Congress

Capitol agenda: Trump’s SOTU demands for Congress

Published

4 months ago

February 25, 2026

President Donald Trump littered his record-breaking, nearly two-hour-long State of the Union address Tuesday night with dramatic tributes to American heroes, caustic attacks on congressional Democrats and a preview of his party’s midterm campaign pitch.

But he also sprinkled in a handful of legislative demands that have uneven prospects at best on Capitol Hill. Here’s what caught our ears:

— Targeting noncitizens: Trump repeatedly railed against illegal immigration and pushed lawmakers to pass the SAVE America Act, the GOP bill that would tighten proof-of-citizenship standards for voting.

“Why would anyone not want voter ID?” Trump said at one point. “One reason — they want to cheat.”

But the bigger news might be what Trump didn’t mention: A hard-right push to use a “talking filibuster” to get the House-passed bill past Senate Democrats. In what was likely a big relief for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the president didn’t mention the filibuster at all.

Trump also called for passage of “Dalilah’s Law,” which would bar states from granting driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

— Health care: The president pressed Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson to take the most-favored-nation drug-pricing deals he’s recently struck with pharmaceutical companies and enact them into law.

“I’m not sure it matters, because it’s going to be very hard for somebody that comes along after me to say, ‘Let’s raise drug prices by 700 or 800 percent,’” Trump said. “But John and Mike, if you don’t mind, codify it anyway.”

But the provision faces big opposition from the prescription drug industry and its allies inside the GOP.

Completely unmentioned? The expired Obamacare subsidies, which now seem like ancient history in Washington. Trump only briefly mentioned his “Great Health Care Plan” that would give money “directly to the people.”

— Stock trading: Trump drew bipartisan applause after endorsing a ban on stock trading by members of Congress. But getting a bill on Trump’s desk will be tough.

Johnson’s leadership-blessed legislation to crack down on the practice is in limbo, without enough GOP support to put it up for a vote. Democrats are pushing for a more expansive stock trading bill, which would also apply to the president and vice president.

Even if the House can pass something, the Senate is seen as even more unlikely to act.

— Crime: The president included a demand for lawmakers to pass “tough legislation to ensure violent repeat offenders are put behind bars and, more importantly, that they stay there.”

That called back to Trump’s multiple comments last summer about pursuing a sweeping crime bill, which never materialized into legislation. Rekindling the effort in an election year would be iffy at best.

— Housing: Trump renewed his request for Congress to limit large investors from purchasing single-family homes as the GOP tries to address a growing housing affordability crisis — an idea that has bipartisan support.

It comes as the House and Senate are working to reconcile competing legislative packages, and the White House push could help convince skeptical Republicans to include it in a final product.

“We want homes for people, not for corporations,” Trump said.

— Left unmentioned: There’s one area where the president conspicuously said lawmakers are free to sit on their hands: “Congressional action will not be necessary,” Trump said, to impose new global tariffs to replace the levies struck down by the Supreme Court last week in what he called a “very unfortunate” ruling.

And while Trump did discuss an expansion of a retirement savings program launched under former President Joe Biden, he did not call for new tax cuts or party-line economic measures to address rising prices — which he continued to blame on Democrats.

“Their policies created the high prices,” he said. “Our policies are rapidly ending them. We are doing really well.”

What else we’re watching:

Lawmakers are set to grill two Trump nominees Wednesday morning who have come under fire for their records and financial ties.

— Steve Pearce for BLM: Steve Pearce’s appearance in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will be the former House Republican’s first opportunity to publicly push back against accusations from Democrats and conservation groups that he’s unfit to lead the Bureau of Land Management.

The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, and Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) will almost certainly zero in on Pearce’s voting record. When Pearce was in Congress, he opposed BLM efforts to tighten rules on the oil and gas industry and supported selling some BLM and Forest Service lands.

Pearce also reported that he earned as much as $1 million last year from a business often associated with oil and gas development.

— Casey Means for ‘America’s top doctor’: Over at the Senate HELP panel, all eyes will be on how hard Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) presses Casey Means, Trump’s pick to be U.S. surgeon general, over her stance on vaccines. Cassidy has repeatedly criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine policy changes, and Means has previously condemned giving the hepatitis B shot to infants.

There’s also bipartisan criticism over Means’ credentials. The wellness influencer and health-tech entrepreneur’s medical license is currently listed online as inactive, and she has promoted contested health practices such as consuming raw milk.

Scott Streater, Nico Portuondo and Amanda Friedman contributed to this report.

Congress

GOP hard-liners outline anti-abortion, military funding demands for party-line bill

Published

2 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Freedom Caucus sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday outlining its demands for a third reconciliation bill, including extending a prohibition on federal funding for abortion providers and immediately paying for any new spending.

“This is our last and best chance to prove they were right to send us here to fight for them,” the House Freedom Caucus Board of Directors wrote in the letter, referring to U.S. voters who gave the GOP control of both chambers this Congress. “That is why any Reconciliation 3.0 bill must be focused on wins for the American people.”

The letter comes as House Republicans have started to move ahead on another party-line package, though without consensus on the details of what the legislation will actually include. The conference is considering provisions to fund the war in Iran alongside other policies related to affordability and health care. The bill is also expected to tackle alleged fraud in government programs as one way to offset the costs.

Several members of the conservative hard-liner group in recent weeks have warned they would only support the upcoming bill if any new spending included in it is fully paid for. Some members, like Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, have also said the pay-fors need to be immediate — not several years in the future.

In the letter, the members also told Johnson the next bill should eliminate clean energy tax credits — something they pushed for in the first reconciliation bill last year. The lawmakers are also asking for reforms to health care, the removal of certain firearm-related taxes and “responsible short-term funding for key government personnel and services” to prevent another government shutdown ahead of the midterms.

