Congress

Pressure builds on Congress as DHS shutdown threatens to drag into April

Published

6 months ago

March 23, 2026

The shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security is at risk of shattering the record for the longest-ever funding lapse for any federal agency if President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats can’t strike a deal this week.

Lawmakers are scheduled to take a two-week recess for Passover and Easter starting Friday. While the Senate is considering staying in session if the shutdown is not resolved, House GOP leaders do not plan to cut their break short in hopes of reaching an accord, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss private planning.

“It’s going to be very, very hard to explain if we leave town this next week without having funded” DHS, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters over the weekend.

Trump threw a curveball into the rekindled talks Sunday night when he declared on Truth Social he would not back any deal unless it includes the GOP’s partisan elections bill, the SAVE America Act. Senators, Trump said, should “lump everything together as one, and VOTE!!!”

“Kill the Filibuster, and stay in D.C. for Easter, if necessary,” he wrote.

The House and Senate are not scheduled to return to business until the week of April 13, when the DHS shutdown would hit Day 60 — significantly exceeding the 43-day record set last fall for the longest federal funding lapse in U.S. history.

The threat of a two-month shutdown — and evidence of lengthening TSA lines at U.S. airports as security officers refuse to work without pay — has spurred an uptick in what had been completely stalled negotiations.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers met twice in the Capitol late last week with Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan. Negotiators continued to talk over the weekend, after the White House laid out an expanded offer Friday that included changes to DHS immigration enforcement tactics — the crux of the shutdown fight.

“We’ll see if they can land something,” Thune said in an interview Sunday before Trump delivered his ultimatum. “The clock’s ticking. If we’re going to get this done, we’ve got to get moving pretty quickly here.”

With the urgency to clinch a bipartisan agreement increasing, the White House has sought to engage some of the Democrats who helped negotiate a solution to the broader government funding lapse that ended in November. That includes New Hampshire Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, along with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

Those senators were among the bipartisan group of lawmakers who met in person with Homan last week, along with Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator.

“I can tell you that Democrats are really united, and we are talking to the White House and telling them what our demands are,” Murray told reporters Sunday afternoon. “I don’t know how you define progress. That is really up to the White House, whether they’re willing to move forward on this or not.”

Republican negotiators voiced frustration over the weekend that Democrats hadn’t responded to the updated offer the Trump administration delivered Friday night.

“I would have hoped we could continue to build on the momentum, positive momentum, that I felt like we had at the meeting Friday,” Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), chair of the DHS funding panel, said in an interview Sunday. “I’m clearly disappointed.”

Britt noted that the meetings with Homan last week marked the first in-person DHS negotiations between Democratic lawmakers, their Republican counterparts and a delegate from the White House since the talks began almost two months ago.

“The American people need us to get in the room,” Britt said. “And we have to be expeditious about this.”

Democrats on both sides of the Capitol have pressed Republicans multiple times to take up their bills that would fund all of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the secretary’s office.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Saturday on the Senate floor that negotiators are having “productive conversations,” but Congress should fund TSA in the meantime

“Let’s keep negotiating the outstanding issues with ICE while sending paychecks to TSA workers now,” he added.

But Republicans continue to object to votes on those proposals, saying the entire department needs to be funded. The House has twice passed DHS funding legislation, but Senate Democrats have repeatedly voted against advancing an all-DHS funding bill — most recently on Friday.

Increasingly, Republicans are highlighting the irony that the funding lapse barely affects the agencies Democrats are trying to reign in, since ICE and CBP received about $140 billion from the tax and spending law Republicans enacted along party lines last summer.

“They’re trying to please their base,” Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer, a Republican appropriator, said about Democrats in an interview. “But I would hope their base is smart enough to know that ICE and Border Patrol are already funded.”

Instead, the shutdown is causing the most disruption at agencies like TSA, where more than 300 airport security screeners have quit since funding lapsed more than five weeks ago. As the workforce goes without pay, TSA callouts also tipped over 10 percent multiple days last week, leading to long lines and travel disruptions at airports across the country.

Starting Monday, the Trump administration plans to detail ICE agents to U.S. airports to do jobs like guarding exits, allowing TSA agents to focus on screening passengers and baggage.

“We ought to fund TSA now,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who requested a vote last week on legislation to fund all of DHS except the immigration enforcement agencies. “But I don’t know why the Republicans insist on holding federal workers hostage, holding TSA workers hostage, so that they can have an unaccountable paramilitary force on our streets.”

Senate Republican leaders are still waiting to make the call on whether to delay or cancel the chamber’s two-week recess. They’re typically reluctant to send lawmakers home during a crisis that requires legislative action.

In contrast, under Speaker Mike Johnson, House Republican leaders have repeatedly resisted pressure to reconvene the House to consider critical legislation while lawmakers are back home during a congressional recess. They argue it’s up to Senate Democrats to cut a DHS deal with the White House.

“We’ll see,” Thune told reporters on Sunday about canceling recess. “We’ll kind of see how the rest of the week plays out.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

House passes Russia sanctions bill, handing Trump more leverage against Moscow

Published

21 minutes ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House passed the sweeping Russia sanctions bill long championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday, sending the legislation to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature after more than a year of congressional maneuvering.

The 262 to 159 vote ends a nearly two-year lull in Ukraine assistance from Congress, which had not passed any major Ukraine efforts since a 2024 emergency aid package. The bill faced a number of obstacles on the path to the Resolute Desk, including significant opposition from some House Democrats who argued that the bill would give the White House too much tariff power.

After weathering a number of storms to make it out of Capitol Hill, the legislation is all but guaranteed to get Trump’s signature.

