Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook editor Mike DeBonis. It's Friday, February 2nd. Happy Groundhog Day. Here's what's driving the day. Let's start with some math. Today, the House of Representatives loses another member, this time a Democrat, Brian Higgins of Buffalo, New York. This matters because the margins are razor tight in the

House right now, and there's a big partisan vote next week on the impeachment of Homeland Security

Secretary Alejandro Majorcas. With Higgins gone, the balance is now 219 Republicans to 212 Democrats.

That means Speaker Mike Johnson can lose no more than three from his side if he wants

the impeachment vote to succeed, and already one Republican, Ken Buck of Colorado, is a confirmed no.

This is going to be one to watch. As for those Senate border talks we've been tracking for weeks now,

T-Day, as in legislative text day, might finally be upon us. Senate Majority Leader

Chuck Schumer said that yesterday the bill will be released sometime over the weekend, setting

up votes in the Senate next week. Joining me now to discuss this and more is Playbook co-author

Ryan Liza. And I'm especially delighted to have Ryan here because in this week's episode of

Playbook Deep Dive, available now on all your favorite podcast apps, Ryan interviews Congresswoman

and Biden campaign co-chair Veronica Escobar about the politics of the border, as well as Gaza

in the unique role she plays as one of the president's top surrogates.

Good morning, Ryan. Hey, good morning, Mike. So we're finally going to see a border bill.

Can you sort of set... Is that a groundhog day joke? Well, I should say Chuck Schumer actually

made a groundhog day joke the other night at the convention. There are going to be a lot to sport.

Expect a lot of groundhog day jokes today. Assuming he is correct and we finally do see a bill this weekend,

can you sort of set the political backdrop here? What is the environment into which this supposedly

carefully negotiated legislation is being dropped? Yeah, it's dropping into an environment where the coalition that may have existed previously

seems to be shrinking over the course of the weeks and I guess months of the negotiations.

Speaker Mike Johnson has embraced former President Trump's view that this would be bad politics for Republicans in an

election year, that it would help Joe Biden, and that they'd rather have the issue than have

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