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. when you're connected, you are not alone. >> cox supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. on mondays when congress is in session, we like to take a look at the week ahead in washington. this week we are talking with mike willis. we are coming off a rear weekend session in the senate, they consider the foreign aid package for folks who switched over from the super bowl when the senate was still in session. what happens next? guest: good morning. so much for a quiet weekend. charles schumer told the republicans that we are going to pass this bill come hell or high water.

it might be super bowl sunday but we will still do our work. they have already voted three times on his bill in the last week including sunday evening as you mentioned. this inches the ball forward a little bit. they still got a long ways to go and are working on how to get a deal with the amendments. the republicans want to amend this with border language and they haven't worked that out. there is expected to be another vote tonight at about 8:30 p.m. that will in should forward again and start another 60 hour clock. we are looking at the desk the early this could pass would be early wednesday morning. this is congress of my not happen that quickly and could before -- pushed further. yesterday's vote was interesting because it was 67-27 and mitch mcconnell is pushing it forward with ukraine aid come the legacy issue for him and he's in old-school conservative institutionalists and he

remembers the republican party that was very muscular on foreign policy. he sees the united states as being the global leader on things like this especially given vladimir putin's aggression in this case. he brought along 18 republicans. bernie sanders is an independent but he voted with the democrats. he voted against it to protest israel given all the debts in gaza for the democrats were largely united. now it just inching along we will see how they work this out. we expect this to pass ultimately this week we just don't know exactly when. host: for folks trying to follow this, why is this one getting so many votes on it for folks were used to of vote on final passage so why is this inching along? guest: because it's a very obscure body and has obscure

rules. without an agreement from all 100 senators to move quickly on bills, one member can hold it up in this case rand paul from kentucky. there is an iron he to that because rand paul is one of mcconnell's loudest critics. it creates interesting state politics but if you don't have 100, they can force the issue. there are procedural tactics they can use in their trying to get amendments. there is the filibuster they have to get over and these clocks are usually 30 hours in between votes and that can take a long time to get these things done. we think it will be this week. there is only so much they can do to hold it up. they can delay but they cannot block. as long as they can bring enough republicans to get over the threshold. host: we are talking about a $95

billion bill but that could change on the final passage, $60 billion in aid for ukraine. let's play this out and say the senate passes this. if they have 67 votes yesterday, is looking like that, what happens when that's -- when this gets sent to the house and is this thing going to get a vote in the house? guest: that's the million-dollar question. for all the difficulties they are having in the senate, the house is an even tougher body to move this thing through. that's for a couple of reasons but mostly because of donald trump. he opposes this thing and he opposed it with -- when the border language was a task and that didn't get through the senate last week. he still opposes it now that the border language is out of it. he doesn't think united states is spinning a lot of money overseas, particular given the debt and the border crisis here at home. he is by far the most popular

person in this party and what he says matters and people who criticize him do it at their own peril because there are primaries. it's a simple political calculation they are making. speaker mike johnson is only four months into the job. by all accounts, he is managing pretty well that he has some someone blocks last week was one of them. he is faced with an extremely tough decision here assuming the senate passes this bill. if he puts it on the floor, there are explicit threats that there will be a motion to vacate which of the technical term for what brought down his predecessor kevin mccarthy. it means we will kick you have the speakership in marjorie taylor greene is already said if you bring this bill to the floor and we don't like it, i will bring that motion to vacate. that raises the question of whether it would pass. emma crest not help kevin mccarthy and they voted unanimously against him. it only took a handful of

republicans to remove mccarthy. we aren't sure if they would do the same thing with mike johnson but several democrats we talked to have said the ks is just a little bit too much and mike johnson has proven himself as someone who will negotiate with biden and schumer and pass responsible spending bills and keep the government open. it marjorie taylor greene brings the motion to vacate, we will help to keep mike johnson power. there are already voices saying that. we don't know if there would be enough of them. a lot of balls in the air if johnson brings the bill to the floor. would he not bring it to the floor? there is a procedure for bringing a bill to the floor around the wishes of the gop leader and it's called a discharge petition. it means if he gets 218 signatures on this petition come you force a vote on to the lord even if the majority leaders don't want it. mike johnson might not want to

