Congress

Trump’s budget pick is famous for defying Congress. GOP senators want to confirm him anyway.

Published

2 years ago

January 22, 2025

Senate Republicans are eager to seat the man who could undercut their funding power.

As President Donald Trump boldly defies the will of Congress by issuing executive orders freezing billions of dollars in federal cash that lawmakers have approved in recent years, Senate Republicans are still speaking accolades of Russ Vought, the president’s pick for White House budget director and the man famous for withholding government money during Trump’s first administration.

Key committee chairs are predicting that the Senate will confirm Vought without issue to head the Office of Management and Budget again, even as some GOP senators raise concern about protecting Congress’ “power of the purse” — granted under Article I of the Constitution — from presidential overreach.

“I think all of us are going to vote for you,” Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham told Vought on Wednesday, as the nominee testified before the South Carolina Republican’s committee in his second public vetting this month.

“Bottom line is, I think you’re qualified for the job. I know why he picked you,” Graham said of Trump’s selection of Vought. “And again, we just had an election. And when you win, you get to pick people. And I’m glad he picked you.”

Loyally confirming Trump’s desired budget director amid the new president’s sweeping funding pause would immediately strengthen the White House’s ability to pick and choose what cash to spend, shirking the spending laws congressional Republicans have voted to enact and calling into question the soundness of any bills they clear in the future.

Notably, Vought would not promise Wednesday to avoid circumventing impoundment law, which is meant to block presidents from withholding money Congress has previously passed through the Congressional appropriations process.

Federal watchdogs concluded that Vought and other Trump administration officials violated impoundment law several times during Trump’s first term, including the freezing of aid to Ukraine that helped fuel Trump’s impeachment in 2019.

But Vought said the executive orders Trump issued within hours of taking office Monday are simply “programmatic delays” or “pauses,” explaining they are meant “to ensure that the funding that is in place is consistent and moves in a direction along the lines of what the president ran on.”

While Vought vowed to “faithfully uphold the law” if confirmed, he noted that Trump disagrees with the Impoundment Control Act enacted more than 50 years ago to insulate the congressional appropriations process from executive branch meddling.

“The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. I agree with that,” Vought said, further insisting that “what the president has unveiled already are not impoundments.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the Budget Committee’s top Democrat, told Vought on Wednesday he was “deeply disturbed” with his answers.

“Congress makes the law, not the president,” said Merkley. “The fact that you continue to advocate for this impoundment strategy, that is completely in violation of our Constitution.”

Under the far-reaching orders Trump issued after he was inaugurated on Monday, federal agencies are now being forced to pause funding from Democrats’ signature climate and spending law called the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as from the bipartisan infrastructure package Republicans helped enact in 2021.

Foreign assistance is also on hold for 90 days, including to Ukraine and Israel as the two U.S. allies are in the midst of wars.

Not every Republican is giving Vought a total free pass. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee — which also has jurisdiction over the OMB director nomination and held its own confirmation hearing with Vought last week — said he didn’t think a president should have the power to use government funding differently than how lawmakers have dictated in the bills they pass.

“The power of the purse is Congress,” Paul said during that hearing. “I think if we appropriate something for a cause, that’s where it’s supposed to go. And that will still be my position.”

Nonetheless, less than a week later, Paul led Republicans on his committee to approve Vought’s nomination, stating, “There is no doubt he will be swiftly confirmed.”

Congress

Scalise will kick off August campaign sprint in marquee Nebraska House race

Published

10 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.

Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.

Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.

After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.

He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.

Congress

Trump needles Cornyn as Blanche remains blocked

Published

14 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.

Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.

“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.

Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.

“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”

On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.

“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.

Congress

Capitol agenda: The Senate’s fly-out agenda takes shape

Published

15 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans are prepping a jam-packed — if somewhat optimistic — agenda for their final week before summer recess.

Majority Leader John Thune wants to move stopgap funding through Dec. 11, bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation and a bloc of nominees — perhaps including attorney general pick Todd Blanche.

He’s also under pressure from President Donald Trump, administration officials and many of his GOP colleagues to adopt a budget resolution — the first step in unlocking another party-line spending bill.

Leaders are prioritizing the stopgap, though. Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) expects continuing resolution text to be unveiled later today, she told reporters Thursday, and an initial vote is expected Monday evening.

Still TBD: Collins wants to use the funding patch to block the Trump administration from putting political appointees in charge of approving grants — a demand Democratic senators are also making.

The decision is in Thune’s hands. He acknowledged a “handful of issues” are still under consideration with the CR, and said he’s “hoping both sides can come together and figure” them out.

As for the sanctions bill, leaders of both parties are still trying to work out a deal to fast-track the legislation amid concerns from some Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that it gives Trump too much tariff power.

In addition to the nominees package, Thune also hasn’t ruled out an initial vote on the landmark cryptocurrency bill both parties have spent months negotiating or teeing up a bipartisan college sports overhaul now in final stages of talks.

But the big question is whether Republicans can take a major step toward another reconciliation bill by advancing a budget resolution.

Thune met Thursday with Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said he was “optimistic in terms of how things are kind of coming together.”

Republicans anticipate giving a number of Senate committees instructions for the bill, setting up a lengthy and politically painful process ahead of adoption despite pushes for urgency from the White House.

Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was the latest official to head to Capitol Hill to try and light a fire under top Republicans. But GOP senators don’t necessarily see the urgency.

“The hard part is the president wants to be able to move fast, like an executive can move, and we’re a legislative branch,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “It doesn’t move that fast.”

What else we’re watching:

— BLANCHE TEETERING: Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general isn’t dead yet. But it’s certainly on life support. The acting AG met with Cornyn and Tillis Thursday at NRSC headquarters, and one person familiar with the discussion said the group was “working collaboratively now.” But it would now be difficult to confirm him before August recess under Senate rules.

— FARM BILL TEXT: Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman said his farm bill legislative text — originally expected Thursday — could come Friday or Saturday. The bill, which is expected to include language allowing year-round E15 sales and a potential compromise on postponing GOP-led cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is set to be marked up Thursday.

Jordain Carney and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.