By Rachael Bade, Ryan Lizza and Eugene Daniels

With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

ANNALS OF GOP POPULISM … Point: Sen. J.D. VANCE (R-Ohio) pens an op-ed for the Toledo Blade: “With this moment, the [United Auto Workers] leadership has an opportunity they cannot let slip through their grasp. … [T]he UAW should use their leverage and force the President to stop subsidizing an industry that benefits Communist China more than it does American workers.”

… Counterpoint: Sen. TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.) “said during a Monday campaign event, when asked about the United Auto Workers strike, that former President RONALD REAGAN ‘gave us a great example’ when he fired striking federal workers in the 1980s,” NBC’s Nnamdi Egwuonwu writes from Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Speaker Kevin Mccarthy could spark a showdown in the coming days by forcing holdouts to vote on the proposed stopgap. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

NO MORE MR. NICE GUY? — After months tiptoeing around the conservatives who have made his speakership a constant high-wire act, KEVIN McCARTHY appears to be fed up — and ready to fight.

The embattled speaker could spark a showdown in the coming days, we’re told, under a plan his leadership team discussed yesterday. With 12 days till a government shutdown and more than 15 conservatives lined up in opposition to a proposed GOP stopgap, the plan is simple: Dare them to vote against it.

They might very well do that, the thinking goes, but at the cost of isolating themselves from the rest of the party by sinking a bill their fellow Freedom Caucus allies helped write — one that takes steps to slash spending and fortify the border, both key GOP issues.

That would set McCarthy & Co. up to blame those holdouts for undercutting the party’s negotiating hand with Democrats, ultimately leading to the Senate jamming the House with a shutdown-averting stopgap without any Republican concessions.

“I want votes on this,” McCarthy told members in a private leadership meeting last night, we’re told. Others in the room agreed that any holdouts needed to be put on record.

It’s a more aggressive posture than the speaker has previously adopted. McCarthy’s default approach to his critics on the right has been appeasement, giving them pretty much everything they want and more. But lately, he’s been going after his detractors on a personal level.

It started last week when he dared conservatives to try to oust him from the speakership in a curse-laden private House meeting. It continued over the weekend on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” where he vowed to hold a vote on a stalled Pentagon funding bill and “show the American public who’s for the Department of Defense, who’s for funding our military, who’s for giving them a pay raise and taking the wokism out.”

He’s also engaging in personal terms with some of his persistent critics, such as mocking the constant threats posted online by Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.). “Oh my god, someone tweeted about me?” McCarthy snickered to reporters yesterday before criticizing another antagonist, Rep. VICTORIA SPARTZ (R-Ind.).

After Spartz called him a “weak speaker” who needed to fight harder, McCarthy took a swipe at Spartz for deciding to retire: “If Victoria is concerned about fighting stronger, I wish she would run again and not quit.”

The moves could very well blow up in his face, sparking a confrontation that could ultimately end his political career. On the other hand, the rest of the caucus has been waiting on McCarthy for months to tell conservatives to — we’ll be polite — pound sand.

They’ll be cheering him on this morning in a closed-door GOP conference meeting, where McCarthy is expected to make the case that Republicans have to unite on spending lest they get steamrolled by the Senate.

He’s getting some help from prominent hardliners, including Rep. CHIP ROY (R-Texas), who helped write the CR deal and spent much of his day yesterday selling the agreement and — appearing on GUY BENSON’s podcast — bemoaning some of his conservative colleagues “who like to beat their chest and say 'this isn't pure enough.’”

Also playing in McCarthy’s favor: Conservatives are at each other’s throats, seen most vividly yesterday in the public war of words between fellow Floridians (and potential GOP gubernatorial rivals) Gaetz and Rep. BYRON DONALDS, who helped negotiate the CR.

The bickering allows McCarthy to plausibly argue that his detractors are completely unreasonable and ungovernable, while pointing to the support from the likes of Roy and Donalds as proving his conservative bona fides. As Rep. DON BACON (R-Neb.) told our colleague Olivia Beavers earlier this week: “Some of these folks would vote against the Bible because there’s not enough Jesus in it.”

