Congress
With push from Trump, Republicans finally unite on spending
One principle has long underpinned funding negotiations on Capitol Hill: House Republicans can’t pass a spending bill without Democratic votes. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson finally quashed that assumption.
It took an all-out lobbying blitz that involved promises of future spending cuts, a scattering of presidential threats and 11th-hour policy concessions involving tariffs and visas for Afghan refugees. But in a 217-213 vote, the House passed a seven-month funding patch without needing a single Democrat. Republicans planned to immediately leave Washington and hand Senate Democrats a stark dilemma with the threat of a government shutdown looming early Saturday morning.
Besides jamming the Senate with a bill that cuts non-defense funding by about $13 billion and gives Trump more leeway to shift cash, the vote erodes Democrats’ leverage in spending negotiations for at least the remainder of the 119th Congress.
“The Democrats always got a pound of flesh,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a House Freedom Caucus member, said in an interview. “It’s just a new day.”
In their most impressive political feat, GOP leaders got the backing of the Freedom Caucus — a group of hard-liners that rose to prominence by bucking Republican leaders in spending battles. Every lawmaker in the 31-member club of fiscal conservatives voted in favor of the funding bill, marking the first time many of them have ever supported a measure to keep federal cash flowing.
“I’m as stunned as anybody else,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a longtime, die-hard opponent of continuing resolutions, said about voting for the bill this time.
To hear them tell it, the Freedom Caucus members supported the bill because it cuts spending and because GOP leaders gave them a seat at the negotiating table.
“It’s much easier to be flexible within the parameters of our own core principles when we’ve been deeply involved in crafting the legislation,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), another Freedom Caucus member, said in an interview.
But it was impossible to discount Trump’s intense pressure campaign, which unfolded both privately and publicly.
Trump and White House officials made the strategic decision to get head rebel Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and other perennial leadership critics on board with the plan early. It happened shortly after a White House meeting last month where Trump personally signed off on Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s plan to abandon bipartisan funding talks and pursue a seven-month stopgap.
The effort came down to the wire — with several Republicans holding out until the very last moment. But after dozens of meetings with hard-liners and Trump’s strongest personal Hill whip effort yet, including a bevy of calls to holdouts in the final hours, every Republican but one fell in line.
As for the lone GOP no vote, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Trump made a public example of what happens to lawmakers who dare to cross him, calling for him to face a primary challenger. Massie was unchastened afterward: “You’re going to find out what a stinker it is when you get 10 or 15 Democrats to vote for it” in the Senate, he told reporters.
Walking to the House floor for the vote, Johnson described the president as having been “very engaged, very helpful” on getting the fractious conference behind the plan. Among those Trump called Tuesday was Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.). Trump provided Burchett with assurances about deep spending cuts coming across the federal government, including, possibly, at the Pentagon.
The sudden embrace by Johnson’s right flank of a continuing resolution to fund the government represents a major paradigm shift on Capitol Hill — and reflects a serious moment of reckoning for Republicans who are both accustomed to demanding conservative purity and wary of crossing the president. It comes as the House GOP has virtually no margin to spare, given their tight majority and multiple vacancies.
“I just feel like there’s really no option here,” said Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), another Freedom Caucus member who generally opposes continuing resolutions. “What do you do when you have no majority?”
Few Republicans are under any illusion that the party unity on spending is permanent. If the Senate passes the bill this week, it sets up more rounds of wrangling later this year — when fiscal hawks want to write serious cuts into law.
The Freedom Caucus, for instance, wants to force trillions of dollars in spending cuts to safety-net programs in the party-line package of Trump policy priorities Republicans hope to enact this year, while also codifying the elimination of jobs and programs undertaken by the president’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative in spending bills for the fiscal year that starts in October.
“I see this as getting a first down,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), formerly chair of the Freedom Caucus, said in a brief interview. “The touchdown is yet to be gotten.”
Still, the turnabout has been dramatic. Just 18 months ago, a major portion of the Freedom Caucus voted to reject a funding patch put up by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy that included Republican border security policies and an almost 30 percent cut to non-defense spending — far more than the current stopgap. McCarthy was ejected from his leadership post by hard-line conservatives four days later.
In a theatrical reminder of the irony, McCarthy visited his former House colleagues Monday and was asked how it felt to see fiscal conservatives falling in behind a temporary funding patch.
“Mine had more cuts, so,” McCarthy said, trailing off, in a brief interview as he left the Capitol on Monday night.
Many Republicans argued that this stopgap is different from others that have failed on the House floor in recent years, driving Republican leaders to negotiate bipartisan alternatives with Democrats.
