Congress

Hakeem Jeffries says he will oppose bid to cut off Israel aid

Published

2 hours ago

July 14, 2026

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told fellow Democrats Tuesday he will oppose an amendment aimed at cutting off U.S. aid to Israel, wading directly into a contentious issue that is dividing the party.

Jeffries announced his position in a “Dear Colleague” letter circulated Tuesday and later spoke about his opposition during a morning caucus meeting.

The amendment to the fiscal 2027 spending bill for the State Department and overseas programs was introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and could come up for a vote in the coming days. It has sharply divided the party for weeks, with progressives calling for an end to America’s financial support for Israel as leadership-aligned members warned that the measure could also cut off aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

Jeffries said the amendment is “overly broad in that it prohibits or would limit the use of funds for longstanding initiatives related to humanitarian aid, refugee resettlement, peace-building and U.S. Embassy operations.” He added that the measure would also restrict U.S. capabilities to “confront Hamas.”

The letter was first reported by The New York Times.

Until today, Jeffries had not advised his caucus about how he would vote on Massie’s amendment, though he hinted he had qualms. He hosted two lengthy meetings last month where House Democrats debated the measure.

He said in the letter Tuesday that there are “good faith reasons that will result in Members voting in a variety of different ways.”

Congress

Johnson races to make progress on Reconciliation 3.0 as Republicans balk

Published

1 hour ago

July 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson told House Republicans he wants the Budget Committee to mark up a budget resolution by the end of Thursday — the first step toward passing a party-line policy package that can skirt the filibuster in the Senate.

Johnson announced his wishes inside a closed-door House GOP Conference meeting Tuesday morning, according to four people granted anonymity to share his private remarks.

While he doesn’t yet have the votes, he is pushing ahead amid increased pressure from White House officials to make real progress on advancing a reconciliation package as the midterms approach and money for the Iran war runs out.

Johnson and other GOP leaders are also working quickly to narrow the scope of their once-sprawling plans for “Reconciliation 3.0” — followups to last summer’s tax and spending megabill and the immigration enforcement measure passed in June.

Leaders are currently making plans for a framework for a reconciliation bill that would involve $67 billion for defense and $20 billion for farm aid and agriculture funding, according to five people granted anonymity to share internal discussions.

Their proposed bill also would include some components of the GOP election bill known as the SAVE America Act — largely by relying on a grant program and other incentives to encourage states to implement voter ID and citizenship requirements to cast ballots.

Johnson urged Republicans Tuesday morning to “be patient,” but he’s getting sharp pushback from rank-and-file Republicans who want more details now.

Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.), a member of the Budget Committee, made clear inside the conference meeting she would not vote to advance the budget framework until she received more information about its contours, according to the four people in the room.

Fiscal hawks are also deeply worried that the reconciliation bill would not be fully offset with spending cuts.

“I’m positive there will be pay-fors,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) said in an interview. “Or there is no path.”

Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee and one of reconciliation’s biggest boosters, conceded Tuesday morning, “We really don’t have any details from leadership. We are continuing to urge them to be aggressive and be strong.”

He said he spoke up during the conference meeting to urge Republicans to do more to tackle fraud in social programs to find more cost savings.

Budget Committee Republican Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin said that if he had to bet, the budget resolution would make it out of committee by the end of the week.

“The devil’s in the details,” he said in an interview. “And I don’t think the details are worked out yet.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: Johnson moves to thaw House floor

Published

4 hours ago

July 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House GOP leaders are closer to appeasing the group of hard-liners who have kept the chamber’s floor frozen for weeks.

Several of the rebel Republicans Monday told Blue Light News they will need to see concrete steps on legislation codifying President Donald Trump’s border policies before they’d take a procedural vote to unlock floor business. While it’s unclear what exactly could satisfy them, several said they want more than a promise from leaders to vote on immigration legislation.

“It’s not about promises at this point,” Rep. Chip Roy said Monday. “We need to see movement.”

