Congress

‘The original sin:’ Hill Republicans blame White House for slow-walking FISA sales pitch

Published

5 months ago

April 17, 2026

A messy GOP battle over a key government spy authority boiled over in the House this week — but the crisis was months in the making.

White House officials and Republican Hill leaders have tried to pressure GOP hard-liners into approving a clean, 18-month extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that President Donald Trump demanded. But amid a GOP rebellion on Capitol Hill, Speaker Mike Johnson Thursday afternoon punted a vote on the measure for the second day in a row.

The program expires Monday night. Senators went home for the weekend as Johnson continued to pursue a compromise with the holdouts for an extension as long as three years with reforms, and raced to hold a vote.

Now, the finger-pointing among Republicans is rampant and temperatures are running high.

A band of House ultraconservatives — who have long been concerned that warrantless government surveillance of foreign individuals could sweep up data on Americans — shot down Trump and GOP leaders’ long-held plans for the 18-month extension with no reforms earlier this week.

“A clean extension ain’t going to move on the floor,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, one of the head House GOP holdouts, warned earlier this week.

In interviews with more than two dozen Republican lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill involved in the talks, many of whom were granted anonymity to speak freely about the contentious policy debate, the consensus is that the White House is largely responsible for the current breakdown as GOP factions snipe and assign blame.

“This is why we shouldn’t wait until the last minute on these things,” one House Republican fumed Thursday. A congressional GOP aide added, “The White House was too late to come to a decision. That was the original sin.”

A senior White House official disputed the characterization from some Hill Republicans that the administration had taken too long to plead their case. They pointed to a briefing in the Situation Room months ago with Republican lawmakers, during which “the president heard arguments on both sides of the issue.”

The official added, “We’ve had multiple briefings from senior officials, both on the House and Senate side, about the desirability of this program. Again, going back months ago.”

Trump told House Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that he wanted a clean extension, without reforms, in February. The president arrived at this position, a second White House official said, after “the administration completed a policy process through the interagency and advised POTUS that a clean extension was the best course and solicited views on length from Blue Light News.”

There was also coordination between the White House and Capitol Hill, according to three people familiar and the senior White House official: Johnson requested the reauthorization run for 18 months, and Trump agreed.

The administration succeeded in convincing Jordan, who had previously pushed for changes to Section 702, to publicly support a clean extension following a White House meeting on the subject.

But ultraconservatives on Capitol Hill were harder to convince, with some House Republicans correctly predicting two months ago they were going to have issues as the vote drew nearer. Trump has forced those hard-liners to cave in recent months on other fights, but the spy powers legislation was one area where members have not been as willing to relent.

While Trump officials made outreach to members at least two months ago, Hill engagement ramped up in the days leading up to the scheduled vote. That has included appeals to lawmakers from CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Deputy CIA Director Michael Ellis and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine, according to five people. Ellis has made personal phone calls to members, according to two people familiar with the pressure campaign.

White House deputy chief of staff James Blair, White House Legislative Affairs chief James Braid and other legislative affairs officials have also been calling individual House Republicans and working through negotiation details, according to six other people with direct knowledge of the conversations.

Noticeably absent from this outreach is Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Her office plays a statutory role in overseeing Section 702 and has historically been a key proponent of the powerful spy powers.

Gabbard in early February expressed concerns to Trump about reauthorizing the statute without additional privacy guardrails, as Blue Light News reported earlier Thursday, though her appeal appears to have been unsuccessful.

And while the administration’s position on Section 702 came into focus in February, there were signs earlier in the month that its position had not fully crystallized. Officials meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee at that time refused to divulge the White House’s stance on extending the surveillance power and adding reforms, according to five people with knowledge of the meeting. The exchange frustrated Republicans and Democrats on the panel, who are generally supportive of the surveillance program.

Due to a quirk in the law, the administration will still be able to operate the program for nearly a year even if it is not renewed, and privacy advocates have argued that Monday is a false deadline. But without the law on the books, communications providers like Google and AT&T, which the government tasks to surveil foreign messages, could stop complying with those orders.

But White House officials want an extension codified now, all the same. They have been arguing in conversations with lawmakers that the country is at war and national security is paramount amid threats from Iran. Therefore, they say, hardliners should fall in line to back the clean extension without delay, according to five people involved in the conversations.

“The program is critical for the United States military to listen to the conversations of foreign terrorists abroad while we are engaged in a military operation in Iran. That’s what we’ve been telling individuals, as well as the elevated threat levels around the world, as well as the threat from Mexican drug cartels,” the senior White House official said.

