{"id":17340,"date":"2026-01-06T13:02:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trump-huddles-with-house-gop\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T13:02:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:02:05","slug":"capitol-agenda-trump-huddles-with-house-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trump-huddles-with-house-gop\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Trump huddles with House GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"
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House Republicans will hear directly from President Donald Trump Tuesday for the first time since the administration\u2019s extraordinary capture of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n

A wider group of lawmakers who want answers on the operation will have to wait till Wednesday, when all House and Senate members are expected to get briefed by administration officials. So far, both Democrats and Republicans are grumbling about the lack of details from the White House on what\u2019s next for Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Where things stand:<\/b> Speaker Mike Johnson emerged from a leadership briefing Monday night and said he does not believe the U.S. will send troops to Venezuela<\/a>. And he played down concerns that Trump and his deputies reneged on pledges not to pursue regime change in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a regime change,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThis is a demand for change of behavior by a regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

But other Republicans struck a more skeptical note. \u201cI think what the president was trying to communicate is hopefully facilitating a peaceful transition of power,\u201d said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who was not at the briefing. \u201cI don\u2019t know how you do that without boots on the ground. And I don\u2019t support boots on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate is on track to take up a bipartisan war powers resolution Thursday aimed at constraining future Venezuela strikes. But don\u2019t expect this attempt to succeed where prior ones have failed.<\/p>\n

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who entertained supporting past resolutions, said he would not vote for the measure \u201cat this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Trump’s turn to talk:\u00a0<\/b>The president\u2019s address to House Republicans Tuesday morning during their closed-door retreat at the Kennedy Center is expected to focus on touting GOP wins and rallying Republicans ahead of the midterms \u2014 not Venezuela.<\/p>\n

GOP leaders plan to discuss their 2026 legislative agenda with the rank-and-file. That includes whether Republicans will tackle another reconciliation bill and how to deal with health care and affordability issues.<\/p>\n

House Freedom Caucus members sent Johnson a letter<\/a> Monday outlining policies they want to see accomplished in 2026, including reducing discretionary spending, codifying Trump\u2019s border actions and preventing the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital currency.<\/p>\n

\u2014 What Democrats are doing:<\/b> Democrats are mulling options to force Venezuela-related votes, including during Tuesday’s Rules Committee hearing. Democrats expect Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) to reintroduce their own war powers resolution. And they are looking to keep the events of Jan. 6, 2021, in the spotlight on the five-year anniversary.<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jan. 6 anniversary split screen: <\/b>Johnson broke his silence Monday on the long-running saga of the missing plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack. His office made clear the plaque now sitting in storage<\/u><\/a> won\u2019t be hung on Johnson\u2019s watch. The speaker\u2019s comments come as House Democrats push to keep the attack in the public eye five years later. They are teeing up a Tuesday 10 a.m. presentation where they\u2019re set to hear from former law enforcement officials, state officials, former members of the Democratic-led select panel and more.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Appropriations moves: <\/b>House and Senate GOP leaders are hoping to move a second funding package before the end-of-the-month shutdown deadline, according to four people granted anonymity to discuss the private strategy. That would be in addition to the three-bill package of Commerce-Justice- Science, Energy-Water and Interior-Environment, which the House will vote on this week and the Senate could take up as early as next week.<\/p>\n

Meredith Lee Hill and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Republicans will hear directly from President Donald Trump Tuesday for the first time since the administration\u2019s extraordinary capture of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. A wider group of lawmakers who want answers on the operation will have to wait till Wednesday, when all House and Senate members are expected to get briefed by administration officials. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}