Congress
Republicans brace for a messy slog on Capitol Hill
DORAL, Florida — House Republicans came here to President Donald Trump’s resort to map out what’s ahead for their legislative agenda. The big takeaway: It’s looking treacherous.
Despite progress on the stated goal of the three-day retreat — coalescing around a fiscal blueprint for their vast party-line agenda — what they saw wasn’t pretty: Key strategic disputes continued to fester inside the GOP ranks, and the uproar from Trump’s federal spending freeze gave vulnerable members a taste of the backlash that could result if they follow through on promised cuts to key programs.
Together it portends a difficult job ahead for Speaker Mike Johnson as he assembles the votes needed to enact Trump’s policy agenda. Johnson and Trump’s message for the GOP rank-and-file isn’t exactly calibrated to settle their anxieties: stay united, or else.
“We’re working together to make sure this package makes good on our campaign promises,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday — two days after Trump urged members to “make life easy” and follow his lead.
The good news for the speaker is that his conference is largely united on the big picture: assembling a sweeping package of border security upgrades, energy measures and tax cuts and passing it on party lines using the budget reconciliation process.
That stands in contrast to the start of Trump’s prior term, when congressional leaders embarked on an internally divisive push to overhaul the Affordable Care Act — an effort that ultimately unraveled amid a public uproar over potential rollbacks to Americans’ healthcare coverage.
The bad news is that the Republican majority in the House is much thinner this time, and Johnson has to worry about balancing the demands of an ideologically motivated faction of hard-line conservatives who want deep spending cuts with the concerns of swing-district members who could face a political reckoning in next year’s midterms if those cuts happen.
Those anxieties were on full display on Tuesday and Wednesday, as members took stock of the flood of phone calls they received from constituents worried about the scope of the White House spending freeze.
Among those raising alarms was Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of three House Republicans representing a district Trump lost in November. He said the warnings Tuesday from himself and others in the GOP helped influence the Trump administration to “narrow what they were doing in a way.” (The White House rescinded the order hours later.)
Yet much of the discussion behind closed doors at the Trump National Doral resort concerned efforts to finance the GOP’s ambitious policy plans by targeting cuts to federal programs. Members discussed imposing new and expanded work requirements for Medicaid, food aid benefits and other aid to low-income families that could provoke public backlash. Democrats are already trying to contrast those cuts with the GOP’s plans to deliver tax cuts for wealthy Americans as they look to unseat vulnerable Republicans in 2026.
Johnson showed no sign of flinching, calling it a “good thing” that Trump had taken aim at such a wide swath of federal spending: “We promised to reduce the size and scope of government,” he said. “We’re disrupting.”
House Republicans left the retreat with mixed feelings about how much clarity they received about the road ahead.
In the final meeting of the retreat, House committee chairs laid out their budgetary targets for the legislation, setting updated “floors” for potential cuts that are set to be embedded in the blueprint that the House Budget Committee is set to take up next week to kick off the reconciliation process.
Johnson, however, didn’t provide members with a top-line number for the overall package, and many members complained they didn’t get a better picture of the path forward, according to three people with direct knowledge of the closed meeting who were granted anonymity to discuss it.
House GOP hard-liners are growing more furious, meanwhile, that Johnson isn’t committing to higher spending cuts in the budget plan. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a key rebel and House Freedom Caucus member, didn’t attend the retreat but posted his criticism of Johnson and GOP leaders’ decisions from afar.
While Johnson is pushing a one-bill plan, the Freedom Caucus is still adamant on imposing its own plan to split the agenda in two.
“I think it’s disappointing,” Freedom Caucus member Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said leaving the final retreat meeting Wednesday. “They want flexibility, but the problem is you have a lack of trust from fiscal conservatives like myself, that there will ever be an appetite to cut spending, and they’re promising to do more.” “I’m from Missouri, you have to show me,” Burlison added. “The truth is: I’ve never seen this town cut spending, so I don’t know that I believe it.”
Soon after, the larger Freedom Caucus quickly dashed off a post on X as the GOP meeting closed, criticizing Johnson and GOP leaders direction and asking, sarcastically: “Are you a Republican Member of Congress leaving Miami today feeling rudderless when it comes to reconciliation?” The post pushed the group’s competing two-track plan as the better option.
Johnson earlier in the morning told reporters he wants House Republicans “to come out with a number that shows the serious nature of what we’re facing and … the high level of cuts that are necessary to get fiscal sanity, responsibility restored to the federal government, but not to put everything in there.”
Leaving the retreat, Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) acknowledged the tough work ahead of nailing down enough spending cuts to pay for the package — including Trump’s demands to eliminate income tax on tips, overtime earnings and Social Security benefits.
“We got work to do,” he said. “That means we’ve got to cut more to be able to afford those things.”
