| Good morning, Early Birds. This newsletter is powered by black coffee — or, in Leigh Ann's case, black tea. (Theo does love an iced latte on a summer Saturday, though. You just have to wait a few more months, Theo.) Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here. Thanks for waking up with us. In today's edition … Lofty goals for the China select committee … Biden to warn that Republicans want to cut Medicaid and Obamacare … Obama launches leadership network focused on civic engagement, Matt Brown reports … Inside Z-Division, the team behind the latest covid origins assessment … The 2024 Republican presidential contenders, visualized … but first … | | |  | On the Hill | | Republican divide on Ukraine takes center stage |  The ruins of an Orthodox church in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. (John Moore/Getty Images) | | | House Republicans are wading deep into foreign policy today with the first round of hearings this year on the two biggest international issues facing the United States: the war in Ukraine and relations with China. On Ukraine, Republican divisions will be on full display during hearings by the House Armed Services Committee and the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee as lawmakers interrogate Biden administration officials over the state of the war and plans for future support. Republicans have generally broken into three camps on Ukraine, although two of the positions are mostly from the same people, who are trying to quell the intraparty dissent by focusing on how the money is spent and lambasting President Biden for not doing enough: | - Strong supporters of Kyiv who argue that everything must be done to help Ukraine fight off the Russian invasion. They want Biden to provide more military aid, more quickly — including F-16s, which the administration opposes sending (many top Republicans).
- Strong supporters of providing Ukraine with aid who want more oversight of federal funds spent to help Kyiv (most Republicans).
- There is a vocal minority calling for Congress to stop spending money on a war they argue is none of the United States' business (a few Republicans on the far right touting an "America First" foreign policy).
| | We should hear all three arguments at today's hearings, highlighting the GOP divide. | | "I obviously think we have a national security interest to have Ukraine remain independent. So yeah, you'll have differences of opinion there," said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who is on the Armed Services Committee. "So I think you'll get an array of type of questions." Witnesses for the two hearings include Colin H. Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy; Robert P. Storch, Pentagon inspector general; Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II, director of operations of the Joint Staff; and Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. | | For Republican proponents of continuing to support Ukraine, their oversight agenda is partly about quelling growing discontent about spending on the war by showing the party will not give Biden a "blank check" and will make sure money is being spent wisely as support for the war among Republican voters shows signs of waning. "The administration has already promised us — promised me personally — that they would put out a better list of what other countries are doing so that we could show our constituents that we're not carrying this burden alone," Bacon said. Congress has approved more than $100 billion for Ukraine (although less than a third of the total, about $32 billion, has been spent). Republicans say they want better accounting of how the money is being used. Congress passed significant oversight already. As part of the annual defense bill passed at the end of last year, Congress required that the Pentagon: | - Hire a new inspector general to oversee Ukraine funding.
- Provide briefings four times per year on the replenishment of weapons provided to Ukraine.
- Deliver reports on security assistance to Ukraine and the impact the war is having on the U.S.-China relationship.
| | Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), who is a member of the Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee and a strong proponent of assisting Ukraine, said Republicans are focused on oversight because it's "low-hanging fruit." "There's some divisions around the country [with] people who just don't think we ought to be involved in somebody else's issues," Womack said. | | Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is one of the leading opponents of Ukraine funding and the author of a "Ukraine fatigue" resolution that calls for ending all aid to Kyiv, which has 10 Republican co-sponsors. "I'm going to be focused on compliance with the law for end-to-end monitoring of U.S. materiel in a conflict zone," Gaetz, who's on the Armed Services Committee, said of today's hearing. | | House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) is expected to present the opposite view at today's hearing. He is holding the hearing on oversight, sending a message that funding accountability matters. In a joint statement last week with two other Republican committee chairmen, Rogers called for Biden "to stop dragging his feet on providing the lethal aid necessary to end this war." | | Democrats plan to rebut the idea that there is no oversight and that the administration is moving too slowly on providing aid. "At a time when we need to be united and standing for our ally as they literally are in a fight for their lives, I worry that Republican colleagues are going to be very divisive and not focused on that bigger picture," said Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), who is on the Armed Services Committee. | Lofty goals for the China select committee |  Chinese president Xi Jinping. (Bloomberg News) | | | Republicans are far more united on China than on Ukraine. They want to take a much more muscular approach toward a country they view as an increasing threat to U.S. national security — a position many Democrats share. That should be evident at three China-focused House hearings today held by the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Space, Science and Technology Committee and China select committee — the last of which lawmakers created last month in a bipartisan vote. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chair of the select committee, said he hopes to present the issue in a more dynamic way, including with the use of video and events outside of hearings. | - "Our goal is to communicate to our colleagues and the American people why the Chinese Communist Party is a threat," Gallagher said. "This is admittedly a more broad hearing, because it's our first one — sort of level-setting, scene-setting — and then from there we'll dive in more specifically into different dimensions."
| | Gallagher said what differentiates his committee from the other panels concerned with China is that it's more bipartisan. "If you look at the members of our committee, Republicans, Democrats, there's no bomb throwers," he said. | Will there be agreement on any legislation? | | While Republicans unanimously voted to create the China select committee, nearly a third of House Democrats voted against it, including one lawmaker serving on the committee, Rep. Shontel Brown (Ohio). | - Still, it's unclear how lawmakers will vote on any legislation that comes out of the China committee.
