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By Sydney Kashiwagi

The Minnesota Star Tribune

Hello and welcome back to another D.C. Dish! 

It's a busy week on Capitol Hill as House committees begin markups on the reconciliation bill, which GOP Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to pass sometime before Memorial Day weekend. 

A GOP civil war is brewing. As Republicans try to unify the party around the bill, the GOP in Minnesota are at a standoff. 

Hundreds of conservatives across Minnesota gathered in Bloomington on Monday evening for one of the state Republican Party’s biggest fundraising events of the year.

But missing were the state's highest-ranking Republicans amid disagreements with the direction the party is going under the leadership of its new chair, Alex Plechash, and executive director, Jennifer DeJournett, who they believe are associating too closely with conservative grassroots factions of the party, several Republican sources said. 

MIA GOP lawmakers. Reps. Tom Emmer, Pete Stauber, Michelle Fischbach and Brad Finstad didn't go, Republican sources in the room confirmed to me, even though the U.S. House wasn't in session and folks like Emmer were back in Minnesota. Not only did the delegation not go, but GOP sources also told me that they didn't send any video messages showing support for the party, either. 

It was a stark contrast from last year, when President Donald Trump headlined the fundraiser and Emmer, the state's highest-ranking Republican and the No. 3 Republican in the U.S. House, pledged to donate $100,000 to the party.

Emmer and the delegation have vowed to not help the party financially until it cuts off ties with Action 4 Liberty and gets rid of party officials they believe are too closely affiliated with the group. Action 4 Liberty is a far-right group that has antagonized GOP elected officials for years.

If the party stops these affiliations, the delegation may step back in and support the party. If it doesn’t, the party may be left to fend for itself at a time when it’s already struggling financially and has two major pickup opportunities next year with U.S. Sen. Tina Smith retiring and Rep. Angie Craig leaving her competitive Second Congressional District seat to run for the U.S. Senate. Read more. 

Is A4L the winner? Ultimately, one GOP source who went to last night's dinner told me they think the feud between the party and the delegation will only help A4L. 

"It’s all just theatrics. The absence is symbolic, but its effects are limited, at best. This civil war only helps A4L," the GOP source told me. 

Unlike the delegation, A4L did attend the dinner. An official posted a photo holding a photo showing the group booked a VIP table at the event. 

The who's who that went. Though the delegation didn't go, I'm told that a number of prospective candidates did, including gubernatorial candidates Kendall Qualls and Phil Parrish, Senate candidate Adam Schwarze, and former Second Congressional District candidate Joe Teirab, who lost to Craig last year and hasn't closed the door on another run for the seat. I'm also told that state Sen. Glenn Gruenhagen, R-Glencoe, attended the dinner as well. 

The Minnesota Star Tribune

Walz heads to South Carolina, California. Gov. Tim Walz is being sought out on the speaker's circuit for some important Democratic states as he continues to mull his political future. 

He’s set to speak at state political conventions in South Carolina and California, the New York Times reports. South Carolina is a big one because it's a state that could be the first decider of the 2028 presidential primary if the 2024 calendar holds true. California is another one because it's the most populous state in the country with the highest number of DNC delegates. 

But there's more to his visits. A DFL source said the visits are notable because it could mean Walz is viewed as one of the de facto leaders of the party as it wrestles to figure out who its leader is heading into 2028 after last year's loss. It also means that he's keeping the door open to the possibility of a 2028 presidential run. 

“Tim knows what that means in him going to South Carolina," the DFL source said. "He knows what the chatter's going to be, he knows that doing those town hall tours, he knows what that means, and he’s leaning into it. He's not batting down. If he wasn't interested in running, he would not be keeping up the chatter, he would not be going to South Carolina.” 

Looking back to 2024. As Walz continues to wrestle with what’s next, his son, Gus Walz, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar looked back to 2024.  

Gus spoke this week for the first time since last year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago when he became emotional as his dad spoke to the crowd, my colleague Allison Kite reports.

While much of the world — including the governor — was touched when Gus yelled, “That’s my dad!” and pointed to Walz onstage, parts of the internet responded with derision. The younger Walz told CBS that last year was "surreal" for him.

“It was super overwhelming because, to me, he’s just regular old dad,” Gus, 18, said in a “CBS Mornings” interview aired Monday. Read more. 

Klobuchar's Monday morning quarterback take. Meanwhile, Klobuchar told "Meet the Press" over the weekend that Democrats would have been "better served" by a Democratic primary in the 2024 presidential race. 

“You know, everything we look at in a rearview mirror after you lose an election. Yes, we would have been served better by a primary, but we are where we are,” Klobuchar told NBC News.

She also said: “I’m not interested in going backwards in time. I’m interested in going forward."

Minnesotan businesses and farmers expressed relief Monday over the temporary pause in the trade war between the U.S. and China, with some small firms working to get their products onto ships as soon as possible, my colleague Christopher Vondracek reports. 

U.S. and Chinese negotiators in Geneva worked out a deal over the weekend that would lower 145% tariffs on most Chinese goods to 30%, and also lower China’s retaliatory tariffs to 10%.

Without certainty about what comes next, John Nephew, president of Proctor, Minn.-based Atlas Games, said the company will bring the entire print run of its Catstronauts board game on the next available ship. Read more. 

Google has ramped up a lobbying offensive in Minnesota to influence tax breaks and regulations for data centers, according to three state lawmakers, my colleague Walker Orenstein reports. 

This influence campaign comes more than two years after Google abandoned its last known plan for a data center in Minnesota, a $600 million project in Sherburne County.

The tech titan won’t say if it’s pursuing a new data center in Minnesota. Google declined to comment both about its interest in the state and at the Legislature. Read more. 

Walz will meet with legislative leaders at 10 a.m. today. 

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The Kids Code Coalition will host a virtual press briefing today at 1:30 p.m. Central time to highlight the momentum it has been building in state legislatures for social media warning labels as a way to help address the youth mental health crisis. 

Attorney General Keith Ellison and state Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, who authored the warning label legislation in the state, will be joined by local lawmakers from California to New York and Texas.