Congress

‘The original sin:’ Hill Republicans blame White House for slow-walking FISA sales pitch

Published

1 month ago

April 17, 2026

A messy GOP battle over a key government spy authority boiled over in the House this week — but the crisis was months in the making.

White House officials and Republican Hill leaders have tried to pressure GOP hard-liners into approving a clean, 18-month extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that President Donald Trump demanded. But amid a GOP rebellion on Capitol Hill, Speaker Mike Johnson Thursday afternoon punted a vote on the measure for the second day in a row.

The program expires Monday night. Senators went home for the weekend as Johnson continued to pursue a compromise with the holdouts for an extension as long as three years with reforms, and raced to hold a vote.

Now, the finger-pointing among Republicans is rampant and temperatures are running high.

A band of House ultraconservatives — who have long been concerned that warrantless government surveillance of foreign individuals could sweep up data on Americans — shot down Trump and GOP leaders’ long-held plans for the 18-month extension with no reforms earlier this week.

“A clean extension ain’t going to move on the floor,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, one of the head House GOP holdouts, warned earlier this week.

In interviews with more than two dozen Republican lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill involved in the talks, many of whom were granted anonymity to speak freely about the contentious policy debate, the consensus is that the White House is largely responsible for the current breakdown as GOP factions snipe and assign blame.

“This is why we shouldn’t wait until the last minute on these things,” one House Republican fumed Thursday. A congressional GOP aide added, “The White House was too late to come to a decision. That was the original sin.”

A senior White House official disputed the characterization from some Hill Republicans that the administration had taken too long to plead their case. They pointed to a briefing in the Situation Room months ago with Republican lawmakers, during which “the president heard arguments on both sides of the issue.”

The official added, “We’ve had multiple briefings from senior officials, both on the House and Senate side, about the desirability of this program. Again, going back months ago.”

Trump told House Intelligence Chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that he wanted a clean extension, without reforms, in February. The president arrived at this position, a second White House official said, after “the administration completed a policy process through the interagency and advised POTUS that a clean extension was the best course and solicited views on length from Blue Light News.”

There was also coordination between the White House and Capitol Hill, according to three people familiar and the senior White House official: Johnson requested the reauthorization run for 18 months, and Trump agreed.

The administration succeeded in convincing Jordan, who had previously pushed for changes to Section 702, to publicly support a clean extension following a White House meeting on the subject.

But ultraconservatives on Capitol Hill were harder to convince, with some House Republicans correctly predicting two months ago they were going to have issues as the vote drew nearer. Trump has forced those hard-liners to cave in recent months on other fights, but the spy powers legislation was one area where members have not been as willing to relent.

While Trump officials made outreach to members at least two months ago, Hill engagement ramped up in the days leading up to the scheduled vote. That has included appeals to lawmakers from CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Deputy CIA Director Michael Ellis and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine, according to five people. Ellis has made personal phone calls to members, according to two people familiar with the pressure campaign.

White House deputy chief of staff James Blair, White House Legislative Affairs chief James Braid and other legislative affairs officials have also been calling individual House Republicans and working through negotiation details, according to six other people with direct knowledge of the conversations.

Noticeably absent from this outreach is Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Her office plays a statutory role in overseeing Section 702 and has historically been a key proponent of the powerful spy powers.

Gabbard in early February expressed concerns to Trump about reauthorizing the statute without additional privacy guardrails, as Blue Light News reported earlier Thursday, though her appeal appears to have been unsuccessful.

And while the administration’s position on Section 702 came into focus in February, there were signs earlier in the month that its position had not fully crystallized. Officials meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee at that time refused to divulge the White House’s stance on extending the surveillance power and adding reforms, according to five people with knowledge of the meeting. The exchange frustrated Republicans and Democrats on the panel, who are generally supportive of the surveillance program.

Due to a quirk in the law, the administration will still be able to operate the program for nearly a year even if it is not renewed, and privacy advocates have argued that Monday is a false deadline. But without the law on the books, communications providers like Google and AT&T, which the government tasks to surveil foreign messages, could stop complying with those orders.

