Congress

Republicans air unease over ballroom security funding request

Published

1 month ago

May 12, 2026

President Donald Trump and his deputies have a major sales job ahead of them on Capitol Hill as multiple GOP lawmakers questioned a proposed $1 billion in Secret Service security spending that could be used at least in part for Trump’s controversial White House ballroom project.

The provision, which gives $1 billion to the Secret Service for “security adjustments and upgrades,” has threatened to overshadow what Republicans wanted to make the main focus of the package — tens of billions of dollars in new immigration enforcement funding. But the White House and many lawmakers argue the funding is necessary after the shooting at last month’s White House Correspondents Dinner.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune defended the funding’s inclusion Monday and predicted that most GOP senators will ultimately vote to support what the Secret Service says it needs.

“They have a job to do, and we want to make sure they’re able to do their job effectively so that we keep the president of the United States safe,” Thune said. “So I think most of our members are — if they are getting briefed on what the money is going to be used for — are probably going to be in a good place.”

Secret Service Director Sean Curran is expected to discuss the request at the Senate GOP’s closed-door lunch Tuesday, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose private scheduling.

GOP leaders are hoping to have the bill on the Senate floor next week, after votes in the Senate Homeland Security and Budget committees.

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has emerged as a pivotal vote, was among several Republicans who said they needed more information, with Tillis telling reporters he was “looking forward to seeing the details this week.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who chairs the Homeland Security panel, said Monday that he does not support the funding’s inclusion in the bill. He cannot act directly to strike it since the Secret Service provision is not in the portion of the bill under his committee, but he said it was a “possibility” it gets stripped out before it hits the floor.

“I’m not sure it’s anything we’ll ever vote on,” Paul said, while declining to say how he would vote if it stays in: “We’ll see if it gets to that.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who could block the funding as a member of the Budget Committee, declined to comment multiple times Monday on the decision to include White House security funding. He previously wanted to expand the scope of the party-line bill, but leaders rejected his push, arguing it needed to be focused solely on immigration enforcement.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is in a difficult reelection campaign, said “I don’t know” if the $1 billion is for the ballroom itself and wanted clarification during Tuesday’s closed-door lunch.

“Obviously, there have been three or four attempts on the president’s life, and that’s extremely serious, and we’re in a heightened era of political violence, but the ballroom itself should be paid for by private donations, as the president had indicated,” Collins said.

To get the ballroom-related language through the full Senate on party lines, as expected, Thune can lose no more than three Republicans, with Vice President JD Vance breaking a tie.

Senate Democrats are preparing to argue the provision is an impermissibly narrow “earmark” that doesn’t comply with the strict rules governing the budget reconciliation process, which is how Republicans are aiming to sidestep a Democratic filibuster. Conversations with parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough are underway as of Monday, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose the private discussions.

MacDonough’s rulings on the reconciliation process tend to be final, and if she says the provision is in compliance, Senate Democrats are expected to then force a floor vote to strip it out.

Among the Republican senators being closely watched are Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Paul, who both opposed a preliminary measure setting out the fiscal blueprint for the immigration enforcement bill. Paul said earlier this year that he would support approving the ballroom through reconciliation but warned he supported putting in only a “nominal” amount of taxpayer money for the project, which Trump has said will be privately financed.

The challenges in the House are no less daunting, with Speaker Mike Johnson working with a razor-thin vote margin. Just getting the budget blueprint approved was a grueling process that culminated in a vote that was left open for more than five hours as Johnson scrambled to resolve unrelated policy fights among Republicans.

Now a growing group of House Republicans is privately complaining to their leaders about the White House security money that can be used on the ballroom, arguing it sends a tone-deaf message as voters struggle with higher gas and grocery prices.

“It’s a bad look. It’s bad timing. It’s bad all around,” another House Republican said.

Some House GOP leaders privately doubt the measure has the votes to pass, according to four people granted anonymity to describe behind-the-scenes discussions, but they’re hoping it gets stripped out in the Senate first.

Trump has said he wants the immigration enforcement funding on his desk by June 1, and House leaders are scrambling to make that happen next week before a planned Memorial Day recess. They have already started discussing the potential need to keep the House in session for at least part of the holiday weekend.

Curran and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin have already started their sales pitch, sending a letter last week to top House and Senate Republicans laying out in broad strokes how the funding would be used.

“The $1 billion in funding included in the reconciliation bill will assist the USSS in delivering critical security upgrades at the White House to minimize threats, including the security components to the East Wing Modernization Project, in addition to other critical missions for the USSS,” they wrote.

Still, some Republicans facing tough midterm campaigns are publicly apprehensive.

“Listen, I want to see the details,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) said last week. “I want to know exactly what those dollars are going for, what are the security measures put in place … and then how they came to that figure.”

