Congress
Trump’s Iran endgame grates on Hill Republicans
The White House would prefer Congress handle the Iran war’s endgame something like this: Pony up, and don’t ask too many questions.
That approach is grating on many congressional Republicans, who are chafing at the idea that President Donald Trump’s administration is asking for hundreds of billions of dollars in fresh military funding without briefing most of Congress on the cease-fire agreement Trump signed last week.
As House lawmakers returned to the Capitol this week for the first time since the “memorandum of understanding” was inked, even GOP members who are generally supportive of the president said they had a hard time understanding why administration had not been more forthcoming with details on the agreement and the nuclear talks it sets up.
Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, a senior appropriator, told reporters “it wouldn’t hurt” to get a briefing from Trump officials this week “because mostly what I hear is what I hear from the news.”
Even ahead of briefing, a swath of angrier Republicans has grown livid at the text of the Trump-signed memo, which includes an agreement to lift U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil sales and pursue a $300 billion Iranian “reconstruction” plan in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the hostilities.
Vice President JD Vance told reporters last week that the administration was “quite confident that we can temporarily lift those sanctions without going to Congress and seeking their approval.”
“The Administration acts like they want a deal much more than the Ayatollah regime,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said in a text message, joining multiple hawkish senators in expressing dismay. “Committing $300B in reconstruction, sanctions relief, pulling back forces near Iran and putting pressure on Israel looks like weakness.”
Trump sought to quiet the internal skeptics Tuesday, telling reporters that anyone who has been critical of the deal “has to be educated, even if they’re friends of mine.” He is set to travel to Capitol Hill Wednesday to sign a bipartisan housing bill and meet with restless GOP senators who may press him for a defense of the agreement.
But the vast majority of House members have not heard anything beyond administration talking points nearly a week after details of the memorandum first emerged. The White House sent the full text of the agreement to Congress Thursday — after Trump had signed it and administration officials had briefed reporters on the document.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters Tuesday he expects House members will receive a briefing on Iran this week. Later, Johnson indicated in an interview a planned briefing from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to a select group of House Republicans Wednesday was the only briefing lawmakers should expect for now.
“The secretary is the ultimate authority on it, so I’m sure he’ll provide a lot of information,” Johnson said of Hegseth, who was not directly involved in the peace negotiations.
He did not commit in the interview to additional briefings for a wider swath of lawmakers: “We’ll have to see. I mean, we’ll see what the secretary does, and then evaluate after that.”
Some White House officials, including Vance, briefed select groups of GOP lawmakers last week on the agreement, including party leaders and top lawmakers on foreign affairs committees. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a GOP defense hawk who was initially skeptical of the deal, said he spoke on the phone with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East. The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), said his panel has not been briefed on the agreement.
The grumbling from Hill Republicans is shaping up to be a major pain point as Trump officials ramp up pressure to approve new Pentagon spending. A top Defense official told key lawmakers last week that a $78 billion emergency infusion is needed to pay for the Iran war — on top of the $350 billion in defense funding Trump has demanded Republicans deliver in a new party-line bill.
A formal request for emergency spending could land on Capitol Hill as soon as this week, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) hammered the idea Monday, telling reporters that Trump and Hegseth are responsible for “Operation Epic Failure.”
“Their reckless and costly war of choice has been a disaster for the American people,” Jeffries said. “And the notion that they’ll come up to Capitol Hill to try to get an additional $80 billion to continue to waste taxpayer money on an endless war in the Middle East that Donald Trump promised he wouldn’t start, but would stop, is beyond reckless.”
One senior Republican involved in the talks about the party-line bill said Trump’s defense funding request is “tough” for Republicans to deliver, given the pushback from various corners of the House GOP over the size of the ask and the debate over how to pay for it.
GOP Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) issued a blunt warning in a Tuesday X post: “The Pentagon wants $891 billion this year and still can’t pass a clean audit. … My rule is simple: show me you passed an audit, then we can talk about more money.”
Burlison is among the front-runners to be the next chair of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus and is a member of the Republican Study Committee. Hegseth is set to appear at the invitation of the latter group Wednesday to make the case for the new military spending requests. But he, like Trump, could face sharp questions about the peace deal, which many Republicans believe is all too similar to the 2015 agreement Barack Obama brokered as president.
“I’m always willing to give peace a chance,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), an RSC member who is planning to attend the Hegseth briefing, said. But he noted the U.S. needs to make sure that Iran doesn’t drive a “wedge” between America and Israel.
Stutzman also said he was looking forward to the Defense secretary providing a detailed “fiscal update” of how much the Pentagon has spent on the war and how much artillery needs to be backfilled, while adding that will need to have “hard conversations” about finding offsets to any new military spending.
