Congress
Ashcroft to vouch for Blanche
Senate Judiciary Republicans have invited three witnesses to testify on behalf of attorney general nominee Todd Blanche, including former AG John Ashcroft.
Besides Ashcroft, who served under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the Judiciary panel will hear Thursday from John Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and Jennifer Bos, who has advocated for tough immigration policies following the 2025 murder of her daughter by an unauthorized immigrant.
Hannah Akey, a spokesperson for Judiciary Republicans, said the trio will shed light on Blache’s “historic work to bring down violent crime, support our nation’s men and women in blue and turn back the tide on the Biden administration’s soft-on-crime, open border policies.”
House Republican leaders and White House officials are coalescing around a roughly $80 billion policy package as they prepare for a final summer push to enact party-line budget reconciliation legislation.
House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said the bill would pump $67 billion into Pentagon programs and $11 billion to farm assistance, without including offsetting spending cuts. Three other people granted anonymity to describe the negotiations confirmed the outlines of the deal, which is also likely to include several billion dollars in election grants meant to replicate portions of the SAVE America Act that President Donald Trump is pushing for.
The lack of offsets threatens to enrage GOP fiscal hawks, who want at least the agriculture portion of the bill to be paid for. But in a nod to those fiscal concerns, the farm aid portion of the bill shrunk from earlier discussions of as much as $20 billion.
Speaker Mike Johnson declined to get into specifics about the bill but said he was focused on “building consensus one step at a time.” Several meetings of key GOP officials took place through the day Tuesday, including one at the White House that Johnson, Rogers and other key Republicans attended.
The $67 billion defense request is roughly what the White House asked for in a recent emergency supplemental funding package but falls well short of the $350 billion military infusion Trump has called for.
The House Budget Committee has set a Thursday morning markup of the fiscal blueprint that launches the budget reconciliation process. Under panel rules, that blueprint would have to be released no later than 10 a.m. Wednesday.
“We’re going through a number of different ideas, and we’ll reveal the details when when they’re ready to be revealed publicly,” Johnson said. “But right now, it’s member-to-member, and the White House is directly engaged, and we’re grateful for that because it’s a team effort.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters the budget framework could come to the floor next week if it clears the Budget Committee Thursday. He said the annual defense policy bill, which GOP leaders hoped to advance last month until an intraparty rebellion derailed that plan, could also return to the floor next week.
Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
Billionaire investor Leon Black is scheduled for a Sept. 3 deposition in front of House Oversight lawmakers who want to press him under oath about his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A spokesperson for House Oversight Republicans said Tuesday attorneys for the co-founder of Apollo Global Management had confirmed his appearance date. Black’s legal team will also transfer at the end of next week nondisclosure agreements the investor allegedly had with women tied to Epstein, the spokesperson said, which he had previously told the committee he will not discuss.
Black has stoked high bipartisan interest in Congress’ investigation into Epstein and the government’s investigation into the late sex offender. Oversight lawmakers last month issued two subpoenas in the middle of a voluntary interview with Black after the investor refused to answer questions about the potential NDAs.
“We believe that information is vital to our investigation,” Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) had told reporters following the subpoena issuance. “We want to know, was Jeffrey Epstein involved in the NDAs? … Was he involved in awarding [of] funds to the women for the NDAs? What was the reason for the NDAs?”
Black at the June interview said he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes over the time frame he paid Epstein tens of millions of dollars, though he did acknowledge he was aware of Epstein’s 2008 sex crime conviction.
Unlike the voluntary interview, Black’s deposition will be videotaped and under oath.
The House passed legislation Tuesday to end the nation’s biannual practice of changing the clocks — a vote that sowed division in both parties and now faces an uphill battle in the Senate despite strong lobbying from the White House and personal engagement from President Donald Trump.
The final vote of 308-117 did not break down neatly along party lines. Twenty-two Republicans opposed it, even as the Trump administration put out a Statement of Administrative Policy encouraging its enactment.
Many Florida lawmakers extolled the legislation, with the state’s chief economic drivers — tourism, recreation, restaurants and golfing — standing to benefit from the extra hours of daylight in the evenings year-round.
“Why in the heck are we still changing our clocks?” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) asked during floor debate on the bill. “Floridians — we are the sunshine state. We value sunshine.”
Rep. Gus Bilirakis, another Florida Republican, added: “This is not about politics. This is about practicality. It is about recognizing that our laws should keep pace with the people we represent.”
Other members, however, were critical of the effort. Agriculture state lawmakers are especially wary of delaying daylight for farmers, while others fear the extra hours of darkness in the morning would pose risks to mental health, public safety and sleep habits.
“I’m not for it,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in an interview, “because I think having kids go to school when it’s dark doesn’t make sense, and that’s the major reason.”
Democrats devoted significant time during closed-door meetings Monday and Tuesday to debate the pros and cons of adopting permanent daylight saving time as the top Democrat on House Energy and Commerce, Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, tried hard to sell it.
Pallone’s committee adopted the Sunshine Protection Act as a bipartisan amendment to be included in a measure reauthorizing surface transportation programs. On Tuesday, he called it something on which “many Americans actually agree.” He claimed that only 12 percent of Americans want to keep the clock-changing practice as is, adding that it’s associated with an increase in heart attacks and strokes.
In the end, 95 Democrats voted against the bill on the floor Tuesday.
Lawmakers have been debating this topic for years, but the effort has picked up speed in recent months thanks to Trump’s involvement. GOP leaders decided to move the bill as a standalone proposition at this time in hopes it would entice Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) to end her revolt over unrelated issues on the House floor.
“I’m glad President Trump is making this a priority,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the bill’s champion in the Senate, said in a statement. “We have the momentum, now it’s time to lock the clock.”
But the bill’s prospects across the Capitol are dim. A GOP aide granted anonymity to speak freely noted that Senate Majority Leader John Thune is unlikely to override Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a member of leadership who has long been opposed to making daylight saving time permanent. Thune, too, in 2025 opposed a version of the House bill when it was marked up by the Senate Commerce Committee.
Spokespeople for Thune and Cotton did not immediately return requests for comment Tuesday.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso told reporters Tuesday that the topic is complicated and divisions exist throughout the country.
“We’ll see,” he said. “You know, we had passed something like that once before, and then the House hit the snooze alarm on it, and we’ll see what happens when it gets here.”
Jordain Carney and Timothy Cama contributed to this report.
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