Congress
Trump wants House to ‘get on board’ with Washington budget fix
President Donald Trump wants Congress to repair a significant cut to the District of Columbia’s budget and is happy to leave the procedural details to Speaker Mike Johnson, according to two White House officials.
But the president is prepared to work the phones — or, if needed, fire off a social media post — to correct legislative language that could have major repercussions for the capital city if left unaddressed.
Last Friday, the Senate passed a Trump-endorsed bill that would restore as much as $1.1 billion in local funding, according to District officials, that was — inadvertently, by some accounts — slashed by the government spending measure signed into law the next day.
The president has confidence the speaker will bring the bipartisan measure up for a vote, said a White House official granted anonymity to discuss Trump’s thinking.
How the bill gets through the House, however, is “sausage-making in the background,” said the official. “I don’t think he’ll publicly call for Johnson to bring [the fix] to the floor — that’s going to be a behind-the-scenes thing. If [Trump] must, though, a pressure campaign from Truth Social is always a possibility.”
If need be, Trump also is open to making calls to individual House members to ensure their support for the budget fix: “The president has no problem using his phone to make sure members get on board with what he’s trying to do.”
A second White House official, also granted anonymity to share private conversations, described the District of Columbia cut in the funding bill as “an oversight” that would eventually be fixed. That official said the White House wasn’t pressuring House GOP leaders and was giving Johnson space to figure out the way forward.
But Trump could, at some point, grow impatient: part of his interest in getting the budget fix approved is about extending an olive branch to Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, one of the White House officials said.
While Bowser has pushed back on the threat to the city’s budget, she has mostly spoken respectfully about Trump and has recently taken steps to comply with GOP priorities for the city — for instance, dismantling the “Black Lives Matter Plaza” her administration set up near the White House amid the 2020 racial justice protests.
She so far has been viewed by the White House as a “good actor” in the endeavor to get the budget fix enacted, according to the official.
Still, congressional Republicans note the city won’t run out of money in the meantime; they also argue the shortfall is closer to $500 million, not $1.1 billion. In any case, local elected officials and their allies say a failure to enact the repair bill would effectively force the District of Columbia to make dramatic mid-fiscal-year cuts to law enforcement, infrastructure improvement efforts and public education.
As House Republicans worked to advance a seven-month funding bill to avert a government shutdown last week, GOP leadership did not include routine language allowing the District to continue spending its local budget dollars. And while leaders made several changes to the bill text just before bringing it to the House floor for a vote, they didn’t address Washington’s funding omission.
It caught many senior lawmakers off guard.
“It came as a surprise to me and explains why the mayor has called me,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins of Maine said in an interview. “It certainly wasn’t something we did.”
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) at first told reporters he thought the omission was to rescind funding for “a lot of inaugural stuff,” saying “we’re not leaving inauguration funding going to D.C. in a bill when there’s not an inauguration.”
He later acknowledged that not all the slashed funding fell under that inauguration category, but he declined to address it, saying he’d have to “look at it in more detail” and that “it’s actually in the weeds.”
Many facets of the District of Columbia are subject to congressional oversight, but most of the city’s $21.2 billion budget is funded by local taxpayers. Roughly $5 billion comes from the federal government — the vast majority through formula-based federal programs, such as Medicaid, similar to what states receive.
Johnson now has to figure out when and how to bring the bill up for a floor vote amid opposition from hard-liners in his rebellious conference. GOP leaders feel like they have some time to figure out the way forward.
The speaker is not currently planning to advance the bill Monday through the Rules Committee, which would pave the way for a floor vote requiring a simple majority that could splinter Republicans on a procedural motion needed to bring the measure forward. Most likely, Johnson will need to pursue an expedited floor maneuver in the coming weeks that requires a two-thirds majority vote to secure passage.
Outside pressure — not just from Trump — could continue to build. City residents gathered outside the tiny House Rules Committee room for its initial meeting to set parameters for floor debate on the stopgap funding bill, raising alarms and objections to lawmakers about the consequences of the cuts.
Top Republican officials are increasingly accepting the House may already be lost as they shift to trying to limit the damage and salvage a Senate majority.
After waiting for weeks to see if the party’s deluge of money could help a raft of GOP incumbents who appeared to be in terrible shape in internal polling, more recent internal Republican polling still shows deep erosion in Trump country.
Now, Trump officials and Republican operatives say more candidates may have their funding from GOP campaign groups cut off in the coming days, before it’s too late to spend the money elsewhere to shore up other shaky races.
“I speak to a lot of people. There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House — not in recent weeks, anyway,” said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who lost in the last big House Democratic wave in 2018 after representing a South Florida swing district.
Five senior House Republicans, granted anonymity to candidly discuss their party’s precarious position, told Blue Light News the House has all but slipped from their grasp.
One of those Republicans compared the situation to Democrats’ 2006 flip of the House — specifically noting that potential Senate seat flips in North Carolina and Ohio could have downballot effects, while House candidates in redrawn red states like Florida and Texas are “hanging on with their fingernails.”