Rep. Jen Kiggans, another vulnerable Virginia House Republican, said she would not be “speculating” on the request. But, she added, “I look forward to getting back to Washington and working through that process.”

Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-Fla.), a staunch Trump ally, said in an interview Monday that he was “not going to make a decision till I know all the facts,” while voicing some support for having a secure location for the president, members of Congress and White House guests to gather.

“All I’ve seen is $1 billion dollars,” he said, adding that he might be convinced if administration officials “walk through why it’s justified.”

Calen Razor contributed to this report.

Congress

Chuck Schumer is ready for redemption

Published

4 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Chuck Schumer has served as a punching bag for angry Democrats for more than a year — taking flak on everything from his 2026 recruiting to his handling of government funding talks.

But with about five months until the midterm elections, the Senate minority leader is gently starting to punch back — pointing out how some of his bets are paying off as his party moves within striking distance of taking back the majority in November.

“There’s no victory lap to take in June,” he said in an interview in his Capitol office suite.

But he ticked through moves he oversaw in the past year — from leading opposition to GOP safety-net cuts to picking shutdown fights over health care and immigration enforcement funding and orchestrating national intervention in several Senate primaries — that he argued have strengthened Democrats’ hand for the midterms and beyond.

“We made a lot of strategic decisions that got us to this place — it didn’t happen by accident,” Schumer said. “I knew from the beginning that if we recruited strong candidates, found paths to victory, focused on the issues the American people cared about, and forced … the Republicans, to carry Trump’s water, we’d be in much better shape, and that has happened.”

Schumer’s confidence comes after an at times rocky year for the minority leader: His decision to help advance a GOP government funding bill in March 2025 fueled a wave of calls from progressive groups and House Democrats for him to step down as Senate Democratic leader. Criticism crested again after eight members of his caucus broke from Schumer to help reopen most of the government after a record shutdown in November.

Polling has shown eroding favorability and approval ratings for Schumer — even in his home state of New York, where he has been elected to the Senate five times. He’s maintained support among the Senate Democrats who elected him leader, though some have dodged the subject of his future.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), asked by Blue Light News at a recent event in Illinois if he expects Schumer to be leader next year, said that Schumer has a “really hard job” and that Democrats are focused on “making sure that we have a majority, and then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Murphy is part of a self-described “fight club” of Senate Democrats that has pushed for a more aggressive approach from Schumer and the party organs he controls. Some have broken with Schumer’s favored candidates in key Senate primaries.

But the picture has improved somewhat in recent weeks. In the recent Iowa primary, Schumer got his preferred candidate in state Rep. Josh Turek, even as some progressives backed a more liberal candidate. Polling shows a highly competitive race between Turek and the GOP nominee, Rep. Ashley Hinson.

Schumer had already helped recruit blue-chip Democrats in several key races, including Ohio, Alaska and North Carolina, where he got former Sen. Sherrod Brown, former Rep. Mary Peltola and Gov. Roy Cooper, respectively, to jump in. Texas has come up on the map for Democrats, with state Rep. James Talarico matched up with scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

And then there’s Maine — where Schumer’s backing of Gov. Janet Mills over populist insurgent Graham Platner further fueled grassroots disdain of the leader’s strategy. Mills ran a by-all-accounts lackluster campaign, which she suspended weeks before the primary.

But Schumer’s intervention has been cast in a new light by a series of revelations about Platner’s background, ranging from provocative online posts to a recent allegation that he was physically abusive to a former girlfriend — suggesting that party leaders may have had good reason to go with a known quantity in their latest bid to knock off veteran GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

In the interview Thursday, Schumer deflected questions about Platner, instead saying that Democrats are “going to beat Susan Collins, and we’re going to win Maine and we’re going to take back the Senate.”

He was glad to comment more broadly, however, on the change in Democrats’ political fortunes since early 2025, when Trump had just been sworn in to his second term and voter dissatisfaction with the Democratic leadership in Washington began to crescendo.

“The bottom line is, that’s my job — to help strategize the best way to go, and then unify the caucus, and I think that’s what’s happened,” he said.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said in an interview that he believed conversations over Schumer’s leadership have changed since that moment after the March 2025 funding fold.

“Chuck by just virtually any objective measure – super successful majority leader in terms of legislation passed. And I think it took us all a while, including him, to [be] like, ‘We’re in the minority now,’” Kaine said. “You have different tools. … But I think he made the mental switch and has really narrowed down and focused on what kind of our case is to the American public.”

