Congress

While Trump Was Away, His Megabill Went Astray

Published

1 year ago

May 17, 2025

President Donald Trump was only a few hours into a marathon flight from Abu Dhabi on Friday when he sent a crystal-clear message to Capitol Hill: Tidy up the house, kids, because dad’s coming home from his big work trip.

Or, translated into Trump-ese, “Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’ … STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!”

It soon became clear Air Force One couldn’t land fast enough.

While Trump spent the week hob-nobbing with crown princes, emirs and titans of industry, Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans were watching Trump’s legislative agenda run slowly aground. Less than two hours after Trump sent his message, a clutch of hard-line conservatives joined with Democrats to tank a key House Budget Committee vote on Trump’s big tax, border and defense bill.

It was the latest demonstration that while Johnson and fellow GOP leaders might be within striking distance of advancing the “big, beautiful bill,” Trump remains the essential ingredient to getting anything done on Capitol Hill.

So after a five-day, eight-time-zone hiatus, expect the closer to start closing. The coming week, no doubt, will see a flurry of holdouts shuffling back and forth from the Capitol to the White House, not to mention an angry phone call or 20.

“My assumption is Trump’s going to get involved — I don’t know what that looks like yet,” a senior GOP aide, who like others was granted anonymity to speak frankly about behind-the-scenes conversations, told me Friday afternoon.

Don’t expect the president to be happy about it. The view on Air Force One, according to a senior White House aide, was that Johnson & Co. need to step up their own game and get their membership in line. The person said in a text that the president is “always willing to make calls” but that “Republicans on Blue Light News need to figure their shit out.”

Frustrations inside the MAGA-sphere have been mounting for some time at Johnson’s seeming inability to find a path forward without leaning on Trump. It’s long been assumed that Johnson won’t have the political juice to push this legislation through on his own.

“You think the president likes being the president and the speaker’s babysitter?” as Ohio Rep. Max Miller, a former Trump aide, told NOTUS amid last month’s budget haggling.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said as much in a stern statement issued shortly after the failed budget vote, betraying little patience for the antics from the handful of hard-right holdouts: “The White House expects ALL Republicans to vote for this bill and successfully pass it through Committee in the near future.”

To be fair to Johnson, he’s dealing with a historically small House majority and a staggeringly complex piece of legislation. Just about any time he tries to assuage conservatives who are ideologically closer to the House GOP’s center of gravity, he repels moderates who gave Republicans their majority, and vice versa. Furthermore, presidents have always served as dealmakers of last resort in any tricky Hill negotiation

But there was real annoyance Friday at how this particular implosion had played out. It was long expected that ultraconservatives would flex their muscle — likely in the House Rules Committee, where they hold a key bloc of votes.

Instead, the showdown that was expected next week, with Trump back in town, played out as the president was wrapping up his Middle East tour. To many Republicans’ chagrin, Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) pressed forward with the failed vote Friday in spite of the obvious opposition, believing it would be best to put the holdouts on the record.

One senior Republican official expressed frustration that the episode not only made the conservatives look bad for blocking the bill, but also Trump and Johnson for suggesting they don’t have control over the process.

Friday’s budget-panel implosion was, in some ways, months in the making. As I wrote in January, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and fellow fiscal hawks have been on a collision course with a president who cares more about notching wins than curbing deficits. While hard-liners view the megabill as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reduce spending, Trump sees it as a vehicle to deliver on his campaign promises — including tax cuts and money for the Pentagon and immigration enforcement — ahead of a midterm cycle he’s increasingly obsessed with.

Trump should be worried that Roy & Co. are making demands that will be hard to meet and hard to walk back. Roy said Friday the bill “falls profoundly short” and “does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits.”

“I’m not going to sit here and say that everything is hunky-dory when this is the Budget Committee,” he steamed. “We are supposed to do something to actually result in a balanced budget. But we’re not.”

He’s set against centrists and even some MAGA loyalists who are extremely wary of cutting too deeply into the social safety net. Sen. Josh Hawley — not exactly a moderate squish — blasted the House bill and vowed not to support legislation that harms working-class families.

“They’re not on Medicaid because they want to be — they’re on Medicaid because they cannot afford health insurance in the private market,” Hawley told BLN this week, contradicting careful GOP messaging about how the cuts would only affect the “able-bodied” who should not be on benefit rolls.

Aside from Medicaid, GOP leaders are scrambling to deal with blue-district Republicans who are insisting on hiking the cap on the state-and-local-tax deduction, red-state members who fear their state budgets are at risk and farm-state types who want to preserve at least some Biden-era clean energy incentives.

This has mostly been Johnson’s problem to solve, and he and other GOP leaders have tried to be sensitive to not pulling Trump in too early to fix their problems. There’s an internal understanding that they need to do most of the cleanup on their own before calling dad and tattling on the naughty kids.

There’s other levers they can pull on, too. Vice President JD Vance has helped resolve some thorny Hill matters, and members of the president’s inner circle have perfected the art of dogging Republicans who stand in their way with online pressure campaigns.

Don’t be surprised in the coming days when the White House activates allies on the outside while Trump employs the inside game to move people to “yes.” Indeed, the Trump administration official whom I texted with Friday warned obstructionists they’ll pay a price.

