Congress

Donald Trump’s revenge tour might not end in 2026

Published

3 months ago

May 27, 2026

Donald Trump just ousted another Republican he viewed as insufficiently loyal. Two years from now, his revenge list could be even longer.

The president has already lashed out at two House Republicans due to perceived slights, with the White House floating a longer list of potential targets over the past year. Trump could also take aim at several GOP senators up for reelection in 2028 — including Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Indiana’s Todd Young — as he seeks to make a lasting mark on the Republican Party in the final stretch of his presidency.

The prospect that Trump’s much-ballyhooed “revenge tour” could continue into another election cycle was underscored by his late decision to endorse against Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who lost his renomination bid Tuesday night to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Cornyn backed Trump in January 2024 and went to great lengths to win Trump’s favor once Trump secured the 2024 Republican nomination for president — after initially running lukewarm on his comeback bid. Trump’s decision to seek retribution anyway, some believe, could lead other GOP lawmakers to think twice about running for another term rather than mount a grueling and potentially futile bid for renomination.

“Look at all of them that are up in 2028 … do they think about retiring?” asked one Republican senator who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about colleagues who have previously broken with the president.

Others think it’s too soon to tell — especially if Trump’s moves to drum out more establishment-minded Republicans backfire in the November midterms.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is leaving office at the end of this year, said in an interview that he “could see” some of his colleagues retiring rather than risk a Trump-fueled primary challenge.

“But I also think … he’s not going to carry the same weight in the 2028 election cycle, particularly if we’ve lost one or both chambers in 2026,” Tillis said of Trump. “So I think these members ought to be who they are. Period.”

Asked about the 2028 races, the White House pointed back to Trump’s Truth Social post endorsing Paxton over Cornyn, which does not address future races. Trump, in that post, said Cornyn was “not supportive of me when times were tough” and “was very late in backing me” in 2024.

Trump’s appetite for revenge also hasn’t been entirely consistent. Some congressional Republicans who were asking questions about Trump’s e fitness all the way back to the launch of his first presidential campaign in 2015 have managed to skate by.

That includes Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. She was one of seven Republicans to vote to convict Trump of an impeachment charge in 2021 but has largely escaped the president’s wrath as she tries to hold onto her seat in a Democratic-leaning state. Trump has also thrown his support behind Sen. Mike Rounds, despite once calling the South Dakotan a “jerk” he would never endorse again.

Trump hasn’t made any specific 2028 primary endorsements yet as he keeps focus squarely on 2026.

But he threatened to back a challenger to Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert earlier this month over her support for Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who fell this month to a Trump-backed primary opponent — even though the filing deadline for Boebert’s 2026 primary has already passed.

He also took a whack at Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick last week — a day after the Pennsylvania Republican advanced past his uncontested primary for a sixth term representing a swingy suburban Philadelphia seat.

But the real fireworks could come in 2028 Senate primaries, which could feature several of Trump’s most persistent critics.

Three GOP senators up next cycle — Murkowski, Paul and Young — caught a tongue-lashing from the president earlier this year after they were among five Republicans who voted to advance a resolution that would have prevented the administration from taking additional military action against Venezuela. In addition to angry phone calls to the lawmakers at the time, Trump called them out in a Truth Social post where he said they “should never be elected to office again.”

Also up for reelection in 2028: Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has generally enjoyed a positive relationship with Trump during his second presidential term but faces potential potholes ahead.

Trump, for instance, has shown no sign of backing off his attempt to eliminate the Senate filibuster, even as Thune publicly insists there aren’t the votes to do so. Thune also acknowledged last week that Trump’s effort to unseat incumbents would make advancing the GOP’s legislative agenda “slightly more complicated.”

Paul, meanwhile, has been a perennial gadfly for his party on everything from last year’s megabill to routine spending votes and the Iran war, where he has repeatedly backed efforts to curb the president’s ability to take military action without congressional signoff. Like Boebert, he was an outspoken backer of Massie’s reelection campaign.

Asked about his own history with Trump, Paul has batted down the notion his seat might be at risk — including after another GOP doctor-turned-senator, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, lost his bid for renomination this month.“I was a big defender of the president on impeachment, so I think there’s quite a bit of difference,” Paul told reporters, referring to Cassidy’s 2021 conviction vote.

