Congress
VA secretary’s role in failed vets bill stokes new round of White House, GOP frustration
White House officials and House GOP leaders are increasingly frustrated with Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, after they say he undermined a major veterans measure championed by Republicans, according to five people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The bill, which would expand benefits for tens of thousands of veterans, was abruptly pulled off the House floor earlier this month after a group of Republicans privately warned they would tank it. They were concerned they would end up being blamed for cutting benefits because of the way the bill proposed paying for the increase — and said that Collins’ VA hadn’t done enough to alleviate their worries.
“A self-inflicted loss at the hands of the VA secretary,” said one White House official after the vote.
The floor meltdown cost Republicans a legislative win just before the House departed for its summer recess — and scuttled a positive campaign issue ahead of the November elections. Johnson will now have to burn precious floor time in September if he wants to make another attempt.
And it’s just the latest move by Collins that has stoked backlash on Capitol Hill and inside the White House, after he irritated lawmakers by failing to give them advance warning about several high-profile changes, including staffing cuts and management reforms at the department.
Speaker Mike Johnson was so unhappy with the VA’s handling of the situation ahead of the veterans bill vote that he called the White House to press for a clarification from the VA about how it would change its rules to pay for the benefits expansion, according to three of the people, who, like others, were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive legislative dynamics.
Top Republicans involved said that the VA under Collins helped fuel opposition to the bill by issuing conflicting guidance about its own plans for veterans benefits. The VA ultimately issued a new statement to POLITICO just hours before the scheduled vote in an attempt to quell resistance. But it wasn’t enough.
Inside private meetings with GOP leaders ahead of the failed vote, key House Republicans said they had spoken with Collins about their concerns and he had at least in part agreed with them, according to three other people involved in the conversations.
Administration officials pushed back on the friction. White House assistant press secretary Olivia Wales said in a statement that Collins “is doing a great job and works tirelessly to deliver for our heroic veterans.”
VA press secretary Quinn Slaven said that officials have clearly outlined support for the measure in a statement of administration policy and in public statements. “Under the leadership of President [Donald] Trump, Secretary Collins is proud to work every day to make VA benefits better, faster and easier to use than ever before,” he said in a statement.
Senior House Republicans have relayed concerns to the White House about how both Collins and Don Bergin, the VA’s assistant secretary for congressional and legislative affairs, handled the matter.
Democrats and some veterans groups have strongly opposed the measure. Money for the expansion of aid for disabled veterans would be funded by cuts in future disability claims for tinnitus and sleep apnea cases, a rule change that has been planned since the Biden administration.
But officials from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans have attacked the plan as a dangerous precedent. Supporters, including House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chair Mike Bost (R-Ill.), have argued the savings will be returned to the U.S. Treasury if not used for other programs.
In the lead-up to the vote, VA officials had suggested that they may not go ahead with the changes, jeopardizing about $13 billion over the next decade that was slated to pay for the measure. Just hours before the House vote was pulled, department officials clarified that the sleep apnea and tinnitus revisions will move ahead in coming months regardless of the bill’s fate.
But several GOP members still expressed concerns about the uncertainty surrounding the bill. And after a blowup between the speaker, his allies and the GOP holdouts in his ceremonial office just off the House floor, Johnson had to pull the bill from the floor.
The normally even-keeled Johnson, deeply frustrated after the failed vote, said he and Republican supporters of the measure were battling “misinformation” swirling about the legislation.
Senior Republicans were especially upset that Collins appeared to be working against them even after the VA had a seat at the table to craft the legislation.
House Republicans who spoke with Collins about the legislation said he never directly told them to vote against the bill, but he discussed their and his concerns about the legislation in a way they felt okay remaining opposed to it, according to the three other people involved in the conversations.
But anything less than 100 percent endorsement from Collins was seen as a major blow to the bill — which GOP leadership and White House officials struggled to get to the floor and whip for weeks.
It was just the latest move from Collins, a former chair of the House Judiciary Committee who helped defend Trump through his first impeachment, that has rankled Capitol Hill leaders and officials inside the White House.
