in recess until 2 p.m. todawash. host: joining us in studio, stephens dennis who for

bloomberg news. he covers congress for that publication. guest: great to be here. host: remind the viewers how much time we have before the federal government runs out of money. >> guest: guest: not this friday, but next friday of the deadline for congress to act. if they don't act by the end of the day, the following day from saturday we will actually have a shutdown. so if you have a trip planned to yosemite or you have some other things that you need the federal government for life getting a new passport, you might want to pay more attention in the next couple of weeks. if you have something you need to do with the federal government, tried to do it this week. >> host: newly minted house speaker mike johnson taking care of or at least trying to take care of this. what is he doing to prevent this happening? >> he said over the weekend he has been working on a bill to keep the government open.

every bill, every vote is a test for the new speaker. he hasn't done this before, he has a very small majority. the previous speaker got tossed a few days after he kept the government open leading democratic votes. i think it is a real challenge for johnson to try to find a way to keep the government open without blowing his conference apart. so there's a lot of different proposals that have been voted by various republicans including something called the ladder cr where they expend -- extend various departments for different length of time. you also have republicans who don't want to vote for any stopgap ill ever in which case you probably need democratic votes which means you probably need a cleanish bill or some democratic priorities. the real test for him is the minute he puts something on the floor that more than four members of his conference

opposes, does he still have a honeymoon? can he actually govern? we are going to find out in the next couple of weeks. host: you talked about that interview, let's show you a little bit of it because he expresses confidence that this eventually will happen. speaker johnson talking about plans to get the government open. >> we are running out of money and a couple weeks. are we going to have another continuing resolution, how long would it last? >> reason i look a little haggard this morning is because i was up late last night. we worked through the weekend on a stopgap measure. we recognize we may not get all the appropriations done by the deadline but we are going to continue in good faith. and the difference between calling on capitol hill now and what we've dealt with in years past is that this would allow us time to continue this appropriations process. we are committed to bringing 12

bills to the floor while statutory law requires congress to do, but we are changing the way washington works because we believe it needs to be more accountable and more transparent for the people. we are going to fight that fight every single day and get that job done. host: he talked about those 12 bills. what is the status of those bills? guest: these bills basically have no chance of becoming law as is. they are under a threat from the administration, they spend far less than what democrats were agreeing to with the previous speaker. they have a lot of policy riders on them so they are kind of messaging bills that he needs to keep at least his caucus together on, which is going to be very hard to do because he has 18 members in biden districts that are worried about their reelection. voting for a lot of controversial policies that are not going to become law, members

of congress don't like doing that. this transportation bill is going to be on the floor, has a lot of amendment votes. there are big cuts to railroad and amtrak. a lot of members have amtrak railroads going through the district, so the unions for the railroads are trying to kill the bill. if that bill ultimately passes, we have a financial and general government bill that has a lot of cultural amendments on everything from the irs to climate change and all sorts of other policies, maybe some crypto amendments that could be interesting. and then presumably toward the end of this week, we will have a bill to keep the government open. he has a few days to talk to his members. one of the good things for a new leader is when you have these appropriations bills on the floor, members are on the floor.

you can talk to them, you have lots of time to sort of try to dislodge the differences and make people happy with what you waldman the end up doing. so it's going to be interesting to see how johnson sort of tries to do basically the same strategy that kevin mccarthy did. kevin mccarthy kept the government open, and on the other issue that divides republicans, ukraine funding, the speaker is trying to pair it with a border security combo package which he said is next, and that is a very tough road to hoe because a lot of republicans don't want to fund ukraine, period. democrats are going to vote for the hr to which is the house gop immigration package, and during negotiations going on the last couple days particularly in the senate, bipartisan negotiations to try to thread the needle have a ukraine border package that

can pass both chambers and reach the president's desk. host: if you want to ask questions about what to expect in congress this week, particularly a new house speaker, (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8002 for independents. if you want to text us, do that at (202) 748-8003. we saw the house passed israel aid bill. aside from the bill itself, what does that say about -- give examples, or at least reveal how he plans to go about strategy work. guest: he went for the low hanging fruit on his first big bill. below hanging fruit is there is broad support in his conference for aiding israel and broad support for defunding the irs. you put them in a bill. the tougher bills are when you include items that people don't like.

