Principals

1. Suozzi beats Mazi
2. Suozzi’s strategy
3. Mayorkas impeached
4. Discharge petition trouble
5. Biden: Trump NATO comments ‘un-American’
6. Gallup digs deep on Biden
7. Worries over Iran nuclear hints

PDB: Jake Sullivan briefs members as House prepares to take up Section 702 reauthorization

Biden congratulates Suozzi … WSJ: Ukrainian soldiers keep up with D.C. politics … Ukraine says it destroyed a Russian landing ship in the Black Sea

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Tom Suozzi wins in NY-3, boosting Democratic hopes

Democrat Tom Suozzi won the special election in New York’s 3rd district, narrowing the House’s barely-functional Republican majority by a seat. The former Congressman beat relative newcomer Mazi Pilip by 8 points while talking tough on the border and playing up his pragmatism. “We won this race because we addressed the issues and we found a way to bind our divisions,” Suozzi said in his victory speech. The outcome resonated on multiple levels for Democrats shaken up by President Biden’s recent personal struggles: They kept their hot streak alive in special elections, tackled some of their vulnerabilities head-on, and did it all in a region that’s moved sharply right since 2020. NRCC chair Richard Hudson said Pilip still had a “bright future” in the party. Donald Trump, upset at Pilip for keeping him at arm’s length, was less charitable — he called her a “very foolish woman” who should have embraced the MAGA movement. Meanwhile, expelled former Rep. George Santos, who won the seat by more than 7 points before he became a national punchline, watched the results with great interest.

Suozzi’s immigration stance could influence other Democrats

Suozzi’s campaign was notable for how strongly he leaned into immigration, a weak spot for the party and a topic that’s dominated the political conversation in the New York metro region. He hit Republicans hard from the border hawk right, warning that if the House blocked bipartisan legislation to address the issue, “we’re gonna end up with more migrants coming to New York; and on top of that, they’re gonna have access to AR-15s.” In an interview with Semafor’s David Weigel on the trail, Suozzi championed the failed Senate bill as a means to rapidly process — and expel — asylum-seekers. “Eighty percent of them would have to go right away,” he said. And he went out of his way to distinguish himself from the broader party, emphasizing his breaks with both the progressive “squad” and Gov. Kathy Hochul on related issues. Democratic strategist Lis Smith pointed to his decision to attack early and often on immigration, rather than exclusively pivot to topics like abortion, as a potential model for candidates moving forward. The top of the ticket is paying attention: Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez portrayed the GOP loss as “the political price for derailing a bipartisan deal to secure our borders and fix our broken immigration system” in a statement.

Republicans finally impeach Mayorkas

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. House Republicans voted 214-213 to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, finally succeeding after their attempt last week failed in a tie. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, R-Ga., who spearheaded the effort, said it “sends a message to America that Republicans can get our job done when we work together.” But now the action turns to the Senate, where a two-thirds majority would be necessary to remove Mayorkas, whom Republicans have accused of failing to enforce laws at the border. That’s not likely to happen. Instead, the drama is over just how much of a trial there will even be. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office announced only that the House impeachment managers will present their articles when the upper chamber returns from its current recess, and that senators will be sworn in as jurors the next day. But some conservatives on Capitol Hill speculate Schumer might use procedural moves to kill off a trial before it begins. “If Democrats give Republicans the opportunity to say that they are sweeping this under the rug, we will gladly take it,” one Republican aide told Semafor’s Kadia Goba. “If this is the sham Democrats claim it is, why would they be afraid of holding a trial?”

— Kadia Goba and Jordan Weissmann

AOC says she’s a no on a discharge petition for Ukraine

One idea Democrats have been eying to force a vote on Ukraine aid is already running into resistance — and not just from Republicans, Semafor’s Kadia Goba and Morgan Chalfont report. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. said Tuesday evening that she wouldn’t back a discharge petition on the Senate’s $95 billion national security bill, which includes support for Kyiv and other rallies, in part because of the no-strings-attached assistance it would provide to Israel. “Am I signing it? No,” she told Semafor. The Senate passed its aid package Tuesday morning in a lopsided 70-29 vote. But House Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled it won’t receive a vote in the House as-is. In theory, any 218 lawmakers could bring it to the floor via a discharge petition. But AOC is just one of several progressives who could oppose the move over concerns about Gaza; it’s unclear whether there’s interest among Republicans, either. Moderate Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb. told CNN, for instance, that he doesn’t currently support a discharge petition despite having expressed openness to it over the weekend. Still, top Democrats aren’t taking the maneuver off the table yet. They’re also looking at defeating the previous question. “We’re going to utilize every available legislative tool,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday afternoon.