His reorganization of the VA, including an initial mass layoff proposal for 80,000 more firings across a roughly 480,000-person department drew fierce opposition from bipartisan lawmakers on Capitol Hill earlier this year, including from the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who said he was blindsided by the move.
“We don’t need to be reading memos in the paper about 20 percent cut at the VA,” Graham said at the time.
Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chair Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) also said at that time that while the massive department is “in need of reform,” efforts to downsize “must be done in a more responsible manner,” Moran, who had been in close contact with VA, Collins and White House staff about personnel issues for weeks, added that lawmakers “need information” and that the numbers need to be “justifiable.”
Collins has also triggered the anger of Republican appropriators on Capitol Hill — he agreed to testify before House appropriators in May only after lawmakers voted to withhold funding for the agency if he didn’t. A VA spokesperson at the time denied GOP lawmakers had to pressure Collins to appear.
Collins’ handling of the veterans’ bill has also shaken his relationship with some White House officials — who are tracking how many days a week Collins is in Washington versus his home state of Georgia, according to two of the people involved in the conversations.
Retiring Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei said he won’t vote for the Trump-endorsed GOP candidate vying to replace him amid a string of stolen valor and other accusations — and warned that the once-safe Republican seat President Donald Trump won by 14 points is at risk of flipping blue on Election Day.
Amodei said in an interview Saturday he would “absolutely not” vote for businessperson David Flippo in Nevada’s 2nd District. “I think the seat’s at risk,” he added, citing a string of stolen valor and financial allegations against Flippo.
“You say, well, the president endorsed him,” Amodei added. “It’s like, well whoever was advising the president on, ‘Hey, this would be a good place for you to go ahead and weigh in,’ gave him awful advice. The vetting process — quote unquote — must have been nearly non-existent.”
Amodei specifically cited a series of allegations against Flippo as disqualifying, for reportedly lying about his military service and also failing to file financial disclosures on time.
“It’s just one thing after another. The stolen valor accusations — all that. But you’re just sitting here going, ‘What the heck?’” Amodei said. Flippo has said apparent exaggerations about his military service on campaign materials were mistakes by his staff and others. Still, GOP officials have been weighing whether Trump should campaign in the region to help boost Flippo before Election Day, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The district has never been represented by a Democrat.
Amodei said he plans to vote early in the coming days and “is looking seriously” at casting his ballot for the independent candidate.
Amid the deteriorating landscape, national Republicans are increasingly wary about Republicans like Flippo holding onto seats in once-safe red districts. Trump won the Northern Nevada seat that encompasses Reno and nearby rural counties by double digits in 2024 and Amodei has held it for 15 years.
On paper, Democrats should have no business playing there. And, national Republicans are still bullish on their chances of holding onto the seat, arguing it’s safer than other red districts they’re more worried about. But Republicans have watched Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson, a former Nevada Assembly majority leader, make the race much tighter than comfortable.
Limited general election polls have Flippo either up or trailing by several points. The Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC just dropped its first spending into the district in recent days, looking to boost Flippo who has self-funded a large part of his campaign.
Nevada Republicans — once bullish about flipping the Las Vegas-area 1st and 3rd Districts — are now paying increasing attention to Amodei’s Northern Nevada district. The economic headwinds that have hit farm states across the country have slammed Nevada’s so-called cattle counties, and demographic change in Reno has favored Democrats in recent years.
Amodei, who has refused to endorse Flippo, views him as entirely the wrong candidate for the district. Flippo is “somebody who air drops into the district,” Amodei said, “announces their intent, pulls out of another district in Las Vegas, within hours of when I said, ‘Hey, I think the time is right for me to retire.’” Amodei also questioned Flippo’s delays in filing his financial disclosures.
“It’s the cynical attitude towards the process to me that has just been staggering in terms of the end justifies the means,” Amodei added.
Amodei said he believes Republicans still have a shot at holding onto their House majority, and he’s told Speaker Mike Johnson he “sincerely” wants the Louisiana Republican to stay on as speaker next Congress.
But Amodei warned the larger landscape for House Republicans has turned darker, compared to a year ago when Republicans “were feeling pretty good, and the winds were at our back.”
