Congress

An old Capitol Hill troublemaker is trying to clinch a megabill deal

Published

1 year ago

June 14, 2025

It’s a scene jarringly familiar to many Republicans on Capitol Hill: a high-stakes piece of legislation, a tense standoff between GOP leaders and conservative hard-liners — and Mark Meadows in the middle of it all.

The former North Carolina congressman and Donald Trump chief of staff has been lying low in recent years. But he’s re-emerged as a behind-the-scenes sounding board for Republican hard-liners, who view him as an informal conduit with the White House as they try to shape the president’s “big, beautiful bill.”

It’s just the latest turn for Meadows, who played a central role in ousting John Boehner as speaker, then served as conservative gadfly in Paul Ryan’s House GOP before leaving for the White House. He was at Trump’s side through 2020 until the ignominious end of his first term.

His most recent headlines have concerned his role in the “stop the steal” efforts that followed the 2020 election and his interactions with Trump during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Reports of an immunity deal and his testimony to a federal grand jury made him persona non grata in some MAGA circles.

But Meadows, who declined to comment for this story, has maintained a foothold on the hard right as a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute — a conservative think tank in Washington headed by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. It’s where the current iteration of the House Freedom Caucus, which Meadows once led, huddles for its weekly meetings, and he keeps in frequent touch with the group’s members.

Those conversations have heated up in recent weeks as the GOP megabill has moved to the top of the Capitol Hill agenda.

This past Tuesday evening, for instance, Meadows ventured into the Capitol complex to meet with a small cadre of hard-liners from both chambers: GOP Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah, as well as Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.

The meeting in Lee’s office, which was first reported by POLITICO, focused on how the right flank could hang onto some of its biggest priorities in the House version of the megabill, while trying to eke out some new wins in the Senate.

“He’s just trying to figure out how to thread the needle here,” Johnson said in an interview.

Added Scott, “Mark is trying to help get a deal done.”

All five sitting lawmakers who attended the Tuesday evening meeting have threatened to oppose Trump’s domestic-policy package if it doesn’t meet their demands, a strategy Meadows is no stranger to.

He played a key role, for instance, in shaping the first attempt at major party-line legislation in Trump’s first term — a 2017 attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He pushed as Freedom Caucus chair to make the bill much more aggressive in undoing the 2010 law’s mandates.

Meadows helped broker deals that ultimately got a bill through the House, but it went too far for key senators, and the effort fizzled.

Now, according to Republicans who have spoken with him, Meadows has been helpful in brainstorming ideas for hard-liners as they seek to force as many of their demands into the bill as possible. He’s also viewed by others as eager to stay in the mix on Capitol Hill — akin to a sort of MAGA Zelig who likes to be where the action is.

“He wants to be involved,” said one House Republican, who was skeptical that Meadows is serving a GOP interest larger than himself.

It’s unclear whether Meadows’ role has been blessed by the White House, where opinions about “The Chief’s Chief” — as Meadows titled his memoir — vary widely. Administration officials are aware of Meadows’ quiet shuttle diplomacy in the name of the president’s signature policy item. Even if the Trump administration hasn’t formally sanctioned his role, GOP lawmakers see him as someone who still has the ear of the president and his advisors.

Scott noted that Meadows has “a good working relationship with the White House.” Johnson said it was his impression that Meadows is still actively engaged with the administration, even though he’s technically out of government.

“It’s my understanding that President Trump’s former chiefs stay in touch with him,” Johnson said, adding that Meadows is trying to play a “helpful role.”

Meadows grew so loyal at one point that Trump publicly lauded Meadows during a 2020 rally for physically staying by his side when he contracted Covid. But after Trump lost the election and amid the post-Jan. 6 flurry of congressional and federal investigations, the president and some top MAGA figures increasingly saw Meadows as an unreliable ally given reports about a possible federal immunity deal.

“Some people would make [an immunity] deal, but they are weaklings and cowards,” Trump wrote in 2023. “I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?”

In the end, Meadows was never charged federally and Trump’s indictment on conspiracy changes related to the 2020 election never went to trial. Then, after Trump’s re-election, Meadows assumed his quiet role as power broker.

Meadows has popped up in the House at several big moments in recent months. He huddled with hard-liners and House GOP leaders separately during speaker election fights, including when a small group of conservatives ousted Kevin McCarthy in October 2023.

He emerged from Speaker Mike Johnson’s office just a few days before Trump’s inauguration before being spotted on the House side of the Capitol multiple times later in the spring. Asked if he was working on Trump’s behalf, Meadows replied: “Oh no, I’m just here for a brief meeting.”

He headed into the speaker’s office late last month hours before the Louisiana Republican pulled off what many believed to be impossible — passing the House version of the megabill with the support of every Freedom Caucus member, save Chair Andy Harris of Maryland, who voted present.

Unlike with Boehner, Ryan and McCarthy, Meadows is more ideologically aligned with Mike Johnson. The two men were both part of a group of House Republicans who took on the role of Trump’s unofficial defenders during his first Senate impeachment trial, and Johnson — while never a member — has long had close ties to the Freedom Caucus, including when Meadows chaired the group.

Now members of the Freedom Caucus are still in regular contact with Meadows, and the House GOP is studded with old Meadows allies, such as fellow HFC co-founder and current Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who estimated he still talks to Meadows once a week. Many of them see his low-key involvement in megabill talks as being in line with his general approach.

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who said he sees Meadows regularly, said he wouldn’t be surprised if Meadows was “facilitating” conversations, summing up his general approach as “like, how do you get this done?”

Rachael Bade contributed to this report.

