate run to elevate him here, as well.
Recalling his closer-than-expected race against Republican Ted Cruz, O’Rourke told about 250 people at a town hall event in Davenport on Monday night, “We helped to take a state that was 50th — dead last — in voter turnout, to a state that today is a contender in our national politics.”
Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Polk County Democrats, said that while Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker have bigger teams in Iowa so far, “Beto has put together a pretty impressive ground game, and pretty impressive outreach in the limited time that he’s had.”
O’Rourke is also sharpening his message — and honing parts of it specifically for Iowa.
After releasing a $5 trillion plan to address climate change that was widely praised by environmentalists, he recently supplemented his plan with ideas tailored to Iowa. He called for federal investment in infrastructure projects along the Mississippi River to protect flood-prone areas. He said he would work to streamline government approvals for wind energy projects and expand federal crop insurance to cover climate-related risks to stored grain.
Touring flood-damaged businesses in Davenport on Monday, O’Rourke scrawled in a notebook as he asked local officials about where water rose and how barriers failed. Then, turning to broader issues at his town hall, he vowed to appoint judges who support abortion rights and to reverse some tax cuts passed by Republicans. Asked by a voter if he had a “specific plan for criminal justice reform,” O’Rourke responded with Elizabeth Warren-like precision, “I do.”
“Step one,” he said. “End the war on drugs and the prohibition of marijuana, expunge the arrest records of those who are serving time for possession of a substance that is legal in more than half the country right now. End for-profit prisons in the United States of America. End the cash bail system in the United States of America.”
O’Rourke told reporters on Monday that his tactics today are “much the same as what you’ve seen me do from the beginning of this campaign.” He has held more than 60 events in Iowa and more than 150 across the country. But O’Rourke, who had done relatively little national television until recently, acknowledged he is now “complementing the strategy that we’ve employed from the outset with a little bit more national presence.”
Before the CNN town hall tonight, O’Rourke made multiple appearances in recent days on MSNBC and ABC’s “The View.” He said he’s interested in participating in a town hall on Fox News.
O’Rourke has paid a price for waiting to embrace national television so completely. In addition to missing opportunities for exposure, his emergence now has forced him to relive missteps he first apologized for more than two months ago — including a Vanity Fair cover story in which he said he was “born to be in it” and comments he once made about his wife, Amy, raising their children “sometimes with my help.”
“Would you say those are mistakes — being on the cover of Vanity Fair?” host Joy Behar asked O’Rourke last week. “It looks elitist? What?”
“Yeah, I think it reinforces that perception of privilege,” O’Rourke replied, explaining that he was “attempting to say that I felt that my calling was in public service. No one is born to be president of the United States of America, least of all me.”
The line of questioning put O’Rourke on the defensive. And it did not go unnoticed in Iowa, where O’Rourke was photographed by a Bloomberg News reporter signing copies of the Vanity Fair cover on Monday for a town hall-goer.
Recalling the excitement that greeted O’Rourke when he first announced his campaign, Tom Courtney, a former Iowa state senator and now co-chairman of the Des Moines County Democrats, said “Beto really did good when he was here first. He did good, and he looked good, and everybody liked him.”
“But he’s not wearing well,” Courtney said. “I don’t like the way he seems to jump to apologize for things … That’s something they’ll use on a debate stage against him. They’ll use that against him right away. I can just imagine what Trump would do with that.”
But O’Rourke still has opportunities to reverse his trajectory, not just tonight’s CNN town hall. “Running with Beto,” a documentary chronicling O’Rourke’s Senate race last year, airs on HBO later this month. The first Democratic debate comes a month later.
“Just like a baseball season, it is impossible to humanly internalize how long a campaign really is,” said “Running with Beto” director David Modigliani, who closely watched O’Rourke’s campaign last year. “The people who are going to decide this election are barely paying attention to it right now. … Discussions of restarts and re-introductions will be things that even by the summer will be entirely forgotten.”
Can Oculus Quest change the game for virtual reality? Titles like Beat Saber and Vader Immortal could have the answer.
