Congress
Looming Epstein vote has Republicans eager to leave Washington
House Republican leaders are under fierce internal pressure to send members home for the summer amid deepening anxiety over a possible vote on the Jeffrey Epstein controversy.
Many GOP lawmakers fear being cornered by an expected “discharge petition” that would force a House vote on publicizing Epstein-related records. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) launched the effort Tuesday, making it available for signatures and a possible floor vote as soon as next week.
Democrats have already forced Republicans to take tough Epstein-related procedural votes that have stoked a barrage of constituent calls into GOP offices, but they have not yet been able to force a clear up-or-down vote on releasing the so-called Epstein files.
Questions about the late convicted sex predator have exploded inside the GOP since the Justice Department announced earlier this month it had concluded there was no foul play involved in his 2019 death while in federal custody and there is no “client list” of powerful accomplices to be released.
Republicans want to leave town early for several reasons, but senior House Republicans acknowledge the calls for transparency around the Epstein case is becoming a bigger problem for the party.
President Donald Trump’s insistence that the controversy is a “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” concocted by Democrats — while eviscerating some of his own supporters as “weaklings” who have fallen prey to his political opponents’ “bullshit” — has done little to tamp down the fury.
“It’s all Epstein, all day,” said one frustrated House Republican who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the controversy. “We can’t ignore this.”
The hope, according to more than a dozen GOP members and aides, has been that Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise decide to cancel next week’s scheduled House session and instead send members home for an extended summer recess once voting concludes Thursday or Friday.
The thinking, the members and aides said, is that members won’t have to face questions at home about whether or not they have signed on to the Massie-Khanna effort — and that the issue will have died down by the time members return to Washington in September.
Scalise said Tuesday there are no plans to change the House schedule, which has members staying in Washington through July 24. An aide to the majority leader reiterated Thursday that plan “is not changing.”
Leaving early would spark intense anger from appropriators who are already livid over delays in government funding work ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline. GOP leaders have discussed changing next week’s schedule, but senior Republican aides acknowledge it would not look good to leave for the traditional August recess in mid-July, with plenty more work to do.
Democrats are expected to create more headaches for the GOP Thursday, by seeking to attach an Epstein-related amendment to the Trump administration’s funding clawbacks package in the House Rules Committee. A similar effort failed earlier this week, but not before one GOP member of the panel broke ranks.
Massie said in an interview he was confident the Epstein issue would remain ripe through the summer. He recalled how conservative hard-liners moved a decade ago to remove former Speaker John Boehner right before the August recess — and then Boehner resigned after members came back in September.
“They probably want to let the steam out, but this will build momentum over August,” Massie said. “They can’t sweep it under the rug.”
The Epstein saga has been a subject of deep fascination for many Trump supporters, who see it as emblematic of a deeply corrupt cabal of political elites preying on vulnerable Americans. Trump, who associated with Epstein in the past and has denied any wrongdoing, discussed the controversy on the campaign trail and pledged to root out any coverup.
But after the Justice Department essentially announced there’s no there there, the pressure broke out into a full crisis this week. Some Republican lawmakers have reported an onslaught of calls from constituents. Others are calling for Epstein accomplices and others to testify before Congress.
Some House Republicans have raised the matter in private floor conversations with party leaders, begging them to do something.
The level of alarm exploded after Massie, a dissident Republican, unveiled his discharge effort with Khanna. It would tee up a floor vote on legislation giving Attorney General Pam Bondi 30 days to release a broad array of files related to Epstein, his onetime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell and other associates.
Notably, it would provide for the release of investigative files without regard for “[e]mbarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”
Under House rules, the measure becomes available for discharge signatures after seven legislative days.
Trump’s effort Wednesday to tamp down the controversy — suggesting his own supporters had “bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker” — only triggered more alarm across the GOP conference.
“People are like, ‘What the fuck is the president doing?’” said a second House Republican, also granted anonymity to speak candidly.
The lawmaker added that “people are freaking out” and the issue is “only getting worse.”
Asked by reporters Thursday if he supports using congressional authority to investigate the Epstein matter, Johnson replied, ”Look, we’ll see how it all develops.”
“We’re for transparency. I’ve said that repeatedly, so has the president,” Johnson said. “And all the credible information needs to come out and the American people need to make their own decisions.”
