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{"id":24156,"date":"2026-06-12T22:17:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T22:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-use-world-cup-to-squeeze-dems-on-fisa-extension\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T22:17:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T22:17:17","slug":"republicans-use-world-cup-to-squeeze-dems-on-fisa-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-use-world-cup-to-squeeze-dems-on-fisa-extension\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans use World Cup to squeeze Dems on FISA extension"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Republicans are pointing to the World Cup in their persistent bid to force Democrats to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Millions of visitors from foreign countries have already begun their pilgrimage to the tournament, which kicked off this week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHosting the World Cup is akin to having 78 Super Bowls in 38 days \u2014 a massive undertaking from a national security perspective,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenateGOP\/status\/2065531242980770188\" target=\"_blank\">the Senate GOP wrote in a post on X Friday<\/a>. \u201cSenate Democrats still let FISA 702 expire, hindering our ability to stop potential terror attacks before they happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/06\/11\/spy-law-on-track-to-lapse-after-house-rejects-extension-00958420\" target=\"_blank\">law is all but certain to expire today<\/a> as Congress remains in uproar over Trump\u2019s appointment of Bill Pulte to serve as acting director of national intelligence. Efforts to secure a short-term extension in the House and Senate both failed Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>And if a terrorist attack happened at the World Cup? \u201cIt would be a lot of finger-pointing,\u201d Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) told Blue Light News on Friday. \u201cYou should just pull out every stop right now to make sure that there are no problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/06\/11\/jay-clayton-director-of-national-intelligence-00959267\" target=\"_blank\">President Donald Trump announced plans to nominate the more palatable Jay Clayton<\/a> for the full-time DNI job on Thursday, a choice that garnered immediate approval from Republican leadership.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats, Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116726429558380513\" target=\"_blank\">wrote Wednesday on Truth Social<\/a>, \u201care trying to take our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/06\/09\/congress\/donald-trump-fisa-pulte-00954796\" target=\"_blank\">national security hostage<\/a> because of unrelated issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking member of the chamber\u2019s Intelligence Committee, placed the blame for the stalemate squarely on Trump. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/06\/08\/fisa-reauthorization-pulte-trump-00952622\" target=\"_blank\">Negotiations on a long-term extension were well on their way<\/a> before Trump announced his Pulte pick.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod forbid, as we move into the World Cup, that something would happen,\u201d he told reporters Thursday. \u201cBut if something happens, it lies at the feet of the president.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Young pushed back. The two-term senator disagreed with Trump\u2019s call to tap Pulte for the interim nod, but he said Democrats are the ones passing up an opportunity to reauthorize the law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe could have also passed a 702 reauthorization that very night he uttered those words,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd he and others chose not to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republicans are pointing to the World Cup in their persistent bid to force Democrats to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Millions of visitors from foreign countries have already begun their pilgrimage to the tournament, which kicked off this week. \u201cHosting the World Cup is akin to having 78 Super Bowls in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24156","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=24156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}