“This is not your grandfather’s continuing resolution,” House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said Tuesday, standing beside Johnson at a news conference.
Other holdouts dragged out the suspense until the very end.
Despite a stark warning from Vice President JD Vance that Republicans would bear the blame of a shutdown, a host of House GOP lawmakers left a closed-door member meeting Tuesday morning claiming they were still undecided on the funding bill. Inside the meeting, Vance issued a stern directive: “We already lost one vote, we can’t lose another.”
Jockeying for phone calls with Trump and more meetings, some holdouts persisted.
But the speaker said in a brief interview leaving the meeting that he thought there were only “one or two” actual holdouts left ahead of the vote. By the time he headed to the floor for the final vote Tuesday, he said he didn’t think any further calls were needed.
Several GOP fiscal hawks said that they were planning to vote for the funding bill only because Trump pressed them to do so.
It wasn’t due to any allegiance to Johnson or whipping effort by his team, said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), a Freedom Caucus member. Rather, he said, his vote was based on the president’s assurances alone.
“It’s his word,” Burlison said.
Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
Senate Republicans are hopeful they will be able to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general by the end of the week. But he’s not in the clear yet, as several undecided GOP senators continue to mull it over.
Blanche’s prospects were nonetheless much improved Monday — less than 24 hours after some GOP senators were predicting he was unlikely to get confirmed as a war of words escalated between President Donald Trump and holdout Republicans.
But then Blanche cut a deal with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) late Sunday night to clarify a controversial settlement between Trump and the IRS, giving Blanche the votes he needed to get through the Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
He still needs to get through the full Senate, where he can only lose two Republican votes given likely unified opposition from Senate Democrats and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence.
Several GOP senators who raised alarms last week about Trump’s public threats to rekindle the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” Cornyn and Tillis worked to kill declined to say Monday how they’d vote on Blanche.But in a positive sign for the acting attorney general, several are looking to Tillis and Cornyn, who are now supporting him, as a lodestar for their own deliberations ahead of likely floor votes later this week.
“I think certainly the fact that he has signed this order, basically disbanding [the fund] — that’s a pretty good step,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), before adding that she would “like to find out a little bit more about the negotiations.”
Murkowski said she plans to speak with Tillis and Cornyn.
“I’m curious about what went on over the weekend,” she said.
Blanche has made efforts to ingratiate himself with Murkowski. In July, he trekked to Alaska, in part at Murkowski’s urging, to better understand public safety and tribal jurisdiction matters. He recently announced a nine-figure settlement benefiting Alaska natives’ health care that Murkowski was pleased with.
“I just appreciated the fact that he went to the state,” Murkowski said. “He was only there for two days, but I had asked him in my initial meeting to go up to the state.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who like Cornyn lost his primary earlier this year to a Trump-backed challenger, declined to discuss Blanche Monday. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) added that she also wanted to talk to Tillis and Cornyn and read the agreement they struck with Blanche.
“Until I do that, I am not going to make a judgement,” Collins said.
Another Republican who hasn’t yet committed to supporting Blanche is Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah). He met with Blanche last week but hasn’t yet weighed in since Sunday night’s agreement. He had indicated before Sunday’s deal that he would be closely tracking Tillis and Cornyn during Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee meeting.
Getting Blanche’s nomination on a trajectory to pass the Senate this week would relieve some of the pressure on Senate Republicans, who are juggling a long to-do list and a shrinking runway to get it done. Trump, amid last week’s standoff, demanded that Senate Republicans confirm Blanche, including warning during a Cabinet meeting that they “will never get anybody like him.”
Tillis told reporters Monday that “the back-and-forth over the weekend was not helpful” but that the talks “ended up at an acceptable place.”
If Blanche gets out of the Judiciary Committee Tuesday as expected, the soonest the Senate could confirm him as attorney general is Saturday unless Democrats unanimously agree to help speed up a final vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that he’s hopeful the Senate will be able to confirm Blanche but didn’t give an ironclad guarantee as the remaining undecided members review the agreement and talk to Tillis and Cornyn.
“I’d like to figure out a way, a path forward to get him done,” Thune said.
Democrats are likely to use Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee meeting, and the days leading up to a full Senate vote, to hammer Republicans over the deal Cornyn and Tillis struck. Many predicted Monday that Trump wouldn’t stick by the agreement that limits the scope of the IRS settlement and nullifies the $1.8 billion payout fund.
“There are so many loopholes. I wouldn’t be surprised if the president went ahead with the program,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) warned the remaining undecided Republicans about the deal: “I don’t think that that commitment is worth what it’s written on.”