and since he has such a small majority, if five people stand up and say i will never vote for ukraine, he has to go negotiate with democrats. that is something that we saw with mccarthy. one of the reasons why these appropriations bills did not come to the floor before september 30 is because groups of conservatives were insisting on daily riders and then saying they wouldn't vote for the bill anyways. it still wasn't good enough for them. so mccarthy was like look, i wanted to do these bills before the august recess and i couldn't bring them to the floor because conservatives were blocking them. it's a very difficult balance here when you are speaker with a four vote majority and the democrats are not going to vote for these. we are seeing that again and again, every amendment on the floor is a test. right now he has got these financial services bills and the amendments on them are almost

practiced. the next two weeks are the big super bowl. these are sort of practice runs of kenny keep his conference together? does he still have that honeymoon? can you do things that some of them don't like and then they say i'm going to vote against it but i'm not going to try to hobble you right out of the gate. i think that is an open question. his own conference, they were fighting each other on x. marjorie taylor greene, logan -- lauren boebert. every day it seems like another faction is going after another faction and certainly ukraine is something where the conference is split down the middle on a very tough issue for johnson to figure out. he has said we can't allow putin to win. he has previously voted against

ukraine, the defense on both the house and the senate have been arguing for him and his character is we need to take care of the u.s. border first. that is the big sort of negotiation that is happening right now, particularly in the senate. people like senator chris murphy, kyrsten sinema have been working with senator langford and some of the other republicans who try to find some way to reduce the migrants that are coming over the border. that is not really about money, that is more about policy issues. typically democrats don't want to change the policies but they do have incentives now, political incentives. joe biden's poll numbers are not so hot and going into an election year, they also have other issues given that there are other priorities being held hostage right now. host: let's hear from if you

were in rhode island. matt, democrats line. stephen dennis of bloomberg. caller: yes, dennis, i wanted to just give a shout out to. in the meantime, i wanted to relay something that i heard from a protester who was at the rally on saturday in washington, d.c. and it was a wonderful thing to hear. of all the tens of thousands of people that were there, and i've been hearing that from a lot of folks, no one heard a single sentiment of anti-judaism or a single call to as you would say kill all jews, or what have you. there was none of that sort of fascism or anything like that.

so i wanted to just sort of put that out there and get people thinking about that. as far as this bill is concerned, i think it would be a very interesting thing for these protesters to consider a tax strike. tax striking has a history going back to the early 1900s in small scales. it is an interesting thing about defunding the irs. a tax strike withholding taxes in the united states what i think be a serious incentive for the government to pay attention. guest: i've not heard the idea of a tax break before. i don't think it would change votes in congress. there is overwhelming support for aid to israel. there are members particularly of the senate, chris murphy as

well as bernie sanders over the weekend and last week and start the call israel. not that they don't support israel or that it has a right to defend itself, but we were seeing a lot of these images of the world is seeing about suffering in gaza and civilian casualties. and the argument that chris murphy who is on the foreign relations committee has been making is that this has a negative impact on israel's strategic goals, that the rest of the world sees this and you are creating problems when these people are suffering. so that is part of the debate this week in the senate. one of the things the chuck schumer, the senate majority leader has said he wants to have in a big package will be aid to israel, yes. aid to ukraine, aid from order security. but he also wants to have humanitarian assistance for

palestinians in gaza. the trick there is there is there's a lot of people saying well, will hamas just take the aid? that is something that is being discussed as we speak in the senate. host: rashida tlaib put out that video accusing the biden administration of genocide. you respect reaction on capitol hill due to that. guest: there's a and debate over it, but i don't see this speeding to legislation. rashida tlaib has argued that it is not intended to be a message of wiping out israel. you have others in both parties say well, look at the map from the river to the sea includes israel. so i think right now both sides seem to be talking past each other as opposed the protests

and tweets at each other. i haven't seen a whole lot of it coming together. it is much more about trying to convince the administration to do a harder line and you have seen the administration call on the israeli to step up their efforts to protect civilians. one of the things that jack reed has been talking about in the senate is having the israelis do smaller, more targeted munitions and caused a lot of collateral damage if you're trying to attack one person. i

