Congress
GOP lawmakers air doubts about Trump’s last-minute spending demands
President-elect Donald Trump is opening the door to a government shutdown a week before Christmas. Republican lawmakers don’t appear to be on board.
Facing a Friday night funding deadline, Republican leaders were already struggling to build support for passage of a bipartisan catch-all bill to punt the funding fight into March. Now Trump and incoming Vice President JD Vance are publicly excoriating the deal, calling on Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans to pass a funding bill without any Democratic priorities — even if it means a shutdown. They also want the debt ceiling raised along with that legislation, a complicated issue lawmakers hadn’t planned to deal with for months.
As GOP members streamed into Johnson’s office to pick up gifts and stop by an ironically timed Christmas party, they didn’t voice enthusiasm for Trump’s demands. Recent debt limit negotiations have taken months and take up a lot of oxygen on Capitol Hill. Clearing it in days is a tall order, especially with lawmakers eager to leave town for the holidays.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) answered “no” to questions about both if he’s interested in launching debt limit talks at this point and if he thinks linking debt limit to spending is possible before the deadline.
“You’d love to have [a comprehensive spending deal] with the debt ceiling and then be done with it,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.). “That’s not going to happen. There aren’t votes for that. But, you know, if you have a CR with the debt limit, at least, you get part of the problem done.”
Asked if it was realistic to try to add a debt ceiling increase to the spending bill, Hern responded: “Every time you change something, it’s a challenge.”
Republicans are likely to need Democratic support to move any type of spending patch at this point. While GOP leaders were considering trying to pass a “clean” stopgap that left off the unrelated additions like disaster aid, they’re nervous that pulling those would mean they lose even more support on both sides of the aisle.
“If Congressional leaders intend to leave DC before the holidays without passing disaster recovery, they should be prepared to spend Christmas in the Capitol. I’ll use every tool available to block a CR that fails Western North Carolina communities in need of long-term certainty,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said on social media.
If Republicans opt to use a fast-track legislative procedure to bypass committees and get a funding patch to the floor, known as suspension, it would require a two-thirds majority to pass. That means a large number of Democrats would have to vote for it — and many of them had planned to back Johnson’s existing plan that includes the additions.
“Great question,” said Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) when asked what incentives Democrats would have to help pass a bill with many of their priorities removed.
Top Democrats signaled they weren’t in any mood to bail Republicans out of their debt-and-spending predicament, which could leave the House majority in the lurch as the Friday government shutdown deadline draws closer. House Democrats were scheduled to meet for a closed-door caucus meeting Thursday morning as they charted their path forward.
“House Republicans have now unilaterally decided to break a bipartisan agreement that they made,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government and hurt everyday Americans all across this country. House Republicans will now own any harm that is visited upon the American people that results from a government shutdown, or worse.”
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was waiting to see what the House does.
As the U.S. sits at more than $36 trillion in national debt, the cap on the nation’s borrowing power will be reinstated on Jan. 1. Then starts months of Treasury Department guessing as to when the country would actually default on its loans despite the typical “extraordinary measures” the government deploys to prevent a default.
Bipartisan negotiations to waive or raise the limit typically take months, as was the case during Trump’s first administration, when he empowered then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to strike a deal with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2017. That kind of debt deal is usually tied to an agreement on funding caps.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
Top Republican officials are increasingly accepting the House may already be lost as they shift to trying to limit the damage and salvage a Senate majority.
After waiting for weeks to see if the party’s deluge of money could help a raft of GOP incumbents who appeared to be in terrible shape in internal polling, more recent internal Republican polling still shows deep erosion in Trump country.
Now, Trump officials and Republican operatives say more candidates may have their funding from GOP campaign groups cut off in the coming days, before it’s too late to spend the money elsewhere to shore up other shaky races.
“I speak to a lot of people. There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House — not in recent weeks, anyway,” said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who lost in the last big House Democratic wave in 2018 after representing a South Florida swing district.
Five senior House Republicans, granted anonymity to candidly discuss their party’s precarious position, told Blue Light News the House has all but slipped from their grasp.
One of those Republicans compared the situation to Democrats’ 2006 flip of the House — specifically noting that potential Senate seat flips in North Carolina and Ohio could have downballot effects, while House candidates in redrawn red states like Florida and Texas are “hanging on with their fingernails.”
President Donald Trump’s political operation and the top House GOP super PAC have been cutting off ad spending across the map in races they feel are no longer winnable or worth the money, including for Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Tom Kean Jr.
And some national operatives are already starting to point fingers over who’s to blame, arguing that surprisingly-competitive Senate races are sucking away donor attention — therefore forcing House operatives into tough spending decisions.
