Congress

Capitol agenda: Senate Republicans get a summer hotseat

Published

2 hours ago

August 19, 2026

Senate Republicans are facing unexpected waves of online vitriol after — essentially — standing in front of their empty chamber during recess and hitting the gavel.

MAGA social media circles have seized on what was once a little-noticed, low-drama procedural affair as the newest opportunity to eviscerate Republicans for what they see as being insufficiently loyal to President Donald Trump.

Some GOP senators have even told colleagues in recent weeks they don’t want to be included in the conference’s rotation for presiding over what’s known as the chamber’s pro forma sessions because it will result in being flamed on the internet, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose private conversations.

“I think people just do it to get clicks, right? And they are also misinformed,” Sen. Ron Johnson said in an interview about the online furor, adding that Republicans “broke the logjam” by confirming most of Trump’s nominees before recess.

The purpose of such sessions is to prevent any president from temporarily installing a Cabinet pick or filling other vacancies without securing Senate confirmation. A 2014 Supreme Court decision laid out restrictions on recess appointments that have limited presidents’ use of the maneuver, and the House would need to agree to terms that would allow them.

But those restrictions are lost on hard-line online activists who are now willing to publicly skewer even typical Trump allies they see as undermining the president’s ability to leapfrog the Senate’s confirmation process and make unilateral recess appointments on nominations.

The outcry also overlooks the fact that Senate Republicans have confirmed more of Trump’s civilian nominees in his second term so far as compared to this point in his first term, thanks to a rule change they made last fall allowing most executive branch picks to be confirmed as a bloc rather than individually.

Sen. Jim Justice on Monday was the latest of the 11 Republican lawmakers who will make the trek to Washington to preside over a pro forma session this summer — and he’s already being branded in corners of the internet as a “traitor” who is “BLOCKING the America First Agenda.”

He followed Sens. John Boozman and Jim Banks, who got an earful from conservatives themselves.

When Johnson presided over the chamber briefly in early July as part of Independence Day recess, he said he got flack online for it. And while he said he wasn’t bothered by the criticism, which included being called one of the “five filthy failures” who oversaw a session during the chamber’s two-week break, his Trump-supporting bona fides also didn’t spare him from the trolling.

What else we’re watching:

— PROGRESSIVES NOTCH FLORIDA WIN AS MILLS EXITS: Democratic Socialist member and state Rep. Angie Nixon pulled off a stunning upset for progressives in the Democratic Florida Senate primaries last night, defeating her better-funded opponent, retired Lt. Col. Alex Vindman. It marks one of the progressive movement’s biggest breakthroughs yet this primary season, in part because other successes have been in blue and purple states. In GOP upsets: scandal-plagued Rep. Cory Mills lost his four-way primary battle for Florida’s 7th District to Ryan Elijah, a former local television news reporte.

— MILLER WARNS OF BLEEDING UNION SUPPORT: GOP leaders have not stood in the way of Rep. Max Miller’s reelection bid amid allegations of domestic abuse against his ex-wife and young child. But the Ohio lawmaker is fretting the loss of support from a key constituency — unions — could damage his reelection prospects. Miller wrote in a July 8 court filing that multiple unions are turning their backs on him as a result of allegations raised by his ex-wife Emily Moreno. “Based on those organizations’ typical levels of support, I estimate the withdrawn organizational support at approximately $30,000, in addition to lost personal contributions from individual donors who have told me or my campaign that they will not contribute because of these allegations,” Miller wrote.

Jordain Carney, Kimberly Leonard, Gary Fineout and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.

Congress

The Senate GOP’s summer hot seat: Pro forma sessions

Published

5 hours ago

August 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Jim Justice is being branded in corners of the internet as a “traitor” intent on “BLOCKING the America First Agenda.”

The West Virginia Republican’s sin? A brief appearance he made on Capitol Hill Monday afternoon, according to a wave of online conservative fury, wherein he gaveled the largely empty chamber quickly in and out of session, then left.

“Thank you for being out here today,” Justice told reporters as he exited the Capitol’s second floor after chatting about the farm bill, the Iran war and the odds of passing a third party-line spending bill before the midterms — seemingly unaware he had just stepped on a right-wing landmine.

