House Republicans from every ideological caucus — known colloquially as the "five families" — are using the absence of a unified GOP budget proposal to attempt to shape negotiations with the White House, Axios' Andrew Solender reports.

Why it matters: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) accommodating leadership style and narrow majority — along with the concessions he made to become speaker — have empowered rank-and-file lawmakers to try to exert new influence.

• But the splintering efforts threaten to make it even more difficult for McCarthy to unite the conference and wield leverage against the White House — both on spending cuts and the debt ceiling.
• "I've never been more pessimistic about where we stand with the debt ceiling," House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) told Punchbowl News today, warning he does not see a path to a deal.

Driving the news: McCarthy sent a letter to President Biden requesting a meeting and laying out broad proposals for cutting trillions of dollars in spending in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

• In contrast to the "woke, weaponized and wasteful spending" refrain championed by the right-wing Freedom Caucus against the White House, McCarthy's letter struck a more moderate tone by citing proposals Biden has previously supported.
• Biden and his staff have repeatedly said Republicans need to put out their own budget before any serious negotiations can take place — and reiterated that demand in response to McCarthy's letter.

What we're hearing: GOP lawmakers across the ideological spectrum told Axios they agree with the sentiments of the letter. But that's not stopping them from charging ahead with their own demands.

• Members of the Freedom Caucus, which has already laid out a list of drastic prerequisites for voting to raise the debt ceiling, announced plans to introduce more than 500 pieces of legislation totaling around $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years.
• Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), chair of the Republican Study Committee, said the 176-member conservative group still plans to release its annual alternative budget in mid-April — while boasting that a "huge majority" of RSC's debt limit playbook was included in McCarthy's letter.
• Other groups, including the "pragmatic" Main Street Caucus and moderate Republican Governance Group, are playing a more behind-the-scenes role in the negotiations.

Between the lines: McCarthy "obviously can't pass anything without 218 votes," Hern said, adding that the speaker's job is to balance equities to craft a GOP budget everyone can coalesce around.

• One senior House Republican told Axios: "Most of the Freedom Caucus members I talk to are acutely aware of the fact that they're not going to get everything they want."
• "At the end of the day, I'll make you a bet, nobody gets everything they want," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the chair of the Rules Committee.

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Three quotes that capture the paralyzed state of the federal gun debate after yesterday's school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee:

• President Biden: "I can't do anything except plead with the Congress to act reasonably. I have gone the full extent of my executive authority to do on my own anything about guns."
• Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.): "It's a horrible, horrible situation. And we're not going to fix it. Criminals are going to be criminals. ... I don't see any role that we could do other than mess things up, honestly."
• Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas): "I would say we've gone about as far as we can go — unless somebody identifies some area that we didn't address."

Why it matters: There have been far more mass shootings this year (130) than there have been days (87), according to the Gun Violence Archive. But the bipartisan gun law Biden signed last year appears to be the end of the road for federal gun reform, at least for the rest of this Congress.

Latest: Nashville police said today that the suspected shooter legally purchased seven guns from five local gun stores, and that the suspect was under doctor's care for an undisclosed emotional disorder.

Notable quotable: Senate Chaplain Barry Black, who rarely wades into politics, urged lawmakers to act in today's opening prayer:

"Lord, when babies die at a church school, it is time for us to move beyond thoughts and prayers. Remind our lawmakers of the words of the British statesman Edmund Burke: ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.’ Lord, deliver our senators from the paralysis of analysis that waits for the miraculous."

The Manhattan grand jury investigating former President Trump's alleged hush money payments to a porn star is not expected to vote on an indictment this week, NBC News reports.

But at the federal level, things are heating up:

• A federal judge ordered former Vice President Mike Pence to testify to a grand jury about any potentially illegal acts committed by Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the New York Times reports.
• Pence could be the most important witness in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation, given the public and private pressure Trump exerted on his vice president both before and during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is seriously considering a 2024 presidential campaign, told Axios that he will never support Donald Trump for president again — even if he wins the Republican nomination.

Why it matters: No potential GOP candidate has made such an explicit pledge, underscoring the degree to which Christie is betting on the viability of an anti-Trump lane in the primary, Axios' Josh Kraushaar writes.

• Christie was one of the first top Republicans to back Trump in 2016 after the reality TV star emerged as the GOP front-runner — and even helped Trump prepare to debate Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign.
• "Look, I just can't," Christie told Axios. "When you have the Jan. 6 choir at a rally and you show video of it — I just don't think that person is appropriate for the presidency."

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