Congress

The Senate has met a problem even a ‘gang’ can’t solve

Published

8 months ago

October 22, 2025

When Washington first woke up to a government shutdown earlier this month, there was one hope for a quick exit: A bipartisan clutch of rank-and-file senators were at least talking.

There was reason for optimism. Past groups had evolved into “gangs” that had figured out some of Capitol Hill’s most intractable disputes.

But that’s not the trajectory so far. Three weeks into the shutdown, there are no signs that the conversations are anywhere close to generating a solution to what is now the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history.

“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who has been involved in the conversations that sprang up as Congress barreled over the funding cliff in early October but have since stalled. “I don’t see that there’s a path forward at this point.”

Senators don’t even agree on whether there are still bipartisan talks taking place at all, let alone on what it would take to break the stalemate. If they agree on anything, it’s that they aren’t a gang, and they aren’t negotiating.

It’s a stark shift from early 2018, when a Senate gang helped negotiate a deal to end a short shutdown during President Donald Trump’s first term. They built on that with a series of bipartisan deals — including multiple coronavirus relief bills and an infrastructure agreement under Trump’s successor, Joe Biden.

But the Senate has changed dramatically since then. Dealmaking senators such as Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) have retired, hollowing out the corps of lawmakers with any experience crossing the aisle.

The personnel drain has been exacerbated by the sharp battle lines that have been drawn by party leaders as well as deep frustration with an administration that has taken a sledgehammer to a government funding process that once provided a basic framework for bipartisanship inside the Senate.

“Right now … there’s not enough trust between us,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who has a long history of negotiating with Republicans.

He and others noted the challenges for the would-be negotiators are vast and involve figuring out how to bridge sweeping policy and political divides.

The shutdown impasse isn’t only about government spending; some Democrats have demanded that any off-ramp deal include an extension of key Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year — potentially leaving millions uninsured, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats say they want a bipartisan negotiation on extending the credits, while Republicans say they won’t negotiate while the government is closed down. None of the would-be dealmakers have strayed from those positions set out by their respective party leaders.

The Senate’s bipartisan talks have instead focused on what would happen after the government reopens. Lawmakers involved have floated several ideas, including the possibility of having a vote to reopen the government followed immediately by a vote on an extension of the insurance subsidies.

But that hasn’t been enough to get Democrats to bite. Asked Tuesday if lawmakers were close to finding a path out of the shutdown, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) replied dryly, “Not that I have seen.”

Asked why senators haven’t broken out the “talking stick” — the device the 2018 shutdown-solving group used to manage their bipartisan meetings — Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a perennial gang member, argued that there was little incentive in either party to break ranks at the moment.

“Both sides think there is political advantage in sticking with the positions that they have,” she added.

The senators aren’t completely throwing in the towel, and some of their colleagues still see the sputtering bipartisan talks as the best path out of the shutdown. But there are simmering flashes of frustration from Shaheen and others in the group that what is needed is hands-on involvement from top leaders to break the stalemate — including from Trump.

“I think he’s an important part of it,” Murkowski said.

Senators believe they are nearing a crucial juncture: Trump will leave Friday for a weeklong trip to Asia, and there’s some private grumbling on Capitol Hill that he’s been too deeply engaged in foreign affairs as the country lumbers deeper into the shutdown. Coming to a deal to end it will be difficult as long as he is out of the country, they think.

But most Republicans don’t believe Trump should come to the table until after the government is reopened — and GOP senators left a lunch with the president at the White House Tuesday pledging to remain unified behind their funding strategy. Democrats, meanwhile, have been emboldened by the “No Kings” rallies against the Trump administration over the weekend as well as encouraging polling that appears to back up their shutdown stance.

Even as senators downplay hopes that a bipartisan gang will ride to the rescue, the rank-and-file group is taking care to keep lines of communication open given the freeze-out between Democratic leaders and the White House. A Tuesday request to Trump from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for a meeting was quickly swatted away by the White House, in keeping with the wishes of top GOP leaders.

Some cross-aisle outreach continued this week, according to three people familiar with the matter granted anonymity to disclose private discussions. And while there wasn’t much public progress to show for it, Shaheen said Tuesday it hasn’t been a total wash. But, she added, they needed help from higher powers.

“I think people have moved on both sides,” she said, but it was essential that “the leaders in both houses and both sides sit down with the president and negotiate an end to the shutdown. I think that’s in everyone’s interest.”

Congress

Johnson-backed plan to combine Pentagon and election bills advances to floor

Published

1 hour ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Rules Committee advanced a procedural measure aimed at breaking an intra-Republican deadlock Monday night. But GOP leaders are still facing a major battle Tuesday to regain control of the House floor.

The panel approved on party lines a measure to set up Republicans’ $1.1 trillion defense policy bill, a government funding bill and other GOP bills for floor debate. It would then combine the Pentagon bill, once passed, with the contentious elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act and send it to the Senate as one piece of legislation.

That maneuver, telegraphed by Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Monday, is aimed at appeasing House GOP hard-liners who have blockaded the floor, demanding the Senate pass the elections bill that has languished there for months.

However, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican leading the blockade, said in an interview Monday before the Rules Committee acted that Johnson’s plan is not sufficient — raising the possibility she and allies could vote down the measure on the floor. Other House GOP hard-liners say there are other outstanding issues to battle over Tuesday.

Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Democrat, called the merger move “a big waste of time.” The panel voted down a motion by McGovern to remove the provision to combine the two bills in a party-line vote.