Justice is the latest of the 11 Republican lawmakers who will sit in the Senate GOP’s unlikeliest hotseat during the chamber’s five-week summer recess and preside over what’s known as a pro forma session of Congress.

These brief sessions lasting a few minutes or less have traditionally been little-noticed, low-drama affairs. They require one senator from the majority party to make the trek back to Washington every few days during an extended break. Their purpose is to effectively limit a president from either party from temporarily installing a Cabinet pick or filling other vacancies without securing Senate confirmation.

A 2014 Supreme Court decision laid out restrictions on recess appointments that have limited presidents’ use of the maneuver, and the House would need to agree to terms that would allow them. But those restrictions are lost on hard-line online activists who now view presiding over a Senate pro forma session as a failed loyalty test to President Donald Trump, and they’re willing to publicly skewer even typical Trump allies they incorrectly perceive as undermining the president.

Some GOP senators, rather than laugh off a huge misunderstanding, have told colleagues in recent weeks they don’t want to be included in the conference’s rotation for presiding over the chamber because it will result in being flamed on the internet, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose private conversations.

“I think people just do it to get clicks, right? And they are also misinformed. There was no issue with recess appointments, but we are getting blasted ‘why would you do this to prevent President Trump from doing recess appointments?’” Sen. Ron Johnson said in an interview about the online furor, adding that Republicans “broke the logjam” by confirming most of Trump’s nominees before break.

The Wisconsin Republican is no stranger to the outrage, having presided over the chamber briefly in early July as part of Independence Day recess. Asked if he got flack online for it, Johnson said, “oh yeah,” but added that he wasn’t bothered by the criticism, which included being called one of the “five filthy failures” who oversaw a session during the chamber’s two-week break.

Justice — whose office did not respond to a request for comment about the Monday backlash — is the third GOP senator who has done a pro forma session during the current, ongoing summer recess, following Sens. John Boozman of Arkansas and Jim Banks of Indiana.

“The House left town without approving a resolution that would allow recess appointments. Due to their inaction, the Senate is constitutionally-required to gavel-in every 3 days,” Banks said in a statement Tuesday to Blue Light News.

“So for all the ‘constitutionalists’ asking: I didn’t think twice about doing my constitutional duty when it was my turn,” he added.

Others have gotten out of the job at critical junctures. Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, for instance, had been scheduled to preside over a pro forma session in April where Majority Leader John Thune ultimately cleared a bill without a formal roll call vote to fund most of the Homeland Security Department, with the exception of some immigration enforcement activities.

Instead, Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton ended up presiding and became the target of one conservative activist with nearly 400,000 followers on X. She accused Cotton of helping “the establishment wing of the Senate” prevent “America First nominees” from being confirmed.

It’s not clear why conservative social media circles have seized on Senate pro forma sessions as the newest opportunity to eviscerate Republicans for being insufficiently loyal to Trump. The House holds pro forma meetings during recesses, too, and members on that side of the Capitol have largely evaded similar vitriol.

But Trump himself has perennially hammered Senate Republicans to formally adjourn so he could essentially leapfrog the chamber’s confirmation process and make unilateral recess appointments on nominations.

During the 2024 battle to replace outgoing GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, then-president-elect Trump said anyone seeking the party leadership position “must agree to Recess Appointments.”

Trump also warned last year — in a position similar to the one he took during his first term — that he could try to force the chambers to adjourn so that he could make recess appointments, a move that would be without precedent and spark a fierce legal battle.

Ultimately, Trump never made good on his threat. Instead, Senate Republicans left for their August recess last year with his blessing and changed the rules in the fall to speed up confirmation of most executive branch picks by letting them be confirmed as a bloc rather than individually.

“The reality is, the Senate still has a responsibility and a role to play in appointments,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told reporters last year in defense of pro forma sessions — shortly after he presided over one.

Senate Republicans have confirmed more of Trump’s civilian nominees in his second term so far as compared to this point in his first term, including confirming nearly all of the civilian nominees who have been voted out of committee.

“We’ve been on a mission … to ensure that the president has his nominations in place so we can do the job the American people elected him to do,” Thune said earlier this month from the Senate floor about the Senate GOP’s nominations pace.