Fellow Republicans are closely watching both Murkowski and Young ahead of 2028 — whether either gets a primary challenger, or runs again at all.

Young is gearing up to run for reelection. But at least one possible primary challenger is publicly eying the race, and Rep. Erin Houchin is among others who are thought to be looking at a run.

Houchin heartily backed Trump’s effort to oust eight Republicans in the Indiana state Senate who helped kill a GOP redistricting plan earlier this year, joining their primary challengers when they visited the White House before the state’s May primary. She also raised eyebrows recently when she hired the MAGA-aligned consultant Chris Grant, who rarely works on House races these days, for her reelection campaign.

Trump didn’t endorse Young during his 2022 race, where he ran unopposed in the primary. And in the lead-up to the 2024 election, Young said he didn’t support Trump as the party’s nominee.

But Young has also positioned himself as a team player during Trump’s second term, voting for the president’s nominees and major pieces of his agenda. Young ultimately flipped on the Venezuela resolution, voting to kill it after getting assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Trump administration officials.

Still, Young and Trump have managed to keep things civil. Young flew on Air Force One with Trump and other lawmakers in March and Trump recognized him alongside Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan at a recent White House event as “good senators” and “great guys.”

Murkowski, meanwhile, is the only Senate Republican up for reelection in 2028 who voted to convict Trump on an impeachment charge of having “incited an insurrection” in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol by a mob of the president’s supporters.

Trump hasn’t shied away from criticizing Murkowski — calling her and Tillis “terrible senators” and saying that Murkowski “should be gone.” He has also backed an effort to eliminate Alaska’s all-party, ranked-choice voting system, which helped Murkowski edge out another Republican in 2022. He thanked other state-level Republicans and members of Alaska’s congressional delegation, but not Murkowski, in a recent Truth Social post related to the effort.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is among those thought to be considering a challenge. Responding to a Fox News report last year that he would jump into the 2028 race, a spokesperson said at the time that “Governor Dunleavy is focused on moving Alaska forward during the remainder of his second term.” Other Republicans cautioned that they thought the report was a trial balloon for the governor, who is leaving office at the end of the year.

Murkowski provided a key vote to help pass last year’s tax-cuts-focused GOP megabill and has voted for Trump’s Cabinet nominees, though not Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. But she has also been one of the Senate Republicans most willing to push back publicly against Trump’s agenda, including helping kill the GOP Obamacare repeal plan during his first term. She voted against advancing Trump’s immigration enforcement bill and a GOP election measure earlier this year and frequently speaks out against Trump’s efforts to eliminate the filibuster.

Asked how she has survived Trump’s wrath so far, Murkowski said she has stayed focused on home-state issues, like the revamping of the federal polar icebreaking fleet.

“That’s what I think about,” she told reporters after Trump endorsed against Cornyn. “I don’t get caught up in, ‘Does the president love me today or hate me today?’ If I did, I would be a crazy woman, and I’m not a crazy woman.”

Adam Wren contributed to this report.

Congress

Capitol agenda: All the Democrats’ probes

Published

3 days ago

August 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats are readying a long list of investigations they want to launch into Donald Trump.

Reps. Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, who would lead the Oversight and Judiciary committees, respectively, if the party takes back the House, said they’re wasting no time in preparing an all-out oversight campaign targeting Trump, his family, and his administration.

Both know that House Dems’ efforts now could provide a backbone for the accountability message the party intends to continue into the 2028 presidential election season.

“We are going to be looking at systems of bribery, kickback and financial corruption and opportunities for disgorgement and restitution to the American people,” Raskin said. “That would be No. 1.”

Topping their long list of controversies they want to probe: Trump’s acceptance of a Qatari jet for use as his new Air Force One, and his family’s massively profitable cryptocurrency investments.

Raskin also said he intends to probe what he deems “fraudulent and vindictive prosecutions,” including those of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James. Garcia, meanwhile, said he is determined to fill in gaps he sees in the GOP-led investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

White House spokesperson Olivia Wales responded to Democrats’ plans by stating the president “will continue to draw a sharp contrast with his commonsense agenda and radical Democrats who want to massively raise taxes, defund the police, and are soft on crime.”