The Senate is set to debate its own version of the defense bill next month, and it is likely that the elections overhaul will be removed in negotiations between the two chambers — as McGovern acknowledged Monday and House GOP leaders privately concede.

“The Senate will just strip the SAVE Act out,” he said at the meeting. “There is a zero percent chance SAVE ends up in the [Pentagon bill] because of this rule today.”

The defense bill faces a tight vote if Republicans can pass the procedural measure. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the measure over its massive price tag, which they contend is wasteful.

The panel is set up debate on 312 amendments to the bill. The slate includes GOP measures to codify a Trump executive order to block transgender people from serving in the military, prohibit coverage of gender-affirming care, block aid to arm Ukraine and strip Democratic-backed protections for collective bargaining for Pentagon civilian workers.

The committee also voted down Democratic proposals to slash $150 billion from the bill’s topline and limit the war against Iran.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Congress

Pentagon and elections bills could be combined in bid to unfreeze House floor

Published

4 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he plans to deploy an unusual procedural maneuver in a bid to unfreeze the House floor this week, seeking to send the annual Pentagon policy bill and the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act to the Senate in a single package.

That is likely a recipe for a continued standoff between the two chambers over the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate for months due to internal GOP divides. Under Johnson’s plan, the annual defense policy bill, which typically passes every year with large bipartisan majorities, could become a collateral victim of the impasse.

Asked in brief interview if he had talked to Senate Majority Leader John Thune about his plans, Johnson replied, “I have to do my job in the House, and they’ve got to do their job in the Senate, so we’ll see what happens.”

Johnson is seeking to placate House conservative hard-liners, led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who have threatened to oppose the procedural measures that give Republicans control of the floor unless they agree to tougher tactics meant to force the Senate into passing the elections bill.

House GOP leaders discussed the plan to merge the two bills over the weekend as Luna pushed to amend the defense bill directly.

She did not say in an interview Monday whether Johnson’s gambit would suffice: “We want it baked together, not able to be stripped out,” she said.

But the Senate is free to work its own will, and members of that chamber are likely to reject any defense bill that has the partisan elections bill attached. That would set the stage for GOP leaders to strip it out when the House and Senate hash out the differences between their competing Pentagon bills later this year.

Johnson, meanwhile, is pushing a separate plan to pass a slimmed-down version of the SAVE America Act through the party-line budget reconciliation process — an option hard-liners have all but rejected.

“I don’t think that that can be done,” Luna told reporters Monday.

He’s also facing another complication: The version of the SAVE America Act he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon bill doesn’t include the latest demands for the bill from President Donald Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

Top Trump officials face bipartisan questions in first all-member Iran briefings

Published

5 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawmakers of both parties questioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff Monday in the first broad congressional briefings on President Donald Trump’s Iran deal.

While Democrats asked some of the sharpest questions, participants in an afternoon conference call with House members said, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) at one point pressed the administration officials on the fate of Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium.

According to two people granted anonymity to disclose the private remarks, Witkoff and Rubio repeated assurances the administration has privately made to select lawmakers in prior briefings — that the goal is to negotiate a final deal that would prohibit Iran from keeping its highly enriched uranium.

The memorandum of understanding Trump signed earlier this month, they said, was meant to launch those negotiations. Witkoff, the people said, added that the technical team involved in that part of the talks was traveling from Switzerland to Qatar, where talks between the U.S. and Iran are set to happen Tuesday.

Democrats, meanwhile, pushed the administration for more details on what financial benefits Iran could reap under the memorandum — including proceeds from previously sanctioned oil sales.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) went back and forth with Rubio and Witkoff over the lifting of the oil sanctions, two other people granted anonymity on the House call said. The officials eventually cut off the conversation and ended the call.

At another point, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) raised concerns about Witkoff’s business interests in the Middle East as he’s negotiating with Iran, prompting a sharp defense from Rubio, those people said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked Rubio and Witkoff about the oil sanctions during a separate all-senators call Monday, saying in a statement afterward that they “confirmed to me that Iran will reap billions in oil revenue while retaining dangerous leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.”

“If this is the administration’s defense behind closed doors, Secretary Rubio should make it under oath, in public, before the Foreign Relations Committee,” Schumer added, calling the briefing “delayed, deficient, and devoid of details.”

An administration official granted anonymity to speak candidly countered on Schumer’s characterization, noting that he had previously gotten a briefing of the deal as part of a group of top leaders engaged on national security matters. Schumer, the official said, had the opportunity to ask multiple follow-up questions on the Senate call.

A separate group of White House officials briefed top congressional leaders and key committee chairs in a classified briefing in the Capitol later Monday.

The administration has faced bipartisan skepticism over multiple provisions of the memorandum of understanding — particularly the lifting of oil sanctions and a $300 billion reconstruction fund that many Senate Republicans fear will help fuel Iran’s military and regional proxies.

Rubio and Witkoff sought to ease concerns about the slow reopening of the Strait of Hormuz — the critical trade route whose closure has sparked higher fuel and fertilizer costs. Both officials said more mine removal is required, and Witkoff indicated that Iran broke the terms of the Trump-signed deal by launching a drone attack on a passing ship over the weekend.

They also sought to assure lawmakers that Iran has received no money under the memorandum — especially not directly from American sources. Administration officials have previously pledged in smaller briefings that the reconstruction fund won’t include U.S. funds.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called the Senate briefing a “productive conversation” but said “much of what I heard today is similar to what I heard last week” during a dinner at Vice President JD Vance’s residence.