Congress

Trump’s latest budget nominee avows funding freeze, pledges to follow Vought

Published

2 years ago

February 25, 2025

The Senate began its public vetting on Tuesday of President Donald Trump’s pick for the No. 2 post at the White House budget office, a position key to carrying out the president’s funding freeze.

Dan Bishop, a former congressmember from North Carolina, testified before senators in his first confirmation hearing to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Pledging to follow the orders of Trump and White House budget director Russell Vought, the OMB nominee vowed to “fix” a federal bureaucracy he characterized as “self-absorbed, inefficient, unaccountable and mal-administered.”

Bishop skirted a direct question about whether he would follow the law, or Trump, if the president directed him to take action that would break the law.

“I’m confident that President Trump will issue lawful orders. It would not be up to me, as serving in a non-lawyer capacity, to decide what is lawful and not lawful,” Bishop, a lawyer who lost his bid in November to be the attorney general of North Carolina, told senators on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Already, Bishop is serving as a senior adviser to OMB as the budget office leads the Trump administration in freezing billions of dollars in foreign aid and federal grant money, prompting federal judges throughout the country to temporarily halt many of those actions amid lawsuits challenging their constitutionality.

During his five years in Congress, Bishop introduced bills he touted as a way to “drain the swamp” by making it easier to fire federal workers and blocking them from doing union work while on the clock. On Tuesday, he told senators he doesn’t think the Trump administration “is proceeding in an indiscriminate way to terminate employees” amid the firing of tens of thousands of federal workers.

Despite telling senators that he won’t be judging the legality of the president’s demands, Bishop laid out an argument for historical precedent supporting Trump’s power to freeze funding, telling senators that former President Harry Truman canceled a squadron of bombers that Congress approved despite his veto.

“These things have happened across history by presidents,” he said.

Bishop also noted that Trump “has run on the issue of impoundment.” On the campaign trail, Trump argued that the more than 50-year-old Impoundment Control Act, which blocks presidents from withholding money without Congress’ approval, is unconstitutional.

Democrats were not impressed. “I will skip the irony,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said, “of a congressman who ran for office and was deeply involved in appropriating dollars — and voting on those things for years and years and years — now being seemingly willing to give up that authority. It’s a fundamental principle.”

On the other side of the aisle, Republicans gushed over Bishop.

Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), who has known Bishop since he was a county commissioner in Charlotte about two decades ago, praised the OMB deputy nominee for “his care for people,” as well as “his commitment to stopping runaway spending and getting the federal budget under control.”

Bishop is likely to be confirmed with the same unanimous Republican support Vought received earlier this month. Like Bishop, Vought also would not promise senators that he would not circumvent impoundment law, after famously freezing aid to Ukraine during Trump’s first presidency.

Vought is now leading the charge to carry out Trump’s executive orders demanding the freeze of foreign aid, as well as funding from the Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure package enacted in 2021.

Bishop told senators on Tuesday that he is “thrilled” with Vought’s work.

“And I can assure you, he is the man to get the management of the federal government back on track,” Bishop said. “If confirmed, I look forward to serving as his deputy.”

Congress

Chris Murphy plans midterm travel blitz, fundraising for Nixon in Florida

Published

2 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Chris Murphy wants Democrats to go big for Angie Nixon in Florida’s Senate race — and he’s pushing to raise some “serious money” to help.

“I do believe that we’d make a big mistake if we slept on Florida,” the Connecticut Democrat told Blue Light News on Friday. “I know it feels like a longer shot, but I just think this year is looking exceptional.”

Murphy plans to hit the trail with Nixon as part of a campaign swing for Senate candidates over the next three weeks that will take him through North Carolina and Florida, as well as events with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota and Chris Pappas in New Hampshire. Murphy will serve as a surrogate for El-Sayed in the spin room at his next debate, and said he’s “just a big believer” in the Michigan Senate nominee.

Murphy’s bullishness about a blue wave comes as Senate Democrats are pushing the boundaries of a midterm battle map that is shifting further into red territory. The Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC has dropped roughly $5 million apiece into Texas and Kansas over recent days, and the minority leader has included Kansas and Mississippi in his pitches to donors.

“If I were in charge, I would definitely put some resources in Florida,” Murphy said. “When you have an exciting candidate like this, it’s a good long-term investment” in growing Democrats’ activist base.

Still, Murphy stressed he’s “not making any formal recommendations” on where Schumer or top Democratic campaign groups should move their money.

“They’ve got so many mouths to feed,” Murphy said. “That’s why I’m going to try to step up and do some work on my own.”

