Congress

Senate Republicans clear go-it-alone path for ICE funding

Published

2 months ago

April 23, 2026

Senate Republicans green-lit their party-line plan early Thursday morning to send tens of billions of dollars to immigration enforcement agencies in the coming years.

Senators voted 50-48 to adopt a budget blueprint for legislation that could fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and other agencies for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term. The vote was almost entirely on party lines, with GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska the only lawmakers to break ranks.

The vote just after 3:30 a.m. completed the first step in the GOP’s plan to approve roughly $70 billion in additional funding without help from Democrats, who have refused to fund the immigration agencies without a slate of new restrictions on how they operate.

“Our Democratic colleagues have refused to provide funding for the Border Patrol and ICE,” Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said ahead of the Senate’s late-night session. “This needs to be done.”

As part of an hours-long overnight marathon of amendment votes, Republicans rejected Democratic attempts to broaden the budget framework to fund school meals, increase federal spending on child care and reverse cuts to SNAP food benefits Republicans enacted last summer in their tax-cuts-focused megabill.

“Republicans could easily do this, but they’d rather spend our tax dollars on lawless immigration enforcement and illegal wars,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said on the Senate floor after offering the school meals amendment. “Budgets are about priorities.”

The resolution still needs to clear the House, where some GOP lawmakers, including Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, are still dreaming of expanding the scope of the budget resolution to squeeze in other party priorities before the end of the year.

“If they feel like there’s only one chance, they’re going to want more,” the Texas conservative said in an interview Wednesday. “I have an equal number of people saying, ‘you know, do you really think we’re going to get a third? Should we go ahead and just load it up with more reforms?’”

Any changes to the budget resolution would punt it back to the Senate, eating up floor time and forcing more amendment votes — something Majority Leader John Thune and other Republicans are eager to avoid. Thune is intent on keeping the budget resolution narrow, believing that gives them their best opportunity to quickly send a bill to Trump before the June 1 deadline he set.

During the overnight voting spree, the Senate rejected Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-La.) proposal to add pieces of the SAVE America Act elections bill to the immigration enforcement bill. Four Republican senators voted to reject the plan: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Besides the fact that Kennedy’s proposal would expand the scope of the legislation GOP leaders want to keep narrow, many lawmakers in both parties also believe elections policy would not be allowed under the strict rules of the filibuster-skirting process that can only be used to clear policy with a direct impact on the federal budget.

“Some say it can’t be done,” Kennedy said. “They may be right. But do you know what else? They can’t predict the future.”

Once the budget resolution is adopted in both chambers, congressional committees will proceed to write legislation to actually deliver the funding it sketches out.

House GOP leaders are planning for now to stick with the narrow budget blueprint. Thune and Graham got a boost Wednesday from Trump, who praised the two and urged Republican senators to stay united and reject any potential amendments.

“Republicans must stick together and UNIFY to get this done, and to keep America safe — something which the Democrats don’t care about,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The overnight “vote-a-rama” is a feature of the party-line budget reconciliation process Republicans are using to skirt a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. It does allow Senate Democrats to force amendment votes on virtually anything they want, and party leaders were keen to put Republicans on the record on cost-of-living issues, including health care, housing and the cost of electricity as they sharpen their midterm focus on affordability.

“Republicans are choosing to spend time and taxpayer dollars funding agencies that are already funded instead of lowering costs for the American people,” Schumer said Wednesday ahead of the marathon voting session.

Several Republicans voted in support of some of the Democrat-led amendments.

Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Collins supported proposals aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs and preventing insurance companies from denying or delaying necessary health care. Collins and Sullivan voted in favor of Democratic amendments to reverse cuts to SNAP food aid, limit out-of-pocket health care costs and fund school meals.

Republican Sens. Ashley Moody of Florida, Murkowski and Collins also voted for an amendment aimed at forcing the Trump administration to spend FEMA funding on public assistance and disaster mitigation programs.

Congress

Bill Gates denied association with Epstein’s crimes in closed-door Hill interview

Published

1 hour ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Tech mogul Bill Gates told the House Oversight Committee he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s prior sex crime conviction but that he did not know Epstein was continuing to engage in misconduct at the time of their acquaintance, according to a transcript of his testimony.

In his transcribed interview with the panel earlier this month as part of its ongoing Epstein investigation, Gates recounted details of his dealings with Epstein over the years — which extended from 2011, when he was first introduced to Epstein, to 2014, when he realized Epstein would not make good on his promise to steer donors towards Gates’ philanthropic work.

“I was aware that he had a criminal conviction,” Gates said, according to the transcript. “I knew that it was of a sexual nature, but, no, I don’t think I … dug into the specifics, although I probably should have.”

