Apr. 29, 2026, 11:03 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House took a crucial step Wednesday toward funding the Department of Homeland Securityas the Trump administration warned that money to pay Transportation Security Administration and other agency personnel will “soon run out,” sparking new threats of airport disruptionsand national security concerns.

House Republicans adopted a budget resolution on a largely party-line vote, 215-211. The action doesn’t automatically fund the department — it’s focused on eventually providing $70 billion for immigration enforcement and deportations for the remainder of President Donald Trump’stime in office, which Democrats oppose.

But launching the GOP budget process, which will play out over weeks to come, has been what Speaker Mike Johnsonneeded to unlock a broader bipartisan bill for TSA agents and others that has languishedduring the longest-ever agency shutdown in history. That bill is expected to come to a vote Thursday to fund much of the agency.

“It takes time,” Johnson, R-La., said after another day of start-stop action in the chamber that dragged for hours into the evening. “We will get there.”

The House’s narrow Republican majority has repeatedly stalled out under Johnson’s gavel, with his own party tangled in internal disputes on a range of pending issues, including the Homeland Security funding.

Democrats refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol without changes to those operationsafter the deaths of Americans protesting Trump’s deportation agenda. Republicans refused the broader Democratic-backed bill to fund TSA and the other aspects of Homeland Security without the money for ICE and Border Patrol.

But the White House urged Congress this week to act, warning the money Trump tappedto temporarily pay TSA and other workers through executive actions is drying up.

“DHS will soon run out of critical operating funds, placing essential personnel and operations at risk,” said a memo from the Office of Management and Budget.

Homeland Security shutdown is longest ever

Homeland Security has been operating without regular funds for more than two monthssince Feb. 14, in a broader dispute over Trump’s immigration agenda.

In the memo late Tuesday to lawmakers, the White House called on the House to quickly approve the budget resolutionthat GOP senators had approved in an all-night sessionlast week to kickstart the process.

“Restoring funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has never been more urgent, as demonstrated by recent events,” the White House memo said, a nod to the situation over the weekend when a man armed with guns and knives tried to storm the annual White House correspondents’ dinnerthat Trump, the vice president and top Cabinet officials were attending.

But the day wore on as Johnson huddled privately with lawmakers sorting out other issues that stalled voting.

Next steps are expected Thursday when the House is likely to consider the Democratic-backed bill to fund the department, minus the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement funds, which are expected to come later this summer in the budget resolution process.

Immigration enforcement operations central to the debate

While immigration enforcement workers have largely been paid through the flush of new cash — some $170 billion — that Congress approved as part of Trump’s tax cuts bill last year, others, including TSA, have had to rely on Trump’s intervention through executive action to ensure their paychecks.

But with salaries topping $1.6 billion every two weeks, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said recently, those funds are drying up.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the chairman of the Budget Committee, argued that the Democrats are making “ridiculous and even dangerous demands” as they push for changes to immigration operations.

But Democrats have held firm in the aftermath of the deaths of Renee Goodand Alex Prettiin Minneapolis.

Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the budget panel’s top Democrat, said, “We know there are reforms that need to happen with ICE and CPB in order to rein in the abuses we have seen.”

More than 1,000 TSA officers have quit since the shutdown began, according to Airlines for America, the U.S. airlines trade group that called Wednesday on Congress to fully fund the agency.

“The urgency to provide predictable and stable funding for TSA is growing stronger by the day,” the group said in a statement. “Time and time again, our nation’s aviation workers and customers have been the victim of Congress’ failure to do their jobs.”

Complicated budget strategy ahead

House and Senate Republicans have embarked on a go-it-alone strategy, attempting to approve funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the remainder of Trump’s term to ensure no further interruptions from Democrats.

It’s a cumbersome process, the same that was used last year to approve Trump’s tax cuts bill, and it will play out over several weeks.

With the budget resolution now adopted by the House and Senate, lawmakers will next draft the actual $70 billion ICE and Border Patrol funding bill, with voting expected in May. Trump has said he wants it on his desk by June 1.

Apr. 29, 2026, 10:50 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House approved a three-year reauthorization of a divisive U.S. surveillance program ahead of its expiration on Friday, adding new oversight measures but stopping short of the warrant requirement that critics have demanded.

A large group of Democrats joined most Republicans in passing the bill by a 235-191 vote. The law’s renewal still faces an uncertain path to passage, with a sign-off needed from the Senate and President Donald Trump.