— Related read: “House GOP in open warfare over doomed spending plan,” by Olivia Beavers, Jordain Carney and Sarah Ferris

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MORE FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE …

— McCarthy got an encouraging sign from the House Rules Committee last night after the panel’s nine Republicans stuck together to send the GOP stopgap proposal to the floor. Among those along for the ride: Freedom Caucus member RALPH NORMAN (R-S.C.), who ended up backing the rule in committee about an hour after telling ABC News’ Ben Siegel that he’d vote against it.

— But we wouldn’t bet on progress just yet. One senior GOP lawmaker told us to watch last night’s Freedom Caucus meeting for any movement that could signal a path forward for the CR. Caucus chair Rep. SCOTT PERRY (R-Pa.), who helped negotiate the deal, instead exited saying the meeting wasn’t “really about selling,” per Punchbowl’s Mica Soellner. “The measures speak for themselves.”

— Meanwhile, centrists are talking Plan B’s. As our colleague Sarah Ferris scooped late last night, the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus is sketching out options for a “clean” CR that would add disaster relief but none of the GOP concessions.

The plan, we’re told, came up during the leadership meeting yesterday when Rep. ANDREW GARBARINO (R-N.Y.) told McCarthy & Co. that his fellow centrist Republicans could work with Democrats to move a CR if the GOP’s plans fall through. No one in the meeting pushed back.

Democrats would almost certainly back a clear CR, meaning it would only take a handful of centrist Republicans to break ranks and make an end-run the majority. We’re told there already have been discussions about dusting off a discharge petition Democrats filed during the debt-limit standoff earlier this year and repurposing it for a CR, or engaging in other unorthodox legislative maneuvers to get to an up-or-down vote.

That outcome is exceptionally unlikely, but the mere possibility could help McCarthy and his allies convince the holdouts to swallow the GOP’s CR. Alternatively, it could offer an escape hatch down the road — perhaps after many weeks of shutdown, perhaps sooner.

“That’s one of the few ways McCarthy survives this,” a senior GOP aide told us. “Somebody forces this, and he can say: ‘Look, I don’t want this, but these guys are going to do it anyway.’”

Good Tuesday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

HAPPENING TODAY — Rachael, Ryan and other POLITICO stars are hosting an event this afternoon at 2:30 about building the new American economy, featuring conversations with Council of Economic Advisers Chair JARED BERNSTEIN, Reps. DAVID SCHWEIKERT (R-Ariz.) and DREW FERGUSON (R-Ga.), and more. RSVP here

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On the Hill

The Senate will meet at 10 a.m. to resume consideration of VERNON OLIVER’S judicial nomination with a cloture vote at 11:30 a.m and an additional cloture vote on the judicial nomination of RITA LIN. Later, the Senate will take up the “minibus” for the Military Construction-VA/Agriculture-FDA/Transportation-HUD spending bills.

The House will meet at 10 a.m.

3 things to watch …

1. A $16 billion White House disaster aid funding request is among the priorities at stake in the spending fight, and you can expect to hear plenty about it from FEMA Administrator DEANNE CRISWELL when she appears before a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee at 10 a.m.
   
2. AG MERRICK GARLAND’s trip to House Judiciary tomorrow is unquestionably the Biden Cabinet appearance of the week. But don’t sleep on Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO’s visit to the House Science Committee at 10 a.m., where she’ll give a one-year assessment of the CHIPS and Science Act.
   
3. The Washington Commanders have a new owner, are undefeated and want a new stadium. That’s where Congress comes in: Long-running hopes that the team might return to the RFK Stadium campus hinge on extending a federal lease granted to the D.C. government, and a bill to do just that gets a hearing in House Natural Resources at 2:30 p.m.

At the White House

President JOE BIDEN is in New York, where he will address the U.N. General Assembly this morning. In the afternoon, Biden will hold a meeting of the Central Asia 5 + 1 and later in the evening will host the Leader’s Reception.