The new VR headset became available on Tuesday for $399. It doesn’t pack the same power as the Oculus Rift S, which needs to be connected to a high-powered PC. But it has a couple of big advantages. Namely, no wires and inside-out tracking (which means no need for external sensors). It’s a self-contained gaming console that you can take with you wherever you go.
The Quest launches with a big library of games and other software to check out. Read on for the games you absolutely need to consider if you’re taking the plunge into this new Oculus platform.
Beat Saber ($30)
Obviously, right?
If there’s any Oculus Quest “killer app,” Beat Saber is it. This already excellent game shines on other VR platforms, but the total freedom to move lets you really fall into the rhythm and get your lightsaber dance on.
It’s a rhythm game in the vein of Guitar Hero, with “notes” flowing toward you in a non-stop gush, driven by the beat of whatever song you’re playing. Each note has a color and a directional arrow, telling you which of your two lightsaber-like energy swords you need to slash with, and in which direction.
It’s a simple and immediately intuitive concept once you slide the Quest into place and start a song. It’s also quite challenging — and strenuous! — as you ramp up the difficulty. Not only is Beat Saber a hell of a good time, it’s also a genuine workout once you get into the groove.
I can’t recommend this one strongly enough. If you’re only getting one game for your Quest, Beat Saber should be it. Without question.
Space Pirate Trainer ($15)
You ever hear of a “bullet hell” game? (Sometimes they’re referred to as shoot ’em ups, or simply shmups.) I’m talking games like Defender, Ikaruga, and Ikari Warriors. Contra. Star Fox 64. They all look different but embrace the same basic idea: you have to take on hordes of baddies while gracefully dodging around a torrential downpour of enemy fire.
Space Pirate Trainer brings that shmup sensibility to VR. It’s you, standing on a platform in the middle of a futuristic city with a gun in each hand. Each new stage sends a wave of floating robots after you, firing from all sides. You’ve got to dodge their attacks and gun them down, while a techno beat backs you up.
There are some wrinkles that give you an edge. Each of your guns has different modes of fire to suit different playstyles and types of challenges. Enemy fire can be blocked with an energy shield. And you can also collect power-ups that offer an edge by way of limited-time boosts.
Make sure you have a good amount of space around you for this one. Your hands swing all around as the difficulty increases, and it’s easy to lose track of your room-scale play area’s “center” as you fall into the rhythm of the action. What an exhilarating ride, though.
Superhot VR ($25)
Everyone remembers that one scene in The Matrix, the rooftop scene where Neo dodges Agent gunfire bullet by bullet with a movie-star-cool limbo move. Superhot VR attempts to capture that vibe — and it does a pretty dang good job.
It works like this: each brief stage pits you against a small group of enemies, armed and unarmed. When you move — specifically, when you move your hands holding each controller — time flows. When your hands stop moving, time stops as well. Superhot is a puzzle game built around your violent dance. You carefully sidestep or deflect incoming fire as you shoot, throw, and punch your way to victory.
It works. The first time you send an uppercut into an incoming enemy’s jaw, and then snatch their dropped pistol out of the air so you can return fire at the next approaching foe is such a rush. There’s a definite learning curve as the game goes on and challenges mount — which can be frustrating when checkpoint saves only happen after a collection of levels — but the play is so unique and engaging, it’s hard to just walk away.
Best of all: Superhot relies on heavily stylized black-white-and-red graphics. As violent as each scene gets, your foes are always these abstract person-shaped red crystal beings that shatter when they’re hit. Even if you’re generally averse to video game violence, this one is worth a look.
Moss ($30)
Moss is unlike any of the other games you’ll find on this list. For one, it’s entirely a sitdown experience — and it tells you as much right up front.
You control an adorable little mouse who finds herself on an adventure to save everyone from a great evil. It’s not the most original “chosen one” narrative, but it’s set against the backdrop of a world populated by a human-like society of forest creatures.
At its heart, Moss is an adventure game highlighted by jumping and environmental puzzles with a side of combat. You control the little mouse directly but also have a measure of control over the world around her. That’s a big piece of what makes Moss challenging: each new screen is like a little forest diorama where you have to figure out which bits of the world you can interact with to clear a path for your little rodent friend.
