Congress
GOP Senators rail at FDA after closed-door briefing on abortion drug
Some Senate Republicans emerged disappointed from a closed-door briefing Tuesday with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, saying the agency is not taking a safety review of the abortion pill mifepristone seriously and calling for congressional action to curb access to the drug.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said in an interview Makary failed to give a timeline for completion of the review, explain what the audit will involve and disclose whether it was even underway.
“I think that this safety study is a dead end,” Hawley said. “I just think that FDA is not serious about it. I don’t think that they’re proceeding with any sense of urgency whatsoever. If they’re really proceeding at all. I frankly, can’t tell.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee who organized the briefing for select GOP senators, in a statement also blasted “the lack of progress on HHS and FDA’s promised safety study on these dangerous drugs” as “disappointing,” and complained the review was “moving too slowly.”
It’s not clear what comes next. Republicans have previously tried and failed to impose restrictions on mifepristone, which is used in more than two-thirds of abortions, through government funding legislation. Hawley said he has not yet decided whether to attempt to place guardrails on the drug as part of the next appropriations process or introduce standalone a standalone bill but that he will roll out his plans in the coming weeks.
“I don’t have confidence [the FDA review] is going to amount to anything,” he said. “My view is Congress now needs to get involved.”
Reached for comment, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon referred Blue Light News to a previous agency statement asserting the FDA “is taking care to do this study properly and in the right way.”
“We are planning to complete the study as soon as possible while ensuring we are not cutting any corners from a scientific research standpoint,” the statement reads, adding that such reviews “often take approximately a year or more to conduct.”
Conservative anger with the Trump administration has boiled over in recent months over its decision to leave in place Biden-era rules that expanded access to abortion pills via mail and telemedicine, and for approving a new generic version of the drug. Administration officials took narrower steps in January to roll back access to mifepristone at retail pharmacies, but the anti-abortion movement and their allies in Congress are pressuring the FDA to abolish telemedicine prescription of the pills or ban them altogether.
At the same time, several GOP states are suing the agency, including Cassidy’s Louisiana and Hawley’s Missouri. The Trump administration has tried to rebuff these lawsuits, asking judges to wait until FDA’s ongoing study is completed before issuing a ruling. Anti-abortion activists, tired of waiting, have threatened to withhold resources from the GOP in the upcoming midterm elections if they don’t see action on the drugs.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar has formally announced his bid for House majority whip.
“With a Democratic majority, we’ll have the tools to rein in this out-of-control administration and investigate the agencies, officials and corporations that have been making life harder and more expensive for our communities,” the California Democrat wrote in a letter to colleagues Thursday. “I look forward to working with each of you to deliver on our affordability agenda.”
Aguilar is currently unopposed for the No. 3 slot in the new House Democratic majority.
As whip, Aguilar will have to stitch together an ideologically diverse caucus that could be as large as 260 members. With such a significant margin, Aguilar would have more cushion to lose votes on key legislation than Republican leaders, who have struggled to wrangle their members on party-line bills over the last two years.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts have already announced their candidacies for speaker and majority leader, respectively. They also have no challengers at this time.
Rep. French Hill, a senior Republican who barely won reelection in Little Rock this week, said President Donald Trump’s “unfavorability” is to blame for sweeping GOP losses.
The Associated Press called the race for Hill on Thursday after the six-term lawmaker and House Financial Services Committee chair faced off against Democrat Chris Jones. Hill won by less than 2 percentage points.
“President Trump’s unfavorability had a lot of impact on races across the country,” Hill said in an interview. “I think that’s evident by some of the exit polling. We had, in my judgment, recruited good candidates who had good funding for their campaigns. But it was a wave election, and we lost a lot of really good, constructive members of the House.”
It was the closest race yet for Hill, who struggled to win even as he outspent Jones, a former Arkansas gubernatorial candidate, 3 to 1. As House Financial Services chair, Hill has been instrumental the last two years in enacting bipartisan housing and cryptocurrency legislation.
During the campaign, Hill was willing to distance himself from Trump, especially when it came to touting the housing bill that the president refused to sign.
In the interview Wednesday, Hill suggested that Republicans could break further with Trump during the final two years of his term.
“He will be considered a lame duck, and that often has members of both political parties looking out at who will be the standard-bearers in the 2028 presidential election,” he said. “So, I think certainly that will influence policymaking and politics inside the House and Senate.”
Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts officially announced her bid for majority leader in a letter to colleagues Thursday.
Clark, currently the No. 2 to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, is widely considered a shoo-in among her colleagues. She is currently unopposed, and if she wins, she would be the first woman with the title and most progressive member of the top leadership trio that is also expected to include Jeffries as speaker and Rep. Pete Aguilar as whip.
In line with leadership’s campaign message, Clark emphasized “Affordability, Affordability, Affordability” in her pitch to the caucus. Specifically, she named “ending the reckless war in Iran, rescinding Trump’s tariffs, reversing Republicans’ catastrophic cuts to healthcare and food assistance, curing off their giveaways to the Epstein Class, and pursuing rigorous oversight of this corrupt administration.”
To wrangle House Democrats’ massive majority — which is tracking to reach over 255 seats — Clark vowed to members: “At every decision point, I intend to work closely with you to understand the needs of your district and maximize your ability to deliver for your constituents.”
“Democrats will succeed by working as a team.” she added.
Clark will get a vote during House Democratic leadership elections scheduled for Nov. 18 and 19.
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