Congress
White House considers plan B as DOGE cuts hit a wall on Blue Light News
Running out of options to get it DOGE cuts approved by Congress, the White House is now looking at a two-year runway to get the cuts passed and opening the door to launching a court fight over the president’s power to shut down spending on his own.
President Donald Trumpinitially wanted Congress to approve a formal rescissions package that would claw back about $9 billion in previously approved federal spending, a vote that would give legislative teeth to some of the cuts DOGE has already made. The package would include major cuts to USAID and public broadcasting like NPR and PBS.
That effort is hitting a dead end on Capitol Hill, with Republicans warning the White House that it faces tough odds in their so-called megabill, even though it requires just a simple majority of 50 Republican votes in the Senate, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie.
The White House is recognizing that reality and is giving itself a much longer timeline to codify DOGE cuts while leaving open the option of challenging the Impoundment Control Act, the 1974 law that limits a president’s ability to withhold funds appropriated by Congress. Trump’s allies have argued the president already has authority to withhold spending but it would likely be up to the courts to decide, given that the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse.
“The focus right now is the reconciliation bill,” said a White House official granted anonymity to speak freely. “I think there’s an appetite within Capitol Hill, within the two years that we have to codify the work of DOGE. The procedures of Capitol Hill may not allow for it to happen now but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen later.”
Several GOP senators expressed deep reservations about codifying DOGE cuts as the White House wants.
“I think they don’t want to lose the vote, so I think they may be concerned about the sensibility,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who supports the rescissions effort, told West Wing Playbook.
Other Republicans were more blunt. “I don’t know that we should be taking our limited legislative time to look at that,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). “I don’t think legislation is called for.”
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the Senate narrowly rejected a $15 billion rescissions package. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was one of two Republicans to vote no. “I don’t like tipping the power of the purse to the executive branch,” she said then.
Now, Collins – who has more power as chair of the Appropriations Committee – is warning she won’t support any effort that cuts global women’s health programs or PEPFAR. “I don’t see those passing,” she told the Washington Post.
The congressional cold shoulder has major implications for the future of DOGE.
Although the group has claimed more than $160 billion in savings — their accounting has been disputed — most of those cuts are unilateral, and potentially reversible executive actions. With both Congress and the courts unwilling to provide legal backing, the administration is running out of ways to ensure its reductions hold, raising the risk that DOGE’s sweeping disruption may leave little lasting impact.
“The cuts won’t be real or lasting unless Congress votes on it,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said. Paul and other fiscal hawks have urged the White House to go bigger, not smaller.
The rescission package’s “$9 billion is a pittance,” he said. “It’s a rounding error and it should only be the beginning. If they’re not going to send us the $9 billion, it sends a really bad signal to anybody that is fiscally responsible that there’s going to be no change from doing things the way that they’ve always been done.”
Complicating matters further, Republicans earlier this year were hoping to use DOGE savings to partially offset the cost of extending the Trump tax cuts. But the rules governing the process the GOP is using to enact the megabill doesn’t allow for cuts to discretionary spending – where most of the DOGE cuts were made.
With few viable paths in Congress, the White House may now pivot to the courts.
“I think they probably want to challenge the Impoundment Act is my sense,” Hawley said. A legal fight over that statute, if successful, could open the door for a broader showdown over Trump’s executive power.
The White House has already expressed an openness to unilaterally freezing money approved by Congress.
“Obviously, we have never taken impoundment off the table, because the president and myself believe that 200 years of the president and executive branch had that ability,” an OMB official said on a call with reporters last week.
Asked today if Trump would use impoundment authority to withhold funding, the White House official said, “All options are on the table.”
“We’ve been able to achieve what we’ve been able to achieve without going down that path but that’s not to say we wouldn’t consider using it if the situation called for it,” the person said.
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The Senate Saturday confirmed Todd Blanche to be attorney general, following a weeks-long struggle with a handful of wary Republicans.
The Senate voted 50-49 to approve him, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining with Democrats in opposition.
Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, has been serving as acting attorney general since Pam Bondi’s ouster in April. Questions about Blanche’s potential conflicts of interest from representing Trump, as well as his role in the creation of a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” as part of Trump’s settlement this spring with the IRS, created headwinds to his confirmation among a key group of Senate Republicans.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who lost re-election after Trump endorsed a primary challenger, helped Blanche clinch his 50th vote Friday. He said Blanche wasn’t perfect but that he wasn’t sure Trump would pick someone better to lead the Justice Department.
“The choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche.”
Cassidy’s support came after Blanche had already spent weeks negotiating with Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, who vetted his nomination as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Cornyn struck an agreement with Blanche Sunday for the DOJ to curtail the payout fund and rein in a deal to exempt Trump from IRS audits.