It all comes together as a very effective VR-friendly spin on a traditional game genre. Moss is a delightful, adorable adventure that more than justifies its existence as an experience you have to live inside of to truly appreciate.
Robo Recall ($30)
So it’s like this: you live in the future and you work for a robotics company doing product recalls. That might not seem exciting, but the robots in this future have run amok and need to be shut down… with extreme prejudice.
There are lots of VR shooting gallery-style games out there, but Robo Recall has them all beat. It looks great, for one. Each level set in the robot-overrun city is a convincingly rendered urban landscape that only takes a slight visual fidelity hit from the less powerful Quest. And you stop noticing even that once evil robots start to swarm in.
This is an arcade game through and through, broken into a series of levels that have you trying to hit various goals as you clean up the city. Your primary weapons have a limitless supply of ammo but a finite number of bullets in each clip, so when one gun goes empty you simply toss it aside and grab another one from your holster.
There are other weapons too. Downed robots usually drop a firearm that you can walk up to and collect — though you need to find another one once the clip runs dry. You can also get physical with any robot foolish enough to move in close, grabbing it and tearing it to pieces or simply tossing it at another baddie.
There’s no other way to say it: Robo Recall just feels great to play. Tossing empty guns aside and grabbing a new one off your belt or back never gets old. And nothing beats the thrill of tearing a marauding robot apart, limb by limb, or plucking a series of bullets out of the air — yes, you can do that — and tossing them back at a string of attackers, one at a time.
Vader Immortal – A Star Wars VR Series ($10)
Let’s get the bad news out of the way up front: Vader Immortal is short. The story portion of the experience — the first of three episodes — shouldn’t last more than an hour for most people.
Short isn’t bad, though! For one, this is a full-fledged game. If you think you’re just going to sit there while Star Wars talks at you, you’re way off. Vader Immortal is absolutely a room-scale game. You’ll climb ladders and pipes, user your lightsaber to deflect stormtrooper fire, and stand face to… well, chest with the dark lord himself (he’s really tall, folks).
Darth Vader is interested in you specifically for reasons that become clear over the course of the first episode. Most of it is set on the planet Mustafar — the lava world where Anakin Skywalker got skewered in Revenge of the Sith. It’s very much a first act, chronicling the events that lead directly to you taking on the role of Vader’s apprentice.
There’s more, too. Separate from the story mode is a lightsaber training arena. It’s just you, a lightsaber, and droids that want to ruin your day, spread across a good number of increasingly challenging levels. Luke and Vader might make it look easy, but deflecting laser blasts back at a target is hard! This mode helps you become a master. It’s also a freaking lightsaber training mode in VR OMG what more do you need to know??
It’s Star Wars, people. Vader Immortal kicks off an episodic, story-driven adventure set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. You are Darth Vader’s apprentice. You get your very own lightsaber. Can anyone who picks up a Quest really justify skipping this one?
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It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who watched basketball this season that Luka Doncic, Trae Young and Deandre Ayton headline the 2018-19 NBA All-Rookie team.
Doncic, Young and Ayton, along with Marvin Bagley III and Jaren Jackson Jr., were named to the first team.
One year after being traded for each other during the 2018 NBA draft, Doncic and Young became the faces of their respective teams. They were also the only unanimous selections for the All-Rookie team.
Doncic gave the Dallas Mavericks a natural transition from the era of Dirk Nowitzki. The 20-year-old averaged 21.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 6.0 assists in 72 games. He had eight triple-doubles, by far the most among first-year players this season.
Bobby Karalla @bobbykaralla
This is not the most important thing tonight but Luka Doncic just got a triple-double. It’s his eighth of the season. The rest of the rookie class has combined for one.
Per NBA.com, the only rookies with more triple-doubles in a season were Oscar Robertson in 1960-61 (26) and Ben Simmons in 2017-18 (12).
Young got off to a slow start but looked more comfortable after the All-Star break. He scored 16.9 points per game before the midseason break in 58 games, compared to 24.7 in 23 games after. He also increased his assists per game from 7.6 to 9.2.
