Two senior Republican senators said Tuesday they strongly support the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund after the Trump administration moved to eviscerate the program by firing all of its staff.

The elimination of employees at the CDFI Fund on Friday was part of the larger reduction-in-force orchestrated by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought. A letter to fired employees said their termination was necessary to implement the abolishment of the entire CDFI program, which enjoys strong bipartisan support.

Senate Community Development Finance Caucus co-chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) told Blue Light News Tuesday that he “was discouraged to see the actions taken to [RIF] the employees, and I’m hopeful that we can get that turned around.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who’s consistently been vocal in his support of the fund, said he remains “fully supportive” of the CDFI Fund and that “the CDFIs do an excellent job in particular areas” and he’s “seen it firsthand in South Dakota.”

The fund awards federal dollars through a public-private partnership to CDFIs, which are community banks, credit unions and other financial institutions that lend and provide other types of capital to communities and markets traditionally underserved by the larger banking industry. The CDFI Fund was designed to increase the accessibility of financial services and products.

Rounds said the quickest way to fix the situation at the fund is to “get a continuing resolution in place and move forward” and re-open the government.

South Dakota CDFIs received $13.3 million from the fund in 2024, making the state a top recipient per capita.

Crapo would not comment whether he had spoken with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent or the White House on the matter but said that “Congress has a role anytime Congress chooses, it can take some action.” He added that he and his caucus co-chair, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), “are going to work together to try to get this fixed.”

Warner, on a press call Tuesday, said he’s working with Crapo to try to send a bipartisan letter from the caucus like they did in March after the initial executive order requesting the fund be eliminated to the fullest extent allowed under the law, to “show strong, bipartisan pushback.”

Additionally, Warner said he sent Bessent a letter regarding the unexpected firings on the CDFI Fund’s entire staff and that he expected to hear a response back soon. Neither he nor Crapo saw the RIFs coming, Warner said.

“At least my office and Crapo’s office, the first reaction [to the CDFI Fund RIFs] was shock” and that “it appears maybe this didn’t come from Treasury, it appears that it came from the OMB. I think this goes against the law,” Warner said.

California Rep. Kevin Kiley was already one of Speaker Mike Johnson’s loudest Republican critics — even before the government shutdown started earlier this month.

Now two weeks into the standoff, Kiley made clear in an interview Tuesday he has no plans to quiet down on Johnson’s handling of the shutdown, the future of crucial health insurance subsidies and the GOP’s controversial redistricting campaign that has suddenly put Kiley’s own political future in doubt.

Having already called Johnson’s strategy of keeping the House out of session during the shutdown “embarrassing,” Kiley reiterated Tuesday that it was the “wrong decision” and threatens to prolong the impasse.

Rank-and-file members could add pressure to find “some sort of agreement” that would end the shutdown, Kiley said. “When people are just not here, and those conversations aren’t taking place,” he added, that allows the two sides’ rigid positions “to calcify.”

Kiley, who was in Washington Tuesday and appeared at an otherwise sparsely attended pro forma afternoon session, added that the no-show strategy also means House Republicans are “again falling behind” on the full-year spending bills that could be part of a lasting solution to the shutdown: “All the things we were supposed to be getting done and working on are not getting done.”

So far Johnson has shown no sign of budging. He reiterated on a private House Republican call Tuesday members are to stay in their districts on a 48-hour notice to return, and members of his circle have argued members such as Kiley are among a small minority of GOP dissidents.

But Kiley has emerged as an outspoken and fearless critic who has been willing to break ranks at a crucial moment for the GOP leadership. The 40-year-old former state legislator from the Sacramento area says he is simply trying to represent his constituents and push for a solution to the damaging showdown.

“You’re not going to, you know, persuade anyone to do things differently, to keep your feelings quiet,” he said, comparing Johnson’s closure of the House to the cancellation of the legislative session in California during the early Covid crisis.

A Johnson spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment on Kiley’s criticism.

Inside the House GOP, however, some see payback for what appears to be an existential threat to Kiley’s congressional career: the partisan redistricting fight now playing out across the country.

After President Donald Trump persuaded Texas Republicans to redraw their House maps ahead of the 2026 midterms, California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a campaign to do the same in his own state. Should a Democratic-backed ballot measure pass next month, Kiley and several of his GOP colleagues in the state’s delegation are almost certain to be drawn out of their seats.

Kiley has urged Johnson and fellow House Republicans to pass legislation barring the redrawing of maps outside of the usual decennial Census-driven process. “Just because a party thinks that they can gain an advantage by redrawing lines all of a sudden doesn’t mean they should do it,” he said.

But Johnson has so far refused to act.

“It’s extremely disappointing to me that he did not do the right thing in advocating for our members and protecting the House as an institution,” Kiley said of Johnson, noting that the two have spoken about the topic.

