Congress
Democrats use committee hearing to rail against GOP Medicaid cuts and DOGE
Tensions are boiling over inside the typically bipartisan House Energy and Commerce Committee, with Democrats railing against Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the GOP’s plan to extend Trump-era tax cuts.
With little power in GOP-led Washington, Democrats are hijacking a markup to adopt the committee’s oversight plan to advance their message — both by speechifying and forcing votes on more than 50 likely-doomed amendments on thorny issues like preventing spending cuts to Medicaid, condemning President Donald Trump’s firing of inspectors general and disapproving of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine leanings.
At times raising their voices and pounding the dias, Democrats are arguing this isn’t business-as-usual amid what they see as unconstitutional and illegal behavior from the Trump administration, and that the Republican oversight plan for committee business in the 119th Congress does little to hold the president and his people to account.
Lawmakers sparred over one amendment for more than an hour aimed at preventing cuts to Medicaid. House Republicans are looking to ram through a budget resolution later in the day that would set parameters for the major party-line package to enact huge swaths of Trump’s domestic agenda.
It may not have the support to advance amid concerns from many lawmakers — including some who sit on Energy and Commerce — about the likelihood of having to make major reductions to Medicaid in order to finance the bill. The safety net program is directly under the committee’s purview, putting Energy and Commerce members at the tip of the spear of a politically dicey exercise.
Republicans have tried to tamp down opposition by saying those offsets would be secured through more work requirements and taking away benefits from illegal immigrants. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), the chair of the health subcommittee, said Medicaid needs to be preserved to protect vulnerable Americans as unchecked spending growth is putting the program at risk, and that fraud, waste and abuse in the system should be addressed.
“We’re only going to do this in a responsible way,” said full committee chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.). “We’re not going to do this in a way that threatens hospitals.”
But Democrats countered the GOP will not be able to reach its savings target without major disruptions to Medicaid benefits across-the-board.
“We have not heard a single concrete number of the amount of waste and abuse that has been identified. There’s kind of this vague magic wand around waste,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “What’s being suggested is that … people people seeing the doctor is a waste.”
The amendment was not adopted, with no Republican voting in favor.
Republicans are largely defending their oversight plan, saying it closely hews to the agenda roadmap the GOP-led Energy and Commerce Committee advanced in the previous Congress. But speaking in favor of one Democratic amendment that would have the panel investigate the Office of Management and Budget’s recent funding cuts at the National Institute of Health, Ocasio-Cortez said such comparisons were disingenuous.
“DOGE did not exist two years ago. Nineteen-year-olds were not raiding the Treasury two years ago,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Elon Musk is not a scientist. He is not an engineer. He is a billionaire conman with a lot of money. … These are peoples’ lives that are on the line and we cannot laugh them away.”
Carter countered the Trump administration is looking to make the health research agency more efficient and pointed to declining trust in health agencies: “This committee has the broadest jurisdiction of any committee in Congress. It would be virtually impossible for us to include everything we’re going to be looking at.”
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the ranking member of the panel’s health subcommittee, fired back, saying that such plans are generally inclusive of what the party in power wants.
That amendment was voted down along party lines, alongside another amendment that would have added language to the oversight blueprint instructing the committee to “investigate the constitutionality and legality of the Trump administration’s seizure of congressionally appropriated funds.”
Senate Republicans are hopeful they will be able to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general by the end of the week. But he’s not in the clear yet, as several undecided GOP senators continue to mull it over.
Blanche’s prospects were nonetheless much improved Monday — less than 24 hours after some GOP senators were predicting he was unlikely to get confirmed as a war of words escalated between President Donald Trump and holdout Republicans.
But then Blanche cut a deal with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) late Sunday night to clarify a controversial settlement between Trump and the IRS, giving Blanche the votes he needed to get through the Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
He still needs to get through the full Senate, where he can only lose two Republican votes given likely unified opposition from Senate Democrats and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence.
Several GOP senators who raised alarms last week about Trump’s public threats to rekindle the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” Cornyn and Tillis worked to kill declined to say Monday how they’d vote on Blanche.But in a positive sign for the acting attorney general, several are looking to Tillis and Cornyn, who are now supporting him, as a lodestar for their own deliberations ahead of likely floor votes later this week.
“I think certainly the fact that he has signed this order, basically disbanding [the fund] — that’s a pretty good step,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), before adding that she would “like to find out a little bit more about the negotiations.”
Murkowski said she plans to speak with Tillis and Cornyn.
“I’m curious about what went on over the weekend,” she said.
Blanche has made efforts to ingratiate himself with Murkowski. In July, he trekked to Alaska, in part at Murkowski’s urging, to better understand public safety and tribal jurisdiction matters. He recently announced a nine-figure settlement benefiting Alaska natives’ health care that Murkowski was pleased with.
“I just appreciated the fact that he went to the state,” Murkowski said. “He was only there for two days, but I had asked him in my initial meeting to go up to the state.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who like Cornyn lost his primary earlier this year to a Trump-backed challenger, declined to discuss Blanche Monday. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) added that she also wanted to talk to Tillis and Cornyn and read the agreement they struck with Blanche.
“Until I do that, I am not going to make a judgement,” Collins said.
Another Republican who hasn’t yet committed to supporting Blanche is Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah). He met with Blanche last week but hasn’t yet weighed in since Sunday night’s agreement. He had indicated before Sunday’s deal that he would be closely tracking Tillis and Cornyn during Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee meeting.
Getting Blanche’s nomination on a trajectory to pass the Senate this week would relieve some of the pressure on Senate Republicans, who are juggling a long to-do list and a shrinking runway to get it done. Trump, amid last week’s standoff, demanded that Senate Republicans confirm Blanche, including warning during a Cabinet meeting that they “will never get anybody like him.”
