Congress

Democrats plot strategy for fighting Trump on funding freeze

Published

1 year ago

January 22, 2025

Less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump’s Day One blitz of executive actions, Democrats on Capitol Hill mobilized Tuesday to fight his move to freeze a broad range of federal cash.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and other top House Democrats held a private call on Tuesday with more than 100 people, including leaders of outside groups, to discuss government funding strategy and how to stop Trump from violating so-called impoundment law by usurping Congress’ “power of the purse,” according to three people familiar with the call.

People on the call included advocates for a federal program granting food assistance to pregnant women and babies and the Head Start early education program.

It’s Democratic leadership’s first steps in coordinating a united front against what they see as the Trump administration’s violation of impoundment law, which is meant to block presidents from withholding money Congress has previously passed through the Congressional appropriations process.

Congressional Democrats are still trying to figure out exactly what funding Trump intends to freeze after the president’s barrage of executive orders Monday night that would cut off funding Congress previously appropriated. Those orders call broadly for federal agencies to pause foreign assistance to Ukraine and other countries, as well as halt money already contracted under Democrats’ signature climate and spending law known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

Whether Trump’s executive orders hold up in court will be a major test of any president’s power to unilaterally withhold funding Congress has cleared — specifically whether such an action undermines lawmakers’ “Article I” authority under the Constitution to control the government purse strings.

Once it is clear what accounts Trump is targeting through these executive orders, Democrats can determine who is being “harmed” and has legal standing to challenge the president’s orders in court.

“There are a whole array of political countermeasures that one could undertake in terms of having standing to sue, to vindicate the will of Congress,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the former chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said in a brief interview on Tuesday.

Besides a state or an organization representing people affected, a committee chair or party leader could potentially be “suitably implicated” to challenge Trump’s orders in court, said Whitehouse, who is also a former attorney general of Rhode Island and is also tracking the impoundment issue.

Democrats are planning other strategies to counter Trump’s orders to freeze funding, too, from a messaging standpoint, including by highlighting the ways Americans are hurt by the president’s moves.

“The President spent his first day in office stealing from American taxpayers,” the House’s top Democratic appropriator, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, said in a statement Tuesday night. “In the coming weeks, I will be focused on sharing with the American people the direct consequences of undercutting these investments.”

Democrats also plan to push for a federal probe into the legality of Trump’s moves to freeze funding. During Trump’s first presidency, the Government Accountability Office concluded on multiple occasions that the administration violated the law by withholding Ukraine aid and other funding.

Russ Vought, who was in charge of freezing that funding during Trump’s first presidency in his capacity as the White House budget director, is now seeking confirmation to a second stint leading the Office of Management and Budget.

Vought already told senators during his first confirmation hearing last week before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that Trump believes it is unconstitutional for the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to require the executive branch to spend money as Congress prescribes.

As Vought prepares to testify on Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee in his second confirmation hearing necessary to secure the OMB job, Democratic senators are ready to question the nominee specifically about the legality of Trump’s new executive orders.

Congress

Senate Judiciary schedules confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche

Published

55 minutes ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Judiciary Committee has set a date for Todd Blanche’s two-day confirmation hearing next month, potentially putting the attorney general nominee on track to be confirmed by the full Senate as soon as before the August recess — if he can get the votes.

Blanche will appear before the committee on July 15, according to a spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, with outside witnesses testifying on Blanche’s nomination July 16.

With all Democrats expected to oppose Blanche, a single Republican could tank his chances of advancing in committee — and outgoing Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas are not yet committing to voting “yes.”

Tillis did say Monday he was “generally satisfied with [Blanche’s] paperwork,” which the committee made public Tuesday, but would have questions for the nominee during the confirmation hearing.

Blanche is now leading the Justice Department in an acting capacity while continuing to serve in his current confirmed role as deputy attorney general. He ensnared himself in President Donald Trump’s orbit as his personal attorney, which has prompted concerns over whether he could be unduly loyal to the president as the federal government’s top law enforcement officer.

He has since come under fire for announcing, then withdrawing, a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” — and, most recently, is being scrutinized for reports the DOJ is investigating yet another Trump political adversary, California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In his Senate questionnaire, Blanche recalled how he left his law firm in 2023, “primarily to represent President Donald Trump” in the Stormy Daniels hush fund case out of Manhattan. He also represented Trump in the cases brought by former special counsel Jack Smith and “served as counsel to President Trump in an advising capacity in various other civil investigations and cases between 2023 and 2025.”

Blanche cited those Trump cases among his ten most significant — along with litigating the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to justify deportations and the fate of the new White House ballroom.

