Principals

☞ White House: Biden, who said Wednesday that he intends to visit the U.S.-Mexico border during a trip next week, will give a speech about border security today — a topic that doesn’t usually get the presidential treatment.

☞ Chuck Schumer: Some things never change. Confirming judicial nominees will be a top priority of the new Democratic-controlled Congress. Schumer will also need to contend with a slew of nominees the White House is resubmitting for judicial and other positions.

☞ Mitch McConnell: As the House struggles to function, McConnell and Biden showed they could work together to get things done in Washington at a bipartisan event promoting the 2021 infrastructure law. Biden lauded the Senate GOP leader as a “man of his word.”

☞ Kevin McCarthy: The GOP leader is hoping the third day is the charm as his team floats more concessions to the holdouts.

☞ Hakeem Jeffries: He won’t get the title this time around, but Jeffries surpassed John Boehner in lifetime votes for the speaker position on Wednesday according to analysis by the Washington Post. By the sixth ballot, Jeffries had accumulated 1,273 votes. We’ll see how much higher it goes.

One casualty of the stalled House speaker fight that has lawmakers on both sides of the aisle fretting: intelligence briefings. Members on the House Intelligence Committee aren’t getting new intel while the fight over McCarthy’s speaker bid holds up the rest of the House’s business. “We can’t go to any classified briefings and review classified documents,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif. told Semafor. A staffer familiar with the unusual situation acknowledged that, technically, members on the Intelligence Committee cannot receive briefings until after the speaker election, but noted that if the Biden administration feels there is something that a member of Congress needs to be briefed on, they can do so. It’s not just the Intelligence panel — lawmakers on other national security committees are also feeling frozen out. “Iran is up to stuff. North Korea’s firing missiles off all the time. And we cannot do our job until they pick a speaker and that is a problem for national security,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. The three Republican leaders of House national security committees — all McCarthy supporters — also released a statement Thursday morning warning that the delay threatens their oversight efforts.

Walgreens and CVS — the two largest U.S. pharmacy chains — are each moving to get certified to carry the abortion pill, after the FDA loosened restrictions to allow pharmacies to carry the drug. Both chains operate more than 18,000 stores nationwide, meaning their decision will dramatically expand access to abortion pills. Pharmacies carrying abortion pills still need to comply with state laws in their location. Some red states have placed restrictions on the drug.

The Federal Reserve issued a blunt (by its standards) warning to investors Wednesday about its desire to tank markets as part of its fight against inflation. In the minutes from its last meeting, the central bank’s interest rate-setting committee cautioned that an “unwarranted easing in financial conditions” would complicate its efforts to slow down rising consumer costs. Translation: If stock and bond prices rebound too much, too soon, Jerome Powell & Co. may feel forced to hike rates even more than they’ve planned and further throttle the economy.

— Morgan Chalfant, Kadia Goba, and Jordan Weissmann

Playbook: Politico has more details on the specific concessions that McCarthy and his detractors are negotiating, which in addition to a single member “motion to vacate the chair” include seats for the House Freedom Caucus on the Rules Committee, a vote on term limits, and standalone votes on each of the yearlong appropriations bills (to sidestep another omnibus spending bill).

Punchbowl News: Punchbowl has more on the negotiations. Republicans believe the talks are likely to extend into next week and weekend votes are not likely.

The Early 202: The U.S. could send Bradley armored vehicles to Ukraine as soon as this week, after previously resisting Kyiv’s ask for western tanks.

The House speaker crisis, Day 3

“Well, it’s Groundhog’s Day again,” Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla. said before the sixth vote for speaker and third of the day.

It sure felt that way as vote after vote went the same, with the 20 holdouts from Tuesday kept throwing their support behind placeholder nominee Byron Donalds of Florida. The only notable shift came on the fourth ballot when Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind. voted “present” as a general call for members to hold more talks. Arguably the most important vote of the day — and it was contentious and chaotic — was simply to adjourn at the end of the night.

But there was significant movement under the surface on Wednesday, setting up another day of negotiations today to see if there’s any chance of a breakthrough. Here’s where things stood as of late last night.

Movement on Republican talks

While nobody has switched sides yet, Wednesday night saw the first concrete deal to address rebel concerns.

It involved two outside spending groups, not anything to do with the House itself. The McCarthy-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund reached a deal with Club For Growth not to fund primary candidates in safe open seats, a move to placate House Freedom Caucus members who complained CLF was trying to prevent more of them from making it to Congress.

But, as McCarthy allies acknowledged after a round of meetings with holdouts, there was still work to do to address a number of individual members with their own specific concerns about rules, committee assignments, and more.

“We’re finding that having smaller group discussions is much more productive,” an optimistic Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa. said after participating in talks. “Nine-tenths of the battle is lowering the volume and tension.”

After the adjournment vote, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. told reporters that lowering the threshold for triggering a motion to vacate the chair — a vote to remove the speaker — from five to one, could be part of a rules concession to the 20 GOP holdouts.

