Congress

Congress clears funding patch to avert pre-election shutdown

Published

3 weeks ago

September 1, 2026

The House cleared a stopgap funding patch Tuesday to keep cash flowing to federal agencies until mid-December — preventing a government shutdown before Election Day and setting up two major policy battles at year’s end.

The 370-48 vote takes care of Speaker Mike Johnson’s last must-pass bill before the midterms. But swift passage comes at a cost for House GOP leaders, who are now managing blowback from Republicans angry about the contents of the funding patch Senate leaders crafted and President Donald Trump endorsed.

The legislation would fund the government beyond the October start of the new fiscal year, keeping federal agencies running on current budgets through Dec. 11. It also allows incumbents to campaign for reelection without the threat of a government shutdown feeding into political messaging about dysfunction in Washington.

“We want to get a longer-term deal. But at a minimum, let’s ensure that we can continue to see government properly funded and functioning,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Tuesday, noting the “chaos” and “uncertainty” of last year’s record-breaking shutdown.

Besides funding the government through mid-December, the bill would temporarily block the White House from finalizing a rule to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants.

It would also delay a ban set to kick in next month on intoxicating hemp products — to the dissatisfaction of House hard-liners, who threatened to vote Tuesday afternoon against teeing up debate on other bills this week and potentially block any significant House floor action between now and November.

Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the Freedom Caucus, was among the Republicans who voted no on the funding patch and said he would oppose moving forward with debate on other bills too. He scoffed at the last-minute pressure campaign from the White House and hemp industry leaders promising to regulate intoxicating products in lieu of proceeding with the ban lawmakers enacted last November.

“They had 10 months,” Harris said in an interview this week, knocking the Trump administration for not taking action sooner to crack down on the products currently sold in the U.S. without age restrictions or other regulations. “There are profiteers who are making money on basically the health of our children, and I object to that.”

Trump is expected to sign the funding patch, which the White House endorsed last month ahead of Senate passage — even though it blocks the Office of Management and Budget from finalizing its controversial rule to overhaul the federal grantmaking approval process.

That Senate-added language, as well as a prohibition on new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, drove significant support from House Democrats.

“This critically stops the OMB rule from proceeding forward that many of us have been pushing against,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said Tuesday, cheering other “incredibly helpful” additions to the bare-bones stopgap House Republicans initially passed earlier this summer.

Democrats also hope to regain control of the House and Senate in the November elections and increase their leverage in December negotiations on government funding for the rest of the fiscal year.

“That’s the huge intervening event,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said this week about the election. “And it will impact whatever comes after it, no matter what anybody thinks. So it’s not like we’ll go back and pick up exactly where we left off.”

The Oklahoma Republican traveled to Ukraine and other European countries last month with his counterpart across the aisle, top committee Democrat Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.

The two top appropriators are motivated to strike a year-end deal to fund federal agencies with updated budgets, Cole said, rather than clearing another short stopgap or resorting to a lengthy patch that keeps programs on autopilot through next September

“We both are pretty adamant that we need to get these bills done before the end of the calendar year,” Cole said, adding that he and DeLauro will be “working really hard once we know who the players are on the other side” of Election Day.

Congress

Paul: ICE hasn’t shared information about Minneapolis shooting probes

Published

2 hours ago

September 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Department of Homeland Security still has not shared the findings from its investigations into the January killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis, despite continued requests from the top Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chair of the panel, said during a brief hallway interview that DHS has not yet given the committee any information from internal probes into any shootings involving immigration officers.

Asked if that included the two January shootings in Minneapolis, where immigration officers shot and killed two American citizens, Paul said: “We’ve asked for information. We’re still asking.”

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Paul’s comments come as DHS faces continued bipartisan scrutiny following several incidents where ICE or Border Patrol agents used deadly force against individuals they were trying to apprehend. Several of those individuals were U.S. citizens.

Most recently, ICE agents Saturday shot an unauthorized immigrant who faced deportation. The man, 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, survived. His lawyers claim he has been transferred into ICE custody despite still having a bullet lodged in his back.

Paul had asked DHS earlier this year to share more information about its reviews of the shootings, and did not schedule a confirmation hearing for the administration’s ICE director nominee as he awaited those findings. The White House ultimately pulled that nomination last week as the nomination stalled.