Trump has never made a recess appointment; nor did former President Joe Biden. President Barack Obama made 32 recess appointments during his two terms, which sparked a showdown at the Supreme Court over three picks for the National Labor Relations Board. The justices ruled unanimously in 2014 that those appointments were unconstitutional because they were made when the Senate was out for a three-day break.

Yet the idea of being able to leapfrog the Senate appears to still be on Trump’s mind: Late last month, as part of a string of recent comments railing on Senate Republicans and Thune in particular, Trump posted a graphic on Truth Social that questioned “Where is John Thune” along with the number of recess appointments made by past GOP Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, word is circulating among Senate Republicans about the online outrage over the Senate pro forma sessions.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who presided over the chamber during one session in late May, shrugged off a question about whether he had personally received pushback, saying he didn’t recall getting criticism but that he’s not very online. (Hawley, like every other GOP senator who has recently done a pro forma session, has gotten heat from a clutch of social media accounts driving much of the outrage.)

But asked about some of his colleagues not wanting to handle the brief meetings because they’ve gotten grief, Hawley acknowledged: “I’ve heard people say that.”

Congress

Max Miller insists he can win again — but warns in court filings he’s bleeding union support and cash

Published

5 hours ago

August 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

GOP Rep. Max Miller is fretting that the loss of support from a key constituency could damage his reelection prospects — even as his party base continues to stand with him in spite of serious allegations of domestic abuse centered on his ex-wife and young child.

Miller is claiming that multiple unions are turning their backs on him as he seeks a third term in office — a result, he argues, of allegations raised in his ongoing public marital dispute with his ex-wife Emily Moreno, the daughter of Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno.

“A lobbyist for a trade union informed me by text message that the union was withdrawing its support for my campaign because of these allegations,” Miller wrote in a July 8 affidavit — part of the defamation lawsuit he has brought against his ex-wife following a May 7 Daily Mail report on allegations that Miller, among other things, attacked Moreno with scalding hot water. Miller denies the claims.

“Representatives of two other organizations that had supported my campaign likewise informed me or my campaign that their support was ending because of these allegations,” he continued. “One labor union’s international organization notified me in writing that it will endorse my opponent in the November 2026 general election, citing my personal circumstances.”

“Based on those organizations’ typical levels of support, I estimate the withdrawn organizational support at approximately $30,000, in addition to lost personal contributions from individual donors who have told me or my campaign that they will not contribute because of these allegations,” Miller said, going on to conclude that in total his re-election campaign would cost about $2.5 million to $3 million — up from $1.4 million prior to the need to defend himself from the claims.

The anxiety comes as Miller is running in a now-competitive district against Democrat Brian Poindexter, a city councilman and member of the local ironworkers union. Poindexter has been leaning on his labor bona fides and focusing on workers rights, as organized labor has emerged as a critical voting bloc across the Cleveland-area district.

Unions make up 11.6% of wage and salary workers in Ohio, more than the national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Miller did not elaborate in the affidavit on which unions had abandoned his campaign. But there are signs of shifting union support.

The Cleveland Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed Miller in 2024, according to an internet archive of his campaign website. This cycle, the Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council — of which Cleveland is one of 14 member councils — endorsed Poindexter. Neither council returned a request for comment.

And Battleground Alliance PAC — a Democrat-aligned group backed, in part, by labor interests — has targeted households in Miller’s district with robocalls that highlight domestic abuse allegations, according to a report from Cleveland.com .“We felt it was important to tell people in the district who may not have heard about it, about what he was alleged to have done,” Andrew Grossman, the PAC’s campaign director, said in an interview.

A Miller spokesperson did not respond to a request to comment.

Moreno’s lawyer, Subodh Chandra, pushed back on Miller’s claim that the accusations have cost him union support, calling Miller’s words “hearsay” and noting that Miller failed to attach proof to his affidavit.

“Nor is the reason self-evident,” Chandra continued in a July 20 filing. “Even if it’s true, the union could have been walking away from Miller because he’s a lousy candidate to champion its issues.”

Miller has a mixed record on labor issues. In June, he broke with Speaker Mike Johnson and voted for legislation aimed at making it easier for workers to unionize, after Democrats used procedural maneuvers to force floor consideration of the measure.

