Congress

‘We’re running out of time’: GOP already antsy on Trump’s Hill agenda

Published

2 years ago

January 20, 2025

Welcome to the Washington trifecta, Republicans. Now get ready to wait.

Even as the GOP takes unified control of the House, Senate and White House on Monday, congressional leaders are facing doubts about just how quickly they will be able to deliver major wins for Donald Trump. Their legislative plans are highly unsettled, and the clock is ticking toward distracting fights over federal spending and the debt limit.

And when it comes to the heart of Trump’s agenda — a sprawling party-line effort encompassing border, energy and tax policy — key strategic questions remain in flux. Once they agree on the general direction of travel, leaders will then have to navigate a thicket of nasty intraparty disputes on the policies themselves.

Under the most ambitious timeline put forth by Speaker Mike Johnson, it will be Memorial Day before that bill lands on Trump’s desk. Deeply skeptical Senate Republicans are readying their own conflicting plans in case the House falters.

“Everybody is feeling the pressure now of time,” said Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus who has been pushing for quicker action. “In a short period, we’ve got to make something happen.”

Some smaller wins are at hand: Thanks to some Democratic cooperation in the Senate, Republicans expect to send a relatively small-bore immigration bill to Trump this week.

Named after a Georgia nursing student murdered last year, the Laken Riley Act would require broader incarcerations of undocumented immigrants accused of crimes. But it’s only a sliver of what Trump has in mind for immigration policy.

To fill out the House floor schedule in the first weeks, Johnson is eyeing bills on abortion and public safety that will likely get filibustered in the Senate. He’s also planning to put a bipartisan forestry and wildfire prevention bill up for a vote this week, with Congress unlikely to pass any aid for the wildfires tearing through California until at least March.

The Senate will churn through confirmations of Trump’s Cabinet and other nominees. And both chambers are hoping to use Congressional Review Act powers to claw back key Biden administration rules, something GOP leaders hope will help calm antsy conservatives.

But there is a massive distraction also looming: A March 14 government funding deadline that could result in a government shutdown if Trump and Republicans can’t come to a deal with congressional Democrats who still hold leverage due to the Senate filibuster.

Johnson has been moving carefully on the spending discussions and the party-line agenda talks, mindful of staying on the same page as Trump — who upended the last spending deal the speaker cut with Democrats in December. This time Johnson wants Trump’s sign off on key details related to both initiatives, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door conversations. But it’s unclear if that will ever come.

Meanwhile, the committee chairs who will actually have to write the bills are left tapping their feet. “We’re running out of time,” said House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who is waiting on top-line discretionary spending targets.

Settling some of these outstanding questions is likely to be on the agenda for a high-level meeting between Trump and congressional leaders Tuesday. Impatience is already emerging as a theme in interbranch relations: In a series of meetings last week on Capitol Hill, Trump policy chief Stephen Miller relayed the president-elect’s desire for “immediacy” in pushing through his legislative agenda.

The pressure is just as intense inside the House, where Norman and his fellow Freedom Caucus members continue to push a two-track approach to the party-line agenda in defiance of Johnson.

They want a smaller, border-focused package first that includes a debt limit hike and spending cuts. That’s essentially the opposite of what Johnson is now steering the conference toward — one massive bill with tax reform included but leaving a debt limit hike for bipartisan government funding talks.

Listed as a “key benefit” in the Freedom Caucus plan: “Speed to deliver huge early wins on key priorities for President Trump.”

Johnson, who shares fears with some House committee chairs that breaking up the bills could make them harder to pass given his narrow majority, tried to temper the unrest by laying out an aggressive timeline for pushing through the sprawling megabill in a closed-door conference meeting last week.

The timeline was a good start, one GOP lawmaker said leaving the meeting. “But at the end of the day, we need to know the plan,” the member said.

The speaker has also launched a listening tour. He is with scores of members about the plans, with a focus on hearing out their thoughts on making trillions of dollars in highly controversial spending cuts. GOP Whip Tom Emmer has corralled small working groups to hash out members’ diverging demands.

Meanwhile, leaders in both chambers are counting on Trump to settle things down with a flurry of Day One executive orders, many of which are expected to deal with immigration and reversing Biden-era climate and pandemic policies. Those actions, they hope will dampen the hard-liners’ push for immediate and sweeping legislative action on the border.

“I expect the president’s going to develop hand cramps signing executive orders,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “And that will demonstrate meaningful progress.”

But many senators still want to push their own two-track plan — notably Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is preparing a border-first budget blueprint to jam the House with, should Johnson fail to deliver on a tight timeline.

Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), who attended a meeting with Miller and House Republicans last week, said Trump’s early immigration executive orders would be “a good start” but “not permanent” and Republicans want to “codify” those executive actions in law — quickly.

Congress

Todd Blanche on track for confirmation after Cornyn strikes Trump settlement deal

Published

2 hours ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Todd Blanche took a crucial step towards confirmation as attorney general late Sunday, after Sen. John Cornyn said he had reached a deal with the Justice Department to rein in a controversial settlement agreement President Donald Trump reached with the IRS earlier this year.

The pact was announced Sunday by a Cornyn spokesperson and by Blanche in a X post. Documents posted by Blanche appear to meet the Texas Republican’s demands to nullify a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and to limit the scope of an IRS audit immunity deal applying to the president and his family.