But White House officials want an extension codified now, all the same. They have been arguing in conversations with lawmakers that the country is at war and national security is paramount amid threats from Iran. Therefore, they say, hardliners should fall in line to back the clean extension without delay, according to five people involved in the conversations.

“The program is critical for the United States military to listen to the conversations of foreign terrorists abroad while we are engaged in a military operation in Iran. That’s what we’ve been telling individuals, as well as the elevated threat levels around the world, as well as the threat from Mexican drug cartels,” the senior White House official said.

Two groups of House GOP hard-liners, after being summoned by Trump Tuesday night, met with officials at the White House. But some of the Republicans declined the invitation.“I’ve heard everything that the executive has to say on FISA,” Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said in an interview that evening. That meeting, however, marked a shift: Those House Republicans who went to the White House alongside GOP leaders — among them Roy and Reps. Keith Self of Texas, Byron Donalds of Florida, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Morgan Griffith of Virginia and Warren Davidson of Ohio — took the opportunity to begin negotiations about a framework for a possible agreement around the use of warrants to access certain information.

The discussions included how the White House and GOP leadership needed to make good on a months-old promise to advance legislation that would ban a central bank digital currency. Enough House GOP holdouts late Thursday evening were threatening to still tank the procedural vote to advance the extension if the White House didn’t address the digital currency matter, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter. “Unless it’s included, there’s enough votes to kill the rule,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said in an interview Thursday afternoon. But other Republicans, White House officials and Senate GOP leadership are warning that attaching the measure directly would tank the FISA bill.

In exchange for making these concessions, GOP leaders and the White House have been pushing for a Section 702 extension that’s longer than 18 months and closer to three years.

The senior White House official also said Thursday the administration has “focused in on potentially having conversations about reforms to the program that we think would strengthen protections for American civil liberties … those conversations are ongoing.”

Jordan, meanwhile, has been helping build support for a clean extension by privately telling some Republicans that, if they can pass this 18-month clean extension now, they could potentially work on warrant reforms later, according to three people with direct knowledge of the discussions. That’s raised some eyebrows internally among House Republicans.

The House delays are leaving barely any time for the Senate to act. Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Thursday that he’s already started having conversations with his own members about what they would need to clear a FISA extension Monday.

Ultimately, even if GOP leaders strike a deal on changes to the current proposed extension, it could risk support for reauthorization among key Democrats, who Republicans will need to pass the final legislation in a narrowly-divided House. While some House Democrats are expected to help Republicans get the final bill across the finish line — including top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut — Democratic leaders have so far declined to shore up the votes for any fast-tracked process.

“I am deeply skeptical of a straightforward extension,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday, adding he told Johnson a few days ago there was “great Democratic skepticism” on a clean extension.

One Democratic Hill aide said Johnson and Trump did far too little to coordinate their pitch with Democrats, who carried a razor-thin vote to re-up the law in 2024.

“They never came to us,” the aide said.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Trump may regret his revenge tour

Published

1 hour ago

May 20, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump notched more wins Tuesday in his revenge campaign against Republican lawmakers who’ve crossed him. But his victory lap may be short-lived.

In another stunning display of the president’s electoral power, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie lost his primary Tuesday night to Trump’s favored candidate, just days after the president’s sway knocked Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy out of his re-election race.

Trump on Tuesday also officially put Texas incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in his crosshairs by endorsing his primary challenger, scandal-plagued Ken Paxton, ahead of next week’s run-off in that state.

But several congressional Republicans are worried the president’s payback whims will cost the party control of the Texas seat as the GOP fights to retain the Senate. And some Republicans may be more willing to gum up Trump’s agenda after watching their colleagues, or themselves, get picked off by his hardball tactics.

