Principals

1. Border bill unveiled
2. Johnson’s Israel play
3. More Middle East strikes
4. Trump tweaks the RNC
5. Biden polling shock
6. D.C. crime

PDB: Inside the chaos at the DeSantis super PAC

Blinken back in the Middle East … Powell waits on rate cuts … NYT: Top Treasury officials headed to China

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

The Senate border bill makes its big debut

Senate negotiators finally unveiled their bipartisan border bill Sunday night — and House Republicans lost little time declaring it a dead letter. As Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig and Jordan Weissmann explain, the proposal would dramatically reorganize the U.S. asylum system while giving the president new emergency powers to limit the flow of migrants into the country. There would be tougher screening standards, less leeway for migrants to settle in the U.S. while their asylum claims are decided, and reforms aimed at resolving cases in months rather than years. Senate supporters are looking to move quickly: Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced plans for a procedural vote on the border bill Wednesday as part of a broad national security package also including aid to Ukraine and Israel. But House GOP leaders, who’ve been telegraphing their opposition for weeks, don’t sound ready to budge: Speaker Mike Johnson pronounced the deal “even worse than we expected” and “dead on arrival.” There are also some questions about whether it will pass the Senate. Still, lead Republican negotiator Sen. James Lankford isn’t giving up hope: The Oklahoman told reporters he plans to finally discuss the bill with Johnson, who apparently declined an offer to take part in the Senate talks.

Johnson’s Israel move

Even before the Senate’s deal was unveiled, Speaker Mike Johnson broke hard in a different direction. On Saturday, he announced that the House would vote on a “clean” Israel bill this week, after signaling that the national security package would likely be split up. “We cannot wait any longer,” he said on NBC. The move earned some GOP pushback: The House Freedom Caucus criticized Johnson for ditching his previous proposal to offset Israel aid with IRS cuts, while House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio told CBS there needs to be a path forward for funding Ukraine. The move could put pro-Israel Democrats in a difficult position, forcing them to choose between a show of support for the country and the Biden administration’s desire for a comprehensive national security bill. The White House dismissed Johnson’s plan as a “political ploy,” while in his own Dear Colleague letter, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said it appeared to be a “cynical attempt to undermine the Senate’s bipartisan effort.” Still, he said the caucus would discuss “the best path forward with respect to the standalone Republican bill” in the coming days.

— Morgan Chalfant and Kadia Goba

W.H.: Biden isn’t done retaliating against Iran-backed militias

The White House vowed to keep retaliating against Iran-backed fighters for an attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members, after the U.S. struck 85 targets in Iraq and Syria late last week. “What happened on Friday was the beginning, not the end, of our response,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CBS. “There will be more steps, some seen, some perhaps unseen.” He said the U.S. is still assessing the impact of the strikes but believed they degraded the capabilities of Iran-backed militias. The strikes, as well as separate ones by the U.S. and U.K. on Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, will fuel a debate in Washington over whether President Biden needs to seek a new war authorization from Congress. The White House says that’s unnecessary, citing Biden’s powers under Article II of the Constitution.

Donald Trump fans flames against Ronna McDaniel

Donald Trump’s allies are publicly and privately urging him to oust RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Semafor’s Shelby Talcott and David Weigel report — and their efforts may be breaking through. On Sunday, Trump appeared to distance himself from McDaniel, who faces new criticism after a decade-low fundraising year. “I think she did great when she ran Michigan for me,” Trump said on Sunday during an interview on Fox News. “I think she did okay, initially, in the RNC. I would say right now there’ll probably be some changes made.” His comments surprised some people close to his political operation who had seen the appeals to Trump, but believed he’d remain above the fray given the nearing general election. MAGA-aligned youth group Turning Point USA has been pressing for McDaniel to go for over a year and supercharged that campaign with a “Restoring National Confidence” summit (hint, hint) last month. “His inner team knows where we stand — Ronna MUST GO,” Steve Bannon texted Semafor.

Breaking down another bad poll for Biden

There’s plenty of bad news for Democrats to pick from in the latest NBC News poll. President Biden trails Donald Trump 47% to 42% in a general election matchup, his approval rating is at a new low of 37%, and Trump leads him by 20 points on the economy, by 16 points on who would be “competent and effective,” and by 23 points on who has the “necessary mental and physical health to be president.” The somewhat less bad news: Like other polls, it shows voters flip their choices to give Biden a narrow 2-point advantage if Trump were to be convicted of a felony. And Biden still leads Trump by 12 on who would better handle abortion, a topic that will feature heavily in Democratic messaging. And then there are the usual caveats: It’s early and it’s one data point (Quinnipiac had Biden up 6 on Trump last week). Democratic pollster Natalie Jackson noted that NBC News and other surveys have found Trump hovering around 45% to 48% support since last year even as Biden has struggled, suggesting “the fight for November is making sure Biden can clear Trump’s ceiling.”

Washington’s crime wave bucks the national trend

It really is as bad as you think out there. The tragic death of former Commodities Futures Trading Commission COO Mike Gill Saturday, after a carjacking, was a dark end to a horrific week in which crime in Washington continued to spiral out of control. Experts debate the exact causes in a system built for finger-pointing between federal and local authorities, but statistics show that fewer police are making fewer arrests, and among those arrested, fewer are being charged. It’s become a national political issue too: Donald Trump reiterated his calls for a federal takeover after Gill’s shooting. Ben Smith noted in the Semafor Media newsletter last night that the violence might also give those of us in the media bubble here the impression that crime is a rising national issue — but in fact, crime is down in key cities in every swing state after a pandemic-era spike.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: It’s not clear yet that the national security bill combining border security, Ukraine funding, and Israel aid will get 60 votes in the Senate. Some Republican senators are fuming over the proposal, while a handful of progressives are also opposing the measure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to brief Senate Republicans on the proposal this evening.

