Congress

Capitol agenda: Senate heads into a weekend grind

Published

3 months ago

March 20, 2026

Get ready for a rare working weekend in the Senate with no break in sight.

Majority Leader John Thune is keeping senators at the Capitol the next few days to continue debating an all-but-doomed elections bill and advance nominees. Senators may have to work through the following weekend as well if the Department of Homeland Security is still shut down, threatening their planned two-week recess.

“I’m not excited about it,” one GOP senator told Blue Light News.

In the meantime, the Senate is expected to vote again Friday on a DHS funding bill that will fail.

— ‘SAVE’ action Saturday: Senators will likely vote Saturday on an amendment to the SAVE America Act that would ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports — a demand from President Donald Trump that isn’t in the House-passed bill. The amendment will almost certainly fail to reach the necessary 60 votes, given Democrats are likely unified in their opposition. Keep an eye on which Republicans vote against the amendment.

The Senate could also consider Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s procedural gambit to force a vote that’s tangentially related to TSA funding. The effort would need 60 votes, meaning it will likely fail. Republicans could try to kill it before Saturday.

— Mullin vote Sunday: The Senate will then take its first vote on Sunday to move forward with Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-Okla.) nomination to become DHS secretary, after he cleared a committee vote Thursday morning.

Mullin should be on a glidepath to confirmation. Republican senators believe Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) beef is personal and doesn’t reflect a larger issue among GOP senators. The question is how many Democrats will vote for their soon-to-be former colleague as the DHS funding impasse goes on. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the sole Democrat who helped advance him out of committee.

The Senate will also vote likely Sunday to confirm Colin McDonald to be assistant attorney general for national fraud enforcement.

— Recess at risk: Next week isn’t looking much better for the Senate schedule. Absent a DHS deal, Thune said Thursday the Senate won’t leave for its two-week recess.

“We’ll find out very quickly, I think, if the Dems want to make a deal,” Thune told Blue Light News Thursday night. “I think there’s deal space there. … We just got to find out how serious the Democrats are.”

A DHS funding agreement doesn’t appear likely any time soon. A group of bipartisan senators left a meeting with White House border czar Tom Homan Thursday afternoon with few signs of progress.

Thune said Republicans are waiting to see if rank-and-file Democrats can get “permission” to negotiate a DHS agreement, suggesting GOP senators see the path out of the shutdown through the same group that solved last year’s funding fight. But another person granted anonymity to discuss Thursday’s closed-door meeting said it wouldn’t enable Republicans to pick off one-or-two Democrats at a time.

“I’m glad the White House was here, but we are a long ways apart,” Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told reporters leaving the meeting.

Congress

Dershowitz to testify on Epstein ties

Published

57 minutes ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Alan Dershowitz is scheduled to speak with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 20 as part of its ongoing Jeffery Epstein investigation.

“I asked to be allowed to set the record straight and correct various misconceptions,” Dershowitz said in a text message. “I look forward to doing so.”

The prominent criminal defense attorney who once represented O.J. Simpson and President Donald Trump also worked on Epstein’s 2008 plea deal, which many have argued allowed Epstein — who died by suicide behind bars in 2019 — to continue to prey on young women and girls for another several years before his later incarceration.

The Oversight Committee is separately set Friday to interview investor Leon Black, whose business dealings with Epstein have been under congressional scrutiny for years.

Congress

Hegseth to brief House Republicans on White House goals for party-line package

Published

2 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to give a classified briefing Wednesday to a group of House Republicans about the administration’s goals for military funding and another party-line reconciliation bill, according to three people granted anonymity to describe a private meeting.

The gathering will take place during the Republican Study Committee’s weekly lunch and be held in the House SCIF, underscoring the potentially sensitive nature of Hegseth’s planned presentation.

Lawmakers are expected to also press Hegseth on the agreement the Trump administration has reached with Iran to end the war.

Congress

Turek leads Hinson in Iowa Senate poll of likely general election voters

Published

7 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Iowa Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek has a narrow lead over GOP rival Ashley Hinson in a new internal poll of likely general-election voters.

Turek leads Hinson 47 percent to 45 percent in the poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group from June 8-11 among 1,000 likely general election voters. The poll shows that Republicans have a 10-point edge in voter registration (42 percent to 32 percent) and an electorate that voted for Trump by 9 points (50 percent for Trump to 41 percent for Kamala Harris).

But the polling also shows President Donald Trump’s favorabilities underwater across the electorate, with 45 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable. Among registered independents, Trump is upside down 28 points.

Turek is “significantly outperforming the state’s underlying partisan dynamics,” Global Strategy Group’s Matt Canter & Ramzi Ebbini write in a memo first obtained by Blue Light News. “Republicans maintain substantial advantages in voter registration and party identification, yet Turek enters the general election ahead of Republican Ashley Hinson, with stronger personal favorability ratings, overperforming a generic Democrat, and with clear opportunities to expand his coalition as more voters become familiar with him.”

Some Republicans have acknowledged a concern about Iowa.

“There are some issues there that we got to deal with — the biggest one is trade — trade and tariffs,” said a Republican close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the obstacles.

In his early general election messaging, Turek has leaned into farmers’ frustrations.

“Josh Turek is winning this race because Iowans are sick and tired of multi-millionaire politicians like Ashley Hinson who sell out working families while they get rich,” Turek for Iowa campaign manager Brendan Koch said in a statement first shared with Blue Light News. “We will spend the next 134 days connecting with Iowans in every corner of the state and across the political spectrum to send a fighter for the working class to the U.S. Senate.”