Congress
In Year 2 of Trump’s funding grab, Congress fights back
Republican lawmakers are still locked in a power struggle with the White House over control of federal cash, long since President Donald Trump swept back into office with unprecedented orders undermining Congress’ power of the purse.
Earlier this month, GOP senators overwhelmingly agreed to a bipartisan government funding bill that would temporarily block the Trump administration from finalizing a federal rule to let political appointees steer money toward grants “aligned with the president’s agenda.” The House could clear that bill next month, and Trump is expected to sign it to avert a shutdown before the midterms.
And while the days of widespread funding freezes might be over, the Trump administration continues to create new rules for federal grants and then deny funding based on them — only to be repeatedly shot down in court this summer.
Lawmakers in both parties have also blasted White House budget director Russ Vought this year for delaying the release of cash for congressionally backed programs for antipoverty services, foreign assistance, banking in underserved areas and more.
“Congress has appropriated money, and you don’t have the authority to impound it,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) chastised Vought this spring over the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars the Trump administration is supposed to send quarterly to states.
Now Republicans are watching for clues about whether Vought, between now and Sept. 30, will claim the authority to nix appropriations in the final weeks of the fiscal year through what’s known as a pocket recession. He used the move last year to unilaterally cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid through the legally dubious maneuver.
“Pocket rescissions would be a very interesting way to curry favor with the legislative branch — especially the one part of the legislative branch which has delivered on all of the administration’s shit,” Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, a senior Republican appropriator, said in a recent interview.
Indeed, the White House needs the support of GOP appropriators in both chambers to advance Trump administration priorities.
Those top lawmakers have already taken some modest steps to stop the White House from shirking Congress’ intent on spending by inserting stricter language into bipartisan funding bills Trump signed into law for the current fiscal year. That included new rules for shifting money between accounts and more explicit instructions for how dollars should be spent.
Some Republican lawmakers have also been resisting the administration’s push this summer to enact billions of dollars for the military and agriculture programs through another party-line budget reconciliation package. Top House Republican appropriators slammed the White House in June for pursuing a “risky and uncoordinated” strategy to enact funding for the Iran war through a party-line bill that’s not guaranteed to pass.
Relying on the reconciliation process to skirt the Senate filibuster is a key step to achieve the “paradigm shift” Vought has touted throughout Trump’s second term, designed to make funding negotiations “less bipartisan” so Republicans don’t have to agree to nondefense increases in order to get enough votes to boost military budgets.
“At what point did we stop legislating?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another senior appropriator, said last month after Vought privately pitched Senate Republicans on the latest party-line plan, which would inherently take funding power away from the appropriations committees.
Murkowski was also among the Senate Republicans who chided the White House for not seeking input from lawmakers before forging ahead with its plan to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants and minimize the role of the objective peer-review process for selecting recipients of those dollars.
“There was no consultation at all,” she said. “When you start issuing grants based on political connections, that’s not good for the system here.”
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) publicly called on Vought to extend the public comment period for the plan last month, to no avail.
She also continues to pan the pocket rescission gambit, saying in a recent interview that the administration should “go through the proper process with the Appropriations Committee” if it wants to rescind money intended for a specific program.
Under a decades-old law, the White House is allowed to send Congress a request to revoke funding, then withhold the cash for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore the proposal. Republicans last summer voted to approve Trump’s request to rescind $9 billion for public media and foreign assistance.
Then Trump used that same law weeks later to send Congress a request to rescind $4.9 billion in foreign aid — this time with less than 45 days left before the end of the fiscal year. Vought immediately declared the funding canceled, arguing that the administration had to withhold the funding until it expired at the end of September, regardless of congressional action.
The Office of Management and Budget did not respond to requests for comment on whether the White House plans to execute new pocket rescissions in the coming weeks. But Trump’s new pick for deputy director at the agency, Hal Duncan, told lawmakers this summer that the agency isn’t ruling out any “fiscal tools.”
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said White House officials have given him no assurances that they won’t deploy the tactic again this year and that his reaction would hinge on the type of funding eliminated.
“It would depend on what it is — it really would,” the Oklahoma Republican said last month.
In courtrooms throughout the country, federal judges continue to weigh in on whether Trump is illegally encroaching on Congress’ funding power.
