Congress
Thune denies Johnson’s demand for Epstein bill changes
Speaker Mike Johnson said he voted for the Jeffrey Epstein disclosure bill Tuesday based on his hope that the Senate would make changes he’s been demanding. Senate Majority Leader John Thune shot that down.
Thune said Tuesday evening that, while he had talked with the speaker about the bill, he and Senate GOP legal counsel decided the legislation was “sufficient.” The Senate effectively approved the legislation by unanimous consent mere hours after House passage Tuesday afternoon without provisions sought by Johnson, including additional victim and whistleblower name protections.
“I talked with the speaker a bit, and we’ve been in consultation obviously with the White House on this for some time,” Thune told reporters. “The conclusion was when it came out of the House 427-1 that, you know, it was going to pass in the Senate.”
Thune’s refusal to amend the bill was just the latest setback Johnson has faced in the Epstein saga, where the Louisiana Republican saw a rank-and-file member of his own party, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), pull off a stunning legislative end-run despite the speaker’s months-long opposition campaign.
Johnson said after House passage Tuesday that he would “insist upon” changes.
“I talked to John Thune over the weekend. I just texted him. We’re going to get together. We’ll talk about this,” Johnson told reporters as he left the floor. “There’s an easy way to amend the legislation to make sure that we don’t do permanent damage to the justice system. And I’m going to insist upon that.”
Asked if he would press Trump to veto the bill if the Senate didn’t amend it, Johnson said he would “cross that bridge” if necessary. He also raised “national security” concerns about the bill Tuesday.
Thune said Senate Republican lawyers examined the legislation and determined it could go forward without being amended.
“Our lawyers obviously had looked closely at some of the issues and had concluded that the bill I think was, you know, sufficient to accomplish what needed to be done here, and that is to get the information out there as quickly as possible,” Thune said.
Earlier this week, Johnson told reporters he had received “some comfort” from the Senate that the chamber would make the changes. But Thune never publicly indicated he expected the Senate to revise the bill and even warned earlier Tuesday that changes were unlikely.
The only short-lived whiff of resistance that appeared in the Senate Tuesday came from Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who appeared to raise concerns at the last minute but did not block the effort.
“We were trying to see if we needed to change language to protect the victims,” Mullin said to reporters.
Shortly before Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sought unanimous consent to greenlight the bill, Mullin said that there had been a “conversation” with the administration about what the Oklahoma Republican characterized as “technical changes,” which ultimately didn’t get made.
Congress
Capitol agenda: Mike Johnson’s shutdown gamble
House GOP leaders face an uphill battle to pass the revamped government funding package from the Senate, potentially dragging out the shutdown.
Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to pass the five full-year funding bills and the two-week DHS stopgap on Tuesday relying only on Republicans, after Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told him he wouldn’t help secure the Democrats needed to expedite the legislation. GOP leaders will have to quell an internal Republican revolt before they get there.
Here’s how things are shaping up ahead of Tuesday:
— Democrats divided, Republicans seek unity: Most House Democrats who spoke during a private caucus call Sunday evening were against the package, which was negotiated by Senate Democrats and the White House. House Homeland Security ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) was among the Democrats urging members to oppose it in a Dear Colleague email Sunday night.
But some senior Democrats on the call said they supported the legislation, including Reps. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and New Democrat Coalition Chair Brad Schneider of Illinois, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the conversation. The disconnect between leadership and other senior members is triggering some hand-wringing among frontline Democrats about what to do next.
Even though some Democrats are signaling they’d vote for the package in the end, it’s not clear whether Johnson can get past the procedural step of adopting a rule with GOP support still uncertain and Democrats unlikely to bail him out.
GOP leaders and White House officials are trying to convince key hard-liners to get on board.
Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) are among the Republicans who want to attach legislation aimed at preventing noncitizens from voting in elections. Some ultra-conservatives oppose the Senate agreement overall and would prefer a Homeland stopgap that lasts six weeks or longer.
Luna said Sunday night that “these appropriations bills will FAIL” if the election citizenship legislation isn’t included.
— Bigger DHS deal looks tougher: Key lawmakers continue to raise red flags about striking a deal on a full-year DHS funding bill by the time the two-week CR expires.
Johnson on Sunday panned Democrats’ demands to bar federal immigration enforcement officers from wearing masks and to require them to wear identification. He also signaled unwillingness to negotiate on tightening requirements for judicial warrants for immigration operations. Jeffries is insisting that an agreement on judicial warrants is “a condition of moving forward.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune doesn’t believe Congress can pass a Homeland Security deal in two weeks, telling reporters late last week that “a two-week CR probably means there’s going to be another two-week CR and then maybe another two-week CR after that.”
“I just think it’s going to be really, really hard to get anything done and then actually execute on the procedures and process we have in the Senate, even if there’s an agreement,” he said.
