Congress
Mike Johnson scrambles to pass Pentagon bill as GOP ranks seethe
House Republicans spent this week venting about Mike Johnson, questioning the speaker’s hold on his tenuous House majority. Next week, he has to prove he’s capable of governing.
The annual Pentagon policy bill is due on the floor just in time to test Johnson’s ability to command and cajole his conference with must-pass legislation at stake. Already GOP leaders have had to delay release of bill text as they deal with a host of 11th-hour intraparty flare-ups that show just how hard it will be for the speaker to lead ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Johnson is already bruised from a high-profile fight with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a member of the GOP leadership team, over a surveillance provision she wanted attached to the sprawling defense package. She got her way after publicly accusing the speaker of lying and sandbagging conservatives.
Other deeply divisive issues remain, ranging from cryptocurrency policy to in vitro fertilization, that could threaten to further splinter the House GOP and imperil the typically bipartisan Pentagon bill. The brouhaha threatens to complicate Johnson’s effort to hammer out a still-brewing Republican health care plan he’s promised to unveil by early next week.
“I think there’s a lot of members that are frustrated that we’re not doing the things that we said that we were going to do,” said Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) when asked about Johnson’s leadership. “His response to that would be, we only have a [three] vote majority, but I think if you govern conservatively, Republicans will show up and vote for it.”
Steube, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was “not happy” that Johnson initially excluded Stefanik’s legislation allowing for congressional notification of counterintelligence probes concerning candidates for federal office — part of an annual intelligence authorization legislation that, he said, included “a lot of conservative reforms.” The speaker argued he didn’t know about the measure and that Stefanik’s accusations were “false.”
Top GOP leaders are scrambling to douse the remaining fires and release text of the massive bill as early as Saturday, but it could slip into Sunday, according to four people granted anonymity to comment on internal planning. The negotiations are complicated, they say, because the final product must not only pass the GOP-controlled House but also withstand a possible Senate filibuster — meaning it needs to have Democratic buy-in.
“Getting an agreement right now between Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate’s not easy,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said. “But we’re getting close, and we want to get it done.”
Johnson played down the internal turmoil Thursday, saying Republicans “are exactly on the trajectory of where we’ve always planned to be.”
“Steady at the wheel, everybody,” he said. “It’s going to be fine.”
But the pending fights over the Pentagon bill — or the National Defense Authorization Act, as it is formally known — serve as a mini-preview for the turmoil Johnson is likely to face for the remainder of the 119th Congress as he tries to tackle health care, government funding and other flashpoints.
For instance, he is risking a showdown with conservative hard-liners if the final package doesn’t include a provision they favor that would ban the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital currency. Johnson promised House Freedom Caucus members he would include the provision in the defense bill amid a toxic intra-GOP row during the House’s shambolic “crypto week” this summer.
If the so-called central bank digital currency ban is missing, “it is a big deal,” said one House conservative who, like others quoted for this story, was granted anonymity to speak frankly about conference dynamics.
The fate of that provision is currently tied up in talks over another matter — one that highlights how Johnson is facing pressure from another influential corner of the House GOP: his committee chairs.
GOP leaders are taking steps to add a scaled-down version of a Senate housing proposal to the package. But Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) opposes the move and wants to advance a slate of House housing bills through his committee later this month.
Johnson and Hill, normally low-key operators, had an intense conversation on the House floor Wednesday night as House and Senate GOP leaders went back-and-forth, including at the White House’s behest, over how to add some housing affordability measures to the defense bill.
“French is very logical and measured, but he’s very stern in what he believes and what he wants,” said a senior House Republican.
Johnson, a staunch social conservative, is also facing pressure from women and others in the House to add a measure expanding coverage for in vitro fertilization and other fertility services for military families under DOD’s Tricare health system. He’s also caught between big business and China hawks — two major GOP blocs — on whether to add in new restrictions on U.S. investments in China. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), who chairs a select committee on China, said he was hopeful the provision would make it in but pointed to opposition from the “financial community.”
