Congress
John E. Sununu expected to announce New Hampshire Senate bid this week
Former Sen. John E. Sununu is expected to launch a Senate comeback bid in New Hampshire this week, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss the campaign-in-waiting.
Sununu has been exploring a run since September for the seat he held for a single term before being ousted by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in 2008. Shaheen is retiring next year.
He has been in contact with the White House and is expected to visit with President Donald Trump soon, according to a senior White House official granted anonymity to disclose details.
Trump’s endorsement will be critical in the GOP primary, even though the state’s broader electorate rejected him for president in all three of his campaigns.
Sununu has long opposed Trump, serving as a national co-chair of former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s 2016 presidential campaign and backing former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley in 2024. He penned an op-ed ahead of the state’s GOP presidential primary last year lambasting Trump as a “loser.” Trump went on to win that primary by 11 points.
Still, the scion of a prominent Republican political dynasty in the state — his father is former governor and White House chief of staff John H. Sununu; one of his brothers is former Gov. Chris Sununu — would likely give the GOP its best hope of flipping the Senate seat.
National Republicans consider Sununu to be a strong candidate. He has previously discussed a potential bid with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who he served with in the House and Senate and who he remains close to, and former Sen. Cory Gardner, the outgoing Senate Leadership Fund chair. A spokesperson for Sununu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Former Sen. Scott Brown, who represented Massachusetts before moving to New Hampshire, is already running in the GOP primary. He is not expected to step aside for Sununu and is positioning himself as the more Trump-aligned candidate of the two. Another candidate, state Sen. Dan Innis, recently ended his campaign and preemptively endorsed Sununu.
While Sununu would start as the polling front-runner in the GOP primary, he trailed Democrats’ leading contender, Rep. Chris Pappas, in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup in a recent University of New Hampshire survey.
Congress
Johnson touts ‘bipartisan’ path for FISA reauthorization, but obstacles remain
Speaker Mike Johnson is raising the possibility of a “bipartisan” path forward on extending a key spy authority after negotiations among House Republicans blew up late last week.
“We’re confident that we’ll be able to find strong bipartisan consensus that builds off of the really meaningful reforms that we included in the legislation the last time we reauthorized it,” Johnson said during a news conference Tuesday morning.
The emergency short-term reauthorization Congress cleared last week expires April 30, putting pressure on lawmakers to reach a deal quickly.
Among the options GOP leaders are discussing: If the Senate can advance a three-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with policy changes, the House could then pass it with a majority of Republicans and some Democrats, according to three people granted anonymity to share direct knowledge of ongoing conversations.
It’s also possible Johnson could put that measure on the House floor under an expedited procedure that does not require prior adoption of a party-line rule, but would need a two-thirds majority voting in the affirmative to secure passage. House GOP leaders still need to appease hard-liners who have very specific demands for new guardrails on warrentless surveillance practices as part of any reauthorization measure.
House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, aren’t promising cooperation — and they’re skeptical Johnson is as close to a deal as he might suggest.
“His confidence meter was always pretty high, and then he put a bill on the floor that had zero consensus among his caucus, and looked like the disaster that it was after midnight,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California told reporters Tuesday.
He added that he has not had “any discussions” yet with Republican counterparts on next steps for Section 702, and “absent those conversations, it’s going to be hard to find bipartisan consensus.” Aguilar also said that Democrats would follow the leads of House Intelligence Chair Jim Himes of Connecticut and Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
Johnson is planning to meet Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Darin LaHood of Illinois later Tuesday as the pair of Republicans works with Democrats on a bipartisan FISA extension plan, according to two people granted anonymity to share private scheduling.
Congress
Graham releases blueprint for GOP immigration enforcement funding plan
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham unveiled a fiscal blueprint Tuesday paving the way for the GOP’s party-line immigration enforcement plan.
The budget resolution is the first step in Republicans’ two-step plan to deliver a bill funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and other agencies to President Donald Trump’s desk by his self-imposed June 1 deadline.
Senate Republicans are aiming to adopt the budget resolution this week. Senate Majority Leader John Thune can lose as many as three GOP members so long as Vice President JD Vance is available to break ties.
“Republicans are doing something that must be done quickly, and that our Democrat colleagues are trying to prevent us from doing. That something is simple: fully fund Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great threat to the United States,” Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement.
The budget resolution tasks the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with drafting the subsequent immigration enforcement bill.
The resolution gives the committees until May 15 to hand over text. It sets a ceiling of $70 billion for the Judiciary Committee’s portion and $70 billion for the Homeland Security panel’s portion. While the language would allow for a larger bill, a Graham aide said Tuesday that Republicans are aiming to keep the measure to about $70 billion.
Senate Republicans are expected to take an initial vote on the budget resolution as soon as Tuesday afternoon. After that they’ll need to complete a marathon session known as a vote-a-rama before they can approve the fiscal blueprint and send it to the House.
Democrats are expected to force several amendments related to cost-of-living concerns. Senate conservatives could also try to expand the scope of the bill, though GOP leaders hope to avoid making any changes to Graham’s text.
House Republicans could take their own vote next week. They are also waiting to grant approval of a Senate-passed deal to fund the rest of the Department of Homeland Security. Speaker Mike Johnson has delayed action on the measure amid hard-right demands that the Senate move on the immigration enforcement funding bill first.
Some House conservatives want the Senate to complete the entire reconciliation process, which allows ICE funding to bypass a Democratic filibuster, before they take up the larger DHS deal. That could drag the agency’s shutdown deep into May.
Senate Republicans are aiming to put the final immigration enforcement bill on the floor the week of May 11.
Congress
‘Many families are struggling’
Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan offered a rare acknowledgment from a GOP leader Tuesday that the U.S. economy might not be in tip-top condition. McClain, the Republican Conference chair, said at a news conference that “even with bigger [tax] refunds, many families are struggling right now, and I get it.”
That’s a departure from the message President Donald Trump sent at a event in Las Vegas last week, where he said “everything’s doing really well” and played down the impact of higher energy prices since he ordered military strikes on Iran.
“But we also owe it to the American people to be honest about how we got here, to make sure we don’t ever go back again,” McClain, the No. 4 party leader added, saying Americans are “digging out of a hole” from former President Joe Biden’s administration.
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Uncategorized1 year ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship7 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words
-
The Josh Fourrier Show1 year agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?