“It’s gone,” he said, adding “the mood of the country right now does not feel warm.”
“There’s absolutely no, ‘Yeah, I’d rather be us than them,’” Amodei said. “It’s like everybody better button up their chin strap and be ready to play through the fourth quarter.”
Samuel Benson contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — One of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House is running on immigration — and taking on both parties over it.
Rep. Mike Lawler is hammering Democrats over “sanctuary” policies while criticizing the Trump administration’s aggressive — and at times lethal — immigration enforcement tactics.
“Renee Good and Alex Pretti should not be dead. But neither should Sheridan Gorman, and neither should Laken Riley, and neither should the thousands of people who have been murdered by people who are in our country illegally and committing crimes,” Lawler said at a candidate forum earlier this month. “So yes, ICE needs reforms, but you know what? Sanctuary jurisdictions should not exist. Criminals should be deported.”
Lawler is betting his self-described “common sense” approach can win him a third term in a suburban Hudson Valley district Kamala Harris carried in 2024. His race against Democrat Cait Conley, an Army veteran and first-time candidate, could help determine control of the House.
Immigration has helped Republicans win elections, but broad dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump’s policies has made it a less certain advantage this year. Lawler is pressing it anyway.
He’s run paid media on the topic and held multiple events decrying Democrats’ immigration policies. In a recent interview with a panel of local reporters, he even brought it up himself: “We did not touch on immigration, and I want to raise this because this is a real problem,” he said.
“Fundamentally, when you look at the challenge, I think most people want common sense, not extremism, on the issue of immigration,” Lawler told reporters after a debate with Conley earlier this week.
Whether that emphasis matches voters’ priorities is another question. A recent Emerson College poll found immigration ranked far behind the economy and threats to democracy among the district’s most important issues. And Trump, whose approval ratings are abysmal in New York state, is often at the center of the immigration debate.
Lawler has been able to criticize Trump without drawing the backlash other Republicans have faced. He repeatedly highlights his fight with the president to raise the cap for the state and local tax deduction, which Trump ended up praising him for at a rally earlier this year.
Other Republicans who’ve sought to create distance with the president haven’t fared nearly as well. Rep. María Elvira Salazar is just one. Trump eviscerated the Florida Republican after she released a campaign ad challenging his immigration crackdown.
Yet even Lawler’s leverage with Trump has limits.
He’s highlighted his support for extending Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitians, thousands of whom live in his district. When the Trump administration announced it would be ending those protections for Haitians earlier this year, Lawler made his opposition known, warning it was not safe to send people back to the country.
He said he’s been working on individual cases to support Haitians in his district. Jean Bernard Charles, who lives in Rockland County, told Blue Light News that Lawler’s office was helpful in getting his wife to the country and he recommended his friends facing the same situation to go to the office for help.
Lawler also cosponsored legislation to extend TPS, which is stalled in the Senate. He argued that he’s fulfilled his role by passing a bill through the House and has blamed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for not moving it along. (In response, Schumer’s office said in a statement that the leader “moved to extend Haitian TPS on the Senate floor by unanimous consent and was blocked by Senate Republicans and President Trump, who Lawler constantly supports.”)
“I’ve explained this to the White House, repeatedly, that ending TPS was a stupid decision,” Lawler said at the forum. “I am opposed to it, and I will continue to fight back against it.”
The administration hasn’t budged, though. Community leaders in Rockland County, where the district’s Haitian community is based, say many immigrants are too scared to leave their homes. Some are growing frustrated that more isn’t being done.
“If there was the help, our folks would not be wearing ankle monitors,” said Nicole Hines, the NAACP’s mid-Hudson and Westchester regional director.
Renold Julien, the executive director of Konbit Neg Lakay, a Haitian community center in Lawler’s district, pointed to Lawler’s close relationship with Trump, including the president coming to the district earlier this year and Lawler appearing at a meeting at the White House with Jewish leaders, some of whom are from the district.
“I feel bad for Mike Lawler,” Julien said. “Friends don’t treat friends like that. … His friend Donald Trump is doing his best to create a problem between him and the dark-skinned immigrants here of Rockland.”
Conley has also questioned his work regarding Haitian TPS.