VP KAMALA HARRIS will travel to Reading, Pa., where she will participate in a “Fight for Our Freedoms” moderated conversation, receive a briefing at the IBEW Local 743 Training Facility and hold a roundtable conversation with apprenticeship students.

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AMERICA AND THE WORLD

President Joe Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Sept. 17, 2023. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo

WHAT TO WATCH AT UNGA — Biden’s appearance at UNGA today is boosted by the absence of Russia and China at the annual gathering. “The vacancies will offer Biden and [Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY] the chance to dominate the agenda and lend a sympathetic ear to the leaders of less wealthy nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, a region often called the Global South,” WaPo’s John Hudson writes from New York.

And as Zelenskyy travels to the U.S. and prepares to address the assembly today to make further pleas for support, yesterday he “dismissed all six of its deputy ministers on Monday, deepening the housecleaning at a ministry that had drawn criticism for corruption in procurement as the military budget ballooned during the war,” NYT’s Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Andrew Kramer report.

Learn the language: “Unversed in UNGA? Stumped by SDGs? A glossary of UN General Assembly meeting lingo,” by AP’s Jennifer Peltz

More top reads:

• “China’s Ex-Foreign Minister Ousted After Alleged Affair, Senior Officials Told,” by WSJ’s Lingling Wei: “The officials were further told that the probe found that [QIN GANG] had engaged in an extramarital affair that led to the birth of a child in the U.S., two of the people said.”
  
• “Blinken meets Chinese VP as U.S.-China contacts increase ahead of possible summit,” by AP’s Matthew Lee
  
• “U.S.-Iran prisoner swap could pave the way for talks on bigger issues,” by WaPo’s Susannah George

2024 WATCH

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Pray Vote Stand Summit, Sept. 15, 2023, in Washington. | Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo

TRUMP’S ANTI-DEBATE PLAY — Trump is once again planning counterprogramming for the Republican primary debate, this time scheduling a primetime speech on Sept. 27 to union members in Detroit, “injecting himself into the labor dispute between striking autoworkers and the nation’s leading auto manufacturers,” NYT’s Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman scooped. “Mr. Trump has not directly addressed the wage demands of striking workers and has attacked the union leadership, but he has tried to more broadly cast himself on the side of autoworkers.”

“The decision to go to Michigan just days after the United Auto Workers went on strike shows the extent to which Mr. Trump wants to be seen as looking past his primary rivals — and the reality that both he and his political apparatus are already focused on the possibility of a rematch with President Biden.”

More top reads:

• GOP megadonor KEN GRIFFIN is sitting out of the GOP presidential primary for now, a notable decision given his previous support for Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS in previous elections, CNBC’s Brian Schwartz reports. “Look, if I had my dream, we’d have a great Republican candidate in the primary who was younger, of a different generation, with a different tone for America,” he said.
  
• “Vivek Ramaswamy regrets taking the Covid vaccine. His wife, a surgeon, does not,” by NBC’s Alex Tabet and Katherine Koretski
  
• “Biden world fears Trump may muddy the waters on abortion,” by Eli Stokols and Lauren Egan

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MORE POLITICS

COUNTING THE VOTES — Pennsylvania Gov. JOSH SHAPIRO is rolling out a big change in the Keystone State that will have major implications for next year’s elections: Shapiro’s office is set to implement automatic voter registration in the state, he told WaPo’s Greg Sargent in a piece posted this morning. Shapiro’s office “estimates that automatic registration could add tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls.”

Names to know …

• DERRICK ANDERSON, a U.S. Army combat veteran and attorney, is running again to unseat Democratic Rep. ABIGAIL SPANBERGER in Virginia’s 7th District, per AP’s Sarah Rankin. Anderson narrowly lost the 2022 GOP primary to YESLI VEGA.

• CHRISTINE SERRANO GLASSNER, the two-term mayor of Mendham Borough, N.J., is running to unseat Sen. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.). Glassner, who has political ties to Trump, faces tough odds: Republicans haven’t won a U.S. Senate election in New Jersey since 1972 — though Menendez’s recent legal troubles have some Dems worried. More from Matt Friedman 

• BRAD WILSON, speaker of the Utah House, said yesterday that he would resign from the legislature, stoking speculation that he’ll run for retiring Sen. MITT ROMNEY’s (R-Utah) seat, the Deseret News’ Lisa Riley Roche writes.