Two groups of House GOP hard-liners, after being summoned by Trump Tuesday night, met with officials at the White House. But some of the Republicans declined the invitation.“I’ve heard everything that the executive has to say on FISA,” Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said in an interview that evening. That meeting, however, marked a shift: Those House Republicans who went to the White House alongside GOP leaders — among them Roy and Reps. Keith Self of Texas, Byron Donalds of Florida, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Morgan Griffith of Virginia and Warren Davidson of Ohio — took the opportunity to begin negotiations about a framework for a possible agreement around the use of warrants to access certain information.

The discussions included how the White House and GOP leadership needed to make good on a months-old promise to advance legislation that would ban a central bank digital currency. Enough House GOP holdouts late Thursday evening were threatening to still tank the procedural vote to advance the extension if the White House didn’t address the digital currency matter, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter. “Unless it’s included, there’s enough votes to kill the rule,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said in an interview Thursday afternoon. But other Republicans, White House officials and Senate GOP leadership are warning that attaching the measure directly would tank the FISA bill.

In exchange for making these concessions, GOP leaders and the White House have been pushing for a Section 702 extension that’s longer than 18 months and closer to three years.

The senior White House official also said Thursday the administration has “focused in on potentially having conversations about reforms to the program that we think would strengthen protections for American civil liberties … those conversations are ongoing.”

Jordan, meanwhile, has been helping build support for a clean extension by privately telling some Republicans that, if they can pass this 18-month clean extension now, they could potentially work on warrant reforms later, according to three people with direct knowledge of the discussions. That’s raised some eyebrows internally among House Republicans.

The House delays are leaving barely any time for the Senate to act. Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Thursday that he’s already started having conversations with his own members about what they would need to clear a FISA extension Monday.

Ultimately, even if GOP leaders strike a deal on changes to the current proposed extension, it could risk support for reauthorization among key Democrats, who Republicans will need to pass the final legislation in a narrowly-divided House. While some House Democrats are expected to help Republicans get the final bill across the finish line — including top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut — Democratic leaders have so far declined to shore up the votes for any fast-tracked process.

“I am deeply skeptical of a straightforward extension,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday, adding he told Johnson a few days ago there was “great Democratic skepticism” on a clean extension.

One Democratic Hill aide said Johnson and Trump did far too little to coordinate their pitch with Democrats, who carried a razor-thin vote to re-up the law in 2024.

“They never came to us,” the aide said.

Congress

How Republicans are privately talking about their Senate map at the convention

Published

6 hours ago

September 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

DALLAS — Top Republicans are scrambling to shore up their Senate map in Alaska, Texas and other red states — and are privately acknowledging they could very well lose in Georgia and North Carolina.

As GOP lawmakers, candidates and party officials gather for their midterm convention in Dallas, their conversations reveal how the party is thinking about their chances in the battle for the upper chamber, less than two months from Election Day.

THE TOP TARGETS

Senate Majority Leader John Thune ticked through a handful of battleground states he’s confident about in a closed-door lunch on Thursday — he’s particularly focused on Alaska, Maine and Michigan.

The meeting was hosted by the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate’s top GOP super PAC, and was used to rally Republican donors, according to two people in the room who were granted anonymity to share details of the private discussions.

Republicans are bullish about their chances of holding their seat in Maine after the Democratic side devolved into chaos over the summer, when Graham Plater suspended his campaign following an allegation of sexual assault, which he denies. Now, a largely untested, progressive Troy Jackson is looking to unseat five-term GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

In Alaska, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is locked in a tight race with Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, but they are optimistic about his prospects in the state that President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024.

Michigan is another opportunity: Republicans have been leaning into attacks warning of the takeover of socialism this cycle. They are spending heavily to boost Republican Mike Rogers, who is running against progressive Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee who’s backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and who has become a boogeyman for Republicans.

TEXAS IS FOR TRUMP

Senior Republicans also indicated they would continue to leave shoring up imperiled Ken Paxton in Texas largely to Trump, given that he helped unseat Sen. John Cornyn by backing Paxton in the primary.

Trump said in his convention speech Wednesday night that he would help boost Paxton. His affiliated super PAC, MAGA Inc. has already started spending in Texas to shore up the Republican. Senate Leadership Fund, which publicly backed Cornyn during the GOP primary, has not announced any spending in Texas.

THE PROBLEM CHILDREN

Georgia, where Republican Rep. Mike Collins is facing rising Democratic star Sen. Jon Ossoff, didn’t come up in the SLF meeting with Thune, according to the people. One of the people who was in the room later told Blue Light News that North Carolina would be “tough.”

Republicans have been increasingly worried about Collins falling behind in Georgia and Michael Whatley, a former RNC chair, in North Carolina. Public polling shows both candidates trailing their Democratic opponents. They are also both being outraised on the candidate level, but Republicans have a substantial overall fundraising advantage — buoyed in large part by Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC.

Sen. Rick Scott, a former NRSC chair, said in an interview at the convention this week that if the Georgia GOP gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson “runs an unbelievable race in Georgia, he gives Mike Collins an opportunity possibly to beat Ossoff.” He also painted North Carolina as “probably one of the hardest ones,” given that Whatley is facing popular former Gov. Roy Cooper for an open seat.