Playbook: “The open question is whether the top-down opposition will quell any curiosity about the Senate deal among the rank-and-file.”

Axios: House Republicans’ strong opposition to the border bill is proof they’re “caving to former President Trump’s zeal to use the border as a campaign issue” rather than trying to solve the issue itself.

White House

• President Biden will attend this year’s Gridiron dinner, but he’s skipping a Super Bowl interview. Semafor’s Max Tani writes that the decision to punt on the latter is a curious move for Biden, who is passing up an opportunity to draft off of the most watched television event of the year.
• The president dined with his son Hunter Biden on Sunday at the Ivy restaurant in Los Angeles (it was Hunter’s birthday).
• The White House denied that Biden privately called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “bad fucking guy,” as reported by Politico’s Jonathan Martin in a piece about the threat that the left poses to Biden’s reelection prospects due to negative sentiment about his handling of the war in Gaza.
• Biden and Vice President Harris will drop in on the House Democratic Caucus retreat in Leesburg, Va. later this week.

Congress

• The House and Senate are in this afternoon.
• House Republicans don’t believe they have the votes to launch a formal impeachment inquiry targeting President Biden at this stage. — CNN
• During a contentious interview with ABC, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio said that if he were vice president (a job Trump happens to have open right now) he wouldn’t have certified the 2020 election results unless states submitted “multiple slates of electors.”

Economy

• Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank is unlikely to cut rates in March and implored the government to address the “unsustainable” federal debt during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
• Shell CEO Wael Sawan dinged the Biden administration for its recent decision to pause approvals for new LNG projects, predicting it would “erode confidence” in the industry. — FT

Taylor

Courts

• Judge Tanya Chutkan indefinitely delayed the start of Donald Trump’s federal Jan. 6 election subversion trial, allowing his effort to get the case dismissed on grounds he is immune from prosecution to play out. The trial had been scheduled to begin March 4.
• Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis acknowledged having a “personal relationship” with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor on the Georgia election subversion case, that began in 2022 (after he was hired) but said it was not disqualifying.
• West Point can keep factoring race into its admissions decisions, after the Supreme Court declined to immediately block the military school from doing so while a legal battle over it plays out.

On the Trail

• President Biden, who spent the weekend campaigning in California and Nevada, easily won the South Carolina Democratic primary.
• The Biden campaign ran an ad highlighting Biden’s position on abortion rights during the Grammys last night.
• Nikki Haley made a surprise cameo on “Saturday Night Live” to ask Donald Trump (played by James Austin Johnson) why he wouldn’t debate her and suggest he take a mental competency test.
• Haley’s campaign raked in $16.5 million during the month of January, almost the combined total of three previous months of fundraising. — Axios
• Trump said he isn’t in a rush to name his running mate during an interview on Fox News, but he acknowledged whoever he picks will have to be able to be “a good president … in case of emergency, things happen.” Unprompted, he name dropped Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and praised them without explicitly saying they are contenders.
• Democrats are worried about their chances of retaking the New York House seat vacated by George Santos, who was expelled last year. “It’s a very tough seat,” Democratic candidate Tom Suozzi told CNN. “Democrats have been losing everything on Long Island and northeast Queens for the past three years. The Democratic brand is in trouble here, and we have to do a lot to overcome that.”

Foreign Policy

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on another swing through the Middle East, with planned stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and the West Bank as the Biden administration hunts for an agreement to release hostages.

Media

Fox News executives including Lachlan Murdoch and Suzanne Scott visited Israel to meet with the network’s journalists there. Murdoch also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. — Axios

Big Read

Just how bad did things get on Never Back Down, the ill-fated super PAC behind Ron DeSantis’ presidential run? DeSantis, afraid the group’s staff were leaking his private conversations on the campaign bus that they financed, “would try to isolate himself in the back of the super PAC’s bus during swings through Iowa.” That’s according to an exhaustive account from longtime DeSantis chronicler Marc Caputo for the inaugural edition of his new newsletter at The Bulwark. The tensions on the bus, exacerbated by campaign finance laws preventing political coordination between the super PAC and campaign, boiled further as staff ended up in a heated debate over the proper rules while DeSantis tried to respond to breaking news of a mass shooting in Florida.

Blindspot

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: The White House is reviewing a regulation from the Education Department that would undo the Trump administration’s rules on sexual misconduct in schools.

What the Right isn’t reading: Republican Bernie Moreno, who is running for Senate in Ohio, deleted tweets in which he criticized Donald Trump, including one that called him a “fake Republican” in 2016, CNN reported.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

Reporters: Kadia Goba, Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Shelby Talcott, David Weigel

Semafor launched in October of 2022 with a philosophy of presenting our sophisticated audience with reliable facts and sophisticated, diverse insights. Our Semaform story structure, which separates facts and analysis, embodies that approach. And you seem to like it!

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Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the House select committee on China, will sit down for an interview with Semafor this afternoon to discuss the committee’s priorities and the U.S. approach to China.

Cory Mills is a Republican congressman from Florida. On Sunday, he came out against Speaker Mike Johnson’s plans to hold a vote on a clean Israel aid bill.