Negotiations appear to be getting close: Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris said Monday he thought the group would still get an offer from leadership that could lift their blockade on a rule vote Tuesday. Roy predicted a “50/50” chance the rule is adopted Tuesday.

Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team are discussing several options for what they will offer hard-liners, according to three people with knowledge of the late night meetings.

“I think there’s going to be action on border security,” Harris told Blue Light News.

Meanwhile GOP leaders made progress with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who on Monday said she was lifting her hold on floor business “on the condition that Speaker Johnson attaches the SAVE America Act to all the appropriation bills and all must-pass bills here in the House and ensures it is sent to the Senate in one bill.”

House GOP leaders are also using the promise of another long-shot reconciliation bill to pressure the remaining hard-liners to reopen the floor.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought stopped by the House Freedom Caucus’ weekly meeting Monday night and pitched a third reconciliation bill with pieces of the SAVE America Act, three people in the room told Blue Light News.

Johnson said Monday House Budget would vote Wednesday on a budget resolution for the party-line package.

Still, senior Republicans are already starting to walk back that optimistic timeline after intense pushback from several GOP groups who said they needed more details about the plans — including some Budget Committee Republicans.

“I think there’s a long way to go … before we do any markup,” Rep. Erin Houchin, a Budget panel Republican, said in an interview. “We haven’t even seen language yet.”

In the Senate, Sen. Ron Johnson, who is slated to become the next Budget chair after the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, is already getting ready to follow Graham’s push for a third reconciliation bill. He said Monday he met with Graham’s staff.

But even as House Republicans and a few GOP senators push for reconciliation, it will be an uphill battle for the Senate to pass any bill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday

“The path to 51 is going to be a bumpy one over here,” Thune said.

What else we’re watching:

— GRAHAM’S SISTER TO BE SWORN INTO HIS ROLE: Darline Graham Nordone is poised to be sworn in Tuesday afternoon after South Carolina’s governor tapped the late Lindsey Graham’s sister to fill his role for the remainder of this term. Nordone said Monday she promised to “carry forward the efforts of my brother,” but little is known about her stance on policy issues. Kevin Bishop, who served as Graham’s communications director for over 25 years until 2024, said in an interview people will be “pleasantly surprised” at Nordone’s similarities with her brother, adding that she’s closely followed his work so “this is not going to be a babe-in-the-woods kind of thing.”

— SENATE DEMS POISED TO BLOCK NDAA: Senators will vote Tuesday on advancing the annual defense policy bill — and Democrats appear ready to block it in opposition to the ongoing war in Iran. The vote comes after Trump formally notified lawmakers that the nation is once again at war with Iran, giving his administration another 60-day clock to use the military without congressional approval.

Jordain Carney, Connor O’Brien, Leo Shane III and Mark Satter contributed to this report.

Congress

How best to honor Lindsey Graham’s legacy? Republicans are divided.

Published

7 hours ago

July 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The late Sen. Lindsey Graham was known as a champion of American military power, strong global alliances, conservative jurisprudence and more.

Cryptocurrency regulation? Not so much.

So when President Donald Trump suggested in a Truth Social post Monday that the Senate should pass a long-brewing crypto bill in “honor of Senator Lindsey Graham,” it struck a false note to many lawmakers. It also underscored how quickly many in Washington are moving after the Republican senator’s death Saturday to claim his mantle for their own purposes.

Many of Graham’s surviving colleagues instead rallied around a proposal they believe would better honor the four-term South Carolina legend: a bipartisan sanctions bill targeting Russia that Graham had been pushing — and had won White House support for — in the days before he died.

But it remains unclear if that legislation truly has legs, especially with Trump infatuated with other priorities that have little to do with Graham’s signature issues. That has opened up room for the competing attempts to seize on his legacy.

In addition to the crypto bill, Trump stoked a competing suggestion — that the contentious GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act could be passed in Graham’s memory — by saying he had spoken to the senator about that legislation just hours before his death.

