FLORIDA, MAN — Republicans are hours away from Mar-a-Lago. They still can’t escape the gravitational pull of Donald Trump.

The former president’s suggestion over the weekend that he could be arrested on Tuesday came just a day before Republicans decamped to Orlando, along with dozens of reporters. By Jordain’s count, roughly half of the questions House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) got at his first press conference in Florida were related to the former president or a potential indictment.

McCarthy both denounced a potential indictment and distanced himself from Trump’s call from protests.

“I don’t think people should protest this, no,” the speaker told reporters during the first night of the House GOP’s three-day annual issues retreat. “We want calmness out there.”

He also teased a potential announcement today from House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), after saying over the weekend that he would ask relevant panels to launch an investigation.

See more here from Olivia and Jordain, who are on the ground in Orlando.

While Trump talk dominated, McCarthy weighed in on an array of other issues. Here’s a roundup:

AUMF: As the Senate prepares to pass a repeal of the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) this week, McCarthy left the door open to it getting a vote in the House even though most GOP lawmakers previously voted against repealing the 2002 AUMF. The speaker said it would be under discussion while Republicans are in Florida but that the repeals have a “clear opportunity” to come to the floor. (More on the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion below.)

Banking: McCarthy said the Financial Services Committee will hold “a number of hearings to get to the bottom” of what happened with Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. “Did the California regulators miss something? I think we’ll have a lot of questions for Governor Gavin Newsom about this as well,” McCarthy told reporters.

Jeffries: McCarthy talked about his dynamic with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) after a largely non-existent relationship with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). McCarthy pointed to their joint meeting with the China select committee noting that they didn’t have a relationship before Jeffries’ ascension but “I’m trying to work hard to treat him the way I thought every minority leader should be treated.”

TURNOUT, TABLE TOP — Republican Conference Chair Elise Stafanik (N.Y.) touted on Sunday that 75 percent of House Republicans made it to the Orlando retreat.

Steube spotted: Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) is at the House GOP retreat in Orlando, fielding endless handshakes and well wishes from colleagues who haven’t seen him since his serious fall back in January.

On Sunday, national security and foreign policy minded members ran a tabletop exercise based on a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan by China, sources told Olivia. Committee chairs got a fictional promotion to cabinet secretaries while McCarthy was slated to play the president.

On tap: On the agenda for today are a town hall-style meeting with House leaders, an “economic update” led by Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and a “fiscal plenary session” with McHenry and his fellow chairmen from the Ways and Means and Budget committees, Jason Smith and Jodey Arrington.

GOOD MORNING! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Monday, March 20, where 20 years ago today, the U.S. carried out its first airstrikes in Iraq.

HUDDLE WEEKLY MOST CLICKED: Last week you wanted to know who was out to steal my job, it’s these kids from the Westbrook Eagle Eye News captured by Igor Bobic. Close second was this eyebrow raising headline from The Daily Beast: Matt Gaetz’s New Staffer Identifies as a ‘Raging Misogynist’

DELAURO’S DOOMSDAY PREDICTIONS — Responses are rolling in to House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro’s (D-Conn.) call for agency outlines of how a roll back of federal spending to fiscal 2022 levels would pinch different programs. Read the agencies’ responses for yourself.

DeLauro called the cuts “draconian” and outlines 100,000 kids losing access to child care, 1.2 million women, infants, and children losing WIC nutrition assistance, shuttered air traffic control towers, FBI layoffs and cuts to suicide and crisis hotlines and drug treatment programs.

The spending cuts were part of McCarthy’s deal to get the votes he needed to become speaker. He and other top Republicans have promised to not touch Social Security and Medicare, and to leave the Pentagon budget largely untouched. That leaves the potential for deeper cuts across the rest of the federal government’s non-defense discretionary spending.

But hold tight. The Democrats hold the Senate and even many Republicans in that chamber won’t back such deep cuts.

FIRST IN HUDDLE: HANDS OFF THE MRA — An interesting constellation of groups from both sides of the aisle are backing a letter, led by advocacy group Demand Progress, asking House Appropriators and the Legislative Branch subcommittee to not slash funding that members use to pay staff. Read the letter.

“Congress’s long-running loss of staff capacity, particularly in committees, has severely

undermined its ability to oversee and rein in the federal government’s sprawling administrative bureaucracy. Congress is only as strong as its staff,” write the 18 groups and seven individuals who signed the letter, which will be sent today.

Conservative watchdog organization Judicial Watch, left leaning Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, Issue One, College to Congress are some of the organizations backing the call for no cuts to Members’ Representational Allowances.

A pitch to conservatives: “As the nation faces unprecedented new levels of spending and debt, it is imperative that Congress invest in itself to preserve balance between the three branches, ensuring that our government remains accountable to the American people.”

DMV DRAMA — Capitol Hill is full of home-state pride, but the tension between Maryland and Virginia over the location of the new FBI headquarters is tearing at neighborly bonds and driving a wedge, write Sarah and Marianne.

“This goes beyond a rivalry,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “This is about the mission of the FBI and getting the taxpayers the best deal.”

The lobbying effort from the delegations has reached a fever pitch, with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) playing on White House chief of staff Jeff Zients’s Maryland residency and driving to the proposed site in Virginia to snap unflattering photos.

More in this behind the scenes look at the battle of the beltway over the FBI.

