Congress

House adopts budget framework for $95B party-line package

Published

2 months ago

July 22, 2026

House Republicans managed to overcome internal disagreements and approve a budget framework Wednesday — a key step toward unlocking the power to skirt the Senate filibuster and pass a $95 billion package.

The vote succeeded 216-214 after Republican leaders were able to quell frustration among members that the blueprint does not include new spending offsets. House GOP leaders hope to enact a final package that pushes fresh cash to the military, intelligence programs, farm aid and election security.

Both the House and Senate need to adopt the same budget framework in order to begin the process of drafting, then passing, the third reconciliation bill of the 119th Congress. That means the onus is now on Senate Republican leaders to build support for the party-line plan Trump administration officials want the GOP to clear before the midterms.

The White House and Pentagon’s central pitch is that the military urgently needs a cash infusion amid the Iran war — and Democrats won’t provide the votes to make that money available through the regular-order process.

“We have immediate needs within the department, some bills we’ve got to pay. This conflict costs money,” Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), a top appropriator, said in an interview this week following meetings with senior Trump administration officials. “This we have to do.”

The House’s budget resolution also would allow $10 billion to go toward election security in the form of state grants to incentivize strict voter-ID laws — a fig leaf to President Donald Trump and the many Republicans on Capitol Hill who continue to demand passage of a separate partisan election security measure that is Trump’s top legislative priority.

Senate Republican leaders are already hearing from farm-state senators and defense hawks who want to increase the amount of funding the final package would provide for the military and agriculture assistance. Fiscal hawks on that side of the Capitol are also demanding Republican leaders find offsets to blunt the deficit impact of the massive bill.

“There’s a lot of people with a lot of ideas,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the newly seated chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said in an interview. “The good news is the White House is definitely leading on this, which is going to be really important. I think most Republicans are interested in helping President Trump succeed in his agenda.”

That would require approving the budget resolution in the Senate, however, and then punting the measure back to the House for another vote — where another favorable outcome is not guaranteed.

In the House, fiscal conservatives lost a hard-fought battle over offsetting the new spending. “I’m obviously displeased about pay-fors and lack thereof,” Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said Monday evening, before ultimately voting “yes” two days later.

To win over the skeptics, House GOP leaders made a familiar promise: that Republicans will pursue yet another party-line package that would help shrink the deficit. Speaker Mike Johnson made a personal commitment to Republicans on the House Rules Committee that he would work to advance a fourth reconciliation bill after the midterms to target fraud, waste and abuse in federal programs.

Many Republicans aren’t convinced that this outcome will ultimately come to pass.

Democrats, meanwhile, are prepared to hammer Republicans over their efforts through the upcoming summer recess.

“Republicans are putting forward a nearly $100 billion budget bill. But get this: not a single dollar, not one, will go toward lowering the costs that people face,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California said this week. “Instead, Republicans plan to spend tens of billions of dollars on Trump’s failed war in Iran.”

Jordain Carney and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.

Congress

How Talarico is countering Trump’s midterms convention

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

James Talarico is planning to counterprogram President Donald Trump’s GOP midterms convention in Dallas with a focus on affordability.

The idea from the Texas Democratic Senate candidate and seminarian: host a statewide “Love Thy Neighbor” food drive to offer a contrast with Republicans coming to town and highlight the high cost of groceries, according to plans shared first with Blue Light News.

“Next week, billionaire mega-donors and their puppet politicians will gather at a convention in Dallas to clink champagne glasses and toast their own corruption. They’re paying $20,000 for entry to a Billionaire Ball celebrating corrupt tariffs, billionaire tax breaks, and a new forever war that are all driving grocery costs through the roof,” Talarico said in a statement to Blue Light News. “We’ll be doing something different. We’re bringing Republicans, Democrats, and Independents together to collect groceries for our neighbors who have been screwed over by corrupt politicians.”

The campaign said it will “mobilize volunteers to collect, sort, and donate groceries for middle class Texans struggling with the high price of groceries.” The event will last from Sunday, Sept. 6 through Wednesday, Sept. 9 — the same day the GOP convention kicks off.

Talarico is also expected to field media interviews in a large warehouse near the convention.

“Texans across the political spectrum will come together to build community, show up for their neighbors, and take power back for working people,” the campaign said in a statement.

A recent poll conducted by Texas Public Opinion Research poll released last week showed Talarico leading ,his opponent Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 48 percent to 42 percent.

Trump this week said he would campaign for Paxton soon.