Congress

OMB nominee ‘can’t commit’ to forgoing ‘pocket rescissions’ funding gambit this year

Published

2 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s pick for deputy director of the White House budget office told lawmakers Tuesday he can’t promise the administration won’t unilaterally cancel funding later this year without Congress’ consent.

Hal Duncan, the nominee to serve in the No. 2 position at the Office of Management and Budget, defended the controversial “pocket rescission” maneuver during his first of two confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill this week.

“Pocket rescissions have been executed by previous administrations, notably the Ford administration,” Duncan said during testimony before the Senate Budget Committee. “I can’t commit to any of the fiscal tools the administration may or may not use in the future.”

His comments come after the White House defied Democrats and many Republicans last year by canceling $4.9 billion in foreign aid without a vote from Congress.

Typically, if an administration wants to withhold funding Congress has already appropriated, the White House will send a rescissions request. Then Congress has 45 days to approve, amend or reject the request to cancel the funding, with inaction considered rejection.

But Trump administration officials claim they can submit a formal request to rescind funding with less than 45 days left in the fiscal year and then withhold it until it lapses on Oct. 1, regardless of whether Congress acts, even though lawmakers in both parties consider the tactic an illegal end-run around Congress’ “power of the purse.”

The Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the go-ahead last fall to cancel much of the foreign aid it nixed through a pocket rescission. But the high court has yet to settle major questions about whether the Trump administration has violated the Constitution or federal law in withholding billions of dollars Congress has appropriated.

If the Trump administration attempts the tactic again this year, it would happen in August or September.

Duncan will appear Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Trump leaves Congress in dark on Iran deal

Published

6 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans want a say on a deal President Donald Trump is touting to end the monthslong war in Iran.

The absence of publicly released text for the “memorandum of understanding” Vice President JD Vance reportedly signed with Iranian officials Sunday sparked bipartisan scrutiny on Capitol Hill about what the deal might entail.

Senators in both parties agreed: More information needs to come to Congress soon, and any agreement touching on the future of the Iranian nuclear program would have to eventually be subject to a congressional vote.

“If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” said Sen. James Lankford. “We’ve got to have a vote of Congress to be able to solidify [it] long term.”

The Trump administration said it expects release of the memorandum of understanding no later than Friday.

The agreement reportedly includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, but it’s not clear to what degree Iran will be required to abandon its nuclear program. The White House circulated talking points to Hill Republicans Monday touting the deal, including that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” and “energy prices … are coming down,” according to a copy of the document reviewed by Blue Light News.

“If it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously?” Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters.

Weighing heavily on several lawmakers is the possibility of an agreement landed by the administration looking very similar to the last Iran nuclear deal, consummated more than a decade ago by then-President Barack Obama amid a bipartisan uproar over trading sanctions relief and cash concessions to the Iranian regime in return for curbs on its nuclear ambitions.

Democrats believe Trump should’ve never abandoned that deal — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — in his first term, while GOP defense hawks despised it from the start.

“If [the Iranians] can enrich [uranium] anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of the Trump administration’s forthcoming deal. “If they can’t enrich, then that makes it a good deal.”

One legacy of that 2015 controversy: the GOP-controlled Congress at the time passed legislation allowing for congressional review of any agreement dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. That law gives members the ability to kill a deal via a disapproval resolution that could be subject to presidential veto.

In the absence of further details, senators mainly agreed that they wanted a chance to formally review and vote on Trump’s deal — even as some Republicans predicted the administration would find a way to avoid that happening.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is “probably some expectation” that his chamber would ultimately vote on the agreement while declining to weigh in on the particulars.

“I just don’t know enough about it yet, and I don’t think even the people who follow this stuff closely up here know that much about it,” he said, adding that he expected Vance or other administration officials to brief members on the deal at some point.

What else we’re watching:

— DEMS NONCOMMITTAL ON SPEEDY CLAYTON CONFIRMATION: It’s unclear if Senate Republicans will be able to move at the lightning speed they’d hoped to in confirming Jay Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence by the end of the week. If every Senate Intelligence member agrees, Clayton could get a committee vote Thursday following his Wednesday hearing. Confirming Clayton on the Senate floor hours later would require getting agreement from every senator to speed up the process. Opposition from a single member would punt a vote to next week.

— THUNE AIMS FOR HOUSING BILL PASSAGE THIS WEEK: Thune is hoping his chamber can pass an updated version of a bipartisan housing affordability bill by the end of the week. The legislation comes after talks between Thune, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott and ranking member Elizabeth Warren. Two Senate Democratic aides granted anonymity to discuss ongoing plans said the bill was also discussed with the House and the White House.

Katherine Hapgood contributed to this report.