Congress

Ron Johnson is threatening to tank the GOP megabill. He’s been here before.

Published

1 year ago

May 14, 2025

Ron Johnson is no stranger to being a squeaky wheel inside the Senate GOP. Now he’s asking for trillions of dollars worth of grease.

The frequently cantankerous Wisconsin senator is pushing his fellow Republicans to deliver huge spending cuts as part of their party-line domestic policy bill — and vowing to block President Donald Trump’s top legislative priority if his demands, which are shared by a small cadre of fiscal hawks, aren’t met.

As the megabill moves through the House, Johnson’s increasingly vocal warnings are an early indicator for Senate GOP leaders and the White House that they’ve got major headaches awaiting across the Capitol. Senate Republicans can only afford three defections on the expected party-line vote.

“I think there’s enough of us that would say, ‘No, that’s not adequate,’” Johnson said in an interview where he described his insistence on returning the federal government to “pre-pandemic” level of spending.

The math issue that creates for Republicans is stark: The House GOP is struggling to hit $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, while Johnson and his allies want to go much, much further. Returning to the level of federal expenditures that predates multiple rounds of pandemic stimulus, a major infrastructure bill and the Democrats’ own domestic-policy megabill would, by Johnson’s own estimation, require more than $6 trillion in cuts.

GOP leaders might laugh off such an audacious demand if Johnson didn’t have a history of getting what he wants.

The last time Republicans wrote a party-line tax bill, in 2017, he vowed to oppose the package as he pushed for better treatment of so-called “pass-through” businesses, which comprise most privately held companies. Formerly an executive for a Oshkosh plastics manufacturer, Johnson argued that the bill needed to benefit smaller businesses as much as it would benefit large corporations that were in line to get a major rate cut.

His hardball tactics paid off big time: Republicans ultimately included a new 20 percent deduction rate for pass-through business income, an estimated $414 billion line item in the $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Now, with key TCJA provisions expiring, he’s asking for roughly 10 times the fiscal impact, and his colleagues have learned not to brush him off.

“He’s as serious as a heart attack,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who credited Johnson for driving a hard bargain back in 2017. But he also suggested any Republican would have a hard time standing in the way of the party’s top legislative priority: “Sometimes when confronted with a binary choice people compromise a little more.”

While Johnson is setting his sights in the multi-trillion-dollar range, he’s hinting that a substantially smaller settlement might be possible: He suggested in an interview that lawmakers could enshrine a chunk of the overall cuts in the pending GOP bill while also setting up a bicameral commission to find the rest by going “line-by-line” through the federal budget.

“Elon Musk is showing us how to do this right?” he said. “You expose, ‘Whoa, what are we doing spending money on that?’” he said.

But Johnson hasn’t yet found buy-in for that idea from colleagues who have been burned by one too many deficit-cutting commissions that ultimately sputtered. The response he’s gotten, he said, is “we don’t have time to do it.”

“Well, okay then, I don’t have the support for the bill,” Johnson said.

GOP leaders believe they have a strategy to navigate around Johnson, which goes back to their decision to bundle together wildly disparate parts of their domestic agenda — tax cuts, border security upgrades, deportation funding, energy incentives, Pentagon plus-ups and more.

That, they believe, will make it too big to fail. But Johnson had a less optimistic metaphor as he gaggled with reporters on Wednesday, saying it instead “might be like the Titanic and may be going down.”

Johnson has instead repeatedly floated breaking up the bill into two or three or more pieces — something that would force GOP leaders in both chambers to abandon a hard-fought budget blueprint and go back to the drawing board.

He’s no stranger to playing the skunk-at-the-garden-party role inside the Senate GOP. Abandoned by national party committees during his 2016 Senate run, he has long felt unusually free to chart his own path and sometimes critique his own party’s leadership. He’s used his leadership posts on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to pursue matters top GOP leaders would otherwise just leave alone — most recently conspiracy theories related to the 9/11 terror attacks.

Johnson’s not the only potential Senate Republican holdout GOP leaders are dealing with on the “big, beautiful bill.” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is all but guaranteed to be a “no” after opposing the budget blueprint. Several others are viewed as potential swing votes, including Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

Asked about the House bill, Murkowski quipped, “It’s not beautiful yet.”

Senators are expected to make changes to the House bill, if and when it comes over, meaning Johnson will have an opportunity to put his stamp on the legislation. He’s a member of the Finance Committee, which has broad jurisdiction over both taxes and health care, where the GOP is looking to reap most of the savings.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, another Finance member who put a big stamp on the 2017 bill, said Republicans are looking to end up with spending cuts on the “north end” of the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion range.

“We take all our members seriously,” Thune said about Johnson. “I know it’s a huge priority for him, which is why I’ve suggested all along that [the House] prioritize spending cuts in the package.”

Republicans, of course, are also betting that Trump can ultimately force the fiscal hawks, who are typically more MAGA-aligned than moderates like Collins and Murkowski, to stand down. That’s what happened earlier this year when the budget plan was teetering, and Johnson was invited with other fiscal hard-liners on the Budget Committee to meet with Trump at the White House.

Johnson was among them, and he, too, eventually fell in line.

Now, he says, he’s determined to make good on campaign promises to get the nation’s fiscal house in order that date back to his first run as a tea-party-influenced political outsider in 2010.

“I’m trying to lead,” he told reporters Wednesday, adding, “When I talk to Trump about it, he agrees with my approach.”

Congress

Senate confirms Blanche as attorney general

Published

12 hours ago

August 8, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Saturday confirmed Todd Blanche to be attorney general, following a weeks-long struggle with a handful of wary Republicans.

