Presented by the Coalition to Protect America's Regional Airports.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Wednesday, July 12th.

So much for House Republicans' plans to take up and pass the annual Pentagon policy bill this week.

Instead, Speaker Kevin McCarthy is running smack into a familiar hurdle.

You probably guessed it. It's a band of unhappy conservatives.

Shocker there. Some members of the Freedom Caucus who shut down the House floor a few weeks ago

are once again threatening to do the same thing if they don't get votes on their amendments to the defense bill.

Now, McCarthy summoned some of these folks to his office yesterday

and tried to urge unity, but already the speaker is acknowledging that they may have to delay

the Pentagon legislation into next week because of the disagreement. Elsewhere in political news,

Donald Trump is thumbing his nose at yet another major cattle call for 2024.

That's the Friday Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, where almost every Republican who is

vying for the nomination is going to be attending.

Everyone except one Donald J. Trump.

It's just the latest example of Trump sort of leaning on his frontrunner status to shun the

traditional meet and greets that candidates typically do. He's also talking about skipping the first

few GOP debates, and we have to ask, is this going to hurt him with voters, specifically GOP voters?

TBD on that. For the past few months, Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from

Alabama, has been holding up military promotions in the Senate. His beef, a new Pentagon

policy that pays travel expenses for troops if they cannot obtain abortions in their state.

It's all coming to a head this week. And this morning, I have my colleague

Joe Gould, who is our defense reporter and anchors our morning defense newsletter. He's here on

...