RELATED: Fear, burnout and insubordination: Insiders spill details about life at the highest levels of FBI, from Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney

NO PERFECT ATTENDANCE AWARDS — Where were you on August 7, 2022? That’s the last day that all 100 members of the Senate showed up for work. Democrats passed their party-line health care, energy and tax bill.

Awaiting word: Senators are eager for the return of three colleagues who are recovering from serious setbacks: 81-year-old Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is recovering from a concussion, 53-year-old Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who is receiving treatment for depression and 89-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is battling shingles.

Burgess digs into how attendance issues are straining both parties and upending both floor action and committee business. Five senators missed all the votes last week.

Prime example: Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will be isolating for a few days and working remotely following a positive Covid test on Sunday.

What’s up with the schedule? Burgess notes the short weeks the Senate has been scheduling, with fly-in days pushed to Tuesday. “For me, the rhythm has been disrupted more by the short work weeks,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said. He attributed the quirky schedule to “the folks who are in cycle.”

RELATED: Senate and House Lawmakers, on Average, Are Still Among the Oldest Ever, from By Eric Bazail-Eimil at The Wall Street Journal

20 YEARS IN IRAQ — Two decades have passed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, authorized by Congress in the leadup to the 2002 midterm elections.

Here’s what your Huddle host has been reading:

• Iraq, 20 Years Later: A Changed Washington and a Terrible Toll on America, from Robert Draper at The New York Times
• U.S. veterans won justice for burn pit exposure. Iraqis were forgotten, from Louisa Loveluck and Mustafa Salim at The Washington Post
• Twenty years after the start of the Iraq War, Seth Moulton reflects on a generation shaped by the conflict, from Tal Kopan at The Boston Globe
• 20 Years After Iraq War, Some Senators Still Think It Was Worth It, from Igor Bobic and Paul Blumenthal at HuffPost
• The children of troops lost to Iraq War are all grown up, from Alex Horton at The Washington Post
• 20 Years On, a Question Lingers About Iraq: Why Did the U.S. Invade?, from Max Fisher at The New York Times
• 3 takeaways 20 years after the invasion of Iraq, from Scott Neuman and Larry Kaplow at NPR
• Ordinary people in Iraq were given disposable cameras. This is what they want you to see, from Christina Zdanowicz, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Will Lanzoni and Brett Roegiers, CNN
• The start of the Iraq War 20 years later in photos, from Grace Widyatmadja and Sarah Mosquera at NPR

SENATE UNION TRACKER — A former Senate staffer is keeping a tally of which Senators would support collective bargaining protections for senate staff and if they’d support their own staff unionizing. Gabe Garbowit, a former Tina Smith (D-Minn.) aide, has asked every single senate office those two questions.

The resulting tracker compiled both answers to those email exchanges and public statements (or tweets, etc.) made by lawmakers. Those who didn’t respond or didn’t have public statements earned a red rat or scab symbol. (If you’re sweating looking at that red scab symbol next to your pro-union boss’ name, Gabe is still accepting responses.)

Garbowit said that in his nearly five years in the Senate, organizing a union of senate aides “felt like a total pipe dream,” he told Huddle. But that is changing.

Sen. Ed Markey’s (D-Mass.) team was the first to gain voluntary recognition for a labor union in the Senate, the first for workers in a senator’s personal office. At this point, Senate staff who organize don’t have protections or recourse with the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights or the National Labor Relations Board. The Senate Union Tracker is not a joint effort with the Congressional Workers’ Union, which represents six House offices along with Markey’s.

“For people who have been mistreated, or people who really think that this is important to them…ultimately if I feel like a single staffer felt a little more empowered by this, that would make me extremely happy,” said Garbowit.

INVESTIGATION REQUEST — Stephen Miller’s group America First Legal wrote to House Sergeant at Arms William McFarland last week to request that he open an investigation into David Brock, Facts First USA, and the Congressional Integrity Project.

Facts First, led by former Rep. David Jolly and Maria Cardona, responded with a punchy letter of their own. “We doubt that your office is taking seriously the high school level antics of a group led by someone who cites authoritatively to white nationalist websites and who is asking you to investigate in a realm far outside your jurisdiction or authority,” they write. But Facts First pledged to “fully cooperate” if an investigation is launched.

QUICK LINKS

Biden and McCarthy Are on a Collision Course in a Divided Government, from Katie Rogers and Annie Karni at The New York Times

ICYMI: House GOP ignored Capitol Police requests to review public Jan. 6 footage, lawyer says, by Kyle Cheney and Jordain Carney

TRANSITIONS

Corrine Day starts today as communications director for Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), vice chair of the House GOP conference. Day was most recently deputy communications director for Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Paige Lindgren starts today as communications director for Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.). She was most recently press secretary for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).

TODAY IN CONGRESS

The House is out.

The Senate is out.

AROUND THE HILL

The action is in Orlando.

FRIDAY’S WINNER: “J Dumas” correctly answered that James P. Buchanan (D-Texas) worked with renowned soil conservationist Hugh Hammond Bennet to fund widespread erosion research in appropriations for the Department of Agriculture in 1930?

TODAY’S QUESTION: The number of veterans in the Senate held steady in the 118th Congress. How many senate seats are currently held by veterans?

The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Huddle. Send your answers to [email protected]

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Follow Katherine on Twitter @ktullymcmanus