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Congress

Thune is ‘hopeful’ Mitch McConnell will return this week

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3 months ago

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he hopes his predecessor as top Republican, Mitch McConnell, returns this week from a hospitalization.

Thune said he had not yet spoken directly with the 84-year-old Kentuckian but is getting “readouts from his staff.”

Asked about McConnell’s condition or if he knew if he would be back this week, Thune told reporters, “I’m hopeful that he’ll be back this week.”

A McConnell spokesperson said Sunday that he had been admitted to the hospital but did not provide details on his condition or why he was hospitalized — a break from recent prior instances where the seven-term senator was hospitalized.

A former McConnell staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity was told the senator was doing much better Monday without any further details on what put him in the hospital.

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

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Congress

Trump declares $1B canceled in ‘pocket rescission’ in another affront to Congress’ funding power

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27 minutes ago

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September 26, 2026

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President Donald Trump informed congressional leaders Friday that he has unilaterally canceled almost $1 billion without Congress’ consent — employing a budget maneuver many lawmakers consider illegal.

In a move that will almost certainly set up an ugly government funding battle after the midterms, Trump has again claimed the power to execute a so-called “pocket rescission” to nix money Congress has already enacted. The money his administration will claw back is for for immigration services, support to foreign countries, education programs, health research efforts and assistance for businesses owned by minorities.

By law, the president is allowed to send Congress a request to rescind federal funding, then withhold that money for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore it. Trump administration officials also argue they have the power to cancel funding without any congressional action by sending Congress a rescission request with less than 45 days left in the fiscal year. The argument is that the money automatically gets canceled on Sept. 30, when funding lapses at the end of the fiscal year.

Last year, Trump canceled $4.9 billion in foreign aid.

The Senate’s top Republican appropriator, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, immediately blasted the move as illegal, saying in a statement Friday night that “any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”

“This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law,” Collins added, pledging to work with other lawmakers “to address these illegal actions.”

Collins and other appropriators have already been on high alert in recent days, pressing multiple agencies about funding officials have yet to spend ahead of the expiration date.

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Congress

Gallego grades Democrats on their midterm messaging to men

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4 hours ago

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September 25, 2026

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Democrats are finally catching on to how to talk to young male voters in the lead-up to the midterms, but the party can still up its game, one battleground senator and potential 2028er said Friday.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has been one of his party’s most outspoken critics on its handling of outreach to young men, who swung right and helped deliver the White House and both chambers of Congress to Republicans in 2024.

The party is now “definitely moving in the right direction,” Gallego said Friday.

“Like back in the day, I was like the only one,” putting out positions on men, Gallego said at a Washington event on young American men. “Now, like, it seems like everyone every week is coming out with a new position, new idea, which is great.”

Gallego has criticized Democrat’s failure to highlight mens’ struggles and their tendency to over-police mens’ ideas. But there are signs the political winds have shifted in his party’s favor.

A new Cygnal poll released with the event of men ages 18-30 who say they’re the most determined to vote revealed Democrats’ generic ballot lead over Republicans at 57%-40%, Blue Light News reported. The poll also said nearly 40 percent of respondents said they feel their lives are off track.

“We need to take the opportunity to invest in that portion of this country, to say that we care about them and actually try to change the trajectory of what’s happening with men in this country,” Gallego said at the symposium.

Still, the path for specific legislation targeting the needs of this demographic faces an incredibly tight calendar this Congress and is uncertain in the political landscape of next year.

A proposal from Gallego and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) to establish a men’s health office within the Department of Health and Human Services, for example, has not advanced. Nor has bipartisan legislation from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who also spoke at the event, targeting education outcomes, college investment transparency and dyslexic student support.

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Congress

Bipartisan Russia hawks urge Trump to pull Putin invite to G20 summit

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4 hours ago

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September 25, 2026

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A bipartisan group of 14 senators urged President Donald Trump to rescind his invitation for Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the Group of 20 summit in Miami in December.

The letter, whose bipartisan signers were led by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the invitation on Wednesday.

“President Putin bears sole responsibility for launching Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine,” the senators wrote in the letter. “Allowing him to participate in a G20 Summit in the United States raises serious concerns about legitimizing and normalizing a government that continues to attack Ukrainian civilian targets every day.”

The senators also noted that the U.S. has sanctioned Putin, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and others in the Russian delegation. If the U.S. does not join in isolating Russia on the world stage, Putin may not feel motivated to pursue a ceasefire and further negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, they wrote.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request to comment on Friday.

The letter surfaced following Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington that concluded Friday.

During the summit, Xi said he will meet with Trump two more times this year, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November and again at the G20 summit. Trump subsequently confirmed on social media that he will attend the APEC summit in Shenzhen, China.

Putin is also set to attend the APEC summit in China, and there were talks of a trilateral meeting there, Reuters reported earlier this month.

The Russian presidential press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter or whether Putin has accepted Trump’s invitation.

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