Congress
How Trump is hammering Congress ‘on every issue’ — with a clear focus
President-elect Donald Trump is beginning to lean on Congress in a big way, but it’s all about next year.
Trump is focusing his efforts and expending political capital to ensure that Republican lawmakers go along with confirming his Cabinet picks and can ramp up right away on delivering on his campaign pledges in 2025.
He regularly talks to senators about his nominees, ensuring they’re on a path to confirmation next year, according to a Trump adviser granted anonymity to discuss the conversations. He’s speaking with incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson about his legislative priorities, namely how to quickly pass immigration, energy and tax policies in major party-line bills.
“Did you hear we have another member? We have 221 members,” joked Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.). “Trump’s in the House on every issue.”
But he’s been silent, at least publicly, about his preferences on the end-of-year spending bill and the Dec. 20 government shutdown deadline, despite calls from Republicans to weigh in. In a must-pass defense policy compromise, Republicans dropped certain culture-war provisions with knowledge that Trump will likely take executive action to address the issues. And Trump declined to tip the scales in Senate Republicans’ leadership elections beyond raising the specter of using recess appointments to ram through his Cabinet nominees.
“My impression is he’s been very focused on what’s happening next and what he’s about to inherit,” Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, an incoming member of Senate GOP leadership, said in an interview.
It shows Trump and congressional leaders are focused on moving in lockstep next year, hoping to cut down on party infighting and pass their major policy priorities quickly. Republicans have privately groused that they felt they squandered their majorities in 2017, wasting their previous Washington trifecta on unsuccessful efforts to repeal Obamacare. Intra-party divisions are already cropping up over the party’s strategy over taxes and the border, but GOP leaders are working to get everyone on the same page ahead of next year. In the meantime, they’re mostly putting Congress on autopilot in the lame duck.
Johnson, especially, has had close ties with Trump as the two GOP leaders plan out the legislative agenda next year. He’s met with the president-elect multiple times at Mar-a-Lago and speaks with Trump or members of his team every day. Johnson told reporters he will talk with Trump this weekend before the Army-Navy game in Maryland about the party’s budget reconciliation strategy, which is sparking early division among House and Senate Republicans as some push to pass border priorities more quickly and take more time to write a sweeping tax bill. The budget reconciliation process allows Republicans to skirt a Senate filibuster and pass priorities on a party-line basis.
Thune has also traveled to Mar-a-Lago to strategize with Trump and his team about next year’s legislative agenda, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting. And he regularly talks with Trump regarding the status of his nominees, according to another person granted anonymity to discuss the conversations.
Trump’s largely passive attitude toward Congress’ end-of-term business echoes how Trump handled the post-2016 lame duck period, when the president-elect mostly eschewed wading into legislative fights on Capitol Hill before assuming office. And, if past is prologue, his hands-off approach is unlikely to last. Just look at his allies’ current attempts to both pressure Republicans into approving Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks and bully them into going along with their federal budget-slashing plans.
Trump stayed mostly quiet as the 2016 lame-duck Congress passed a short-term government funding patch into April, approved the defense bill, greenlit hundreds of millions of dollars for Flint, Mich. to deal with its water crisis and enacted a sweeping bill meant to speed drugs and medical devices onto the market.
The president-elect’s team at the time ultimately agreed with the congressional legislative maneuvering, though Trump largely avoided using his then near-ubiquitous Twitter account to intervene. He posted on social media just once mentioning Congress from November 2016 until Inauguration Day, questioning a House Republican move to eviscerate an ethics office (they abandoned the push). He also urged the cancellation of a contract for a new Air Force One.
But upon taking office, Trump — often volleying out invectives through social media — would frequently weigh in on legislative priorities or urge the confirmation of his nominees and judicial picks, sometimes throwing a curveball at lawmakers at the last minute. And a similar pattern could play out next year.
“He’ll get involved once he gets in. There’s no reason for him to” before then, said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).
Trump’s allies on Blue Light News, members of Republican leadership and GOP strategists defended Trump’s hands-off approach to the lame-duck in interviews. Doug Heye, a Republican strategist and Hill alum, said it’s “smart [for Trump] to stay out” and focus on building his administration in the short window he has before Jan. 20.
“Obviously, he’s pretty busy with nominations and filling out his Cabinet and all that,” echoed Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of Senate GOP leadership.
And Trump will have a full plate as soon as he comes into office. Congress is only set to patch spending into March, meaning negotiations over new spending levels will begin in earnest once he takes office. He’ll also have to contend with raising the debt limit early next year, in addition to the massive, party-line budget reconciliation bills that Republicans want to pass.
All of those priorities will test the GOP’s unity — with any potential fights impeding swift progress on some of Trump’s biggest priorities.
“There’s a lot he’s got to deal with,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said. And these early machinations “are [a] pretty good exposing of what he’s going to have to deal with [in] the Republican Conference.”