While Democrats can drag Blanche’s confirmation into the weekend, they aren’t able to prevent him from being confirmed if at least 50 GOP senators support him. But they are determined to use the debate to hit at one of their central midterm campaign messages — corruption — with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling Blanche the “architect of Trump’s grifts.”
Tillis suggested Monday he still has questions about who in Trump’s orbit played a role in the roller coaster negotiations over the past week. While the retiring senator is prepared to support Blanche, he said that he’s “not done analyzing the anatomy of this deal and who played a role in there.”
“I’m not going to speak for other members, but I think that it’ll be a solid vote,” he added about Blanche’s chances of being confirmed.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who appeared skeptical during a Sunday morning talk show interview that Blanche would get through the Senate, did a 180 Monday when asked whether he would get confirmed: “Yes, I do.”
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
Multiple Senate Republicans joined Sen. Bernie Moreno in calling for Rep. Max Miller to step down from office Monday amid domestic abuse allegations from the Ohio senator’s daughter.
Bernie Moreno — father of Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno — said in a statement Sunday that Miller should not serve in the House soon after the House Republican did a livestream video attempting to defend himself from abuse accusations.
Many of Bernie Moreno’s GOP colleagues were quick to back him following the statement.
“I don’t know [Miller]. I haven’t read a whole lot about him, but if [Moreno] thinks he ought to resign, I’m supportive of that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said in an interview.
Miller has denied the allegations, which include pouring hot water on his ex-wife and holding a gun to her head. He has also denied accusations from his ex-wife that he broke his daughter’s collarbone.
Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas condemned Miller, adding, “He should resign. He should quit.”
“I don’t know Mr. Miller’s story, but I trust Bernie so much as a good friend, and his family has such high values,” Marshall said in an interview. “I couldn’t imagine them wanting this out in public. So to go through with this, it makes me think that they’re telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
The surge of support from Bernie Moreno’s Senate colleagues marks the first significant crack in a wall of GOP silence regarding the allegations against Miller. The skepticism from Miller’s own party will almost certainly weigh down the congressman’s already floundering campaign as he battles Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter to keep his Cleveland-area House seat.
Miller has until Wednesday to withdraw from the ballot and allow a crash primary to select a replacement.
Some Republican lawmakers stopped short of calling on Miller to withdraw or resign while expressing grave concern about the allegations.
“The accusations are very serious, and if there is truth to them, I am one who says that our elected officials need to be held to high standards,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said. “And certainly, when it comes to allegations of domestic abuse, child abuse, that’s not what we want in our lawmakers.”
A spokesperson for Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In response to Moreno’s statement, Miller said on Sunday, “If my daughter said the same thing to me, I personally wouldn’t wait two years before holding him accountable.”
“You know this isn’t true and the only reason you are speaking out now is to hide from your own media circus,” he added in the post on X.
Notably still silent was GOP Sen. Jon Husted, Ohio’s other senator, who while leaving the Capitol Monday did not respond to reporters’ questions about whether Miller should resign.
Other Republicans in the Ohio House delegation are also staying quiet for now. Almost every House Republican from the state either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment on Moreno’s statement.
The exception was Rep. Jim Jordan, who brushed off questions in a Thursday CNN interview about Miller but noted he was “a good man” and was recently campaigning for him.
Asked Monday if Miller should still serve in Congress following Bernie Moreno’s statement, spokesperson for Jordan Stefanie Farrell said, “As Mr. Jordan has said, it’s up to the voters of Ohio’s 7th District.”
Back in the Senate, other Republicans who were unaware of the situation declined to weigh in on the incident.
“I am not aware of the situation, so I don’t have a comment right now,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has been a leading GOP voice on domestic violence issues within the military.
But a steady drip of Republican senators said Monday evening they trusted Bernie Moreno.“It would surprise me if Bernie were being untruthful,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said. “I guess I was surprised that it bubbled up to the public sphere, but I suspect that Bernie has got a beat on the situation.”
Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia said he was unaware of the details of the allegations but that “Bernie’s a pretty level-headed guy.”
“I don’t know enough about the allegations, but like Bernie said, it sounds like he thinks he needs psychological help,” Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said, adding, “I trust Bernie.”
Chris Marquette contributed to this report.
Senate Budget Committee Republicans will meet Tuesday morning to talk about advancing a fiscal blueprint for a new party-line spending bill.
Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) declined to say , in an interview Monday if he plans to introduce a resolution this week, noting that he was “working with leadership” and that the “first priority” is to pass a stopgap spending bill. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a panel member, said he didn’t expect the Senate to take up a budget resolution this week because “I don’t think my leadership wants to do it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune hasn’t ruled out taking up a budget resolution but has been frank about the challenges it faces among GOP senators.
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