“He can have enough capital to get Donald Trump to fly out here and visit the district in May, to go to Dallas at Trump’s midterm convention and be a keynote speaker, but he can’t get Donald Trump to actually take care of people in the Hudson Valley and protect our Haitian community by extending TPS?” she asked.
When asked how she would advocate for Haitians if she wins — especially since she won’t have Trump’s ear like Lawler does — Conley said she thinks Democrats will win the Senate, clearing the way for the bill to extend TPS to get to the president’s desk.
Lawler has repeatedly bashed Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s recent law that ended cooperation between local police departments and Immigration and Customs Enforcement on civil immigration cases, and questioned why the state is not honoring the Department of Homeland Security’s detainer requests, as the agency has stated. The parents of Sheridan Gorman — a teenager from Lawler’s district who was killed earlier this year in Chicago, allegedly by a Venezuelan living in the U.S. illegally — have appeared on the trail with him a handful of times to criticize Democrats’ immigration policies.
“The sanctuary policies being pushed by Kathy Hochul and Democrats killed our daughter,” Jessica Gorman, Sheridan’s mother, said in an advertisement for Lawler. At an event last week, she accused Hochul and Conley of not caring about protecting families.
Hochul has waved off such criticisms, saying that law enforcement is still permitted to work with federal officials to remove violent criminals.
Even if immigration isn’t voters’ top concern, it’s a topic Lawler can own, said Sarah Chamberlain, the head of the Republican Main Street Partnership, of which Lawler is a member. The economy is a harder sell to frustrated voters, she added. Focusing on Hochul’s policy also taps into her middling popularity as she runs for reelection. Hochul’s opponent, Bruce Blakeman, has similarly been hammering the issue.
“He’s been extremely successful finding middle ground on it,” Chamberlain said of Lawler, praising his focus on deporting immigrants who have committed crimes and noting the district’s proximity to New York City. “He uniquely can do it because it’s very specific to his district and to where he lives. Some other members couldn’t be doing it the same way.”
Not everyone is convinced his approach will work.
“Mike Lawler is reading the tea leaves and realizing what we have been saying is true — that the vast majority of Americans across this country and in this state are against Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of NYIC Action, the political arm of the nonprofit New York Immigration Coalition. “While he may be doing a couple of vibes-oriented things to illustrate he’s not 100 percent MAGA and mass deportation, his actions actually speak louder than his words.”
Awawdeh said that even though Lawler has made some moves on Haitian TPS, that “doesn’t erase the horrors that he’s cosigned to date” in supporting increased funding for ICE. And while Lawler does back the Dignity Act — the bipartisan immigration reform bill that would create a vehicle for potentially millions of immigrants who entered the country unlawfully to gain work permits and remain in the U.S. legally — some immigrant advocates argue it doesn’t go far enough in creating a pathway to citizenship. The bill has yet to reach the House floor for a vote.
“Immigrant families are not props for his moderate image,” Awawdeh said.
When asked if he thinks his immigration message is getting muddled, Lawler said he has “never wavered in my position” and that most Americans “want the border secure, they want criminals deported and they want cashless bail gone.”
Lawler has sought to cast Conley as too weak on the border and crime, pointing to her support for revoking partnerships between local police and ICE, known as 287(g) agreements.
Conley told Blue Light News she’s in favor of getting rid of those agreements because she wants “our local cops to be focused on protecting our local communities, not doing the federal government’s job.” While she said former President Joe Biden messed up border security, she criticized ICE under Trump for “violence against American citizens” and not “prioritizing violent criminals.” She said she does not support cashless bail, which Lawler has repeatedly pointed to as a catalyst of crime, along with sanctuary policies.
Conley, though, has focused more of her energy on voters’ top concern this cycle: affordability. She said she hears concerns about paying bills and affording gas and health care more frequently on the trail, as opposed to immigration. She accused Lawler of using the issue as a “distraction” to “shift focus away from where he is failing our communities.”
Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant, said it’s commendable that Lawler is finding balance on the issue but “the problem is no one’s making their voting decision based on this” and it “doesn’t cut through the headwinds on the economy.”
