Congress

Jon Ossoff should be feeling shutdown heat. He’s not acting like it.

Published

12 months ago

October 12, 2025

On paper, Jon Ossoff has plenty of reasons to break party ranks as the government shutdown drags into a third week: The 38-year-old Georgian is the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for re-election next year and his home state has more than 81,000 federal workers at risk for furloughs and firings

In reality, Ossoff is sticking closely to his party’s strategy of trying to reframe the shutdown fight as a battle over health care — and has emerged as an object lesson in the limits of Republican efforts to focus pressure on the Democrats’ soft spots.

Part of that calculus is that it is much riskier to alienate your own party’s base than to break ranks in hopes of appealing to swing voters. The bigger issue, fellow senators say, is that there is little belief today’s shutdown will matter much at all when voters start heading to polls a year from now.

“It just doesn’t stick,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D) said in an interview. “I think every year the attention span of the American people gets shorter and shorter.”

“Nobody is going to be paying attention to the shutdown next November,” added Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who pointed to how Republicans gained seats in the midterms after the 2013 shutdown fight they instigated.

Even though Ossoff represents a state that voted for President Donald Trump last year and his re-election race is ranked as a toss-up by leading campaign prognosticators, he has positioned himself in lockstep with his party’s leadership. He opposed the GOP-led stopgap funding bill in March, embraced calls to impeach Trump earlier this year and has sparred with Trump nominees in Senate hearings.

It’s a break from the tack-to-the-center playbook used by swing-state Democrats for decades. Ossoff as of last month had voted with Trump just 8 percent of the time, according to tracking from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Two other purple-state Democrats — Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — have voted with Republicans to pass a House-approved bill that would end the shutdown.

Asked about the standoff this week, Ossoff hewed closely to his party’s main message on expiring health insurance subsidies and foisted blame on House Republicans for leaving town amid the standoff.

What Americans are trying to get “their heads around,” he told reporters, “is, with health insurance premiums set to double for more than 20 million Americans and the federal government shut down, why the U.S. House of Representatives is shut down this week.”

That line of argument is in keeping with his party’s main bet: that midterm voters won’t remember the shutdown so much as they remember that Democrats were fighting on behalf of Americans’ health care benefits. More than 20 million use the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire, including an estimated 1.4 million Georgians.

Ossoff and other Georgia Democrats have seized on health care as a focus for their political messaging in the state. During a recent event in Georgia, Ossoff raised concerns about the impact the GOP’s new domestic policy law enacted in July will have on rural hospitals, which stand to be harmed by Medicaid cuts that are only partially offset by a new fund for their benefit.

Even if some of Ossoff’s Republican colleagues are skeptical he will face political consequences for lining up behind the rest of his party amid the shutdown, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm is hammering him over the decision, including circulating a list of federal services that have been paused in the state and running digital ads attacking him since the shutdown began.

“Jon Ossoff is knowingly hurting Georgia’s small businesses and ripping away critical government services from Georgia veterans, farmers, and families all because he wants to give free healthcare to illegal aliens and appease his far-left supporters in California,” NRSC spokesperson Nick Puglia said in a statement.

Republicans have long viewed Ossoff as a prime target for the 2026 midterm map. He defeated Georgia Sen. David Perdue in a down-to-the-wire upset that wasn’t settled until Jan. 6, 2021 — hours before the Capitol riot.

The 2021 Georgia race — which also saw Democrat Raphael Warnock defeat incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler — remains infamous in GOP circles as an opportunity lost due to self-inflicted wounds. Ahead of the election, Trump cast serious doubts on mail-in voting in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, which Republican operatives believe cost them victory in both races.

Now Republicans are contending with a crowded primary field eager to take Ossoff on that has yet to see a clear frontrunner emerge. They are betting that once Trump makes an endorsement, GOP voters will rally and make Ossoff a one-term senator. At least one of the candidates, Rep. Mike Collins, has launched digital ads attacking Ossoff over the shutdown.

Ossoff, however, has spent years preparing to do battle in what has long been eyed as a hotly contested race. His team has billed him as “MAGA’s #1 target” in fundraising appeals as he drums up support among committed Democratic voters, who will be crucial for him.

His campaign announced last week he had raised $12 million in the latest quarter, padding a formidable war chest that now stands at $21 million. Both parties are likely to pour in tens of millions of dollars in outside spending; the 2020 Georgia Senate races were the most expensive of the cycle.

