Congress
Former Rep. John Spratt remembered as ‘skilled and deeply principled lawmaker’
COLUMBIA, South Carolina — John Spratt, a former longtime Democratic congressman from South Carolina who successfully pushed for a balanced budget deal in the 1990s but was unseated decades later when his district turned Republican, has died. He was 82.
Spratt died Saturday night at home, surrounded by family, due to complications from Parkinson’s disease, his daughter, Catherine Spratt, said in a post on Facebook.
Tributes quickly poured in for Spratt, who represented South Carolina’s 5th District for nearly 30 years.
Former President Bill Clinton hailed Spratt as a “skilled and deeply principled lawmaker” who was willing to work with anyone to pass legislation to make a difference in people’s lives.
In a condolence letter to the family, according to Spratt’s daughter, President Joe Biden wrote that, “Guided by his wit, wisdom, decency and grace, John deeply understood the promise of America, and he fought tirelessly to bring people together to help us live up to that promise.”
Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, in a post on X, called Spratt a man of “unmatched intellect, integrity, and kindness,” and said he would order flags across the state to be lowered to half-staff on the day of Spratt’s funeral.
Christale Spain, chair of South Carolina’s Democratic Party, said in a news release that Spratt “earned respect on both sides of the aisle, and he will be remembered for his courageous work to enhance and improve healthcare, support for our military, and his strengthening of rural communities leaves a lasting impact that will be felt for generations.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, a South Carolina native, said he “often teased that Mr. Spratt had probably forgotten more about the federal budget than the majority of Members had ever known,” calling him “brilliant, kind, and beloved by many.”
First elected to Congress in 1982, Spratt rose through the ranks to become chairman of the House Budget Committee and the second-highest-ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
One of his proudest accomplishments, his daughter said, was his role in passing the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997.
“I’ll always be grateful for the chance to work with him, especially on the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 which he co-authored and helped produce record surpluses,” Clinton said. “John was a true public servant and a really good man.”
As much of the South tilted toward the GOP, Spratt hung on to his congressional seat, fending off challengers as Republicans redrew congressional maps in their favor.
Spratt’s district had been in Democratic hands for more than 100 years until Republican Mick Mulvaney defeated Spratt in a 2010 race for the seat. Mulvaney held it for three terms before going on to serve President Donald Trump’s first administration as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and for more than a year, as acting White House chief of staff.
South Carolina now has six Republicans and one Democrat — Rep. Jim Clyburn, who recently won his 17th term representing the state’s 6th District — in its U.S. House delegation. Only one other district, the 1st, was briefly won by a Democrat before reverting to Republican hands.
“Serving in Congress with John Spratt was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” Clyburn wrote in a post on X, calling his former colleague “a friend and confidant, a colleague and counselor, and a mentor and partner,” as well as “an inconspicuous genius and the most ordinary, extraordinary person I have ever known.”
Spratt graduated from Davidson College, where he was student body president. Winning a Marshall Scholarship to Oxford, he studied economics, and earned a law degree from Yale. Spratt was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal after serving as a captain in the Army from 1969 to 1971, coming home to South Carolina that year to practice law with his father.
Eleven years later, he was elected to his first U.S. House term.
Survivors include his wife, Jane Stacy Spratt — to whom he was married for 56 years — three daughters, and several grandchildren.
Sen. John Cornyn said Monday he will not support Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general absent a written modification to the settlement agreement President Donald Trump entered into with his own administration.
Opposition from the Texas Republican could sink Blanche’s nomination in a highly anticipated Judiciary Committee vote scheduled for Thursday.
While Cornyn said he is in talks with Blanche and others at the Justice Department, he has not secured changes he has demanded to the settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS. Those include formally rescinding a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” and restricting the scope of tax audit immunity granted to the president and his family.
Cornyn told reporters he needs the document to be signed by Blanche but did not specify whether Trump also needs to sign it.
“We’re talking about that. That hasn’t been fully resolved yet,” Cornyn said in a subsequent interview when asked if Trump needs to sign the modification as well. “We’re still talking. I mean, there’s different ways to approach it.”
Time is running out for Blanche to meet Cornyn’s demands ahead of Thursday’s committee vote, where any one Republican’s opposition could be fatal to the nomination. The senator said Blanche and the administration have been so far “reluctant” to follow through.
At his nomination hearing last week, Blanche testified that plans for the payout fund were dead and that the audit agreement was more limited than set out in the settlement. But Cornyn honed in on the text of the agreement, which states that it “may be modified only with the written agreement of the Parties.”
Blanche acknowledged during the hearing that, without a written change to the agreement, the anti-weaponization fund could still be revived.
“That’s what we’re trying to get them to agree to, which is again what his sworn testimony was,” Cornyn said. “So I don’t know why they’re so reluctant to do that.”
The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
Jay Clayton is on the verge of becoming President Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence — though Democrats won’t be helping him get there.
The news: The Senate on Monday voted 51-43 in a party line vote to move forward with Clayton’s nomination, teeing up a final vote as soon as Tuesday to confirm him as the next head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. No Democrats joined their GOP counterparts in support of Clayton.
Clayton, the top prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and a former SEC chair, will take over from acting spy czar Bill Pulte and join Trump’s Cabinet when he’s confirmed by the full Senate.
Why it matters: At some level, that’s a win for Democrats, who have been eager to replace Pulte, a Trump loyalist with no background in national security, since the president named him to the post last month. But after an up-and-down confirmation process for Clayton, Democrats have new reservations about the incoming intel adviser, as Monday’s vote underscored.
During his Senate confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Clayton refused to say that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 vote, leading Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Panel to vote against his nomination. That marked a reversal from June, when Senate Democrats worked with their GOP counterparts to fast-track Clayton’s confirmation in exchange for renewing a powerful spy law. That deal fell apart after Trump intervened, alleging on social media that Democrats weren’t delivering on their end of the deal.
Open question: Though Clayton’s confirmation now looks imminent, Senate action on the spy statute that was supposed to be part of the deal — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — is not.
With the House already gone for the August recess, the Senate appears unlikely to vote on Section 702 until September.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with lawmakers in Washington to discuss American leadership on artificial intelligence, the company said Monday.
A spokesperson for the chipmaker said Huang would hold talks with both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to talk about latest developments with the technology.
“Jensen is in DC to meet with leaders on both sides of the aisle to discuss American leadership in AI, including leading in open source,” the spokesperson said.
Huang is scheduled to sit down Tuesday with Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has expressed serious concern about security threats following last week’s OpenAI autonomous cyberattack.
The senator’s office confirmed the meeting. Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It comes as Huang defended open-source AI on X, writing that such models “strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty.”
Huang’s visit comes as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also expected to meet with Warner, although a spokesperson for the senator said the talks were separate. Earlier Monday, Open AI announced it was in talks with Nvidia, a technology company that makes chips to use artificial intelligence, for a data center project.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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