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Good morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to The Daily Punch, brought to you by Punch Poll News.

It is Thursday, February 29th, 2024. Let's get into the mix. Here are your Washington headlines of the day. Number one, McConnell's replacement. Number two, inside Johnson's new spending plan and number three,

Republican senators look like they're inching closer to trying to say yes on the tax bill.

Let's get into it. Now, wow, a leap year for us at Punch Bowl News.

Won't have another one of these until 2028 and then 2032.

What a special day. February 29th. Thank you for being here.

Mitch McConnell surprised the Capitol and the political world yesterday by saying he will no longer

be the Senate Republican leader after November.

Now, I was asked yesterday on television whether it was a surprise, and I think there is a,

there's something to say about this.

It was a surprise in the moment, right?

We started hearing Andrew DeSidario and I started hearing that there was going to be a big announcement at lunch,

at the Republican lunch, or around the time of the Republican lunch, and we didn't know what it was.

We thought it could be McConnell endorsing Trump, but that didn't really seem like that big of an announcement.

I thought maybe he was leaving Congress. Now, it turns out it

was this. We, you know, we knew it was big when we saw Josh Holmes, the longtime McConnell

advisor and a newly popular conservative podcaster in the Capitol. Now, so it was surprising in the moment.

...