Congress

Farm-state Republicans finally reach their breaking point

Published

11 months ago

October 30, 2025

For President Donald Trump, it was a brief musing to reporters on Air Force One about his plans to import beef from Argentina. For dozens of farm-state Republicans who have held their tongues as key Trump policies battered their constituents, it was the final straw.

GOP lawmakers in cattle-producing states unleashed a flurry of calls over the following days to the White House and Agriculture Department. A small group of Republican senators, including retiring Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, cornered USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins in a private meeting less than 48 hours after the Oct. 19 comment.

This could not go on, they argued.

So far, the burst of objections has not generated a U-turn from the administration, which is going ahead with a beef import plan that Trump officials argue will both lower steak and hamburger prices for American consumers and bolster relations with a key Trump ally, Argentinian President Javier Milei.

But it has exposed the limits of GOP lawmakers’ tolerance for policies that have especially tested states heavy on agriculture. Some of the president’s staunchest Hill allies watched for months as Trump’s tariffs devastated farmers. More recently, they begged his deputies to reopen key farm offices during the shutdown. Then came the beef beef, with one GOP senator granted anonymity to speak candidly calling it a “a betrayal of America First principles.”

Even in the Trump-loyal House, key Republicans are pushing back.

Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), and Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), along with 11 other House Republicans, warned against Trump’s beef move, according to a letter sent Tuesday to Rollins and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that was obtained exclusively by Blue Light News.

“We believe strongly that the path to lower prices and stronger competition lies in continued investment at home … rather than policies that advantage foreign competitors,” they wrote.

The frustrations are also playing out on the Senate floor this week on a series of votes to undo some of Trump’s global tariffs. On Tuesday, five GOP senators joined Democrats to reverse 50 percent tariffs on Brazil; four Republicans voted Wednesday to cancel tariffs on Canada. While the votes are largely symbolic — House Republicans have preempted any challenges to Trump tariffs until February — the message was sent.

“Brazil had a trade surplus and the impetus behind it appears to be a disagreement with a judicial proceeding,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said, referring to Trump’s displeasure with the prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. “I just don’t think that’s a strong basis for using the trade lever.”

Caught in the middle of the farm-state fury is Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has long warned about the fallout of broad-based tariffs but has defended Trump’s trade prerogatives over the past nine months.

Trump’s trade wars, during his first term and this year, have wreaked havoc in Thune’s home state of South Dakota, where agricultural exports are a major economic driver. Thune has said he’s not a big fan of the levies. This week, Thune told reporters he thought Trump’s tariff policy “is a work in progress” and declined to predict how many Republicans might break ranks on the latest disapproval votes.

“My views on tariffs are probably slightly different than some of my colleagues,” Thune said, adding, “But I’m always willing to give the president and his team the opportunity — a chance — to get good deals, and hopefully that’s the case.”

Another reason farm-staters’ frustrations are coming to a head: Trump is meeting this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with high hopes for a trade breakthrough among Republican lawmakers. And next week, the Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments in a high-stakes challenge to Trump’s emergency tariff powers next week, and GOP leaders believe they need to give Republicans room to air their grievances beforehand.

“We want a level playing field. We want better terms for our exporters,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said, who added that he continues to be willing to give Trump “time” to strike badly needed trade deals.

Others are convinced the Supreme Court will step in and strike down at least some of Trump’s sweeping tariffs. “Emergencies are like war, famine [and] tornadoes,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the most vocal opponent of Trump’s tariffs in the Senate. “Not liking someone’s tariffs is not an emergency. It’s an abuse of the emergency power and it’s Congress abdicating their traditional role in taxes.”

But many are simply keeping their powder dry — and their reservations quiet — as they navigate their free-trade principles and loyalty to Trump.

“Where we are right now is, the president has invoked what he says are his emergency powers to implement tariffs unilaterally, and that has been challenged, and the Supreme Court is going to rule on it,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said.

