Congress
Senators will ‘insist on offsets’ in reconciliation bill, Ron Johnson says
The incoming chair of the Senate Budget Committee said he expects a fight over paying for a new party-line spending bill as House Republicans move forward with a plan that does not offset $95 billion in proposed spending with cuts elsewhere.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is expected to soon inherit the Budget gavel from the late Sen. Lindsey Graham — and with it a key role in managing the budget reconciliation process Republicans intend to use to sidestep Democratic opposition to their latest legislative proposals.
Johnson noted in an interview Wednesday that he has long been one of the Senate’s foremost deficit hawks and “I’ve got other members on the committee that also insist on offsets.”
“That’s the reality that I’ll have to deal with as chairman,” Johnson said. “You know, [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune’s going to have to deal with it. The White House has to deal with it. The House has to deal with it, as well.”
The House and Senate Budget committees play a key role in drafting and advancing fiscal blueprints that pave the way for party-line reconciliation bills, and Johnson could use his influence to force changes to the House proposal. He told reporters Monday, ahead of the House rollout, that identifying offsetting cuts “would certainly be one of my objectives.”
But that risks putting him at odds with Thune, who has voiced concerns that pursuing spending cuts to health care or other sensitive programs could blow back on vulnerable members just before the midterms.
The Senate Budget Committee, however, is stacked with fiscal hawks who will likely want to pay for at least part of the bill.
House GOP leaders are contending with their own band of fiscal hawks, who are upset over the lack of pay-fors included in the spending plan released Wednesday.
Johnson will come face-to-face with some of them Wednesday evening, saying that he would meet with House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) as well as the House Freedom Caucus.
Nearly half of House Democrats voted to cut off aid to Israel Wednesday, underscoring a seismic shift in political support for the longtime U.S. ally.
The amendment to a State Department spending bill would have eliminated $3.3 billion in funding, and thanks to strong Republican support for the Jewish state, it failed 314-104. But the vote served as a moment of reckoning for House Democrats who have had to confront years of voter outrage about Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza.
“There’s also a real sense that the status quo cannot continue,” the House’s No. 2 Democrat, Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, said in an interview before voting for the amendment.
The vote came after months of contentious primary elections where progressive candidates toppled incumbent after incumbent by publicly eschewing spending from pro-Israel groups and promising to recast America’s relationship with the nation.
The scale of Democratic support for the amendment Wednesday was an acknowledgement of the grassroots fury that has reshaped the political landscape inside the party — a transformation that has rapidly accelerated under President Donald Trump and his close ties to the hard-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Just over two years ago, only 37 House Democrats — mostly on the party’s hard-left flank — voted for a similar bid to crack down on U.S. for Israel.
This time, a much broader swath of Democrats came along — 103 of the 211 members voting Wednesday, plus another 10 who voted “present.”
The supporters included Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the esteemed former speaker, who said in a statement that she reluctantly backed the amendment because Americans “are rightly demanding an end to a perpetual cycle of war, and the Netanyahu government cannot maintain its current course.”
While the amendment in question was introduced by an isolationist Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the vast majority of the support it received on the floor came from a divided Democratic Party.
The split went to the very top.
Clark’s support for the measure broke with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who blasted Massie’s amendment as a poorly constructed effort that could end humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
The still-sizable Democratic opposition plus the “no” votes of 215 Republicans was enough to sink the measure. But even Jeffries and other top Democrats allied with him who rejected the amendment acknowledged this week that the U.S. needs to recalibrate its relationship with Israel.
“I think that’s the goal — making sure that Israel lives up to standards that we have for other countries,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee. “That’s appropriate.”
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) voted “present” but said in an interview that he would favor a more carefully targeted effort to end military aid to Israel “and certainly condition even the defensive aid.”
He was torn, he said, because he does not “want to cut off all cooperation with Israel, all support for peace building, civil society, a diplomatic presence, things that support the Palestinian people.”
With scores of members now on the record about their opposition, and a growing contingent of Israel skeptics poised to join the House next term, fractious Israel politics will be an ongoing challenge for Jeffries next term.
The minority leader represents a significant orthodox Jewish community in his Brooklyn congressional district and has touted his strong support for Israel. The amendment episode previewed how he plans to handle the divide.
Jeffries hosted two lengthy private caucus meetings where lawmakers hashed out their disagreements and eventually advised members to “vote their conscience” during a Tuesday meeting. In a “Dear Colleague” letter he said a “meaningful change in direction is needed” especially as a 10-year security assistance agreement signed by former President Barack Obama expires later this year.
