Congress
Nominations talks heat up as Senate hopes to advance spending bills
The Senate will try to break an impasse Friday to advance three spending bills in hopes of showing progress after days of discord. A separate holdup over presidential nominations, meanwhile, could come down to direct talks between Democrats and the White House.
A patchwork of objections from senators on both sides of the aisle have held up the spending legislation for days and foiled a plan for what some had hoped would be a four-bill package. But members expressed new optimism Friday that a second, more limited attempt could move forward.
It’s one of two pieces of major business Republican leaders are hoping to wrap up before the Senate starts its traditional summer recess. In addition to the spending bills — where they are keen to show some progress ahead of the Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline — they also want to confirm a broad tranche of President Donald Trump’s nominees.
The nominee conversations appear more dicey, senators said, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Friday that he has put Trump officials “into conversation directly” with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s team. Top White House staffers were also in the Capitol on Thursday night after Thune met with Trump at the White House.
“This is how this is ultimately going to get resolved,” Thune said.
Meanwhile, GOP senators said leaders are running traps on a possible deal that would advance the smaller package of spending bills.
Under the pending proposal, leaders would seek unanimous consent to tie together the fiscal 2026 spending bills funding the Veterans Affairs and Agriculture departments, as well as military construction projects and the FDA. A third spending bill, funding Congress itself, could be voted on separately.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins said Friday morning she expects a unanimous consent request on some constellation of those three bills. The Maine Republican is eager to show progress on bipartisan spending bills before the Senate leaves for its lengthy August recess. Upon their return, members will have only a handful of session days to make further progress ahead of the shutdown deadline.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) has made clear he will object to including Legislative Branch funding in the package and wants the chance to vote against the $7.1 billion bill. It’s the smallest of the 12 annual appropriations bills, but Kennedy maintains it still costs too much.
“They agreed to my proposal,” he told reporters Friday. “They’re going to have one vote on [Military Construction–VA] and [Agriculture-FDA] together and separate vote on [Legislative Branch] so I can vote no. Then they’ll marry them up later if all three pass, as they probably will.”
Coming to a nominations deal could be much trickier, given Trump’s determination to get all of his 150-plus pending nominees confirmed quickly.
Trump on Thursday said on Truth Social that the Senate “must stay in Session, taking no recess” until all of the nominees are confirmed. Even if senators stay in Washington, that goal will be all but impossible to meet absent Democratic cooperation.
Democrats under Schumer are exploring whether to quickly confirm a smaller subset of nominees in exchange for other concessions, such as the release of government funding they claim has been illegally “impounded” by the Trump administration.
Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.
Congress
Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent
President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.
One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.
“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.
A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.
The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”
Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.
The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.
The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.
“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”
Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.
He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,
Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.
Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.
House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.
“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.
Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.
Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”
Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.
Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.
“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”
Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.
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