WASHINGTON — The Trump administration sent Congress a request Wednesday for $87.6 billion in emergency funding to cover the cost of the war in Iran and other expenses. 

White House budget director Russ Vought wrote in a letter that in addition to addressing “urgent needs” for the Defense Department, the funding would help the U.S. government assist with the Ebola outbreak and provide aid to American farmers.

Funding for the Energy Department, he wrote, would “support nuclear and other energy security requirements, primarily for the National Nuclear Security Administration.”

The supplemental spending request asks Congress to provide money for “restoration and construction projects in and around Washington, D.C.,” as well as the project that would modernize Penn Station in New York City. 

The proposal asks lawmakers to add a few policy changes, including the year-round sale of E-15 gasoline, to any supplemental spending bill they may approve in the weeks and months ahead. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, praised the move on social media. “Pres Trump’s admin is exactly right 2say yr-round nationwide E15 is ‘urgent’ & ‘needed’ Congress MUST pass yr-round nationwide E15 by end of fiscal yr Im very glad 2 see it incl in Defense Dept’s supplemental request,” said Grassley.

The proposals didn’t appear to have broad consensus among Democrats, who would likely be needed for any emergency funding to become law. 

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement the administration’s request “is not merely meant to pay for the president’s disastrous war, but an attempt to secure tens of billions of additional dollars for unrelated Pentagon priorities that should rightly be considered through the annual appropriations process.”

“I will closely review this request in its entirety and ensure we take care of our servicemembers, but I will not rubberstamp tens of billions more for this disastrous war of choice,” Murray added.

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote in a statement she will “evaluate the Administration’s supplemental budget request.”

“I plan to convene an Appropriations Committee hearing so that Senators can hear directly from the relevant Administration officials,” she said.  

The supplemental spending requests ask lawmakers to provide:

• $67.15 billion for the Defense Department
• $11.1 billion for the Agriculture Department to provide aid to farmers
• $3.36 billion for the State Department for diplomatic, security and global health programs
• $2.03 billion for the U.S. Coast Guard
• $1 billion for the Transportation Department to “to assist in the final design and construction of a modernized Penn Station in New York City”
• $1 billion for the Labor Department to “increase the benefit levels for participants of certain pension plans that were sponsored by Delphi Corporation and terminated as a result of General Motors’ bankruptcy in 2009″
• $767.5 million for the Energy Department
• $600 million for the General Services Administration’s federal buildings fund
• $500 million for the National Park Service to upgrade a seawall and improve the World War II Memorial
• $40.26 million for the FBI for its role in the Iran war and “other classified needs”
• $36.18 million for the Treasury Department’s office of terrorism and financial intelligence
• $13.1 million for the Homeland Security Department’s operations and support account that was part of a “classified request.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans walked into a lunch with the president on Wednesday looking for ways to unify, but they left the closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill as fractured as ever about policy goals. 

President Donald Trump said after the huddle that he was “very proud of the party” but didn’t offer any concrete steps forward amid deep divisions on a nationwide voter identification law or other issues that don’t yet have enough GOP support to reach his desk. 

“For the most part we have a really well-unified party,” Trump said. “And I said it very strongly, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world.”

Republican senators said during hallway interviews after the meeting ended that it wasn’t entirely productive and didn’t create much, if any, goodwill. 

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy somewhat jokingly said the meeting went “swimmingly” before detailing a confrontation he had with Trump over the lack of information on the Iran war. Senators have repeatedly asked for a classified briefing from administration officials, but haven’t yet received one. 

Cassidy, who lost his May primary after Trump endorsed an opponent, said the exchange began when Trump asked why four Republican senators voted with Democrats to approve a War Powers Resolution earlier this week. Along with Cassidy, they were Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine.

“I said, ‘Well, we’ve not been briefed on how it’s going, that the stated objectives don’t appear to be achieved, and it appears as if … it’s not going as well as we’re being told,’” Cassidy recalled. “At which point I think the president said something negative about me. I perceived it as attempting to bully me from asking a question that I think the American people need to know. 

“And I’m not going to be bullied when I feel like I’m asking a question the American people need to know. And so at that point it began to escalate. And at some point it de-escalated.”

Trump declined to directly answer a question before the meeting began about whether he believes the voter identification law he advocates, which doesn’t have the votes necessary to advance in the Senate, is more important than a broadly bipartisan housing bill. The housing package would have given Republicans a legislative victory on the campaign trail roughly four months before the midterm elections.

The president was scheduled to sign that housing measure just before he met with Senate Republicans, but he canceled to press for the election bill, called the SAVE America Act.  

The bill would overhaul how Americans register to vote and cast ballots in federal elections, such as requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and requiring a government-issued photo identification at polling locations. 

“Every election is important. We’re doing very well,” Trump said. 

“They want a lot of communists to come in,” he said, referring to Democrats. “I’m saying it a little bit differently but the people that they’re pushing are communists. And this country is not going to have communists.” 

Trump ‘mad as a murder hornet’ about Iran vote

Florida Sen. Rick Scott said he hoped the meeting would help Republicans build consensus, though he acknowledged it led to tension. 

“You’ve been around the president, he was pretty forceful about what he cares about,” Scott said, later adding his goal in organizing the meeting was “to try to bring people together.”

Scott said Senate Republicans didn’t talk with Trump about using the complex budget reconciliation process to establish grants for states that implement certain voter identification requirements. House Speaker Mike Johnson put the idea forward earlier in the day as one way to promote elements of the SAVE America Act. 

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said he appreciated the president’s “candor” during the meeting before saying Trump was “mad as a murder hornet about the war powers vote.”

“And I don’t blame him,” Kennedy said. “Put yourself in his shoes, he’s right in the middle of delicate negotiations and the Senate votes to get out of Iran. And it upset him.”

Kennedy said the president also pressed for the SAVE America Act, though he somewhat dismissed Johnson’s proposal to provide grants to states instead of enacting the entire bill.

“I don’t think that’s going to satisfy the president,” Kennedy said. 

‘Like a hospital board meeting,’ with yelling

West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice said both Trump and Cassidy “expressed their feelings and didn’t hold back, but at the same time, it ended up respectful.” 

“It was, I wouldn’t say super combative, but very passionate — very passionate,” he said. 

Justice noted that “very, very few questions” were asked at the lunch.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall described Trump and Cassidy’s exchange as “very much like a hospital board meeting when a bunch of doctors are yelling at each other. But at the end of the day, we’ll figure out a way to get along.” 

Trump, he said, was “very disappointed” by the four GOP senators voting this week to try to limit any additional military action against Iran. 

“They’re trying to negotiate that and they feel like that vote from Republicans chopped their legs out from under them,” Marshall said. “And they’re making such incredible progress on this deal. So it’s hard for them to negotiate it when there’s two messages coming out of Washington.”

Pressed on the confrontation between Cassidy and Trump, Sen. Tommy Tuberville said the two “just had some differences of opinion about Iran.” 

The Alabama Republican said “it was very cordial — it wasn’t over the top.”

Not many questions

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis acknowledged there was some contention in the meeting over the voter identification bill.

“I know there’s frustration over the SAVE America Act passage, but we simply don’t have the votes because we’re not gonna nuke the filibuster, so it’s more a matter of how do we move forward,” he said. “Not all of the meeting was contentious, but there’s a general consensus that we on Capitol Hill have to start getting in lockstep.” 

When it comes to the bipartisan housing bill, Tillis said it being signed into law is “up to the president, we’ve done our work.”

South Dakota’s Mike Rounds declined to give details about the meeting but said that Republicans “had a good talking to,” and that senators did not ask the president many questions. 

Rounds said while Trump pushed for the SAVE America Act, there was little acknowledgment that the Senate lacks the votes to pass the bill. 

Texas Sen. John Cornyn said there “wasn’t really a lot of opportunity” to ask questions during the meeting. He said Trump spoke for one hour and 15 minutes. 

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said the president repeated some of the comments he posted on social media earlier in the day when he said he would refuse to sign the housing affordability package until Congress approves the election bill. 

“He’s here to talk about whatever it is he wants to talk about,” Hawley said. “And without speaking for him, I think it’s safe to say that what he posted this morning is what he talked about.”

President Donald Trump derailed a housing overhaul that he was set to sign into law Wednesday, canceling a signing ceremony for the broadly popular bipartisan bill until Congress passes an election security measure.

Trump had been scheduled to sign the bill, which passed the Senate Monday and House Tuesday with wide margins, during a Capitol ceremony.

But in a pair of social media posts prior to the event, he derided the overhaul aimed at lowering housing costs as “minor” before refusing to sign it entirely.

