Congress

Republicans air unease over ballroom security funding request

Published

5 months ago

May 12, 2026

President Donald Trump and his deputies have a major sales job ahead of them on Capitol Hill as multiple GOP lawmakers questioned a proposed $1 billion in Secret Service security spending that could be used at least in part for Trump’s controversial White House ballroom project.

The provision, which gives $1 billion to the Secret Service for “security adjustments and upgrades,” has threatened to overshadow what Republicans wanted to make the main focus of the package — tens of billions of dollars in new immigration enforcement funding. But the White House and many lawmakers argue the funding is necessary after the shooting at last month’s White House Correspondents Dinner.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune defended the funding’s inclusion Monday and predicted that most GOP senators will ultimately vote to support what the Secret Service says it needs.

“They have a job to do, and we want to make sure they’re able to do their job effectively so that we keep the president of the United States safe,” Thune said. “So I think most of our members are — if they are getting briefed on what the money is going to be used for — are probably going to be in a good place.”

Secret Service Director Sean Curran is expected to discuss the request at the Senate GOP’s closed-door lunch Tuesday, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose private scheduling.

GOP leaders are hoping to have the bill on the Senate floor next week, after votes in the Senate Homeland Security and Budget committees.

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has emerged as a pivotal vote, was among several Republicans who said they needed more information, with Tillis telling reporters he was “looking forward to seeing the details this week.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who chairs the Homeland Security panel, said Monday that he does not support the funding’s inclusion in the bill. He cannot act directly to strike it since the Secret Service provision is not in the portion of the bill under his committee, but he said it was a “possibility” it gets stripped out before it hits the floor.

“I’m not sure it’s anything we’ll ever vote on,” Paul said, while declining to say how he would vote if it stays in: “We’ll see if it gets to that.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who could block the funding as a member of the Budget Committee, declined to comment multiple times Monday on the decision to include White House security funding. He previously wanted to expand the scope of the party-line bill, but leaders rejected his push, arguing it needed to be focused solely on immigration enforcement.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is in a difficult reelection campaign, said “I don’t know” if the $1 billion is for the ballroom itself and wanted clarification during Tuesday’s closed-door lunch.

“Obviously, there have been three or four attempts on the president’s life, and that’s extremely serious, and we’re in a heightened era of political violence, but the ballroom itself should be paid for by private donations, as the president had indicated,” Collins said.

To get the ballroom-related language through the full Senate on party lines, as expected, Thune can lose no more than three Republicans, with Vice President JD Vance breaking a tie.

Senate Democrats are preparing to argue the provision is an impermissibly narrow “earmark” that doesn’t comply with the strict rules governing the budget reconciliation process, which is how Republicans are aiming to sidestep a Democratic filibuster. Conversations with parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough are underway as of Monday, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose the private discussions.

MacDonough’s rulings on the reconciliation process tend to be final, and if she says the provision is in compliance, Senate Democrats are expected to then force a floor vote to strip it out.

Among the Republican senators being closely watched are Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Paul, who both opposed a preliminary measure setting out the fiscal blueprint for the immigration enforcement bill. Paul said earlier this year that he would support approving the ballroom through reconciliation but warned he supported putting in only a “nominal” amount of taxpayer money for the project, which Trump has said will be privately financed.

The challenges in the House are no less daunting, with Speaker Mike Johnson working with a razor-thin vote margin. Just getting the budget blueprint approved was a grueling process that culminated in a vote that was left open for more than five hours as Johnson scrambled to resolve unrelated policy fights among Republicans.

Now a growing group of House Republicans is privately complaining to their leaders about the White House security money that can be used on the ballroom, arguing it sends a tone-deaf message as voters struggle with higher gas and grocery prices.

“It’s a bad look. It’s bad timing. It’s bad all around,” another House Republican said.

Some House GOP leaders privately doubt the measure has the votes to pass, according to four people granted anonymity to describe behind-the-scenes discussions, but they’re hoping it gets stripped out in the Senate first.

Trump has said he wants the immigration enforcement funding on his desk by June 1, and House leaders are scrambling to make that happen next week before a planned Memorial Day recess. They have already started discussing the potential need to keep the House in session for at least part of the holiday weekend.

Curran and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin have already started their sales pitch, sending a letter last week to top House and Senate Republicans laying out in broad strokes how the funding would be used.

“The $1 billion in funding included in the reconciliation bill will assist the USSS in delivering critical security upgrades at the White House to minimize threats, including the security components to the East Wing Modernization Project, in addition to other critical missions for the USSS,” they wrote.

Still, some Republicans facing tough midterm campaigns are publicly apprehensive.

“Listen, I want to see the details,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) said last week. “I want to know exactly what those dollars are going for, what are the security measures put in place … and then how they came to that figure.”

Rep. Jen Kiggans, another vulnerable Virginia House Republican, said she would not be “speculating” on the request. But, she added, “I look forward to getting back to Washington and working through that process.”

Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-Fla.), a staunch Trump ally, said in an interview Monday that he was “not going to make a decision till I know all the facts,” while voicing some support for having a secure location for the president, members of Congress and White House guests to gather.

“All I’ve seen is $1 billion dollars,” he said, adding that he might be convinced if administration officials “walk through why it’s justified.”