Still, Kiley’s criticism of the speaker has gone well beyond the redistricting dispute and even the tactical decision to keep the House out of session — a move Johnson has undertaken in a bid to force Senate Democrats to pass the stopgap spending bill Republicans, including Kiley, voted for last month.

Kiley has also broken with the bulk of his Republican colleagues in saying the GOP should broach a deal with Democrats on extending key health insurance subsidies as a way to end the shutdown. That’s something Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have explicitly ruled out as part of any shutdown solution.

“There is going to need to be a deal on that issue — I don’t think that there’s any doubt about that,” Kiley said of the subsidies, which are set to expire Dec. 31. “So insofar as there needs to be a deal anyway, if we can try to reach at least the beginnings of one now as a way to get out of the shutdown … I don’t know why we shouldn’t at least explore that possibility.”

He also waded into another sensitive matter by pushing for Johnson to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), whom Johnson has refused to seat until the shutdown ends. Once a member, she had pledged to be the 218th signature on a discharge petition forcing a floor vote to release Justice Department documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Kiley has not signed the discharge petition but said he would be “inclined” to vote for the bipartisan Epstein bill should it come up for a vote.

Democrats have dealt with internal dissension, as well: Rep. Jared Golden of Maine and Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada have backed the GOP-led House stopgap bill. But none has been anywhere as vocal as Kiley in criticizing their leadership.

While GOP leaders have been keenly focused on presenting a united front against Democrats’ shutdown demands — and have placed calls to some unhappy members — Kiley said he hasn’t gotten similar pressure from party brass.

“No such requests,” he said, adding that they would not stop him from speaking out in any case.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — A north Florida judge has issued a restraining order against Rep. Cory Mills after the central Florida Republican was accused by a former girlfriend of threatening to circulate sexually explicit videos of her.

Circuit Judge Fred Koberlein ordered Mills to refrain from trying to contact Lindsay Langston, Miss United States 2024 and a Republican state committee woman from Columbia County.

In his Tuesday order, the judge said the evidence supported Langston’s assertion that Mills had caused her “substantial emotional distress” and that Mills offered “no credible rebuttal” to her testimony. He found that Langston has a “reasonable cause to believe she is in imminent danger of becoming the victim of another act of dating violence” without the restraining order being put in place.

Koberlein said Mills was not allowed to go to Langston’ home or place of employment and that he was not allowed to directly refer to Langston on social media. The injunction is in place for the state of Florida. Mills did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In his order, which is to remain in place until January 2026, Koberlein also refuted Mills’ attempts to explain away his actions.

“The court, considering the totality of the testimony and the circumstances, does not find [Mills’] testimony concerning the intimate videos to be truthful,” Koberlein wrote. “Even had the respondent’s testimony been truthful, his response is irrelevant because there was no evidence presented suggesting [Langston] knew the respondent no longer had possession of their intimate videos.”

The restraining order follows two lengthy court hearings held in Lake City, where both Mills and Langston testified and answered questions about their relationship — and the meaning of a flurry of text messages, phone calls and direct messages between them.

The restraining order against Mills comes amid a swirl of controversies this year for the second-term Republican, including a since-withdrawn allegation of assault and an ethics investigation into whether he’s benefited from contracts from the federal government while serving as a member of Congress. Mills has denied any wrongdoing in both matters.

During the first hearing in early September, Langston spent extensive time on the stand explaining how scared she was of the 45-year-old Mills. She described him as a “powerful” and “wealthy” member of Congress who she first became involved with in late 2021.

The second hearing focused on testimony from Mills, with particular focus on whether Mills had a sex video that he planned to release. He maintained that while Langston had sent him intimate videos, he no longer had access to them because his phone was damaged and had to be replaced.

Mills maintained the videos he mentioned to Langston were those of her baking and wanted to show any potential boyfriend of hers that the two of them had an ongoing relationship.

“You’re talking about giving up my entire career — for what?” Mills said about the prospect of releasing the intimate videos.

Mills also contended another message he sent where he suggested a future boyfriend would need to “strap up cowboy” was not a potential threat of violence but instead was a rodeo term meant to suggest that a “wild ride” was about to happen.

Mills’ relationship with Langston unraveled in the aftermath of a February incident where police in Washington were called to investigate an alleged assault by the lawmaker against a woman. Both Mills and the woman denied that any assault took place, and Mills was not charged in the incident.

Mills first won his seat in 2022 after post-Census redistricting created new GOP-friendly lines for the 7th District, stretching from Orlando’s north suburbs to the Atlantic coast. His campaigns in both 2022 and 2024 were run with the aid of James Blair, a GOP consultant who now works as a deputy chief of staff for President Donald Trump and plays a key role in pushing the president’s agenda on Capitol Hill.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.