Gates’ decision to shrug off the conviction from 2008 underscored the extent to which many of those who chose to associate with the disgraced financier opted to ignore potential warning signs of impropriety. It was not until more than a decade after his first brush with law enforcement that Epstein was arrested on federal sex crimes charges; he died by suicide in jail in 2019 while his case was pending.

Gates’ relationship with Epstein has drawn new scrutiny since materials released by the Justice Department revealed new details about their relationship. In one draft correspondence contained in the so-called Epstein files, Epstein appears to have written and sent to himself a letter to Gates, where he alleged that Gates asked Epstein to “delete the emails regarding [his] std” and give him antibiotics to “surreptitiously give to Melinda [French Gates].”

Gates has denied that allegation and, during his interview with the Oversight Committee, Gates questioned whether Epstein was attempting to blackmail him.

“Now that I see the January release of documents, it appears that in many cases he, at least in emails to himself, was sort of rehearsing how either he or he coaching someone else might choose to blackmail me, but none of those messages were ever sent to me,” Gates said. “You know, I never paid Jeffrey Epstein anything.”

He also said that Epstein “certainly wasn’t a friend,” and insisted he never engaged in sexual conduct or received massages from individuals introduced to him by Epstein. And despite knowledge of his 2008 conviction, Gates said he was unaware at the time of their relationship that Epstein was a registered sex offender. He also said he never visited Epstein’s island.

The Oversight Committee also on Tuesday released a transcript of its June interview with Lesley Groff, one of Epstein’s former assistants who was among those named as a potential co-conspirator as part of Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement in 2007. She was never charged with any wrongdoing and, according to the transcript, recalled that law enforcement’s decision came as a surprise.

“I am not a conspirator, and I never would have agreed to this language,” she said, according to the transcript. “Their unilateral decision to label me as a potential conspirator remains my scarlet letter.”

Like others who have come before the panel, Groff claimed she was unaware of his crimes during the time of her employment and that Epstein, following his 2008 conviction, said that he was “set up.” Groff said she believed him, so she continued to work for him.

“I also saw the same VIPs continue to surround Epstein after his conviction,” she explained as a rationale for maintaining her own ties.

For instance, Groff told the Oversight Committee she “would connect phone calls” between President Donald Trump and Epstein multiple times a year.

Trump has not been charged with any wrongdoing tied to Epstein, but his relationship with the financier has raised eyebrows while fueling speculation that the administration has been working to cover up its connections — including by pushing back against making the Epstein files public last year and then slow-walking their release.

The Justice Department has defended its handling of the files’ release, and Trump has maintained he broke off his relationship with Epstein years before his death.

Congress

Senate votes to halt Iran war despite Trump’s push for peace deal

Published

3 hours ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate on Tuesday voted to cut off the U.S. military campaign against Iran, handing a fresh loss to President Donald Trump despite his attempts to convince lawmakers and the public that a deal to end the war is at hand.

Four Republicans broke ranks to help approve a resolution to block further military action unless it is green-lighted by Congress.

The war powers measure is largely symbolic — the resolution cleared Tuesday doesn’t go to the president to sign or veto. But the bipartisan 50-48 vote is a damaging milestone for the Trump administration: Both the Senate and House have now weighed in against the Middle East conflict that’s stretched on for more than 100 days. The same measure passed the House in early June after months of close calls.

Congress

Housing bill threatened in GOP elections-bill spat

Published

4 hours ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The long-anticipated bipartisan housing bill is under threat from a Florida Republican who threatened to “shut the floor down” if House GOP leaders move forward with passing it Tuesday.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said Republicans instead need to prioritize passage of the SAVE America Act, the GOP elections bill that has been stuck in the Senate for months. Speaker Mike Johnson has scheduled a Tuesday evening vote on the housing bill in hopes of sending it to President Donald Trump for a planned Wednesday signing at the White House.

Luna posted her threat on social media Tuesday afternoon and later specified in an interview that she would oppose procedural measures teeing up GOP-backed legislation going forward if party leaders didn’t abandon their plans to hold the housing bill vote via special fast-track procedures that would effectively sideline Republican hard-liners.

Luna cannot single-handedly block those procedural votes, but she said there is “a group” of lawmakers who would join her. She separately called on Trump to veto the housing bill in a bid to force the SAVE America Act to be added to it.

Johnson plans for now to proceed with the Tuesday evening vote on the housing bill, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. If Luna and her unnamed allies follow through with their threats, they could derail a pair of appropriations bills set for House consideration this week and potentially freeze the floor indefinitely given the GOP’s razor-thin majority.

“I have been telling them,” Luna said of her complaints to GOP leaders.