With the military funding portion of the reconciliation bill, the members requested the package should be used to “modernize our military and deliver clear America First national security priorities.”

“Together with President Trump, we must use our unified Republican majorities to advance a bold, America First agenda,” the members wrote in the letter. “We control the field — we cannot afford to leave any points on the board in reconciliation. We stand ready to work with you to accomplish this goal.”

Congress

Johnson to meet with Trump in last-ditch bid to unstick House floor

Published

2 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republican leaders are scrambling to regain control of the House after GOP hard-liners effectively shut down the floor Wednesday over their demands that the Senate pass a stalled elections overhaul bill.

Speaker Mike Johnson is set to meet with President Donald Trump Thursday morning in an effort to try and find a way out of the mess, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the private plans.

Johnson is planning to keep the House in session Thursday and have members vote on at least one bipartisan bill that has already been teed up for the floor as he tries to convince the president to help end the hard-liners’ blockade.

GOP leaders hoped to put several additional bills up for a vote this week, including a pair of fiscal 2027 spending measures. But the group of MAGA loyalists, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, is insisting no legislation can pass until the SAVE America Act clears the Senate.

If Johnson can’t enlist Trump to break the impasse, the House will leave for the week, the four people said.

A breakthrough won’t be easy. The president is just as animated about the SAVE America Act as the hard-liners holding up the House floor. He abruptly canceled a planned bill-signing for landmark bipartisan housing legislation Wednesday morning, just hours before it was scheduled to take place in the Capitol with Johnson and other GOP leaders, citing the need to prioritize the elections bill.

Johnson is expected to pitch Trump on a plan to enact a watered-down version of the SAVE America Act’s proof-of-citizenship requirement by including a grant program to encourage adoption of voter ID laws in a long-shot plan to pass a new party-line policy bill this year.

But that is only a fraction of what Trump wants the Republican Congress to get done this year, and the GOP hard-liners are already panning Johnson’s plan as insufficient.

Congress

A frustrated Trump unloads on Senate Republicans behind closed doors

Published

4 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans hoped to use a closed-door lunch to clear the air with President Donald Trump. Instead, the president vented his frustrations with the senators for more than an hour, leaving them no closer to detente.

The meeting came at an explosive moment, with GOP lawmakers increasingly frustrated by Trump’s mercurial treatment of congressional Republican priorities. Just hours before arriving on Capitol Hill, Trump delivered his latest rug-pull — announcing he would refuse to sign a major housing bill that leaders were already touting after big bipartisan majorities passed it this week.

But senators said Trump arrived determined to prosecute his internal grudges against the Republican lawmakers who have opposed him at times — particularly those who have expressed misgivings about the Iran war and who are refusing to comply with the president’s demands for swift passage of a controversial elections bill.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) described Trump as “mad as a murder hornet” about the Iran vote, while Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) described the scene as “very much like a hospital board meeting, when a bunch of doctors are yelling at each other.”

Marshall added that “at the end of the day, we’ll figure out a way to get along.”

Another GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the lunch “very intense.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), deploying some go-to congressional lingo for heated encounters, called it “spirited,” “frank” and “candid.”

Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) sparred at length over the Iran war, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the private interaction. Trump also railed over Tuesday’s successful war powers vote, lambasting Cassidy and three other GOP senators who voted for the resolution.

Cassidy acknowledged the two had a heated exchange to reporters after the lunch. After Trump questioned why Republicans would vote against him on the war, Cassidy said he told the president that the conflict was not going as well as senators were being told.

“The president said something negative about me. I received it as attempting to bully me from asking a question that I think the American people need to know, and I’m not going to be bullied,” said Cassidy, who recently lost his campaign for renomination after Trump endorsed against him.

Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) also confirmed the exchange between Trump and Cassidy. He said the two “harbor bad feelings” and urged them both to move on.

The meeting also failed to reveal a way forward on Trump’s No. 1 priority, the elections bill known as the SAVE America Act.

Trump cited the need to pass the legislation in his stunning decision Wednesday morning to cancel a signing ceremony for the long-stalled housing bill. A rostrum had been erected in Statuary Hall for the occasion, and House GOP leaders were promoting its benefits at a news conference when the presidential U-turn occurred.

Senators said Trump largely reiterated his publicly stated positions on the housing bill, the GOP election bill and his demand that they eliminate the 60-vote legislative filibuster.

“He believes that the SAVE America act ought to be in front of the housing bill,” Justice said.

Sen. Rand Paul said there had been “a thorough airing” of the elections bill during the meeting, but added it’s unclear “if there is a solution.”

The announcement only served to further exasperate the Senate GOP ahead of the lunch, which had been arranged by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a MAGA loyalist who acted without the foreknowledge of Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Underscoring the mood going into the meeting, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said, “I would advise them to only use plastic utensils today.”

Republicans had hoped the housing bill would give them a long-sought legislative victory that would get the party on the same page and give them a foothold to argue that they are responding to Americans’ affordability concerns heading into the midterms.

Instead, Trump’s surprise declaration, which appeared to catch even some of his own staff off guard, became the latest curveball for Senate Republicans — following a surprise request for White House ballroom security funding and the announcement of a Justice Department “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that overshadowed and delayed passage of a GOP immigration enforcement bill.

Since then, Trump also has thrown a key surveillance program into limbo and upended the confirmation plans for his own nominee for director of national intelligence.

Most persistently, he has fixated on Senate Republicans passing the SAVE America Act — including by eliminating the filibuster — even though Thune and other GOP senators have said repeatedly that there aren’t the votes to do that.

“There is a huge group of people who really appreciate what the president is doing right now and it’s the Democrat party,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. ”And we’ve got to get our act together and stop surprising people and stop having conflicting messages.”