Congress

White House pitches Senate GOP on ‘tight’ party-line bill focused on military, farm aid

Published

2 hours ago

July 29, 2026

White House officials urged Senate Republicans on Wednesday to quickly adopt a spending blueprint for a narrowly focused party-line spending bill, but they struggled to quash GOP skepticism about the administration’s vision.

White House budget director Russ Vought stressed during the private lunch meeting with Senate Republicans that the next package passed under the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process should include only President Donald Trump’s most urgent priorities — particularly defense spending and aid for farmers.

Vought said Republicans should not seek to cut spending or otherwise offset the deficit impact of the tens of billions of dollars the Trump administration wants enacted, nor should they attempt to raise the debt limit.

“It should be tight,” he told reporters as he exited the lunch. “It should be for the defense needs that we need now, for the [agriculture] needs that we need now. And to get this as straight a shot to the president’s desk as possible.”

That approach comports with the $95 billion framework the House adopted last week before lawmakers there left Washington for their summer recess. But Vought and other White House officials faced pushback in the room Wednesday on a variety of issues.

Majority Leader John Thune warned afterward that he doesn’t believe he has the votes for the narrow budget resolution the Trump administration is contemplating. He said there was a disconnect between the narrow bill the White House is seeking and the political challenges it creates.

Those challenges revolve around “vote-a-rama” — a feature of the reconciliation process that allows Democrats to force a series of amendment votes that could put GOP senators in tough spots. The more committees the budget resolution “instructs” to deliver legislation, the more opportunities Democrats will have to create political mischief for Republicans.

“Some of the things that are contemplated being done in this reconciliation bill, or in this budget resolution legislation, are things that could implicate a number of committees,” Thune said. “Obviously that creates an uphill challenge in terms of trying to ensure that you have 50” votes.

Senators also aired concerns about Trump’s obsessive focus on the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act. The House blueprint contemplates including parts of that bill in the party-line package.

But Senate Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said doing so in the Senate could involve more committees — and open up the range of issues Democrats would be able to force politically troublesome votes on.

“I think we all hate vote-a-rama,” Johnson added. “Some people are more sensitive to the kind of votes they have to take.”

In another complication, some Senate defense hawks want more military spending than the $60 billion House Republicans laid out in their own framework. Johnson said he and other Republicans expect to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later Wednesday to discuss the Pentagon’s needs.

But other Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), aren’t convinced it’s a good idea to pursue another party-line bill at all.

“It used to be we would try to figure out how we worked through some challenging problems with the minority,” she said.

Murkowski added that the Trump administration’s strategy of relying on the reconciliation process to avoid bipartisan negotiations only works if a majority of Republican senators go along with the plan.

“It’s not always guaranteed that you get 50” votes, she said.

Vought, meanwhile, leaned on the potential for yet another party-line reconciliation package to be enacted after the midterm elections as another vehicle to deliver key priorities. That could include a debt limit increase, he said, along with yet another tranche of defense cash to meet Trump’s $1.5 trillion goal for annual military spending.

The various legislative vehicles left some GOP senators scratching their hands as they left the lunch.

Asked if he had gotten clarity from Vought & Co., Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said, “‘Not really’ is the short answer.”

Congress

Cruz drops plans to advance AI bills next week

Published

5 hours ago

July 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz said Wednesday he is again postponing a highly anticipated markup of artificial intelligence bills planned for next week.

Instead, the Texas Republican said in an interview Wednesday, the panel will only take up bills focused on kids’ online safety.

Cruz said senators could not strike a deal on AI legislation in time for the committee to vote next week.

“We are going to do a markup on kids’ safety next week,” Cruz told Blue Light News. “We have moved the broader AI markup to September. … It’s our intention still to mark those up, but it is taking longer to get bipartisan agreement.”

Cruz said the committee would mark up the Kids Online Safety Act, led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), along with other measures.

Under the panel’s rules, the chair must publish an agenda a week in advance. The committee did not immediately respond to a question about exactly which bills would be on the docket.

Congress

Republicans start pondering another debt limit hike as midterms loom

Published

6 hours ago

July 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republicans raised the debt limit by $5 trillion last year. Now they are already thinking about how to head off another dive over the fiscal cliff on President Donald Trump’s watch.

Independent forecasters predict the U.S. will reach the “X-date” — the ultimate deadline for preventing a U.S. debt default — sometime between next summer and early 2028, just as presidential primaries start kicking into gear.

To head off high-stakes negotiations with Democrats, White House officials have privately floated raising the nation’s $41.1 trillion borrowing limit in the party-line spending package many Republicans want to enact before the November midterm elections, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose private conversations.

The move could save Trump much angst if Republicans lose control of either chamber in the upcoming election, since any Democratic majority would demand concessions in a bipartisan negotiation to prevent an unprecedented default on the national debt, which currently sits at nearly $39.7 trillion.

“$40 trillion in debt, seems to me, should get our attention,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday morning, noting that reducing the deficit used to be a “primary reason” Republicans used the reconciliation process to skirt the Senate filibuster. “But we seem to be a little distracted by other issues at the moment.”

Thune said this week that the debt ceiling is “something that a lot of people are looking to address,” noting that Republicans could increase the borrowing limit between the “lame duck” session after the November election but before the new Congress is seated.

“There’s always a possibility, obviously, post-November to do something,” Thune said, adding that Republicans could “conceivably” pass another party-line package at that time.

The federal government is set to reach the borrowing limit Congress set in last year’s GOP megabill sometime in the first half of next year. But the Treasury Department would be able to employ special accounting maneuvers that would let the federal government keep paying its obligations for at least a few more months.

Congress

GOP governors back new reconciliation bill as Senate sputters

Published

7 hours ago

July 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Nearly two dozen governors are throwing their support behind President Donald Trump’s push for a new party-line spending bill — the latest effort to build pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his GOP colleagues to move quickly.

The letter, a copy of which was obtained exclusively by POLITICO, comes as White House budget director Russ Vought and James Braid, Trump’s top legislative aide, are set to meet with Senate Republicans during a closed-door lunch Wednesday where they will outline the White House’s vision for the bill.

“As Republican Governors, we strongly support your call for the United States Senate to urgently pass a budget resolution. This resolution is a crucial first step to protect America’s elections, strengthen America’s national defense, and support American farmers,” the letter reads.

Signers include leaders of the two largest GOP states, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as the governor of Thune’s home state of South Dakota, Larry Rhoden.

They added that they believe it is “critical” for Congress to pass a bill that includes assistance for the military, farmers and election-related funding.

The state-level push comes after the House adopted a $95 billion budget blueprint for the party-line bill that is facing skepticism in the Senate, where some defense hawks want to spend much more while deficit-minded Republicans want a smaller price tag. Thune indicated Tuesday that the White House wants to expand the scope of the bill, which would complicate his already complex battle to wrangle votes for a narrower budget blueprint.

Thune hasn’t ruled out trying to adopt a budget resolution as soon as next week — the first step in the party-line reconciliation process — but has been frank about the challenges.

“As I’ve said before, it’s all about having 50,” he said this week.

Trump, in a Wednesday Truth Social post, reiterated his demand for action: “I am calling on the Senate to get this critical first step done before the August recess. This Resolution can be adopted at a simple Majority threshold. GET IT DONE!”