“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The controversial SAVE America Act, a top priority for Trump, addresses the extremely rare phenomenon of noncitizen voting. Republican senators have told Trump there are not enough votes in the chamber for it to pass.

The housing bill’s Senate sponsors, Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott and ranking Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, sought to lower the costs of housing construction by removing regulatory barriers, expanding the uses of federal housing grants and banning institutional investors from buying single-family homes.

Scott, a South Carolina Republican, lauded the bill Tuesday as not only bipartisan, but nonpartisan, addressing universal needs.

Republican leaders framed the measure as addressing affordability, which is expected to be a key issue in November’s midterm elections amid stubborn inflation.

The measure, which combined elements of proposals in each chamber, appeared on a fast track to becoming law after the Senate approved it 85-5 Monday and the House voted 358-32 Tuesday. The White House had said Trump supported the bill.

The House opponents were virtually all from a group of conservatives, led by Florida’s Anna Paulina Luna, who said she would oppose all legislation from the Senate, and even some House rules resolutions, until the Senate passed Trump’s elections security measure.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a Wednesday morning press conference that he spoke with the president earlier in the day and that he is going to delay signing the housing bill until Congress approves a grant program for elections through the complex budget reconciliation process. That’s the same procedure the GOP used to enact its “big, beautiful” law and $70 billion for immigration enforcement.

“You have to put it on a reconciliation bill,” he said. “We believe that if you create a grant program that ties it to reconciling the budget and you allow blue states, if they come to their senses and they want to avail themselves of election integrity proposals and ideas and policies, they can draw down from a federal fund and use those funds. We’re willing to invest heavily in that.”

Johnson said he told Trump that Republicans in Congress can enact that policy if they “stand together.”

“As you know he has a window of time before he has to sign a bill and he’s going to use a bit more of that window of time,” Johnson said. “And we’re going to go through this together.”

Johnson said he expects Trump to sign the housing bill within the 10-day window.

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators from both political parties said Tuesday they had yet to see the text of the deal Trump administration officials struck over the weekend to end the war in Iran, though several indicated any final agreement will require their approval. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said administration officials have signaled they expect to share the text of the memorandum of understanding with lawmakers, though he didn’t know when. 

“Hopefully that’ll happen sooner rather than later,” he said. “But, you know, obviously it sounds like they’re not going public with it until later in the week. So we’ll see.”

Thune said he’s heard the deal sets up a 60-day framework for negotiators to reach agreement on more specifics, including about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. 

“I think at the end of the day the goal here is to make sure that Iran ends its nuclear program and whatever financial incentives they have should be conditioned upon that,” he said. “But we’ll see when we know more.”

President Donald Trump, speaking from the G7 convention in Europe, said he may hold a press conference in “a couple days” to release the text of the memorandum of understanding and appeared ready for a vote in Congress.

“What I would like to do is send it to Congress, saying you shouldn’t approve it. And I will get it approved. Whatever I say, they want to do the opposite,” he said. “It is not working too well for them, by the way.”

North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven said he believes the plan is to vote to approve the Iran agreement at some point. 

“I think anytime you have Congress ratify something, it gives it longevity,” Hoeven said. “You can’t have the next president come in and change it with an executive order. So I think that’s a benefit. I think it helps strengthen it.”

Hoeven said he hasn’t heard from administration officials why they haven’t shared the text of the memorandum of understanding with senators, even in a classified setting. But he said he’s more focused on U.S. enforcement of agreements on Iran’s nuclear program in the long term. 

“The real issue is that we have something that we can enforce and that’s hard with Iran because they don’t honor any agreement,” Hoeven said.  

Is the agreement a treaty?

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said he believes an agreement with Iran would represent a treaty and be subject to Senate approval. 

“It sounds like a treaty,” he said. “And if it’s a treaty, it certainly seems like it.”

That would require strong bipartisanship, since the Constitution sets a two-thirds threshold for the Senate to approve a treaty. 

Cassidy added it appears the administration will need the Israeli government — which initiated the attack on Iran with the United States — to stop its war in Lebanon in order to reach a final deal with Iran during the next two months.

“To make a deal, it takes two sides. In this case, maybe three, maybe four because you have Hezbollah and Israel,” Cassidy said, referring to a powerful Lebanese political party and militant group opposed to Israel. “Hezbollah can just stir it up with impunity if they want to under certain circumstances. So you tell me, I mean, it takes two to dance, and so now it takes four to dance. Can you pull it off in 60 days? I don’t know.” 

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said the administration needs to be as transparent as possible about what exactly is in the memorandum of understanding it’s reached with Iran. 

“Minimally, there has to be maximum transparency,” he said. 

Tillis said it “makes sense” for the Senate to approve any final deal, saying President Barack Obama made a mistake when he didn’t have lawmakers ratify the agreement his administration struck with Iran in 2015. That deal was named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. 

“I’ve said repeatedly Obama made a mistake when he didn’t do the work to have it rise to the level of a treaty, and I believe that we should here,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s only good for two and a half years.”

Tillis said he wasn’t concerned Congress hasn’t received the text of the memorandum of understanding yet, but that it’s imperative the administration share those documents.

“Trust but verify,” he said.  

‘Essentially a surrender’

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said he “doubts” the memorandum of understanding is actually real, but that if it is, lawmakers should expect there are “side deals” the administration may not share. 

“If what’s reported is real, it’s Iran’s terms. I mean, it’s essentially a surrender. But I think that’s the only play we can make at this point,” he said. “We have to end this war and stop wasting money and stop killing Americans and civilians and stop driving up prices. So it’s a bad deal but he’s not going to get a better deal. So we just have to accept the humiliation. But I don’t even know if it’s real.”

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said that lawmakers need to see the memorandum of understanding so she and others can “express our opinions.”

“But right now we can’t because it’s not fully out there,” she said. 

Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va., said he hadn’t seen the text of the memorandum of understanding or been briefed by administration officials. But he does believe the administration needs to submit it to lawmakers within five days, as outlined in a 2015 law. 

“My fear is that the details are not going to be as good as the president represents,” Warner said. 

Law requirements

Congress approved legislation in 2015 that requires any presidential administration to submit the text of a deal addressing Iran’s nuclear program within five days. Those documents don’t need to be sent to every lawmaker but are supposed to go to the congressional leaders as well as eight committees with jurisdiction. 

That transmission creates a 30-day review period for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee to hold hearings and briefings. 

The law created a pathway for Congress to approve a joint resolution of disapproval for any Iran nuclear deal. The House and Senate would likely need the support of at least two-thirds of members in order to override a likely veto from Trump. 

Congress overriding a presidential veto of a disapproval resolution would block the Trump administration from lifting sanctions on Iran, though that seems an unlikely scenario given both chambers are controlled by Republicans. 

A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service says a joint resolution of disapproval taking effect “would not invalidate the agreement itself but would affect only the possibility of presidential sanctions relief to Iran; nevertheless, precluding the President from providing such relief would almost certainly result in a dissolution of the agreement by Iran.”

The law, officially titled the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, also clears the way for Congress to approve a joint resolution of approval. 

The CRS report says that “would, upon enactment, allow the President to waive sanctions, apparently even if the review period had not yet elapsed.”

Congress taking no action during the 30-day review period would allow the administration to begin sanctions relief as soon as that deadline passes. 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday he had signed a ceasefire with Iran, moving the two countries one step closer to ending the war that began in February.

Trump, speaking from the G7 conference in Europe, said the memorandum of understanding ensures Iran cannot possess a nuclear weapon and clears the way for ships to move through the Strait of Hormuz without paying a toll.  

Trump added he would like the U.S. and Iran to develop a more collegial diplomatic relation in the months and years ahead as additional details of the agreement are worked out. 

“Hopefully it’s going to be a good relationship and we’re going to get along,” he said. “And if we don’t, we go back to where we started but I don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”

Trump said he expects the memorandum of understanding to pave the way for economic sanctions relief subject to several conditions. That document should be released publicly sometime after Friday, when Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to attend a ceremonial signing.

One potential obstacle to a longer-term deal could be the ongoing Israeli war in Lebanon, which Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrote in a social media post is part of the agreement between the U.S. and Iran. 

“Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” Sharif wrote. 

He added that a ceremonial signing event had been scheduled for Friday in Switzerland. 

“With the agreement now in place, mediators will facilitate a series of meetings this week,” Sharif wrote. “These pre-implementation discussions will lay the foundation for the technical talks and the official signing ceremony.”

Trump said from the G7 conference that he would look into ways to end Israel’s war in Lebanon, but didn’t say that is part of the United States’ agreement with Iran. 

“We do want to see if we can straighten out the Lebanon thing because it just seems to just never end,” Trump said. “And that’s a mini version of what we were doing, but it should not be tough. So, Hezbollah we have to have a little talk with them.”

