HOUSE PANEL TAKES ON CCP
To many American business executives, attending a tabletop exercise on China’s invasion of Taiwan in New York City is apparently riskier than paying $40,000 per ticket and giving the Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping standing ovations in San Francisco.
“We had to smuggle them in through the back door like they were in a witness protection program because they were so concerned about retaliation from the CCP,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chair of the House Select Committee on the CCP, told The Epoch Times.
Gallagher hosted the simulation after financial executives told him there was “zero” chance that the CCP would invade Taiwan and that the United States wouldn’t sanction China even if the invasion were to happen.
“Our New York wargame focused not on missiles and torpedoes but on sanctions, shipping routes, the SWIFT system, supply chains, and other arenas of economic warfare,” Gallagher shared, adding: “I think the executives who took part left aware of the danger, but many remain afraid to speak out.”
Xi struck a deal contingent on Taiwan: he promised Taiwan to the CCP senior leaders in exchange for the agreement to modify the Chinese Constitution to allow him to lead the party beyond the previous two-term or 10-year limit, a China expert under the alias of Shi Shan told The Epoch Times. Xi has been building China’s military to get ready ever since he took power a decade ago.
Gallagher has repeatedly warned that the current timeframe is the “window of maximum danger” related to Taiwan. His team believes that integrated deterrence—economic, military, and values—is paramount to keeping a very aggressive CCP at bay.
The bipartisan House China panel Gallagher leads has just had its first anniversary. In 2024, the two-year select committee will work with other committees of jurisdiction to push for legislation restricting outbound investments to China.
—Terri Wu
BORDER DEAL STILL STALLED
A deal in the U.S. Senate to provide aid for Ukraine and Israel in exchange for new border policies has been waiting for new action in the Senate for weeks now.
Though there’s still no text of the final proposal, leaks claim that the deal being discussed includes several provisions that Republicans find unacceptable, including permitting 5,000 illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. every day and increasing green cards issued by 50,000 annually.
Following this leak, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) took to X, where he said “Absolutely not” to the deal.
Many House Republicans don’t expect the package to come to the floor at all. They’ve demanded that the proposal include their comprehensive border security package, H.R. 2, before they’ll consider it.
In the Senate too, there’s been opposition and doubts about the proposals that have been reported and rumored.
“I’m still very concerned that we don’t share the same goals,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) told The Epoch Times. “To me, this is a national security issue. To them [Democrats], this is an immigration issue: getting as many people they can across the border and Ukraine funding—that’s their priorities and their goals. So I’m very concerned.”
Still, Marshall is hopeful that the impasse can be overcome.
“The reason I’m still at the table is I do think this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure the border,” he said.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), who’s been skeptical of more Ukraine aid, told The Epoch Times his biggest concern with the package is simple: “Secure the border.”
“I’m not seeing—in what’s being negotiated now—that it actually does that,” he added. “I can see it normalizing illegal migration to four or five thousand persons per day.”
Yesterday, Senate Republicans held a two-hour meeting to discuss the package with a focus on Ukraine funding.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told The Epoch Times that the meeting was civil and served as a forum to air differences.
But lawmakers leaving the meeting made clear that no minds had been changed.
Coming out of the meeting, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said that Republicans “talked about how … Putin is a bad guy, and we don’t want him to expand what he’s doing. But we also have to understand that we’ve got to secure the border.”
But other Senate Republicans are more willing to accept the deal as it’s been reported in broad strokes.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is a proponent of the package, dividing him from his lower chamber Republican counterpart.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) also insisted leaving the meeting that his biggest concern is keeping the fight going in Ukraine.
But he also said that the border deal as it stands would be an improvement over current conditions at the border.
“We understand the danger at the border,” he said. “We have to take the opportunity to get legislation on the books when the environment suits itself. This is probably the last chance that we will have to put statutes on the books for another several decades.”
With both House and Senate Republicans still fundamentally divided on the package, and with no indication when negotiations will be finalized, the final fate of the proposal remains very much in the air.
—Joseph Lord
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- President Joe Biden delivers remarks promoting “Bidenomics” in Wisconsin.
- Former Trump advisor Peter Navarro will be sentenced in a federal court in Washington after being convicted of Contempt of Congress stemming from a failure to comply with a House Jan. 6 panel subpoena.
- Former President Donald Trump testifies in the E. Jean Carrol defamation trial in a federal court in Manhattan.
BOOKMARKS
Firebrand journalist Tucker Carlson is currently touring in Canada, where he has in the past squabbled publicly with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The oddity of the tour is again raising questions about the possibility of Carlson playing a role in Trump’s future administration, Politico reports.
The chairman of the Arizona Republican Party has resigned after leaked audio recordings appeared to show him attempting to bribe Kari Lake not to run for Senate in the state, The Epoch Times’ Jack Phillips reported.
Though Trump hoped he could bring major unions like the United Automotive Workers (UAW) into his camp this year, the UAW yesterday endorsed Biden for “betting on the American worker,” The Epoch Times’ Andrew Moran reported.
After Trump’s historic back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, many Republicans—including, most recently, Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.)—are throwing their backing behind the GOP frontrunner. But at least one upper chamber lawmaker, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), won’t be joining them, according to a report by The Hill.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is doubling down on his decision to protect the border using the Texas National Guard, The Epoch Times’ Matthew Vadum reported. Abbott earlier announced that he would move ahead with installing razor wire despite a Supreme Court order allowing Border Patrol to take it down. Yesterday, Abbott argued that his actions are justified due to Biden’s alleged failure to enforce U.S. law and protect the country from invasion.
