GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Monday, Aug. 14, where we sincerely wish all of you (we see those out-of-the-office messages) the best of August breaks. HOUSE GOP STIFF-ARMS UKRAINE AID REQUEST No one thought House Republicans, dozens of whom voted to cut off all military aid to Ukraine, were going to embrace the White House’s $40 billion supplemental spending request. But Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) put it more bluntly: His colleagues see the package as DOA in its current form. “It's going to need a lot of work,” Waltz told reporters on Friday of the request, which includes money for Ukraine, disaster aid and the southern border. “I am a little frustrated to see the administration lump all of these things together. I think they deserve separate debate, separate discussion.” With House Republicans poised to start talking this week about resolving their internal tensions over government funding, Waltz said he’d like to see that play out before lawmakers even begin to address the supplemental request. Where does that leave the cash — and the GOP? The likeliest path to passage for the White House’s emergency funding pitch remains attaching the money to any stopgap patch that passes to keep the government funded beyond the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline. But a skeptical Waltz noted that he’s never voted for a so-called continuing resolution, calling the short-term measures “just a bad way to do business.” Which means that the calendar may well turn to winter before the funding request sees its final votes. Expect this to come up when House Republicans hold a call at 6 p.m. Monday on spending. DIFI BACK ON DEMS’ WORRY LIST Another prolonged absence from work by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) could have devastating consequences for her party, one of her colleagues acknowledged to reporters on Friday. Feinstein has “been very brave” to keep up an abridged schedule despite her health challenges, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said — as he observed that her absence had effectively wiped out Democrats’ Judiciary Committee majority, stalling judicial confirmations for months. “Whether it's departure from the Senate or departure from the committee or just unavailability that she can't be in the Judiciary Committee, that gives Leader McConnell the prerogative to take away our majority from Judiciary,” Whitehouse said Friday. “And the notion that he wouldn't do that I think is fantastical.” A refresher: Feinstein, 90, was briefly hospitalized last week after a fall in her San Francisco home. A spokesperson said that Feinstein’s scans were clear after she was hospitalized for about two hours. But the episode put Democrats back on high alert with Feinstein, who spent nearly three months away from Washington this spring as she recovered from shingles. The stakes: Another extended Feinstein leave from the committee would put Senate Democrats back in a holding pattern on one of the few priorities they can work on without cooperation from the House — confirming judges. SCOTUS watch: Whitehouse said a Senate vote on his committee-passed Supreme Court ethics legislation is “under consideration,” but he has no firm date to announce. He called the latest ProPublica reporting on Justice Clarence Thomas’ luxury travel financed by billionaires “just a little bit into the iceberg but there's, I think, still more to come” and vowed that the committee would continue investigating. TUBERVILLE’S TWO MILITARY MOODS Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s blockade of scores of Pentagon promotions is roiling Washington — and dividing his own party. But back in Alabama, the conservative is keeping up business-as-usual appearances with a slew of promotional appearances promoting the military. He’s already hit up Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery and announced scores of informational sessions for service academies. A Tuberville aide said the visits are part of his regular work as an Armed Services Committee member and unrelated to the senator’s holds on hundreds of military promotions. It’s all about optics: The aura of normalcy is politically valuable for Tuberville as he contends with growing intra-GOP tension and an increasingly frustrated Biden administration over his decision to stall promotions for the military’s top brass in protest of a Defense Department policy permitting paid leave for abortions. Tuberville, who’s given no indications of softening on his holds, has said that he’d heed pushback from Alabamians on the blockade but would resist outside pressure. In fact, the senator’s military outreach comes as new polling conducted by Democratic polling firm PPP on behalf of VoteVets Action Fund found 58 percent of state residents think Tuberville “has made his point” and should drop his holds, compared to 29 percent who do not.
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