>> you put your heart -- homeless people on the street begging for money. it's not like as though it's a poor country. they have a lot of money on their own. they have huge tech companies. a lot of start-ups. let them buy their military -- weapons like everybody else. why are we sending them our hard-earned tax dollars when we

could be spending it on americans here that are suffering? host: that's erin in maryland. guest: i see arguments like that on social media a lot. and i don't hear those arguments very often in congress. i haven't heard them from u.s. senators. maybe we'll hear more of that. pretty much almost every republican ended up voting for the israeli aid package there. were a couple that voted no. thomas massie tends to be very much a skeptic of foreign aid. i think mejri taylor greene also voted no. there has been over time more of a push against foreign aid in parts of the republican party in particular. now, to put in perspective what we are talking about, $14.5 billion. the overall package the administration asked for is $106 billion.

the u.s. government -- 1% of the budget is about $60 billion. we are talking about 1% or 2% of the budget that's being discussed as far as this package in the next of weeks. of which israel sort of a quarter of one percent. host: jeff. in texas. independent line. caller: hello. i wanted to say i'm italian-irish. i grew up near ellis island statue of liberty. i grew up among jewish people. now i live down here in texas. near the border. we need to take care of america first. we are making a lot of mistakes. war is hell.

we need to avoid that. we should have. we made knead to fix the border here. you don't want people coming in while you're trying to sleep. we need -- locks on the door of the country. host: that jeff in texas. can you clarify when they talk about border security funding, what is meant by that? guest: different people hear different things. one person's idea of border security fund something building the wall. another person might say well dealing with the influx of people is expensive. you have to provide shelter. you are dealing with transportation. you are dealing with court costs. all sorts of other things involving the migrant flow. and the republicans have argued that we don't actually need to spend more money. this is mitch mcconnell's argument on the senate floor last week. we don't actually need more money. what we need is different policies that tell people don't come. you won't be allowed to stay. we'll kick you out faster.

we won't have these other spepbgss. we won't ship people across the country. we will in addition to having more security at the border -- a lot of these people are coming up to border patrol and declaring i ant asylum. the wall doesn't solve that issue. the asylum issue is one that has been growing. you have people coming from lots of countries saying, hey, i can declare asylum and it takes a long time to adjudicate those asylum claims. there has been bipartisan discussion about trying to speed up those processes. there are republicans who want to bring back some form of remain in mexico policy. and they have been pushing the democrats to agree to that as well. as a way to dissuade people from coming. host: sheri in washington state, tacoma, independent line. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call.

i believe the answer can be, or part of the answer can be to bring back the draft. if we bring back the draft, it will separate the citizens from the people that are not here legally. and it will also keep some people in this con-- teach some people in this country something about what it really means to stand up for and fight for your country and let some of our people in this country be able to go out and see the world as it might be. and i think it should be both men and women. i'm not sure of the details if they couldn't or don't feel like they want to do that. they should maybe do four years in the peace corps. aim not sure. that's my own personal opinion. bring back the draft might be one of the answers. host: answers to what? caller: border crisis is one of those things. people that are coming here

illegally. if they -- it will separate the citizens from the illegals and we'll be able to see if the illegals want to stay, they clearly want to defend this country, they can have a segue into how they can join the military. host: ok. got your point. talking about the larger issue of border security. as far as the approach from the administration on it. guest: i think there might be an amendment on getting rid of the draft this week on the financial services bill. i was looking through the amendments this morning. that was one of the amendments to get rid of the selective service. there are all these different proposals on the draft. if you look at israel everybody there is called to serve in the military. it does have an effect on culture. everybody is serving some way or another. every once in a while you'll see service proposals.

i grew up in maryland where they put in a service requirement. there are people with these proposals. they are not going to go anywhere in congress. there is no real constituency to compel people to serve right now. it wouldn't be popular, either. when you are talking about the border issue, i think this is something that what's changed is we are getting closer to the election. if you look at polling, one of the biden's weak points is border security against trump, other republicans. and does that bring the democrats to the table and do something they wouldn't be willing to do previously? there were a lot of things democrats were willing to do tied to a comprehensive immigration proposal. something that deals with the millions of people already here. their children. so-called dreamers. much bigger conversation. it's hard to imagine doing something like that in the next