Calen Razor contributed to this report.

Congress

Kevin McCarthy predicts GOP will lose House majority

Published

23 minutes ago

October 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicted Republicans will lose the House in two weeks, citing historical midterm trends while also criticizing the sitting GOP leadership for how they’ve managed the chamber.

“In the last 100 years, all off-year elections, whoever is the party in power has the White House, has lost seats, and it’s only a few seats for the majority,” McCarthy said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Thursday.

Democrats, he added, will “get a majority” in the House: “I’m not quite sure how big it is, but they will probably win the majority.”

The former speaker, who ushered in the current GOP House majority in 2022 but only led the conference for less than a year before being booted from the speakership, went on to fault his own party for giving the election away.

“It’s not that the Democrats are going to win this election,” he said. “Republicans are going to lose it.”

He pointed to the skimpy House legislative calendar as a factor. Speaker Mike Johnson and his deputies have routinely canceled scheduled session days amid member revolts that have undermined his grip on the razor-thin majority.

“You’re only given 24 months in a majority to manage it. They were in the fewest amount of days. They let the Democrats dictate,” McCarthy said. “You have to give a reason why to win. What are the three things Republicans will do if they win the majority? I can’t tell you what that is.”

Still, McCarthy cautioned that if Democrats win the House, it won’t be because they have laid out their own agenda and warned that he believes that Democrats will face their own hurdles.

“Democrats are not popular. They haven’t laid out an agenda on what they’ll do,” McCarthy said. “So they’ll have a really hard time governing in the next Congress.”

Congress

GOP senator questions Elon Musk’s influence over military assets

Published

2 hours ago

October 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said Thursday that he had concerns about Elon Musk’s influence over national security matters after Ukraine was blindsided by a disruption of a satellite communications service developed by Musk’s SpaceX.

“We’re putting too many eggs in one company’s basket when it comes to our space assets,” the Republican member of the Armed Services Committee said. He added about Musk that he was concerned about the power of “one individual and one company over America’s ability to protect the domain of space, which is a war-fighting domain.”

Cramer received a briefing Thursday from Air Force Secretary Troy Meink that he said focused on getting an update on Starshield — a military product based on SpaceX’s Starlink technology. Cramer told reporters before the briefing that he wanted Congress and the Pentagon to “pour a lot of resources … into making sure there’s lots of competition both for satellite production and satellite launch.” “I’m uncomfortable with the potential vendor lock in space, and I think the events of the last couple of weeks have demonstrated greater concern, even than just simply cost,” Cramer said.

Musk has been under days of scrutiny — including fresh pledges by Democrats to investigate him next year — after the Wall Street Journal reported that he ordered the recent slowdown in Starshield capabilities over the Russia-Ukraine war theater.

Cramer, asked about the Journal reporting after the closed-door briefing, said that he wasn’t sure if Musk ordered the slowdown and that the “culpability of multiple people … was left somewhat loose.”

“By that I mean, discussions with the president before, discussions with the president after. … Obviously I don’t think it could have possibly happened without Elon Musk’s knowledge, whether or not you know how supportive he was one way or the other,” Cramer said.

Cramer added that he believed there could have been a broad misunderstanding within the U.S. government and within SpaceX about how reliant Ukraine was on the satellite technology. But he said it was incumbent that the operation of satellite technology like Starshield must “be exclusively with the authority of the United States government.”

“There are certain things the government has to do that can’t be so dependent on others,” Cramer said. “And fighting wars is one of those things.”

Congress

Top Senate Finance Democrat maps out clean energy plan

Published

5 hours ago

October 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee wants to revive a clean energy tax credit program he argues was a booming success — and says he has the receipts to prove it.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon is releasing a new report of IRS data, shared first with Blue Light News, showing that, in the first two years of the Democrats’ 2022 climate law, nearly $2.5 billion in direct payments went directly to schools and other tax-exempt entities to cover electric school buses, rooftop solar, electric vehicles and more.

Wyden said in a press release the numbers prove there is “massive demand” for “any and all” programs that lower energy costs and rebuild aging infrastructure, after Republicans gutted many of these wind and solar tax credits in their tax and spending megalaw last summer.

“When Democrats have a trifecta of power, reinstating the wind and solar tax credits and bolstering the Direct Pay Program will be a top priority to help bring an end to Trump’s energy crisis,” said Wyden, who is poised to take back the Finance gavel if control of the Senate flips in the midterms.

The report, prepared by Democratic staff for the committee, argues the current “energy crisis,” where Americans’ utility bills are rising, was manufactured by Republicans and the direct result of the Trump administration’s clean energy incentive rollbacks.

Wyden said he would revive the solar and wind tax credits if given the chance to chair the Finance Committee again, plus boost what’s known as the Direct Pay Program, which schools and tax exempt entities can use on rooftop solar, electric vehicle purchases, heat pumps and more.

“If we’re back in the majority — and I think we will — I will be introducing that bill [to restore] the clean energy tax credits that had billions of dollars in the market in the first couple of years,” Wyden said in an interview last month regarding his plans. “I’ll be introducing that right away.”

Wyden, who has led his party on the Finance Committee since 2015, wrote the bulk of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s climate and clean energy provisions.