Congress

Paxton reports $18M quarterly fundraising haul

Published

4 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026 across his campaign and his joint fundraising committees, his campaign tells Blue Light News, a significant haul for the homestretch of the election.

Paxton’s number is double his $9 million second-quarter total, and signals Republican donors are rallying behind their Texas nominee. The campaign did not provide a current cash-on-hand total.

Democrat James Talarico’s campaign has yet to release his fundraising totals for the quarter. He raised $30 million last quarter.

“We now have the resources to make sure every Texan sees Talarico’s radical record between now and Election Day,” said Nick Maddux, senior adviser to the Paxton campaign.

The past quarter — the first full reporting period after Paxton’s primary runoff victory in May — saw Republicans flock to Texas for their midterm convention, which featured pro-Paxton fundraisers on the sidelines. Last week, the Paxton campaign announced a massive $20 million ad buy across the state, one of the largest-ever single media investments in a Texas Senate race.

Paxton needs the money: In a recording of a private donor event last month shared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”

Texas has emerged as a huge money suck for Senate Republicans, who have poured tens of millions into the state to aid Paxton. Senate Leadership Fund, their top super PAC, has spent or reserved well over $100 million in the state to date, and the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. and its affiliates plan to spend near $45 million in the state through Oct. 12.

Paxton has acknowledged that money has changed the race’s narrative: In a recording of a private donor event last monthshared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”

Most recent public polling shows Talarico with a small lead in the race in spite of the recent onslaught in GOP spending, though Paxton’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing Paxton leading by three points.

Congress

Where Warnock is visiting in the final midterms sprint

Published

11 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Raphael Warnock is hitting the road for the last month before Election Day.

The Georgia Democrat’s final midterm campaign surrogate sprint will only increase chatter around the possibility that he might run for president in 2028, according to a nine-stop itinerary shared first with Blue Light News.

First, he’ll touch down in New Hampshire on Tuesday before hitting Nevada on Wednesday. Next, he’ll travel to South Carolina (Oct. 13), Mississippi (Oct. 14), North Carolina (Oct. 15), South Carolina (Oct. 16-17), Michigan (Oct. 20-21), Wisconsin (Oct. 23) and Ohio (Oct. 24-26).

“Senator Reverend Warnock will be hitting the trail to energize voters who are sick of the President enriching himself while ordinary people continue to pay more for everything,” a spokesperson told Playbook. “Tapping into the righteous anger that voters are feeling across the country, the pastor in the Senate will again make the campaign trail his pulpit: calling out Trump’s corruption, while leaving voters hopeful for the next generation of Democratic leadership.”

Asked recently at the Texas Tribune Festival about whether he would run for president, Warnock said: “We’ll see what happens.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: Dems split on probing Trump corporate allies

Published

12 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats are eager to win back subpoena power if they retake Congress, but they’re split on how hard they’ll go after corporate America.

The party is united by the idea of aggressive oversight of President Donald Trump’s administration, which will help shape their messaging in the run-up to the 2028 election. But Democrats are at odds over how fiercely to use their probing power to go after the corporations, law firms and universities that courted the White House over the past two years.

“We don’t want to turn into a banana republic where you lose an election and it’s all about retribution,” Rep. Bill Foster, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, said.

“We’re going to have to be a little bit wise about when companies simply did something they had to do to survive this unprecedented level of corruption, compared to companies that actually got on board and profited more by being a partner in his corruption,” he added.

Some progressives counter that a restrained approach would sit uneasily with the party’s base.

“It would be political suicide for Democrats to campaign on fighting corruption and then turn around and go easy on the very companies that are facilitating it,” said Ella Fanger, corporate power policy adviser at the liberal nonprofit group Demand Progress.

Prime targets for some Democrats are the tech companies that have taken steps to be on the president’s good side, like Apple, Amazon and Meta, which have all donated to Trump’s ballroom effort. Major cryptocurrency players, including Coinbase, Ripple and Tether also chipped in for the ballroom, and will be subject to questioning from Democrats.

The late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s networks and associates are also poised for probes — a push that has ensnared big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America in the past.

Sen. Chris Murphy said the party should focus on the nexus between Trump and corporate corruption.

“We should get to the bottom of the corrupt relationship that exists between corporations in this country and the Trump administration,” Murphy said, pointing to questions he’s posed about a tobacco company’s donation to Trump’s super PAC before new e-cigarette rules were unveiled.

Still, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who serves on Senate Banking, warned against the weaponization of power.

“Our focus should be solving problems that we’re seeing happening,” she said, pointing to cost-of-living issues around health care, housing and energy.

What else we’re watching:

— FIRST IN IC: BUILD AMERICA CAUCUS AGENDA — Energized by progress on permitting and housing legislation this term, a bipartisan development-focused caucus is rolling out a detailed agenda for next term. The 40-member Build America Caucus is releasing a 95-page package of proposals, first shared with Blue Light News, that outlines plans touching on health care, transportation, child care and research. The group launched last year with the goal of cutting red tape and regulatory bottlenecks to spur development.

— AI COLLAB STILL ILLUSIVE FOR CRUZ, CANTWELL — Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and ranking member Maria Cantwell might still be celebrating Senate passage of their landmark college sports bill last week, but it’s unclear the momentum will carry forward to agreement on another committee priority: artificial intelligence. Among the dozen lawmakers, aides and industry experts who spoke to Blue Light News, few expect the two senators to shed their well-established ideologies and styles after the mutual win. That could doom their ability to replicate their latest achievement in something as complex and divisive as an AI regulatory framework.

Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.