Congress
House won’t vote on Epstein matter this week
Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t have any plans to put a non-binding resolution on the floor this week before the August recess — or possibly ever — that would call for the administration to release Jeffrey Epstein-related documents.
Instead, GOP leaders have an understanding with White House officials that the House will wait to address the matter until after the monthlong break in order to give the administration time to release documents on its own following President Donald Trump’s move to release grand jury information on the case.
The current plan for dealing with the politically explosive matter on Capitol Hill, detailed Monday by people granted anonymity to share private party strategy, comes as the controversy continues to encircle the House GOP in chaos.
Johnson, his leadership team and Rules Committee Republicans drafted the non-binding Epstein resolution late last week. The idea was to give panel Republicans political cover amid Democratic attacks on the GOP’s handling of the materials related to Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who died in his jail cell by suicide in 2019.
Leaders and their allies also wanted to give their rank-and-file members an alternative to legislation being pushed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) that would compel the release of Epstein case information. Massie and Khanna are seeking a vote on this measure through a discharge petition, a procedural maneuver that allows members to bypass leadership to force a vote on the House floor if it receives 218 signatures. The effort is quickly picking up steam.
But in the middle of a Thursday night Rules panel meeting teeing up this new resolution, Trump announced he would direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin the process of unsealing grand jury testimony in Epstein’s criminal case. It followed publication of a Wall Street Journal report alleging Trump sent Epstein a racy birthday letter several decades ago, though Trump has said the letter is fake and is now seeking billions in a defamation lawsuit against the paper.
Johnson, asked by reporters shortly after if he would put the resolution on the House floor, declined to make any specific commitments on moving forward the resolution he crafted. “We’ll determine what happens with all that. There’s a lot developing,” Johnson said. He added there was “no daylight” between House Republicans and Trump over wanting “transparency,” and he noted Trump had directed Bondi to act.
In the meantime, Johnson is under increasing pressure from a growing number of GOP members to simply put the teed up Massie and Khanna-led resolution to a full House vote “ASAP,” according to one House Republican granted anonymity to speak freely.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has signed onto the discharge petition, on Monday appeared to send a pointed message to Trump on social media: If the Department of Justice does not release more information on Epstein, the president’s supporters will no longer stand behind him.
Without naming Epstein, Greene said Trump is “dangling” only bits of information to his supporters despite promises during the 2024 campaign that his administration would be transparent with the public.
For now, House GOP leaders plan to give the administration space in August to deliver. The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Mia McCarthy contributed.
Congress
Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent
President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.
One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.
“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.
A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.
The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”
Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.
The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.
The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.
“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”
Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.
He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,
Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.
Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.
House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.
“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.
Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.
Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”
Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.
Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.
“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”
Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.
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