Congress
John Kennedy is trying to get Trump to get serious about the debt limit
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has deputized a folksy Louisiana lawmaker known for his blunt political observations and creative analogies to take the lead in convincing President Donald Trump to develop a strategy for raising the debt limit later this year.
That Senate envoy, Sen. John Neely Kennedy, says Trump isn’t ready to focus just yet — and that attention deficit could have reverberations across the global economy.
Kennedy confirmed in an interview that Thune asked him a few weeks ago to lead shuttle diplomacy with Trump about the GOP’s options for preventing the U.S. from defaulting on its $36 trillion-and-counting debt later this year. Since then, Kennedy said, he has asked Trump and Vice President JD Vance “point blank” to start thinking about a plan for lifting the nation’s borrowing cap to head off a default — a breach that top economists predict would irreparably mar America’s reputation as a reliable borrower.
“I’ve done it publicly and privately, and it’s clear to me that the president is not ready to focus that much on the debt limit,” Kennedy said about his discussions with Trump.
“I think the president is clearly aggravated having to deal with it,” Kennedy, a member of the Senate Banking and Budget committees, continued. “And I don’t blame him. His attitude is: ‘Why didn’t y’all fix this before I took office?’”
Trump asked Congress to include a debt ceiling increase in its year-end government funding package in December, but dozens of House Republicans balked at the idea, leaving the unfinished business for the new president.
Thune, in a brief interview Monday, called Kennedy a “good advocate” in the debt limit discussions and said that several other Republicans are also involved in trying to unite the White House and GOP lawmakers around a plan.
A White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called Trump a “master dealmaker” who is “always engaged in negotiations on Capitol Hill.”
But Senate Republicans have been pressing Trump since January to back a debt limit strategy, noting that time is of the essence. The day before the president was inaugurated, he sat down with Senate Republicans for a “very fulsome” discussion and spent 20 minutes talking about the debt limit, according to Kennedy.
Yet Kennedy said he wasn’t encouraged by Trump’s remarks: “I don’t have the slightest idea what he said. He was splendid in his evasiveness. And that’s when I concluded back then, and in subsequent conversations: I concluded that he’s not ready to focus on it yet.”
Congress is still waiting for the Treasury Department to issue a prediction for when the U.S. could default on its debt, with top lawmakers operating under the assumption that the so-called X-date is likely to hit sometime between June and August.
If tax receipts come in lower than expected this spring, Congress could face the fiscal cliff with little warning, as it did in 2023. So Senate GOP leaders are anxious for Trump to endorse some sort of plan — especially as they decide whether to raise the nation’s borrowing cap as part of the massive domestic policy package they hope to pass along party lines later this year.
If Trump and GOP leaders seek to raise the debt limit through that process, known as reconciliation, they would need to make the hard sell to fiscal conservatives demanding steep spending cuts in return — and then potentially deliver a similarly forceful pitch to more moderate lawmakers who could be spooked by the political ramifications of those reductions.
One of the deficit hawks, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), said the “White House is very well aware” of his demand for returning to pre-pandemic spending levels as a condition of raising the debt limit.
“I know the president doesn’t like this issue. But he has to understand: There are those of us who realize that that’s the only leverage we have to bring down spending, and we don’t want to give up that leverage,” Johnson said in an interview.
House Republicans have already provided for a $4 trillion increase in the U.S. borrowing cap in their budget framework. If that gambit falters, GOP leaders will have to seek Democratic votes to avert a debt default outside the reconciliation process, opening up negotiations that could lead to higher government funding levels or other concessions to the minority party.
Unlike the House Republican budget, the Senate’s budget framework does not allow for raising the debt limit. But many Senate Republicans now endorse the idea of including such language as they decide their next steps toward actually writing their sweeping package of tax cuts and energy policy, along with border security and defense spending increases.
“The only question is whether we can get the votes in both the House and Senate to do it in reconciliation. Right now, that’s the plan,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who is close with Thune, said in a brief interview.