| | Most House Republicans voted against a bill last year to invest in domestic microchip manufacturing to counter China — including Gallagher, who said at the time that the bill's spending was "largely divorced from our existential competition with the" Chinese Communist Party. Science Committee Chairman Frank D. Lucas (R-Okla.) helped write legislation included in the microchip bill last year, but he didn't end up voting for it. (Only 24 House Republicans did, and nearly half of them are no longer in Congress.) Still, he plans to praise the bill in his opening statement today, saying that "while funding for CHIPS production is going to build factories today, it's the 'Science' portion of the legislation that will be the engine of America's economic development for decades to come." | - "If the CCP becomes the global leader in scientific discoveries and technology development, we should expect less privacy, less transparency, less access, and less fairness in how these systems operate," Lucas will say, according to his prepared testimony. "So we cannot afford to lose this competition."
| | |  | At the White House | | In a shift, Biden will warn that Republicans want to cut Medicaid and Obamacare |  President Biden delivers his State of the Union address on Feb. 7. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) | | | Happening today: In his State of the Union address earlier this month, Biden pledged to defend Social Security and Medicare no matter what during budget negotiations with Republicans. "If anyone tries to cut Social Security, I will stop them," he said. "And if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I will stop them." Republicans bristled because Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had promised days earlier that such cuts were "off the table." Now Biden is warning that Republicans are likely to threaten two more popular programs: Medicaid and Obamacare. In a speech in Virginia Beach this afternoon, Biden plans to highlight Republican "proposals for devastating cuts to essential programs like the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, which are lowering costs for tens of millions of Americans and providing health care to over 2 million Virginians," Kate Berner, the White House deputy communications director, told reporters on Monday. But Biden doesn't appear to be making the same unequivocal pledge not to cut Medicaid and Obamacare. Asked whether Biden was taking such cuts off the table, Berner said only that Biden believes "that we need to continue to protect and build on progress we've made strengthening the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid." | | |  | What we're watching | | | From the courts: The Supreme Court today will hear oral arguments for two cases challenging Biden's student loan forgiveness program: Biden v. Nebraska and U.S. Department of Education v. Brown. The cases are yet another test of the limits of Biden's presidential power. Election Day: Chicago voters will head to the polls to elect the city's next mayor. Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot is angling for a second term but faces challenges from eight people, including Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.). The race is likely to go to an April 4 runoff. | | | | At the White House | | Obama launches leadership network focused on civic engagement |  Former president Barack Obama greets campaign volunteers in Fairfax, Va., in 2018. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) | | | New: Former president Barack Obama is launching a leadership program called the Change Collective that seeks to "build a national network of young leaders from a range of regions, identities, backgrounds and political persuasions who are intent on improving their local communities at a time of intense polarization," our colleague Matthew Brown reports. | - "The program's inaugural class will include 25 participants in each of three pilot cities: Chicago, Detroit and Jackson, Miss. The network aims to quickly expand to a variety of different communities of varying sizes across the country."
- The idea came about following the Jackson water crisis. "The local leaders who responded to that ongoing crisis displayed many of the traits that Obama, who began his career as a Chicago community organizer, wishes to cultivate across the country," people close to Obama told Matthew.
- "Our country is changing. But I still believe there is more that unites us than divides us. And that's because I believe in the power of community. Our physical communities — from neighborhoods and schools to offices and churches — bring us together," Obama said in a video announcement he plans to release Tuesday morning.
| | |  | In the agencies | | Inside Z-Division, the team behind the latest covid origins assessment |  The campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China in 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images) | | | Our colleagues Joby Warrick, Ellen Nakashima and Shane Harris pull the curtain back on Z-Division, the little-known scientific team that "conducts some of the federal government's most secretive and technically challenging investigations of emerging security threats" and is behind the latest assessment of the origins of covid-19. Here's what they found: | - "Even at low confidence, the Energy Department's analysis carries weight. For its assessment, the department drew on the expertise of a team assembled from the U.S. national laboratory complex, which employs tens of thousands of scientists representing many technical specialties, from physics and data analysis to genomics and molecular biology."
- "The department's cadre of technical experts includes members of the Energy Department's Z-Division, which since the 1960s has been involved in secretive investigations of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threats by U.S. adversaries, including China and Russia."
| | |  | The Data | | | The 2024 Republican presidential contenders, visualized: "Three Republicans have officially declared they are running for their party's 2024 presidential nomination: Trump, entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley, who was governor of South Carolina before serving as Trump's ambassador to the United Nations," our colleagues Hannah Knowles, Amy B Wang, Kati Perry and Szu Yu Chen report. "Plenty of others are making moves toward getting in the race, as Trump struggles to consolidate the support he once enjoyed in the GOP." | | |  | The Media | | | |  | Viral | | | | AM/PM | | Looking for more analysis in the afternoon? | | | | Weekday newsletter, PM |  | | A lunchtime newsletter featuring political analysis and a global perspective on the stories driving the day. | | | | | | | |
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