Principals

1. Speaker Mike Johnson?
2. Australia’s state visit
3. Trump aide reportedly granted immunity
4. Mississippi’s Democratic hopeful
5. Emerging Houthi threat

PDB: Cohen comes face-to-face with Trump at N.Y. trial

U.S. has ‘high confidence’ Israel not to blame for Gaza blast … UAW expands strike … NBC: Romney reckons with his role in Trump’s rise in new biography

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

Will Mike Johnson break the GOP’s curse?

House Republicans sounded downright buoyant on Tuesday night after they tapped Rep. Mike Johnson as their latest speaker nominee, Kadia Goba and Jordan Weissmann write. “This House Republican majority is united,” the Louisiana lawmaker told reporters, standing amid a cheering crowd of colleagues who earlier on had chanted his name. A big reason for the optimism: Not a single Republican opposed Johnson during the final roll call vote on his nomination. “He has broad support across the conference,” Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas told Semafor. Because 22 members were absent from the closed door vote, and 3 voted present, it is still technically an open question whether Johnson can hit the magic number of 217 votes he’ll need to win on the floor Wednesday. But hopes are high — and so far, Johnson has managed to find enthusiastic support from both establishment-oriented Republicans and hardliners. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who led the effort to oust former speaker Kevin McCarthy, is already treating Johnson’s nomination as vindication. “It was worth it,” he tweeted.

Johnson isn’t a household name; he is a four-term congressman and a former Republican Study Committee chair who is now the vice chair of the House Republican Conference. He is also a 2020 election denier but not a “public firebrand” like Rep. Jim Jordan, Punchbowl News writes this morning, which may make it harder to demonize him. In 2022, the New York Times characterized Johnson as “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections.”

Johnson’s nomination came at the end of a long, strange day that initially saw Republicans tap Majority Whip Tom Emmer for the speaker’s chair. His effort lasted just four hours, however. That was thanks in large part to opposition from Donald Trump, who strafed him on Truth Social as a “globalist RINO” who “never respected the Power of a Trump Endorsement.” Johnson — who served on the former president’s impeachment defense team, and developed many of the arguments for rejecting the 2020 electoral college results — had no such problem.

‘Innovation,’ China on agenda as Biden hosts Australian prime minister

President Joe Biden will turn partially away from the unfolding war in the Middle East to host Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for an official state visit today. The meetings will largely focus on the part of the world Biden’s administration wants to prioritize long term, despite other conflicts abroad: Asia. The theme of the event will be “innovation,” according to senior Biden administration officials, and the leaders plan to announce a new submarine cable project to provide reliable internet for Pacific Island countries as part of a U.S.-led effort widely viewed as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Also on the menu: Plans for wharf projects on Pacific Island countries, new cooperation on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and critical minerals, and discussions about Albanese’s upcoming trip to China. Biden is expected to assure the prime minister on the path forward for the AUKUS submarine deal with the U.K. and Australia, amid some hang-ups in Congress. It’s a difficult time for a White House facing multiple crises to be hosting a state visit complete with a lavish dinner, Morgan Chalfant writes. This one comes with some adjustments, like a late decision to scrap plans for zany rock legends, the B-52s, to play at the dinner. “We are now in a time when so many are facing sorrow and pain, so we made a few adjustments to the entertainment portion of the evening,” First Lady Jill Biden told reporters.

Immunity and pleas spell legal trouble for Trump

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was granted immunity by federal prosecutors before his testimony to a federal grand jury, ABC News reported. Meadows reportedly told special counsel Jack Smith’s team that he informed Donald Trump that his claims about election fraud were baseless, and that Trump was “dishonest” when he claimed he won on the night of the 2020 election, which could bolster the government’s case that he knowingly lied about his loss as part of a scheme to overturn the election. Meadows’ attorney pushed back on the story, which was also confirmed by Bloomberg, in a statement to CBS that called it “largely inaccurate.” Meanwhile in Fulton County, former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis became the fourth co-defendant to plead guilty and promise to testify truthfully in future trials. In a tearful court appearance, she admitted to aiding and abetting Rudy Giuliani in making numerous false claims about the election. “Ellis won’t be the last one to plead guilty,” former federal prosecutor Renato Marriotti said Tuesday. Close watchers of the case were already on the lookout for more deals, after fellow former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro struck deals last week. Experts said the pleas could aid the state’s case against Donald Trump, since they could put the pressure on co-defendants who worked more intimately with Trump, like Giuliani or John Eastman, to reach an agreement with prosecutors. Commenting on the case on Truth Social, Trump said people who would make a deal with prosecutors are “weaklings and cowards,” adding, “I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?”

— J.D. Capelouto

Can a Democrat pull off an upset in Mississippi?

Brandon Presley, of the Tupelo “Burning Love” Presleys, is flirting with an upset in Mississippi’s governor race against Republican incumbent Tate Reeves next month. National Democrats are pouring money into the state in the hopes he’s found a winning formula by attacking state corruption scandals, firing up Black voters with promises to expand health care, and holding down the GOP’s margins with white voters who have conservative positions on abortion and transgender issues. “I thought we’d spend a lot of time educating people on what Medicaid expansion was and why it would benefit the state,” Presley told Semafor’s David Weigel. “That’s not the case. Whether I’m in a rural Republican county, or I’m in a strongly Democratic stronghold, people understand that issue.” There’s precedent for this kind of campaign: Two-term Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards found similar success as a Democrat with an anti-abortion, pro-Medicaid message. Democrats also are benefiting from changes to the state’s election laws, which until recently required statewide politicians to win a majority of state house districts — or let the currently Republican-dominated legislature decide the outcome. But Republicans in the state still think Reeves will be able to pull this one out — the state’s unemployment rate is low, school test scores are up, and they’re working hard to tie Presley to President Biden in the deeply MAGA state.