Asked if Senate Republicans have the support for keeping a debt ceiling increase in the reconciliation plan, Hoeven quipped: “If you could find that out and let us know, that would be really helpful, because that’s the question.”
Across the Capitol, several senior House Republicans have also privately acknowledged that they will need a backup plan if they can’t whip enough support for a party-line package that raises the borrowing limit.
Speaker Mike Johnson, Thune and top congressional tax writers are now meeting weekly with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to discuss the broader reconciliation effort.
“There are other potential vehicles — any spending bill is an option,” Thune said. Asked about the possibility of pairing it with a disaster aid package — another must-pass item on the 2025 legislative agenda — he added, “We’ll see.”
One thing is clear: There’s no real discussion of including a debt limit increase on the most pressing vehicle — the stopgap spending bill that is expected to move through Congress this week.
Johnson and senior House Republicans have no other plans for the debt limit right now other than to push for it to stay in the budget plan their chamber narrowly approved two weeks ago — and they are largely miffed the Senate is contemplating anything else.
When billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk lunched with Senate Republicans last week the debt ceiling briefly came up in conversation, but no decision was made on a strategy.
Senate Republicans also discussed the issue during a lunch last month with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. There, Kennedy told Wiles she and Trump ought to be thinking about the best way to handle it. Wiles, Kennedy said, didn’t commit to a specific path for dealing with the debt ceiling and instead said she would talk to Trump about it.
“I just want to make sure that the president understands that if we do it outside of reconciliation, we’ve got to pay bribes,” Kennedy said about the prospect of having to strike a debt deal with Democrats. “There are two doors: Door No. 1 and door No. 2.”
SYRACUSE, New York — President Donald Trump came to New York on Friday to help a Republican win an uphill race for governor. But his visit was also a reminder of the complicated role he plays in his party’s fight to keep control of Congress.
Trump rallied alongside GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman, calling on New Yorkers to fire Gov. Kathy Hochul and, referring to the state attorney general, “her totally corrupt sidekick, Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James.”
“Your city and state are dirty, filthy places, and everybody wants to leave,” he told some 5,000 attendees at a convention center in downtown Syracuse — which, he noted, was “a short distance from the beautiful shores of Lake America.”
“You gotta get your act together, and I tell you what, Bruce Blakeman will get your act together,” Trump said.
For Republicans, the president’s appearance underscored a political dilemma that extends beyond New York: Even as Trump increasingly appears to be a drag on their ticket, they need his loyal supporters to energize their base. While voters have soured on the president’s handling of the economy and costs, he remains a potent force in turning out MAGA voters — even in an otherwise Democratic-dominated state.
“The targeting of where the president goes is not a random exercise,” Marist University pollster Lee Miringoff said. “They’re looking to stir the base without stirring the opposition. They’re picking and choosing, that’s not uncommon. For him to come to New York to help the turnout upstate is a positive for the Republicans and his base.”
Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, hasn’t distanced himself from the president — nor have most of the top officials in New York’s GOP. Nearly every Republican running a competitive congressional race in this half of the state came to Friday’s rally, eager to make their presence known.
“I’m always happy to be with the president,” said Anthony Constantino, who’s running in a nearby red district that’s inched into toss-up territory. “He’s the leader of the free world, and I’m excited to have a great relation with him.”
Some GOP operatives, however, have quietly grumbled that their candidates need to start creating some distance from the president. Republicans from other parts of the state like Rep. Mike Lawler decided that campaigning in their districts was more valuable than trekking to be seen with Trump — as did several down-ballot candidates in Central New York. Democrats, notably, have been just as eager to highlight the visit.
“This is supposed to be a swing district. And the feedback I get is that the president is very unpopular,” said Democratic Rep. John Mannion, who represents Syracuse and the surrounding Central New York area. “He still certainly will have his core base of supporters, but I do think he’s lost support here compared to what he had around the 2024 election.”
Blakeman, for his part, isn’t worried about Trump’s drop in popularity.
