Congress
How many GOP senators ‘support DOGE’? Rand Paul pushes to vote on it.
Sen. Rand Paul wants to force the Senate to vote on codifying President Donald Trump’s cuts to foreign aid, a potential hitch for Republican leaders working to pass a bill to prevent a government shutdown Friday night.
Paul wants the Senate to vote on an amendment that would cut foreign aid grant funding by 83 percent, which would enact the reductions Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the president’s Department of Government Efficiency are already making. The Kentucky Republican predicts that about half of Republican senators would oppose the amendment, putting them on record against the Trump administration’s work.
“My vote will be an example of how many people support DOGE,” Paul told reporters on Wednesday. “No Democrats, obviously. But on the Republican side, how many people actually would cut any money from foreign aid? I think you’ll be surprised, or maybe you won’t.”
Paul has a reputation for sticking with his threats to drag out debate on funding bills if he doesn’t get his way. He spurred a brief government shutdown in 2018 because Republican leaders denied him a vote to tweak a budget agreement. But he won’t say whether he’d go to the same lengths this week, as GOP leaders try to speed up final passage of the seven-month funding patch House Republicans sent over Tuesday night.
“That’s top-secret,” Paul said.
The Kentucky Republican plans to vote against the funding measure, along with droves of Senate Democrats, who oppose the measure for completely different reasons than the fiscal hawk. Also threatening to drag out debate, Senate Democrats are demanding a vote on a four-week stopgap funding bill as an alternative to the Republican-led measure that would cut non-defense funding by about $13 billion while boosting defense budgets by roughly $6 billion.
The Senate on Monday overwhelmingly passed a long-awaited bipartisan housing bill, which is expected to set the legislation on a glide path to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature as soon as this week.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which passed 85-5 and contains almost 60 individual provisions, aims to tackle housing affordability and boost housing supply and homeownership. Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) voted “no.”
The legislation now moves on to the House, which could take up the bill for final passage as soon as Tuesday.
The legislation has become a pillar of Congress’ overall response to affordability concerns that have emerged as a key issue this midterm election year.
Despite broad, bipartisan support for the bill in both the House and Senate, the two chambers went back and forth on the legislation for months. Primary friction points developed over language establishing new restrictions on large Wall Street investors purchasing single-family homes, a ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a digital currency and a slate of community banking deregulation initiatives, among other measures.
The bill was able to move forward last week after the four lawmakers leading the legislation — Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and ranking member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) — came to an agreement. The White House also announced support for the final version of the bill, which contains Trump’s top priority of limiting Wall Street’s footprint in the housing market.
Sen. Mitch McConnell will not return to the Senate this week, a spokesperson for the Kentucky Republican said Monday.
“Senator McConnell is still working closely with staff on Senate business and Kentucky matters as he continues his recovery. However, he will not be voting this week,” said the spokesperson, David Popp.
McConnell’s ongoing absence means planned Senate Appropriations Committee markups scheduled for later this week will be canceled, according to a committee aide who was granted anonymity to speak ahead of a formal announcement.
The former GOP leader was hospitalized earlier this month for undisclosed reasons and missed votes last week. The Senate is set to start a two-week recess later this week.
House Republican appropriators are publicly rebuking the Trump administration for seeking must-have military cash through a party-line reconciliation bill that’s not guaranteed to clear Congress.
In a report they plan to release later this week, obtained by Blue Light News, House appropriators warn that the White House is trying to fund “critical efforts” like weapons and military equipment through the party-line process, rather than using it to “scale up” military dollars beyond Congress’ regular government funding bills.
“This approach is risky and uncoordinated,” reads the report, an official addendum that goes along with the chamber’s defense funding bill for the fiscal year that starts in October.
In particular, appropriators criticized President Donald Trump’s budget request for splitting funding for the F-35 fighter, the most expensive program in Pentagon history, between the two bills.
The annual government funding bills and the reconciliation process are “entirely separate tracks, with different timelines, committees of jurisdiction, and approval processes,” the report notes.
Many Republican lawmakers are also doubtful GOP leaders will succeed in enacting another party-line package this year.
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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