Congress

GOP Armed Services chair blasts White House welcome of Chinese leader

Published

3 hours ago

September 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker lambasted the White House decision to invite Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a state dinner this week, calling the foreign head of state “a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator” who cannot be trusted.

Wicker, typically a staunch defender of President Donald Trump and Republican loyalist, targeted most of his criticism at Xi and Chinese policy during a Senate floor speech Tuesday. But the comments were nonetheless a surprise rebuke of the president’s courting of Beijing amid broader concerns, such as the durability of U.S. security commitments to the Indo-Pacific, including in deterring a potential invasion of Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.

The Mississippi Republican urged Trump to press the Chinese premier on a variety of sensitive topics — including purported support for Iran, its military buildup and human rights abuses.

“Had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States, based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

“I know the president tends to discuss trade and artificial intelligence with the Chinese leadership, and rightfully so,” he said. “Perhaps some progress will be made. But … during every minute of dialog, our commander in chief should keep in mind that his guest is a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America.”

The senior Republican’s comments on the Senate floor were delivered just a few hours before Xi’s expected arrival in Washington. Trump has scheduled a formal welcome ceremony for Xi and his wife at the White House on Thursday, along with talks between the two leaders throughout his three-day visit.

Trump is facing bipartisan criticism over the state visit by Xi. Wicker’s comments followed similar attacks on Chinese leadership from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Ted Budd (R-N.C.).

“President Trump has been clear that under his leadership, the United States must engage with China, given the reality of our economic relationship,” Budd said. “But we can’t forget that China is also a competitor and an adversary.”

Congress

Appeals court’s Capitol steps ruling may signal trouble for Trump on media ban

Published

8 hours ago

September 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A federal appeals court ruling Tuesday on demonstrators’ access to the steps of the Capitol could bode poorly for President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban three media organizations from the White House.

The majority opinion, written by Trump appointee Neomi Rao, concluded that the East Steps of the Capitol are a “nonpublic forum” — just like most areas of the White House grounds, including the press facilities. While the government may impose restrictions on access to those nonpublic areas, the limits must be “viewpoint neutral,” apply “objective, workable standards” and not permit officials to exercise “unbridled discretion over a forum’s use,” the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel concluded.

“A regulation that grants the government arbitrary control over who may speak invites the suppression of disfavored viewpoints and undermines the First Amendment’s core protections,” wrote Rao, who was joined in the majority by Judge Karen Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee.

The ruling, on the eve of a hearing over restoring White House accessfor Blue Light News, BLN and MS NOW, reaffirms the D.C. Circuit’s longstanding First Amendment precedents at an inopportune time for Trump. The president has explicitly described his ban on the three outlets as a punishment for publishing what he calls “fake news.”

“Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources,’ shouldn’t be allowed access to the most important Office anywhere in the World,” Trump said on social media Monday.

The outlets have said their access was revoked because the White House objected to their reporting and that the ban “threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

The D.C. Circuit would hear any appeals in the litigation over Trump’s media ban, and Trump has in fact already said he anticipates filing an appeal, presuming that he will be dealt a defeat in district court.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The D.C. Circuit’s Tuesday ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Patrick Mahoney, a clergyman who sought to hold prayer vigils and demonstrations on the East Steps of the Capitol several months after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack, which resulted in new access restrictions. His permit was denied in part based on Capitol Police regulations that prohibit public demonstrations on the steps unless they are sponsored by a member of Congress.

Though the case has inched through the courts for years, Tuesday’s ruling resolves a key question, labeling the Capitol’s East Steps a “nonpublic forum” for which congressional authorities may restrict public access — in part because lawmakers use those steps to enter and exit the building.

But allowing members of Congress to sponsor gatherings on the steps creates an arbitrary system, the majority concluded.

“Because the protection of unpopular speech and advocacy is central to the First Amendment, we cannot leave it to the selective enforcement of members,” Rao wrote.

Notably, Rao’s opinion cites a D.C. Circuit ruling last year that concluded “it would be unreasonable to control access to White House press facilities through standardless discretion.”

The third judge on the panel, Clinton appointee Judith Rogers, dissented, but her opinion was even more protective of free-speech rights.

Rogers said she agreed with her colleagues that the “selective exception” for demonstrations sponsored by lawmakers was unconstitutional. However, she said she would have held that the lower portion of the Capitol steps was a public forum where the government was obligated to permit protest activity.