Congress

Democrats’ fight-or-flight dilemma comes to a head in the Senate

Published

11 months ago

July 31, 2025

Senate Democrats have been grappling for months over how to show their voters they are standing up to President Donald Trump.

Now they have their chance. They are facing key decisions this week over how readily they should cooperate with Republicans to advance Trump nominees and bipartisan spending bills. And an even bigger test looms on the horizon: a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

It’s all workaday congressional business, but dealing with it has become more politically fraught under the second Trump administration. The internal debate between members who want to resist and those who want to cut deals has been simmering, and it played out both behind closed doors and out in public view this week.

The tensions spilled out on the Senate floor Tuesday evening when Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey accused fellow Democrats of being “complicit” in Trump’s actions and urging them to “have a backbone,” fueling anger among some of his colleagues.

On Wednesday, Democratic senators used a closed-door lunch to hash out what their strategy should be heading into the fall funding fights, where they are hoping to avoid a repeat of the shutdown drama that played out this spring — ending in internal divisions and recriminations.

“The Republicans can roll us once, but we sure as hell shouldn’t let them roll us a second time,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a brief interview. Warren added she was “deeply skeptical” of spending negotiations after Republicans approved a $9 billion clawback of funding at Trump’s request this month.

But it was Booker’s fiery protest — targeting a package of bipartisan police-focused bills that had been shepherded by his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee — that underscored the tension over his party’s approach to Trump.

“Democrats need to learn to fight, and fight him, and stop him from hurting people,” he told reporters shortly after blocking several bipartisan bills. “There’s a lot of us in this caucus that want to fucking fight, and what’s bothering me right now is we don’t see enough fight in this caucus.”

The burn-it-down crowd might be a minority inside the caucus, but those words echo what many progressive activists, and some congressional Democrats, have been urging since at least March, when Minority Leader Chuck Schumer joined with nine Senate Democrats to help advance a GOP-written funding bill to avoid a shutdown they worried would only empower Trump.

The immediate stakes for Democrats’ fight-or-flight dilemma are relatively limited — the fate of their summer recess, to be precise.

Republicans want Democrats to agree to accelerate the confirmations of dozens of the roughly 150 pending Trump nominees before they allow senators to leave Washington. Democrats are seeking a “quid pro quo,” in the words of Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois. The main idea under discussion is getting the White House to release frozen agency funding while still holding up some of Trump’s most controversial picks.

But some Democrats like Warren are questioning why they should agree to help the Trump administration fill its ranks at all. Booker’s outburst is hanging over the decision (though even he showed pragmatism this week, allowing two of the police bills in the larger package to advance).

The bigger fight, senators agree, will come in September, and some Democrats are already warning that they need to stiffen their spines — and get their strategy settled — ahead of a potentially messy shutdown brawl.

They aren’t there yet. But Schumer convened another special caucus lunch on Wednesday to talk through potential September strategies.

One idea Democrats are discussing would be to secure a commitment from Republicans that they would not pursue additional funding clawbacks following this month’s successful “rescissions” votes, according to a person granted anonymity to disclose the private deliberations. There’s plenty of skepticism that they can trust the GOP to stick any deal, however, and they are also discussing possible policy demands, such as preserving Affordable Care Act tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year

“We’re having, I think, very productive discussions about what our priorities are,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said after leaving the caucus lunch Wednesday. He added that, based on the discussion, Democrats “are going to have a pretty good consensus position.”

As they hash out demands for the nominations and shutdown battles, Senate Democrats are trying to show some fight in smaller ways. They continue to try and put the GOP on the back foot regarding the so-called “Epstein files” — the yet-to-be released investigative records pertaining to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Schumer and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Democrats invoked a little-known law this week to try to force the administration to hand over the files — a move almost certain to be spurned by the Trump administration.

Schumer insisted during a news conference Wednesday that the letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi was “not a stunt” and suggested Democrats could sue if the Justice Department does not comply.

“That’s what accountability looks like. This is what oversight looks like,” Schumer told reporters, before sidestepping a question about whether Democrats would use their leverage on nominations and spending to pursue the Epstein matter.

Democrats are also working through whether they want to use the Senate’s government funding process this week to show Republicans they are willing to work with them. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is hoping to advance a small subset of the fiscal 2026 spending bills ahead of the summer recess, and many Democratic appropriators are ready to play ball. Other Democrats want to be more combative, with some floating an amendment related to Epstein.

Asked if she believed Democrats are appropriately fighting back by participating in the funding process, the top Democratic appropriator, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, said, “Absolutely. We are working really hard to make sure that our priorities are in these bills.”

Booker, for his part, said Wednesday he had “very strong feelings” about how the caucus should handle the overall funding fight.

But he said “the last thing I would do is discuss it.”

Calen Razor and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

GOP leaders cancel Friday votes as House agenda hangs in balance

Published

22 minutes ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republican leaders have canceled planned Friday votes as GOP hard-liners continue threatening to block legislative action over an elections bill that is stalled in the Senate, according to a notice sent to members Thursday.