bring it to the florida the democrats find enough for the discharge position, then we would think it would pass. they would be enough centrist republicans and democrats would join that push. a couple of different scenarios there we don't know which one will happen. even yesterday, thom tillis said the discharge position might be the best way to do this. another republican senator supported this package and said we are talking to house republicans about it. if they do go the discharge prison -- petition rep, on a bill like this, you would have 100% of the house democrats signing on to 212 house democrats now and they would only need a handful of republican signatures. in this case, we think there will be a number of liberal house democrats will join bernie sanders in opposing this package to protest the israel military aid because of the civilian

casualties in gaza. we don't think they would sign the discharge petition. we don't know how many there are. it's not 212 democrats and you would need more republicans so it just becomes a very tricky math problem. it would insulate speaker johnson from any accusations from the right if the brought the bill to the floor against the wishes of donald trump. host: a veteran reporter on capitol hill this morning as we look at the week ahead. you can join the conversation by calling on the republican line (202) 748-8001, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002. outside of the senate foreign aid bill and what may happen in the house, what else should we be watching for? guest: the other big thing is

mike johnson had a tough week last week because he brought two bills to the floor on tuesday back to back. both of them failed area the first one was the impeachment of the homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas. it was expected to pass and i thought they had the votes and then there were three republican defections. that was just enough to sink it. it was largely because they didn't expect all the democrats would be there. al green showed up from his hospital bed in dramatic fashion tuesday night. steve scalise was undergoing some medical treatment back home was not there so they didn't have the advantage of that vote. scalise will be back this week so they will vote again on impeaching mayorkas on tuesday. if everyone is there, that is expected to pass because skill these will put it over the edge. all eyes will just be on the

ukraine package in the senate, expected to pass and what does mike johnson do? it will be quite a week and on top of that, not in the capital but related to the capital, you have the special election in new york's third district to replace george santos. he was expelled in december over ethics violations. now they are in the fight of their lives to both parties, to fill that seat because last week's votes are just highlighting how important it is to have -- it's how important these seats are given the majority of the republicans. a lot of money being spent up there. tom suozzi has held that seat in the past. he quit to run for governor unsuccessfully but now he's back. it's a district that has changed in the past couple of years.

biden wanted by eight points in 2020 but since then, you got inflation problems and you have the busing of migrants up to new york city. that has change the math dramatically. it's a real and that grace. it's going to be a nailbiter. all odds will be on new york three tuesday night and that will dictate even more than the mayorkas impeachment which is sort of meaningless, it's a political message but mayorkas is not going to get convicted. he's not going anywhere. that's a lesser -- of lesser significance as to who will replace george santos and that will dictate the debate over immigration and the debate over inflation and biden and whether or not he is too old etc. that will drive the debate in washington for quite a few weeks. host: nothing like a slow news week for a congressional reporter.

at the hill.com. it's a great place to go to for all of your congressional reporting. this is john in odenton, maryland, independent. caller: yes, i think the right thing is to push the foreign age pot package because ukraine really needs that. they are getting clobbered by russia right now. the republicans don't seem to understand that putin will be one step away into poland if we don't pass the aid package. they are too busy dancing around. i read that mike gallagher is not going to run for his congressional seat in wisconsin. with their razor thin majority, they will lose the house and democrats will keep the senate.

i think it's looking good. what is your opinion about that? guest: those are great questions. you basically made the case that president biden and mitch mcconnell have been making witches that the united states has a global obligation to help protect our allies khmer democratic allies abroad from putin's aggression. encountering russia but also china and the influence they are exerting in the south pacific. you basically made the case for passing this bill. that case is not resonating with a lot of republicans. there are many dozens of house republicans who want this bill and support this bill and a lot of them are on the armed services committee and a lot of them are on the foreign affairs committee. mike johnson has said he

supports the aid for israel and supports the humanitarian aid and supports the humanitarian aid in aid for ukraine. they have also said they want to tied to the border and with trump hanging over their shoulders saying don't pass anything until i'm back in the white house, it's a very tough political calculation for them to make. we don't know how this will end but you articulated the case for the bill, the case against the bill is why send a bunch of money to protect ukraine's borders when we can protect our own. you will hear that from republicans this week or opposed to this thing. then there is the additional issue of deficit spending. we've got a $33 trillion debt so why are we piling more money onto that and saddling our kids with that debt burden? let's find offsets or other changes in the budget that would cover that. there will be a fierce opposition and we just have to