While the Senate could eventually be amenable to oversight measures added by the House, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said late Wednesday that another short-term extension will likely be needed ahead of the Friday deadline. House leaders added separate legislation banning a central bank digital currency to win more votes, and Thune said that part of the bill is “dead on arrival” in the Senate.

Still, the passage in the House was a breakthrough for Republican leaders after Speaker Mike Johnson earlier in the day secured the support of several Republican holdouts to advance the bill to a final vote. The chamber had been unable to pass a long-term extension since Republican leaders earlier this month staged a hectic late-night effort to extend the surveillance program, only to see multiple bills fail on the floor.

“Two-thirds of the president’s daily national security briefing comes from intelligence collected by that statute,” Johnson said about the program. “We cannot allow it to go dark.”

Warrants remain central to the fight

The debate centers on a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, that allows the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and other agencies to collect and analyze communications from foreign targets without a warrant. In doing so, the agencies can incidentally sweep up communications involving Americans who interact with foreign targets, an element of the program many lawmakers find unacceptable.

“The intel community always just comes in and says, ‘People will die if you do this,’” Republican Rep. Chip Roy said Tuesday, arguing in favor of a warrant requirement. “Well, I’m sorry. A lot of Americans died to give us and protect that Fourth Amendment right that we don’t have government looking at our stuff.”

The House bill does not include the warrant requirement. Instead, it would impose new oversight measures, including a monthly civil liberties review of U.S. person queries by an official within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with any violations referred to the Intelligence Community’s inspector general.

The bill would also create criminal penalties for officials who knowingly misuse the system or falsify compliance, order a government audit of targeting practices and require new procedures to expand congressional access to FISA court proceedings.

House Democrats took turns criticizing the extension on the floor ahead of Wednesday evening’s planned final vote. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, derided the measure as a “three-year blank check” that comes “without any meaningful guardrails.”

“Under this bill, FBI agents will still collect, search and review Americans’ communications without any review from a judge,” said Raskin.

Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, spoke in favor of the extension, calling the program “without question, the most important foreign intelligence tool.” Himes, who voted for the extension, said the bill makes guardrails on the program “marginally and modestly stronger.”

There are hurdles ahead in the Senate

Both chambers are expected to scramble Thursday to pass a short-term extension of the law ahead of the Friday deadline — even as they continue to negotiate the longer-term renewal.

Thune said Wednesday afternoon that the Senate would try to quickly pass a 45-day extension. But any one senator can hold that up, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has already indicated he won’t go along. Wyden, who has long pushed to reform the law, will instead seek to pass a three-week extension with some additional provisions, according to his office.

Another obstacle in the Senate is that the House linked the surveillance renewal with the separate digital currency legislation — a proposal Thune has said would be “very, very hard to pass.”

Senators from both parties said they were committed, though, to ensuring that the law doesn’t expire.

“There is clear consensus in the Senate as to how important it is,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

Apr. 29, 2026, 9:34 PM EDT

For the second time in seven months, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on Tuesday, with the Department of Justice alleging he threatened President Donald Trump when he posted a photo on Instagram of seashells spelling out “86 47.”

To Democrats, the charges were “baseless,” “disgraceful” and “ridiculous.” To Republicans, it depends on who you ask.

Although there were some GOP lawmakers who expressed discomfort with the indictment on Wednesday, most Republicans tried to duck questions — with some even endorsing the charges.

Asked if the Comey indictment was warranted, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., didn’t miss a beat.

“Anybody that’s gonna threaten the president, any president of the United States, I think that’s where indictments are warranted,” said Donalds, a close Trump ally who’s running for governor in Florida with the president’s endorsement.

Shown a printout of Comey’s post, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said Comey “knows what he’s doing.”

“Comey knows better than that. That was intentional,” Norman said. “He’s not somebody that just got into the political game. So yeah, he should’ve been indicted.”

And Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said Comey’s Instagram post was “obviously a signal.”

“Eighty-six is — either you’re working in a restaurant, or you’re wanting to kill somebody,” Burchett said. “And 47 is obviously President Trump.”

Even Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, one of three Republicans representing a district that Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024, didn’t find fault with the indictment.

“Director Comey can play cute and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t really mean assassination,’” Lawler said. “But when you’re saying ‘86 47,’ I think people are smart enough to understand what that actually means.”