Members are expected to leave town after a 1 p.m. vote Thursday, and it’s possible they might not return Monday as planned: Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to discuss the legislative agenda with President Donald Trump at an afternoon meeting in hopes of brokering a solution that will allow the House to resume voting next week.

If not, the House could join the Senate on an extended recess, not returning till mid-July, two people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations said.

Congress

Raskin launches discharge effort to formally block ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’

Published

2 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is launching a campaign to force a floor vote on legislation that would formally block the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

The so-called No Carte Blanche Act — a tongue-in-cheek nod to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — also would also explicitly bar payouts from the Judgement Fund, a pre-existing account for settlements with the United States, to people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

While Blanche, who will sit for a confirmation hearing July 15 to run the Justice Department in a more permanent capacity, recently told lawmakers that the administration was abandoning the effort amid bipartisan backlash, he has refused to put that pledge in a written declaration to Congress.

“This is why Congress must act to comprehensively shut down this shameful shakedown once and for all,” Raskin, of Maryland, said in a statement. “The people’s representatives must decide whether to uphold the rule of law and protect taxpayer dollars—or stand aside as this unprecedented corruption spins out of control.”

Raskin is attempting to compel a floor vote on his bill through a discharge petition, where 218 signatures in support will require Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the measure up for a vote. It’s a maneuver members of both parties have deployed with success in recent months due to the GOP’s slim majority — and it’s possible it could work this time, too, with a small number of House Republicans on record opposing the fund.

It would likely face an uphill battle getting the necessary 60 votes in the Senate to become law, however: An earlier attempt from Democrats to block the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” from going into effect failed in a 50-49 vote.

The fund was created out of a settlement from President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the federal government over the leak of his tax returns. While it was purportedly intended to provide financial compensation to individuals deemed victims of “lawfare,” critics worried it was designed to reward Trump’s allies.

Also as part of the settlement agreement, Trump, his family and businesses would be freed from any current audits of their taxes. Raskin’s legislation would also block that provision.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Johnson tries to clean up Trump’s Hill mess

Published

4 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s obsession with the SAVE America Act has hurled Congress into indefinite gridlock.

Senators are gone until July 13 after starting their Independence Day recess a few days early.

Now House Republican lawmakers are looking toward Speaker Mike Johnson, who will Thursday head to the White House to try to convince the president to salvage the GOP’s legislative agenda.

The president’s insistence Congress pass the controversial election security legislation has ground both chambers to a halt.

The deadlock threatens to derail a host of other legislative efforts Republicans and the White House hoped to complete in the coming weeks, including a sweeping reconciliation bill filled with potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in Iran war military funding, billions of dollars in relief for farmers, fiscal 2027 funding bills and the annual defense policy bill.

“I’d like to celebrate victories, not come up with reasons why we failed,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said in an interview, joining other Republicans in venting frustration after Trump scrapped a planned signing of a major housing affordability bill Wednesday.

“We’ve demonstrated a lot of dysfunction lately,” he said.

Wednesday’s explosive lunch with Trump and GOP senators probably didn’t help.

“The president came to the Capitol to do what he thinks Senate Republican leadership can’t do: flip votes on SAVE and nuking the filibuster,” a senior Senate GOP aide told Jordain.

“He left with the same number of votes that existed when he arrived — possibly fewer.”

Now eyes are on Johnson, who has lost control of the floor as hard-liners demand the Senate pass the elections overhaul.

He’s keeping the House in session ahead of his 2 p.m. Trump meeting in hopes of salvaging plans to put several bills on the floor this week — including a pair of fiscal 2027 spending measures.

But if Johnson and Trump can’t reach a compromise, GOP leadership may cancel all votes for the remainder of the week and next week, too.

That would further imperil their plans for another party-line reconciliation bill and the $88 billion supplement funding request the White House transmitted Wednesday.

What else we’re watching:

— JOHNSON’S PITCH FOR RECON 3.0 FALLS SHORT: House GOP leaders are trying to make good on their promise to advance a long-shot, party-line package of conservative priorities by arguing it’s the only chance to pass pieces of Trump’s doomed elections bill. So far, their pitch is falling short. Members who attended a meeting with House Budget Republicans Wednesday argued the REAL ID grant program Johnson proposed was no substitute for enacting the full SAVE America Act. And fiscal hawks on the panel warned they would oppose any budget resolution unless it’s paid for on a yearly basis, and without budgeting gimmicks.

— TRUMP’S $88B ASK FOR IRAN WAR, FARM AID: The White House sent Congress Wednesday a much-awaited request for emergency funding to cover military operations in Iran, farm assistance and disaster assistance. But the proposal could complicate House Republicans’ pursuit of a third party-line spending package, which was supposed to be centered around $350 billion in defense funding that Democrats wouldn’t support. The request for tens of billions of dollars in extra war spending comes as the House Appropriations panel Wednesday advanced a $1.1 trillion base budget plan for the Pentagon. Taken together, the three efforts represent a record-breaking roughly $1.5 trillion military budget, about a 50 percent hike from this year’s level.

Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Meredith Lee Hill, Connor O’Brien and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.