Congress

Secret Service briefing fails to quiet GOP ballroom funding concerns

Published

2 months ago

May 12, 2026

The White House is ramping up its sales pitch for security funding related to President Donald Trump’s ballroom project, but the administration is struggling for now to squash skepticism among Senate Republicans.

Secret Service Director Sean Curran met with GOP senators at a closed-door lunch Tuesday and walked through a $1 billion funding request for his agency, providing a handout to GOP senators breaking down the funding.

Several lawmakers said afterward they needed more details.

“There are still a lot of questions,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said after the lunch, summing up the feelings of many of his GOP colleagues.

The document given to Senate Republicans and obtained by Blue Light News specifies that $220 million of the funding would go toward the ballroom project. That money, according to the document, would be used for “investments in the above and below ground hardening requirements of the East Wing Modernization Project,” including bulletproof glass and other security upgrades.

“Importantly, as the legislative text makes explicit, none of these funds will be used to support non-security improvements at the White House,” the document adds.

The rest of the $1 billion in funding would go toward several other priorities, including a new White House visitor screening facility, better protection for federal officials and Secret Service officer training.

The money is part of a larger immigration enforcement funding package that would provide more than $70 billion to immigration enforcement agencies. But it’s the Secret Service funding — and the portion that can go toward parts of the White House renovation project — that is creating a headache for GOP leaders as they try to quickly get the bill to President Donald Trump’s desk.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune noted that most of the $1 billion is “going to be used for other purposes — training facilities or technology, lots of other things that law enforcement … needs to ensure that they keep our president and other top officials safe.” He can lose three up GOP senators on the expected party-line vote, with Vice President JD Vance breaking a possible tie.

But so far Thune has several more than that who are saying they still have questions.

“I think they’ll probably have to come out with more detail,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a Trump ally. “Bottom line is, people want to be supportive. They want security for the president. But they want more detail.”

Kennedy said that he is drafting an amendment that would offset the Secret Service money by reducing the overall size of the reconciliation package from $72 billion to $71 billion. He brought up the idea during Tuesday’s closed-door lunch.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) indicated afterward that she still needed more details, adding that some of the requests “should have been in the president’s budget” and gone through the standard bipartisan spending process.

Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) also told reporters after the lunch that he needs more specifics from the White House.

Going into the lunch, Curtis noted that Trump has said the estimated $400 million ballroom would be privately financed: “It was one thing when private dollars were doing it. If you’re asking me for a billion dollars, I have some really hard questions.”

Congress

Mitch McConnell is still in the hospital after medical episode, his office says

Published

12 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Mitch McConnell remains hospitalized, his office said in a statement Thursday — without offering details about a recent medical episode that has renewed concern about the health of the former Republican majority leader.

McConnell “continues his recovery in the hospital” and “continues to improve,” his office said.

“Senator McConnell appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital,” the statement said. “The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.”

The statement did not explain why he was hospitalized last month.

The update comes after multiple outlets reported details of a first responder dispatch call indicating emergency medical personnel responded to McConnell’s home last month to treat an unconscious person who had experienced “cardiac arrest.”

Blue Light News has not independently verified the dispatch call.

The 84-year-old senator, who is retiring at the end of this term, has experienced multiple medical incidents in recent years. On two occasions in 2023, he froze while speaking with reporters. He has also suffered multiple falls and temporarily used a wheelchair, a move his office described at the time as a precautionary measure.

Congress

House Ethics says it doesn’t have information to share on lawmaker sexual misconduct settlements

Published

19 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House adopted a resolution Tuesday requiring the House Ethics Committee to release information on taxpayer funds used to pay out sexual misconduct settlements with lawmakers — but the committee now says it has no information it can share.

In a statement Thursday, the committee reiterated it does not manage sexual harassment lawsuits or their settlements; taxpayers have not footed the bill for those payments since 2018.

Since that time, according to the statement, “the Committee has not been notified of any awards or settlements relating to allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or other sexual misconduct by a Member.”

Instead, the bipartisan Ethics Committee said it was up to the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to publicly release a list of each member who has received settlements for sexual misconduct allegations, as mandated by the resolution championed by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

The committee, in the Thursday statement, said it “fully supports the release of information about sexual misconduct settlements and calls on OCWR to abide by [the resolution] and make publicly available information about Member sexual misconduct matters resulting in payment of taxpayer funds.”

Massie, in a text message Thursday, said “OCWR can release it.”

The OCWR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bipartisan Ethics Committee has been under pressure in recent months to show it takes allegations of sexual misconduct against colleagues seriously. Two former House members — Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) — were forced to resign earlier this year amid serious accusations against them.

The renewed reckoning has prompted new questions about whether the House is up to the task of policing its own. The resolution earlier this week was adopted nearly unanimously, with just one member, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), voting “present.”

House Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) said in an interview earlier this week that while he would support Massie’s resolution, the relevant “information was already out in the public domain.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

AOC endorses El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race

Published

22 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) endorsed Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for Michigan’s open Senate seat on Thursday, a decision that comes as progressives look to capitalize off a series of recent high-profile primary victories in New York, Colorado and elsewhere.

Her endorsement could provide El-Sayed with a critical boost just over a month before the state’s Aug. 4 primary. The former public health official is locked in a heated contest against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow for the right to take on Republican Mike Rogers in the general election.

It also comes as El-Sayed has risen to the top of the pack in recent public polling.

Virtually any Democratic path to flipping the Senate in this year’s midterms would see the party hold the open Michigan Senate seat, with two-term Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) retiring at the end of his term.

The race has emerged as perhaps the largest battleground over the ideological future of the party. El-Sayed, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2018, has collected endorsements from progressives, while Stevens has the tacit backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, with AIPAC also boosting her candidacy.

El-Sayed, Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with The New York Times, is her party’s best chance.

“Despite our ideological differences and whatever disagreements there are in the party, every single one of us sees this moment as existential,” she said. “And I think many people are willing to put aside differences in order to give us the best chance at winning. And I think that Abdul gives us that right now.”