THE ECONOMY

STRIKE WATCH — As the autoworkers strike drags on, tensions and threats are rising. “United Auto Workers President SHAWN FAIN said if the union doesn't see ‘serious progress’ in negotiations with the Detroit Three automakers, it will call on more members at different plants to strike come Friday,” the Detroit News’ Kalea Hall writes.

To that end, our colleagues Eleanor Mueller and Nick Niedzwiadek take stock of where the timeline stands now: “The UAW has amassed enough money to pay all of its members to stay out on strike against Detroit’s Big Three automakers for as long as 11 weeks. But the union’s decision to target just a few plants at a time is one of its biggest tactical ploys — and could allow it to keep the strike going far longer.”

Earlier yesterday, when asked whether the president “would be key to brokering an agreement” by our colleague Jonathan Lemire on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Fain said: “Not at all.” He continued: “This is our battle … This battle is not about the president, it’s not about the former president or any other person prior to that.” More from the Detroit Free Press’ Todd Spangler

THE WHITE HOUSE

WHO’S BACKING BIDEN — Democrats are (mostly) publicly backing Biden as he barrels toward a rematch with Trump. The latest behind-the-scenes temperature taking comes from WaPo’s Toluse Olorunnipa, Meryl Kornfield and Colby Itkowitz, who interviewed more than 30 Democratic pooh-bahs and conclude that “waves of anxiety” are rippling through the party as Biden’s poll position sags and concerns over his age persist.

“Several party leaders predicted that even voters who voice ambivalence about Biden will ultimately be animated to vote against the Republican choice, especially if that choice is Trump. But few offered confident assessments that Biden’s stubbornly low approval ratings would rebound before next year, and many conceded that one of the president’s most significant challenges is one he has no control over: his age.”

More top reads:

• Biden and NYC Mayor ERIC ADAMS’ continued feud over the ongoing migrant crisis facing New York is evidenced this week by their choice to avoid each other with Biden in town. “The decision by Biden and Adams to avoid each other is a concession to the reality that their relationship is deeply broken,” Emily Ngo reports this morning.
  
• “Biden tells a Broadway theater packed for fundraiser that Trump is determined to destroy the nation,” AP

CONGRESS

CAUGHT ON TAPE — Rep. DERRICK VAN ORDEN (R-Wis.) “took a celebratory bow after he reportedly yelled and cursed at a group of teenage Senate pages while giving a late-night tour of the U.S. Capitol in July,” according to Rep. MARK POCAN (D-Wis.), who viewed the security footage of the incident, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Lawrence Andrea writes.

HOLDING PATTERN  — The House GOP Steering Committee “indefinitely delayed its planned Monday meeting to fill the party’s open seat on the Appropriations Committee” created by Rep. CHRIS STEWART’s (R-Utah) retirement, Roll Call’s Aidan Quigley reports. The panel isn’t expected to meet again until after the shutdown deadline has passed.

TRUMP CARDS

MUCH TO-DO ABOUT SOMETHING — “Trump wrote to-do lists for assistant on White House documents marked classified,” by ABC’s Katherine Faulders, Mike Levine, and Alexander Mallin

A MESSAGE TO YOU, RUDY — “Giuliani sued by his former lawyers claiming he owes $1.4 million in unpaid legal fees,” by NBC’s Zoë Richards

HOME-FIELD ADVANTAGE — “Florida jury pool could give Trump an advantage in classified documents case,” by AP’s Eric Tucker and Adriana Gomez Licon

POLICY CORNER

IMMIGRATION FILES — “Illegal border crossings are on the rise: 7,500 migrants were stopped on Sunday alone,” by NBC’s Julia Ainsley: “The rise in migrants may indicate that new policies put in place by the Biden administration in May, which initially kept numbers low, may now be having less of an impact.”

GOTCHA — “Wreck of missing F-35 found as Marines ground flights,” by Eric Bazail-Eimil

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