Asked if had a view of how sweeping the current tariffs should be, Kennedy replied, “I don’t have anything for you on that.”

Amid the Argentinian beef uproar, Trump has at times shown little sympathy for ranchers and other agricultural producers.

“The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil,” he wrote in a Truth Social post last week, adding that they “have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”

That comment, and Trump officials’ confirmation that he was seeking to import four times the normal amount of beef from Argentina, set off a new wave of furor on Capitol Hill. And with Trump jetting off for a week of high-profile meetings with Asian leaders, it fell to Vice President JD Vance to absorb the frustration inside a closed-door lunch on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

“There was almost universal concern,” said one GOP senator granted anonymity to describe the private meeting, describing the room as senator after senator pressed Vance.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), a Trump ally whose family raises cattle, pushed back forcefully.

She rattled off a list of facts inside the GOP lunch that essentially argued the Trump administration was blaming the wrong party for high beef prices. Pointing out that wholesale cattle prices for ranchers are down while processed beef prices are up, she suggested the country’s large and often politically powerful meatpacking companies as the reason — a sector that has been subject to a long-running and bitter internal GOP fight on Capitol Hill.

“Ranchers,” Hyde-Smith told Vance, “are not the problem.”

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

Congress

Democrats keep pressure on Hakeem Jeffries to punish rogue members

Published

4 hours ago

September 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats aren’t letting rogue members off the hook for bucking their party. They hope Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries won’t either.

“Obviously, there’s got to be” punishment for the two Democrats who twice this month bucked their party to advance a slate of Republican priorities, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said in an interview.

“Otherwise, then,” he said, “it’s open season.”

Democrats are watching closely how — and if — Jeffries doles out consequences for Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington who have twice provided the decisive votes for GOP procedural measures this month. Jeffries and his leadership team condemned the two members when they first defected two weeks ago, slamming a “breach of trust” warranting a “serious response” but have yet to inflict any public consequences.

On Tuesday, they defied leadership a second time, infuriating House Democrats and resurrecting questions about how leadership plans to keep its caucus in line — especially if they have a slim majority next term.

“We have to all be united, and I think it’s pretty simple,” said one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If there’s not [a punishment], I find it hard to see a path forward in the majority, which we’re all pushing for.”

Asked if leadership should punish the two aisle-crossers, Rep. Troy Carter pointed to his time as minority leader of the Louisiana state Senate: “When I had members that did not work within the confines of the philosophical views of our party, I took them off our caucus.”

“I don’t want to second-guess anybody’s timing, but I will tell you that these things cannot allow to fester,” he added. “We have to have a strict message: Either you’re with the team on those fundamental issues of governance or you aren’t.”

Multiple members, including Carter, said that removing Gluesenkamp Perez from the Appropriations Committee should be considered. (While members are just as angry at Golden, they acknowledge he’s beyond punishment given he is retiring at the end of this term.)

“I suspect that there are a number of appropriate consequences that [leaders] could implement,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said in an interview. “And, ultimately, it’s their decision. I certainly don’t want that to be a caucus decision. That should be a leadership decision.”

One leader, Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, suggested she is open to removing Gluesenkamp Perez from Appropriations, telling reporters Wednesday morning that “team players get to sit on exclusive committees.”

After the first instance where the two Democrats defected on Sept. 1, Jeffries kicked the matter to a caucus rules panel, saying afterward he wanted to pursue action against the two members “sooner rather than later.” The panel continues to deliberate on what should happen if members vote with Republicans on procedural measures.

Jeffries said that week that he’d had a “productive” and “forward-looking” conversation with Gluesenkamp Perez, but he has said much less after Tuesday’s floor drama.

“I’ll have more to say about the issue when I have more to say about the issue,” he told Blue Light News shortly after the vote.

Congress

House passes Russia sanctions bill, handing Trump more leverage against Moscow

Published

6 hours ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House passed the sweeping Russia sanctions bill long championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday, sending the legislation to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature after more than a year of congressional maneuvering.