White House officials insist they’re not giving up on the House, and that moves by the president and his team to shift the allocation of resources shouldn’t be seen as them prioritizing one chamber over another.
“The cutting of resources should not dictate what the philosophy is or what the outlook is for the overall race at large,” a senior White House official said. “It’s not doom and gloom around here. Everyone’s very positive, upbeat.”
But on the ground, Republicans seem to be giving up hope for any saving grace from the president in the final stretch.
“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” a second senior House Republican said in an interview. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”
What else we’re watching:
— WATERS, CASTEN FACE OFF ROILS DEMS: House Democrats are poised to face a polarizing choice on the other side of the midterm elections: Shove aside one of the most prominent Black progressives in their party in favor of a middle-aged White guy with similar policy views, or hand one of the most powerful gavels in Congress back to a nearly 90-year-old as their base clamors for generational change. That fight between Rep. Sean Casten, 54, and Maxine Waters, 88, to be Financial Services’ top Democrat also threatens to derail the party’s unity as members race to take back control of the chamber.
— GOP’S TAX CUT DATA DELAYED: The Trump administration is delaying the release of detailed data showing how Republicans’ 2025 tax cuts affected millions of Americans’ taxes, even as it tries to tout the law ahead of the midterms. The data — which is expected to provide the first detailed look at taxpayers taking advantage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including new deductions for overtime wages and tipped income — was scheduled to be released in July and updated in September. But the IRS said it’s awaiting approval to publish the figures. The delay has already irked some who complain it is part of a pattern of the administration withholding otherwise routine releases of tax data.
Meredith Lee Hill, Andrew Howard, Mia McCarthy, Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Brian Faler contributed to this report.
Adam Hamilton raised $10.6 million in the third quarter of 2026 across his Senate campaign and his joint fundraising committees, his campaign tells Blue Light News, a significant haul for the Kansas Democrat.
The fundraising total illustrates Democrats’ newfound bullishness about flipping a Senate seat in the deep-red state for the first time since 1932.
“This grassroots support sends a clear message: with three weeks until Election Day, Adam Hamilton is building the momentum to win,” said Hamilton campaign spokesperson Tyson Brody.
Hamilton’s third-quarter figure is nearly triple his $3.66 million second-quarter total. His campaign did not provide a current cash-on-hand total.
National Democrats began pumping money into Kansas in recent days, a sign of their growing hopes that Hamilton could win. Last week, Senate Majority PAC — Senate Democrats’ top super PAC — reserved $5 million in television ads backing Hamilton. American Bridge PAC and Lower Costs Now, a new group affiliated with former Vice President Kamala Harris’ super PAC, have spent in Kansas in recent weeks.
Republicans have also flocked to Kansas to prop up Marshall: Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP’s top PAC, has spent or reserved nearly $11 million backing Marshall in the past week, according to tracking firm AdImpact.
“It took us five months to raise $15 million. [Marshall] got it in a day,” Hamilton said at a campaign event in Lawrence, Kansas on Monday. “So please help us.”
Marshall’s campaign has yet to release his third-quarter fundraising totals. As of mid-July, Marshall had over $5 million in the bank to $1.73 million for Hamilton.
A bipartisan Senate duo is urging Trump national security officials to “bring its full capacities to bear” to stave off threats posed by artificial intelligence — sooner rather than later.
Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, and Republican South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, who serves on the Senate Armed Services cybersecurity subcommittee, are calling for a full government response to a growing number of cybersecurity breaches.
“Recent AI security incidents should serve as a warning,” the senators wrote in a Tuesday letter to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and White House Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. “Advanced AI agents have escaped testing environments, bypassed safeguards, and gained unauthorized access to real-world systems owned by government agencies and private organizations.”
Spokespeople for Clayton and Kratsios did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Their letter comes as lawmakers struggle to hash out what legislation on AI safety, if any, might look like. Members are currently in recess ahead of the November elections and there’s little hope progress can be made by the year’s end.
But those lawmakers who have been engaged on the topic for years now have mapped out administrative actions the Trump administration could move on now, without waiting on Congress.
The Cantwell and Rounds priorities include: strengthening federal AI safety and security standards at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST; expanding independent testing capabilities at the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence, Department of Energy and the national labs; and working with the tech industry to develop and deploy defensive AI tools.
Specifically, the senators wrote, new NIST standards should address the risks posed by advanced AI capabilities, including the “potential misuse by malicious actors” to conduct sophisticated cyberattacks, automate attacks at scale and agents that threaten external systems and critical infrastructure.
They also said the federal government capacity should be complemented by universities and other research organizations, as well as by private sector, third-party evaluators.
Finally, they point to ways the government could use existing programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to work with AI labs to help detect threats and reinforce vulnerable systems.
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