Congress

Capitol agenda: Senate launches push for Graham’s final bill

Published

2 hours ago

July 29, 2026

The Senate is one step closer to achieving a top legislative priority of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham in a feat that seemed impossible a year ago.

Graham’s legislation targeting Russia with expanded sanctions got a huge boost Tuesday night with senators voting 86-12 to advance it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — who a year ago faced waning support in Washington — pitched senators shortly before the vote as to how the bill could force Russia into peace talks and memorialize Graham.

The bill, which has President Donald Trump’s backing, still faces plenty of hurdles in the Senate and House.

With August recess looming, senators have little time to finish passing the legislation — and tackle the rest of their to-do-list — before leaving town. It will require all 100 senators, including the bill’s opponents, to cut a deal to speed up its consideration with amendment votes.

“I think we can start to winnow, hopefully, the list down,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said as he left the floor after the vote, referring to amendments.

Sen. Rand Paul, for example, is working on an amendment to rein in new tariff powers given to the president under the bill. Sen. Ron Wyden also wants a tariff-related amendment and is working with Paul.

Even if it gets through the Senate, there are still hurdles awaiting the legislation in the House. The top Democrats on the Foreign Affairs and Ways and Means panels came out in opposition of the bill earlier this month, as did the New Democrat Coalition.

Rep. Gregory Meeks said in a statement the Senate’s version “misses the moment,” but that he remained “open to negotiating a good faith compromise.” Meeks and Rep. Richard Neal both flagged opposition to the measure’s provisions expanding Trump’s tariff authority.

Still, Tuesday’s vote — capping a day of memorial ceremonies to honor Graham and his alliance with Ukraine amid its war with Russia — might prove pivotal in spurring momentum for the measure.

“I’m very thankful, this bill is so important,” Zelenskyy, who witnessed the vote from the Senate gallery, told reporters Tuesday night. “It’s not only about money and how Russia finances this war. It’s also a big signal to Europe, big signal to Ukraine, big support of our people.”

What else we’re watching:

— CORNYN TO MEET WITH BLANCHE: Sen. John Cornyn, a deciding vote on whether Todd Blanche gets confirmed as attorney general, is meeting with Blanche on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning to hammer out his concerns. Cornyn, in exchange for his support, is pushing for ironclad modifications to the IRS settlement that created a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and immunized Trump from tax audits. “We need it in writing,” Cornyn said Tuesday night, adding he’d meet with Blanche at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.

— VOUGHT MEETS SENATE GOP AS BUDGET PLAN EXPANDS: White House budget director Russ Vought and Trump’s top legislative aide, James Braid are scheduled to speak to Senate Republicans during a weekly lunch Wednesday as the administration eyes dramatically expanding the GOP’s third party-line bill. Thune said Tuesday the White House wants to broaden the budget framework, which comes after the House adopted a slimmer resolution before leaving for recess — putting an already uncertain timeline for the measure further in doubt.

Riley Rogerson and Chris Marquette contributed to this report

Congress

SLF launches $17 million ad campaign in North Carolina

Published

5 hours ago

July 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate’s top GOP super PAC is launching a $17 million summer ad campaign in North Carolina — its largest reservation anywhere in the country so far this cycle, underscoring the state’s importance to Republicans’ hopes of defending their Senate majority.

The investment, shared first with Blue Light News, is the first tranche of Senate Leadership Fund’s previously announced plan to spend $71 million in North Carolina this year. It comes as early public polling shows Democrat Roy Cooper, the state’s popular former governor, with a lead over GOP nominee Michael Whatley, the former RNC chair.

Cooper, a fixture of North Carolina politics, has a higher name ID and a larger campaign war chest than Whatley. But Republicans have long argued — and even some Democrats fear — that the contest will tighten considerably once outside money starts pouring in.

The SLF ad buy signals the beginning of more national resources to come. A person familiar with SLF’s plans in North Carolina, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the investment reflects the party’s growing confidence that a sustained advertising blitz will expose vulnerabilities in Cooper’s record.

Just days earlier, their Democratic rival, Senate Majority PAC, announced $11 million in ad reservations in the state, increasing the reservation to $42.5 million in what could become one of the most expensive races of the cycle.

The SLF ad, which will air across broadcast, cable and streaming, centers on Cooper’s record on crime, an issue that is quickly becoming Republicans’ biggest line of attack in the race. The 30-second spot slams Cooper over early prison releases during his time as governor, arguing that some of those prisoners later committed additional violent crimes. Along with the ad, SLF launched a website, “40YearsIsEnough.com,” which also criticizes Cooper’s record on crime.

