Congress

Republicans hope Trump retreats on Pulte to save spy law

Published

2 months ago

June 9, 2026

The Trump administration and congressional Democrats are locked in a high-stakes stalemate that’s dramatically increasing the likelihood that a major government surveillance program will expire.

Democrats have coalesced behind an ultimatum: They won’t support a reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as long as Bill Pulte, an ally of President Donald Trump with no national security experience, remains acting director of national intelligence. The White House is standing by Pulte, at least publicly, while accusing Democrats of holding the spy power “hostage” and putting the country’s “national security at risk.”

Congressional Republicans are largely leaving it to the administration to figure out a path forward after Trump’s decision to tap Pulte as Tulsi Gabbard’s temporary successor derailed an earlier agreement to extend the key spy authority for three years.

But they are also nudging the administration to pick a different nominee to fill the role in a permanent capacity. Pulte is among the subjects Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to discuss with Trump at the White House Tuesday, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose plans for the private meeting.

Unless Trump moves quickly — or one side blinks — lawmakers, aides and the administration are preparing to barrel past the June 12 deadline without an extension.

“I’d like to be involved in the middle of it, but I think it’s strictly — the way things are going — between the Democrats and the White House. It’s all got everything to do with Pulte,” Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in an interview Monday.

Asked if Pulte should be dropped, Grassley told reporters that he is “temporary” and “the sooner the president gets somebody nominated, the sooner we’re going to be able to get 702 through.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune added Monday that the administration “at some point is going to have to come up with a nominee … that will be viewed by at least enough Democrats as sufficient to get their support” for reauthorizing the surveillance law.

The law allows spy agencies to target foreigners overseas, but critics of both parties believe it currently lacks sufficient guardrails to prevent U.S. citizens from being spied on, too. That has made reauthorization a complicated endeavor even before Pulte became a factor.

“I’m familiar with some of the conversations that are happening around that,” Thune said when asked about whether Pulte should go. “I think I’ll let the White House speak to whatever the next plan might be there, but we can’t pass this on the floor without Democrats.”

Trump is interviewing potential nominees to permanently fill the director of national intelligence role, according to a Republican lawmaker and a GOP congressional aide, both of whom were granted anonymity to disclose private conversations. But there’s no guarantee that the president will move quickly, and Republicans said Monday they didn’t know if he would make a decision before Friday’s reauthorization deadline.

Because of a quirk in the statute underlying Section 702, the Trump administration would still be able to operate the program for several more months if it lapses. At least some tech providers could mount legal challenges to the program if it expires, however, which national security officials fear could temporarily limit visibility into surveillance targets under the law.

Behind the scenes, national security lawyers in the Trump administration are already working on contingency plans to backfill any gap in foreign intelligence collection, said one GOP congressional aide granted anonymity to speak candidly.

The administration is also having conversations with congressional Democrats and their staff, according to two other people granted anonymity to disclose private conversations. As part of those discussions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe have spoken directly to Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to one of the people.

Asked about talks with the administration, Warner declined to go into details but said that “we all know the time on the clock” and that “we want a path to get this done.” A spokesperson for Warner declined to comment Monday.

Spokespeople for the CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment about ongoing conversations with Warner. And the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on conversations with Democrats or Warner specifically.

But White House spokesperson Davis Ingle defended Pulte in a statement Monday issued in response to questions about Pulte’s future and the prospects for a permanent nominee.

“Bill Pulte is a great selection and he will do a great job on behalf of the American people,” Ingle said. “Holding FISA hostage puts America’s national security at risk and it is shameful that some Democrats are threatening to put partisan politics ahead of the safety of the American people.”

Senate Democrats blocked a procedural vote Friday that would have paved the way for a three-year extension of the expiring spy power with some new transparency language and other policy changes. Seven Senate Republicans also voted against advancing the agreement, which was hashed out between Grassley and Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in coordination with Warner.

The administration will need roughly 15 Democrats, by Warner’s estimate, to get a yearslong reauthorization of Section 702 through the Senate. Congress has already punted the surveillance deadline twice since mid-April, but aides are skeptical that a bipartisan coalition of privacy hawks, who want more sweeping guardrails on the program, will agree this time to another short-term extension.

“I don’t know if there’s going to be an appetite for doing another extension or for what length,” Thune said Monday.

Johnson vowed Monday that Congress would not let the surveillance program expire. But he, too, is likely to need Democratic support given the narrow House GOP majority and the opposition in the Republican ranks.

As in the Senate, top House Democrats are warning not to count on their votes if the administration doesn’t reverse course on Pulte.

“The negotiations prior to Trump’s announcement with respect to Bill Pulte were already in a very sensitive place, and then Donald Trump, as he often does, tosses a hand grenade,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Monday.

Asked if he would let the spy authority expire, Jeffries added that there are “ongoing conversations” led by Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. He added, though, that Pulte — whom he called a “political hack” and a “malignant clown” — should first be removed from the acting position.

Himes, who has defended the Section 702 program, said he had one conversation with the White House after Trump placed Pulte in the acting role. He warned that Republicans should not expect under the circumstances to win the 42 House Democratic votes that a prior short-term extension won earlier this year.

“It’s a total mess,” Himes said. “Very sadly, I think we’re going to test this untested question about whether the program can run on a judicial certification alone.”

Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.

Congress

SLF launches $17 million ad campaign in North Carolina

Published

6 minutes ago

July 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate’s top GOP super PAC is launching a $17 million summer ad campaign in North Carolina — its largest reservation anywhere in the country so far this cycle, underscoring the state’s importance to Republicans’ hopes of defending their Senate majority.