The 262 to 159 vote ends a nearly two-year lull in Ukraine assistance from Congress, which had not passed any major Ukraine efforts since a 2024 emergency aid package. The bill faced a number of obstacles on the path to the Resolute Desk, including significant opposition from some House Democrats who argued that the bill would give the White House too much tariff power.

After weathering a number of storms to make it out of Capitol Hill, the legislation is all but guaranteed to get Trump’s signature.

The long-anticipated legislation issues mandatory sanctions on Russia’s leadership and energy sector — as well as new sanctions on collaborators in Moscow’s defense industry and its so-called shadow fleet. Advocates of the bill, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have argued it would give the White House necessary tools to squeeze Russia economically, curbing the flow of funds to Moscow’s war machine.

But, to many Democrats’ dismay, the legislation also includes a 100% tariff on top buyers of Russian energy. Opponents of the bill have cautioned that the tariff provision would hand another cudgel for Trump to use against not only U.S. foes but also global allies — an action the White House has repeatedly taken since Trump returned to office.

“We cannot grant more tariff power that we know he will abuse,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said in comments on the House floor Wednesday.

Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that the tariffs would worsen the economic pain already felt by everyday Americans and that without a security assistance package or more air defense, they would not do enough to concretely help Ukraine.

In comments on the House floor earlier Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries outlined why he planned to withhold support for the measure.

“The manner in which this bill has been written doesn’t require the president of the United States to impose sanctions on Russia,” Jeffries said. “In fact, there are so many loopholes written into the bill, I believe, that it’s very unlikely that the sanctions relief contemplated in the legislation will ever see the light of day.”

That disagreement has caused a growing rift among Democrats in recent days. Fifty-eight House Democrats broke with Jeffries to vote yes on the measure.

In a letter addressed to House Democrats, Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) urged her colleagues to pass the legislation, warning that failing to do so would send a dangerous message to both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other international foes.

“Congress’s failure to impose additional costs would send a dangerous signal,” Shaheen wrote. “The Kremlin is watching. Kyiv is watching. Our NATO allies are watching. So are Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang.”

Congress

Rand Paul kills Kennedy’s AI ‘kill switch’ bill

Published

7 hours ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rand Paul blocked an attempt by fellow Republican Sen. John Kennedy to quickly pass legislation that would require companies to build a “kill switch” into their artificial intelligence model.

Kennedy, of Louisiana, went to the Senate floor Wednesday to try to pass his bill without holding a formal vote — a step that can be prevented by any one of his 99 colleagues. He argued that the measure was effectively a short-term step, with Congress unlikely to pass more sweeping AI legislation in the immediate future even amid fears that technological advancements could spiral out of human control.

“We are not going to get up off our ice-cold lazy butts and address this anytime soon,” Kennedy said about Congress’ inability to pass a more comprehensive bill. “But still we’ve got this risk out there that we know is real of one of these models becoming the Terminator.”

Paul, however, blocked Kennedy’s request to pass the bill through a unanimous consent agreement, saying from the Senate floor, “I think we should have as many facts as possible before we dictate rules for the whole economy.”

“I don’t oppose the spirit of this bill but I do ask that we make sure that we have all the information,” the Kentucky lawmaker added.

Paul tried to amend Kennedy’s bill to establish a group that could make recommendations on AI guardrail policies to the Senate Commerce Committee. Kennedy rejected that suggestion.

“My mama didn’t raise a fool,” he said, adding, “a committee is a way to kill this.”

Kennedy’s push for a vote comes after he told reporters Monday that he intended to roll out legislation and attempt to pass it this week, even while he acknowledged that he didn’t yet have any formal buy-in from his colleagues. He also appeared to know by earlier in the day Wednesday that he was running into a roadblock, saying in an interview that he expected Paul to offer a counterproposal.