Israel not part of agreement

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a couple hours after Trump spoke that he didn’t plan to withdraw troops from Gaza, Lebanon or Syria. 

“I’d like to clarify, we will stay there in the security zone as long as it takes in order to protect our country,” he said, according to a translator. 

Netanyahu added during his brief remarks that he believed the joint military campaign against Iran prevented that country from developing a nuclear weapon. 

“The most important thing is that we saved the state of Israel from clear and present nuclear danger because Iran was running toward it,” he said. 

But Netanyahu indicated his country’s military would not pull back in the days or months ahead, saying “the struggle has not finished yet.” 

“Today after we achieved all of that, there are those who want to belittle it and cancel these achievements and I’m telling you we are about to achieve many more great things and to eliminate threats,” Netanyahu said. 

The remarks were somewhat different from those posted earlier in the day by the Israeli minister of national security who appeared to oppose the agreement between the U.S. and Iran.  

“Trump’s agreement does not bind us,” Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote in a social media post. “Israel is not subject to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign nation!”

Israel and the United States began the war in Iran together, but the Israeli military has also struck targets and taken territory inside Lebanon during the past few months. 

Framework for peace

Trump’s comments came just after two senior U.S. officials, who did not wish to be identified by name, told reporters on a call organized by the White House that Vance and Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf also signed the MOU. 

That document, one official said, creates a framework for how both countries will operate during the next few months as talks over some of the more complicated aspects continue.

“The basic way it works is the more that the Iranians are willing to work with us on their nuclear program, on verifying that they’re not building a nuclear weapon, on not funding radicalism and terrorism in the region, the more that they’re going to be welcomed into the world economy through a combination of sanctions relief and other economic measures,” the official said. 

That official said it would take some time for oil tankers and other ships to operate in the Strait of Hormuz the way they did before the war due to the mines Iran placed in those waters during the past few months. 

“Some crews are ready to go now, and in fact, have been going over the last couple of weeks,” the official said. “Some crews want to see a little bit more stability for the next couple of days, maybe the next couple of weeks. But you will see a significant increase in traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.”

The official noted the relationships built between negotiators from both countries could lead to a new phase of diplomatic relations that hasn’t occurred since before the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s. 

“One of the really cool things and interesting things about this entire process is that we actually have a direct relationship with a number of people at the highest levels of the Iranian government,” the official said. “That really hasn’t happened in 47 years of our relationship with Iran. And I think it’s one of the reasons why we’ve made significant progress and understood, you know, where they’re willing to give and where we still have some wood to chop.”

The official said the heightened U.S. military presence will remain in the region as negotiations take place over how exactly inspectors can ensure Iran doesn’t try to rebuild its nuclear program.

“The agreement contemplates the reduction of military forces in the region upon the agreement of a final deal, which again is the agreement that we assume we can make, so long as the Iranians make some concessions and give up some of their activities and some of their nuclear program,” the official said.

Sanctions and Iran nuclear program

The United States, so far, has not unfrozen any seized Iranian assets or lifted any sanctions, though that will likely change in the months ahead. 

“The way that I think about this is, Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been systematically destroyed. In order to rebuild it, they need a lot of money, and this deal really has two pathways,” the official said. 

“Option one for Iran is they don’t get any money, and so they don’t have the resources to rebuild their defense industrial base or the nuclear weapons program,” the official added. “Option two is they are invited into the world economy with all the prosperity that comes along with it, but only if they provide us the enforcement and verification mechanism to ensure they’re not going to rebuild that nuclear weapon.”

The second official on the call gave a faster timeline for releasing text of the memorandum of understanding than the president, saying it would be shared publicly within 24 to 48 hours. 

“You’ll see in the MOU, we discussed the possibility of releasing frozen funds, sanctions relief, you know, a big $300 billion fund to rebuild their country,” the second official said. “And all of these things are going to be tied to performance.”

That second official added this is “just the first MOU” and that negotiators from the U.S. and Iran are going to begin “technical discussions later this week.”

The second official said that Israel withdrawing its troops from Lebanon “was not a condition” of the current deal between the U.S. and Iran. 

“The deal is a ceasefire. And it will not be a one-way ceasefire, meaning that if Iran is not able to control Hezbollah, and if they attack Israeli positions or Israeli towns, Israel will have the right to defend themselves and respond,” the second official said. 

There is hope within the Trump administration, the official said, that talks between Israel, Lebanon and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would also lead to a ceasefire in that war. 

“The first point in the MOU talks about how Iran and its allies and America and its allies seek to have a ceasefire and end hostilities, end the war and hopefully have a final peace that hopefully will include a lot of these proxy groups,” the second official said. “And hopefully this will help us get the Israel-Lebanon normalization and peace done properly.”

WASHINGTON — For the first time in nearly two decades, Congress missed a deadline for reauthorization of a key surveillance authority, raising questions about whether the U.S. government can continue to monitor certain communications.

Lawmakers have regularly approved short- and long-term extensions for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act since 2008, clearing the way for intelligence agencies to collect and analyze electronic communications from people living in other countries. 

The government says it uses the program to secure information that can protect the United States or its citizens from attacks by foreign powers, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, the trafficking of illegal drugs and other threats.

Intelligence agencies aren’t supposed to target U.S. citizens but lawmakers across the political spectrum and civil liberties organizations have repeatedly raised grievances with how officials handle the information they get when an American is part of a targeted conversation.

Even though lawmakers let Section 702 lapse on June 12, the annual certification from the court that oversees the program should allow intelligence agencies to keep collecting data, experts say.

Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said during an interview with States Newsroom that Congress included a safety net in a previous authorization that planned for this exact scenario. 

“We feel pretty confident that there will be no immediate consequences,” he said. “The way the statute is crafted, it basically says if there is an existing certification, you can continue Section 702 surveillance until that certification expires.” 

That won’t happen until March 2027. 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, agreed with the assessment there are safeguards in place, but he contended members of Congress should not have taken the risk of letting that section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expire. 

“There’s a dangerous assumption that the program will function seamlessly if this statute expires on Friday,” he said. “While I hope the certifications issued a few months ago will still apply in the event of the statute lapsing. This is not a certainty. There will be high-stakes litigation and a very real possibility that intelligence collection will cease at least temporarily. And in this work of intelligence gathering, minutes do matter.”

Pulte announcement

Republicans and Democrats have worked for the past few months to broker consensus on another years-long reauthorization with overhauls. Those negotiations included significant debate about what the government should do when Americans are part of the conversations swept up by intelligence agencies. 

But President Donald Trump’s announcement that Bill Pulte would temporarily run the Office of the Director of National Intelligence following Tulsi Gabbard’s exit raised concerns on Capitol Hill and stopped negotiations. 

Democrats said someone trustworthy must lead the ODNI even for a brief amount of time, while Republicans argued the two issues shouldn’t be linked and that letting Section 702 lapse represents a national security risk. 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said not extending the program for a few weeks while lawmakers work out their differences on a longer-term bill could have severe, even fatal, consequences. 

“Well over half of every item in the president’s daily brief is derived from Section 702,” he said. “It has stopped terrorist attacks, it stopped the flow of deadly drugs into our country, it’s protected our troops overseas, it’s allowed us to rescue troops overseas.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., contended that having Pulte temporarily run the ODNI even though he has “zero relevant experience” would place “Americans in danger.”

“We need real leadership in the intelligence community, not a national security novice sent to undermine the work of intelligence professionals,” he said. 

Schumer added that Pulte couldn’t be expected “to speak truth to power, to conduct objective analysis, to resist efforts to politicize the intelligence community in a job where facts are so important, and the president knowing the real facts are so important.” 

Trump’s choice of Jay Clayton as his official nominee for the role June 11 as both chambers of Congress ended their work week didn’t ease concerns or clear the way for a short-term extension of Section 702. 

“Pulte has to go. He cannot be in the DNI role,” Schumer said. “Our national security is too important.”

More problems

Pulte’s short-term assignment, however, isn’t the only roadblock to a long-term reauthorization. 

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said substantial changes must be made and that “there just have been too many abuses of Americans’ rights across multiple administrations” under the authorities provided by Section 702. 

“Every day that 702 is in effect without reforms is a day that Americans’ rights are under threat,” he said. “I believe Americans deserve new guardrails. If Congress is going to extend these authorities, and that is what we’re talking about, those guardrails are essential. And at a minimum, Americans deserve transparency about how these surveillance powers have been abused.” 

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of far-right Republicans led by Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, has also pressed for overhauls.  