The announcement appears to clear the way for Cornyn to approve Blanche at a scheduled Tuesday meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee. With Democrats entirely opposed, any Republican defection could be fatal to the nomination.

Senate GOP leaders are hoping to confirm Blanche, who has been serving as acting attorney general since predecessor Pam Bondi resigned in April, before the end of the week.

“Sen. Cornyn has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice, which will be issuing a formal order permanently terminating the anti-weaponization fund and making clear in a binding written document that the scope of the audit settlement is limited to only the plaintiffs, including the President, and the IRS,” said Natalie Yezbick, the Cornyn spokesperson.

Blanche said in the X post that he and his team “addressed any concerns or outstanding questions” senators had and issued an order that said the payout fund “is rescinded and shall have no force or effect.” It also stated that the “DOJ’s interpretation” of the settlement is that the audit deal applies only to “the named parties in the lawsuit.”

The deal emerged after a 72-hour period where Trump repeatedly attacked Cornyn and said publicly that he regretted that the fund, intended to pay out settlements to Trump political allies, had been withdrawn. He suggested Friday that he would simply withdraw Blanche’s nomination and resubmit it next year — after Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another critic of the settlement, leave Congress.

Tills, another swing vote on the Judiciary Committee, has said he plans to follow Cornyn’s lead. He said in an X post Saturday that “President Trump clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks” and that “it’s unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal. Hopefully, we can resolve this by Tuesday.”

Congress

Senate finalizes funding patch that would block Trump’s grant overhaul

Published

10 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate appropriators released text Sunday of a stopgap funding bill to avert a shutdown come Oct. 1 and punt broader government funding negotiations until after the midterms.

Under the bipartisan plan, federal agencies would be funded through Dec. 11 at current levels, with some exceptions. Senate leaders have set an initial procedural vote for Monday night and want to pass the bill by the end of the week — just before senators are scheduled to leave town for a five-week recess.

The legislation includes language to block President Donald Trump from finalizing a plan to put political appointees in charge of approving grants. The prohibition would last for the duration of the funding patch.

Senate Democrats wanted that addition, and top Republicans — including Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins of Maine and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski — publicly voiced support for blocking the regulation the White House is working to finalize for the new fiscal year.

It’s unusual for Congress to pass a funding patch so far ahead of the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year. But House Republicans kicked off action last month by passing their own bare-bones funding extension to pressure senators into early negotiations on a plan to avert a funding lapse just weeks before the midterm elections.

The Senate plan is the product of bipartisan negotiations between the chamber’s top appropriators. House Republicans advanced their version without consulting Democrats.

Unlike the House version, the Senate proposal includes language Democrats have demanded ensuring no new funding goes to immigration enforcement agencies. Republicans funded those programs through a party-line package this spring after the collapse of bipartisan negotiations on changes to the way the Trump administration carries out immigration enforcement.

The Senate proposal includes some of the funding increases and authorizations the White House sought for specific programs. It does not contain major military boosts the administration requested, however, including an extra $1 billion for a “Trump-class” battleship.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

Trump puts his ‘anti-weaponization fund’ back on the table

Published

2 days ago

August 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump said early Saturday he would push to get the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” codified into law if the Senate does not confirm his attorney general pick, Todd Blanche.

The fund has emerged as a key issue stalling Blanche’s confirmation, with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who are both departing the Senate after the midterms, withholding their support in the Senate Judiciary Committee unless the White House commits to shelving the proposal in writing.

Now, Trump says the fund is back on the table, and maybe he’ll even keep Blanche on in an acting capacity if he can’t get his way in Congress next week.

“If Senators Cornyn and Tillis, both upset because I wouldn’t Endorse them (they lost, and quit, respectively!), aren’t going to approve Todd Blanche, one of the most respected professionals, according to everybody, in the Country, to be the United States Attorney General, then I will keep Todd as Acting A.G., and push hard to get the Anti-Weaponization Bill, which takes care of those who have been so badly treated by the Crooked Joe Biden (and Obuma!) Administration (I get nothing, although I was treated horribly!), PASSED,” he wrote.

“Todd Blanche was a voice of reason!” Trump wrote. “It will immediately be back on the table, and I will get it done.”

The missive comes a day after Trump reluctantly declared the fund “dead” in a Cabinet meeting at Camp David, making Saturday’s post a notable reversal in tactics as he moves from a negotiating posture to digging his heels in.

The fund stems from a settlement negotiated earlier this year that envisioned roughly $1.8 billion being doled out in payments to people who claimed they were unfairly targeted by the federal government during the Biden administration, which could include everyone from people who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and assaulted police officers to Hunter Biden.

The Justice Department has since indicated it does not intend to move forward with the payments, with Blanche testifying before a congressional committee in June, “We’re not moving forward with the fund, period.”

But Tillis on Saturday wrote that the president’s latest social media barb was proof that he “clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks either by inappropriately establishing another bogus fund or pushing Congress to vote for a bill that the majority of Republicans in the Senate would be against.”

“It’s unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal,” the two-term North Carolina senator wrote.

But he teased that a deal may not yet be out of reach: “Hopefully, we can resolve this by Tuesday.”