The rise of Iran’s proxy army in Yemen

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi army is emerging as a major player in the widening Israel-Gaza conflict, Jay Solomon reports. The Houthis surprised the Pentagon last Thursday by launching a string of attack drones and long-range cruise missiles from Yemen that U.S. defense officials say were destined for Israel but intercepted by the U.S.S. Carney, an American guided missile destroyer, over the Red Sea. The bold attack caught the attention of U.S. and Mideast officials who are increasingly concerned both by the Houthis’ increasingly sophisticated arsenal as well as their ability to disrupt commercial and energy shipping in the Persian Gulf if they decided to escalate attacks closer to home. “The Houthi are the only proxy of the Islamic Republic with both land-attack cruise missiles and medium-range ballistic missiles in their possession, courtesy of Tehran, of course,” Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Semafor.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Allies of speaker nominee Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La. were “working the phones late into the night” to make sure he has enough support to win ahead of an expected vote on the floor midday today.

Playbook: Johnson’s strengths are his reputation as a “bookish” conservative policy wonk and lack — at least publicly — of ambition that has won him fewer enemies than his speaker race opponents. His shortfalls? He would be the “least experienced speaker elected in 140 years,” with no experience in a top leadership post or chairing a committee.

The Early 202: “We’ve reached the ‘any live body’ stage and [Johnson] is it,” one senior Republican aide said.

Axios: President Biden has been privately working methodically to get Israel to delay its expected invasion of Gaza, in part by dangling high-level visits (including his own), military support and public backing, according to U.S. officials.

White House

• President Biden said the Israelis are “making their own decisions” when asked if he was pressing Israel to delay its ground offensive into Gaza. He spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about how to prevent the Israel-Gaza conflict from expanding in the region.
• Biden’s domestic travel seems to be picking up again, with plans for a trip to Minnesota next Wednesday. The visit will come days after the expected presidential announcement from Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democrat who represents Minnesota’s 3rd district.
• Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she misheard a question from a reporter on Monday about antisemitism, after her answer generated backlash. Jean-Pierre opened Tuesday’s briefing by condemning antisemitism.
• Vice President Kamala Harris surprised attendees by dropping by the Center for American Progress IDEAS Conference in Washington last night.

Congress

• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the Senate would finally move forward on its “minibus” appropriations package following a deal on amendments
• The Senate easily confirmed President Biden’s nominee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, Michael Whitaker, in a 98-0 vote. The role had been vacant for 18 months.
• Divisions among Senate Republicans are endangering Biden’s $106 billion national security supplemental request, with some pushing for border policy changes and others debating linking Ukraine and Israel assistance. — Politico

Outside the Beltway

Georgia’s Supreme Court left the state’s six-week abortion ban in place for now.

Economy

The United Auto Workers expanded its strike twice in two days, most recently targeting General Motors’ largest U.S. plant located in Arlington, Texas. The expansion is either part of an “endgame strategy” to close in on a deal with automakers, or a sign an agreement is far off, writes the New York Times.

Courts

• A bipartisan group of 42 attorneys general sued Meta over claims that Facebook and Instagram are addictive and target children.
• Michael Cohen came face-to-face with his former boss Donald Trump for the first time in five years during the former president’s civil fraud trial in New York. Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, testified that Trump directed him to “reverse engineer” annual financial statements so that they reached an arbitrary number Trump had selected.

Polls

• President Biden’s job approval rating is his worst ever among New York voters, according to a Siena College poll. He still leads Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup in the deep blue state, but has lost ground since just last month.
• Asked to guess top politicians’ ages, voters in a YouGov poll were pretty spot-on for both Biden and Trump: The average guess for each was one year younger than each politician’s actual age. (Meanwhile, respondents said 2024 GOP hopefuls Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, were significantly older than they actually are.)

2024

• A campaign bus for Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. was spotted days before he is expected to announce a presidential run to challenge President Biden.
• Biden won’t appear on the Democratic primary ballot in New Hampshire because the state is moving forward with an early primary date unsanctioned by the Democratic National Committee.

Foreign Policy

• China removed its defense minister Li Shangfu in a major leadership shuffle.
• California Gov. Gavin Newsom struck a friendly tone during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday, promising to “turn the page” and “renew… our friendship.” The meeting was part of Newsom’s weeklong trip to China.

Big Read

In a new column, NBC’s Chuck Todd offers a window into McKay Coppins’ forthcoming book about Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. Todd writes about how Romney grapples with his 2012 loss to Barack Obama, Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, and the rise of “ends justifies the means” politics. At its center, Todd writes, the book shows “how the ‘ends justifies the means’ mindset broke the GOP to the point it’s now in bed with Trump.”

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: Some Republicans are demanding D.C.’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser rename “Black Lives Matter Plaza” after groups affiliated with the Black Lives Matter organization shared anti-Israel messages or seemed to express support for the Hamas attacks.

What the Right isn’t reading: Virginia Republicans sent voters explicit flyers about Susanna Gibson, a Democrat running for a seat in the state House of Delegates who allegedly performed sex acts with her husband on a live stream.

Principals Team

Editors: Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann, Morgan Chalfant

Editor-at-Large: Steve Clemons

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

Kevin Cramer is a Republican senator from North Dakota. He previously served as the state’s at-large member in the House of Representatives.

• Business leaders are keeping a low profile regarding the new Middle East conflict after a decade of public CEO statements on hot-button issues.
• Team Biden is on a mission to convince voters Trump’s age is an issue too.
• Why Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis is now being fought in Washington.