President Donald Trump announced the next chief for the White House’s Capitol Hill strategy on Saturday night, picking Katie Bailey, a former Republican Hill staffer.
Bailey will replace James Braid in the role of director of the Office of Legislative Affairs, which oversees nominations and confirmations of Cabinet roles, relationships on Capitol Hill and the White House’s legislative priorities. Braid left the job in September.
Bailey has served as deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs since the beginning of the summer. She formerly worked for Republican Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana and former Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and served in roles on multiple committees.
Trump commended Bailey for assisting with the confirmations of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, saying she has “already delivered strong results.”
“After previously working on Capitol Hill, Katie understands how the Executive and Legislative Branches of Government can most effectively work together to achieve Great Success for the American People,” the president wrote in a social media post Saturday night.
Bailey takes over the role ahead of the midterm elections, which could alter the power dynamics in Washington substantially if Democrats seize control of either chamber of Congress. The result, which the White House has begun preparing for, could include congressional subpoenas, depositions and investigations, as happened during the latter half of Trump’s first term in office, when Democrats flipped the House.
Trump’s approval continues to sag amid soaring gas and diesel prices driven by the war with Iran, leaving Democrats bullish that the map will continue to grow for them.
SYRACUSE, New York — President Donald Trump came to New York on Friday to help a Republican win an uphill race for governor. But his visit was also a reminder of the complicated role he plays in his party’s fight to keep control of Congress.
Trump rallied alongside GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman, calling on New Yorkers to fire Gov. Kathy Hochul and, referring to the state attorney general, “her totally corrupt sidekick, Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James.”
“Your city and state are dirty, filthy places, and everybody wants to leave,” he told some 5,000 attendees at a convention center in downtown Syracuse — which, he noted, was “a short distance from the beautiful shores of Lake America.”
“You gotta get your act together, and I tell you what, Bruce Blakeman will get your act together,” Trump said.
For Republicans, the president’s appearance underscored a political dilemma that extends beyond New York: Even as Trump increasingly appears to be a drag on their ticket, they need his loyal supporters to energize their base. While voters have soured on the president’s handling of the economy and costs, he remains a potent force in turning out MAGA voters — even in an otherwise Democratic-dominated state.
“The targeting of where the president goes is not a random exercise,” Marist University pollster Lee Miringoff said. “They’re looking to stir the base without stirring the opposition. They’re picking and choosing, that’s not uncommon. For him to come to New York to help the turnout upstate is a positive for the Republicans and his base.”
Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, hasn’t distanced himself from the president — nor have most of the top officials in New York’s GOP. Nearly every Republican running a competitive congressional race in this half of the state came to Friday’s rally, eager to make their presence known.
“I’m always happy to be with the president,” said Anthony Constantino, who’s running in a nearby red district that’s inched into toss-up territory. “He’s the leader of the free world, and I’m excited to have a great relation with him.”
Some GOP operatives, however, have quietly grumbled that their candidates need to start creating some distance from the president. Republicans from other parts of the state like Rep. Mike Lawler decided that campaigning in their districts was more valuable than trekking to be seen with Trump — as did several down-ballot candidates in Central New York. Democrats, notably, have been just as eager to highlight the visit.
“This is supposed to be a swing district. And the feedback I get is that the president is very unpopular,” said Democratic Rep. John Mannion, who represents Syracuse and the surrounding Central New York area. “He still certainly will have his core base of supporters, but I do think he’s lost support here compared to what he had around the 2024 election.”
Blakeman, for his part, isn’t worried about Trump’s drop in popularity.
“Kathy Hochul should be worried about her drop in popularity,” he said before taking the stage in Syracuse. “She’s the most unpopular governor in the history of the state of New York.”
Trump’s visit came against the backdrop of a darkening political environment for New York Republicans.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot a man in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, stirring fresh condemnation of Trump’s aggressive deportation policies. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has a surprisingly warm relationship with the president, called on him to cease all ICE activity in the five boroughs. Hochul stressed that the shooting took place with a five-year-old child present and demanded that federal authorities “provide answers.”
Immigration is one of several areas where Blakeman has hewed close to the Trump wing of the party throughout his campaign.
“I’m outraged with Kathy Hochul for taking sides with somebody who was a convicted felon, someone who was an alleged drug dealer, a gang member,” he said Friday about the shooting in Manhattan.
While Trump’s speech repeatedly careened back to the rhetoric one could expect from any of his rallies — boasts about the stock market, complaints about ‘Dumocrats’ — he did manage to seamlessly blend almost all of Blakeman’s oft-used talking points into his stump speech.
“Since Hochul took office, she’s raised your utility rates 48 times, and energy prices in New York have skyrocketed 100 percent,” Trump said. “If Bruce Blakeman gets in, he will cut your electric bills by 70, 80, 90 percent.”
