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House Republicans find it difficult to focus on rising costs as they plot 2026 agenda

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DORAL, Fla. — House Republicans arrived at their yearly policy retreat aiming to craft a 2026 agenda that will help them keep their majority in the upcoming midterms. But they left with few specifics on what more they can do before the election to quell voter angst about higher prices.

Speaker Mike Johnson told GOP members in a private session Wednesday closing out the retreat that he remains intent on pursuing a new party-line domestic policy bill to follow on last year’s tax-cuts-focused megabill.

While that legislation could theoretically tackle some cost-of-living issues, Johnson didn’t offer any specific policies that would be included or a timeline for passing it, according to four people in the room granted anonymity to describe the private meeting. Some senior Republicans present at the meetings privately warned they don’t have much time left for such a big legislative lift.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, said he awaited party leaders’ ideas for a second megabill, which would be passed through the party line reconciliation process. But he was candid about the GOP’s limited legislative options before November.

“The bottom line is that inflation is stable, gas prices are going to come down once the Iran conflict is over, we’ll deal with housing in some way,” he said. “I mean, the American people will see the stability in inflation. They’ll see the stability in energy and gas prices. And, you know, that’s probably all we’re going to be able to do before the midterms.”

The GOP’s inability to coalesce behind an election year economic agenda is being driven in no small part by President Donald Trump, who opened the retreat by telling House Republicans their “No. 1 priority” should be passing an GOP overhaul of federal elections, with new restrictions on transgender rights tacked on.

Trump all but dismissed the affordability issue, noting at one point that Americans “don’t talk about housing, they don’t talk about anything” except for the SAVE America Act — the elections bill he’s pushing the House to pass a third time.

Asked about the divide between voters’ top priority and the president’s, Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan said, “I don’t think it’s an ‘or.’ I think it’s an ‘and.’”

“When you look at economic issues, that is really what is important to a lot of Americans,” said McClain, the No. 4 Republican leader. “It’s pocketbook issues, right? So it’s an ‘and’ not an ‘or.’”

Trump’s obsession with the elections bill — and Johnson’s determination to pursue a reconciliation bill despite long odds — leaving Republicans with a tough task in addressing rising prices on everyday goods, which remain an issue of top concern to voters.

Even the new pressure on energy prices from Trump’s decision to join Israel in launching a war on Iran has yet to spur GOP lawmakers into action. Most, like Harris, simply asserted oil prices would come down soon enough.

Pressed on affordability issues, Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) raised the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, noting it’s “disrupting travel” and “people’s lives,” as he also made the case for the Trump-backed elections bill.

“Especially coming into the election, the SAVE America Act is a top priority, as well,” he said. “But … pocketbook issues are what drives people to the polls. So we need to do both at once, focus on affordability, but focus on the integrity of the election.”

The chair of the House GOP campaign committee, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, tried to square the two demands as he left the retreat Wednesday. Like other leaders, he raised last year’s tax cuts and other bills the Republican-controlled Congress passed last year, arguing candidates have “lots of wins to talk about.”

“Our entire focus as House Republicans is on average, everyday American working families,” Hudson said in an interview. “We’ve delivered tax relief, a lot of other things they care about — school choice, upgraded the air traffic control system.”

Asked if there’s more Republicans could do to lower prices, Hudson said, “Sure.”

“Lots of other things we’d like to do,” he added. “We just have to figure out if we’ve got the votes.”

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) was among several lawmakers who pointed to pending housing legislation as a major opportunity to address rising prices in a key sector.

“I think there’s a program there that we can certainly advance,” Cole said in an interview, mentioning the possibility of energy and transportation bills as well.

But the housing bill is facing a rocky path out of Congress, despite broad bipartisan support. While a version is expected to pass the Senate as soon as this week, it now faces hurdles in the House after Harris and other members of the Freedom Caucus raised objections to provisions dealing with the ownership of single-family homes by large companies and a possible Federal Reserve digital currency.

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), for instance, said in an interview that “socialist policies” would have to be stripped out of the bill. Several invoked the involvement of progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, who helped negotiate a Senate compromise.

“It’s not as conservative a product as the House bill was,” Harris said.

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Congress

Congress ends record-shattering DHS shutdown

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On the 76th day since Department of Homeland Security funding lapsed, Congress passed a bill Thursday restoring the flow of federal dollars to most of its agencies — without solving any of the policy disagreements that led to the record-breaking shutdown.

The House approved by voice vote the partial DHS funding measure the Senate passed more than a month ago. President Donald Trump is expected to swiftly sign the bipartisan legislation, fully funding the Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with other offices within DHS that don’t deal with immigration enforcement.

Now congressional Republicans turn their attention to enacting tens of billions of dollars for Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a party-line package. They jump-started the process this week with the adoption of a framework unlocking special budget power to skirt the Senate filibuster.

Trump is demanding that bill, which would fund the controversial agencies for the remainder of his term, land on his desk by June 1. ICE and Border Patrol have been operating largely as normal during the shutdown due to funding previously provided in last year’s GOP megabill.