Fired-up Biden slams Trump’s NATO comments

An animated President Biden blasted Donald Trump’s “dumb,” “dangerous,” “shameful,” and “un-American” suggestion that he’d encourage Russia to attack NATO allies if they failed to spend enough on defense. “Can you imagine a former president of the United States saying that?” Biden said at the White House. “The whole world heard it — the worst thing is he means it. No other president in our history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator. Let me say this as clearly as I can: I never will.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also piled on the former president, breaking with some of his colleagues who defended Trump over the comments earlier this week. “I totally disagree with him. And it was extremely unhelpful,” McConnell told Punchbowl News. Meanwhile, NATO is expected to announce Wednesday that the majority of alliance members will meet a 2% GDP spending target on defense this year, the Financial Times reported.

Gallup breaks down Biden’s fans and haters

How do people really feel about Joe Biden? Gallup went beyond the usual approval/disapproval numbers in their January polling (which stood at 41-54) and asked respondents to follow up with why they felt the way they did. While personal traits like his age (4% of disapprovers), health (4% as well), and competence (5%) popped up, they were dwarfed by the majority of respondents who cited his policies — with 19% of his detractors bringing up immigration, the runaway top concern. As for the Biden fans out there, the ratio is almost perfectly flipped: 51% cited his general performance, while only a quarter cited specific policies. Eleven percent of all respondents noted he was better than Trump, one of the most frequent answers.

Iran’s nuclear hints draw UN rebuke

Western officials are worried about recent claims by senior Iranian leaders that the country now possesses all the components and nuclear fuel required to produce atomic weapons, Semafor’s Jay Solomon reports. The latest troubling remarks came from Ali Akbar Salehi, a former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization and a chief negotiator involved in the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and global powers. “We have [crossed] all the thresholds of nuclear science and technology,” Salehi said in the interview. “Here’s an example: Imagine what a car needs; it needs a chassis, an engine, a steering wheel, a gearbox. You’re asking if we’ve made the gearbox? I say yes. Have we made the engine? Yes, but each one serves its own purpose.” The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog rebuked the comments, which were the latest in a string of claims of Iran’s nuclear capabilities that have seemed to increase in frequency since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Jay writes. The months since have seen tensions flare between Washington and Tehran.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: House Republicans are already discussing potentially attaching some border security provisions — leadership is looking at parts of H.R. 2 — to the Senate foreign aid bill and sending it back (which would be dead in the Senate). The only two procedural moves available to Ukraine aid supporters to pass the Senate-approved package are a discharge petition and defeating the previous question.

Playbook: On foreign aid legislation, House Speaker Mike Johnson “appears to be a man without a plan.”

The Early 202: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. started to refer to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. as a “chaos monster” due to his shifting demands during bipartisan discussions on the now-failed bipartisan border security deal. Graham was part of the negotiation but his tone on the emerging border agreement started to shift and become more negative following a meeting with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in mid-January.

Axios: Trump aide Chris LaCivita is poised to take over as COO of the RNC while retaining his role with the campaign, leading Trump’s effort to shake up GOP leadership “in a way that could expand his influence well beyond the 2024 presidential campaign.”

White House

• President Biden will have lunch with Secretary of State Antony Blinken today.
• Biden and first lady Jill Biden phoned Tom Suozzi last night to congratulate him on his election victory in New York.
• Vice President Harris leaves tonight for the Munich Security Conference.
• The White House is needling Speaker Mike Johnson for helping to tank a bipartisan border security agreement. A new statement from spokesperson Andrew Bates this morning accuses him of “siding with Donald Trump and fentanyl traffickers over Joe Biden and the Border Patrol Union.”

Congress

• Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the House select committee on China, plans to lead a congressional trip to Taiwan next week, ahead of President-elect Lai Ching-te’s inauguration in May. — FT
• House Democrats will get a classified briefing from White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on reupping Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act this afternoon. The House Rules Committee will take up a compromise reauthorization bill today at 2 p.m. At a press conference yesterday, members of the House Freedom Caucus demanded votes on amendments to add warrant requirements for searches on U.S. data collected under 702 and to bar law enforcement from purchasing data from data brokers.
• Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas took a shot at Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over his securities fraud charges, after Paxton attacked Cornyn for voting in favor of the foreign aid package early Tuesday. “Ken, your criminal defense lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time defending long-standing felony charges against you in Houston, as well as ongoing federal grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that will probably result in further criminal charges,” Cornyn wrote on X.
• Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy made a return appearance to the U.S. Capitol. He even gaggled.
• Hunter Biden’s former business associate Tony Bobulinski told congressional investigators that President Biden was an “an enabler” of his son’s overseas business dealings. — ABC

Outside the Beltway

Democrats kept control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives with a special election victory on Tuesday.