President Donald Trump’s political operation and the top House GOP super PAC have been cutting off ad spending across the map in races they feel are no longer winnable or worth the money, including for Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Tom Kean Jr.
And some national operatives are already starting to point fingers over who’s to blame, arguing that surprisingly-competitive Senate races are sucking away donor attention — therefore forcing House operatives into tough spending decisions.
White House officials insist they’re not giving up on the House, and that moves by the president and his team to shift the allocation of resources shouldn’t be seen as them prioritizing one chamber over another.
“The cutting of resources should not dictate what the philosophy is or what the outlook is for the overall race at large,” a senior White House official said. “It’s not doom and gloom around here. Everyone’s very positive, upbeat.”
But on the ground, Republicans seem to be giving up hope for any saving grace from the president in the final stretch.
“President Trump has made this election all about himself,” a second senior House Republican said in an interview. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”
What else we’re watching:
— WATERS, CASTEN FACE OFF ROILS DEMS: House Democrats are poised to face a polarizing choice on the other side of the midterm elections: Shove aside one of the most prominent Black progressives in their party in favor of a middle-aged White guy with similar policy views, or hand one of the most powerful gavels in Congress back to a nearly 90-year-old as their base clamors for generational change. That fight between Rep. Sean Casten, 54, and Maxine Waters, 88, to be Financial Services’ top Democrat also threatens to derail the party’s unity as members race to take back control of the chamber.
— GOP’S TAX CUT DATA DELAYED: The Trump administration is delaying the release of detailed data showing how Republicans’ 2025 tax cuts affected millions of Americans’ taxes, even as it tries to tout the law ahead of the midterms. The data — which is expected to provide the first detailed look at taxpayers taking advantage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including new deductions for overtime wages and tipped income — was scheduled to be released in July and updated in September. But the IRS said it’s awaiting approval to publish the figures. The delay has already irked some who complain it is part of a pattern of the administration withholding otherwise routine releases of tax data.
Meredith Lee Hill, Andrew Howard, Mia McCarthy, Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Brian Faler contributed to this report.
Adam Hamilton raised $10.6 million in the third quarter of 2026 across his Senate campaign and his joint fundraising committees, his campaign tells Blue Light News, a significant haul for the Kansas Democrat.
The fundraising total illustrates Democrats’ newfound bullishness about flipping a Senate seat in the deep-red state for the first time since 1932.
“This grassroots support sends a clear message: with three weeks until Election Day, Adam Hamilton is building the momentum to win,” said Hamilton campaign spokesperson Tyson Brody.
Hamilton’s third-quarter figure is nearly triple his $3.66 million second-quarter total. His campaign did not provide a current cash-on-hand total.
National Democrats began pumping money into Kansas in recent days, a sign of their growing hopes that Hamilton could win. Last week, Senate Majority PAC — Senate Democrats’ top super PAC — reserved $5 million in television ads backing Hamilton. American Bridge PAC and Lower Costs Now, a new group affiliated with former Vice President Kamala Harris’ super PAC, have spent in Kansas in recent weeks.
Republicans have also flocked to Kansas to prop up Marshall: Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP’s top PAC, has spent or reserved nearly $11 million backing Marshall in the past week, according to tracking firm AdImpact.
“It took us five months to raise $15 million. [Marshall] got it in a day,” Hamilton said at a campaign event in Lawrence, Kansas on Monday. “So please help us.”
Marshall’s campaign has yet to release his third-quarter fundraising totals. As of mid-July, Marshall had over $5 million in the bank to $1.73 million for Hamilton.
A bipartisan Senate duo is urging Trump national security officials to “bring its full capacities to bear” to stave off threats posed by artificial intelligence — sooner rather than later.
Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, and Republican South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, who serves on the Senate Armed Services cybersecurity subcommittee, are calling for a full government response to a growing number of cybersecurity breaches.
“Recent AI security incidents should serve as a warning,” the senators wrote in a Tuesday letter to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and White House Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. “Advanced AI agents have escaped testing environments, bypassed safeguards, and gained unauthorized access to real-world systems owned by government agencies and private organizations.”
Spokespeople for Clayton and Kratsios did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Their letter comes as lawmakers struggle to hash out what legislation on AI safety, if any, might look like. Members are currently in recess ahead of the November elections and there’s little hope progress can be made by the year’s end.
But those lawmakers who have been engaged on the topic for years now have mapped out administrative actions the Trump administration could move on now, without waiting on Congress.
The Cantwell and Rounds priorities include: strengthening federal AI safety and security standards at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST; expanding independent testing capabilities at the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence, Department of Energy and the national labs; and working with the tech industry to develop and deploy defensive AI tools.
Specifically, the senators wrote, new NIST standards should address the risks posed by advanced AI capabilities, including the “potential misuse by malicious actors” to conduct sophisticated cyberattacks, automate attacks at scale and agents that threaten external systems and critical infrastructure.
They also said the federal government capacity should be complemented by universities and other research organizations, as well as by private sector, third-party evaluators.
Finally, they point to ways the government could use existing programs at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to work with AI labs to help detect threats and reinforce vulnerable systems.
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