“Congress can, and should, continue seeking reforms to Section 702 without endangering national security,” it posted on social media. “Necessary reforms – including warrant requirements for searching Americans’ private communications, consistent with the Fourth Amendment – can also be passed by Congress without endangering national security.”

The Freedom Caucus added that it’s “nonsense” for anyone to “claim that once Section 702 expires, lawsuits by communications and tech companies could suspend intelligence collection.” 

Court certification

One of the reasons some members of Congress have raised dire concerns about a lapse of Section 702 even with the certification in place is to lobby for a years-long reauthorization, Hamadanchy of the ACLU said. 

“They’re trying to use that fear-mongering to force people to vote for something that they may not like otherwise,” he said.

The sense of urgency created by waiting until the last minute to hold floor votes on a reauthorization bill and raising the possibility of terrorist attacks, Hamadanchy said, can also be used to prevent amendment votes.

That, for example, could block floor debate on whether to require a warrant for Americans’ data that does get collected as part of other Section 702 surveillance.  

“There’s been repeated requests under both administrations of both parties in terms of that number of Americans. They’ve never told us,” Hamadanchy said. “But what we do know is they routinely search through that database for the communications of Americans without a warrant.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration still needs to determine how it will remove nuclear materials from Iran after officials from both countries sign documents to end the war, a senior official said Friday.

“This is very combustible stuff, very volatile stuff. We’re not just going to, like, go down there with a backhoe and a guy with a backpack and start taking it out,” the official, who did not want to be identified by name, said on a call with reporters organized by the White House. “The technical details need to be figured out, but I think there’s a commitment to do that.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi wrote in a social media post a few hours before the call that a memorandum of understanding with the United States “has never been closer.”

“Pending its finalization, the media should refrain from entering speculation about its content,” he added. “In line with our responsible and transparent approach, all details will be shared with the public in due course.”

The officials’ comments came one day after President Donald Trump said negotiators had “just made a great settlement of the war with Iran” that would be “subject to finalization of documents” over the next few days. 

Possible meeting in Europe

The U.S. official said the administration is 80% to 85% sure leaders from the two countries would gather sometime this month to sign a memorandum of understanding to end the war, possibly in Europe.  

Those documents will create a framework to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, destroy enriched nuclear materials and establish inspections to ensure Iran doesn’t possess a nuclear weapon, the official said.

The MOU will also start a 60-day technical negotiation where leaders from both countries work out more specifics of what the United States wants to see Iran accomplish in order to lift economic sanctions, the official said.

The step-by-step process with verification requirements is designed to build trust and “accomplish something meaningful for both Iran and the United States of America,” the official said.

“I don’t think the Iranians trust us and I don’t think the United States trusts the Iranians,” the official said.  

Whether or not Iran could have a civilian nuclear program for energy production will remain to be seen, though the official didn’t entirely rule it out. 

“We’re not bothered at all by the idea of civilian power plants in Iran,” the official said. “What we’re bothered by is the type of infrastructure that would allow them to jump from civilian power generation to nuclear weapons development and that’s what they’ve had for a very long time.”

Ashley Murray contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that administration officials were close to brokering an end to the hostilities with Iran and predicted there could be a signing ceremony in Europe as soon as this weekend. 

“We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran and we’re going to be subject to finalization of documents, which should get done over the next few days, probably have a signing, maybe in Europe, and it’s a great thing,” Trump, who has earlier said deals were in the offing that did not come to fruition, said from the Oval Office.

Trump said Iran’s Supreme Leader had approved the agreement, which he referred to as “a very strong memorandum of understanding that is a little conceptual.” There was no immediate confirmation of the agreement on social media accounts on which Iranian leaders often post.

The deal, Trump said, would ensure Iran will not be able to develop or purchase a nuclear weapon and will end the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a main oil shipping route, once signed.

Trump said he didn’t plan to attend the signing ceremony himself, but would likely send Vice President JD Vance. 

He projected the end of the conflict, which began in late February, would lower gas prices that rose sharply after the United States and Israel began a joint bombing campaign. 

Israel not part of deal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office posted on social media that the country doesn’t consider itself subject to the agreement brokered between the United States and Iran. 

“President Trump spoke this evening with Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding the emerging memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to enter into negotiations,” the post said. 

“Even though Israel is not a party to the memorandum of understanding, the Prime Minister expressed his appreciation for President Trump’s commitment that the final agreement at the conclusion of negotiations will include the removal of enriched material, the dismantling of enrichment infrastructure, limits on missile production, and the cessation of Iran’s support for its terrorist proxies in the region.”

The war led to considerable debate on Capitol Hill, where Democrats forced floor votes on several War Powers resolutions, questioning whether Trump had the authority to engage in a protracted bombing campaign without a formal declaration of war or an authorization for use of military force from Congress. 

The Trump administration sent a letter to lawmakers on May 1 declaring the war “terminated,” but bombing resumed this week after an Iranian drone shot down a U.S. helicopter. 

Strikes vowed, then called off

Trump posted on social media a couple hours before his Oval Office appearance that he had “cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening.”

“Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others,” Trump wrote. “The Naval Blockade will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized — Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly.”

The announcement was a reversal from one Trump posted earlier in the morning, where he wrote the U.S. military planned another round of intense bombing and would seek to control an island in the Persian Gulf. 

“At some point in the not too distant  future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America,” he wrote. 

Trump on Thursday declined to give a firm deadline for when U.S. and Iranian officials would sign a formal end to the hostilities, only saying he believes it will happen “pretty quickly.”

Trump said he “might look at” providing financial aid to American farmers who experienced rising costs, including for fertilizer, as a result of the war, though he didn’t commit to it. 

“The farmers have a problem with fertilizer, but that’s all coming down now,” he said. “And your fuel is going to be, I think it’s going to be lower than it was four or five months ago.”

WASHINGTON — The head of the Social Security Administration testified before Congress on Wednesday that customer service has drastically improved during the last year, though he declined to offer ways to address the program’s dire financial situation. 

Commissioner Frank Bisignano instead deferred to lawmakers, who will need to make changes to the safety net program for tens of millions of Americans before it reaches insolvency in six years.  

Bisignano’s testimony came just one day after the Social Security trustees said in their annual report the Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund will “become depleted” in the fourth quarter of 2032, earlier than previously expected. Once that happens, benefits will automatically drop by 22% and gradually decrease from there. 

“I always thought my job was to make it perform as well as possible so you all have a set of options and choices to decide on how this great American program, which is, you know, fundamentally called by some the largest insurance program out there, others could call it the largest retirement program out there. Anyway, the idea is to make it perform well so you all can make the decisions,” Bisignano said. 

Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee’s subcommittee on Social Security and subcommittee on Work and Welfare, who held the two-hour hearing, were pleased with the statistics Bisignano shared about his administration of Social Security. 

Democrats on the panels, however, were skeptical that he was giving a full picture of the delays that some Americans face when trying to apply for benefits or ask about an issue they’re having with the program. 

Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny Davis, ranking member on the Work and Welfare subcommittee, said the Social Security Administration’s “statements about customer service do not always appear to reflect the reality Americans experience.” 

“Press releases claiming dramatic improvements in SSA customer service, particularly on the 800-number, conflict with reports from AARP and our constituents,” Davis said. “People across the country report waiting in long lines at Social Security offices or being turned away and told to make appointments, only to discover no appointments are available. 

“Similarly, it seems misleading to claim a zero call wait time for seniors that waited hours or days for a call back, or to praise short call wait times for people whose problems are not resolved.”

Debate over statistics

Bisignano testified that he ushered in “the best all-around performance ever at the Social Security Administration.”

“More than 99% of our field offices are open and serving the public, with average wait times reduced to 20 minutes, a 30% improvement. No field offices closed due to staffing,” he said. “We now answer 90% of calls to our 800-number and have reduced average wait time to five minutes, a 75% improvement.”

Bisignano added that “web transactions” have risen by 37% and that there has been a 21% rise in account creations.

California Democratic Rep. Judy Chu said she found the statistics Bisignano shared “extremely misleading,” in part, because the administration classifies anyone who requests a call back instead of waiting on hold as a zero minute hold time. 

“The American people deserve accurate information on how long they can expect to wait when trying to get help for their benefits,” she said.

Chu then shared the story of a woman who tried to schedule an in-person appointment to apply for survivor benefits after her husband died in July but was unable to get one until October. 

“Once she finally got an appointment, she then had to wait at least four months,” she said. 

Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford pressed Bisignano about wait times at the Las Vegas field office for disability hearings, which he said take nearly a year. 

“My office continues to hear from seniors, people with disabilities and working families who cannot get answers and cannot access benefits that they deserve,” Horsford said. “Last year, you promised improvements. Today, Las Vegas disability applicants are waiting nearly 11 months.”

