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\n

Congress is settling in for a do-nothing summer.<\/p>\n

House leaders lost control of their chamber with just eight legislative days before a planned five-week summer recess. And President Donald Trump\u2019s demands for action on a stalled elections bill \u2014 along with his series of mercurial power moves \u2014 have left Senate Republicans frustrated and morose as major legislation piles up.<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are confronting the reality that ticking items off their pre-midterm to-do list is looking increasingly unattainable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s events only made that clearer:<\/p>\n

\u2014 RECON 3.0: Key rank-and-file House members and chairs huddled in Johnson\u2019s office Wednesday to plot a path forward on a long shot policy bill under the party-line reconciliation process.<\/p>\n

Those who attended \u2014 including Rep. August Pfluger, an avowed cheerleader for the bill \u2014 acknowledged hope is fading fast. Members are mired in fights over how to pay for the package, and their goal of advancing a budget blueprint for the bill this week is dashed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter this recess, if it doesn\u2019t happen in the first couple of days, then I think it\u2019s in real trouble,\u201d Pfluger, chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u2014 EMERGENCY IRAN FUNDING: Trump has asked Congress to direct billions of dollars to cover the war with Iran \u2014 but support for the emergency funding is in serious doubt.<\/p>\n

Key Republicans left a classified briefing from senior Pentagon officials Wednesday frustrated by unanswered questions. They want to know how the requested $67 billion would be spent \u2014 and whether servicemember paychecks and munitions stockpiles might be at imminent risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more information,\u201d said Rep. Ken Calvert, the top House Republican responsible for shepherding the supplemental bill, which also includes farm assistance, disaster and Ebola aid.<\/p>\n

\u2014 IMMIGRATION: As hard-liners continue to gum up the GOP agenda over the SAVE America Act, some are similarly incensed over Johnson\u2019s failure to act on an immigration measure he promised weeks ago to take up.<\/p>\n

Johnson held a call Wednesday with Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan and other members to try to find a path forward but didn\u2019t make much progress, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss the details.<\/p>\n

Some centrist Republicans don\u2019t want to vote on it before the midterms, they said, and farm-state members are demanding GOP leaders add guestworker visa provisions \u2014 something immigration hard-liners sharply oppose.<\/p>\n

And while only a handful of potential developments appear capable of pulling the GOP majorities out of their summer torpor, the contemporary Congress tends to act only when deadlines force it to. That has made the early part of this summer especially languid on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help, some members noted this week, that lawmakers were sent home early rather than hash out their differences in person.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be leaving town,\u201d Rep. Ralph Norman said. \u201cWe ought to be working, and we\u2019re not doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u2014 THE GOP’S DIRTY LITTLE SAVE AMERICA SECRET: <\/b>House conservatives bristled this week over the Senate\u2019s refusal to pass the SAVE America Act, shutting down the floor in protest. But their outrage has obscured an inconvenient truth<\/a> for the Republicans locking arms with the president to push for his election security bill: It can\u2019t even pass the House \u2014 at least not the version Trump wants. Johnson acknowledged as much this week, appearing to concede he does not have the votes to move forward with a drastic crackdown on mailed ballots that Trump has repeatedly demanded be added to the legislation.<\/p>\n

\u2014 TRUMP\u2019S CLAYTON REVIVAL:<\/b> Trump threw Senate Republicans a rare bone Wednesday \u2014 telling reporters that Jay Clayton would have a hearing for his director of national intelligence nomination in two weeks<\/u><\/a>. The president\u2019s remarks were welcome (but in several corners, surprising) news for GOP leaders, who had watched in frustration as Trump scuttled both Clayton\u2019s nomination hearing and passage of a key surveillance tool renewal last month.<\/p>\n

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

Congress is settling in for a do-nothing summer. House leaders lost control of their chamber with just eight legislative days before a planned five-week summer recess. And President Donald Trump\u2019s demands for action on a stalled elections bill \u2014 along with his series of mercurial power moves \u2014 have left Senate Republicans frustrated and morose […]<\/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-25196","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\/25196","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=25196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}