The Hill’s Morning Report — Gaetz vs. McCarthy showdown is set 

Fresh off averting a government shutdown, Congress is heading into October and November with uncertainty looming about funding for Ukraine, the state of the appropriations process — and Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) political future. 

After McCarthy successfully passed a bipartisan stopgap spending bill in the House Saturday that cleared the Senate just hours later, far-right House conservatives are planning an effort to oust him from his post. Leading the charge is Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R), a House Freedom Caucus member and longtime McCarthy antagonist, who on Monday moved to force a vote to remove the Speaker. 

A vote on the motion to vacate the chair will have to be brought up within two legislative days. But it is likely that the House, rather than voting on the resolution itself, would first vote on some mechanism to kill or delay it, such as voting to table the resolution. McCarthy, for his part, is exuding confidence amid the effort to oust him. The Speaker told reporters Monday morning that his support within the House GOP conference is “very strong,” and he said Sunday “I’ll survive” if a vote is brought against him (The Hill). 

“I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that can be trustworthy,” Gaetz told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. 

At least four House Republicans said they will support or are leaning in favor of the “motion to vacate.” In the slim House majority, just a handful of Republican lawmakers could be enough to push the Speaker out — largely depending on how Democrats vote (The Hill). They’re now presented with a tricky question: Should they help rescue the Speaker, who has worked against their agenda and recently opened an impeachment inquiry into President Biden? 

THE BATTLE OVER UKRAINE FUNDING is escalating in the House as the chamber races to pass funding bills. The money wasn’t included in the short-term spending patch that averted a shutdown over the weekend, but some House Republicans are already warning about the looming battle.  

“There are a lot of us that care deeply about this, and it’s a hill we’re willing to die on,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told The Hill on Saturday, shortly after the House passed legislation to keep the government funded through mid-November. “It’s an existential threat to global security. We believe that. And we’re going to take up that fight and we’re going to win that fight. Ukraine will be funded.” 

Over in the Senate, the failure to include Ukraine funding in the spending bill marks a loss for Senate leaders who were outmaneuvered by McCarthy — and a setback to a cornerstone of Biden’s foreign policy agenda. The stopgap without Ukraine money got to Biden’s desk primarily because of House Democratic support, giving McCarthy strong leverage over Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Now, Biden will have to get Democrats to align on their strategy if he wants to get more money for the war.   

Politico: The U.S. will send more aid to Ukraine “soon” amid funding concerns, the White House said. 

THE UPSHOT: While the Gaetz vs. McCarthy battle is consuming Washington this week, experts across the political spectrum question whether the congressional chaos will have any long-lasting effect on the Republican brand or damage the party’s chances of retaking the White House next year. As The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes in The Memo, virtually no one thinks the infighting is good for the GOP, but the Republican Party has been riven by factionalism for more than a decade — which makes the current drama just one more episode in a familiar story.  

“Most voters don’t really pay attention to the Machiavellian ins-and-outs of this stuff,” said GOP strategist Dan Judy. “But what voters do see is continued utter dysfunction in Washington. That is what hurts the Republican brand more than the details of any specific situation.” 

The Wall Street Journal: Do voters want compromise or combat? The shutdown battle reflects a deep divide. 

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Morning Report’s Alexis Simendinger is on leave. 

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Former President Trump’s fury was on full display Monday during the first day of his civil fraud trial in New York, reports The Hill’s Ella Lee. He lambasted the judge overseeing the case outside of the courtroom and stared daggers into New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), whose office is investigating business practices involving some of his most famed properties. 

The former president’s frustration — and his counsels’ — was apparent throughout the day, encapsulated in stern glares and sometimes heated arguments between the parties and the judge. Trump also raged to the news media during a break in the hearing telling them that although he was not required to be there in person, he wanted to “watch this witch hunt myself.” 

Last week, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that James’s office proved the crux of their case and found Trump liable for fraud. The decision stripped some of Trump’s business licenses and raised the potential for him to lose control of some of his famed properties, such as Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago — the same ones that catapulted him to fame, television success and eventually the White House.  

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Laphonza Butler is set to make history as the first LGBTQ+ person to represent California in the Senate. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) appointed the activist and EMILY’s List president just two days after the death of Feinstein, who was the longest-serving female senator. When she’s sworn in today, Butler, 44, will not only be the first LGBTQ+ person to represent California, but also the first openly Black lesbian to serve in the Senate. She also becomes only the third Black woman to serve in the Senate — and the only sitting Black woman senator.  