Whether his approach will satisfy incoming ultraprogressive members, some of whom have not committed to backing him as leader, remains to be seen. But left-leaning House Democrats celebrated the vote tally — and leadership’s agree-to-disagree tack — as a massive victory.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, urged his colleagues to support the amendment in his own Tuesday letter, saying that the “American people are crying out for an end to US tax dollars subsidizing Israel’s military.”
It wasn’t just progressives, though, who voted for the amendment. In a sign of the omnipresent Israel politics dominating this midterm cycle, the hawkish Rep. Seth Moulton — who is challenging progressive Sen. Ed Markey in Massachusetts — voted also “yes.”
“We simply cannot continue to condone Netanyahu’s actions that are against our moral conscience and our own national security interests,” he said in a statement.
Rep. Lauren Underwood — a leader of House Democrats’ campaign arm who flipped her Illinois seat blue in 2018 — voted for the amendment as well. So did Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado, a member of leadership, and Rep. Valarie Foushee of North Carolina, who weathered a primary challenge this term from the left.
“We’ve all grown frustrated with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s actions,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) — who has previously backed Israel aid but voted for the Massie amendment — said. “His actions have really, I think, motivated a lot of the yes votes.”
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole is headed to the president’s retreat at Camp David as lawmakers assemble a third party-line package that falls short of Donald Trump’s ambitious defense spending target.
Cole (R-Okla.) said he is headed to the Maryland outpost Thursday where he expects to have conversations about defense funding levels and “general things.” Cole was unsure of the full attendance list for the meeting.
Cole acknowledged Wednesday that the House GOP budget resolution released Wednesday morning comes in far under the $350 billion Trump has been calling for on Pentagon spending. The House framework included just $73 billion for defense and intelligence.
Trump has proposed a record-breaking $1.5 trillion for the overall defense budget for the coming fiscal year, and the party-line bill is seen as key to reaching that goal without needing Democratic support.
“I think they’re probably just dealing with political reality there. I haven’t gotten an explanation from them yet,” Cole said Wednesday afternoon. “I am headed out tomorrow to Camp David for a quick discussion and I’m sure that’ll be dealt with then.”
A group of select Budget Committee Republicans, Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and White House officials held private meetings at Camp David earlier in the week to nail down a plan for the slimmed-down $95 billion package. Trump was not in attendance.
Budget Committee Republicans were summoned by White House officials and boarded a bus Sunday for the presidential retreat for a 24-hour marathon sprint of budget talks.
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee had harsh criticism for Kathy Ruemmler, the former top counsel for Goldman Sachs, as she testified Wednesday as part of the panel’s ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaking to reporters during a break in proceedings, Democratic members of the committee questioned Ruemmler’s credibility and the nature of her ties to the late, convicted sex offender.
“Her responses have been shameful,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the committee’s top Democrat, told reporters. “We can all read the emails in the files about her making jokes about massages, about her making jokes about Russian women, about her making jokes about Epstein’s girls. For her to deny that there was any type of real relationship there — I don’t buy that.”
Heading into the transcribed interview Wednesday morning, House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said that Ruemmler was “the one that was with [Epstein] until the very end,” and that she worked to “rehabilitate his image.”
Committee members pressed Ruemmler inside the closed-door meeting on the content of her emails, which were released by the Justice Department months ago as part of a trove of Epstein case files, as well as on the gifts she received from Epstein and on the advice that she exchanged with him.
She’s the latest former Democratic official and Wall Street operative to appear before the Oversight panel, which has also brought in former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Ruemmler served as counsel for the Obama administration before leaving for the private sector, where she connected with Epstein while at law firm Latham & Watkins.
Ruemmler told the Oversight Committee that Epstein was a “masterful liar,” that he used her and others to legitimize himself and that it was a “mistake to deal with him,” according to a copy of her opening statement viewed by Blue Light News.
“[If] I had seen or heard any evidence suggesting that he was abusing women or girls, I would have immediately reported him,” she said, according to prepared remarks — adding that she cut ties with Epstein following his 2019 indictment.
But Democrats left the first half of her testimony unsatisfied by her claims that she did not have a friendship with Epstein. “We know that is BS,” Rep. Christian Menefee (D-Texas) told reporters.
“She’s taking no responsibility, and we’re going to continue to grill her,” Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) told reporters. “We don’t care if she’s a Democrat.”
A spokesperson for Ruemmler did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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