A majority of House Republicans retreat from their retreat

On the Hill

An unenthusiastic House Republican retreat

Our colleague Marianna Sotomayor files this dispatch from the House Republican retreat at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. 

Even before House Republicans embarked to West Virginia for their yearly gathering Wednesday, they retreated. 

A lack of participation — not even half of the 219-member conference attended — contributed to the canceling of a second day of panels meant for lawmakers to discuss policy and how to expand their majority.

The group’s chairwoman, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who coordinates the yearly messaging retreat, told reporters that the lack of attendance was not representative of the “enthusiastic conference” and that lower attendance was based on Republicans choosing to return home to campaign in tough primaries or convince voters that they deserve a second term in districts won by Joe Biden in 2020. (Rep. Troy E. Nehls of Texas told us he wasn’t going so he could spend time with his family. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina said he was going to go home instead.)

Republican dis-unity

The physical representation of disunity was not the image House Republicans were hoping to display after a whirlwind year that has tested the conference’s slim majority and impeded its ability to consistently legislate against the Biden administration.

• “We’ve got so many things to show for the last year-plus. But people all want to focus on a car accident, right? It’s always the car accident that draws attention,” said Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.).

House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team said in news conferences and interviews with The Washington Post that although the process has been unpredictable, they have not allowed the government to shut down, they averted a debt ceiling collapse, and they passed a number of conservative bills from their “Commitment to America” framework, including a Parents Bill of Rights and a border security proposal, which they tout as policy wins on the campaign trail.

Johnson’s plea

No group has had to manage the whims of the conference more than leadership. Johnson’s “team speech” to members Thursday morning focused largely on the need to “stand together” — a message he has ramped up in recent weeks to persuade hard-liners so he can go into bicameral negotiations with a firmer set of requests to fight for.

The speaker extended that call for unity on the campaign trail, forcefully telling members that they should avoid campaigning against colleagues facing primary  challenges, which he considered wrong and not helpful. Members responded to that message with applause, according to people in the room.

Working to maintain — or find — unity will be tested in coming weeks. Both chambers must fund a majority of the government by next Friday, and the House debates packaging a supplemental sending aid to foreign allies and addressing the U.S. southern border, two of the most divisive issues among the conference.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), who manages the House floor schedule, said he continues to encourage committee chairs to iron out policy disputes when a bill is in their court to try to prevent surprise opinions on the floor.

• “We either come together to get it done or it doesn’t happen,” he said.

It is a message leaders are often repeating to holdouts on legislation — most often far-right members who began a trend of sinking procedural hurdles to protest votes or who threatened to make life more difficult for Johnson. 

Leadership’s challenge

Emmer, who is responsible for delivering the votes, is often the one confronting members on the floor to prevent any embarrassing votes for the conference.

Emmer recently prevented a surprise move by Freedom Caucus members to sink a rule because they were against Johnson’s first tranche of funding bills, which he said he was able to do because he talks honestly with members.

He noted that there is always a “grief period” to get through before coming out on the other side and figuring out a path forward.

• “It’s not just a matter of, you know, jumping on board and riding in the back of the bus. It’s more, if you want to change the way the place works, then you have to do the hard work of building those relationships and gaining that respect,” he said. “As you do, you move the needle.”

Privately, members have wondered why leaders don’t punish certain members who often vote against their majority. But doing so would be more problematic for a conference whose right flank only became more bullish over a decade ago, when House Speakers John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) shut out the far right from policymaking.

Incorporating all members into discussions, Emmer and Scalise said, is what has helped maintain an aspect of working relationships within the conference and manage expectations.

• “We have to stand together, stick together, get the job done and deliver to the American people,” Johnson said. “I’m absolutely convinced, if we do that, [voters] are going to expand our House majority, give us the Senate and the Republicans will take the White House as well. And then we will all be in a much better mood next January because the agenda will change 180 degrees.”

At the White House

Biden’s tortured speech prep comes with upsides

As President Biden begins his reelection campaign in earnest, our colleague Tyler Pager is scrutinizing three pillars of his presidential leadership: how Biden absorbs information, how he makes decisions and — in the latest installment — where even allies fret that Biden often falls short: communicating with the American people.

Tyler reports: 

Some critics concede that Biden has on occasion delivered stirring remarks, including a speech on the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks, another on the threat to democracy and a third on the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. His State of the Union addresses have also received praise, even from some conservatives.

But it is the day-to-day speeches — the ones Biden delivers two or three times a week around the country — where he often muddles through, undercuts himself and struggles to connect.

“I know that’s a boring speech,” he once said at the end of remarks in July 2021 that were intended to build enthusiasm for his agenda.

For major speeches, Biden often works with Michael Sheehan, a speech coach who has assisted Democratic leaders for decades. He also marks up the text to show where he should take breaks to improve the delivery, a practice he learned to help with his stutter.

Biden focuses so much on the details of each speech that he occasionally changes policy in the course of preparing for it, even when a decision has already been made. “It’s the way he balances alternatives and comes to a point of view,” said Ron Klain, Biden’s first White House chief of staff, who stepped down in early 2023. “Speech prep is the ultimate cauldron in which Biden policy is made.”