Last month a federal judge declared that the administration can’t cancel grants based on new rules or goals established after the fact. The Trump administration later admitted in a different case that it canceled $7.6 billion “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.” Then a federal judge halted changes to teen-pregnancy prevention grants, concluding that it’s unlawful “to impose conditions … that Congress did not intend or that are unreasonable or unexplained.”
The Supreme Court has yet to conclusively rule on the president’s spending tactics, and many Democrats on Capitol Hill argue Republicans shouldn’t rely on the courts to defend Congress’ authority. GOP leaders have repeatedly bucked Democratic calls for action, including to reverse the cancellation of specific grants, nullify Trump’s pocket rescission last fall and head off a future end-run around Congress by barring rescissions requests in the last months of the fiscal year.
“When are our Republican colleagues going to assert our legislative authority?” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a top appropriator, said in an interview. “I mean, why in the hell did they run for Congress?”
Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a senior appropriator in line to be the No. 2 Democrat in the next Congress, was more charitable.
“I just think there’s a bipartisan desire to get back to the way the Constitution is supposed to operate,” he said in an interview, “where we decide how the money is spent.”
Democrats haven’t yet won the House majority. But top party leaders are wasting no time in preparing an all-out oversight campaign targeting President Donald Trump, his family and administration should they flip the chamber in November.
At the center of the effort are California Rep. Robert Garcia, who is poised to lead the Oversight Committee under a Democratic takeover, and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is in line to lead the Judiciary Committee. They are each already planning to use their potential gavels to investigate key Trump controversies — such as his acceptance of a Qatari jet for use as his new Air Force One and his family’s massively profitable cryptocurrency investments.
Garcia and Raskin both said in interviews they have a long list of administration officials that they plan to probe and possibly bring before their committees. But each said they intend to focus intently on Trump himself.
“Ideally, it’s the president’s sons and the president and the family,” Garcia said, adding a litany of other members of the Trump inner sanctum he wants to hear from. They include chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and son-in-law and foreign envoy Jared Kushner, as well as former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Cory Lewandowski, who served as her chief of staff.
In addition to the crypto profits and the much-criticized Qatari 747, Garcia said he planned to probe federal contracts awarded to members of Trump’s family and the series of pardons Trump has granted early in his second term.
Raskin, a veteran of the investigative onslaught that took place in the second half of Trump’s first term, said he planned to focus on allegations of self-enrichment by Trump and his family — as well as illicit foreign influence on American institutions and rising authoritarianism in government.
“We are going to be looking at systems of bribery, kickback and financial corruption and opportunities for disgorgement and restitution to the American people,” Raskin said. “That would be No. 1.”
Asked to comment on Democrats’ oversight plans, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales responded with a statement outlining Trump’s legislative achievements.
“The President will continue to draw a sharp contrast with his commonsense agenda and radical Democrats who want to massively raise taxes, defund the police, and are soft on crime,” she said. “The choice has never been more clear: doubling down on President Trump’s winning agenda or far-left liberal policies and partisan gridlock.”
Raskin and Garcia are forging ahead even as voters reject some Democrats who were at the forefront of the Trump accountability effort that unfolded eight years ago. And while the preparations Garcia, Raskin and others are making now in many ways resemble how their predecessors planned ahead of the 2018 midterms, there are differences.
Democrats in the leadup to the elections that year warily tiptoed around the prospect of impeachment in fear of alienating voters, and they laid out some investigative targets that did not implicate Trump personally.
Once in power, though, they launched a flurry of investigations aimed at Trump — including the president’s tax returns, his acceptance of foreign “emoluments” and later his effort to leverage aid to Ukraine for political favors. In virtually every case, the administration stonewalled Democratic investigators.
Now, after two impeachments that failed to remove Trump from office and with a party base intent on pulling no punches, House Democrats are reluctant to take anything off the table — while also recognizing the limitations of impeachment as a check on Trump’s power.
“Nobody on the Democratic side is afraid of impeachment,” Raskin said this week, adding that he considers it a “tool in the toolbox.”
The larger project for Democrats if they win power in November is to use subpoena power and public hearings to provide a backbone for the accountability message they intend to continue into the 2028 presidential election season.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries emphasized the wide-reaching scope of oversight inquiries during his campaign kickoff speech last month, in which he unveiled House Democratic midterm messaging that included a pledge to “hold the crooks accountable.”