“Kathy Hochul should be worried about her drop in popularity,” he said before taking the stage in Syracuse. “She’s the most unpopular governor in the history of the state of New York.”
Trump’s visit came against the backdrop of a darkening political environment for New York Republicans.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot a man in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, stirring fresh condemnation of Trump’s aggressive deportation policies. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has a surprisingly warm relationship with the president, called on him to cease all ICE activity in the five boroughs. Hochul stressed that the shooting took place with a five-year-old child present and demanded that federal authorities “provide answers.”
Immigration is one of several areas where Blakeman has hewed close to the Trump wing of the party throughout his campaign.
“I’m outraged with Kathy Hochul for taking sides with somebody who was a convicted felon, someone who was an alleged drug dealer, a gang member,” he said Friday about the shooting in Manhattan.
While Trump’s speech repeatedly careened back to the rhetoric one could expect from any of his rallies — boasts about the stock market, complaints about ‘Dumocrats’ — he did manage to seamlessly blend almost all of Blakeman’s oft-used talking points into his stump speech.
“Since Hochul took office, she’s raised your utility rates 48 times, and energy prices in New York have skyrocketed 100 percent,” Trump said. “If Bruce Blakeman gets in, he will cut your electric bills by 70, 80, 90 percent.”
The climate outside of deep blue New York City is also turning increasingly hostile to the GOP. Constantino, who’s running to succeed Rep. Elise Stefanik in upstate New York, trails his Democratic foe Blake Gendebien by 4 points, a Siena Research Institute survey released Friday morning found. A Blue Light News poll showed that nationally one in four Trump voters believe Republican candidates should break from the president in order to win in November.
The wisdom of appearing with Trump has been debated by Republicans throughout the country at a time when gas prices are high and a foreign war drags on. And New York Democrats aren’t viewing the presidential visit as a concern.
Much of Hochul’s messaging this year has focused on making sure New Yorkers know Blakeman and Trump are friends. Her most-aired TV commercial features a puppeteer saying one Republican would do the other’s bidding.
“Puppets are my life. You tell them what to say, they say it,” the narrator says. “But that’s not what you want in a governor.”
Earlier in the day during an MSNOW interview, Hochul dismissed the rally.
“It’s obviously a very political event,” she said. “It seems like a last-ditch effort to breathe some life into a campaign that’s on life support.”
Despite his low approval ratings with voters, Trump’s visit stands to light up a Republican base that Blakeman will need to turn out next month to help him defeat Hochul.
Polling has shown the governor leading the GOP nominee by as much as 18 points in this deep blue state. Yet some Trump supporters maintain the president can help generate much-needed enthusiasm for Blakeman, especially in areas of upstate New York where the Long Island native is not well known.
“We actually have the ability to win these elections, but I just don’t see the enthusiasm out there,” Conservative Party Chair Gerard Kassar said. “Hochul has won the day as far as being a terrible governor, but now we’ve got to get our people out to vote.”
Winning is still a tall order for Blakeman — especially in a tough national political environment where polls show GOP candidates in red states like Texas, Ohio and Kansas struggling against Democratic challengers.
Republicans have not won statewide in New York since George Pataki secured a third term in 2002. Since then, the GOP has lost all levers of statewide power, and Trump’s tariffs as well as his decision to launch a war in Iran have not helped him fulfill his campaign pledge of addressing voters’ cost concerns.
The president’s political woes aren’t going unnoticed.
Privately, Republican operatives grumbled that the president’s visit put swing seat candidates in an uncomfortable spot.
“There’s a lot of commiserating between folks within the party structure — why is this happening? Why is he doing this?” said one Republican operative who was granted anonymity to freely discuss the dynamic. “Then you’ve got the blind loyalists who say, ‘Yay Trump’s coming’ — people who are too politically dumb to understand the ramifications of it.”
Yet the head of the Republican party kept his message very much in line with Hochul’s.
“Please pretend I’m on the ballot,” Trump told Central New Yorkers.