Cooper’s campaign has already tried to neutralize the crime attacks: They released an ad last month highlighting the Democrat’s public safety record as governor and attorney general.

Congress

Rand Paul’s about to get his chance to settle his feud with Anthony Fauci

Published

17 hours ago

July 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rand Paul’s said Anthony Fauci belongs in prison. The Kentucky Republican will get his chance to make the case Wednesday when the former Covid czar is slated to appear under subpoena before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that Paul chairs.

Paul reiterated his objective on X Monday, saying the pardon President Joe Biden gave Fauci — Biden said to shield him from a vindictive Trump administration prosecution — would not protect Fauci if he lies to Congress.

The two have a feud dating to the pandemic, when Paul accused Fauci of lying to Congress about funding risky research in China that Paul believes unleashed Covid-19. Fauci responded to Paul by accusing him of lying. Now 85, Fauci retired from federal service at the end of 2022.

In April, a federal grand jury indicted Fauci’s former senior adviser, David Morens, on three felony charges for allegedly circumventing federal public records laws by concealing Covid-related communications. Federal agents arrested Morens at his home in Maryland, reportedly putting him in handcuffs and making him disrobe.

Paul’s goals go beyond incriminating Fauci. He also wants to show that Fauci funded risky virus research in China.

“The goal is the truth,” Paul told reporters on Monday about Fauci. “I’d like to hear him say he’s sorry.”

The origin of Covid remains a fraught debate, with no scientific consensus on whether it was a lab accident or whether an animal infected a human. But most Republicans and President Donald Trump have embraced the lab leak theory.

Fauci has rejected Paul’s accusations and defended himself vigorously, including in some of the five previous hearings in which they’ve faced off.

He declined to comment.

The debate over Fauci’s legacy has long broken on party lines, and Democrats are expected to defend him against GOP attacks on Wednesday.

“They got a longstanding vendetta against Fauci. He seems to be almost obsessed,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee member, said of Paul on Monday.

Both Paul and Democrats on the committee have supported stricter oversight of gain-of-function research, which aims to make viruses more virulent or more transmissible in order to devise defenses against them. The panel has twice approved Paul’s Risky Research Review Act, which would take funding decisions away from Fauci’s old agency, the National Institutes of Health, and give them to a new Life Sciences Research Security Board appointed by the president. The White House also released Tuesday a new policy stopping high-risk biological research.

Congress

Big Ten, SEC are on the clock as new college athletics bill is circulated

Published

18 hours ago

July 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee are making changes to their big college sports overhaul in a bid to garner support from the nation’s two most powerful athletic conferences as they look to build Republican support ahead of a potential vote on the Senate floor.

Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member, made several concessions to the Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences in the latest draft of their Protect College Sports Act. They include protections against certain legal challenges and a new $20 million pool of funds that schools can use for retaining athletes, according to three people close to the negotiations.

It’s unclear whether the changes will be good enough to win over the two conferences. A senior Commerce Committee staffer asked the conferences to schedule a call with their general counsels and staff “ASAP” to discuss the text and gave them a 9 a.m. Wednesday deadline to decide whether they support the latest version of the bill, according to an email reviewed by Blue Light News.

Two lobbyists directly engaged on the bill said Tuesday that weeks of negotiations had not meaningfully addressed a litany of concerns the SEC and the Big Ten had with earlier versions of the bill.

The conferences demanded, for instance, that a provision allowing universities to jointly negotiate their media rights make clear that schools cannot be coerced into participating. The updated text includes a provision shielding schools who do not participate in media pooling from potential litigation, according to a copy of the draft obtained by Blue Light News.

The bill, however, leaves out another key demand of the conferences: a provision clarifying that postseason tournaments and contests would be excluded from media pooling.

It also retains a prohibition on conferences with over $700 million in revenue participating in mergers and acquisitions, which would impact both power conferences along with the Atlantic Coast Conference. That threshold was brought down from an earlier $1 billion limit, but the SEC and the Big Ten had hoped to see it stripped from the bill altogether.

The new text also includes a newly added section titled the “Ignite HBCUs Sports and Media Act.”

That section, which is still in flux, deals with “extraneous topics of broadband,” per the email sent to the conferences on Tuesday. The $20 million athlete retention pool also remains subject to change “as we discuss how to align the proper incentive for spending on women’s NIL,” according to the email.

Cruz remains determined to get the bill onto the floor before the Senate heads out of town for a scheduled recess next week. But time is running short, and he and Cantwell still need to win over wary senators on both sides of the aisle.