“Anyone,” Jeffries said, “who is stealing from the American people, screwing over the American people, or shortchanging the American people is going to be held accountable beginning on Day 1.”
While the Oversight and Judiciary panels would be the leaders of the investigatory push in a Democratic House, other committees are set to target Trump as well in a bid to deliver the bold action Democratic primary votes have demanded.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said he expected the oversight subpanel would be a highly sought-after assignment should Democrats win gavels — with a potential “big” emphasis, he said, on probing Trump family corruption.
He added he was “very concerned” about how the Trump administration has managed the IRS and Social Security, particularly after the Department of Government Efficiency upended federal agencies last year.
“We certainly will exercise our oversight responsibility,” said Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, who is expected to return as Ways and Means chair in a Democratic majority.
Garcia and Raskin, meanwhile, have other pet priorities beyond the personal benefits Trump and his family have allegedly garnered in office.
Raskin said he intends to probe what he deems “fraudulent and vindictive prosecutions” including those of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James.
“The prosecution function has been utterly tainted and the Judiciary Committee obviously can’t let that go,” he said.
He has also set his sights on Paramount Skydance’s proposed $110 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal Democrats have blasted not only as an antitrust violation but also a threat to national security and free speech.
Previewing his intentions for the majority, Raskin requested a transcribed interview with Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison in a letter last week. While he cannot haul Ellison, a close Trump ally, before the committee now as a member of the minority party, Raskin said his inquiry into Paramount would be a “priority” if Democrats win subpoena power.
Garcia, meanwhile, said he is determined to fill in gaps he sees in the GOP-led investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He said he wants to bring key witnesses back to testify under oath, potentially in public hearings “because most of them were not called under oath and most of them were not called under subpoena.”
That could include big names in the world of finance, such as Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management, and Jes Staley, a former top executive at JPMorgan Chase — both of whom had substantial communications with Epstein and met with the committee privately.
“I think we’re going to have, in the majority, public Epstein hearings,” Garcia said.
The Epstein investigation is similar to the Trump corruption probe in that it would potentially span multiple committees, and Garcia and Raskin both praised each other and said they are planning to work in concert on both issues.
Raskin said he doesn’t envision any issues with coordination between two panels
“There’s enough Trump family corruption to go around,” he said. “I don’t think we have to worry about that. We will just be dividing it up.”
Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
Democrats have another chance to test their messaging about transgender rights that the party has struggled to make plain.
Two Democrats vying for the party’s Massachusetts Senate seat will face off Thursday in their final debate before the state’s Sept. 1 primary. Laws banning transgender women from participating in female sports surfaced as a key difference between Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Seth Moulton in their debate earlier this month and led to a contentious exchange.
The events represent one of few opportunities for national Democrats to publicly debate an issue Republicans have spent tens of millions of dollars attacking their support of in the past several election cycles.
Markey is looking to question Moulton’s commitment to trans rights given his post-2024 election stance that Democrats’ support of transathletes was out of touch with voters. Moulton at the time cited not wanting his daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”
Gallup polling after that election found that 69 percent of U.S. adults — including about four in 10 Democrats — believe that transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth sex.
Still, Moulton in the Aug. 3 debate apologized for those comments and tried to defend his LGBTQ+ record.
Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at center-left think tank Third Way, said part of the reason Republicans’ attacks have landed so well is “because Democrats were afraid to talk about” it.
“At this point, every person in America has a viewpoint on transgender participation in sports. It’s incumbent on Democrats to be able to speak about this issue authentically and not evade it,” Erickson said. “In a way that opposes blanket bans, but leaves room for people to have questions about the rules.”
Erickson added it’s also important for Democrats to settle these differences and deal with GOP attacks in this election cycle before the next presidential election.
“The 2028 race is going to have a lot of pressure to go further left on all the social issues,” she said. “A primary that has 30 Democrats running for president is going to really risk elevating blue sky voices perspective over the rest of the Democratic coalition, and if we haven’t figured out how to talk about these issues by then, we’re going to miscalibrate where most voters are.”