The chair of the House Agriculture Committee said he’s not willing to “accept bad results” as a tradeoff for the benefits of advancements in artificial intelligence — a direct rebuttal to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“As someone who practiced health care for 28 years, I’m never willing to accept bad results. I think we just need to do our best,” Rep. G.T. Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, told reporters Monday.
He was responding to Altman’s comments to Decoded by Blue Light News that people “should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”
Pressed further on whether he agreed with Altman’s premise, Thompson replied, “No, I think we have to work harder to prevent any bad things from happening.”
Altman’s comments come in the wake of increased panic over the risks of catastrophic destruction from AI, with many industry leaders and experts arguing that guardrails are needed on the technology to prevent it from spinning out of human control.
Pressure is building on Congress to regulate the rapidly-advancing technology, but lawmakers are divided over whether the AI industry needs federal regulation or if it’s capable of governing itself.
The executives of major AI labs and tech companies gathered at the White House last week to discuss solutions with President Donald Trump, who believes overregulating AI will have national security repercussions. The group ended up signing a “morally binding” AI accord that critics say won’t do enough to prevent a worst-case scenario.
Thompson noted Monday he believes that AI will bring “tremendous solutions,” specifically in regards to finding cures for health issues like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. But he also said AI has to be led with “principle” — comparing it to how he addressed digital assets in a bill to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, which he worked on as chair of the Agriculture Committee.
“The first principle is ‘do no harm.’ So we need to protect consumers, and that means, I think, building some guardrails — some guidelines — to do that,” Thompson said. He added that the second principle is to “foster innovation.”
“I think AI has a lot to do with that,” he added. “I don’t think AI works without RI: Real Intelligence.”
LE SUEUR, Minnesota — Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is no “consensus” yet on advancing a bill establishing permanent daylight saving time even as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Republicans to pass it.
Thune addressed the matter in a Monday interview after Trump used his Truth Social account multiple times over the weekend to rail against the legislation, known as the Sunshine Protection Act — going so far as to post the personal cell phone number of one of its GOP opponents, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
“The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues,” he said. “It’s something we’re having conversations about but there’s no clear path forward or consensus on it yet.”
While Trump singled out Cotton for scrutiny, Thune made clear the opposition to the permanent daylight saving time proposal — which would lead to very late winter sunrises in some parts of the country — ran deeper than one senator.
Cotton has publicly voiced opposition to the proposal for year, citing, among other things, the fact that children in his state would be going to school in the dark for part of the year.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) voiced similar objections Monday to reporters in the Capitol, saying he was mindful of “safety concerns in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus in very early hours.”
Thune, who spoke during a campaign swing in Minnesota with GOP Senate nominee Michele Tafoya, has himself opposed previous daylight saving bills. He said Monday that “a lot of it depends on where you are in the country” and that “your geography probably has as much to do with your position on that as anything.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who has aligned himself closely with Trump, is among the lawmakers who have been pushing to get the bill through the Senate. He recently told POLITICO, “I’m going to make sure it gets passed this year.”
Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
Democrats have pulled back some of their ads in North Carolina’s Senate race, days after the top Senate Republican super PAC paused its future spending in the state.
WinSenate, a group affiliated with the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, has removed roughly $1.1 million in North Carolina ad buys this week, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. The group still has roughly $18.8 million in future reservations through Election Day.
“Senate Majority PAC is committed to seeing this race through to victory, and will continue to make spending decisions based on how to best build a strong Senate majority,” Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.
The move, combined with the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund’s decision to pause future spending, are a signal that both parties are shifting resources amid an ever-expanding Senate map. Democrats are increasingly confident in their North Carolina Senate nominee, Roy Cooper, as he continues to hold a sizable lead in public polling over Republican Michael Whatley — but some privately say states like Michigan and New Hampshire need more resources.
Meanwhile, multiple Republican groups, not just SLF, have retreated from the state in recent weeks, effectively deciding that it’s no longer worth the money to boost Whatley’s campaign.
The Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity Action left North Carolina off its $22 million list of future spending across key Senate contests, and Old North Action removed $6.5 million in ad reservations last month.
The Cooper campaign, however, is still treating the race as competitive, pointing to North Carolina’s closely divided electorate and the fact that President Donald Trump won the state in each of the past three presidential elections.
“North Carolina is a truly 50/50 state and Democrats haven’t won a US Senate race in 18 years. We can’t take anything for granted or our eye off the ball,” said Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to the Cooper campaign. “DC is broken and we’re going to continue to run this race like we’re ten points down to ensure North Carolinians get the change they desperately need.”
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