Horsford then asked if Bisignano would “designate a senior SSA point person to work directly with me and my office on unresolved constituent cases.” 

Bisignano said he would send the head of disability to come see Horsford in his office. 

Social Security solvency

While the subcommittees and Bisignano barely scratched the surface of Social Security’s financial problems during the hearing, a separate event hosted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget delved into those struggles. 

Karen Glenn, chief actuary at the Social Security Administration, said during her presentation on the trustees report that addressing the program’s budget woes is “a simple math problem” but “a difficult political problem.”

“We can either raise scheduled revenue by about one-third, reduce scheduled benefits by about one-fourth or some combination of the two,” she said. “So it sounds simple, but not so easy in practice.”

Glenn said one of the purposes of the annual report to Congress is to “provide information to assess solvency and the changes needed to eliminate those shortfalls.”

“The trustees have consistently advised that Congress should act sooner rather than later,” she said. “We are just about out of time for that sooner. We are basically at the later.”

Mark Sarney, director of Social Security policy at CRFB, said he doesn’t believe Congress will be able to add to the annual deficit in order to avoid a drop-off in benefits since “we’ll probably have debt problems way before 2032.”

That leaves lawmakers in the House and Senate with complex choices to make during the next few years.

“Hopefully there will be a growing call within Congress to actually get serious and do something,” Sarney said. “Because if you let the cut happen, that’s like 1% of the national economy that suddenly doesn’t go out in checks, which may matter less in some parts of the country, but in others, where most of the population is depending on Social Security, that’s going to be a hammer blow to both people’s lives and the economy. And nobody wants that.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump significantly bolstered funding for immigration enforcement Wednesday when he signed into law a nearly $70 billion package that will keep key federal agencies operating without any new restrictions. 

Democrats pressed for guardrails after immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. But when talks broke down, Republican lawmakers drafted their own bill without any additional constraints. 

“The bill provides crucial funding for domestic law enforcement investigations and combating child exploitation, continuing our work to restore law and order across our nation, and to protect America’s youth,” Trump said during an Oval Office event.  

The measure moved through Congress this month with nearly every Republican voting to approve the additional spending, which will last through September 2029. 

Democratic lawmakers argued immigration officers should adhere to the standards other federal law enforcement agencies follow, like wearing body cameras, getting a warrant from a judge before entering someone’s home and identifying themselves by removing masks. 

Republican leaders said during talks they were open to instituting limitations on how immigration officers behave, but opted not to include any curbs in their party-line bill. 

ICE, CBP funded

The law will provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with another $38.53 billion. Customs and Border Protection will receive an additional $26.02 billion and the secretary of Homeland Security will be given $5 billion more in funding. 

The money is in addition to the $170 billion Republicans included in their “big, beautiful” law, as well as the funding approved in the annual DHS appropriations package. 

Nearly every Republican in the House voted to approve the measure, though New Jersey Rep. Thomas H. Kean, Jr., who has been absent due to an undisclosed illness, and South Carolina Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, who were competing in their state’s gubernatorial primary, missed the vote. 

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the sole Republican to vote against approving the legislation in that chamber, writing in a statement negotiators should have worked out a bipartisan solution in the annual funding bill instead of using the complex budget reconciliation process to get around procedural votes that would otherwise have required the support of 60 senators. 

“By choosing to appropriate funding for three fiscal years instead of one, this measure weakens the normal budgeting process and sets another precedent for avoiding it when we find ourselves in disagreement,” she wrote. “In doing so, it reduces Congress’ ability to apply reasonable checks on immigration policy for the remainder of this administration and into the next.”

Murkowski added that she would have voted for the package had it “provided immigration funding for one year, included clear restrictions on what those funds can be used for, and eliminated any potential for taxpayer dollars to be allocated to the administration’s brazen ‘anti-weaponization’ fund.”

That $1.776 billion account would have paid restitution to people who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by the Justice Department. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified before Congress the administration wasn’t planning to proceed with that proposal after Republicans on Capitol Hill voiced opposition.

Trump, however, hasn’t completely retracted his support for the fund, saying in an NBC News interview this weekend that he and other Republicans believe it “is a great idea.”

“You have to get it approved,” he said. “If they get it approved, that’s great. If they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on Tuesday approved three years of funding for immigration enforcement without any new guardrails on how federal agents operate. 

The 214-212 vote sent the nearly $70 billion package to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign the measure. Republican senators approved the bill earlier this month, with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski the only member of the GOP in opposition.  

California independent Rep. Kevin Kiley, who conferences with Republicans, voted no, along with Democrats. 

Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., argued Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol need the additional funding so they can deport anyone in the country without proper authorization. 

“They want you to think that it’s just everybody coming in to seek the American dream,” he said. “We have a legal method for that to happen.” 

Scalise then read a list of Americans killed by people who were present in the United States without legal status.

“It’s not some hypothetical, it’s happened over and over and over again,” he said. 

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he opposed Republicans’ plans to “give a blank check to ICE without any guardrails, any oversight, or any accountability.”

“Donald Trump promised America that he would target violent felons who are here illegally, but instead taxpayer dollars are being used by ICE and his violent mass deportation machine to target and brutalize American citizens, in some cases killing them,” he said. 

Jeffries contended that “immigration enforcement should be fair, just and humane” and that ICE “needs to conduct itself” according to the same standards other law enforcement agencies follow. 

Funds will stretch over 3 years

The legislation will provide $38.53 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $26.02 billion for Customs and Border Protection and $5 billion for the secretary of Homeland Security.

The funding, which lasts through September 2029, is in addition to the $170 billion Republicans provided in their “big, beautiful” law. About $100 billion of that remains unspent, according to Democrats. 

Republicans opted not to place any new constraints on how federal immigration agents operate or provide additional funding for oversight, despite officers killing two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. 

Those shootings led Democrats in Congress to demand new restrictions on officers, which led to weeks of bipartisan negotiations amid a 76-day shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security. 

That stalemate ended in April after lawmakers approved DHS’ annual appropriations bill without funding for ICE or the Border Patrol. Republicans had to remove those provisions in order to move the legislation through procedural votes in the Senate that require the support of at least 60 lawmakers. 

A new path

Republican leaders then turned to the complex budget reconciliation process to provide three years of funding for ICE, CBP and the secretary of DHS without requiring any changes to how they operate. 

The special legislative pathway allows bills to move through the Senate with simple majority votes as long as they adhere to certain rules.

Senate Republicans originally included, but later removed, $1.46 billion for several Department of Justice Programs and $1 billion for the Secret Service to make security upgrades linked to the new White House ballroom, also called the East Wing Modernization Project. 

The funding for ICE, CBP and the DHS secretary clears the way for the Trump administration to continue its immigration crackdown until just a few months before his second term is scheduled to end.

WASHINGTON — Congress must act to shore up Social Security during the next six years to avoid an automatic drop-off in benefits in 2032, according to a report released Tuesday. 

The annual update on the Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund shows that it will “become depleted” in the fourth quarter of that year, a few months earlier than projected in last year’s report.

That would lead to recipients receiving 78% of their benefits — the projected yearly income to the trust fund — unless Congress acts before then. By 2100, benefits would be only 62%, according to the report.

That decrease would have a significant impact on the tens of millions of Americans who rely on the program to stay out of poverty, especially retirees. 

Social Security Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano wrote in a statement that in order to “protect the promise of Social Security, it is important for lawmakers and the Social Security Administration to work together to ensure the trust funds continue to provide financial stability now and for future generations.”

Bisignano is scheduled to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, where he will likely face several questions about the new report and whether the administration has policy suggestions for Congress. 

More than 68 million Americans received Social Security payments in April, according to data from the administration. More than 56 million of the beneficiaries were 65 or older. 

Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, wrote in a statement November’s midterm elections will have an impact on who is in the Senate, where lawmakers have six-year terms, in the lead-up to the deadline. 

“It’s important to recognize that the Senators we elect this year will be in office when Social Security becomes unable to pay out full benefits, so this must be a central campaign issue,” he wrote. 

Peterson added that “there are many well-known solutions available” and that it’s “time for responsible, bipartisan leadership to strengthen Social Security and Medicare, ensuring the stability of these programs for generations of Americans to come.”

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, wrote in a statement that “Washington is sleepwalking into a retirement crisis, allowing our nation’s most important trust funds to go insolvent at the expense of over 70 million beneficiaries who count on these programs.”

MacGuineas added that there is “no shortage of options out there to avoid this.”

“It’s time for our leaders to start telling the truth on Social Security and Medicare, and working on real plans to save these programs,” she wrote. “Time is running out.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate approved a nearly $70 billion package early Friday, moving Republicans one step closer to funding immigration and deportation activities for the next three years without negotiating new constraints on federal agents with Democrats. 