Garcia and Raskin’s preparations in some ways resemble how their predecessors planned ahead of the 2018 midterms. But that year, Democrats tiptoed around the prospect of impeachment for fear of alienating voters, then launched a flurry of investigations aimed at Trump once they were in power.

Now, after two impeachments that failed to remove Trump from office and with a party base intent on pulling no punches, House Democrats are reluctant to take anything off the table — while also recognizing the limitations of impeachment as a check on Trump’s power.

“Nobody on the Democratic side is afraid of impeachment,” Raskin said this week, adding that he considers it a “tool in the toolbox.”

What else we’re watching:

— SCANDAL-PLAGUED CANDIDATES TEST PARTIES’ LIMITS: Democrats and Republicans this election cycle keep playing whack-a-mole as candidate after candidate becomes embroiled in controversies ranging from domestic violence to sexual misconduct. Neither party has developed a clear playbook yet for when to step in or what counts as disqualifying. But identifying that line could become a key effort in determining who controls the next Congress, as several races with problematic candidates have been or could become battlegrounds.

— LAWMAKERS BRISTLE OVER POCKET RECISSION SEASON: With less than 45 days left in the fiscal year, the time is right for pocket rescissions — the controversial tactic Trump used last year to cancel billions of dollars in foreign aid without Congress’ consent. If the White House takes that tack again, it will not be well received on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers in both parties continue to bristle over Trump’s ongoing assault on their funding power.

Chris Marquette, Riley Rogerson, Erin Doherty, Andrew Howard, Alec Hernandez and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

Democrats want to probe Donald Trump, his family and his administration. But mostly Trump.

Published

4 days ago

August 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats haven’t yet won the House majority. But top party leaders are wasting no time in preparing an all-out oversight campaign targeting President Donald Trump, his family and administration should they flip the chamber in November.

At the center of the effort are California Rep. Robert Garcia, who is poised to lead the Oversight Committee under a Democratic takeover, and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is in line to lead the Judiciary Committee. They are each already planning to use their potential gavels to investigate key Trump controversies — such as his acceptance of a Qatari jet for use as his new Air Force One and his family’s massively profitable cryptocurrency investments.

Garcia and Raskin both said in interviews they have a long list of administration officials that they plan to probe and possibly bring before their committees. But each said they intend to focus intently on Trump himself.

“Ideally, it’s the president’s sons and the president and the family,” Garcia said, adding a litany of other members of the Trump inner sanctum he wants to hear from. They include chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and son-in-law and foreign envoy Jared Kushner, as well as former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Cory Lewandowski, who served as her chief of staff.

In addition to the crypto profits and the much-criticized Qatari 747, Garcia said he planned to probe federal contracts awarded to members of Trump’s family and the series of pardons Trump has granted early in his second term.

Raskin, a veteran of the investigative onslaught that took place in the second half of Trump’s first term, said he planned to focus on allegations of self-enrichment by Trump and his family — as well as illicit foreign influence on American institutions and rising authoritarianism in government.

After playing a key role in probing Trump's first term, Rep. Jamie Raskin could have more power this time atop the Judiciary Committee.

Asked to comment on Democrats’ oversight plans, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales responded with a statement outlining Trump’s legislative achievements.

“The President will continue to draw a sharp contrast with his commonsense agenda and radical Democrats who want to massively raise taxes, defund the police, and are soft on crime,” she said. “The choice has never been more clear: doubling down on President Trump’s winning agenda or far-left liberal policies and partisan gridlock.”

Raskin and Garcia are forging ahead even as voters reject some Democrats who were at the forefront of the Trump accountability effort that unfolded eight years ago. And while the preparations Garcia, Raskin and others are making now in many ways resemble how their predecessors planned ahead of the 2018 midterms, there are differences.

Democrats in the leadup to the elections that year warily tiptoed around the prospect of impeachment in fear of alienating voters, and they laid out some investigative targets that did not implicate Trump personally.

Once in power, though, they launched a flurry of investigations aimed at Trump — including the president’s tax returns, his acceptance of foreign “emoluments” and later his effort to leverage aid to Ukraine for political favors. In virtually every case, the administration stonewalled Democratic investigators.