— TEXAS IN TROUBLE: Trump’s long-awaited announcement backing Paxton over establishment Republicans’ preferred pick of Cornyn was met with shock and dismay among Republicans on Capitol Hill. Many of them now fear that keeping that Texas seat will be a more expensive and potentially futile endeavor.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was “supremely disappointed” by Trump’s decision, which she said “puts that seat in jeopardy.”

Democrats quickly seized on Paxton’s likely nomination to say the party has a chance to win a Texas Senate race for the first time since 1988.

Rep. Ro Khanna told Blue Light News matching up Democratic nominee James Talarico with Paxton would create a “perfect storm” for Democrats, who already saw an opening given Talarico’s relatively broad appeal, massive fundraising haul and the political headwinds Republicans face.

— A DEFIANT CASSIDY: Trump’s primary retribution may also embolden lawmakers facing his wrath to hand the favor back to him.

Since losing his primary to Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming, Cassidy has both publicly opposed funding in the GOP-only reconciliation bill for Trump’s ballroom project and voted to rein in the U.S. military conflict in Iran (more on that below).

Murkowski said the president’s campaign against incumbents is “unprecedented.”

“Even though Bill Cassidy lost his primary, he is still a voting member of the Senate until January,” Murkowski said. “There are still many, many weeks — many months — to go before the election. And this president is going to have to continue to deal — and work with and partner with or battle with — this group of lawmakers.”

“Maybe he doesn’t think he needs us. But I don’t know, last time I checked, the laws don’t just appear before his desk to sign. The funding just doesn’t come,” Murkowski added.

Also Read: Donald Trump’s GOP revenge tour is complete

What else we’re watching:

— TRUMP’S BALLROOM FUNDING SUPPORT WANES: A critical mass of Senate Republicans are publicly objecting to spending taxpayer money on a White House ballroom project. Sens. Cassidy, Murkowski, Thom Tillis and Susan Collins have all raised concerns about the ballroom security funding, possibly enough to eject the provision from the GOP’s fast-moving immigration enforcement bill. And several senators are privately opposed, according to five people granted anonymity to disclose private deliberations.

— SENATE WAR POWERS VOTE DEALS BLOW TO TRUMP: Senators voted Tuesday to advance legislation to rein in Trump’s military action in Iran, handing a surprise victory to Democrats. The legislation will need to clear several more steps before it can pass, giving Republicans opportunities to kill the measure in the coming days. But Democrats picked up another GOP defector in Cassidy, who supported the move to limit Trump’s power just days after the president’s efforts sunk his re-election campaign.

Liz Crampton, Andrew Howard, Connor O’Brien and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

Senators think they hold the key to a college athletics bill demanded by Trump

Published

5 hours ago

May 20, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

After House talks imploded this week over the fate of a college athletics bill, senators now believe they have the upper hand in shaping a sweeping package that would enact new rules for a multibillion-dollar industry that has been destabilized by years of political and legal battles.

Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, have been spending hours every day for the past week at the negotiating table.

“Both of us, I believe, want to get to ‘yes,’” Cruz said in an interview Tuesday. “There’s a real crisis in college sports and if Congress doesn’t act, we are going to see continued damage.”

Cantwell, in a separate interview Tuesday, agreed talks were progressing: “Everybody’s working hard.”

It would be a major achievement if Cruz and Cantwell can land a deal that their House counterparts have repeatedly fumbled. The stakes are especially high for Cruz, who still isn’t ruling out a presidential bid in 2028 and has sought to use his chairmanship of the Commerce Committee to flex his policy chops.

The two senators also would solve a dilemma for Congress, which is being called upon by President Donald Trump and sports officials to pass legislation that would set new limits for how athletes can be paid for their name, image and likeness.

Colleges and universities have been lobbying lawmakers for years to preempt a patchwork of competing state laws governing compensation of student athletes, which is increasingly difficult to manage.

“College sports have been an incredible avenue for millions of young men and women to get scholarships, to go to college, to get an education, to build life skills,” said Cruz, but all that is in “in jeopardy right now” as higher education lacks a fair and consistent set of standards.