What else we’re watching:
— Johnson to swear in new Dem: Johnson plans to swear in Houston Democrat Christian Menefee before votes Monday night, pending final certification of his special runoff victory to serve out the rest of the late Rep. Sylvester Turner’s term. Once Menefee joins the House, Johnson will have a single-vote buffer with 218 Republicans and 214 Democrats.
Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
Congress
Mike Johnson says House can end government shutdown ‘by Tuesday’
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he is confident Congress can end the partial government shutdown “by Tuesday” despite steep opposition from Democrats and turmoil within the GOP conference.
Johnson is under pressure to unite his caucus, with lawmakers raising concerns about funding for the Department of Homeland Security as the Trump administration faces scrutiny over its nationwide immigration crackdown that has at times turned violent.
House Republicans are hoping to take up the $1.2 trillion funding package passed by the Senate on Tuesday following a House Rules Committee meeting Monday. The partial shutdown began early Saturday.
GOP leadership in the House originally hoped to pass the bill under suspension of the rules, an expedited process that requires a two-thirds-majority vote, but Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told Johnson on Saturday that Democrats would not help Republicans acquire the necessary support for the spending bill.
“I’m confident that we’ll do it at least by Tuesday,” Johnson said in a Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We have a logistical challenge of getting everyone in town, and because of the conversation I had with Hakeem Jeffries, I know that we’ve got to pass a rule and probably do this mostly on our own. I think that’s very unfortunate.”
The Senate voted Friday to pass a compromise spending package after Senate Democrats struck a deal with President Donald Trump to extend DHS funding for two weeks. The move bought Congress more time to work out a compromise on reforms for Immigration and Customs Enforcement after federal officers fatally shot two people in Minnesota earlier this month.
Speaking to host Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” Johnson acknowledged that “there’s been tragedies in Minnesota” — but he also blamed Democrats in the state for “inciting violence,” even as the Trump administration attempts to tamp down pressures in the state.
Johnson praised Trump’s decision to send White House border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis, a step widely seen as a deescalation from the aggressive tactics favored by Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino.
“[Trump] was right to deputize him over that situation,” he said of Homan on NBC. “He has 40 years of experience in Border Patrol and these issues. So I think that this is going to happen, but we need good faith on both sides. Some of these conditions and requests that they’ve made are obviously reasonable and should happen. But others are going to require a lot more negotiation.”
Johnson pushed back in particular on Democratic calls to bar federal immigration enforcement officers from wearing masks and require them to wear identification, telling Fox’s Shannon Bream: “Those two things are conditions that would create further danger.”
He also signaled an unwillingness to negotiate on Democratic demands to tighten requirements for judicial warrants for immigration operations.
Still, House Democrats remained opposed to passing the funding package as is, with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) saying Sunday: “I’m not just a no. I’m a firm no.”
“I just don’t see how in good conscience Democrats can vote for continuing ICE funding when they’re killing American citizens, when there’s no provision to repeal the tripling of the budget,” Khanna said in a Sunday interview with Welker on NBC. “I hope my colleagues will say no.”
Jeffries also signaled Sunday that a wide gap remains between his conference and House Republicans, telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the House must reach an agreement on judicial warrants “as a condition of moving forward.”
“The one thing that we’ve said publicly is that we need a robust path toward dramatic reform,” Jeffries said on ABC’s “This Week.” “The administration can’t just talk the talk, they need to walk the walk. That should begin today. Not in two weeks, today.”
Congress
Shutdown likely to continue at least into Tuesday
The partial government shutdown that began early Saturday morning is on track to continue at least into Tuesday, which is the earliest the House is now expected to vote on a $1.2 trillion funding package due to opposition from Democrats and internal GOP strife.
House Republican leaders have scheduled a Monday meeting of the House Rules Committee to prepare the massive Senate-passed spending bill for the floor. According to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, the procedural measure teeing up a final vote would not happen until Tuesday, with final passage following if that is successful.
That’s one day later than GOP leaders had hoped. Their previous plan was to pass the bill with Democratic help under suspension of the rules, a fast-track process requiring a two-thirds-majority vote.
But that plan was complicated by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries telling Speaker Mike Johnson in a private conversation Saturday that Democratic leadership would not help Johnson secure the 70 or so Democratic votes to get the measure over the line, according to the two people and another person granted anonymity to discuss the matter.
The Tuesday plan remains tentative as GOP leaders scramble to navigate tensions inside their own conference, which could make passing the procedural measure difficult. Some conservative hard-liners, for instance, want to attach a sweeping elections bill to the package.
Jeffries said in a MS NOW interview Saturday that Republicans “cannot simply move forward with legislation taking a my way or the highway approach” while noting that House Democrats are set to have “a discussion about the appropriate way forward” in a Sunday evening caucus call — first reported by Blue Light News.
He did not rule out that Democrats might support the Senate-passed spending package, which funds the majority of federal agencies through Sept. 30 while providing a two-week extension for the Department of Homeland Security — including controversial immigration enforcement agencies.
Democrats, Jeffries said, want “a robust, ironclad path to bringing about the type of change that the American people are demanding” in immigration enforcement.
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