Murphy, who is considered a potential 2028 presidential contender, has spread roughly $2.5 million across candidates, campaign arms and other organizations this cycle. That includes transferring more than $500,000 to Democrats’ three top campaign arms and 25 state parties.

Prominent Democrats have been ramping up their attention on Florida. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has funneled $250,000 toward Nixon’s campaign, along with other resources. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) also told Blue Light News he hopes to campaign with Nixon.

But Democrats across suddenly competitive red states are clamoring for more cash and Florida is an expensive state, complicating the chances of a significant investment from national groups.

Nixon also faces an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Ashley Moody in the Sunshine State. A progressive state lawmaker, Nixon aligned herself with the Democratic Socialists of America over the summer in a state where many voters, especially those with ties to Cuba, reject such an ideology. Also, Republicans in Florida have a 1.5 million voter registration advantage over Democrats.

Congress

Democrats drop $5M into Kansas Senate race

Published

6 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Democrats’ top super PAC is pushing into Kansas.

The Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC is launching a $5 million statewide television ad blitz starting Saturday through Election Day — the latest sign that Democrats believe the Senate map is shifting onto red turf.

SMP had signaled in recent days it could get involved in the race, telling Blue Light News late last month it was “actively thinking” about whether to wade into the state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in nearly a century but where Adam Hamilton narrowly leads GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in recent polls. Internal SMP polling that found an increasingly competitive race factored into the group’s decision to spend. It will also run digital ads.

“The gap is closing in Kansas,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement. “We are committed to ensuring families understand Marshall’s real record of making health care and basic goods more expensive for working Kansans.”

Republicans are scrambling to shore up Marshall. Senate Leadership Fund, a top GOP super PAC aligned with Republican leadership, has booked over $10 million in ads through Election Day in the state, per ad tracking firm AdImpact.

SMP’s first ad attacks Marshall for joining Senate Republicans in voting to table a Democratic-led amendment last year to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. The Senate later approved legislation to release the files by unanimous consent. It’s the latest in a slate of ads from Democrats hitting their Republican rivals over the late, disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. Marshall’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senate Democrats’ plunge into the state comes as the midterm battle map is undergoing a major realignment. Georgia and North Carolina — primed to be two of the cycle’s premiere battlegrounds — are tilting left to the point where national Republicans are retracting spending in both states and Democrats are starting to follow suit, freeing funds on both sides to shift elsewhere.

Republicans are racing to reinforce incumbents across what was once safer red turf. SLF has also pledged $5 million to bolster Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina.

Democrats, meanwhile, are starting to spend more in red states. SMP has dropped over $2 million on digital ads in Texas. Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has included Kansas and Mississippi in his pitches to donors.

Congress

House Democratic campaign arm says it needs $17 million, and fast

Published

6 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is begging for resources, and setting a hard deadline for donors to give $17 million in order to compete in a handful of districts that Republicans carried easily in 2024.

DCCC Executive Director Julie Merz said the committee needs the cash influx by Oct. 22 in order to “to take advantage of the opportunities we have” outside of the core battlefield, according to a memo shared with donors on Friday and obtained by POLITICO.

If they don’t pony up, Merz warns, the party “could be leaving winnable races on the table.”

Democrats have been clear that they have a fundraising disadvantage this cycle, but they have so far been reluctant to place a specific dollar amount on their needs, making the DCCC’s memo Friday a particularly surprising outlier.

“Here’s the tough reality though: the Republican ecosystem has amassed a massive war chest that is significantly greater than ours and is spending it,” Merz says in the memo after arguing that the members of the committee “remain confident that we will win back the majority in 25 days.”

Specifically, Merz dedicates significant portions of the memo to four districts where the committee is desperate for more money in order to compete — all of which President Donald Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024:

— Florida’s 27th District (Trump +14.6)

— Nevada’s 2nd District (Trump +13.9)

— South Carolina’s 1st District (Trump +13)

— New York’s 21st District (Trump +20.7)

The fundraising disadvantage has created headaches for both House and Senate Democrats over where, exactly, to deploy the resources they do have.

The committee tells donors that their internal polling shows all of those races within reach, but that Republicans’ big cash advantages — especially in the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. — will make it harder to win those and other reach seats.

Merz also name drops a handful of other deep-red districts that are “worthy of additional investment in this environment,” including seats held by GOP Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the chair of the Republican National Congressional Committee.

The NRCC was quick to mock the DCCC’s memo.

“No amount of money fixes candidates voters don’t want. These seats are staying red, and Republicans are on offense across the map,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement.