Congress

Trump’s agenda is about to hit a make-or-break moment

Published

1 year ago

January 27, 2025

House Republicans are heading to President Donald Trump’s Miami-area resort for their annual policy retreat. They’re not going there for the weather.

Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP members have major decisions to make over the coming days that will determine whether Trump and Republicans can deliver on their sweeping legislative agenda before the 2026 midterms. They’re already running behind.

The biggest task for the gathering at Trump National Doral: Finalize a budget blueprint plan for the massive, party-line bill they’re planning, touching energy, border security and tax policy.

But to do that, Republicans need to decide what will go in that package — with the price tag of Trump’s priorities reaching $10 trillion over 10 years — versus what might be included in a separate, bipartisan government funding bill that will be negotiated with Democrats over the next seven weeks. The fate of a necessary debt ceiling increase is top of mind.

Johnson has been carefully collecting member feedback for weeks while privately debating a host of options with GOP leaders. But House Republicans are growing impatient and want to know the game plan.

“We need to have a sense of urgency with the debt ceiling coming,” said Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.), a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus. “I hope there’s options at this point.”

The House Budget Committee is set to meet and take up the fiscal blueprint for the GOP agenda when lawmakers return to Washington next week. Adopting an identical blueprint in the House and Senate is a prerequisite for unlocking the budget reconciliation process that allows Republicans to sidestep a filibuster by Democrats.

Johnson last week indicated he’s planning to present more detailed plans to GOP members and discuss the reconciliation package, government funding for fiscal 2025, a debt-limit hike, California wildfire aid, border security money “and more” — including a potential bipartisan deal with Democrats that could encompass multiple parts of that puzzle.

“We’re looking at all options,” Johnson said of a larger funding deal with Democrats, adding that no decisions have been made.

But many Republicans are skeptical they’ll leave the retreat with concrete plans in hand. Some GOP members initially planned to skip the gathering, opting instead for an official trip to Africa, but those plans ended up getting canceled, according to two people granted anonymity to talk about planning for the closed-door event.

The planned retreat discussions have been tailored to show attending members the possibilities for the way forward and to take their temperatures on potential spending cuts, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the planning. Leaders will have to carefully balance sometimes competing interests from various GOP factions.

Johnson looks on during a press conference Wednesday at Republican National Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill.

Committee chairs will present their proposals for the reconciliation package and answer member questions during a series of breakout sessions Tuesday.

The reconciliation process will be the subject of a plenary session hosted by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and chairs on Wednesday morning. They’re set to then pile into buses and head back to the airport just before noon Wednesday.

“In my world, there’s some, ‘All right, this can be part of reconciliation, this can’t be part.’ And then once you get what the doable is, then you start figuring out what the legislative language is,” said Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.).

Republicans can expect to get a message of urgency Monday night, when Trump himself will address them at his resort.

“That will certainly be a highlight for us,” said Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), head of the party campaign committee, adding that Trump’s “fun to be around” and that retreats generally allow Republicans to “get together away from all the chaos” in Washington.

But he acknowledged it’s not just another GOP gathering.

“This one is particularly important because we have to hammer out what our plan is on reconciliation,” Hudson said. “So I’m hopeful we can get to a point where we can all agree and get ready to get back here and go to work.”

Beyond being a team-building exercise, party retreats can also serve as an early-warning system for potential threats to the agenda.

Eight years ago, Republicans gathered in Philadelphia to plot out their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a more conservative alternative. In one contentious closed-door session — one that was secretly recorded and leaked to media outlets — members expressed serious trepidations about how leaders were planning to go about it.

Seven months later, the push for the health care overhaul imploded when the party could not unite around a plan. Leaders ended up having to abandon it and move on to a package of tax cuts — one they now have to renew.

This year, there aren’t the same sort of fundamental objections to core agenda items. But there are serious disagreements that members have to work through — most of them over how to pay for the massive bill.

For example, Republicans on the Armed Services Committee are deeply opposed to Guthrie’s proposal to restore the spectrum auction authority of the Federal Communications Commission as they try to balance the promise of advanced wireless technology and the needs of the military. Guthrie said he planned to use the retreat to work through the impasse. And there are some members — especially on Johnson’s right flank — who are expecting trillions of dollars in spending cuts. They’re also wary that his plan for one huge bill comes at the cost of delays and the risk the entire package could blow up.

“I was kind of in favor, honestly, of doing two separate bills. I think that would have been the way to play this,” Moore said, adding he just wants a “good game plan” out of the retreat.

Centrists are also relaying their concerns to GOP leaders about some committees’ plans to target pieces of the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provides food aid benefits for more than 40 million low-income Americans.

Republicans are discussing enacting Medicaid work requirements for the first time and adding additional SNAP work requirements for parents with children over 7 years old.

Those proposals are relatively more palatable for GOP lawmakers in competitive districts than the massive cuts to current benefits some conservatives would prefer. But they’re still politically divisive and could provide Democrats major campaign fodder in blue and purple districts ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Congress

Senate Judiciary schedules confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche

Published

2 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Judiciary Committee has set a date for Todd Blanche’s two-day confirmation hearing next month, potentially putting the attorney general nominee on track to be confirmed by the full Senate as soon as before the August recess — if he can get the votes.

Blanche will appear before the committee on July 15, according to a spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, with outside witnesses testifying on Blanche’s nomination July 16.

With all Democrats expected to oppose Blanche, a single Republican could tank his chances of advancing in committee — and outgoing Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas are not yet committing to voting “yes.”

Tillis did say Monday he was “generally satisfied with [Blanche’s] paperwork,” which the committee made public Tuesday, but would have questions for the nominee during the confirmation hearing.

Blanche is now leading the Justice Department in an acting capacity while continuing to serve in his current confirmed role as deputy attorney general. He ensnared himself in President Donald Trump’s orbit as his personal attorney, which has prompted concerns over whether he could be unduly loyal to the president as the federal government’s top law enforcement officer.

He has since come under fire for announcing, then withdrawing, a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” — and, most recently, is being scrutinized for reports the DOJ is investigating yet another Trump political adversary, California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In his Senate questionnaire, Blanche recalled how he left his law firm in 2023, “primarily to represent President Donald Trump” in the Stormy Daniels hush fund case out of Manhattan. He also represented Trump in the cases brought by former special counsel Jack Smith and “served as counsel to President Trump in an advising capacity in various other civil investigations and cases between 2023 and 2025.”

Blanche cited those Trump cases among his ten most significant — along with litigating the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to justify deportations and the fate of the new White House ballroom.

Congress

OMB nominee ‘can’t commit’ to forgoing ‘pocket rescissions’ funding gambit this year

Published

3 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s pick for deputy director of the White House budget office told lawmakers Tuesday he can’t promise the administration won’t unilaterally cancel funding later this year without Congress’ consent.

Hal Duncan, the nominee to serve in the No. 2 position at the Office of Management and Budget, defended the controversial “pocket rescission” maneuver during his first of two confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill this week.

“Pocket rescissions have been executed by previous administrations, notably the Ford administration,” Duncan said during testimony before the Senate Budget Committee. “I can’t commit to any of the fiscal tools the administration may or may not use in the future.”

His comments come after the White House defied Democrats and many Republicans last year by canceling $4.9 billion in foreign aid without a vote from Congress.

Typically, if an administration wants to withhold funding Congress has already appropriated, the White House will send a rescissions request. Then Congress has 45 days to approve, amend or reject the request to cancel the funding, with inaction considered rejection.

But Trump administration officials claim they can submit a formal request to rescind funding with less than 45 days left in the fiscal year and then withhold it until it lapses on Oct. 1, regardless of whether Congress acts, even though lawmakers in both parties consider the tactic an illegal end-run around Congress’ “power of the purse.”

The Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the go-ahead last fall to cancel much of the foreign aid it nixed through a pocket rescission. But the high court has yet to settle major questions about whether the Trump administration has violated the Constitution or federal law in withholding billions of dollars Congress has appropriated.

If the Trump administration attempts the tactic again this year, it would happen in August or September.

Duncan will appear Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Trump leaves Congress in dark on Iran deal

Published

8 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans want a say on a deal President Donald Trump is touting to end the monthslong war in Iran.

The absence of publicly released text for the “memorandum of understanding” Vice President JD Vance reportedly signed with Iranian officials Sunday sparked bipartisan scrutiny on Capitol Hill about what the deal might entail.

Senators in both parties agreed: More information needs to come to Congress soon, and any agreement touching on the future of the Iranian nuclear program would have to eventually be subject to a congressional vote.

“If you want a deal to last, it can’t be an executive agreement,” said Sen. James Lankford. “We’ve got to have a vote of Congress to be able to solidify [it] long term.”

The Trump administration said it expects release of the memorandum of understanding no later than Friday.

The agreement reportedly includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, but it’s not clear to what degree Iran will be required to abandon its nuclear program. The White House circulated talking points to Hill Republicans Monday touting the deal, including that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” and “energy prices … are coming down,” according to a copy of the document reviewed by Blue Light News.

“If it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously?” Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters.

Weighing heavily on several lawmakers is the possibility of an agreement landed by the administration looking very similar to the last Iran nuclear deal, consummated more than a decade ago by then-President Barack Obama amid a bipartisan uproar over trading sanctions relief and cash concessions to the Iranian regime in return for curbs on its nuclear ambitions.

Democrats believe Trump should’ve never abandoned that deal — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — in his first term, while GOP defense hawks despised it from the start.

“If [the Iranians] can enrich [uranium] anywhere at all, then it’s the same as JCPOA,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of the Trump administration’s forthcoming deal. “If they can’t enrich, then that makes it a good deal.”

One legacy of that 2015 controversy: the GOP-controlled Congress at the time passed legislation allowing for congressional review of any agreement dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. That law gives members the ability to kill a deal via a disapproval resolution that could be subject to presidential veto.

In the absence of further details, senators mainly agreed that they wanted a chance to formally review and vote on Trump’s deal — even as some Republicans predicted the administration would find a way to avoid that happening.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is “probably some expectation” that his chamber would ultimately vote on the agreement while declining to weigh in on the particulars.

“I just don’t know enough about it yet, and I don’t think even the people who follow this stuff closely up here know that much about it,” he said, adding that he expected Vance or other administration officials to brief members on the deal at some point.

What else we’re watching:

— DEMS NONCOMMITTAL ON SPEEDY CLAYTON CONFIRMATION: It’s unclear if Senate Republicans will be able to move at the lightning speed they’d hoped to in confirming Jay Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence by the end of the week. If every Senate Intelligence member agrees, Clayton could get a committee vote Thursday following his Wednesday hearing. Confirming Clayton on the Senate floor hours later would require getting agreement from every senator to speed up the process. Opposition from a single member would punt a vote to next week.

— THUNE AIMS FOR HOUSING BILL PASSAGE THIS WEEK: Thune is hoping his chamber can pass an updated version of a bipartisan housing affordability bill by the end of the week. The legislation comes after talks between Thune, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott and ranking member Elizabeth Warren. Two Senate Democratic aides granted anonymity to discuss ongoing plans said the bill was also discussed with the House and the White House.

Katherine Hapgood contributed to this report.