Democrats also believe Ossoff’s health-care-focused strategy in the shutdown fight is getting backup from an unlikely in-state wingwoman: GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The MAGA stalwart emerged this month as a vocal advocate for her party needing to come up with a plan to deal with the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Democrats have relished Greene’s comments as a sign that even a figure once on the fringes of the Republican Party is acknowledging that insurance premiums will spike without congressional action.

“Why would Marjorie Taylor Greene go out so strong on that issue? She’s in Georgia, and I think Georgia was getting some of the first notices,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “I think Georgians are seeing at the front end how bad it’s going to be.”

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

Lummis blocks resolution denouncing Trump’s ‘public service announcements’

Published

45 minutes ago

September 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A Republican senator blocked a resolution Tuesday that would have denounced President Donald Trump’s recent campaign-style ads funded with taxpayer dollars.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming objected to Sen. Maggie Hassan’s nonbinding resolution, which said it was the sense of the Senate that the ads “should not be paid for by the United States government.” Because Hassan (D-N.H.) was trying to pass the resolution without a formal vote, any one senator could block it.

“It just tells the president that he is wrong — that these ads need to be pulled down and that they should not be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Hassan said on the floor.

Lummis however countered that Hassan’s concerns about the ads say “more about her side of the aisle” and compared Trump’s ads to President Bill Clinton’s antidrug campaign, among others. One of the ads Trump is running at taxpayer expense is virtually identical to a 2024 campaign ad.

“When a Democratic president tells Americans what to do, it’s a public service,” Lummis said. “When this president tells Americans that liberty is worth defending, it’s a problem.”

Congress

Republicans wanted Jack Smith to give them a smoking gun. They got a gaffe instead.

Published

1 hour ago

September 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

It started with a pledge to expose a Biden-era conspiracy to take down President Donald Trump. It ended with a botched attack over basketball tickets.

Armed with subpoena power in Congress and a friendly Justice Department on their side, Republican lawmakers have spent two years promising to expose former special counsel Jack Smith as the leader of an anti-Trump witch hunt that morphed into a full-blown attempt to take down the Republican establishment.

Smith’s appearance Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee — his third time testifying under oath on Capitol Hill, the second time in public — was supposed to be a watershed moment for the GOP intent on extracting a smoking gun ahead of the midterm elections. Instead, the hearing was most memorable for the fusillade of insults hurled by the panel’s Republicans.

Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri unsuccessfully sought to implicate Smith in a plot to attend a sporting event as a cover for investigating Trump election interference claims, then called him a “dirtbag.” Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said the former prosecutor made him “want to throw up in my mouth.” And Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, comparing him to “Javert from ‘Les Mis,’” said Smith’s probe was “the most egregious abuse of power in the history of the Department of Justice.”

Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley insisted the hearing was “not the end” of his investigative work, but the four-hour grilling had the feeling of finality. The Republican-led probe into Smith’s efforts to bring criminal charges against the president has already stretched for two years, and Democrats stand a chance of retaking control of Congress in the midterms.

And at least one Republican member of the panel, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, said he believed the investigation into Smith had run its course in Congress.

“At this point, I think we kind of know what we know,” Hawley said in an interview following the hearing. “I think at this point, it’s up to the DOJ to either prosecute him for perjury for lying under oath, which I think the House has formally referred him for … or try to have him disbarred.”

Judiciary Committee Republicans did little Tuesday to challenge the substance of Smith’s criminal case against Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 presidential election. Smith reinforced his contention that Trump mounted an unprecedented criminal assault on the transfer of power, seeking to derail Joe Biden’s victory and then capitalizing on the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol — unleashed by a mob of his supporters — to further that goal.

Smith also defended the work of his staff and decried the Trump-led Justice Department’s decision to fire them as “illegal.” And he made his most forceful case yet that the probe he led was actually fueled by Republican witnesses who broke from Trump over his handling of the 2020 election.

”It’s very hard to understand how our investigation can be viewed as partisan when the strongest witnesses, the people who were the difference between the rule of law and not, were Republicans,” Smith said.

When Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) ripped into Smith for secretly obtaining her late brother Lindsey Graham’s phone records as part of his inquiry, Smith hailed him as a “patriotic public servant” and who likely would have been a featured witness in Trump’s trial — because he eventually concluded Trump’s election fraud claims were false.

Smith similarly hailed Former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers and former Vice President Mike Pence as heroic figures who were crucial witnesses against the president. Smith ultimately dropped his case after Trump prevailed in the 2024 election. Though he said he remained confident in his ability to secure a conviction at trial, Smith emphasized that Justice Department policy forbids criminal prosecution of a sitting president.