wait and see how this thing works out, particularly in the house because the senate looks like it's on its way to passing it. host: the caller mentioned mike gallagher not seeking reelection. it's only his fourth term any something of a rising star and chair of the select committee on the chinese communist party. your thoughts on his retirement but also he is now the 49th member who is -- was either retiring or running for a job outside of congress. is that unusually large number in the february before election? guest: that's a great question. the answer is no. a few cycles ago, it was higher with these things go in cycles. these people up and up there for a long time and they're looking for something else to do. are we going to be in the majority year? he might want to stick around and be a quiet voice in a minority that has no power on

capitol hill. maybe they can be more influential outside the building. the ks of recent years i think has scared a lot of people away. we haven't talked to mike gallagher since he made that announcement in the second part of last week. it's worth mentioning that gallagher was one of the three republicans who voted against that mayorkas impeachment last tuesday. the expectation was that he would be in the primary because of that. he's in wisconsin which is a very purple state. trump for sure would have supported his primary opponent who would have emerged and so maybe he just saw the writing on the wall that he had made a career ending vote. he said it did it on principle. he said mayorkas did not commit any crimes, he was just doing the administration policy and he doesn't want this -- to set that precedent going forward. we don't know specifically why mike gallagher is gone but i

should mention also that kevin mccarthy was removed and a lot of his allies are leaving also. they just see the chaos in the house and if one person has the power to remove the speaker and there were three weeks when we didn't have a speaker, no one was happy on capitol hill and they came appear to get things done and they can't get things done, you just get frustrated and say i'm out of here. as to the numbers, it's not significantly higher or lower than we seen in years past. it's kind of cyclical but that could change. the numbers could go up much more than we can say this trend is specific to the chaos appear with donald trump or whatever the reason. people are kind of across-the-board and why they are leaving. host: this is bob in missouri, republican. caller: hi, how are you doing?

how are you doing? i am republican. i am for ukraine and the war. host: anything else you want to add? caller: yeah, do you think the last senate made a mistake of turning down the border deal? host: the border deal? guest: a lot of people would say that not only democrats. immigration, is tough to find a tougher issue to tackle on capitol hill. the last time they did it in a comprehensive way was in the 1980's. it was ronald reagan and since then, they have tried and failed and tried and failed over and over again. it is just a tough issue for both parties, honestly. there are a lot of liberals who

oppose the border deal because they thought it was too tough on migrants and a lot of conservatives would oppose it because they thought it was too lenient on migrants. is there a middle ground there? is there a centrist middle that could pass a bill and get 60 votes in the senate? a lot of people think -- this is an issue that will be hard on joe biden. the border crisis is not a good look for him. it's one of his top vulnerabilities now that inflation has come down. recent polls have said it's his top vulnerabilities surpassing inflation. if you are a cynic, you would say republican shutdown the bill because they wanted to maintain the opposition in terms of not reelecting joe biden. donald trump says don't vote on this, why would you help my opponent in the election? mitch mcconnell is saying we don't have a chance like this

very often. we negotiated this and we got some things we like but not everything. in a divided government, you never get everything you want. let's take a win but then there are only four senate republicans who voted for that after trump came out against it. macconnell was not one of them so he saw the writing on the wall also. it's just a really tough issue especially in an election year and especially with trump making it the number one issue. a lot of different factors in a lot of different reasons why that bill failed. years from now, they might look back and say why did we do that? why did we have more people voting for that? that's our last chance to get a comprehensive or close to comprehensive immigration reform. those chances don't come along often and maybe we will come to regret it. host: santa barbara, california, jennifer, line for democrats. caller: my first comment is i

find it appalling that trump has so much for in the political scheme when he's running for president but he's not actually in washington, d.c. is not in any kind of office. the representatives seem to care so much about his opinion and marjorie taylor greene just stomps out any kind of progress. they are not getting anything accomplished. i feel in the senate there was a lot of work done to both sides of the party for the border bill and ukraine and these things that are really important to international security basically. it's all being stalled by these people that are putting their feet in the sand.

maybe you could speak to that. thank you so much for taking my call. guest: great question. if you take the 30,000 foot view of this, this is not a new issue , the names you mentioned our new even going back to 2016. trump was an explosive force in washington obviously. there is just a fundamental difference between the two parties about the role in government in public life. this is not a new thing. ronald reagan in his inaugural speech said that government is not the solution to problems, government is the problem. now the tea party came along and kind of supercharge that idea and now there is the freedom caucusing capitol hill that has supercharge that idea. it's an issue of perspective.