While Ayton was the No. 1 overall pick to the Phoenix Suns, his season got lost in the shuffle because Doncic and Young are flashier. The center was the only rookie to average a double-double with 16.3 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, and he ranked second among first-year players with a 58.5 field-goal percentage.
Ayton’s performance was hurt by playing for a Suns team that tied the Cleveland Cavaliers for the NBA’s second-worst record (19-63).
Per ESPN.com, Ayton finished second among rookies with a 20.54 player efficiency rating. Only Mitchell Robinson of the New York Knicks had a higher mark (22.01).
As a key piece of the Sacramento Kings’ surprise season, Bagley lived up to the hype as the No. 2 overall pick. The former Duke star finished his debut campaign with 14.9 points and 7.6 rebounds per game but was limited to 62 games by multiple knee injuries.
The Kings look like they have a nucleus capable of competing for a playoff spot very soon. Bagley, De’Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield led them to 39 wins, their most in a season since 2005-06.
Jackson made it to the first team despite playing just 58 games. The Memphis Grizzlies rookie missed the final 22 games because of a right quad injury, but he looked terrific prior to that setback.
After being drafted fourth overall, Jackson averaged 13.8 points and 4.7 rebounds per game. He also showed impressive range for a 6’11” power forward with a 35.9 percentage from three-point range.
All five players named to the All-Rookie first team were the top five picks in last year’s draft. Even though the order which those players were selected could be debated, it’s clear based on the early returns that teams certainly knew who the best players in the 2018 class were.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the debt ceiling could be part of an overall budget deal but was not being discussed on Tuesday. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Congress and the White House hope to reach an agreement with surprising speed.
Congressional leaders and top Trump administration officials began working quickly Tuesday to cut a two-year budget deal to avoid blunt spending cuts and a potential debt default, a surprisingly positive development amid unending gridlock.
President Donald Trump dispatched Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and acting budget chief Russ Vought to meet with top House and Senate leaders on Tuesday morning. The discussions lasted more than two hours, which was itself notable, and Mulvaney said the leaders will meet again on Tuesday afternoon.
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“We have some differences, but there’s good progress being made,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. “We have certain domestic needs that are very important to us. And they have — look, we’re trying to come to an agreement.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called the meeting “very encouraging” and said his hope was to clinch the deal by the end of the day.
“My perception is everyone would like this,” McConnell said on Tuesday afternoon after a party lunch with Vice President Mike Pence.
Congressional leaders are all eager to avoid a series of automatic spending cuts known as sequestration that will take place without a new budget deal. While Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) want to stop $55 billion in potential domestic spending cuts, McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) are worried about $71 billion in defense cuts.
Mulvaney and Vought have generally been fiscal hard-liners, but Mnuchin has been deputized to lead the negotiations with the congressional leaders, much to the delight of the Hill honchos. Mnuchin appeared to be trying to clinch a deal on Tuesday, a sign of how urgent the discussions are, said one source familiar with the meeting.
Mulvaney declined to characterize the meeting: “I’m not going to talk about that.”
Lifting the debt ceiling is also under discussion but is not viewed as integral to a spending deal. The debt limit can likely wait until later in the fall before requiring congressional action. Schumer said the debt ceiling could be part of an overall deal but was not being discussed on Tuesday.
In addition to stopping the spending cuts, most lawmakers want a budget deal to take a shutdown off the table. The 35-day partial shutdown over Trump’s border wall was debilitating for the GOP, and Republicans want to do everything they can to avoid another one.
A two-year budget deal would set a spending target that allows the Appropriations committees in each chamber to devise spending bills before the Sept. 30 government funding deadline. Without that number, lawmakers risk throwing together a catch-all bill this fall that raises the prospect of brinkmanship.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) is hoping to get a deal by June to allow his panel to make progress on the 12 annual spending bills. Despite the shutdown, Congress was able to fund about three-quarters of the government through the regular spending process, the strongest showing in years.
“I’d be happy to see a one-year deal. I’d love to see a two-year agreement,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). “If we go much longer [without a deal], we almost certainly won’t be able to do the [spending] work in the open way we did last year. And the final product will suffer.”
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Daily Trends Hunter 