“Voters gave them a once-in-a-generation opportunity to pass a good bill,” the person said. “And for those who vote against, they should know their careers are in jeopardy.”

Congress

Senate confirms 74 Trump nominees

Published

3 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans confirmed dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees Friday, just before they leave for a five-week congressional recess.

Senators voted 51-47 to approve officials at the Departments of Defense, Energy, State and other agencies.

They included David Cummins to head the Transportation Security Administration, Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hal Duncan to be OMB deputy director and Francis Brooke to be Treasury deputy secretary. Among the group were several ambassadors, including former Rep. David Brat to be ambassador to Australia.

Senate Republicans changed the chamber’s rules last year to be able to confirm lower-level nominees as a package instead of having to hold a vote on each.

After finishing the expedited procedure Friday, Senate Republicans estimate they will only have a small number of civilian nominees awaiting confirmation.

Congress

Trump says voters are mad at other Republicans, not him, as midterms approach

Published

7 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump said voters may seek to punish Republicans — but not him — in the November midterm elections, as GOP lawmakers sweat that affordability concerns and the war in Iran could mean Democrats flip the House and perhaps even the Senate.

“They’re angry at Republicans,” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News that aired Friday. “But they’re not angry at me. They’re not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.”

The GOP faces the prospect of heavy losses this November, as gas and grocery prices remain stubbornly high due in part to the White House’s five-month-long war in Iran. The administration’s guidance on campaign trail messaging has been “tone deaf,” House Republicans fear.

Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating has tumbled since he returned to the Oval Office last year, and even his biggest supporters have grown frustrated over his Middle East war.

And with a messy, jam-packed slate of primaries now all but in the rearview mirror, Democrats are determined to go on offense. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has 58 seats on its midterm target map that stretches into redder territory — while still facing an uphill climb to take the Senate.

Trump has a massive war chest at his disposal. His MAGA Inc. super PAC reached $400 million in June. The president told Punchbowl he plans to use it to “help Republicans,” but he stressed that he faces no pressure in this campaign cycle.

“I said to somebody, ‘Wait a minute, you don’t understand, I won,’” Trump said, referencing his 2024 presidential election victory. “I’m not campaigning.”

The biggest issue for Republicans this year? That Trump himself is not on the ballot, he said.

“If I don’t run, will those people go out and vote? And that’s the one thing I can’t tell, I’m going to ask them to,” he said.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Senators find their exit strategy

Published

9 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate’s plan to get out of town is coming together.

Majority Leader John Thune teed up a final vote on the Russia sanctions legislation for this morning, as well as a confirmation vote for dozens of nominees and a procedural step on a stopgap funding bill.

But there’s still a number of questions that need to be answered if Thune wants to adjourn for recess by the end of the day:

— BLANCHE’S FATE: President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general needs to secure at least one more vote to be confirmed before the break.

It looks like it’s all up to Sen. Bill Cassidy after Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday morning she is opposed. Thune indicated Thursday night Blanche’s fate was uncertain and that leaders were “still working to get the final vote.”

— SAVE AMERICA ACT: Thune said to expect a vote related to the SAVE America Act as well as an initial vote on a budget blueprint for a third party-line spending bill — which includes elements of Trump’s election security legislation.

The decision to hold the budget vote comes after two Republican senators, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told Blue Light News Thursday they believed Sen. Mike Lee or another member of the GOP’s right flank would have otherwise forced a vote on the framework.

But as we’ve previously reported, Republicans don’t believe the budget resolution has the votes within the conference to be adopted — meaning the expected initial vote today will fail to clear a simple majority threshold.

And it’s not clear Lee or like-minded senators will be satisfied and allow for lawmakers to adjourn for recess without more action on the elections measure. The senator has made similar threats over the past year but has never followed through.

— TIME AGREEMENT: GOP leaders need to strike an agreement to finish other business, including passing the stopgap government funding bill and advancing a college sports bill.

At this point, any single senator could still object to expediting the chamber’s agenda, which would derail Thune’s goal of getting members out of town by the end of the day.

“We’ve been having these conversations with Democrats trying to figure out what’s the path,” Thune said.

“We’ll see how it goes,” he added.

What else we’re watching:

— GOP EXPECTS CRYPTO BILL DELAY: The Senate will leave for the chamber’s August recess without holding a vote on a landmark cryptocurrency bill, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Thune may still file cloture on the bill, but it likely won’t come to the floor until lawmakers return to Washington next month, two of the people said.

— COLLEGE SPORTS BILL STUMBLES: Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell’s legislation to impose new guardrails on college sports is looking increasingly unlikely to hit the floor this week. Eleven senators objected to expedited consideration of the Protect College Sports Act after Thune filed cloture earlier this week, two people familiar with discussions told Blue Light News.

— OGLES OUSTED: GOP House leaders lost an incumbent — and a perennial headache — with Rep. Andy Ogles’ primary defeat in Tennessee Thursday night. His loss to former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher represents the second Trump-endorsed candidate to lose a primary this week.

Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Andrew Howard and Jacob Wendler contributed to this report.