Tillis told reporters Monday that “the back-and-forth over the weekend was not helpful” but that the talks “ended up at an acceptable place.”
If Blanche gets out of the Judiciary Committee Tuesday as expected, the soonest the Senate could confirm him as attorney general is Saturday unless Democrats unanimously agree to help speed up a final vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that he’s hopeful the Senate will be able to confirm Blanche but didn’t give an ironclad guarantee as the remaining undecided members review the agreement and talk to Tillis and Cornyn.
“I’d like to figure out a way, a path forward to get him done,” Thune said.
Democrats are likely to use Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee meeting, and the days leading up to a full Senate vote, to hammer Republicans over the deal Cornyn and Tillis struck. Many predicted Monday that Trump wouldn’t stick by the agreement that limits the scope of the IRS settlement and nullifies the $1.8 billion payout fund.
“There are so many loopholes. I wouldn’t be surprised if the president went ahead with the program,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) warned the remaining undecided Republicans about the deal: “I don’t think that that commitment is worth what it’s written on.”
While Democrats can drag Blanche’s confirmation into the weekend, they aren’t able to prevent him from being confirmed if at least 50 GOP senators support him. But they are determined to use the debate to hit at one of their central midterm campaign messages — corruption — with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling Blanche the “architect of Trump’s grifts.”
Tillis suggested Monday he still has questions about who in Trump’s orbit played a role in the roller coaster negotiations over the past week. While the retiring senator is prepared to support Blanche, he said that he’s “not done analyzing the anatomy of this deal and who played a role in there.”
“I’m not going to speak for other members, but I think that it’ll be a solid vote,” he added about Blanche’s chances of being confirmed.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who appeared skeptical during a Sunday morning talk show interview that Blanche would get through the Senate, did a 180 Monday when asked whether he would get confirmed: “Yes, I do.”
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
Multiple Senate Republicans joined Sen. Bernie Moreno in calling for Rep. Max Miller to step down from office Monday amid domestic abuse allegations from the Ohio senator’s daughter.
Bernie Moreno — father of Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno — said in a statement Sunday that Miller should not serve in the House soon after the House Republican did a livestream video attempting to defend himself from abuse accusations.
Many of Bernie Moreno’s GOP colleagues were quick to back him following the statement.
“I don’t know [Miller]. I haven’t read a whole lot about him, but if [Moreno] thinks he ought to resign, I’m supportive of that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said in an interview.
Miller has denied the allegations, which include pouring hot water on his ex-wife and holding a gun to her head. He has also denied accusations from his ex-wife that he broke his daughter’s collarbone.
Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas condemned Miller, adding, “He should resign. He should quit.”
“I don’t know Mr. Miller’s story, but I trust Bernie so much as a good friend, and his family has such high values,” Marshall said in an interview. “I couldn’t imagine them wanting this out in public. So to go through with this, it makes me think that they’re telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
The surge of support from Bernie Moreno’s Senate colleagues marks the first significant crack in a wall of GOP silence regarding the allegations against Miller. The skepticism from Miller’s own party will almost certainly weigh down the congressman’s already floundering campaign as he battles Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter to keep his Cleveland-area House seat.
Miller has until Wednesday to withdraw from the ballot and allow a crash primary to select a replacement.
Some Republican lawmakers stopped short of calling on Miller to withdraw or resign while expressing grave concern about the allegations.
“The accusations are very serious, and if there is truth to them, I am one who says that our elected officials need to be held to high standards,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said. “And certainly, when it comes to allegations of domestic abuse, child abuse, that’s not what we want in our lawmakers.”
A spokesperson for Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In response to Moreno’s statement, Miller said on Sunday, “If my daughter said the same thing to me, I personally wouldn’t wait two years before holding him accountable.”
“You know this isn’t true and the only reason you are speaking out now is to hide from your own media circus,” he added in the post on X.
Notably still silent was GOP Sen. Jon Husted, Ohio’s other senator, who while leaving the Capitol Monday did not respond to reporters’ questions about whether Miller should resign.
Other Republicans in the Ohio House delegation are also staying quiet for now. Almost every House Republican from the state either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment on Moreno’s statement.
The exception was Rep. Jim Jordan, who brushed off questions in a Thursday CNN interview about Miller but noted he was “a good man” and was recently campaigning for him.
Asked Monday if Miller should still serve in Congress following Bernie Moreno’s statement, spokesperson for Jordan Stefanie Farrell said, “As Mr. Jordan has said, it’s up to the voters of Ohio’s 7th District.”
Back in the Senate, other Republicans who were unaware of the situation declined to weigh in on the incident.
“I am not aware of the situation, so I don’t have a comment right now,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has been a leading GOP voice on domestic violence issues within the military.
But a steady drip of Republican senators said Monday evening they trusted Bernie Moreno.“It would surprise me if Bernie were being untruthful,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said. “I guess I was surprised that it bubbled up to the public sphere, but I suspect that Bernie has got a beat on the situation.”
Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia said he was unaware of the details of the allegations but that “Bernie’s a pretty level-headed guy.”
“I don’t know enough about the allegations, but like Bernie said, it sounds like he thinks he needs psychological help,” Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said, adding, “I trust Bernie.”
Chris Marquette contributed to this report.
Senate Budget Committee Republicans will meet Tuesday morning to talk about advancing a fiscal blueprint for a new party-line spending bill.
Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) declined to say , in an interview Monday if he plans to introduce a resolution this week, noting that he was “working with leadership” and that the “first priority” is to pass a stopgap spending bill. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a panel member, said he didn’t expect the Senate to take up a budget resolution this week because “I don’t think my leadership wants to do it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune hasn’t ruled out taking up a budget resolution but has been frank about the challenges it faces among GOP senators.
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