The NDAA is “a train that comes around once a year,” he added. “We’re hoping to include it.”
Rep. Max Miller issued a subpoena to his former father-in-law and fellow Ohio Republican, Sen. Bernie Moreno, in the latest escalation of a long-running family legal drama.
Pamela MacAdams, an attorney for Miller, reported to the Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court Monday that three subpoenas were served in Miller’s divorce case, according to court records. A person with knowledge of the subpoenas granted anonymity to comment on them said that two were sent to Moreno and his wife, Bridget.
Their daughter, Emily Moreno, was married to Miller, and the two remain embroiled in a nasty legal battle.
Spokespeople for Miller, Emily Moreno and Bernie Moreno did not immediately return requests for comment. TMZ first reported on the subpoenas.
Miller is seeking reelection in a competitive district, and his campaign has been marred by accusations of domestic abuse against Emily Moreno and their daughter. Miller has repeatedly denied the allegations and chose to remain in the race despite other Republican lawmakers pressuring him to withdraw his campaign.
The House Ethics Committee, which began an inquiry into Miller after Miller asked to be investigated, is currently in a preelection blackout period. During that period, which will continue through the midterms, the Ethics Committee doesn’t take any action against sitting members who could return next Congress.
Congress
Trump declares $1B canceled in ‘pocket rescission’ in another affront to Congress’ funding power
President Donald Trump informed congressional leaders Friday that he has unilaterally canceled almost $1 billion without Congress’ consent — employing a budget maneuver many lawmakers consider illegal.
In a move that will almost certainly set up an ugly government funding battle after the midterms, Trump has again claimed the power to execute a so-called “pocket rescission” to nix money Congress has already enacted. The money his administration will claw back is for for immigration services, support to foreign countries, education programs, health research efforts and assistance for businesses owned by minorities.
By law, the president is allowed to send Congress a request to rescind federal funding, then withhold that money for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore it. Trump administration officials also argue they have the power to cancel funding without any congressional action by sending Congress a rescission request with less than 45 days left in the fiscal year. The argument is that the money automatically gets canceled on Sept. 30, when funding lapses at the end of the fiscal year.
Last year, Trump canceled $4.9 billion in foreign aid.
The Senate’s top Republican appropriator, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, immediately blasted the move as illegal, saying in a statement Friday night that “any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
“This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law,” Collins added, pledging to work with other lawmakers “to address these illegal actions.”
Collins and other appropriators have already been on high alert in recent days, pressing multiple agencies about funding officials have yet to spend ahead of the expiration date.
Democrats are finally catching on to how to talk to young male voters in the lead-up to the midterms, but the party can still up its game, one battleground senator and potential 2028er said Friday.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has been one of his party’s most outspoken critics on its handling of outreach to young men, who swung right and helped deliver the White House and both chambers of Congress to Republicans in 2024.
The party is now “definitely moving in the right direction,” Gallego said Friday.
“Like back in the day, I was like the only one,” putting out positions on men, Gallego said at a Washington event on young American men. “Now, like, it seems like everyone every week is coming out with a new position, new idea, which is great.”
Gallego has criticized Democrat’s failure to highlight mens’ struggles and their tendency to over-police mens’ ideas. But there are signs the political winds have shifted in his party’s favor.
A new Cygnal poll released with the event of men ages 18-30 who say they’re the most determined to vote revealed Democrats’ generic ballot lead over Republicans at 57%-40%, Blue Light News reported. The poll also said nearly 40 percent of respondents said they feel their lives are off track.
“We need to take the opportunity to invest in that portion of this country, to say that we care about them and actually try to change the trajectory of what’s happening with men in this country,” Gallego said at the symposium.
Still, the path for specific legislation targeting the needs of this demographic faces an incredibly tight calendar this Congress and is uncertain in the political landscape of next year.
A proposal from Gallego and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) to establish a men’s health office within the Department of Health and Human Services, for example, has not advanced. Nor has bipartisan legislation from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who also spoke at the event, targeting education outcomes, college investment transparency and dyslexic student support.
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