“He thought we were going to get it passed,” Trump said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” — sparking other Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Mike Lee of Utah, to redouble their calls for a bill that Graham supported but never played a lead role in advocating.

Lee said during an X broadcast Monday night that he had met with Trump at the Oval Office earlier in the day. In that conversation, Lee said, Trump’s final conversation with Graham about the elections bill came up.

“I imagine a number of my colleagues will see that as an emotionally compelling reason, one of many, to get this done,” Lee said. Skeptics, he added, should “reconsider in light of the fact that this was on Lindsey Graham’s mind just moments before he died and we ought to figure out a way to carry forward his legacy by getting this thing passed.”

To many senators, however, the bill slapping sanction on buyers of Russian oil and gas is a no-brainer. Not only was Graham known as one of the chamber’s fiercest Russia hawks, with decades of trans-Atlantic security experience, he had just returned from the NATO summit in Turkey and a visit to Ukraine when he died.

“The most obvious and logical way [to honor Graham] would be the sanctions bill, because it’s his bill,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said in an interview Monday. “You’re not making anything up. He practically died trying to get it passed. … Anything else becomes kind of political trickery in my mind.”

The problem is, the sanctions bill still faces serious doubts among some Republicans. Graham at multiple points over the past year believed he had talked Trump into backing the measure, only for it to be put on ice as Trump tried to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Though prior versions of the bill had broad bipartisan support, small pockets of skepticism could still force the Senate to eat up weeks of floor time in order to get it across the finish line.

And then there’s the matter of what Trump will do. While Graham claimed presidential support and a White House official confirmed that Monday, Trump himself was not so direct when asked separately Monday if he would support it.

“We’re talking about that,” he told reporters.

The president was nowhere as indirect in regards to the crypto bill, saying in his social media post that “the U.S. Senate should pass the Clarity Act” in memory of Graham, whom he called “a big supporter” of the legislation.

While Graham had voted for other cryptocurrency bills, he was not considered a major industry ally and in the last Congress had co-introduced a tough bipartisan regulatory bill aimed at combatting money laundering.

As for the SAVE America Act — which has been a key source of tension between Trump and Senate Republicans — Graham had cosponsored it and called for its passage. But he also cast doubt on whether the Senate would eliminate the 60-vote filibuster threshold to pass it.

Instead, Graham before his death was floating trying to get pieces of the bill passed through the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process — a process he partly controlled as Senate Budget Committee chair.

Fellow senators agreed that crypto and SAVE America were Trump’s obsessions — not Graham’s.

“There are only two things on the president’s mind. … No. 1, the SAVE Act, and No. 2, based on the tweet I saw this morning, the crypto bill,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “I want to do the crypto bill, but Lindsey cared about the sanctions bill.”

Asked if he saw a connection between Graham and the cryptocurrency legislation, Cramer said, “This place is full of circumstances where you get too cute by half.”

Honoring Graham with the sanctions bill, he added, would be “obvious.”

While some senators have floated other fitting ideas, like naming the annual Pentagon policy bill after Graham, advancing the sanctions legislation has the most momentum — especially after the idea was endorsed by top leaders and a bipartisan slew of Graham’s colleagues Monday.

“It would be a great tribute and legacy for Lindsey,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday, while acknowledging leaders were still “assessing” if the bill had a path forward.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also urged the Senate to quickly pass the sanctions legislation in honor of Graham.

“I know if Senator Graham were here in this chamber today, he would also join me in urging the Senate to support Ukraine and strengthen sanctions on Russia,” Schumer said on the floor, predicting it would “pass overwhelmingly and help our allies in Ukraine” if Thune moved forward with it.

But some Republicans believe Trump will have to publicly bear-hug the bill to get it across the finish line.

“I know some people at the White House have said they support it … but they don’t count,” Kennedy said. “No offense to anybody, but they don’t count. I haven’t yet heard the president stand up and say, ‘We need to sanction the hell out of Russia, and let’s get going.’”