When lawmakers return to Congress next week, it will mark the start of several contentious months in Washington.
President Joe Biden is seeking to broker agreements with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., before the end of 2023. The president is hoping to secure additional defense funding for Ukraine and avoid a government shutdown from Congress.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have not shown any desire to extend an olive branch to the Biden administration.
Republicans intend to continue criticizing Biden over his handling of the southern border and threatening to impeach several senior Biden administration officials. House Republicans are also making it personal for the president, ramping up investigations into Biden’s own family members, with a focus on his son, Hunter Biden.
Here are five major battles ahead.
Impeachment efforts against Biden and his allies
Several Biden administration officials have drawn the ire of House Republicans in recent months, but three people stand out: Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Biden himself.
Republicans have taken aim at Mayorkas over his handling of the southern border and for claims that he left the country unprepared for the end of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that shut down most avenues to asylum for migrants.
In June, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight Committee, recommended a vote holding Wray in contempt of Congress. The move came after the FBI director declined a request to allow all members of the committee to view an old document regarding Biden and an unsubstantiated claim of bribery.
Republicans have increased their attacks against Wray and the FBI over the last year, since the bureau raided former President Donald Trump’s Florida resort in an attempt to recover classified documents. Republican attacks against Wray are expected to continue into the fall as the GOP steps up efforts to investigate Biden.
The president is one of the main targets for House Republicans. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., introduced articles of impeachment against Biden last month over his immigration and border policies. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has also pledged to force votes on the House floor in her own effort to impeach Biden.
Ukraine spending and security guarantees
The House and the Senate are also set to clash this fall over additional funding for Ukraine.
Republican senators briefly held up the bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling over concerns regarding defense spending levels, but secured an agreement from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to take action on a supplemental defense spending bill.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote in a statement after the agreement was brokered that “help is on the way” to the country’s underfunded military.
“I wish that Putin’s Russia had not invaded Ukraine. I wish the world was much different than the one we see today. But I understand that if we want peace and stability, it comes at a high price,” Graham said. “The first and most important dollars we allocate each year in the budget are those to protect and defend the United States and our interests.”
Providing additional funding to Ukraine has significantly less support with Republicans in the House than it does in the Senate, with McCarthy indicating that he does not have any intentions to help the Senate bypass the defense-spending cap agreement to raise the debt ceiling.
With Ukraine recently launching a renewed counteroffensive against Russia, additional support from the U.S. might become more urgent over the coming weeks and months as the war continues.
Republican criticism over Biden’s handling of the border
Republican efforts to impeach Mayorkas are part of a broader push to denounce the Biden administration over immigration reform and its border policies.
A major concern for Republicans was that the end of Title 42 would result in a spike in border crossings and put a strain on government facilities. Department of Homeland Security data from early June, however, has shown a decline in migrant crossings into the U.S. instead of an increase.
But Republicans have not stopped attacking Biden’s border policies and senior administration officials, warning the spike in border crossings caused by the end of Title 42 might still come.
Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, announced last month the launch of an investigation into Mayorkas.
Green has denied pledging to impeach the Homeland Security secretary ahead of his committee’s probe, but other Republicans have indicated the hearings might be more about convincing the American public that Mayorkas should be impeached than uncovering new evidence of wrongdoing by Biden administration.
Republican investigations of Biden’s family
Hunter Biden agreed last month to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of tax evasion in federal court and enter a pretrial program to resolve a gun charge.
While the plea agreement was reached with Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss, Republicans criticized the plea deal as too lenient and pledged to continue their probes of the president’s son to determine if he was favorably treated due to his family connections.
As chairman of the the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., released testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who allege that their investigation into Hunter Biden was prevented from pursuing potential leads that could have implicated Joe Biden.
While it is unclear if the congressional investigations will manage to prevent a federal judge from approving Hunter Biden’s guilty plea deal, House Republicans have pledged to continue investigating alleged interference by the Justice Department in Hunter Biden’s case.
Threat of a government shutdown
It is still the middle of the summer, but many lawmakers are already bracing themselves for a potential government shutdown this fall.
Congress must pass 12 spending bills to prevent a government shutdown after the end of this fiscal year. Agreeing on bills to fund the government is a frequently contentious affair, but negotiations on spending bills this year might become even more difficult.
House Republicans have indicated they might write appropriations bills lower than levels agreed to with Biden and Schumer when lawmakers passed the debt-limit bill.
Some of the most conservative members of Congress have indicated they are prepared to let a government shutdown occur if the Senate does not accept the House’s significantly lower spending thresholds. Democrats, however, have not shown any desire to renegotiate the agreements reached with the debt-limit bill.
If the two sides are unable to reach a comprise, the possibility of a government shutdown later this year will become increasingly likely.