When they weren’t lobbing personal attacks at Smith, Republicans homed in on what they described as procedural flaws of Smith’s investigation. They criticized him for subpoenaing phone records of members of Congress, like Lindsey Graham, who communicated with Trump and his administration during the post-2020 election timeframe.

They hit Smith for securing court orders that prevented telecom companies from alerting lawmakers to those subpoenas, and challenged his respect for the constitutional protections members of Congress are afforded to avoid scrutiny from federal prosecutors. That line of questioning produced one of the only bipartisan moments of the hearing: a pitch by Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) for legislation that would limit the ability of prosecutors to obtain secrecy orders when they issue subpoenas in sensitive probes.

Lee is poised to be the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Congress if Republicans maintain control of the chamber.

Smith used his appearance, as well as friendly questions from the panel’s Democrats, to parry GOP criticism of his tactics. He followed all Justice Department policies and laws, he insisted, and said he had respect for the separation of powers — including Congress’ constitutional protection from executive branch scrutiny.

Smith said he never targeted GOP lawmakers but pursued critical evidence of Trump’s actions and state of mind that would have been necessary to prove his case in court, and he repeatedly returned to an overarching contention: that he had enough evidence to convict Trump of “one of the most serious crimes that’s ever happened in our nation’s history.”

He also reminded lawmakers what he couldn’t say: anything at all about his charges against Trump for hoarding classified information at Mar-a-Lago. Smith’s findings in that probe remain sealed from public view by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who has ordered the Justice Department to keep it secret.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said subpoenaing that report would be one of Democrats’ first actions should they have the majority in the next Congress.

Ultimately, Smith’s hearing Tuesday may end up being best remembered for a high-profile gaffe by Schmitt, who accused Smith of secretly traveling to Atlanta at the very moment local prosecutor Fani Willis — who had also charged Trump over the 2020 election scheme — was facing damaging questions about her conduct. As proof, displayed on an elaborate poster, Schmitt offered text messages suggesting that Smith attended a basketball game on Feb. 3, 2024 — the same day the Atlanta Hawks played the Golden State Warriors.

Schmitt revelled as a clearly flummoxed Smith struggled to discern what Schmitt was talking about.

“I don’t think you know that we have this stuff,” Schmitt said. “So I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t perjure yourself.”

After a few moments, Smith did recall having attended a basketball game — but not in Atlanta. It wasn’t the Hawks his colleagues were discussing in a series of texts, Smith explained, but the Hawkeyes, whose star Caitlin Clark was playing in Maryland that day.

“It was because Caitlin Clark was coming to Maryland to play, and so we went to the game,” Smith said.

Immediately after the exchange, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) fact-checked Schmitt in real-time, confirming the date of the Iowa-Maryland game and suggested that her colleagues’ reliance on “false information based on confusion about the name of a team” warranted an apology.

“You don’t call someone a dirtbag when you haven’t done your own research and you don’t have your facts straight,” Klobuchar said after the hearing. “And it just shows how completely out of control this whole thing was.”

Schmitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his allegations.

Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

Cruz blocks Senate Democrats’ bid to pass AI safety bill

Published

4 hours ago

September 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A Democratic trio attempted to pass an artificial intelligence bill via a unanimous consent request on Tuesday but were blocked on the Senate floor.

Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) sought to pass their Artificial Intelligence Risk Management and Security Act using the procedural mechanism, which allows expedited consideration of legislation but fails if one senator opposes it.

“The whole world has recognized that we’ve got to do something,” Warner said in a speech on the floor. “We should not miss the moment to put a safety protocol in place now.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) objected to the bill, preventing any chance of passage.

“Congress must not legislate on the issue of artificial intelligence hastily or in a closed manner,” he said on the floor, adding that it gave some in the government too much power to dictate the technology that could be permitted to be released.

As some lawmakers grow concerned over dire warnings from AI labs’ top executives about the technology’s risk to humanity, Congress’ attempts to legislate AI guardrails have largely stalled.

In the past few weeks, two other AI-related bills, the Ratepayer Protection Act and AI Emergency Button Act, were also nixed in an attempt to pass them unanimously.

Warner, Schatz and Kim’s new bill would have established a new safety board within the Commerce Department to vet models before they are deployed and set safety standards for the industry. It would also have created a reporting process for safety and security incidents.