Economy

• Stocks took it on the chin Tuesday thanks to the news that inflation jumped more than expected last month, which led to worries the Fed might hold off longer on rate cuts. Bloomberg’s Jonathan Levin argues it may have just been a quirky report driven by what Goldman Sachs calls the “January effect,” where companies use the start of the year to reset prices (not everyone agrees). More important: Most of the rise was driven by rising shelter costs, which private data on rents suggest are due to slow down.
• The IRS is trying to recover $1.4 billion from the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank that it says are owed in taxes.

Polls

• “Diversity is our strength,” as the (lately much-contested) saying goes. The latest Marist poll finds most Americans agree, with more than 8 in 10 respondents saying the country’s mix of race, religion, and ethnicities makes it “somewhat” or “much” stronger. While nearly 70% of Republicans fall into the pro-diversity camp, there’s a partisan gap in the percentage who say it makes America “much” stronger — 62% of Democrats versus 21% of Republicans.
• Fifty-three percent of Americans believe that President Biden received “special treatment” in the classified documents investigation because he is the president, including 29% of Democrats, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

On the Trail

• House Majority Leader Steve Scalise raised over $750,000 at a fundraiser last night at Ruth’s Chris Steak House on his first day back from cancer treatment. — Punchbowl News
• Jared Kushner said he wouldn’t serve in a second Trump administration. — Axios
• Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig will not run as a Republican for U.S. Senate in Michigan after all, telling the Associated Press that he would end his campaign after four months. Instead, he’s considering a bid for Detroit mayor.
• Nikki Haley’s campaign blamed the NY-3 result on Trump. “Let’s just say the quiet part out loud. Donald Trump continues to be a huge weight against Republican candidates,” spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said.

National Security

• Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was discharged from Walter Reed yesterday afternoon and resumed his duties, after being treated for a bladder issue related to his cancer surgery last year, the Pentagon said. He is working from home as he recovers and will give virtual remarks at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group later today.
• Keith Kellogg, former national security adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence, said that he would encourage Donald Trump to seek changes to NATO that could see alliance members who do not meet defense spending targets lose Article 5 protections. — Reuters

Immigration

Border agents detained over 37,000 Chinese migrants at the U.S. border with Mexico last year, almost 10 times the previous year. — Nikkei

Foreign Policy

• NATO defense ministers are meeting in Brussels to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• The Biden administration does not plan to punish Israel if its military campaign in the southern Gaza city of Rafah does not ensure civilian safety. On Monday, President Biden insisted that the U.S. would not support a plan that fails to protect Palestinian civilians. — Politico
• The State Department will review reports of civilian harm by the Israeli military in Gaza under a program set up last year to track incidents where foreign military supplied with U.S. arms kill or injure civilians.
• The Israel Defense Forces have CCTV footage that shows Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a tunnel underneath southern Gaza. — CNN
• Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke with Paul Whelan, an American who the U.S. says has been wrongfully detained in Russia in 2018. David Whelan, Paul’s brother, told Semafor that Blinken had sought a call with Paul last month but that it was logistically impossible. “I’m sure it meant a lot to Paul to have the opportunity to hear that the U.S. government is continuing to work on his freedom,” David said.
• Russia placed Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on its “wanted” list, as European intelligence warned of a growing threat from Russia along NATO’s borders, Semafor’s Mathias Hammer writes.
• Voters in Indonesia are headed to the polls today to elect a successor to current President Joko Widodo.

Technology

Leading artificial intelligence agencies including Google, Microsoft and Meta, developed an agreement to limit the spread of AI-generated content in elections, but it falls short of banning political deepfakes. — WaPo

Media

• Broadcast and cable TV owner Paramount Global laid off scores of employees across its platforms, including prominent CBS News journalists Jeff Pegues and Catherine Herridge. — Variety
• A new report suggests that China is attempting to spread pro-Beijing propaganda via hundreds of fraudulent local news sites across 30 countries. So far, however, they have received “negligible exposure.”

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: Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., a candidate for Senate in California, said that age limits should be considered for elected officials.

What the Right isn’t reading: The company Apache Corporation will pay millions of dollars to the federal government and New Mexico as part of a settlement following a lawsuit that accused the company of failing to comply with federal and state emissions rules.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

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

Jake Auchincloss is a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts and a member of the House select committee on China.