Congress

‘I don’t think anyone is really comfortable’: Democrat leading on AI raises alarms at Trump, Zuckerberg call

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A House Democrat trying to lead her party on artificial intelligence policy sent a warning shot Friday to tech CEOs trying to undermine efforts to regulate the fast-growing technology.

In an interview, Rep. Lori Trahan raised alarm bells over a POLITICO report detailing attempts by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to personally discourage President Donald Trump from moving ahead with plans to establish an independent AI regulator modeled after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA.

“I don’t think anyone is really comfortable when they see tech executives who are sitting on the stage at the president’s inauguration, and have had to pay millions of dollars to this fund and that fund, calling the shots,” said the Massachusetts Democrat.

Allowing Zuckerberg to call the shots on the proposed AI commission would be tantamount to “a complete abdication of Congress,” Trahan continued. She also suggested would use her perch on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to work with other Democrats to haul in industry executives like Zuckerberg to testify, should Democrats win back the House majority in the midterms.

“Congress’ job is to do oversight and to have those hearings,” she said. “And I think we would learn a lot from those hearings so that we can put pen to paper on thoughtful proposals. So yes, there have been a number of people, myself included, who have called for those hearings, and I think we’re going to continue to do that.”

Trahan is poised to be a major player in the coming weeks and months when it comes to AI, especially if Democrats prevail in the November elections and are forced to solidify a position on the subject; the party is currently all over the map.

Unlike other Democrats who have retreated to their corners to work on partisan proposals, Trahan has gone out on a limb by crossing the aisle to broker a deal on a bipartisan AI safety bill with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) — a package that was originally met with disdain by members of both parties.

She announced this week she would opt out of a run for a place in House Democratic leadership after being widely expected to make a play in the next Congress — in part, she said, to continue working on AI issues.

But Trahan’s comments Friday illustrate the deep distrust among Democrats, herself included, over the GOP approach to AI regulation — from Republicans waffling on whether they support the proliferation of data centers to Trump’s recent call with Zuckerberg.

Her calls are consistent with left-leaning members like Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has been at the forefront of the most aggressive proposals to crack down on top tech companies.

“The CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI say that cutting edge AI could be as dangerous as nuclear weapons,” Casar said Thursday on X in response to the Blue Light News report. “But Trump is conspiring with billionaires for this technology to be regulated like … Hollywood movies.”

Trahan said Friday that “reasonable people can disagree on what regulatory construct we come up with” governing development and use of AI.

But, she added, “what I don’t think the American people agree with is that Mark Zuckerberg and President Trump are going to figure that out on a phone call.”

Congress

House Dem election leader’s message to states: Count faster

Published

2 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats’ top election leader has a message for states ahead of the midterms: count faster.

“We are, I think, nicely trying to encourage people to do their balloting as quickly as possible, and that means hiring additional staff so that it doesn’t call into question results,” Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said in a Thursday interview with Blue Light News.

The advice is just one part of Morelle’s efforts to secure the midterm elections. He said Democrats have wargamed over 150 scenarios of how the Trump administration could attempt to interfere or complicate the November elections and its certification. He is encouraging states to have a “degree of urgency” when counting ballots to stave off Republican-led conspiracy theories about the reasons for delays.

Morelle said he is leaning on states to staff up on election officials to facilitate speedy ballot counting while emphasizing the process should still be “done properly,” “fairly” and that “we don’t want people with cast ballots not to have their ballots counted.” He is going to Los Angeles next week to deliver that message and meet with election security experts and election administrators — though he did not specify whom he is meeting with or where.

“We are trying to gently encourage people to staff up,” he said. Morelle added that if Democrats take the House majority, they’d “push for more resources for local and state administrators so they can hire additional capacity.”

Morelle has other big plans in the majority, including cracking down on dark money in politics, protecting voting rights and most notably, working on a bipartisan voter identification bill.

Asked whether he could accept some form of voter identification as part of a larger bipartisan elections package, Morelle said, “I’m personally not opposed to some form of voter ID,” adding that he has opposed multiple Republican-led proposals to tighten up identification requirements.

“I don’t know where my colleagues on the Democrat side will be, but I think voters think, ‘Okay, you show your ID for just tons of things. Is it really that much of a burden?’” he said. “And if it is, we’ll get state issued IDs or federally issued IDs to people who can’t afford it. So I do think that there’s hope for a bipartisan way forward, and I’ll be anxious to work with colleagues to do it.”