The Senate voted 50-49 to approve him, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining with Democrats in opposition.

Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, has been serving as acting attorney general since Pam Bondi’s ouster in April. Questions about Blanche’s potential conflicts of interest from representing Trump, as well as his role in the creation of a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of Trump’s settlement this spring with the IRS, created headwinds to his confirmation among a key group of Senate Republicans.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who lost re-election after Trump endorsed a primary challenger, helped Blanche clinch his 50th vote Friday. He said Blanche wasn’t perfect but that he wasn’t sure Trump would pick someone better to lead the Justice Department.

“The choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche.”

Cassidy’s support came after Blanche had already spent weeks negotiating with Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, who vetted his nomination as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Cornyn struck an agreement with Blanche Sunday for the DOJ to curtail the payout fund and rein in a deal to exempt Trump from IRS audits.

Cassidy’s support came hours after Murkowski announced that she would oppose Blanche’s nomination, putting it on the brink of potential failure. Between unified opposition from Democrats and Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence for health reasons, Blanche could only lose two Republicans and still be confirmed.

Hours before Friday’s vote, Murkowski told reporters she spoke with Blanche multiple times but that she was “good with where I am.” She said there was no “one” thing that motivated her decision.

“If there was one thing, we might be able to go back to the White House and say ‘Hey, can we work on this one thing,’” she said. “But for me it was a compilation.”

She added that she believed the anti-weaponization fund is “pretty dead” but “what is not so clear” are the audit immunity provisions of Trump’s IRS agreement, “which I just think are viewed by so many in this country as kind of a special and sweet deal for the president and his family.”

Congress

Senate passes funding bill to avert October shutdown

Published

13 hours ago

August 8, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate passed a bill Saturday to fund the government beyond the midterm elections, putting the onus back on the House to head off a shutdown looming Oct. 1.

The Senate approved the measure in a bipartisan 90-6 vote, with Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina voting present. The bill would fund federal agencies through Dec. 11 at current levels, with some exceptions. Senate leaders sped up consideration of the legislation as part of an agreement reached Saturday morning to allow members to leave for August recess.

The House and Senate have now each passed different bills aimed at averting a shutdown at the end of the fiscal year. The House bill would fund the government through Dec. 4.

The Senate legislation sets up a year-end standoff over the Trump administration’s controversial plan to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants. The bill would block the administration from finalizing that rule during the length of the stopgap — and lawmakers are already expecting a December brawl over the issue.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said this week that he’s going to “fight like hell” in December to ensure Congress doesn’t further obstruct the grant overhaul.

But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are resistant to the White House approach to grants. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she will “continue to oppose” the Trump administration plans “because I think they politicize the grants process, and I don’t want that to occur.” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on Senate Appropriations, said she too would “welcome the fight.”

The Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) intended to ensure that a ban on intoxicating hemp products kicks in come November, after Senate leaders at the White House’s urging included language in the funding bill to delay it.

The Senate bill includes language Democrats sought to ensure Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol don’t get any new funding under the patch. Republicans enacted $70 billion for those agencies along party lines earlier this year.

That prohibition could be contentious in the House.

Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) said in an interview that the provision “could be a dealbreaker” and that he’s “not a fan” of the Senate version. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said Tuesday that he would say he’s undecided if GOP leadership whipped his vote on the Senate stopgap.

“I do not like the Senate language,” Van Drew said, noting the grant approval provision. “It’s one I would want to know what the president thinks.”

The White House issued a statement of administration policy in support of the Senate’s funding bill. No such memo was issued for the House bill, which did not include the funding increases and authorizations the White House requested.

“Every Member of Congress should support passage of this [continuing resolution] to keep the Government open as discussions on full year appropriations continue,” it reads.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democratic appropriator in the House, praised the Senate measure for including the grant and immigration enforcement language.

“This bill is a clear improvement over the House Republican continuing resolution, but we are still nearly two months away from the end of the fiscal year and should be working together to pass full-year funding bills,” she said in a statement.

Mia McCarthy and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate eyes the exit after GOP-Trump deal

Published

17 hours ago

August 8, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate is aiming to leave Washington for a five-week recess early Saturday after Republicans cut a deal with President Donald Trump to punt some of their priorities, including a framework for a party-line spending plan.

The Senate is trying to lock in an agreement that would set up votes on a college sports bill, a stopgap government funding bill, Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination and GOP voter ID legislation, according to a copy of an internal notice reviewed by Blue Light News.

The Senate would then leave Washington until mid-September.

Any one senator could object to the tentative deal, forcing it to be altered or dragging the Senate deeper into the weekend. Senators believe there are still objections to advancing the college sports bill. Democrats are also waiting to see if one of their own will prevent speeding up Blanche’s confirmation.

The breakthrough is a U-turn from earlier Friday evening, when Republican senators emerged from a closed-door meeting predicting they would have to spend Saturday trying to break a stalemate within the party about how to wrap final votes before recess.

Shortly after that meeting, Trump spoke by phone with Senate Republicans including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah about the path forward for the GOP’s lengthy to-do list.

During the call, according to Johnson, Trump agreed to punt a vote on a budget blueprint for a third party-line spending bill until later in the year. Lee, who has been pushing for action on the separate SAVE America Act, also agreed to drop his demand for a formal, roll call vote on adjourning given the understanding with the president.

“I think the conclusion of the conference – and we had a discussion with the president and he agrees – [is] don’t take the vote tonight,” Johnson said after the meeting in Thune’s office.

Republicans were in talks with the White House throughout Friday. A White House official granted anonymity said Friday evening that “we’re continuing to have productive conversations with senators to advance several legislative priorities.”