two weeks. could they do a mini deal that gets through the next election and maybe sets the stage for some bigger package after the next election? that would be an interesting idea. keep in mind congress is basically failed, they have taken a lot of swings at doing a big immigration deal, and they covered a bunch of them. they have basically all failed except for some really small deals, for decades. it's just a really tough issue. we now have a brand new speaker trying to figure it out in the next few days. but maybe he has a little bit more leeway as a brand new speaker to try to reach across the aisle. to try to come up with some compromises that maybe help out the democrats, too. they don't -- the democrats, people like joe manchin, jon tester, i talked to them. they want to do something on the

border, too. they have potential re-election fights as well. particularly in the senate. there are a lot of vulnerable senators coming up. they probably wouldn't mind having a compromised package that does fund ukraine. does deal with the border. and the administration did put in a proposal for a lot of border funding in their supplemental. there is potentially room there for a compromise. we'll see. the next few days are sort of the prelude to next week's showdown. this week is the week thafrb is negotiating. they are coming up with their proposals to get their team onboard. other teams onboard. next week is shutdown week. next week is when you have to really cut a deal. we also have the situation in the senate where any one senator can hold things up for as much as a week. you kind of have to get your ducks in a row by the beginning of next week to ensure you end a

government shutdown. i have seen them go to the floor and, you have, too, at 11 p.m. right before midnight and pass a few day c.r.. the following week is thanksgiving week. that is big motivation for congress to come up with a deal. they don't want to be here thanksgiving week. they have plans. they have families. they want to go home. and those kind of holiday jet fumes sometimes are the magic elixir so they can get to the airport to put some kind of a deal. we'll see what happens. it is a big test for mike johnson. i think he's so far, still good as far as his ability to keep his conference in line. he's been able to pass bills. keep them together mostly. he's going to -- he's got his work cut out for him. the israel bill, not going to become law the way he proposed it. the other bills that are on the floor today and tomorrow also

not going to become law. host: before you leave, i want to show you an ad from the house majority pact which is their job is to get democrats into the house. speaker johnson now becoming the main target for them. i want to show you the latest ad, talk about what it means for politics next year. >> after all the chaos, congressal republicans chose maga extremist mike johnson as speaker of the house. johnson voted to overturn the presidential election and was called the master mind of the january 6 plot. johnson pushed for a national abortion plan, even for victims rape. and called for deep cuts to social security, even raising the retirement age. mike johnson and congressional republicans are just too extreme. host: the ad being what it is. how much has become part of the narrative for next year's election? guest: i think it's a big part of the narrative.

assuming he's still speaker. we just saw this is a very unstable house republican conference. if he is able to stay speaker and he's speaker going into the elections, his past positions on abortion, on january 6, the memos he wrote about the election, all these things -- and what he has said in the past on cutting spending, these are all going to be litigated in many, many tv ads. you are going to hear more ads like that and beyond depending which state you are in. the reality is, mike johnson is not well-known right now. the democrats want to make him well-known. they want to make some of his views that aren't necessarily known in america well-known. that is a politics issue. he has been trying to undercut that in his interviews by saying, look, i have these

deeply held beliefs, but i'm not making big proposals right now. not at the front of the agenda. aim focused on keeping the government opened, funding the government, dealing with the crises around the world. he's trying to sort of jew skwreut stkaou his way -- jujitsu his way from being the target. i think it will be tough for him given that there are these demands for cultural -- khrul tar war -- culture war among his rank and file. if you look at the amendments filed in these appropriations bills, a lot of them have nothing to do with actual spending. it's culture war issues. it's abortion policy. it is climate policy at agencies. it is e.s.g. policy at agencies. diversity policy at agencies. it is things that are policy focused and culture focused.

if he can keep the focus on issues that sort of 51% support, that's going to be easier for them to digest. to the extent there are issues that are being at the forefront the democrats think are good for them, like abortion bans, for example, the democrats think that that helps them mitigate their losses. one of the reasons why the house majority is so small is the red wave crashed and burned and became sort of red puddle. they got the majority. but you have seen it's really hard to govern with four seat majority. the democrats kind of are clearly want to put tpoet cuss on some of these culture war issues where they feel they have the advantage. host: our guest reports for bloomberg. find his work at bloomberg.com. steven dennis, bloomberg news. thanks for your time.