Sen. Chris Murphy wants Democrats to go big for Angie Nixon in Florida’s Senate race — and he’s pushing to raise some “serious money” to help.
“I do believe that we’d make a big mistake if we slept on Florida,” the Connecticut Democrat told Blue Light News on Friday. “I know it feels like a longer shot, but I just think this year is looking exceptional.”
Murphy plans to hit the trail with Nixon as part of a campaign swing for Senate candidates over the next three weeks that will take him through North Carolina and Florida, as well as events with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota and Chris Pappas in New Hampshire. Murphy will serve as a surrogate for El-Sayed in the spin room at his next debate, and said he’s “just a big believer” in the Michigan Senate nominee.
Murphy’s bullishness about a blue wave comes as Senate Democrats are pushing the boundaries of a midterm battle map that is shifting further into red territory. The Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC has dropped roughly $5 million apiece into Texas and Kansas over recent days, and the minority leader has included Kansas and Mississippi in his pitches to donors.
“If I were in charge, I would definitely put some resources in Florida,” Murphy said. “When you have an exciting candidate like this, it’s a good long-term investment” in growing Democrats’ activist base.
Still, Murphy stressed he’s “not making any formal recommendations” on where Schumer or top Democratic campaign groups should move their money.
“They’ve got so many mouths to feed,” Murphy said. “That’s why I’m going to try to step up and do some work on my own.”
Murphy, who is considered a potential 2028 presidential contender, has spread roughly $2.5 million across candidates, campaign arms and other organizations this cycle. That includes transferring more than $500,000 to Democrats’ three top campaign arms and 25 state parties.
Prominent Democrats have been ramping up their attention on Florida. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has funneled $250,000 toward Nixon’s campaign, along with other resources. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) also told Blue Light News he hopes to campaign with Nixon.
But Democrats across suddenly competitive red states are clamoring for more cash and Florida is an expensive state, complicating the chances of a significant investment from national groups.
Nixon also faces an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Ashley Moody in the Sunshine State. A progressive state lawmaker, Nixon aligned herself with the Democratic Socialists of America over the summer in a state where many voters, especially those with ties to Cuba, reject such an ideology. Also, Republicans in Florida have a 1.5 million voter registration advantage over Democrats.
Senate Democrats’ top super PAC is pushing into Kansas.
The Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC is launching a $5 million statewide television ad blitz starting Saturday through Election Day — the latest sign that Democrats believe the Senate map is shifting onto red turf.
SMP had signaled in recent days it could get involved in the race, telling Blue Light News late last month it was “actively thinking” about whether to wade into the state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in nearly a century but where Adam Hamilton narrowly leads GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in recent polls. Internal SMP polling that found an increasingly competitive race factored into the group’s decision to spend. It will also run digital ads.
“The gap is closing in Kansas,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement. “We are committed to ensuring families understand Marshall’s real record of making health care and basic goods more expensive for working Kansans.”
Republicans are scrambling to shore up Marshall. Senate Leadership Fund, a top GOP super PAC aligned with Republican leadership, has booked over $10 million in ads through Election Day in the state, per ad tracking firm AdImpact.
SMP’s first ad attacks Marshall for joining Senate Republicans in voting to table a Democratic-led amendment last year to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. The Senate later approved legislation to release the files by unanimous consent. It’s the latest in a slate of ads from Democrats hitting their Republican rivals over the late, disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. Marshall’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Senate Democrats’ plunge into the state comes as the midterm battle map is undergoing a major realignment. Georgia and North Carolina — primed to be two of the cycle’s premiere battlegrounds — are tilting left to the point where national Republicans are retracting spending in both states and Democrats are starting to follow suit, freeing funds on both sides to shift elsewhere.
Republicans are racing to reinforce incumbents across what was once safer red turf. SLF has also pledged $5 million to bolster Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina.
Democrats, meanwhile, are starting to spend more in red states. SMP has dropped over $2 million on digital ads in Texas. Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has included Kansas and Mississippi in his pitches to donors.
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