Congress

Pelosi shivs Schumer: ‘Don’t give away anything for nothing’

Published

2 years ago

March 18, 2025

SAN FRANCISCO — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a sharp critique of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday, suggesting he had forfeited a crucial bargaining chip by allowing a vote on Republicans’ government funding bill.

“I myself don’t give away anything for nothing,” Pelosi told reporters during a news conference at a children’s hospital in San Francisco. “I think that’s what happened the other day.”

Pelosi — who spoke during an event to oppose House Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid — said she still supports Schumer, her longtime ally who’s come under fire from within his own party in recent days over his decision to allow the GOP’s bill to avert a government shutdown through last Friday.

But Pelosi, in response to a question, suggested that if Schumer hadn’t cleared the way, it would have given Democrats more leverage to fight proposed cuts to Medicaid and other social safety-net programs.

“We could have, in my view, perhaps, gotten them to agree to a third way,” Pelosi said. She said a potential outcome could have been a bipartisan continuing resolution to delay a shutdown for up to four weeks while negotiations continued.

She added, “They may not have agreed to it, but at least the public would have seen they’re not agreeing to it — and that then they would have been shutting (the) government down.”

It’s the second time in a week that Pelosi has criticized Schumer over his handling of the funding bill. On Friday, she suggested his move had played into a “false choice” that President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk had offered Congress: shutdown the government or give them a “blank check” to slash government spending.

Pelosi also praised House Democrats and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, her successor, for refusing to support Republicans’ stopgap spending measure, despite blowback from Trump’s administration and GOP leaders, who accused Democrats of risking a shutdown for political reasons.

Tensions between Schumer and Jeffries blew up last week after the Senate Democrat bucked his party’s move in the House. But the two have played nice in recent days, and Jeffries said Tuesday that he supports Schumer’s leadership.

Later Tuesday Pelosi noted her and Jeffries’ shared confidence in Schumer — and she was quick to suggest Democrats are poised to recapture the House in the midterm 2026 elections amid a “drumbeat” of protests over proposed cuts to Medicaid and other public programs.

“What happened last week was last week,” Pelosi said. “We’re going into the future.”

Congress

Elon Musk pours another $76 million into boosting Republicans

Published

11 hours ago

October 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave another $76 million to boost Republicans in the first two weeks of October, bringing his total giving this cycle to more than $442 million.

The additional funds, which Musk gave to his super PAC, America PAC, make the group one of the biggest super PACs this cycle. America PAC has already spent tens of millions of dollars on digital advertising, mailers and text messages as it targets competitive House and Senate races across the country.

Musk — the world’s wealthiest man — is by far the biggest single donor this cycle, with his political giving this year far exceeding even the roughly $290 million he spent in 2024. There is no precedent in modern American history for any donor spending as much as he has.

While the Tesla CEO and former DOGE lead has spent significantly to help Republicans, he has not been joining GOP candidates on the campaign trail this fall like he had in the past. Republicans privately acknowledged Musk could be politically toxic after the party lost a major Wisconsin judicial race in the spring of 2025 where Musk had become both the biggest funder and a campaign issue.

Still, Musk’s money has been instrumental for Republicans this fall. His earlier giving this cycle includes $158 million for Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, which was transferred to a super PAC boosting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is locked in a tight Senate race against Democrat James Talarico. Democrats have looked to make his money a campaign issue: Talarico recently responded to an attack from Musk on the Musk-owned X social media site by saying that there was “deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal U.S. Senator.”

Musk has also given to House Republicans’ super PAC arm, President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, and a group seeking to repeal Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, along with a smattering of GOP candidates.

Congress

Senate Democrats’ campaign arm takes out $15M loan

Published

12 hours ago

October 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Democrats have taken out a $15 million loan as they hope to expand their map in the final days before the midterms.

The party’s campaign arm took out the loan earlier this month, according to a report submitted Thursday to the Federal Election Commission.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spent $32 million in the first two weeks of October, with half of those funds going toward coordinated expenditures in 10 states. That includes: $4.7 million Ohio; more than $1 million in each of Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, Alaska and Maine; and additional funds in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and New Hampshire.

The committee reported just over $20 million cash on hand as of Oct. 14, according to its FEC report.

Its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, previously took out $20 million in loans in September, according to an FEC report filed earlier this week. The DSCC has slightly trailed the NRSC in fundraising for most of the cycle, but Democratic candidates have largely outraised GOP ones across the map — in some cases, several times over.

Democrats’ candidate fundraising advantage has helped offset the GOP’s massive super PAC cash advantage since candidates, and parties working with them, get better rates for broadcast ads.

It’s not unusual for party committees to take out loans late in an election cycle to power last-minute spending. In 2024, the DSCC took out $20 million in loans.

“In the face of being outspent by GOP megadonors, Senate Democrats remain in the best position yet to win the majority, after we strategically and effectively expanded the map and sent Republicans scrambling to play defense in red states everywhere,” DSCC spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement. “We will continue to use every tool at our disposal and we will win in November.”

Congress

Kevin McCarthy predicts GOP will lose House majority

Published

17 hours ago

October 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicted Republicans will lose the House in two weeks, citing historical midterm trends while also criticizing the sitting GOP leadership for how they’ve managed the chamber.

“In the last 100 years, all off-year elections, whoever is the party in power has the White House, has lost seats, and it’s only a few seats for the majority,” McCarthy said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Thursday.

Democrats, he added, will “get a majority” in the House: “I’m not quite sure how big it is, but they will probably win the majority.”

The former speaker, who ushered in the current GOP House majority in 2022 but only led the conference for less than a year before being booted from the speakership, went on to fault his own party for giving the election away.

“It’s not that the Democrats are going to win this election,” he said. “Republicans are going to lose it.”

He pointed to the skimpy House legislative calendar as a factor. Speaker Mike Johnson and his deputies have routinely canceled scheduled session days amid member revolts that have undermined his grip on the razor-thin majority.

“You’re only given 24 months in a majority to manage it. They were in the fewest amount of days. They let the Democrats dictate,” McCarthy said. “You have to give a reason why to win. What are the three things Republicans will do if they win the majority? I can’t tell you what that is.”

Still, McCarthy cautioned that if Democrats win the House, it won’t be because they have laid out their own agenda and warned that he believes that Democrats will face their own hurdles.

“Democrats are not popular. They haven’t laid out an agenda on what they’ll do,” McCarthy said. “So they’ll have a really hard time governing in the next Congress.”