The 52-47 mostly party-line vote sends the measure to the House, where GOP lawmakers could send it to President Donald Trump for his signature as soon as next week. 

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to vote no. Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, who participated in a debate in his bid to become his state’s next governor, did not vote. 

Murkowski said in a statement she opposed the legislation because it bypassed the annual government funding process that forces the two political parties to debate issues and find compromise. 

“By choosing to appropriate funding for three fiscal years instead of one, this measure weakens the normal budgeting process and sets another precedent for avoiding it when we find ourselves in disagreement,” she said. “In doing so, it reduces Congress’ ability to apply reasonable checks on immigration policy for the remainder of this administration and into the next.”

Murkowski added that she would have voted for the package had it “provided immigration funding for one year, included clear restrictions on what those funds can be used for, and eliminated any potential for taxpayer dollars to be allocated to the administration’s brazen ‘anti-weaponization’ fund.”

Majority Leader John Thune said during floor debate GOP leaders were forced to draft the package after Democrats “walked away” from negotiations that could have placed restrictions on federal immigration agents.  

“Republicans are going to continue to ensure that these agencies have the funding that they need to fulfill their national security responsibilities,” the South Dakota Republican said. 

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued the measure shows that Republicans are more focused on funding deportations than lowering the cost of living. 

“Apparently, Republicans think we cannot afford a single penny to help Americans cover the skyrocketing costs of gasoline, of healthcare, of housing, of food, of energy, you name it,” he said. “But somehow we can afford to give another $70 billion to Trump’s rogue agencies.”

Senate approval followed a marathon amendment voting session that stretched throughout Thursday and overnight as Democrats sought to challenge Republican senators on policy differences just months before the November midterm elections. No amendments were approved. 

Building on “big, beautiful” law

The bill would provide a second hefty cash infusion to the agencies carrying out the president’s immigration crackdown, building on the $170 billion Republicans included in their “big, beautiful” law. 

This legislation would appropriate: 

• $38.53 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement
• $26.02 billion for Customs and Border Protection
• $5 billion for the secretary of Homeland Security.

The money would be available through Sept. 30, 2029, the end of the fiscal year. Republicans decided not to place any new guardrails on immigration agents. 

The measure Republican senators approved was somewhat different from the original version released in early May, which included $1 billion for the Secret Service to make security upgrades associated with the president’s ballroom, dubbed the East Wing Modernization Project.

Republicans also removed $1.46 billion that would have increased funding for several Justice Department programs.

Additionally, GOP lawmakers bolstered ICE funding by $350 million compared to the earlier version of the bill. 

Republican leaders are moving the package through the complex budget reconciliation process, avoiding the need to secure Democratic votes in the Senate that would otherwise be required to end debate on the measure. 

GOP leaders opted to use the special legislative maneuver after they were unable to broker agreement with Democrats to place constraints on immigration officers. 

Democratic lawmakers said new guardrails, including body cameras and preventing the use of masks, were necessary after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. 

The impasse led to a 76-day shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security that didn’t end until late April, when Congress approved the annual spending bill without funding for ICE or the Border Patrol. 

June 1 deadline missed

The reconciliation process comes with several strict rules that require each section of the legislation to address revenue, spending, or the debt limit. Proposals also cannot be deemed “merely incidental” to the federal budget. 

Trump wanted Congress to approve the funding package ahead of a self-imposed June 1 deadline. But work on the measure ground to a halt after the administration announced plans to establish a $1.776 billion fund to pay people who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by the Justice Department. 

Floor debate on the bill resumed again this week after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified before a House subcommittee Tuesday the administration was “not moving forward with the fund, period.”

Trump, however, muddied the waters a bit Wednesday when asked during an Oval Office event whether the fund was “dead or on hold.”

“I’d have to ask my lawyers. I don’t know,” he said. “Are you talking about the weaponization fund? The weaponization fund, as far as I’m concerned, was a beautiful thing.”

Tough amendment votes

The Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” account was one of many issues senators sought to address during a marathon voting session that began Thursday morning and lasted until just before sunrise Friday.  

Several Republicans, including those facing tough reelection bids, sided with Democrats on proposals and offered changes of their own, though none were added. 

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tried unsuccessfully to include language that would have required people registering to vote provide proof of U.S. citizenship and later present a photo ID to cast a ballot. 

Senators voted 48-50 to reject Graham’s attempt to add the SAVE America Act, showing the legislation doesn’t have the votes to clear Congress, despite pressure from the president.  

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Murkowski and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted with Democrats. 

A majority of senators backed an attempt by Delaware’s Chris Coons that would have barred the DOJ from paying anyone convicted of assaulting police on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters attacked the Capitol. 

The 54-45 vote, however, wasn’t enough to add the provision to the package. It needed the support of at least 60 senators to move past a procedural hurdle since it didn’t address language in the immigration bill. Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Collins, Jon Husted of Ohio, Ashley Moody of Florida, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Murkowski, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Tillis voted with Democrats. 

An amendment from Cassidy to compensate “law enforcement officers who defended the United States Capitol” on Jan. 6 was unable to reach the 60 votes it needed following a 52-47 vote. Cassidy as well as Collins, Husted, Murkowski, Sullivan and Tillis voted along with Democrats.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley proposed an amendment that would have required congressional authorization before construction could continue on the White House ballroom, but it wasn’t adopted following a 53-46 vote. 

Cassidy, Collins, Husted, Moran, Murkowski, Sullivan and Tillis voted with Democrats, but it needed at least 60 votes to move past an objection. 

Health insurance 

Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff tried to use a maneuver that would have sent the bill back to the Judiciary Committee in order to create “a task force to conduct investigations into health insurance companies that are found to routinely deny and delay patients’ access to medically necessary care.”

Ossoff told the story of a woman named Ellen from Atlanta who struggled with her insurance company after being diagnosed with a form of blood cancer known as multiple myeloma.

“As Ellen told me, quote, ‘for a corporation to have a finger on the button of your life is ridiculous. They have their minds on profit margins. I just want to be healthy and alive,’” he said. “Thankfully, Ellen’s cancer is now in remission. But across America, insurance companies continue to deny and delay medically necessary healthcare.”

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said the issue was “worthy of review” but disagreed with addressing it during debate on the immigration and deportation bill. 

“The Justice Department already performs investigations into healthcare insurance fraud. The Senate also confirmed a new assistant attorney general to fight fraud,” he said. “Further, sending the reconciliation bill back to the Judiciary Committee would essentially kill it.”

The Senate did not agree with Ossoff’s motion following a 47-50 vote. Collins was the sole Republican to vote with Democrats. 

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans fended off an attempt Thursday to block the Department of Justice from using an “anti-weaponization” fund to pay people who feel they were wrongly prosecuted, as well as another proposal that sought to require congressional authorization for a new White House ballroom. 

Debate on amendments and motions, by Democrats and Republicans, is a required part of the special process GOP leaders are using to approve nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement and deportation activities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, through the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

Votes were expected to last into the evening and possibly overnight as Democrats look to challenge their Republican counterparts on policy while also making their case for control of Congress ahead of this year’s November midterm elections. The U.S. House adjourned for the week Thursday, meaning the measure will not head to the president’s desk until next week at the earliest.

Senators voted 49-50 to reject an amendment from Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that would have prevented the Department of Justice from carrying out the “anti-weaponization” proposal by Trump to use $1.776 billion to pay people who feel they were wrongly prosecuted. 

Several Republicans facing tough reelection campaigns joined Democrats in voting for the amendment, including Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, Maine’s Susan Collins and Ohio’s Jon Husted.  

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified earlier this week the administration had scrapped plans for the “anti-weaponization” fund, following intense criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, but Trump later said he wasn’t sure and would have to check with his attorneys. 

“Trump won’t give Americans a penny to help offset the skyrocketing costs he brought on our country,” Schumer said. “But he’s more than happy to charge them nearly $2 billion to line the pockets of his families, his billionaire friends, and the criminals who mauled police officers on January 6. If Republicans truly oppose this corruption, then prove it.”

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis then offered an amendment of his own that would have transferred the funding the administration had proposed for its so-called “anti-weaponization” fund to the Justice Department’s fraud division. 

“We heard over the last 48 hours that the acting attorney general said that this fund’s not moving forward,” Tillis said. “All this amendment does is codify what I believe the policy of the DOJ is.”

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham raised a procedural objection to Tillis’ amendment, arguing it didn’t comply with the strict rules of the process. 

Tillis tried to waive that maneuver, but a 15-84 vote didn’t achieve those goals and the amendment failed. 