Butler will be sworn in Wednesday by Harris, herself the second Black female senator, also representing California. Newsom had previously promised to appoint a Black woman to the seat if the opportunity presented itself. Though many wanted to see Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) — a candidate for Feinstein’s seat in the 2024 election — chosen, Butler’s appointment has still generated approval from leading Black organizations. In a statement, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) celebrated Butler’s appointment, saying that her background and experience will bring a “much-needed perspective” to the Senate (The Hill). 

“For many years, Laphonza Butler has been a champion for women and girls, students, and union workers, and we believe she will bring that same fight to the U.S. Senate on behalf of Californians and our entire nation,” the CBC said. 

Newsom said Monday at an event in San Francisco that it’s up to Butler whether she’ll run for the seat in the 2024 election, and expressed some regret about saying last month he’d choose an interim senator as a sort of caretaker for the seat (Politico). 

The Hill: Lee wishes Butler well as California senator, stresses her focus is on winning Feinstein’s seat. 

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Pope Francis suggested he was open to alternate blessings for same-sex couples in a recent letter, signaling a shift from the Vatican’s current position that the Catholic Church cannot bless gay unions. The Vatican on Monday released a letter from Francis, dated Sept. 25, which responded to a group of five conservative cardinals who pressed the pope on affirming the church’s teachings on homosexuality, women’s ordination and other hot-button topics. In the letter, Francis defended the church’s teachings — that marriage is a union between a man and a woman — but reportedly stressed this does not mean church leaders “become judges who only deny, reject, exclude.”  

Francis has previously shown support for civil laws that would extend protections for same-sex couples. The Vatican’s publishing of the letter comes days ahead of the Synod of Bishops, where the Vatican is slated to address hot-topic issues including the integration of LBGTQ+ Catholics, the potential for woman deacons and access to the priesthood for married men (The Hill and The National Catholic Reporter). 

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HEALTH & WELLBEING 

Another big work stoppage is on deck at hundreds of Kaiser Permanente hospitals and medical office buildings around the country. A four-day strike of about 75,000 employees could begin as soon as Wednesday morning if Kaiser and a coalition of unions representing its workers don’t reach a deal. It would be the largest health care strike in U.S. history, according to the unions (Axios). 

A White House proposal to bar medical bills from being used in credit reporting won’t get rid of the debt itself or prevent future debts from being accrued — but the move could be life-changing for many. As The Hill’s Joseph Choi reports, the Biden administration and debt advocates argue medical debt is not a good predictor of a person’s credit worthiness. Allison Sesso, CEO of the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt, said a person with good financial habits in every other aspect of their life can be stuck with an enormous bill they can’t pay off.  

“The number one predictor of medical debt is not your insurance status. It’s whether or not you get sick,” Sesso told The Hill. “Which is pretty telling and really speaks to why you don’t have a lot of control over whether or not you’re in medical debt, which means it probably shouldn’t be an indicator of your credit worthiness.” 

Meanwhile, a coalition of activists from St. Louis and New Mexico is working to broaden which Americans are exposed to federal compensation for exposure to radiation, with the support of a bipartisan supermajority of senators. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, passed in 1990, covered people exposed to radiation from nuclear testing in Utah, Nevada and Arizona.  

However, “the first people ever exposed to radiation anyplace in the world because of an atomic bomb” were left out of the original bill, Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, told The Hill’s Zack Budryk. Those excluded included people who were exposed to the Trinity test of the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, N.M. A proposed amendment, which passed the Senate earlier this year with 61 votes, would expand eligibility to then-residents of Idaho, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Guam. 

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OPINION 

■ My fellow Republicans: It’s time to grow up, by former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), guest essayist, The New York Times. 

■ The fate of thousands depends on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the word “and,” by Eric Fish and Ryan Stitt, opinion contributors, The Hill.  

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And finally … 💉 The 2023 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Hungarian-American biochemist Katalin Karikó and American physician-scientist Drew Weissman, who together identified a chemical tweak to messenger RNA that led to the development of potent vaccines against COVID-19 in less than a year.  

Karikó and Weissman’s research into mRNA spanned decades, and now their methodology has been used in COVID-19 shots that have since been administered billions of times globally and has transformed vaccine technology, laying the foundation for inoculations that may one day protect against a number of deadly diseases like cancer (The New York Times and The Hill). 

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