But Klain said he found himself wishing that Biden devoted more time to the delivery itself — the cadence, the tone, the rhythm — in a moment when Americans rarely watch an entire speech on television. “Sometimes I think it’s performance that matters more, not the precise words,” Klain said.

Klain would often urge Biden to practice his delivery rather than obsessing over individual words: “Sir, the speech is good. Let’s practice.” Biden would respond: “I’m just not happy with the text yet, Ron. I’m going to work on it more.”

From the moment Biden launched his 2020 campaign, he has defined himself in large part as the antithesis of Donald Trump. As part of that, he has often talked of the resonance of a president’s words, castigating his predecessor for repeatedly uttering falsehoods and speaking disparagingly or cruelly about others.

“The words of a president matter,” Biden has said more than once. “They can move markets. They can send our brave men and women to war. They can bring peace.”

His preparation grows out of that belief. For some advisers, though, he sometimes takes it too far.

A 2022 speech in Portsmouth, N.H., provides a window.

The picturesque coastal town was getting $1.6 million to expand a “turning basin” in the Piscataqua River that would make it easier and cheaper for ships to navigate. A few days before his appearance, Biden sat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office firing highly technical questions at his aides.

“How long is the turning basin now?” he demanded, according to someone familiar with the session, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. “How long is it going to be? How does that change the flow of ships? What kind of ships are there now? How much does it cost for a ship to dock?”

And finally, “How much does the average New Hampshire or Maine resident save on the cost of heating oil if ships can move in and out quicker?”

It is a rare Biden speech prep that concludes without someone scurrying to a phone to check a story or track down a detail, said one aide, who compared preparing the president for a speech to the “scariest college seminar you could ever attend.”

When Biden ultimately delivered his remarks, on a blustery April afternoon on the edge of the Piscataqua, he focused on how the money would help the locals. “When you keep a ship in dock after the cargo has been delivered, it can cost $90,000 a day when that ship is in port,” Biden explained. “And those costs get paid on — get passed on to you, consumers.”

The speech drew positive coverage in Portsmouth, but Biden’s lack of attention to delivery was apparent as he meandered into asides such as this one on the importance of infrastructure: “You know, I was — when I was doing the Recovery Act in our last administration — Obama-Biden — I was in Pittsburgh — excuse me, in Pennsylvania, in western Pennsylvania, in a small town. And in the process, I looked at a bridge, and they couldn’t — their fire department was on one side of the bridge, and, literally, from here to that holding tank outside here, was — on the other side there was a shopping center and a school. Well, guess what? Their fire — you couldn’t get across the bridge.”

Read the full story here.

What we're watching

Impeachment inquiry

We’re watching to see how House Republicans respond to a new letter sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson this morning from White House counsel Ed Siskel, urging him to shut down the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. 

“The investigation has continually turned up evidence that, in fact, the President did nothing wrong,” Siskel writes. “In fact, it has shown the opposite of what House Republicans have claimed. The House Oversight and Judiciary Committees have heard from not one, not two, but more than 20 witnesses who have all confirmed this.” 

“House Republicans have been pursuing claims of shady business dealings by Biden for virtually his entire presidency, but they have yet to produce a set of specific, evidence-backed allegations,” our colleague Matt Viser reports.

At the White House

President Biden will attend the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. The event is long-standing tradition hosted by the speaker of the House on or near St. Patrick’s Day at the U.S. Capitol.

In Fulton County, Ga.

We’re watching to see whether Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee will dismiss District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) from her election interference case against Trump over allegations related to her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the lawyer she hired to oversee the case. 

• If McAfee does disqualify Willis from the case, it would be Trump’s second court win of the week. On Thursday, less than two weeks before Trump was set to go to trial for allegedly falsifying business records in connection with the hush money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) proposed delaying the start date by 30 days to review new evidence. (Trump’s legal team had asked for a 90-day delay.)
• If McAfee doesn’t disqualify Willis from the case, it would be Trump’s second court loss of the week. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon rejected Trump’s bid to dismiss the charges against him for allegedly mishandling classified documents. His legal team had argued — unsuccessfully --- that the classified documents case against the former president should be dismissed because the section of the Espionage Act that he is accused of violating “is unconstitutionally vague as applied to President Trump.”

The Media

Must reads

From The Post: 

• The Supreme Court seems bitterly divided. Two justices say otherwise. By Ann E. Marimow.
• U.S. anticipates grim course for Ukraine if aid bill dies in Congress. By Missy Ryan, John Hudson, Michael Birnbaum and Dan Lamothe. 
• No Labels announces committee to select presidential candidate. By Michael Scherer and Meryl Kornfield.
• ICYMI: Schumer calls for ‘new election’ in Israel in scathing speech on Netanyahu. By Liz Goodwin.

From across the web:

• Schumer discusses ‘long-shot scenario’ with Manchin: Last-ditch Senate run in West Virginia. By CNN’s Manu Raju.
• ‘Permanently barred?’ Not! Donald Trump reaches out to wealthy Nikki Haley donors. By USA Today’s Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy.
• World Read: Putin puts clash with west at center of presidential election. By the Wall Street Journal’s Ann M. Simmons.

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