Congress

‘We’re running out of time’: GOP already antsy on Trump’s Hill agenda

Published

1 year ago

January 20, 2025

Welcome to the Washington trifecta, Republicans. Now get ready to wait.

Even as the GOP takes unified control of the House, Senate and White House on Monday, congressional leaders are facing doubts about just how quickly they will be able to deliver major wins for Donald Trump. Their legislative plans are highly unsettled, and the clock is ticking toward distracting fights over federal spending and the debt limit.

And when it comes to the heart of Trump’s agenda — a sprawling party-line effort encompassing border, energy and tax policy — key strategic questions remain in flux. Once they agree on the general direction of travel, leaders will then have to navigate a thicket of nasty intraparty disputes on the policies themselves.

Under the most ambitious timeline put forth by Speaker Mike Johnson, it will be Memorial Day before that bill lands on Trump’s desk. Deeply skeptical Senate Republicans are readying their own conflicting plans in case the House falters.

“Everybody is feeling the pressure now of time,” said Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus who has been pushing for quicker action. “In a short period, we’ve got to make something happen.”

Some smaller wins are at hand: Thanks to some Democratic cooperation in the Senate, Republicans expect to send a relatively small-bore immigration bill to Trump this week.

Named after a Georgia nursing student murdered last year, the Laken Riley Act would require broader incarcerations of undocumented immigrants accused of crimes. But it’s only a sliver of what Trump has in mind for immigration policy.

To fill out the House floor schedule in the first weeks, Johnson is eyeing bills on abortion and public safety that will likely get filibustered in the Senate. He’s also planning to put a bipartisan forestry and wildfire prevention bill up for a vote this week, with Congress unlikely to pass any aid for the wildfires tearing through California until at least March.

The Senate will churn through confirmations of Trump’s Cabinet and other nominees. And both chambers are hoping to use Congressional Review Act powers to claw back key Biden administration rules, something GOP leaders hope will help calm antsy conservatives.

But there is a massive distraction also looming: A March 14 government funding deadline that could result in a government shutdown if Trump and Republicans can’t come to a deal with congressional Democrats who still hold leverage due to the Senate filibuster.

Johnson has been moving carefully on the spending discussions and the party-line agenda talks, mindful of staying on the same page as Trump — who upended the last spending deal the speaker cut with Democrats in December. This time Johnson wants Trump’s sign off on key details related to both initiatives, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door conversations. But it’s unclear if that will ever come.

Meanwhile, the committee chairs who will actually have to write the bills are left tapping their feet. “We’re running out of time,” said House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who is waiting on top-line discretionary spending targets.

Settling some of these outstanding questions is likely to be on the agenda for a high-level meeting between Trump and congressional leaders Tuesday. Impatience is already emerging as a theme in interbranch relations: In a series of meetings last week on Capitol Hill, Trump policy chief Stephen Miller relayed the president-elect’s desire for “immediacy” in pushing through his legislative agenda.

The pressure is just as intense inside the House, where Norman and his fellow Freedom Caucus members continue to push a two-track approach to the party-line agenda in defiance of Johnson.

They want a smaller, border-focused package first that includes a debt limit hike and spending cuts. That’s essentially the opposite of what Johnson is now steering the conference toward — one massive bill with tax reform included but leaving a debt limit hike for bipartisan government funding talks.

Listed as a “key benefit” in the Freedom Caucus plan: “Speed to deliver huge early wins on key priorities for President Trump.”

Johnson, who shares fears with some House committee chairs that breaking up the bills could make them harder to pass given his narrow majority, tried to temper the unrest by laying out an aggressive timeline for pushing through the sprawling megabill in a closed-door conference meeting last week.

The timeline was a good start, one GOP lawmaker said leaving the meeting. “But at the end of the day, we need to know the plan,” the member said.

The speaker has also launched a listening tour. He is with scores of members about the plans, with a focus on hearing out their thoughts on making trillions of dollars in highly controversial spending cuts. GOP Whip Tom Emmer has corralled small working groups to hash out members’ diverging demands.

Meanwhile, leaders in both chambers are counting on Trump to settle things down with a flurry of Day One executive orders, many of which are expected to deal with immigration and reversing Biden-era climate and pandemic policies. Those actions, they hope will dampen the hard-liners’ push for immediate and sweeping legislative action on the border.