He has also emphasized union support on the campaign trail, highlighting an early July Ohio Conference of Teamsters endorsement.

The Ohio Conference represents over 50,000 workers in the state, and President Pat Darrow said in a July statement that the bipartisan group of 10 House incumbents they endorsed have “proven they’re willing to take on Corporate America and advocate on behalf of our members in Congress.”

In a July 27 Facebook post, Miller celebrated an endorsement from the Local 18 International Union of Operating Engineers, stating he would “continue fighting for workers across Ohio’s 7th District.”

Spokespeople for both these local groups did not respond to requests for comment.

“I’ve been a Davis-Bacon Republican since Day One,” Miller said in a July 13 interview with a local Ohio radio talk show, referencing the 1931 landmark labor law that set a minimum wage for federal construction.

“And if you look at the state of Ohio, it just is what it is,” he continued. “We are not a right-to-work state, ladies and gentlemen. And, you know, this is one of these things where hopefully this shows you and the rest of the district that I am representing the district as it is — I am not going to Washington, D.C. to represent my own wants, feelings, wishes and needs.”

But Miller has also voted against efforts backed by major union groups. In December, he opposed a measure to nullify a Trump executive order that eliminated collective bargaining rights for federal employees.

The national AFL-CIO issued Miller a 14% score on his votes for “working people” through 2025, while the Ohio chapter of the largest federation of unions in the U.S. posted in support of Poindexter earlier this month, calling him the “best and easy choice to elect someone who will spend every day fighting for us.”

Poindexter has also raked up endorsements from dozens of unions including the American and Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Steelworkers and the American Federation of Government Employees as he paints himself as the more reliable friend of labor in the race to win over pro-union voters disillusioned with Miller.

“Strengthening collective bargaining rights, allowing more and more people to join the union of their choice if they so choose — those are the types of things that I really want to fight for,” Poindexter said in a recent Blue Light News interview. “And that’s my promise to the American people and people here of Ohio Seven.”

Recent polling now shows Miller trailing Poindexter in what was widely considered a reliably red seat that Trump won by 11 percentage points last cycle.

“Working families in OH-07 don’t want a multimillionaire nepo baby like Miller, who’s spent his career funding the outsourcing of American jobs and selling out workers for a profit,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Riya Vashi said in a statement, “they want a real working-class fighter like Brian Poindexter, who will put them first in Washington.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee directed Blue Light News to the Miller campaign when reached for comment.

Congress

Comer threatens contempt as Black faces more Epstein probe heat

Published

16 hours ago

August 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Oversight Chair James Comer on Tuesday wrote a blistering letter to the lawyers of Leon Black threatening to hold the billionaire Apollo Global Management founder in contempt of Congress.

The threat comes after Black, who paid the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein tens of millions of dollars, refused to answer the panel’s questions about possible nondisclosure agreements he had signed with women tied to Epstein.

Black has since produced one NDA after being subpoenaed by the Oversight Committee. Comer, in his Tuesday letter, said that was insufficient and demanded more of the documents while floating the contempt vote if Black refuses.

The panel is hoping that the NDAs might shed further light on how Epstein and his network were able to sexually exploit women and girls and evade liability for decades.

Susan Estrich, a lawyer for Black, said that the Oversight Committee’s letter “misrepresents the facts.”

“Mr. Black provided the Committee with the only confidentiality agreement that pre-dated Epstein’s death and the only one of which Epstein was aware,” Estrich said in a statement.

Comer in the letter said, “the production of a singular non-disclosure agreement — after the Committee agreed to extend the deadline in good faith by two weeks — is insufficient to fulfill the requirements of this subpoena, considering your letter fails to articulate that there are no further non-disclosure agreements and seems to imply additional non-disclosure agreements exist.”

“The Committee demands full compliance with the subpoena and rejects any attempts at further disrupting or delaying this investigation,” he wrote.

The panel has been working to get Black to appear for a videotaped, transcribed deposition Sept. 3 and has been negotiating with his legal team about the terms of his appearance and what documents he’d produce.

“If Mr. Black refuses to provide the Committee with responsive documents or refuses to appear for his scheduled deposition on September 3, 2026, the Committee will use all tools at its disposal, including contempt,” Comer said.