it sounds like you think the government should be doing a little more to help people in their daily lives. if you asked the freedom caucus, they would say the government would only screw up if they tried to help. it would not be a solution and they would exacerbate the problem in the best way for government to help -- the economy, foreign policy, education, health care is to get out of the way. deregulate, get out of the way and past fewer lows -- laws and that would be the solution. it's an issue of perspective and there is zero agreement on that. we don't anticipate there will be agreement anytime soon. what you do see is the potential of them swinging back and forth between which of those perspectives has more power on capitol hill. for example, when one party has control of both chambers of congress on the white house,

then you get things done like president obama passing the health care bill or president trump passing his tax reform bill. those are kind of few and far between. they are just slinging barbs across the isle and doing small stuff. going back to the immigration bill, that was another anomaly appear. it was a bipartisan negotiation and they have a chance to get something done. it's a great question and we will not solve that problem on this show and we will not solve it in this congress and we are probably not can just not going to solve it in our lifetime. it's just a difference between the two parties. host: we have stories in today's paper. former president trump commented about nato. the nato secretary-general firing back as job -- at joe biden as well. who are you interested in talking to them capitol hill when it comes to those comments

about whether the united states would article -- honor it's article five commitment under a second trump administration? guest: obviously, mike johnson is the one you want to talk to first and foremost. he is a very strong donald trump supporter and has been for a long time. he is not shy about that. he has been reluctant to break with him on any policy issue including the border most recently. this is one of those things where you will have -- he will get an ear full from those committees i mentioned. he will get an ear full from the mike gallagher's of the world and get in your full from the armed services committee which is extremely influential, the foreign affairs committee, you are going to hear from a lot of people were going to push back probably gently on this because they don't want to show too much daylight between them and their

presumptive presidential nominee. i think this is one of those issues where they can break with trump without too much political backlash. it is consistent with their positions for many decades in the past. it's not a black-and-white issue either. there is some nuance to it. trump is saying that under nato guidelines, every country supposed to dedicate 2% of gdp to military spending. a lot of nato members do not do that so trump is saying that those who don't fulfill their commitment are leaning too heavily on the united states and all the burden is on the u.s. taxpayers. why would we come to the rescue of people like that, of countries not doing their job here. you will get a lot of republicans who will agree with that. we already heard that yesterday in the senate. this is a policy issue, a foreign policy issue so if you

focus on the committees that have jurisdiction over that issue, that's where the uproar will come from on the republican side and democrats will going -- will be going after trump this week on that. it won't be a partisan fight. this is another headache for mike johnson. he doesn't want to have to react to everything donald trump says, but in this case, he has to. host: do you have time for one more call before you go? guest: of course. host: thanks for hanging on the line, democrat, go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call today. it seems like the last motion to vacate last year was pretty chaotic and the house gop conference wasn't prepared for the amount of conflict that came from it. it seems like the threat is still looming. should we expect the a future possible motion to vacate as

chaotic or is the house more prepared for this to be different than last time? guest: i don't think anybody is more prepared for it. that was the first time it had ever happened. it came out of nowhere and there is just -- how could you prepare for it? the only way they could prepare for it is mike johnson's allies are talking with a bunch of democrats and saying if you will help if you keep mike johnson in power, we will have some kind of power-sharing agreement and you will have more voiceover legislation, etc. he would not be in it good position there and would have to reach across the aisle and would probably not be elected speaker again next year or minority leader if the house would vote against it but it would be chaotic. it would divide both parties. who would sign up for marjorie taylor greene to go after the speaker?

that was the guy they wanted and you can't get more conservative than mike johnson? who would replace him? on the democratic side, it would be a top decision for hot hakeem jeffries. he would have to say we don't agree with mike johnson on anything but we need some democrats to vote to keep them in power. i think this would be short and it would be tough on the democratic side as well but they could probably -- there is an of centrist guys a don't want that chaos to happen. the numbers might be high enough to save him. it would be chaotic. three weeks without a speaker last time. would it be that long? i don't know, but it would be something. it would be something that's historical. if it happens twice in the same congress, that's really something. host: we will let you get your work week started.

mike willis, congressional reporter with the hilt newspaper.