“I expect the president’s going to develop hand cramps signing executive orders,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “And that will demonstrate meaningful progress.”

But many senators still want to push their own two-track plan — notably Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is preparing a border-first budget blueprint to jam the House with, should Johnson fail to deliver on a tight timeline.

Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), who attended a meeting with Miller and House Republicans last week, said Trump’s early immigration executive orders would be “a good start” but “not permanent” and Republicans want to “codify” those executive actions in law — quickly.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Trump leaves Congress in dark on Iran deal

Published

4 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans want a say on a deal President Donald Trump is touting to end the monthslong war in Iran.

The absence of publicly released text for the “memorandum of understanding” Vice President JD Vance reportedly signed with Iranian officials Sunday sparked bipartisan scrutiny on Capitol Hill about what the deal might entail.

Senators in both parties agreed: More information needs to come to Congress soon, and any agreement touching on the future of the Iranian nuclear program would have to eventually be subject to a congressional vote.

“If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” said Sen. James Lankford. “We’ve got to have a vote of Congress to be able to solidify [it] long term.”

The Trump administration said it expects release of the memorandum of understanding no later than Friday.

The agreement reportedly includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, but it’s not clear to what degree Iran will be required to abandon its nuclear program. The White House circulated talking points to Hill Republicans Monday touting the deal, including that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” and “energy prices … are coming down,” according to a copy of the document reviewed by Blue Light News.

“If it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously?” Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters.

Weighing heavily on several lawmakers is the possibility of an agreement landed by the administration looking very similar to the last Iran nuclear deal, consummated more than a decade ago by then-President Barack Obama amid a bipartisan uproar over trading sanctions relief and cash concessions to the Iranian regime in return for curbs on its nuclear ambitions.

Democrats believe Trump should’ve never abandoned that deal — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — in his first term, while GOP defense hawks despised it from the start.

“If [the Iranians] can enrich [uranium] anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of the Trump administration’s forthcoming deal. “If they can’t enrich, then that makes it a good deal.”

One legacy of that 2015 controversy: the GOP-controlled Congress at the time passed legislation allowing for congressional review of any agreement dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. That law gives members the ability to kill a deal via a disapproval resolution that could be subject to presidential veto.

In the absence of further details, senators mainly agreed that they wanted a chance to formally review and vote on Trump’s deal — even as some Republicans predicted the administration would find a way to avoid that happening.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is “probably some expectation” that his chamber would ultimately vote on the agreement while declining to weigh in on the particulars.

“I just don’t know enough about it yet, and I don’t think even the people who follow this stuff closely up here know that much about it,” he said, adding that he expected Vance or other administration officials to brief members on the deal at some point.

What else we’re watching:

— DEMS NONCOMMITTAL ON SPEEDY CLAYTON CONFIRMATION: It’s unclear if Senate Republicans will be able to move at the lightning speed they’d hoped to in confirming Jay Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence by the end of the week. If every Senate Intelligence member agrees, Clayton could get a committee vote Thursday following his Wednesday hearing. Confirming Clayton on the Senate floor hours later would require getting agreement from every senator to speed up the process. Opposition from a single member would punt a vote to next week.

— THUNE AIMS FOR HOUSING BILL PASSAGE THIS WEEK: Thune is hoping his chamber can pass an updated version of a bipartisan housing affordability bill by the end of the week. The legislation comes after talks between Thune, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott and ranking member Elizabeth Warren. Two Senate Democratic aides granted anonymity to discuss ongoing plans said the bill was also discussed with the House and the White House.

Katherine Hapgood contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate Republicans want a say on Trump’s Iran deal

Published

16 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump is touting a deal that would end the monthslong war with Iran — and potentially ease some of the political headwinds bearing down on Republicans.

GOP lawmakers still have lots of questions.

The absence of publicly released text for the “memorandum of understanding” Vice President JD Vance reportedly signed with Iranian officials Sunday left an information vacuum on Capitol Hill, where senators of both parties were left airing concerns about what the deal might entail.

Even most Republicans agreed: More information needs to come to Congress soon, and any agreement touching on the future of the Iranian nuclear program would have to eventually be subject to a congressional vote.

“If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “We’ve got to have a vote of Congress to be able to solidify [it] long term.”