Lawler thinks voters are picking up on the nuance.
“I’ve been leading on this issue for years, saying that the immigration system needs to be reformed,” he told Blue Light News after a recent press conference slamming Hochul’s law. “These things are not in conflict. It’s recognizing how complex our immigration system is, but it’s also having common sense and applying it.”
The Senate could soon be in the market for a new internal cop. Nobody wants the job.
The top two lawmakers on the Senate Ethics Committee are poised to take over other panels next year, depending on the outcome of the midterms. Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the current chair, is in line to potentially lead the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, while the current senior Democrat, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, would chair the Foreign Relations Committee if his party flips the chamber.
Asked if he’d want to stay on as Ethics chair, Lankford laughed.
“No one asks to be on the Ethics Committee. No one — you can ask Chris Coons the same thing — no one asks to be on the Ethics Committee,” he said. “You’re asked to be on it and it’s a way of serving your conference.”
Coons was more diplomatic when asked if he wanted to serve on the panel again in any capacity, patting Lankford and himself on the back for their ability to “reach effective, swift, reasonable bipartisan resolutions to complex issues.”
“I enjoy the members of the committee,” he added.
Serving as chair of the Ethics Committee is an unenviable role — requiring lawmakers to lead investigations into allegations of misconduct against their coworkers and, in many cases, their friends.
There are also few rewards for the assignment: Unlike other committee leadership posts, sitting atop Ethics doesn’t provide a fundraising foothold or generate campaign ad-worthy headlines. It leaves little incentive for any lawmaker to take on the task.
“Nobody wants to be chair of the Ethics Committee. Period,” said Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the second-most-senior member of the panel who is also expected to continue leading Foreign Relations Republicans. “It’s very difficult when you have matters you have to deal with concerning your friends and colleagues.”
The third-ranking Ethics Committee Republican, Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, noted she’s on tap to become Rules Committee chair next year.
As for whether she’d be willing to lead Ethics, too, she replied, “Deb Fischer is not going to do that.”
Unlike the House Ethics Committee, which has picked up the pace in recent months in holding members accountable, the Senate Ethics Committee has gone through long stretches of public inaction. It has issued just two public rebukes in the past decade: a letter of admonition to former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) in 2018, and one to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in 2023. Aside from those instances, one would have to go all the way back to 2012 to find the next most recent public disciplinary action.
When Menendez was found by the panel to have improperly received gifts from a friend — then used his position of power to advance that person’s interests following a mistrial in his federal bribery case — the committee wrote him a letter of admonition requiring him to repay the gifts.
Menendez went on to be convicted in a subsequent federal corruption case on charges of bribery and acting as a foreign agent, resulting in an 11-year prison sentence.
The Senate Ethics Committee slapped Graham with an admonishment in 2023 for “impermissibly conducted campaign activity in a federal building.”
Neither Senate Majority Leader John Thune nor Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — who are both focused on the Nov. 3 midterms — have spoken publicly about who they might put atop the Ethics panel if they find themselves needing a new chair.
There are also some unknowns. For Lankford to take over Homeland Security, for instance, current Chair Rand Paul of Kentucky would need to first decide whether to decamp for the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy’s retirement will leave an opening.
Given the Ethics Committee’s distinction as a “select” panel, Senate leaders have more leeway over who they tap for a chair position, especially if they run into hurdles finding someone willing to take it.
It’s rare, but not unheard of, for a senator to lead both the Ethics Committee and a “standing” committee simultaneously. It’s happened on three occasions since the committee was given its name in 1977, according to data compiled by the Congressional Research Service and the Senate Historical Office.
That means Lankford or Coons could end up being asked to continue in their roles, even if they are also chairing another panel. If not, Senate leaders could struggle to find a replacement further down the committee rosterr, which would force them to bring in a senator not currently on the panel.
Democrats already need to recruit at least one new member to the panel: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is not returning for the next Congress, and Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii is expected to succeed outgoing Sen. Dick Durbin in the caucus’s No. 2 leadership spot.
As for Republicans, Risch said he’ll pass.
He burst into laughter and said he was confused why someone would ask if he wanted to serve as chair.
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