Cassidy’s support came hours after Murkowski announced that she would oppose Blanche’s nomination, putting it on the brink of potential failure. Between unified opposition from Democrats and Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence for health reasons, Blanche could only lose two Republicans and still be confirmed.
Hours before Friday’s vote, Murkowski told reporters she spoke with Blanche multiple times but that she was “good with where I am.” She said there was no “one” thing that motivated her decision.
“If there was one thing, we might be able to go back to the White House and say ‘Hey, can we work on this one thing,’” she said. “But for me it was a compilation.”
She added that she believed the anti-weaponization fund is “pretty dead” but “what is not so clear” are the audit immunity provisions of Trump’s IRS agreement, “which I just think are viewed by so many in this country as kind of a special and sweet deal for the president and his family.”
The Senate passed a bill Saturday to fund the government beyond the midterm elections, putting the onus back on the House to head off a shutdown looming Oct. 1.
The Senate approved the measure in a bipartisan 90-6 vote, with Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina voting present. The bill would fund federal agencies through Dec. 11 at current levels, with some exceptions. Senate leaders sped up consideration of the legislation as part of an agreement reached Saturday morning to allow members to leave for August recess.
The House and Senate have now each passed different bills aimed at averting a shutdown at the end of the fiscal year. The House bill would fund the government through Dec. 4.
The Senate legislation sets up a year-end standoff over the Trump administration’s controversial plan to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants. The bill would block the administration from finalizing that rule during the length of the stopgap — and lawmakers are already expecting a December brawl over the issue.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said this week that he’s going to “fight like hell” in December to ensure Congress doesn’t further obstruct the grant overhaul.
But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are resistant to the White House approach to grants. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she will “continue to oppose” the Trump administration plans “because I think they politicize the grants process, and I don’t want that to occur.” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on Senate Appropriations, said she too would “welcome the fight.”
The Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) intended to ensure that a ban on intoxicating hemp products kicks in come November, after Senate leaders at the White House’s urging included language in the funding bill to delay it.
The Senate bill includes language Democrats sought to ensure Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol don’t get any new funding under the patch. Republicans enacted $70 billion for those agencies along party lines earlier this year.
That prohibition could be contentious in the House.
Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) said in an interview that the provision “could be a dealbreaker” and that he’s “not a fan” of the Senate version. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said Tuesday that he would say he’s undecided if GOP leadership whipped his vote on the Senate stopgap.
“I do not like the Senate language,” Van Drew said, noting the grant approval provision. “It’s one I would want to know what the president thinks.”
The White House issued a statement of administration policy in support of the Senate’s funding bill. No such memo was issued for the House bill, which did not include the funding increases and authorizations the White House requested.
“Every Member of Congress should support passage of this [continuing resolution] to keep the Government open as discussions on full year appropriations continue,” it reads.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democratic appropriator in the House, praised the Senate measure for including the grant and immigration enforcement language.
“This bill is a clear improvement over the House Republican continuing resolution, but we are still nearly two months away from the end of the fiscal year and should be working together to pass full-year funding bills,” she said in a statement.
Mia McCarthy and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
The Senate is aiming to leave Washington for a five-week recess early Saturday after Republicans cut a deal with President Donald Trump to punt some of their priorities, including a framework for a party-line spending plan.
The Senate is trying to lock in an agreement that would set up votes on a college sports bill, a stopgap government funding bill, Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination and GOP voter ID legislation, according to a copy of an internal notice reviewed by Blue Light News.
The Senate would then leave Washington until mid-September.
Any one senator could object to the tentative deal, forcing it to be altered or dragging the Senate deeper into the weekend. Senators believe there are still objections to advancing the college sports bill. Democrats are also waiting to see if one of their own will prevent speeding up Blanche’s confirmation.
The breakthrough is a U-turn from earlier Friday evening, when Republican senators emerged from a closed-door meeting predicting they would have to spend Saturday trying to break a stalemate within the party about how to wrap final votes before recess.
Shortly after that meeting, Trump spoke by phone with Senate Republicans including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah about the path forward for the GOP’s lengthy to-do list.
During the call, according to Johnson, Trump agreed to punt a vote on a budget blueprint for a third party-line spending bill until later in the year. Lee, who has been pushing for action on the separate SAVE America Act, also agreed to drop his demand for a formal, roll call vote on adjourning given the understanding with the president.
“I think the conclusion of the conference – and we had a discussion with the president and he agrees – [is] don’t take the vote tonight,” Johnson said after the meeting in Thune’s office.
Republicans were in talks with the White House throughout Friday. A White House official granted anonymity said Friday evening that “we’re continuing to have productive conversations with senators to advance several legislative priorities.”
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