Turns out President Donald Trump didn’t have the magic touch House Republicans were expecting. Another day of crypto drama has now put the House in a severe time crunch, setting members up for a mammoth day of voting Thursday.

To recap: Speaker Mike Johnson headed into Wednesday confident that Trump had struck a deal with conservative holdouts to move a trio of cryptocurrency bills. But that quickly evaporated after committee chairs pushed back at hard-liners’ demands to attach a central bank digital currency ban to another bipartisan crypto bill.

The impasse kept the House rule vote open for nine hours until GOP leaders finally cut a late-night deal to include a CBDC ban in the National Defense Authorization Act.

The crypto crash-out now leaves the House with a lot to do in very little time: The three crypto bills, the Defense appropriations bill and a rescissions package were all scheduled to get a vote this week. House Republican leaders wanted to punt the Defense bill to next week — but an irate Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) insisted they finish up this week. The House stayed in extra late Wednesday night for general debate and en bloc amendments.

“He is just mad — I don’t blame him,” one House Republican told Blue Light News about Cole, who has his eye on the 11 unpassed fiscal 2026 spending bills and the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

Which brings us to Thursday: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told Blue Light News the House will begin debating individual Defense amendments Thursday morning before finishing up that bill and moving on to the three cryptocurrency bills.

But the real must-do is recissions. The Senate finally passed a modified package around 2:30 a.m. Now the House needs to reconvene the Rules Committee, approve yet another rule on the floor and then vote on sending the $9 billion clawbacks package to Trump’s desk.

That’s a lot to cram into less than two days, especially with the rescissions deadline looming Friday night. If they get too close to the deadline, it’s possible Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — fresh off of an eight-hour “magic minute” speech two weeks ago — could try to blow past it.

If something’s got to give, watch to see whether all three cryptocurrency bills end up getting a vote this week as planned. One possibility under discussion is passing only the Senate-approved stablecoin bill, which Trump wants to sign as soon as possible, and punting the other votes.

He called into a meeting with holdouts and key committee leaders late Wednesday after they struck a new deal — for real this time.

“He’s happy with it,” a person in the room told Blue Light News of the outcome.

What else we’re watching:

— Senate Approps resumes: Senate Appropriations will resume its markup of the Commerce-Justice-Science funding bill Thursday morning after a fight over the future location of FBI headquarters derailed last week’s proceedings.

— Bove, Pirro get a committee vote: It appears all but certain Senate Judiciary will have the votes to favorably advance Emil Bove’s nomination Thursday morning, but the panel’s Democrats are still expected to put up a big fight against Trump’s pick to serve as a judge to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Also up for a committee vote is Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. Attorney for D.C.

— Epstein files fallout: GOP leaders are keeping their distance as MAGA outrage grows over the releasing of files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Johnson said he was “misquoted and misrepresented” in reports that he was breaking with Trump over whether to release the files. Senate Majority Leader John Thune dodged again Wednesday, telling reporters: “I’m not at this point taking a position on it. I just think it’s going to be a question that’s left to others to decide.”

Meredith Lee Hill, Jennifer Scholtes and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.

The House late Wednesday advanced a trio of cryptocurrency bills and a 2026 Defense spending measure after a group of GOP hard-liners dropped their opposition to the effort following a chaotic day of turnabouts and negotiations with Republican leaders.

The House voted 217-212 to advance the bills following a closed-door standoff between House conservatives and the leaders of the Financial Services and Agriculture committees, which crafted the legislation. The vote was held open more than nine hours for the negotiations.

GOP hard-liners, who tanked a procedural vote on the bills Tuesday afternoon, were pushing to merge a sweeping crypto market structure bill known as the CLARITY Act with separate, partisan legislation to ban a central bank digital currency. The GOP chairs of the Financial Services and Agriculture panels, Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.), opposed that plan, fearing it would kill off Democratic support for the market structure bill.

The Republican rebels dropped their opposition after GOP leaders said they would attach a measure banning a CBDC — a government-issued digital dollar that conservatives say would open the door to privacy invasions — to a must-pass defense authorization bill. The deal came following a late-night meeting in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office.

Trump called in at the very end and was briefed on the agreement, according to two people in the room granted anonymity to describe a private discussion. “He’s happy with it,” one of the people said.

“This breaks the logjam, allows us to get our work done,” Johnson afterward. The Louisiana Republican spoke to Senate Majority Leader John Thune Wednesday about adding the CBDC ban to the NDAA, according to two other people granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

The procedural vote tees the House up to adopt the crypto bills in the coming days. Johnson said he expects to vote on a Senate-approved measure that would create new rules for so-called stablecoins on Thursday. A vote on the CLARITY bill could be pushed to next week.

The stablecoin legislation, known as the GENIUS Act, would go to President Donald Trump’s desk and become the first major crypto bill ever passed by Congress, delivering a major lobbying victory to crypto firms.

The procedural vote also will allow the House to move swiftly on an amended package of spending clawbacks requested by Trump. As House Republicans struggled over crypto issues Wednesday, senators were grinding through votes in hopes of approving the rescissions package ahead of a Friday deadline.

White House officials have discussed potential candidates who could replace Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) if she elects not to run again in 2026, according to a person familiar with the conversation granted anonymity to speak about political strategy.

Though there is no discussion of pushing a primary on the 72-year old, President Donald Trump would love to see a “better option,” in place of one of his most persistent GOP critics, the person said.

Though she hasn’t formally launched a campaign, the Senate Appropriations chair confirmed Tuesday she is planning to run again and was “pleased” with strong fundraising she reported last week.

Collins’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The person declined to say who Trump might like to see run if Collins retires when her fifth term ends.

Collins – chair of the historically powerful Appropriations Committee — is one of a handful of lawmakers Democrats hope to knock out to retake the majority. Flipping Maine, which former Vice President Kamala Harris carried in 2024, would be much easier for Democrats if Collins decided not to run.

Collins, a moderate Republican, has faced an uphill battle in the Senate this month, with GOP leaders pushing through Trump’s megabill while snubbing some of her safety-net cutback concerns. In addition this week, Republicans are pushing through a Trump claw back effort of $9 billion in spending Collins helped approve.