Congress

Capitol agenda: The GOP confronts its lost summer

Published

4 weeks ago

July 2, 2026

Congress is settling in for a do-nothing summer.

House leaders lost control of their chamber with just eight legislative days before a planned five-week summer recess. And President Donald Trump’s demands for action on a stalled elections bill — along with his series of mercurial power moves — have left Senate Republicans frustrated and morose as major legislation piles up.

Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are confronting the reality that ticking items off their pre-midterm to-do list is looking increasingly unattainable.

Wednesday’s events only made that clearer:

— RECON 3.0: Key rank-and-file House members and chairs huddled in Johnson’s office Wednesday to plot a path forward on a long shot policy bill under the party-line reconciliation process.

Those who attended — including Rep. August Pfluger, an avowed cheerleader for the bill — acknowledged hope is fading fast. Members are mired in fights over how to pay for the package, and their goal of advancing a budget blueprint for the bill this week is dashed.

“After this recess, if it doesn’t happen in the first couple of days, then I think it’s in real trouble,” Pfluger, chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said in an interview.

— EMERGENCY IRAN FUNDING: Trump has asked Congress to direct billions of dollars to cover the war with Iran — but support for the emergency funding is in serious doubt.

Key Republicans left a classified briefing from senior Pentagon officials Wednesday frustrated by unanswered questions. They want to know how the requested $67 billion would be spent — and whether servicemember paychecks and munitions stockpiles might be at imminent risk.

“We need more information,” said Rep. Ken Calvert, the top House Republican responsible for shepherding the supplemental bill, which also includes farm assistance, disaster and Ebola aid.

— IMMIGRATION: As hard-liners continue to gum up the GOP agenda over the SAVE America Act, some are similarly incensed over Johnson’s failure to act on an immigration measure he promised weeks ago to take up.

Johnson held a call Wednesday with Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and other members to try to find a path forward but didn’t make much progress, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss the details.

Some centrist Republicans don’t want to vote on it before the midterms, they said, and farm-state members are demanding GOP leaders add guestworker visa provisions — something immigration hard-liners sharply oppose.

And while only a handful of potential developments appear capable of pulling the GOP majorities out of their summer torpor, the contemporary Congress tends to act only when deadlines force it to. That has made the early part of this summer especially languid on Capitol Hill.

It didn’t help, some members noted this week, that lawmakers were sent home early rather than hash out their differences in person.

“We shouldn’t be leaving town,” Rep. Ralph Norman said. “We ought to be working, and we’re not doing it.”

What else we’re watching:

— THE GOP’S DIRTY LITTLE SAVE AMERICA SECRET: House conservatives bristled this week over the Senate’s refusal to pass the SAVE America Act, shutting down the floor in protest. But their outrage has obscured an inconvenient truth for the Republicans locking arms with the president to push for his election security bill: It can’t even pass the House — at least not the version Trump wants. Johnson acknowledged as much this week, appearing to concede he does not have the votes to move forward with a drastic crackdown on mailed ballots that Trump has repeatedly demanded be added to the legislation.

— TRUMP’S CLAYTON REVIVAL: Trump threw Senate Republicans a rare bone Wednesday — telling reporters that Jay Clayton would have a hearing for his director of national intelligence nomination in two weeks. The president’s remarks were welcome (but in several corners, surprising) news for GOP leaders, who had watched in frustration as Trump scuttled both Clayton’s nomination hearing and passage of a key surveillance tool renewal last month.

Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy, John Sakellariadis and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

Scalise will kick off August campaign sprint in marquee Nebraska House race

Published

7 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.

Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.

Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.

After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.

He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.

Congress

Trump needles Cornyn as Blanche remains blocked

Published

11 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.

Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.

“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.

Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.

“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”

On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.

“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.

Congress

Capitol agenda: The Senate’s fly-out agenda takes shape

Published

12 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans are prepping a jam-packed — if somewhat optimistic — agenda for their final week before summer recess.

Majority Leader John Thune wants to move stopgap funding through Dec. 11, bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation and a bloc of nominees — perhaps including attorney general pick Todd Blanche.

He’s also under pressure from President Donald Trump, administration officials and many of his GOP colleagues to adopt a budget resolution — the first step in unlocking another party-line spending bill.

Leaders are prioritizing the stopgap, though. Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) expects continuing resolution text to be unveiled later today, she told reporters Thursday, and an initial vote is expected Monday evening.

Still TBD: Collins wants to use the funding patch to block the Trump administration from putting political appointees in charge of approving grants — a demand Democratic senators are also making.

The decision is in Thune’s hands. He acknowledged a “handful of issues” are still under consideration with the CR, and said he’s “hoping both sides can come together and figure” them out.

As for the sanctions bill, leaders of both parties are still trying to work out a deal to fast-track the legislation amid concerns from some Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that it gives Trump too much tariff power.

In addition to the nominees package, Thune also hasn’t ruled out an initial vote on the landmark cryptocurrency bill both parties have spent months negotiating or teeing up a bipartisan college sports overhaul now in final stages of talks.

But the big question is whether Republicans can take a major step toward another reconciliation bill by advancing a budget resolution.

Thune met Thursday with Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said he was “optimistic in terms of how things are kind of coming together.”

Republicans anticipate giving a number of Senate committees instructions for the bill, setting up a lengthy and politically painful process ahead of adoption despite pushes for urgency from the White House.

Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was the latest official to head to Capitol Hill to try and light a fire under top Republicans. But GOP senators don’t necessarily see the urgency.

“The hard part is the president wants to be able to move fast, like an executive can move, and we’re a legislative branch,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “It doesn’t move that fast.”

What else we’re watching:

— BLANCHE TEETERING: Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general isn’t dead yet. But it’s certainly on life support. The acting AG met with Cornyn and Tillis Thursday at NRSC headquarters, and one person familiar with the discussion said the group was “working collaboratively now.” But it would now be difficult to confirm him before August recess under Senate rules.

— FARM BILL TEXT: Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman said his farm bill legislative text — originally expected Thursday — could come Friday or Saturday. The bill, which is expected to include language allowing year-round E15 sales and a potential compromise on postponing GOP-led cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is set to be marked up Thursday.

Jordain Carney and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.