Pressed on whether the conduct was criminal, Lawler — who said he’d defer to the DOJ on the judicial process and underscored the need to take threats of political violence seriously — responded with a tautology. “He was indicted, so seemingly,” he said.

The apparent GOP approval of the Comey indictment came one day after a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina formally charged the former FBI director with threatening the president and transmitting that alleged threat across state lines.

Comey voluntarily surrendered and made his initial appearance before a judge in Virginia on Wednesday, marking the second time the DOJ has indicted Comey. In September 2025, the former FBI director was charged with making a false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding on allegations that he lied during a Senate hearing in September 2020.

In November 2025, a judge dismissed the case, determining that then-interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed.

But unlike the previous indictment, Tuesday’s charges center entirely on a photo Comey posted on Instagram last year showing seashells that spell out “86 47,” with the caption “Cool shell formulation on my beach walk.”

It was the same slang that right-wing activist Jack Posobiec used in 2022, when he wrote on X “86 46” — an apparent reference to then-President Joe Biden. But unlike Trump’s Department of Justice, Biden’s DOJ didn’t prosecute the conservative influencer.

Asked about the differences between the two cases, Republicans tried to sidestep the question.

“That’s really a question for the attorney general, not me,” Donalds said.

Norman, meanwhile, pointed to the assassination attempts against Trump — the most recent being the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.

“The difference is now we’ve had three attempts on the president’s life,” Norman said.

He also said Comey should know better. “He’s not somebody that just got into the political game,” Norman added.

Of course, not every Republican was so ready to endorse the charges.

“If it’s just down to one picture and a piece of sand, doesn’t sound appropriate to me,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who’s retiring at the end of this term, told MS NOW. “If the entire case is premised on ‘86 47’ written in conch shells on the sands of a North Carolina beach, that looks like it’s pretty weak.”

Tillis said he went “to the end of the internet” and concluded that, “I can’t find any example where it represents a threat.”

Ultimately, Tillis said, this was about “a picture in the sand.”

“Is that really the level of pettiness that we’re at now?” he asked.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also told MS NOW she doesn’t believe the social media post was a threat to Trump.

“It just seems to me that this is more executing on a political grievance,” she said.

Tillis and Murkowski also suggested there was little difference between Posobiec’s post and Comey’s case.

“There’s no difference,” Tillis said, with Murkowski saying the only difference was “who’s going after them.”

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., another retiring Republican, meanwhile, said that, while it was “foolish” for Comey to post the photo, the prosecution is an “overreach.”

“It’s more that weaponization of the law,” he told MS NOW. “And I’m not saying Trump is the only one that’s done it. It happened in the previous administration. But we got to stop the cycle. The cycle’s unhealthy.”

But while there were some Republicans defending and criticizing the charges, most Republicans who MS NOW asked about the indictment fell into a third category: professed ignorance and deference to the DOJ.

Asked about the indictment, Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., told MS NOW he didn’t know about “the details of that investigation.”

Presented with a printout of Comey’s post and asked if it was a threatening message, Burlison said he thought the post was “disgusting.

“I think he knew exactly what he was doing,” Burlison said of Comey. “I’ll just let the courts decide whether or no he had intent.”

And on the Posobiec post, it was the same message: “That’s not a topic that is one that I’ve been, like, on top of,” Burlison told MS NOW.

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., initially said he had not read the details of the indictment. After being shown a photo of Comey’s post, he told MS NOW he wasn’t a lawyer. “I’m a doc, I’m a Marine. I’ll let the lawyers take care of that,” he said.

Asked about the indictment, Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., said he also didn’t know the facts of the indictment. And when MS NOW showed him a photo of Comey’s post, he insisted there was more to the story.

“I haven’t had the benefit of knowing what was in the investigation or what the grand jury was presented, but I have to believe there’s more to this than just this picture,” he said.

It was a similar situation on the Senate side, where a handful of GOP lawmakers said they weren’t up to speed on the indictment, and therefore couldn’t weigh in on its merits.

“I’ve not followed that,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said. “Somebody has to explain it to me. I just don’t know what that’s about.”

Asked if he believed “86 47” was a death threat, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he had “never heard of it before.”

“He’s guilty of far more serious crimes than that,” Johnson said of Comey.

And pressed on the indictment and whether it was a death threat to the president, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo, told MS NOW she was sorry that she couldn’t really comment.

“I don’t know anything about that,” she said.

Jack Fitzpatrick and JM Rieger contributed to this report.

Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.