While Democrats have momentum, winning back the majority isn’t a sure bet and will require their candidates to run the table in several Trump-won states. Republicans entered the cycle with a structural advantage, having to defend relatively few competitive seats, and GOP senators believe they will still be in power come January.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters recently that he was “very confident” that Republicans “will hang on to and maybe even expand the majority in the United States Senate, which is counter, I know, to sort of the narrative these days.”

But Democrats are feeling increasingly optimistic. Kaine said at the start of 2025, he would have pegged the odds of a Democratic takeover of the Senate at 20 percent. He said he is at “45 percent now, with the arc going in the right direction.”

Democrats have long viewed their path back to the majority in 2026 as running through four states: Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska. Schumer said he believes Democrats now have “other paths,” pointing to Iowa and Texas.

But they also need to hold onto seats in Georgia, where incumbent Jon Ossoff is running a strong campaign, and in Michigan, where the picture is more unsettled and illustrative of the challenges Schumer continues to face.

National party operatives fear an unabashedly progressive candidate, Abdul el-Sayed, could emerge from a messy three-way primary and complicate Democrats’ chances at keeping retiring Sen. Gary Peters’ seat in November.

In what many interpreted as an attempt to winnow the field and box out el-Sayed, Schumer voiced this week what had been a not-very-well-kept secret — he’d prefer Rep. Haley Stevens, telling Punchbowl News “she has the best chance to win.”

But the third leading candidate, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow saw an opportunity Thursday — attacking Schumer.

“Michiganders are sick and tired of the party putting their fingers on the scales,” she said in a social media video attacking Stevens and her national backers. “Schumer doesn’t decide — you do.”

Asked if he thought Democrats would keep Michigan no matter who emerged from the primary, Schumer instead said “we’re going to have a strong nominee who is a good fit.” And he defended his approach to recruitment and support in key races.

“We found great candidates,” Schumer said, lobbing a veiled retort at critics of his strategy. “I don’t look for candidates that fit the national Democratic Party profile.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

Congress

Rick Scott lifts holds on Coast Guard promotions

Published

10 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rick Scott said Thursday he had lifted his hold on Coast Guard promotions as he works to resolve a dispute between the service branch and a shipbuilder in his state.

The Florida Republican said in a statement that he cares “deeply about these Coast Guard promotions” and that “though we’re still not done, I’m lifting these holds as all parties have been working together in good faith and are moving towards an amenable agreement that gets ships built and is fair to US taxpayers.”

Scott added that “the process still needs to be better” and that he would “fight to ensure there is more oversight and accountability of the Coast Guard and that we fix the Coast Guard procurement process going forward.”

Scott initially placed the hold in April on the elevation of officers within the service, preventing the Senate from approving promotions via unanimous consent.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in 2025 scrapped plans for two advanced cutters being manufactured at Panama City-based Eastern Shipbuilding Group. The shipyard announced in November it would stop work on the two remaining boats “due to significant financial strain caused by the program’s structure and conditions.”

Scott had been a longtime booster of the partnership between Eastern and the Coast Guard and said in April he had been working with the administration to resolve the dispute but was struggling to get traction.

While the Senate could have held roll-call votes to sidestep Scott’s blockage, service officer promotions are usually noncontroversial and leaders rarely choose to expend valuable and finite floor time to advance them if there is not unanimous consent.

Congress

Senate panel approves Department of War name change

Published

11 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted this week to formally change the Pentagon’s name to the Department of War, moving a significant step closer to solidifying President Donald Trump’s rebrand of the Defense Department as permanent.

The move came during the committee’s closed-door deliberations over its defense policy bill, according to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who announced the name change in explaining his vote against the legislation.

“It’s a juvenile move that sadly describes the reality of a president who has abandoned meaningful diplomacy in favor of starting doubtful wars in multiple locations and threatening even more,” he said in a statement.

Trump authorized the War Department moniker last year as part of a broader effort to present a more aggressive military to the world. The Pentagon has used it since, as have many Republicans on Capitol Hill.

But Congress must sign off for the name change to stick — and votes on both sides of the Capitol make it closer than ever to becoming a reality.

Details of the Armed Services vote, including who pushed for the change, were not immediately public. The committee voted 18-9 to advance the bill Wednesday evening and released initial details of the legislation Thursday.

The House Armed Services Committee approved the rebranding last week in its draft of the annual authorization legislation. The measure was adopted there in a narrow, party-line vote.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth quickly praised the decision. “The Department of War will officially be restored soon,” he wrote in a social media post after the House panel’s vote.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a full renaming of the department could cost as much as $125 million. But supporters have argued changing the name would more accurately reflect the focus and strength of the department, sending a message to potential adversaries.

The name change’s inclusion in both the House and Senate panel’s drafts of the authorization bill — which has passed Congress annually for the last six decades — signals that the rebrand has a strong chance of becoming law.