🍻 In This Week's Hill Spill: A Veterans Bill Implosion, a GOP Feud That Somehow Involves Nicki Minaj and Farewell to Lindsey Graham

🍹 Welcome back to the Hill Spill, your favorite Thirsty Thursday political newsletter! This week we are raising a glass to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, a true Capitol Hill original. We have got a veterans bill implosion, a Florida congressman threatening to tank the president's agenda over a podcast beef with Nicki Minaj somehow involved, and a Georgia Senate race that just got a lot more complicated. Pour something strong and let's get into it, gang!

Rep. Randy Fine's (R-Fla.) threat to vote against every rule on the House floor is ruffling some feathers on Capitol Hill, and with a razor thin majority, leadership can't exactly afford it. NOTUS first reported that Fine has been telling White House officials he won't budge until President Trump severs ties with outside adviser Alex Bruesewitz.

The feud between Fine and Bruesewitz has been brewing for weeks. It started when Bruesewitz appeared on Tucker Carlson's podcast, where Carlson referred to Fine as "that creepy fat guy from Florida who endorsed genocide." Bruesewitz did not push back, and added his own criticism, lumping Fine in with his primary challenger Dan Bilzerian and saying the district could use better options than either of them.

Fine went after all three on X, accusing Bruesewitz, Carlson and Candace Owens of trying to divide Jews and Christians and harboring hostility toward what he called the American origin story.

When TMZ pressed Fine on whether he was withholding votes until Bruesewitz was out of Trump's orbit, he would not give a straight answer. He said he had never voted against a presidential priority and did not plan to, while acknowledging there were tensions inside the conference he described as a family matter best handled privately. He also dismissed the NOTUS report, saying he was not familiar with the outlet and that no one had been quoted on the record.

Not everyone on the Hill is losing sleep over it.

"I don't know, I imagine Trump will call him at some point and square him away. Especially if his vote matters. He didn't vote no on the state approps bill. So obviously it's not that important to him," one lawmaker told us of the saga.

The White House said it would keep working with members to move the president's agenda forward.

Bruesewitz, for his part, shows no signs of going anywhere. Earlier this month he posted photos of himself, his wife and Nicki Minaj in the Oval Office with Trump, captioning it "NBD, just chillin in the Oval Office today with the President, my wife, and Nicki Minaj."

Minaj later weighed in on the Fine feud on X, writing that Alex would be "just FINE," citing his loyalty to the president and his standing with the Barbz.

Bruesewitz told us he hopes the reports about Fine are not accurate.

"I hope the rumors about Randy Fine aren't true. If they are, that is ridiculous. Congressmen should be focused on delivering results for their constituents, not threatening to tank the President's agenda because their feelings were hurt by something someone said on a podcast," he said.

We started getting texts Thursday about what went down in Speaker Johnson's ceremonial office during votes. Multiple sources in the room described it the same way: tense.

House Republicans had looking to pass the Take Care of America's Veterans Act to tout as a win ahead of the midterms — that plan hit some speed bumps. The bill aims to expand benefits for hundreds of thousands of veterans but included offsets that would scale back future disability claims for conditions including tinnitus and sleep apnea. While proponents argued it cuts waste and would modernize VA rules, some veterans groups and a handful of Republican members were not happy about it and refusing to move.

Johnson pulled holdouts into his ceremonial office for one last push. Luna, on background, told us she did not even want to be in the room — she had no plans to change her vote and had serious concerns about what the bill would do to future service members' claims. People seemed pretty split over who bore the responsible for things going off the rails.

Things escalated quickly and there was apparently yelling involved, with one lawmaker telling us that Nunn raised his voice while trying to convey his point.

Another GOP lawmaker offered a different read on who was the problem.

"She's the one who called the chair's bill stupid, stormed out of the room yelling, and it's about helping veterans, not her Twitter account," they told us, granted anonymity to speak candidly. That lawmaker also noted that the breakdown of votes was bipartisan before the veterans debate even got started.

“Too many members have left town to pass the bill today, the VFW and AmVets need time to work out a peace plan, and the options in September are either a new bill or a discharge petition,” they added.

"That type of behavior wouldn't be tolerated in the normal workforce," Luna told us. "What I will continue to fight for is veteran expansion of benefits and ensuring that this legislation does not harm those that have potential future claims. I look forward to a better version of the bill coming to the floor."

Johnson attributed the failure to what he called misinformation and said leadership would take another look in the coming weeks. Republicans narrowly beat back a Democratic push to send the bill back to committee before pulling it from the floor entirely.

This week on the pod, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) joins us fresh off the codel that turned into one of the most dramatic congressional trips in recent memory. We get his side of the story on the fight over hosting the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly in Charleston, the text messages (great scoop by Semafor), the heated closed-door meeting and what he really thinks about Serbia stepping in. He also opens up about his decades-long friendship with the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, sharing some personal stories including the time Graham and John McCain roasted him at a Hilton Head dinner and the moment Graham let a "lowly House member" walk off Air Force One with the president. He also weighs in on who might succeed Graham and what his passing means for the future of Ukraine sanctions. Grab a bev and tune in.

Our friend Andrew Kaczynski over at CNN (a great follow on X and Threads) dropped a story this morning on Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, who is running against Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff this fall, and it is a doozy.

Collins has made a name for himself as one of the louder pro-Trump voices on social media. But CNN's reporting this morning brings scrutiny much closer to home. His son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, who is married to Collins' daughter Summer, has amassed a following of more than 1.5 million people across social media by posting about fitness, masculinity and Christianity.

The content CNN uncovered goes significantly further than that, including promotion of White nationalist views, antisemitic conspiracy theories, Nazi imagery, calls to deport Muslims and an antisemitic graphic that Scheer said his wife helped create.

Last fall on a podcast, Scheer said that restoring the America he envisions would involve removing people who are not of White European descent from the country.

Scheer is not a distant figure in Collins' orbit. He shows up in family photos on Collins' Senate campaign website, was at Collins' primary election night celebration and appears to have done promotional video work for Collins' trucking business. He is registered to vote at a property Collins owns right next to the congressman's home.

Collins' campaign did not engage with CNN's specific questions, but a spokesperson emphasized Collins' support for Israel. Scheer did not respond to CNN's requests for comment.

Collins is a significant underdog heading into the fall against Ossoff, with polling showing him trailing by double digits.

The sudden passing of Sen. Lindsey Graham was shocking to the Capitol, and for those of us on the press beat, it truly feels like the end of an era. Many in the press corps, including myself, will always appreciate his candor, wit, and willingness to speak with us all. In an era of tightly scripted, media-trained politicians, he was almost always ready to hold court and provide a sharp quote.

It’s that warmer, laughter-filled side of him that Meghan McCain captured so beautifully in her tribute for The Washington Post. Reflecting on the final member of the Senate's legendary "Three Amigos," McCain admitted their relationship grew complicated in his later years, but chose to focus on the decades of joy and mischief he brought to their lives. She closed stating she hoped that he is finally at peace, drinking a White Russian alongside her dad, John, and Sen. Joe Lieberman.

So tonight, we are raising a glass to a legendary Capitol fixture who always kept our notebooks full. Rest easy, senator.

Pour the vodka and Kahlúa over ice into a rocks glass, top it with a float of heavy cream, give it a stir.