Democrats need to hold onto all of their seats — including defending the open seat in Michigan — while also flipping four GOP-held ones to gain control of the upper chamber. Republicans are also eager to boost John Sununu in New Hampshire after his primary win this week, as they work to beat back serious challenges in Ohio and Iowa.

Collins and Whatley both welcomed additional financial support coming into the final stretch of their races in interviews during the convention.

“Listen, we’ll always make a case for more money,” Collins told Blue Light News he left a closed-door meeting with the NRSC, SLF head Alex Latcham and top Senate Republicans on Wednesday.

Congress

House will vote on legislation shielding consumers from data center energy costs

Published

8 hours ago

September 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House GOP leaders will put legislation on the floor next week designed to compel tech companies to pay for the infrastructure associated with energy-sucking data centers, according to the offices of Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

It comes as vulnerable House Republicans have been pleading with leadership to take some sort of action before the midterms to address the rising power prices linked to the data center boom, necessary to meet the growing artificial intelligence demand.

Many of these Republicans, who were hammered on the issue during the summer recess by fed-up constituents, have been calling for consideration specifically of the so-called Ratepayer Protection Act, which passed unanimously out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July.

Leaders, however, have been weighing whether or not to move forward with the measure on the floor, with Scalise’s office claiming late last month that some of his members had problems with the proposal that still needed to be worked out.

That Scalise and others have now caved is a sign of the political pressure the party is feeling on the matter as Election Day draws near. This is one the last bills lawmakers will vote on before leaving town for a six week recess before the midterms.

According to four people with knowledge of next week’s agenda, the bill will come to the floor under an expedited floor procedure that only requires a two-thirds majority of those present and voting to secure passage. That means Republican leaders won’t have to worry about the legislation overcoming a procedural, party-line rule that GOP lawmakers could tank for any number of reasons, including outstanding concerns over the Ratepayer Protection Act.

One person granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations said the bill that passed out of Energy and Commerce has not been revised, meaning there could still be lingering opposition.

Many Republicans, in recent weeks, have continued to argue that data center construction is a local matter that ought not be regulated at the national level.

“I’m a true believer in local control,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said in an interview Thursday along the sidelines of the GOP midterm convention in Dallas this week.

The news of the planned vote was first reported by Axios.

Lawmakers next week will also vote on the so-called AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act, legislation that would force automakers to include AM radio capabilities in all new vehicles, according to two people granted anonymity to describe private scheduling.

The measure has wide bipartisan appeal but has been criticized as too onerous by some electric vehicle manufacturers who say their car designs cannot currently accommodate AM radio functionality.

Congress

Tom Emmer has a message for House GOP chairs: Term limits matter

Published

10 hours ago

September 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

DALLAS — House Majority Whip Tom Emmer has a message for the multiple House committee chairs seeking an exception from Republicans’ term limit rule: He’s “not a fan” of waivers, and you should have a good reason for seeking one.

“I’ve never liked waivers,” Emmer said in an interview at the GOP midterm convention. “I think it’s one of the things that helped the Republican majority stay more connected to Main Street.”

As the No. 3 Republican leader, Emmer does not control the waivers, which are in the hands of the 35-member GOP Steering Committee and the larger House Republican Conference.

But he has an influential voice as a top leader and Steering Committee member, and he said there are only “limited circumstances where it might make sense” to allow Republicans to lead a committee for more than three terms.

Several chairs, including Agriculture’s G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) and Armed Services’ Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), have applied for waivers to continue in their posts next Congress. The three-term limit includes time served leading panels in both the majority and minority.

Emmer said members should be free to make their case to continue on but, he said, the bar should be high.

“I love our members who have been around for years and have institutional knowledge,” Emmer said. “But unlike Democrats, we have turnover on the Republican side.”

He added, “Every two election cycles or so, you have close to 50 percent turnover in the Republican House. You don’t get that in the Senate. You get people who are serving as octogenarians, and they’re showing no signs of leaving.”

One GOP chair who is planning on handing off his gavel is Judiciary’s Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a MAGA favorite who could start the new Congress without a perch of power — leading to rampant speculation about what he has planned.

“I heard the president saylast week in the Rose Garden that we need to keep Jim right where he is, which was interesting because it’s like — OK, but I think he’s termed out,” Emmer said.

Many believe that Jordan — as well as Emmer and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise — could seek to run for the top leadership post now held by Speaker Mike Johnson if Republicans lose their majority in November. Emmer reiterated that he believes that won’t happen and that the GOP leadership will stay the same.

“It’s going to be Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise. I hope I’m rehired, and I expect Lisa McClain will be rehired,” he said, referring to the No. 4 GOP leader from Michigan.