“Nobody on the Democratic side is afraid of impeachment,” Raskin said this week, adding that he considers it a “tool in the toolbox.”

The Qatari-gifted Air Force One is a top target for Democratic investigators.

The larger project for Democrats if they win power in November is to use subpoena power and public hearings to provide a backbone for the accountability message they intend to continue into the 2028 presidential election season.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries emphasized the wide-reaching scope of oversight inquiries during his campaign kickoff speech last month, in which he unveiled House Democratic midterm messaging that included a pledge to “hold the crooks accountable.”

“Anyone,” Jeffries said, “who is stealing from the American people, screwing over the American people, or shortchanging the American people is going to be held accountable beginning on Day 1.”

While the Oversight and Judiciary panels would be the leaders of the investigatory push in a Democratic House, other committees are set to target Trump as well in a bid to deliver the bold action Democratic primary votes have demanded.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said he expected the oversight subpanel would be a highly sought-after assignment should Democrats win gavels — with a potential “big” emphasis, he said, on probing Trump family corruption.

He added he was “very concerned” about how the Trump administration has managed the IRS and Social Security, particularly after the Department of Government Efficiency upended federal agencies last year.

“We certainly will exercise our oversight responsibility,” said Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, who is expected to return as Ways and Means chair in a Democratic majority.

Garcia and Raskin, meanwhile, have other pet priorities beyond the personal benefits Trump and his family have allegedly garnered in office.

Raskin said he intends to probe what he deems “fraudulent and vindictive prosecutions” including those of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James.

“The prosecution function has been utterly tainted and the Judiciary Committee obviously can’t let that go,” he said.

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has come under Democratic scrutiny for his Trump ties.

He has also set his sights on Paramount Skydance’s proposed $110 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal Democrats have blasted not only as an antitrust violation but also a threat to national security and free speech.

Previewing his intentions for the majority, Raskin requested a transcribed interview with Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison in a letter last week. While he cannot haul Ellison, a close Trump ally, before the committee now as a member of the minority party, Raskin said his inquiry into Paramount would be a “priority” if Democrats win subpoena power.

Garcia, meanwhile, said he is determined to fill in gaps he sees in the GOP-led investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He said he wants to bring key witnesses back to testify under oath, potentially in public hearings “because most of them were not called under oath and most of them were not called under subpoena.”

That could include big names in the world of finance, such as Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management, and Jes Staley, a former top executive at JPMorgan Chase — both of whom had substantial communications with Epstein and met with the committee privately.

“I think we’re going to have, in the majority, public Epstein hearings,” Garcia said.

The Epstein investigation is similar to the Trump corruption probe in that it would potentially span multiple committees, and Garcia and Raskin both praised each other and said they are planning to work in concert on both issues.

Raskin said he doesn’t envision any issues with coordination between two panels

“There’s enough Trump family corruption to go around,” he said. “I don’t think we have to worry about that. We will just be dividing it up.”

Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

In Year 2 of Trump’s funding grab, Congress fights back

Published

4 days ago

August 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republican lawmakers are still locked in a power struggle with the White House over control of federal cash, long since President Donald Trump swept back into office with unprecedented orders undermining Congress’ power of the purse.

Earlier this month, GOP senators overwhelmingly agreed to a bipartisan government funding bill that would temporarily block the Trump administration from finalizing a federal rule to let political appointees steer money toward grants “aligned with the president’s agenda.” The House could clear that bill next month, and Trump is expected to sign it to avert a shutdown before the midterms.

And while the days of widespread funding freezes might be over, the Trump administration continues to create new rules for federal grants and then deny funding based on them — only to be repeatedly shot down in court this summer.

Lawmakers in both parties have also blasted White House budget director Russ Vought this year for delaying the release of cash for congressionally backed programs for antipoverty services, foreign assistance, banking in underserved areas and more.

“Congress has appropriated money, and you don’t have the authority to impound it,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) chastised Vought this spring over the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars the Trump administration is supposed to send quarterly to states.

Now Republicans are watching for clues about whether Vought, between now and Sept. 30, will claim the authority to nix appropriations in the final weeks of the fiscal year through what’s known as a pocket recession. He used the move last year to unilaterally cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid through the legally dubious maneuver.

