Senate Majority Leader John Thune urged President Donald Trump on Wednesday to deliver a swift endorsement of Texas Sen. John Cornyn to potentially forestall what is widely expected to be an expensive and nasty primary runoff against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Thune told reporters he hasn’t yet spoken to Trump since the election returns from Tuesday’s primary came in but indicated he intends to personally redouble his efforts, saying Wednesday that “hopefully” the president will give Cornyn his influential nod.

“[If] Trump endorses early, it saves everybody a lot of money, and … 10 weeks of a spirited campaign on our side that keeps us from spending time focusing on the Democrats,” Thune said.

“If the president can weigh in it would be enormously helpful,” he added.

Thune and other Senate Republicans have been trying to nudge Trump for months to endorse Cornyn, who acknowledged last month that he didn’t expect the president to weigh in before Tuesday night’s election. The runoff is set for May 26, with the winner to face Democrat James Talarico, who avoided his own runoff Tuesday.

Other Senate Republicans are also expected to renew their case for Cornyn to Trump after the four-term veteran exceeded expectations Tuesday.

“I would encourage the president to endorse him,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said Wednesday, arguing that Cornyn has the best shot of winning in November.

As of Wednesday morning, Cornyn is narrowly leading Paxton with 94 percent of the votes counted, according to the Associated Press. Many polls had Cornyn trailing Paxton ahead of Election Day.

Thune called it a “great night” for Cornyn. Other allies of the Texas Republican who were granted anonymity to speak candidly said his performance Tuesday means, in their view, a Trump endorsement is still a possibility.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told lawmakers Wednesday that his state has been terrorized by the Trump administration over mass welfare fraud allegations, pointing to the killing of U.S. citizens in the midst of an immigration enforcement surge around Minneapolis.

“Let me be clear: In Minnesota, if you defraud public programs, if you steal taxpayer money, we’ll find you, we’ll prosecute you, we’ll convict you, and we’ll throw you in jail,” the Democrat said in his opening remarks at a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

But, he added, “the people of Minnesota have been singled out and targeted for political retribution at an unparalleled scale, including blocking Medicaid reimbursements to our state just last week.”

Walz, the 2024 nominee for vice president, is fending off accusations from congressional Republicans that he didn’t do enough to prevent a scandal that has embroiled his state. Prosecutors have charged more than 90 people with defrauding the government, and two individuals connected to the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future were convicted of stealing federal nutrition funds in March.

The revelations have led the Trump administration to take drastic, punitive measures, such as prompting the Department of Health and Human Services to freeze its child care funding and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to cancel hundreds of millions in Medicaid money.

Walz, alongside Minnesota’s Democratic attorney general, Keith Ellison, have been hauled to Capitol Hill to testify before the committee about the scandal — and also to respond to an interim report committee Republicans released early Wednesday morning alleging that Walz and Ellison “knew about the fraud in federal programs administered by the State of Minnesota much earlier than they told the American people.”

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) asked why Walz did not order the stop or suspend welfare program payments, despite warnings of fraud.

“We’re not going to stop payments to feed children until we have the proof that things happen,” Walz said.

Comer objected: “You didn’t stop payments because you didn’t want to rock the boat.”

In his opening statement, Ellison maintained that his office has pursued fraud convictions aggressively where it has the jurisdiction to do so.

Republicans have honed in on the welfare scandal as an opportunity to disparage the state’s Democratic leadership, but it also has fueled anti-immigrant rhetoric within the GOP — specifically against Minnesota’s large Somali community. At one point, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, who is also a member of the Oversight panel, asked Walz whether he knew how many of those indicted have been Somali-American.

“We don’t investigate or prosecute people based on ethnicity, religion—,” Walz said, before Jordan interrupted him.

“Neither do I, we shouldn’t do that,” Jordan responded. “85 percent of the people indicted were Somali-American, a key voting bloc, and I think that’s what drove this whole thing.”

The White House quickly amplified video of the exchange on X.

Democrats on the committee are using the opportunity to criticize the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda. The panel’s ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, pointed to a large poster of Renee Good’s bloody driver seat, after she was shot by ICE agents in January.

“This violence does not make us safer,” Garcia said. “It does not address fraud, waste, and abuse. It doesn’t help families with healthcare … And it certainly as we’re continuing to discuss, is not preventing the kind of fraud that Republicans are discussing here today.”

Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that lawmakers are waiting for the White House to formally request emergency cash to support the war in Iran, as administration officials reportedly consider seeking up to $50 billion.

In an interview, Johnson said he hadn’t heard yet about a specific funding level but that “we’ll pass a supplemental when it’s appropriate and get it right.”

“We’re waiting on the White House and [the Pentagon] to let us know, but we have an open dialogue about it,” he said when asked whether Congress could pass a $50 billion supplemental funding bill.

Passing any emergency funding will be a major fight on Capitol Hill, with Democrats already decrying the lack of details about how much the military is spending and Republican fiscal hawks wary of more spending. Reuters reported Tuesday that Deputy ‌Defense ⁠Secretary Steve Feinberg has been leading Pentagon work on a roughly $50 billion request.

Asked about a $50 billion request in a separate interview, Majority Leader Steve Scalise said, “Well, we’re nowhere close to that.”

“I mean, yesterday at the briefing, it was brought up that there may be a need for a supplemental,” he added. “But we’re still just in the first few days of this conflict, and there’s no no ask yet from the Department of War for a supplemental.”

Scalise said, “When that time comes, we’ll obviously have very serious conversations because it’s important that the Department of War have the tools they need to keep America safe.”

House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) said in an interview that he didn’t know the specific number yet but that he would support an emergency funding bill of tens of billions of dollars.