Congress

Here’s how Trump could throw a ‘wrench’ into Hill funding negotiations as shutdown looms

Published

1 year ago

August 20, 2025

President Donald Trump’s budget director has talked about attempting the ultimate override of Congress’ funding prerogatives during the final 45 days of the fiscal year — and that time is now.

With six weeks left until Oct. 1, lawmakers are staring down a government shutdown deadline alongside the threat of a “pocket rescission,” a controversial White House tactic to cancel federal cash without the consent of Congress. It’s also a ploy that the government’s top watchdog, along with key lawmakers from both parties, say is illegal.

“The money evaporates at the end of the fiscal year,” White House budget chief Russ Vought said last month in defense of the gambit, adding it has “been used before.”

Lawmakers anticipate Trump will send Congress a formal rescissions request to claw back billions of dollars in federal funding as soon as lawmakers return from recess in September.

Already, the threat of the White House then unilaterally canceling the funding in October — regardless of Congress’ response to the request — is straining negotiations between Democrats and Republicans desperately trying to head off a shutdown with bipartisan negotiations, which Vought is also actively seeking to undermine.

“He is trying to throw a wrench in this by introducing or sending to us a second rescission bill — by trying to do pocket rescissions,” Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, the top Democrat on the appropriations panel that funds the military, said of Vought in an interview.

It also would undoubtedly throw Republicans into another politically dicey balancing act of trying not to buck their president while answering to constituents who are feeling the effects of the administration’s mass gutting of widely used government programs.

Congress cleared an initial rescissions package of $9 billion in cuts to public broadcasting and foreign aid in July. The White House has stayed publicly mum on what sort of programming it would seek to slash next, but officials have previously signaled the Department of Education will be the target of a second package, which could align with Trump’s controversial goal of eventually eliminating the agency altogether.

As for the size of this upcoming clawbacks request, Republicans have mixed predictions. Last month, Speaker Mike Johnson told members that a second package would be less than the $9 billion, but other GOP lawmakers said they expect to be asked to revoke much more money than that.

Under decades-old budget law, the White House is allowed to send Congress a rescissions request and then withhold the cash for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore the proposal. If lawmakers don’t pass the rescissions bill, the administration must spend the money as Congress intended. These were the conditions under which the administration transmitted its most recent plan.

Now, with less than 45 days before the current fiscal year comes to a close, top Trump administration officials argue the White House can send another rescissions package and then treat the funding as expired come midnight on Sept. 30 — regardless of congressional action.

And if the White House moves forward with the plan, it could do more than just cause political headaches. It very likely would kick off a high-stakes legal battle over Congress’ funding power and whether a presidential administration must spend all of the money prescribed by law or whether the spending levels are simply “a ceiling,” as Vought has contended.

The Government Accountability Office has said repeatedly that pocket rescissions are against the law and would “cede Congress’s power of the purse by allowing a president to, in effect, change the law by shortening the period of availability for fixed-period funds.”

Vought has taken aim at the watchdog, and Mark Paoletta, the Office of Management and Budget general counsel, piled on this month.

“Trump Derangement Syndrome is on full display” at GAO, Paoletta said on social media, and “wrong on pocket rescissions.”

“Congress is well aware” that the law allows the maneuver, he added, pointing out that lawmakers did not bother heeding GAO’s urging 50 years ago to fix a loophole leaving the legality question open to interpretation.

Yet even some of the Republican lawmakers who are hungry for more chances to kill funding are wary of the Trump administration using the rescissions process to undermine Congress’ funding power under Article I of the Constitution.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who reluctantly voted in support of the rescissions request last month, said he won’t support more clawback packages if the White House doesn’t provide account-by-account details of how the funding would be cut.

“I’m just not going to aid and abet moving appropriations decisions over to the Article II branch,” Tillis said in an interview.

Trump “just happens to be a Republican,” Tillis continued, but “we could regret this, just as Democrats would, if they are tempted to do the same thing. That’s why you’ve got to draw lines here institutionally.”

Concerns about precedent, legality and political appetite are converging on the reality for members of both parties that Republicans can’t afford to alienate Democrats, whose votes they likely need to pass any government funding bill to avoid a shutdown next month.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, when asked about a second rescissions package, stressed he would prefer to handle any more cuts through the regular appropriations process. “My hope would be that that’s the way we deal with a lot of these issues,” he said.

Democrats hope so too, and they have warned that any Trump administration effort to claw back money already approved by Congress — “pocket” or otherwise — would undermine lawmakers’ ability to work across party lines to avoid a shutdown.

In remarks late last month alongside House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his party’s senior appropriators, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would try to reach a compromise with Republicans despite GOP lawmakers’ approval of the latest $9 billion rescissions package.

But, he added, “Republicans are making it extremely difficult to do that … by talking about rescissions, pocket rescissions, impoundment — which would undo anything that we did in the budgets.”

Congress

Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent

Published

16 hours ago

October 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.

One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.

“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.

A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.

The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”

Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

2 days ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

2 days ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.