“Pocket rescissions would be a very interesting way to curry favor with the legislative branch — especially the one part of the legislative branch which has delivered on all of the administration’s shit,” Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, a senior Republican appropriator, said in a recent interview.

Indeed, the White House needs the support of GOP appropriators in both chambers to advance Trump administration priorities.

Those top lawmakers have already taken some modest steps to stop the White House from shirking Congress’ intent on spending by inserting stricter language into bipartisan funding bills Trump signed into law for the current fiscal year. That included new rules for shifting money between accounts and more explicit instructions for how dollars should be spent.

Some Republican lawmakers have also been resisting the administration’s push this summer to enact billions of dollars for the military and agriculture programs through another party-line budget reconciliation package. Top House Republican appropriators slammed the White House in June for pursuing a “risky and uncoordinated” strategy to enact funding for the Iran war through a party-line bill that’s not guaranteed to pass.

Relying on the reconciliation process to skirt the Senate filibuster is a key step to achieve the “paradigm shift” Vought has touted throughout Trump’s second term, designed to make funding negotiations “less bipartisan” so Republicans don’t have to agree to nondefense increases in order to get enough votes to boost military budgets.

“At what point did we stop legislating?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another senior appropriator, said last month after Vought privately pitched Senate Republicans on the latest party-line plan, which would inherently take funding power away from the appropriations committees.

Murkowski was also among the Senate Republicans who chided the White House for not seeking input from lawmakers before forging ahead with its plan to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants and minimize the role of the objective peer-review process for selecting recipients of those dollars.

“There was no consultation at all,” she said. “When you start issuing grants based on political connections, that’s not good for the system here.”

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) publicly called on Vought to extend the public comment period for the plan last month, to no avail.

She also continues to pan the pocket rescission gambit, saying in a recent interview that the administration should “go through the proper process with the Appropriations Committee” if it wants to rescind money intended for a specific program.

Under a decades-old law, the White House is allowed to send Congress a request to revoke funding, then withhold the cash for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore the proposal. Republicans last summer voted to approve Trump’s request to rescind $9 billion for public media and foreign assistance.

Then Trump used that same law weeks later to send Congress a request to rescind $4.9 billion in foreign aid — this time with less than 45 days left before the end of the fiscal year. Vought immediately declared the funding canceled, arguing that the administration had to withhold the funding until it expired at the end of September, regardless of congressional action.

The Office of Management and Budget did not respond to requests for comment on whether the White House plans to execute new pocket rescissions in the coming weeks. But Trump’s new pick for deputy director at the agency, Hal Duncan, told lawmakers this summer that the agency isn’t ruling out any “fiscal tools.”

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said White House officials have given him no assurances that they won’t deploy the tactic again this year and that his reaction would hinge on the type of funding eliminated.

“It would depend on what it is — it really would,” the Oklahoma Republican said last month.

In courtrooms throughout the country, federal judges continue to weigh in on whether Trump is illegally encroaching on Congress’ funding power.

Last month a federal judge declared that the administration can’t cancel grants based on new rules or goals established after the fact. The Trump administration later admitted in a different case that it canceled $7.6 billion “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.” Then a federal judge halted changes to teen-pregnancy prevention grants, concluding that it’s unlawful “to impose conditions … that Congress did not intend or that are unreasonable or unexplained.”

The Supreme Court has yet to conclusively rule on the president’s spending tactics, and many Democrats on Capitol Hill argue Republicans shouldn’t rely on the courts to defend Congress’ authority. GOP leaders have repeatedly bucked Democratic calls for action, including to reverse the cancellation of specific grants, nullify Trump’s pocket rescission last fall and head off a future end-run around Congress by barring rescissions requests in the last months of the fiscal year.

“When are our Republican colleagues going to assert our legislative authority?” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a top appropriator, said in an interview. “I mean, why in the hell did they run for Congress?”

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a senior appropriator in line to be the No. 2 Democrat in the next Congress, was more charitable.

“I just think there’s a bipartisan desire to get back to the way the Constitution is supposed to operate,” he said in an interview, “where we decide how the money is spent.”