The climate outside of deep blue New York City is also turning increasingly hostile to the GOP. Constantino, who’s running to succeed Rep. Elise Stefanik in upstate New York, trails his Democratic foe Blake Gendebien by 4 points, a Siena Research Institute survey released Friday morning found. A Blue Light News poll showed that nationally one in four Trump voters believe Republican candidates should break from the president in order to win in November.
The wisdom of appearing with Trump has been debated by Republicans throughout the country at a time when gas prices are high and a foreign war drags on. And New York Democrats aren’t viewing the presidential visit as a concern.
Much of Hochul’s messaging this year has focused on making sure New Yorkers know Blakeman and Trump are friends. Her most-aired TV commercial features a puppeteer saying one Republican would do the other’s bidding.
“Puppets are my life. You tell them what to say, they say it,” the narrator says. “But that’s not what you want in a governor.”
Earlier in the day during an MSNOW interview, Hochul dismissed the rally.
“It’s obviously a very political event,” she said. “It seems like a last-ditch effort to breathe some life into a campaign that’s on life support.”
Despite his low approval ratings with voters, Trump’s visit stands to light up a Republican base that Blakeman will need to turn out next month to help him defeat Hochul.
Polling has shown the governor leading the GOP nominee by as much as 18 points in this deep blue state. Yet some Trump supporters maintain the president can help generate much-needed enthusiasm for Blakeman, especially in areas of upstate New York where the Long Island native is not well known.
“We actually have the ability to win these elections, but I just don’t see the enthusiasm out there,” Conservative Party Chair Gerard Kassar said. “Hochul has won the day as far as being a terrible governor, but now we’ve got to get our people out to vote.”
Winning is still a tall order for Blakeman — especially in a tough national political environment where polls show GOP candidates in red states like Texas, Ohio and Kansas struggling against Democratic challengers.
Republicans have not won statewide in New York since George Pataki secured a third term in 2002. Since then, the GOP has lost all levers of statewide power, and Trump’s tariffs as well as his decision to launch a war in Iran have not helped him fulfill his campaign pledge of addressing voters’ cost concerns.
The president’s political woes aren’t going unnoticed.
Privately, Republican operatives grumbled that the president’s visit put swing seat candidates in an uncomfortable spot.
“There’s a lot of commiserating between folks within the party structure — why is this happening? Why is he doing this?” said one Republican operative who was granted anonymity to freely discuss the dynamic. “Then you’ve got the blind loyalists who say, ‘Yay Trump’s coming’ — people who are too politically dumb to understand the ramifications of it.”
Yet the head of the Republican party kept his message very much in line with Hochul’s.
“Please pretend I’m on the ballot,” Trump told Central New Yorkers.
Sen. Chris Murphy wants Democrats to go big for Angie Nixon in Florida’s Senate race — and he’s pushing to raise some “serious money” to help.
“I do believe that we’d make a big mistake if we slept on Florida,” the Connecticut Democrat told Blue Light News on Friday. “I know it feels like a longer shot, but I just think this year is looking exceptional.”
Murphy plans to hit the trail with Nixon as part of a campaign swing for Senate candidates over the next three weeks that will take him through North Carolina and Florida, as well as events with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota and Chris Pappas in New Hampshire. Murphy will serve as a surrogate for El-Sayed in the spin room at his next debate, and said he’s “just a big believer” in the Michigan Senate nominee.
Murphy’s bullishness about a blue wave comes as Senate Democrats are pushing the boundaries of a midterm battle map that is shifting further into red territory. The Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC has dropped roughly $5 million apiece into Texas and Kansas over recent days, and the minority leader has included Kansas and Mississippi in his pitches to donors.
“If I were in charge, I would definitely put some resources in Florida,” Murphy said. “When you have an exciting candidate like this, it’s a good long-term investment” in growing Democrats’ activist base.
Still, Murphy stressed he’s “not making any formal recommendations” on where Schumer or top Democratic campaign groups should move their money.
“They’ve got so many mouths to feed,” Murphy said. “That’s why I’m going to try to step up and do some work on my own.”
Murphy, who is considered a potential 2028 presidential contender, has spread roughly $2.5 million across candidates, campaign arms and other organizations this cycle. That includes transferring more than $500,000 to Democrats’ three top campaign arms and 25 state parties.
Prominent Democrats have been ramping up their attention on Florida. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has funneled $250,000 toward Nixon’s campaign, along with other resources. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) also told Blue Light News he hopes to campaign with Nixon.
But Democrats across suddenly competitive red states are clamoring for more cash and Florida is an expensive state, complicating the chances of a significant investment from national groups.
Nixon also faces an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Ashley Moody in the Sunshine State. A progressive state lawmaker, Nixon aligned herself with the Democratic Socialists of America over the summer in a state where many voters, especially those with ties to Cuba, reject such an ideology. Also, Republicans in Florida have a 1.5 million voter registration advantage over Democrats.
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