“The current path is unsustainable,” he added.

But it remains to be seen exactly how the senators will square their own policy differences — or craft a proposal that would pass muster in the House and avoid the same pitfalls that doomed efforts in that chamber.

“I hope there’s a landing spot,” Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said Tuesday of Cruz and Cantwell’s efforts.

He also acknowledged there remained sticking points that still needed to be hammered out, including how to address whether “student athletes are the employees of the universities and colleges, or not, and the question of unionization.”

For months, House GOP leaders have been looking to build enough support for their own legislative solution to this problem, the so-called SCORE Act. They had to pull the bill from the floor last December amid various complaints from hard-liners, including from Rep. Byron Donalds, a gubernatorial candidate in Florida who doesn’t think regulating the college sports industry is the job for Congress.

Since that time, leaders have been working to overcome opposition on their side of the aisle, including by offering concessions to conservative holdouts like Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on matters like coach salaries and recruitment requirements.

Leaders planned to put a revamped SCORE Act back on the House floor this week, believing they were close to reaching necessary consensus — but other Freedom Caucus members wouldn’t commit to supporting a procedural vote to advance it.

At the same time, the entire Congressional Black Caucus announced Monday night it would boycott a package “benefiting major athletic institutions that continue to remain silent” amid efforts by red states to redraw congressional maps and eliminate majority-minority districts across the South.

That meant two original Democratic cosponsors — CBC Reps. Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Shomari Figures of Alabama — would no longer support the legislation.

A House Democratic aide granted anonymity to share private deliberations said that Republican leaders were relying on only a handful of Democratic votes to try to pass the bill this week after changes to the legislation tilted it farther to the right. The CBC’s blanket opposition killed those chances.

Republican leaders also lost Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a former college volleyball player who had been trying to negotiate with Republicans but was unhappy with where they landed. She declared on a press call Tuesday that the SCORE Act as currently written “bails out the NCAA and the Power Two conferences by silencing athletes and rolling back the rights that they fought so hard to win.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in an interview last week stressed last-minute changes were possible, like with any big bill, and that “it’s taken months to build this coalition.”

A Scalise spokesperson declined to comment Tuesday.

Back in the Senate, there’s no guarantee Cantwell and Cruz’s efforts won’t also be overtaken by political pressures related to the redistricting wars — or that the two lawmakers will be able to bridge their own differences. Both were tight-lipped about the status of their discussions Tuesday and where their visions might diverge.

Cantwell said she’s pushing provisions that would protect student athletes and expand revenue for schools of all sizes — provisions from her bill known as the SAFE Act, which would promote women’s and Olympic sports and help smaller schools compete with the traditional sports powerhouses.

It’s unclear whether Republicans will agree to incorporate these ideas but Cruz on Tuesday suggested he was sympathetic to the underlying concerns.

“Women’s sports is in jeopardy, Olympics sports is in jeopardy, and most schools are hemorrhaging cash,” he said. “I believe Congress should act, and I believe we will act.”

One thing Cantwell did make clear is that no matter what proposal she and Cruz come up with, it shouldn’t be associated with the House’s product that’s been so mired in drama.

“It’s definitely not a companion bill,” Cantwell said.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

Trump-backed candidate wins Kentucky primary to replace Barr

Published

12 hours ago

May 20, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Ralph Alvarado, a former state senator who earned support from President Donald Trump and House GOP leadership, won the Republican primary to replace outgoing Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) Tuesday.

Alvarado, a physician and a longtime Trump supporter, resigned as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Health to run for Kentucky’s 6th District. The seat became open when Barr announced he would not run for reelection to instead run for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Alvarado was the first Hispanic state lawmaker elected in Kentucky, serving eight years as a state senator. He spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention in favor of a border wall.

“RALPH HAS BEEN WITH US FROM THE VERY BEGINNING!” Trump said in a statement endorsing Alvarado.

In 2024, Barr won the district by 26 points and Trump by 15, but Democrats see it as a potential battleground and have added it to their target list.