Jordain Carney, Olivia Beavers, Ursula Perano and Meridith McGraw contributed to this report.
Congress
Musk weighs in on Meta after Zuckerberg’s company donates $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund
The tech billionaires are fighting for Donald Trump’s attention. At least, that’s what it looks like.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, donated $1 million to the president-elect’s inaugural fund, the company confirmed to Blue Light News on Thursday. And this morning, it seemed like fellow billionaire Elon Musk has taken issue with its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg’s potential involvement in the new administration.
“Concerning,” Musk said on X, responding to a post from conservative commentator Ashley St. Clair claiming — without evidence — that Meta is “actively censoring conservatives right now.” While it’s unclear exactly what Musk was referring to, the original post St. Clair was responding to was a video of a suited up Zuckerberg wakesurfing with an American flag announcing the $1 million donation from an account titled “DogeDesigner.”
It’s not unusual for corporations to contribute to presidential inaugurations, but neither Zuckerberg nor Meta donated to Trump’s inaugural fund in 2017, or to President Biden’s fund in 2021.
The tech giant’s donation comes just weeks after Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago to dine with Trump — an additional attempt from the company to mend relations with the Republican party’s MAGA wing after he banned the then-former president from the platform in 2021. Trump’s accounts have since been restored.
Trump and Zuckerberg’s fraught relationship is well documented. In Trump’s book, “Save America,” released in September, he claimed that Zuckerberg plotted against him during the 2020 election and that the Meta CEO would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he did it again. In July, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that if elected, he would pursue “ELECTION FRAUDSTERS at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time. We already know who you are,” before directly addressing Zuckerberg. “DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!”
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone declined to comment on Musk’s post. Spokespeople for Musk via X did not immediately respond for comment.
Congressional Democrats broadly denounced the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson Friday morning, after Republicans started accusing Sen. Elizabeth Warren of excusing violence.
“No one’s condoning this,” said Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.). “Violence never is the right answer for anything. And it was a horrible murder, a tragic loss for his family.”
Warren this week condemned the shooting, but added that people “can be pushed only so far.”
“We’ll say it over and over,” Warren said on BLN’S “The ReidOut.” “Violence is never the answer. This guy [Luigi Mangione] gets a trial who’s allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth, but you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands.”
In a statement to Blue Light News, Warren said, “Violence is never the answer. Period. I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder.” Top Republicans denounced Warren’s comments and the walked-back rhetoric, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) calling it “inappropriate and dangerous.”
Some House Democrats asked about the incident on Thursday pivoted the conversation to discuss policy options on health care or gun safety.
“I don’t really know that this is really a space that Congress normally weighs in on,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas). “But at the end of the day, I think it’s an opportunity, because now people are talking about health care and to talk about the fact that this industry has honestly not been as helpful as it could be.”
“Violence is never the answer,” said Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.). “We know that there are people suffering, there’s great challenges in healthcare. There’s great challenges, and people have, in fact, been wronged, but a process of governance is the way to address that, not violence.”
And Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) who denounced the murder, said the killer should be prosecuted and that “I do know that allegedly a ghost gun was used, and we should also ban ghost guns. There’s no reason for them beyond the streets.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday she felt “more comfortable” with no party label than with “an identity as a Republican,” an escalation of the Alaska senator’s occasional bucking of her party as the chamber readies itself for a slew of confirmation battles over Trump administration nominees.
“I’m not attached to a label, I’d rather be that ‘no label.’ I’d rather be that person that is just known for trying to do right by the state and the people that I serve, regardless of party, and I’m totally good and comfortable with that,” Murkowski said during a discussion hosted by the centrist group No Labels at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.
Later on during the discussion, Murkowski clarified that she is “still a Republican” and has “never shed my party label.”
“We’ve got a system in the Senate where there are two sides of the aisle, and I have to sit on one side or I have to sit on the other,” she added.
Murkowski, who has served as a Republican senator from Alaska since 2003, has occasionally defied her party and criticized its members’ willingness to kowtow to President-elect Donald Trump.
“I don’t think I’ve made any secret of the fact that I’m more of a Ronald Reagan Republican than I am a Trump Republican,” she said Thursday. “And someone said, ‘Well, you aren’t really a Republican at all.’ And I said, ‘You can call me whatever you want to call me.’”
Murkowski is seen as one of Democrats’ top hopes to block Trump’s most contentious Cabinet picks, alongside fellow centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
On Thursday, Murkowski predicted “it’s going to be hard in these next four years” because the Trump administration’s “approach is going to be: Everybody tow the line. Everybody line up. We got you here, and if you want to survive, you better be good. Don’t get on Santa’s naughty list here, because we will primary you.”
She pointed specifically to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), whose swing vote could sink Pete Hegseth’s bid to run the Pentagon.
Despite being “one of the more conservative, principled Republican leaders in the Senate right now,” Murkowski said, Republicans are slamming Ernst “for not being good enough” — and she said she is worried the Iowa senator could be primaried.
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