The investment, shared first with Blue Light News, is the first tranche of Senate Leadership Fund’s previously announced plan to spend $71 million in North Carolina this year. It comes as early public polling shows Democrat Roy Cooper, the state’s popular former governor, with a lead over GOP nominee Michael Whatley, the former RNC chair.

Cooper, a fixture of North Carolina politics, has a higher name ID and a larger campaign war chest than Whatley. But Republicans have long argued — and even some Democrats fear — that the contest will tighten considerably once outside money starts pouring in.

The SLF ad buy signals the beginning of more national resources to come. A person familiar with SLF’s plans in North Carolina, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the investment reflects the party’s growing confidence that a sustained advertising blitz will expose vulnerabilities in Cooper’s record.

Just days earlier, their Democratic rival, Senate Majority PAC, announced $11 million in ad reservations in the state, increasing the reservation to $42.5 million in what could become one of the most expensive races of the cycle.

The SLF ad, which will air across broadcast, cable and streaming, centers on Cooper’s record on crime, an issue that is quickly becoming Republicans’ biggest line of attack in the race. The 30-second spot slams Cooper over early prison releases during his time as governor, arguing that some of those prisoners later committed additional violent crimes. Along with the ad, SLF launched a website, “40YearsIsEnough.com,” which also criticizes Cooper’s record on crime.

Cooper’s campaign has already tried to neutralize the crime attacks: They released an ad last month highlighting the Democrat’s public safety record as governor and attorney general.

Congress

Rand Paul’s about to get his chance to settle his feud with Anthony Fauci

Published

12 hours ago

July 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rand Paul’s said Anthony Fauci belongs in prison. The Kentucky Republican will get his chance to make the case Wednesday when the former Covid czar is slated to appear under subpoena before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that Paul chairs.

Paul reiterated his objective on X Monday, saying the pardon President Joe Biden gave Fauci — Biden said to shield him from a vindictive Trump administration prosecution — would not protect Fauci if he lies to Congress.

The two have a feud dating to the pandemic, when Paul accused Fauci of lying to Congress about funding risky research in China that Paul believes unleashed Covid-19. Fauci responded to Paul by accusing him of lying. Now 85, Fauci retired from federal service at the end of 2022.

In April, a federal grand jury indicted Fauci’s former senior adviser, David Morens, on three felony charges for allegedly circumventing federal public records laws by concealing Covid-related communications. Federal agents arrested Morens at his home in Maryland, reportedly putting him in handcuffs and making him disrobe.

Paul’s goals go beyond incriminating Fauci. He also wants to show that Fauci funded risky virus research in China.

“The goal is the truth,” Paul told reporters on Monday about Fauci. “I’d like to hear him say he’s sorry.”

The origin of Covid remains a fraught debate, with no scientific consensus on whether it was a lab accident or whether an animal infected a human. But most Republicans and President Donald Trump have embraced the lab leak theory.

Fauci has rejected Paul’s accusations and defended himself vigorously, including in some of the five previous hearings in which they’ve faced off.

He declined to comment.

The debate over Fauci’s legacy has long broken on party lines, and Democrats are expected to defend him against GOP attacks on Wednesday.

“They got a longstanding vendetta against Fauci. He seems to be almost obsessed,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee member, said of Paul on Monday.

Both Paul and Democrats on the committee have supported stricter oversight of gain-of-function research, which aims to make viruses more virulent or more transmissible in order to devise defenses against them. The panel has twice approved Paul’s Risky Research Review Act, which would take funding decisions away from Fauci’s old agency, the National Institutes of Health, and give them to a new Life Sciences Research Security Board appointed by the president. The White House also released Tuesday a new policy stopping high-risk biological research.

Congress

Big Ten, SEC are on the clock as new college athletics bill is circulated

Published

12 hours ago

July 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee are making changes to their big college sports overhaul in a bid to garner support from the nation’s two most powerful athletic conferences as they look to build Republican support ahead of a potential vote on the Senate floor.

Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member, made several concessions to the Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences in the latest draft of their Protect College Sports Act. They include protections against certain legal challenges and a new $20 million pool of funds that schools can use for retaining athletes, according to three people close to the negotiations.

It’s unclear whether the changes will be good enough to win over the two conferences. A senior Commerce Committee staffer asked the conferences to schedule a call with their general counsels and staff “ASAP” to discuss the text and gave them a 9 a.m. Wednesday deadline to decide whether they support the latest version of the bill, according to an email reviewed by Blue Light News.

Two lobbyists directly engaged on the bill said Tuesday that weeks of negotiations had not meaningfully addressed a litany of concerns the SEC and the Big Ten had with earlier versions of the bill.

The conferences demanded, for instance, that a provision allowing universities to jointly negotiate their media rights make clear that schools cannot be coerced into participating. The updated text includes a provision shielding schools who do not participate in media pooling from potential litigation, according to a copy of the draft obtained by Blue Light News.

The bill, however, leaves out another key demand of the conferences: a provision clarifying that postseason tournaments and contests would be excluded from media pooling.

It also retains a prohibition on conferences with over $700 million in revenue participating in mergers and acquisitions, which would impact both power conferences along with the Atlantic Coast Conference. That threshold was brought down from an earlier $1 billion limit, but the SEC and the Big Ten had hoped to see it stripped from the bill altogether.

The new text also includes a newly added section titled the “Ignite HBCUs Sports and Media Act.”

That section, which is still in flux, deals with “extraneous topics of broadband,” per the email sent to the conferences on Tuesday. The $20 million athlete retention pool also remains subject to change “as we discuss how to align the proper incentive for spending on women’s NIL,” according to the email.

Cruz remains determined to get the bill onto the floor before the Senate heads out of town for a scheduled recess next week. But time is running short, and he and Cantwell still need to win over wary senators on both sides of the aisle.