The upshot of the two-track approach to funding DHS is that there will be no changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, which led to the shutdown stalemate that began in February after federal immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minnesota.

In the more than 10 weeks since DHS funding lapsed, Democrats have remained largely united in refusing to support funding for the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement activities without new guardrails. Republicans, meanwhile, are doubling down on funding those agencies without strings — emphasizing a blunt partisan divide five months before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

House GOP leaders sat on the bipartisan package for weeks, scoffing at the late-night decision Senate leaders made last month to fund DHS through the two-step maneuver without consulting their House counterparts.

“You don’t dump things on the other chamber in the middle of the night without talking to the speaker about it,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters this week. “This is created by bad management in Senate leadership and by not being transparent and open with us in the House.”

But pressure from the White House and some Republican lawmakers prompted House GOP leaders to ultimately pass the package unchanged, even after floating the idea of tweaking the bill and sending it back across the Capitol.

Trump administration officials have grown increasingly antsy to see the legislation enacted after nearly draining the $10 billion fund they have been tapping to cover paychecks for DHS workers. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned last week that his department would run out of payroll money in the coming days.

Under the package, all of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol will be funded through September, the end of the fiscal year.

The legislation includes some new guardrails on immigration enforcement tactics negotiated early this year. But it does not contain any of the additional rules Democrats sought, including barring immigration officers from wearing masks and requiring judicial warrants to make arrests or enter private property.

The end result of the funding lapse is largely what top Democrats have advocated for months as a fallback plan if Republicans wouldn’t agree to any new enforcement restrictions. Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top Democratic appropriator, introduced a bill more than two months ago to fund all but ICE, Customs and Border Protection and the Office of the Secretary at DHS.

Instead, House Republicans repeatedly passed legislation to fund all of DHS throughout the shutdown, daring lawmakers on the other side of the aisle to oppose it. While a few Democrats broke ranks, the Republican attempts were met with consistent opposition among Democrats in the Senate, where the bills inevitably ran up against the filibuster.

Off Blue Light News, TSA agents and other DHS workers who aren’t considered law enforcement personnel worked for weeks without pay, until Trump directed DHS to temporarily cover their paychecks last month.

Since the funding lapse began, more than 1,100 agents have quit at TSA and some homeland security efforts have been halted, including preparations for the World Cup soccer games being hosted in U.S. cities this summer.

Andres Picon contributed to this report. 

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House Republicans eye passage of Senate-backed DHS funding bill

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House Republican leaders are working to approve a bill Thursday that would fund all of the Department of Homeland Security except its immigration enforcement agencies — potentially ending the department’s 76-day shutdown — according to a half-dozen people granted anonymity to describe the behind-the-scenes talks.

Speaker Mike Johnson is discussing the idea with members of his conference who have wanted to hold off on passage of the bill until Republicans enact a separate party-line package to fund agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.

The Senate passed the partial DHS funding measure in March, but for more than a month, House GOP leaders have bowed to the holdouts and resisted calls to send it to President Donald Trump’s desk. Now the White House and some House Republican lawmakers are pressuring Johnson to clear the bill before lawmakers leave town for a weeklong recess.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole of Oklahoma and House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan were among the Republican lawmakers who confirmed that GOP leaders are attempting to send the bill on for Trump’s signature Thursday.

Johnson and Cole have both floated the idea of tweaking the bill to omit language explicitly stating that ICE and Border Patrol aren’t funded. But that would require sending it back to the Senate — not directly to Trump.

The speaker is still considering whether to alter the bill or put it on the floor without changes, the people familiar with the talks said. Either would involve using a fast-track process that requires support from two-thirds of lawmakers for passage.

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Mike Johnson backs Louisiana election delay, urges other states to redraw maps

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Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday he supported delaying House elections in his home state of Louisiana after the Supreme Court invalidated the state’s congressional map Wednesday.

“The governor has no choice but to suspend it,” Johnson said. “The court has ruled our map unconstitutional.”

He spoke as GOP Gov. Jeff Landry announced that Louisiana could not carry out elections under the current map and would be working “to develop a path forward.” Any new map is likely to threaten the seats of Democratic Reps. Troy Carter and Cleo Fields, who are both Black.

The Supreme Court ruling narrowed the impact of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on the longstanding practice of requiring line-drawers to protect racial minorities’ voting power.

The exact timing of the rescheduled elections is “not my decision,” Johnson added, but said “the way it was typically done” was to hold an all-party “jungle” primary in November, with a runoff in December, and “it looks like it may be that way again.”

“But again, my fingerprints aren’t on it,” Johnson added. “It’s a decision of the state Legislature.”

He also encouraged other states with VRA-mandated minority districts to act quickly and potentially redraw their maps before November, even though many have their election processes well underway already.

“All states that have unconstitutional maps should look at that very carefully, and I think they should do it before the midterms,” he said.

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