Markey has stuck by his pro-trans rights messaging and won the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ rights group, in the primary.
“Trans rights are not up for debate. Seth Moulton threw trans kids under the proverbial bus to score cheap political points,” Markey said in a statement to Blue Light News. “I will never do that.”
Markey’s campaign pointed to polling from University of Massachusetts Amherst this week that showed 67 percent of Democratic primary voters in the state are less likely to support a candidate who has expressed positions opposing trans rights or policies.
HRC President Kelley Robinson in the statement pointed to the senator’s leadership in several legislative efforts, including the Equality Act, which would explicitly codify certain anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.
“At a time when equality and freedom are under assault, we need leaders with the courage and conviction to lead — and stand unshakeable in their values,” Robinson said.
Moulton co-sponsored that legislation in the House, and in the earlier debate, pointed out the 100 percent voting record the Human Rights Campaign has given him in previous congresses.
The Moulton campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Democrats who rose to prominence as #Resistance figures during President Donald Trump’s first term are stumbling politically during his second.
The pileup illustrates a new era for the restive Democratic base, where vocal opposition to Trump through official channels and public remonstrations no longer guarantee success in the party’s primaries.
If Democrats retake the majority in the House, leaders will have to find a balance between their base’s appetite for holding Trump accountable and election results that some strategists say suggest Americans are ready to move past Trump.
“‘#Resistance’ was a very Trump 1.0 mood, and now we are in a different moment of anger,” said Lanae Erickson, senior vice president at center-left think tank Third Way. “They’re mad about the war. They’re mad about costs. They’re mad about the establishment not having delivered anything for them.”
Alexander Vindman’s stunning loss in Florida’s Senate primary to democratic socialist Angie Nixon was the latest example this week.
Vindman, a former National Security Council aide who testified during the 2019 House impeachment inquiry, made standing up to Trump a centerpiece of his campaign. But although his national profile helped haul in big money, it couldn’t overcome the shifting politics of the party base — a predicament that has left some Democrats rattled about their prospects in Trump’s home state.
“Vindman is a hero, but memories fade and the focus of most folks is on the cost of living,” said longtime Democratic strategist David Axelrod, adding that Nixon, “made those issues her focus.”
Vindman’s not alone in the political graveyard of Trump-resistance-fighter campaigns: Two of the 2021 House impeachment managers, Reps. Diana DeGette and Eric Swalwell saw their reelection prospects fall apart as well: DeGette lost her reelection bid to a democratic socialist this summer, while Swalwell dropped out of the California gubernatorial primary after a string of sexual assault allegations.
Rep. Dan Goldman, the lead majority counsel in the first Trump impeachment inquiry, was ousted in his primary. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a member of the Oversight and Intelligence committees during the 2021 impeachment, fell short in his Senate bid. Reps. Shri Thanedar and Al Green, both of whom led impeachment pushes against Trump, were ousted by younger challengers.
Not all the races were defined by Trump accountability politics. But one Democratic operative said the throughline is that those struggling candidates are “institutionalists” who argued the justice system was going to hold Trump accountable. Now, voters who lost faith in those institutions after Trump returned to office were sold on other candidates’ messaging railing against those very systems.
“The prescription isn’t what they were looking for anymore,” the operative said.
What else we’re watching:
— BRAID PLANS WHITE HOUSE EXIT — James Braid, the top White House aide in charge of liaising with Congress, is leaving the administration, according to a person with knowledge of the transition, granted anonymity to discuss private plans.. Braid, from his perch as director of legislative affairs, has been responsible for shepherding Trump’s agenda through a narrow majority, a job that’s become increasingly difficult as the president clashes with members of his own party.
— FIRST IN IC: OLIVER GILBERT’S COMMITTEE HOPES — Retiring Rep. Frederica Wilson’s chosen successor is eyeing her spot on House Transportation and Infrastructure, along with other committees that impact the South Florida district. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III on Tuesday won a crowded Democratic primary in the deep blue 24th District, almost guaranteeing he’ll take Wilson’s seat come November. In an interview Wednesday, Gilbert said he has “broad interests” but named the Transportation and Foreign Affairs committees as potential options for his desired policy work, along with the Appropriations and Judiciary panels.
Samuel Benson and Dasha Burns contributed to this report.
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