White House ballroom construction

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley offered an amendment that would have required congressional authorization to proceed with Trump’s  White House ballroom renovations. 

“All of us here have a responsibility to follow the power of the purse responsibility in the Constitution. Let’s all support the idea that it must proceed, if it’s to proceed, with a congressional authorization,” the Democrat said. 

Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul called the amendment a “poison pill” and raised a procedural issue on the grounds that Merkley’s measure is not under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee.

“There is no money in this bill for a ballroom,” Paul said. 

Merkley tried to waive the procedural objection, but it failed in a 53-46 vote, which required at least 60 to agree in order to move forward. 

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has scrapped plans to use nearly $1.8 billion in taxpayer dollars to pay people who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by the Justice Department — a proposal that halted work on legislation to fund immigration and deportation activities. 

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified Tuesday before a House committee the DOJ will no longer move forward with those plans shortly after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said the administration had reversed course. 

That decision could clear the way for the Senate to debate a roughly $70 billion package meant to fund immigration and deportation for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term. 

“I think his statements are going to be very definitive, very clear and create the certainty that I hope all of our members, and House members need as well, in order for us to proceed on the reconciliation bill,” Thune said, referring to Blanche. “But I’m not guaranteeing that happens yet.” 

Blanche confirmed Thune’s statements when he testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee in the afternoon.

“We’re not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said when pressed by the subcommittee’s top Democrat, Rep. Grace Meng of New York.

“You and Associate Attorney General Woodward signed earlier documents regarding the settlement and this fund, would both of you now sign and release documents reversing the DOJ position on the fund?” Meng asked.

“We’re not moving forward with the fund. I’m not sure what that means to sign documents reversing. There’s nothing to reverse,” Blanche replied.

The DOJ posted on social media this week that it plans to abide by a temporary court ruling that blocked distribution of the funds, but Republican lawmakers said that wasn’t enough to end the impasse it created.

The Justice Department announced the creation of the fund last month as part of a legal settlement between Trump and the IRS over leaked copies of his returns during Trump’s first term. The settlement included provisions that precluded future IRS investigations into Trump and his family.

Senate Republicans weigh in

Thune said GOP senators had a “quite robust conversation” during a closed-door lunch about the DOJ fund and whether to move forward with their immigration and deportation package. 

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven said after that meeting it’s up to GOP leaders to determine whether there are enough votes to move forward with the immigration package. 

“I think the next step is for our whip team to find out where everybody’s at based on the administration’s indication that they’re not going to move forward with the fund,” Hoeven said. 

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said there is a “chance” that Republicans could begin a marathon amendment voting session on the immigration bill as soon as Wednesday, if Blanche’s testimony alleviates concerns created by the DOJ fund. 

Montana Sen. Steve Daines, however, said he believes it’s “unlikely” that process begins this week. 

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said earlier in the day, before the lunch, that he wouldn’t accept taxpayer dollars going toward people who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

“To provide restitution to somebody who assaulted a police officer and pled guilty to it. I mean, man, I’ve seen some crazy stuff before, but that’s right up there with crazy,” he said. 

Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis said he needs to know “if it’s dead or nearly dead.” 

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford said he wants clarification from the White House about the settlement fund in light of the court’s ruling. 

He added that Republicans are waiting to see if “the court case set aside both the settlement fund and the audits.”

“We need clarification for what it is and isn’t, because the White House already said ‘we agree, we don’t like it, but we agree with the courts,’” Lankford said. “What does that mean?”

Amendment to ban fund

Democrats have also criticized Trump and those in his administration over the fund, vowing to block it in law. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during an afternoon press conference that promises from Trump and administration officials are “worthless.” 

“Trump sued his own government, had his own Justice Department settle the case and is now trying to use taxpayer dollars to pay off his MAGA allies, billionaire buddies and cop-beating insurrectionists,” Schumer said. 

“And let’s be clear, Trump has not killed this slush fund,” he added. “He has not revoked the special tax immunity he gave himself and his family. He has not ended the corruption. He hit a temporary roadblock. That’s it.”

Schumer said the first amendment he would offer during debate on Republicans’ immigration and deportation bill would “ban Trump’s slush fund permanently and revoke his family’s free rein to commit tax fraud forever.”

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — A group of U.S. Senate Democrats has sent a letter to the head of the Congressional Budget Office, asking him to include outside projections for the cost of the Iran war in the agency’s official cost estimate. 

“The American people deserve to know the true costs of this conflict, and they deserve transparency and honesty when their government commits the nation to war,” the senators wrote in the May 27 letter to the nonpartisan agency. “Your timely and comprehensive estimate of the immediate and long-term budgetary consequences will help ensure that the Iran war remains subject to rigorous and appropriate legislative oversight.”

House Budget Committee ranking member Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., sent a letter to the CBO in early March, asking the agency to estimate what the conflict would cost “under several scenarios, including scenarios of the war lasting longer than 4 to 5 weeks and deploying U.S. troops on the ground in Iran.” 

The senators’ letter asks CBO Director Phillip Swagel to “take into consideration the significant divergence between the administration’s public estimates and those produced by independent analysts and investigative journalists.”

The senators wrote that while Pentagon officials said in mid-May they believed the war had cost about $29 billion, other estimates placed its total costs much higher. 

“It is essential that Congress and the American public receive accurate, comprehensive estimates of the costs of the war in Iran,” they wrote. 

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, California Sen. Alex Padilla, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, Maryland Sens. Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen, Massachusetts Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, Vermont Sen. Peter Welch and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine all signed the letter. 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate approved a resolution Thursday that will prevent lawmakers in that chamber from receiving their paychecks during any government shutdowns that begin after this year’s midterm elections. 

The voice vote on the measure from Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy will not impact members in the House of Representatives since each chamber of Congress is able to set its own rules and procedures. 

The two-page resolution requires the secretary of the Senate to disperse but then hold onto lawmakers paychecks if Congress fails to fund any agency within the federal government on time. 

Kennedy said during a floor speech Wednesday he hoped the resolution would reduce the likelihood of future government shutdowns, following three within the last year. 

“It’s got to stop,” he said. “Shutting down government should not be our default solution to our refusal to work out our issues and our differences.”

Similar to how federal employees receive back pay after a shutdown ends, Kennedy said his resolution would do the same for senators.

“The senator’s salary just would not be available to that senator while we’re in a shutdown but once a shutdown is over you’ll get your money,” he said. 

In order to get the votes to adopt the resolution, Kennedy said he “had to make a few accommodations,” including that it did not apply to the House and wouldn’t take effect before the elections to comply with the 27th Amendment.  

Members of Congress earn $174,000 annually, with those in leadership positions making more. The Constitution allows lawmakers to set their own salaries, which are covered by a permanent, mandatory appropriation. 

Lawmakers and the president, unlike the staff who work for them or those throughout the rest of the federal government, received their salaries during past shutdowns unless they took action to halt their paychecks. 

Several members asked either the House Chief Administrative Officer or the Senate Finance Clerk to hold onto their paychecks during the first shutdown. 

Congress is supposed to pass the dozen annual government funding bills before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1 but hasn’t completed all of its work on time in three decades. 

Lawmakers regularly approve at least one stopgap spending bill to keep federal programs running mostly on autopilot while the House and Senate work to finalize those appropriations bills during the fall, typically sending them to the president sometime in December. 

Policy differences and heightened political tensions, however, led to three shutdowns of varying impact during this fiscal year. 

The first began last October and lasted through Nov. 12 as Democrats tried unsuccessfully to force Republicans to extend enhanced tax credits for people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. 

Lawmakers were able to pass six of the spending bills before a brief partial shutdown took place from Jan. 31 through Feb. 3. The law that ended that funding lapse included five more of the spending bills, leaving Homeland Security as the only department without its annual appropriations bill. 

Democratic demands for constraints on immigration enforcement after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis led to a third shutdown for many of the agencies within DHS. That lasted from Feb. 14 through April 30 when Congress approved their last funding bill without new spending for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. 

Republicans plan to use the complex budget reconciliation process to approve $72 billion that would cover three years of immigration enforcement activities. GOP lawmakers can do that without Democratic votes in the Senate as long as they stick to the rules.  

Lawmakers in both chambers have also begun work on the next fiscal year’s batch of 12 government funding bills, though it’s highly unlikely they all become law before the end of September. 

That presents the possibility of yet another government shutdown just weeks before voters head to the polls during November’s midterm elections to decide which political party will control Congress for the next two years. 

WASHINGTON — Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday the risk of a member of the general public contracting hantavirus remains low despite several passengers on a cruise ship becoming infected with the disease. 