Rep. Tom Barrett, a Republican facing a highly competitive race against another military veteran for his Michigan seat, said in an interview he was concerned that the administration had not been more forthcoming in answering lawmakers’ questions.
He said he anticipated those attending the Hegseth briefing would press the secretary on the Iran agreement in addition to the administration’s funding request.
Republicans are also internally divided over whether Congress needs to vote on any final nuclear agreement the Trump administration might reach with Iran in the coming months, as would seem to be required under a 2015 law passed as the Obama deal was coming together. The memorandum sets out a 60-day period for further talks.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) argued just hours after Trump announced the initial agreement with Iran that a vote wouldn’t be “necessary.” A few minutes later, Graham declared in response that there would be “no way” Congress would forgo a vote on any final nuclear deal.
Weighing heavily on vulnerable GOP incumbents is that the 60-day window expires in August, just weeks before the midterm elections. Trump has threatened to go back to widespread bombing against Iran if the talks don’t produce a satisfactory result.
Johnson, asked how this was different from Obama’s deal, defended Trump and reiterated that there was no deal yet.
“You’ve got to allow this to play out,” he said, praising Trump for having “handled Iran.”
He added that he was “heartened” that gas prices had dipped and mostly declined to weigh in on the sanctions relief Trump promised, noting “there’s a lot of moving parts right now” and that he has “always been a supporter of strong sanctions against Iran.”
“I’ve got enough to do to manage the House over here,” he said. “I’m not going to tell the administration how to negotiate that.”
Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson will meet at the White House Tuesday with the executives of top artificial intelligence companies, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private plans.
The meeting comes as Congress is coming under increasing pressure to put federal guardrails on AI development, as fears mount that technological advancements could soon spiral beyond human control.
Responding to some warnings that AI development was on track to cause human extinction by the end of the decade, Johnson has said he wants Trump and AI CEOs to “go in a big room, close the door and sort this out.” He has yet to endorse major legislative action to address the issue, as Trump has resisted calls for government regulations, citing concerns about lagging behind China.
The president and speaker were in attendance at the State Dinner on Thursday night in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington, as were OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. It was not immediately clear which of these executives would be invited to next week’s meeting, and who will be participating.
News that the meeting had been scheduled was first reported by Axios.
A group of 10 Democrats has signed on to Rep. Greg Casar’s (D-Texas) bill that would ban superintelligence and pause advanced AI development until a vetting regime could be stood up.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), both of whom are mulling a 2028 presidential run, are cosponsoring the bill, named the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act.
Khanna, in a statement, noted that he convened a hearing this week on AI safety cooperation between the U.S. and China as ranking member of the House China Select Committee with AI experts who underscored the need for a verifiable pause on superintelligence.
AI superintelligence is an as-yet hypothetical form of the advanced technology that surpasses humans’ cognitive capabilities, but exactly when AI crosses the threshold into superintelligence remains contested. The bill would subject violators to a 20-year prison sentence.
The support from prominent progressives in the Democratic caucus comes as the party is navigating how they would approach AI regulation should they retake control of one or both chambers in November.
Other cosponsors include Reps. Analilia Mejia of New Jersey, Yassamin Ansari and Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, Val Hoyle of Oregon, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Chuy García of Illinois, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Nydia Velázquez of New York.
“We absolutely have to slow down and regulate the advancement of dangerous AI technologies that have the potential to spiral out-of-control and threaten humanity,” Ansari said.
To Lynch, a string of recent AI-led cyberbreaches has “shown us that the advanced forms of this are out of control,” he said in an interview. “We haven’t really solved that control problem yet, nor have we got the alignment problem right yet.”
Casar’s bill, introduced this week with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is among the most stringent AI regulations proposed by either party.
Rather than focusing on bans as Casar and his progressive allies have done, centrist Democrats are looking to legislative proposals they say can address the technology’s risks without stifling innovation.
Senate Republicans are discussing whether to call up a data center utility costs bill as they make plans to stay in Washington next week rather than beat an early exit before the midterms.
Two GOP aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the Senate will remain in town amid pressure from some corners of the party to send members home early to campaign.
Asked if the Senate will stay next week, Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday it’s “looking that way.”
While some lawmakers had hoped to move a long-brewing bipartisan energy permitting deal, those hopes have evaporated, and GOP leaders are instead eyeing votes on the Ratepayer Protection Act — a top priority of endangered Ohio Sen. Jon Husted.
Thune said Thursday moving to the data-center-focused bill next week “is an option.” The Senate is also expected to take up a Democratic resolution condemning the Iran war and several presidential nominations.
The Ratepayer Protection Act easily passed the House earlier this month, but some Senate Democrats are arguing it does not go far enough and party leaders could be motivated to deny Husted a pre-election win.
Josh Siegel contributed to this report.
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words