The bipartisan scrutiny of the long-brewing agreement is a legacy of the last Iran nuclear deal, consummated more than a decade ago by then-President Barack Obama amid a bipartisan uproar over trading sanctions relief and cash concessions to the Iranian regime in return for curbs on its nuclear ambitions.

Trump withdrew from the deal in his first term, and now he is back with an agreement that — pending release of the text and final negotiations yet to come — could end up looking like Obama’s deal. That has raised the hackles of both defense hawks who despised the original agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and Democrats who believe Trump never should have left it in the first place.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of those defense hawks, told reporters that he was “pulling for a deal,” while also making note of serious discrepancies in the terms that have emerged thus far.

“The MOU being described by us sounds really very good; the MOU being described by Iran sounds awful,” Graham said.

“If they can enrich [uranium] anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA. If they can’t enrich, then that makes it a good deal,” he continued, adding in a separate conversation that he was “skeptical that Iran will ever go there” to cease enrichment.

The Trump administration said it expects release of the memorandum of understanding no later than Friday.

The possibility that Congress would take any kind of vote on the agreement is also a legacy of the 2015 deal. Amid bipartisan concern about the Obama administration’s pursuit of nuclear talks, the GOP-controlled House and Senate that year passed legislation allowing for congressional review of any agreement dealing with the Iranian nuclear program.

That law, however, does not require Congress to approve a deal — it rather gives it the ability to kill a deal via a disapproval resolution that could be subject to presidential veto. That means each chamber would have to effectively muster a two-thirds majority to block Trump, something it did not come close to doing in 2015.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is “probably some expectation” that his chamber would ultimately vote on the agreement while declining to weigh in on the particulars.

The lack of specificity was par for the course on Capitol Hill Monday, with many senators expressing exasperation that text of the signed agreement has not yet been released.

“If it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters.

The agreement reportedly includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, but it’s not clear to what degree Iran will be required to abandon its nuclear program. Vance indicated in a series of interviews that the administration will attempt to ensure Iran does not develop or obtain a nuclear weapon but left details regarding civilian nuclear facilities and potential uranium enrichment unaddressed.

The White House circulated talking points to Hill Republicans Monday touting the deal including that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” and “energy prices … are coming down,” according to a copy of the document reviewed by Blue Light News. The administration also argued in the memo that the agreement “beats” the Obama-era agreement.

In the absence of further details, senators mainly agreed that they wanted a chance to formally review and vote on the deal — even as some Republicans predicted the administration would find a way to avoid that happening.

“I don’t expect that to happen,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said about a vote. “They’ll try to write it around the treaty requirements, so I don’t expect we’ll vote on it.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said the administration should send the deal to Congress “if they want it to be something other than a political agreement, like the JCPOA was.”

Most congressional Republicans have been eager for Trump to find a way out of the nearly four-month war, which has driven up energy prices ahead of the November elections. Thune predicted Monday that a deal would “have a very positive impact on the economic situation in the country and that obviously will translate into the political situation in the country.”

Some of Trump’s most vocal allies on Capitol Hill praised the agreement Monday.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said has had conversations with senior White House officials and he was “very hopeful.” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who is likely the next Senate GOP campaign chair, added on X: “President Trump deserves our trust and support as he works to bring peace to the Middle East.”

Democrats were largely keeping their powder dry Monday on how they would handle a vote on the agreement. Some could find it hard to oppose a deal that ends hostilities on negotiated terms roughly similar to what was secured under a Democratic president in 2015.

But plenty of Democrats questioned what was gained by the conflict.

“We still don’t know the details,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “The American people need to know exactly what’s in the deal. … We know this for certain: We are worse off than before Trump began his foolish war of choice.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Thune is ‘hopeful’ Mitch McConnell will return this week

Published

20 hours ago

June 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he hopes his predecessor as top Republican, Mitch McConnell, returns this week from a hospitalization.

Thune said he had not yet spoken directly with the 84-year-old Kentuckian but is getting “readouts from his staff.”

Asked about McConnell’s condition or if he knew if he would be back this week, Thune told reporters, “I’m hopeful that he’ll be back this week.”

A McConnell spokesperson said Sunday that he had been admitted to the hospital but did not provide details on his condition or why he was hospitalized — a break from recent prior instances where the seven-term senator was hospitalized.

A former McConnell staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity was told the senator was doing much better Monday without any further details on what put him in the hospital.

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.