Dr. Brendan Jackson, an epidemiologist and the agency’s team lead in Nebraska, said Americans who were on the MV Hondius cruise ship after others were diagnosed with the illness were flown to the National Quarantine Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Healthcare providers at the site have been talking with each passenger about whether they may have been exposed to any of the people with confirmed cases. They’re also monitoring the Americans for fevers or other symptoms. 

“This particular virus has a long incubation period, so the monitoring period is 42 days,” Jackson said. “And the 42 days started with the departure of the ship, so May 11 was day one.” 

Any cruise ship passengers who traveled on commercial flights, leading to possible exposures for others on those planes, left the ship before the infections were diagnosed, he said.  

“The passengers that are being monitored who were on shared flights were separate from the passengers who were on the ship at the time the outbreak was detected. So they had actually left the ship before the outbreak was detected,” Jackson said. 

“All the passengers that were on the ship after that detection phase were transported just several days ago on a private plane directly from the Canary Islands to here in Omaha, Nebraska,” he added. 

CDC officials are working with local and state public health officials to ensure anyone who may have been exposed outside of the cruise ship isolates at home and monitors themselves for symptoms. 

The officials on the call declined to say how many people are being monitored for possible exposure or where they are located in the country, citing privacy concerns.

They also declined to talk about the two cruise ship passengers taken to Emory University Hospital’s Serious Communicable Diseases Unit in Georgia. 

Dr. David Fitter, incident manager for the agency’s hantavirus response, said that unlike the coronavirus pandemic that spread around the world in 2020, hantavirus is not new to public health officials. 

“At this moment I want to emphasize that the risk to the general public is low,” he said. 

In addition to monitoring Americans who were on the cruise ship and anyone they may have come into contact with, CDC officials have been talking frequently with lawmakers.

“We’ve held two Hill briefings and have just completed a call with the governors from the states of repatriated Americans,” Fitter said. “We’ve also held daily calls with state health officials. 

“Our role now is to continue our conversations with each passenger about their potential exposure and work with partners to ensure appropriate monitoring.”

CDC officials have encouraged the people at the Nebraska facility to stay there throughout the quarantine period but there are not currently any state or federal quarantine orders in place.

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday pressed for increased funding for the Secret Service, arguing most of the money Senate Republicans included for the agency in their immigration enforcement bill is for security needs, not building a new ballroom at the White House. 

But the Louisiana Republican added during a morning press conference he didn’t want to “prejudge” the $72 billion package before the Senate approves a final version this month and sends it to the House. 

“I don’t have the pen in the Senate. They’re writing the bill,” he said. “We’ll see what we get.”

Johnson noted there are several more steps the legislation must go through in the Senate, including a review by the parliamentarian to make sure all of the provisions fit within the strict rules of the reconciliation process, committee debate and a marathon amendment voting session on the floor. 

Johnson said that President Donald Trump “is excited about building a ballroom with private funding,” though that project comes with some additional needs that will likely require taxpayer dollars.  

“The Secret Service says that as we enhance the White House grounds and the modernization there that obviously we have to think differently about security,” he said. “We live in a very dangerous time and there are new and increasing threats that we have never faced before. And so Congress has a role in funding that and we’ll have to see how it all works out.”

‘Urgent request’

Johnson asserted the bill Senate Republicans released last week “very specifically defined” how the Secret Service could use the additional funding.  

The legislation would provide $1 billion that would be available until Sept. 30, 2029 for “security adjustments and upgrades … to support enhancements by the United States Secret Service relating to the East Wing Modernization Project.”

The bill would limit the Secret Service from using any of the funding “for non-security elements.” 

Johnson said GOP lawmakers added the funding to the immigration enforcement spending bill after the Secret Service “put in an urgent request for additional security measures.”

“We’ve needed some of these security measures for a long time,” he said. “And that’s what this is all about.”

Congress provided the Secret Service with $3.25 billion in the annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that lawmakers passed in late April.  

Republicans approved an additional $1.17 billion for the Secret Service in their “big, beautiful” law that the agency can use through September 2029 for personnel, training, technology as well as performance, retention and signing bonuses. 

Normally, the White House budget office would publicly send Congress a supplemental spending request, asking lawmakers to approve the additional money. That would then be vetted by the Appropriations Committees, though that didn’t happen in this case. 

The Trump administration also could have included a boost in funding to the budget request officials sent Congress in early April that asked members to approve $3.5 billion for the Secret Service in the annual funding bill for the agency that’s due by the end of September.  

Funding breakdown

Secret Service Director Sean Curran gave Republican senators more details about how the agency plans to use the additional funding during a closed-door lunch this week, though the bill wouldn’t actually require the agency to spend the money as outlined. 

A breakdown obtained by States Newsroom showed: 

• $220 million would go to “hardening” the East Wing Modernization Project with additional bulletproof glass, drone detection technologies and filtration systems designed to detect chemical or other contaminants. 
• $180 million would go toward construction of a “long overdue” White House visitor screening facility. 
• $175 million would bolster Secret Service training as well as its training facilities. 
• $175 million would help the agency “secure frequently visited venues facing heightened risk due to their public visibility and static nature.”
• $150 million would go to the branch of the Secret Service that focuses on drones, aircraft incursions, biological threats and “other emerging threats through investments in state-of-the-art technologies.”
• $100 million for “high-profile national events that require significant planning.”

Republican senators said after that meeting they wanted more information from the Secret Service on exactly how the agency would spend the additional funding before they vote on the package. 

Thune predicts passage next week

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Wednesday morning most GOP senators will ultimately support the additional funding for the Secret Service “that’s needed to enable them to do their jobs.” 

“Obviously there are security implications related to the modernization of the East Wing. And that represents, I think, of the total request that Secret Service made, about 20%,” he said. “The balance of it, I think, are things that they’ve been putting off for a long time, but need to be done, especially in a modern threat environment where you’ve had, you know, now, three assassination attempts in the last two years.”

Thune said his “aspirational timeline” is to have committees debate their bills early next week, followed by floor action on the full package later in the week.  

“It can always be affected by other factors,” he said. “But I think at least right now, that’s the goal.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a floor speech that Trump’s focus on building a “gilded ballroom” shows the president “is living in the theater of the absurd.”

Schumer said Americans don’t want to see government leaders focused on the ballroom project when inflation, food costs and gasoline prices have all increased. 

“I would say Trump has completely lost touch with the American people, but that would assume that Trump was ever in touch with the American people to begin with,” he said. “And on this issue he sure as heck isn’t.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary on Tuesday became the latest member of President Donald Trump’s administration to leave their post this year. 

“I want to thank Dr. Marty Makary for having done a great job at the FDA. So much was accomplished under his leadership,” Trump wrote on social media. “He was a hard worker, who was respected by all, and will go on to have an outstanding career in Medicine. Kyle Diamantas, a very talented person, will be put in the Acting position.”

Diamantas was working as the deputy commissioner for food, leading the program that focuses on nutrition and food safety.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in a social media post that Makary “pushed forward critical reforms and helped advance our mission to Make America Healthy Again.”

“I also want to thank Kyle Diamantas for stepping in as Acting Commissioner — his leadership has already delivered remarkable wins on the MAHA food agenda, and I have full confidence in his continued work,” Kennedy added. “We have an outstanding team at FDA, and the work continues without pause. The search for a new Commissioner is already underway, and we will move forward with urgency.”

Makary’s resignation marks the fourth time a senior member of the Trump administration has either left or been forced out during the last few months. 

Kristi Noem was ousted as Homeland Security secretary in early March, moving to a different job as a special envoy. Pam Bondi resigned as attorney general in early April to move back to the private sector. And Lori Chavez-DeRemer stepped down as Labor secretary in late April, following scandals.

The Senate voted to confirm Makary to lead the FDA in March 2025, with Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois as well as Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire supporting him. 

Medication abortion

Makary’s decision to leave the FDA comes several months after anti-abortion organizations and some Republicans in Congress called for Trump to fire him over his record on access to medication abortion. 

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and Lila Rose, founder of Live Action, both released statements in December pressing for the FDA to restrict access to mifepristone. 

“The FDA needs a new commissioner who will immediately reinstate in-person dispensing as it existed under President Trump’s first term and immediately conduct a comprehensive study,” Dannenfelser wrote in a statement at the time. “Commissioner Makary is severely undermining President Trump and Vice President Vance’s pro-life credentials and their position that states should have the right to enact and enforce pro-life protections. Makary must go.”

Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter to Makary the following day urging him to wrap up a review of the current prescribing guidelines for mifepristone. 

Their frustration followed a Bloomberg Law news article that said Makary didn’t want to release the results of the study until after November’s midterm elections, which will determine which political party controls Congress for the next two years.