“They’re proving that five is working perfectly,” Greene said. “So I don’t see the difference in five to one.”

According to Politico, McCarthy offered to capitulate on “nearly every demand” his opponents have raised. The million dollar question, though: How many members are gettable with the right concessions and how many are out on McCarthy, full stop?

“Someone could come up with a great idea that would give me sufficient comfort to say, despite the record, we could continue with Kevin McCarthy as speaker,” Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C. said. “But I don’t see it yet.”

The Scalise signal goes out

For the first time, members started name-dropping the betting favorite to take over for McCarthy if his bid falters: His top lieutenant, Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo. warned on CNN Wednesday afternoon that he would consider abandoning support for McCarthy as the stalemate persisted, saying he should “step aside and give Steve a chance to do it” if no deal emerged.

But as Buck acknowledged, it wasn’t clear Scalise would have the votes either. Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mt. told Semafor he was opposed to any leadership members from the last 10 years. Bishop told The Dispatch he was skeptical of Scalise as well.

Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas said “for now” he would support McCarthy, but also suggested the “dug in” holdouts name a consensus candidate they would support — and soon.

Democrats aren’t getting involved — for now

Wednesday started with some tantalizing news, as Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb. said Republicans were reaching out to Democrats on a possible deal to make McCarthy speaker.

There’s little sign Democrats have much interest in discussions on McCarthy or anyone else, however, preferring instead to watch Republicans self-immolate from the sidelines.

“I think it’s far too early to talk about that,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. told Semafor when asked about Democrats potentially cutting a deal with Republicans on a consensus candidate.

Some were willing to at least fantasize about potential demands, though — on Fox News, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. suggested defusing the debt ceiling and dividing subpoena power.

— Semafor Staff

How the GOP’s speaker fiasco might make it easier — yes, easier — to hike the debt ceiling

THE NEWS

The House Republican meltdown is fueling fears that the caucus won’t be capable of raising the debt ceiling later this year, potentially sparking a global financial crisis.

Republican holdouts blocking Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s speaker bid say they want assurances that he won’t allow a vote to raise the government’s borrowing limit without securing major policy concessions from Democrats.

“Is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling? That’s a non-negotiable item,”  Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. told reporters, according to Bloomberg.

After watching conservatives unite to tank McCarthy’s bid or browbeat him into obedience, Democrats say they’re worried the next Republican speaker — whoever it might be — will have no choice but to go along with the hardliners’ demands, potentially leading to a risky standoff between the parties. But beyond that, they’re concerned that the House GOP has become so dysfunctional that it might not be able to raise the debt ceiling under any circumstances.

“What I’m witnessing here, over the last 24 hours, is making that much scarier to me,” said Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J.

BENJY’S VIEW

You can print this out to humiliate me later, but my best guess is that the same divisions roiling the House will also prevent it from mounting a serious debt ceiling fight that extracts major concessions.

The party pushing for significant policy changes in shutdown fights or similar standoffs typically starts at a huge political disadvantage already. A divided caucus that limped through the midterms without a clear mandate would start in even worse shape. Maintaining 218 votes on a clear, consistent, and achievable position would be critical to success — and very unlikely, especially after this week’s fiasco.

Moderates are already openly contemptuous of the conservatives driving the anti-McCarthy rebellion. It seems harder to imagine them sitting quietly while the same hated colleagues lead a no-compromises charge for, say, a rapidly balanced budget filled with unpopular cuts while the stock market begins to tank. This is especially true since the core of the razor-thin majority — some 18 members — are in vulnerable seats won by Biden.

If a speaker can’t credibly promise to deliver 218 votes on a deal without help from the other side, their leverage withers. Faced with similar internal splits, former speakers like John Boehner and Paul Ryan were forced to turn to Democrats to get must-pass bills across the finish line.

Most likely, House leadership would be forced to accept a deal crafted in the Senate with some kind of fig leaf — say, a commission to study future spending cuts, as Mitt Romney has proposed — that disappoints conservatives, similar to the omnibus spending bill.

Of course, saying yes to such a deal could put the speaker’s job in jeopardy yet again. But even in that scenario, it would take only a small handful of moderates to join Democrats on a discharge petition rather than tank the economy or oust yet another leader to appease their most loathed colleagues.

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

Philip Klein at National Review argues that a weak majority captured by the hard right and a Democratic administration unwilling to negotiate could still do plenty of damage before they strike a deal. “Most likely, the only way this ends is with a significant meltdown in financial markets that forces the hand of Congress,” he writes.

— David Weigel, Kadia Goba, and Jordan Weissmann contributed

One Good Text ... with Adam Kinzinger

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WHAT THE LEFT ISN’T READING: Biden did not attend Pope Benedict XVI’s funeral.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: A Brazilian clerk who was allegedly defrauded by Rep.-elect George Santos, R-N.Y. called him a “professional liar.”

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— Steve Clemons