The long-anticipated legislation issues mandatory sanctions on Russia’s leadership and energy sector — as well as new sanctions on collaborators in Moscow’s defense industry and its so-called shadow fleet. Advocates of the bill, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have argued it would give the White House necessary tools to squeeze Russia economically, curbing the flow of funds to Moscow’s war machine.

But, to many Democrats’ dismay, the legislation also includes a 100% tariff on top buyers of Russian energy. Opponents of the bill have cautioned that the tariff provision would hand another cudgel for Trump to use against not only U.S. foes but also global allies — an action the White House has repeatedly taken since Trump returned to office.

“We cannot grant more tariff power that we know he will abuse,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said in comments on the House floor Wednesday.

Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that the tariffs would worsen the economic pain already felt by everyday Americans and that without a security assistance package or more air defense, they would not do enough to concretely help Ukraine.

In comments on the House floor earlier Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries outlined why he planned to withhold support for the measure.

“The manner in which this bill has been written doesn’t require the president of the United States to impose sanctions on Russia,” Jeffries said. “In fact, there are so many loopholes written into the bill, I believe, that it’s very unlikely that the sanctions relief contemplated in the legislation will ever see the light of day.”

That disagreement has caused a growing rift among Democrats in recent days. Fifty-eight House Democrats broke with Jeffries to vote yes on the measure.

In a letter addressed to House Democrats, Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) urged her colleagues to pass the legislation, warning that failing to do so would send a dangerous message to both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other international foes.

“Congress’s failure to impose additional costs would send a dangerous signal,” Shaheen wrote. “The Kremlin is watching. Kyiv is watching. Our NATO allies are watching. So are Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang.”

Congress

Rand Paul kills Kennedy’s AI ‘kill switch’ bill

Published

1 hour ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rand Paul blocked an attempt by fellow Republican Sen. John Kennedy to quickly pass legislation that would require companies to build a “kill switch” into their artificial intelligence model.

Kennedy, of Louisiana, went to the Senate floor Wednesday to try to pass his bill without holding a formal vote — a step that can be prevented by any one of his 99 colleagues. He argued that the measure was effectively a short-term step, with Congress unlikely to pass more sweeping AI legislation in the immediate future even amid fears that technological advancements could spiral out of human control.

“We are not going to get up off our ice-cold lazy butts and address this anytime soon,” Kennedy said about Congress’ inability to pass a more comprehensive bill. “But still we’ve got this risk out there that we know is real of one of these models becoming the Terminator.”

Paul, however, blocked Kennedy’s request to pass the bill through a unanimous consent agreement, saying from the Senate floor, “I think we should have as many facts as possible before we dictate rules for the whole economy.”

“I don’t oppose the spirit of this bill but I do ask that we make sure that we have all the information,” the Kentucky lawmaker added.

Paul tried to amend Kennedy’s bill to establish a group that could make recommendations on AI guardrail policies to the Senate Commerce Committee. Kennedy rejected that suggestion.

“My mama didn’t raise a fool,” he said, adding, “a committee is a way to kill this.”

Kennedy’s push for a vote comes after he told reporters Monday that he intended to roll out legislation and attempt to pass it this week, even while he acknowledged that he didn’t yet have any formal buy-in from his colleagues. He also appeared to know by earlier in the day Wednesday that he was running into a roadblock, saying in an interview that he expected Paul to offer a counterproposal.

Congress

House votes to hold Leon Black in contempt of Congress

Published

4 hours ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House voted Wednesday by unanimous consent to hold billionaire investor Leon Black in contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with two congressional subpoenas sought by the Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein.

The matter is now in the hands of the Justice Department, which will determine whether to ultimately bring charges against Black. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It marks the first time a witness has been held in contempt over the course of the Oversight panel’s yearlong probe into Epstein and the web of powerful people who enabled his abuse for years before his conviction on sex trafficking charges.

“This vote is an important step towards justice and accountability,” said the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Robert Garcia of California. “Leon Black has continued to defy two congressional subpoenas and we need to know why he gave Jeffrey Epstein $180 million dollars. We will continue to center the survivors in our fight to hold those responsible for these horrific crimes. We are just getting started.”

Black, according to the Oversight Committee, had a close personal relationship with Epstein for years as well as financial connections, with Black paying Epstein over $158 million. He was brought in for a transcribed interview with the panel members in June but refused to turn over certain nondisclosure agreements he entered into with women tied back to Epstein, resulting in subpoenas to compel their release.

Black has refused to comply with the demand, instead choosing to sue the Oversight Committee on allegations the leaders overstepped their authority in making their demands. It did not stop the committee from moving forward with contempt proceedings, voting Tuesday to recommend the full House take action.

“As a result of his extensive dealings with Epstein, Mr. Black possesses firsthand information regarding the activities of Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell and their efforts to establish relationships and curry favor with influential individuals while engaged in sex trafficking,” the panel said in its contempt resolution.

Susan Estrich and Aaron Cutler, Black’s attorneys, in a statement called the action against Black “politically motivated and completely retaliatory by a Chairman who is focused solely on himself and his own political ambitions without any regard for the truth and the law.”

“We intend to pursue our litigation challenging this action and will hold the Committee and Chairman [James] Comer [R-Ky.] accountable in the courts,” the lawyers added.

Comer, in a statement, said, “no one is above the law. Leon Black defied two subpoenas, and the U.S. House of Representatives acted swiftly to find him in contempt of Congress. We will continue to seek transparency for the American people and justice for survivors in our investigation of the federal government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein and [co-conspirator] Ghislaine Maxwell criminal cases.”