Congress: The Senate & The House

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Senate panel advances Jay Clayton's nomination to lead US intelligence agencies

The Senate Intelligence Committee has advanced the nomination of Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the nation’s intelligence agencies, along party lines. Read More.

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House Republicans adopt $95 billion package for the Iran war and Trump’s priorities

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House adopted a Republican-only $95 billion budget proposal Wednesday, a long-shot effort to fund the Iran war and other White House priorities over objections from Democrats and a few GOP holdouts in a final push before the midterm elections.

https://apnews.com/article/gop-95-billion-iran-war-trump-johnson-f9dea5ef800bfeb0e343256e841af38f?

😎 No-shutdown optimism

Senators on both sides of the aisle are quietly hopeful about avoiding a third government shutdown this year.

Why it matters: Time is short, patience is wearing thin and neither party wants to head into the campaign's final sprint under the cloud of a funding lapse.

• "People understand that it would be helpful to have a [continuing resolution] that extends beyond the election," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) told us. "So it doesn't get all bound up in partisan discussions around the elections."
• "I just think everybody's trying to give ourselves room to find a bipartisan agreement, and we are not there yet," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said.
• Asked whether the vibes were positive, Schatz replied: "Not negative."

💪 Republicans were even more optimistic about a bipartisan CR.

• "Perhaps we can get ours passed, and then when the House comes back the last week of August, they can pass it there," Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said.
• "I don't think there's going to be much controversy there, unless the Democrats change their minds."

State of play: The House passed a short-term spending bill late last night. Senate Majority Leader John Thune will essentially ignore it. For now.

• 🔮 The same fate likely awaits the budget resolution Speaker Mike Johnson narrowly pushed through this afternoon on a 216-214 vote.

🤔 The intrigue: House Republicans are still steaming over Thune's decision to declare, in advance, that he won't take up reconciliation until the government is funded.

• "He's the leader of the Senate. I think it's a mistake to hold up such an important piece of legislation," House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) told us.
• But his new Senate counterpart, Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), appears far more comfortable with Thune's timeline and sequencing.
• "With [Senate Appropriations Chair] Susan [Collins] apparently showing progress toward a CR — even talking about a defense supplemental in that agreement — that would, to a certain extent, negate having to do one," Johnson said, referring to a separate reconciliation package.

👀 What to watch: There's no guarantee a major news event won't derail bipartisan funding talks, just as Medicaid cuts and the ICE shootings did earlier this year.

• President Trump's escalation of the conflict with Iran is already complicating defense spending negotiations, with Democrats largely opposed and Republicans split over the scope of additional funding.
• Any effort to attach supplemental defense money tied to Iran to the CR could make the vote significantly more difficult.

The bottom line: Thune slyly suggested he was prepared to use a reconciliation package to fund the government along party lines — if needed.

• He may not have to act on that threat if the bipartisan Senate progress continues.

— Hans Nichols, Stef W. Kight and Kate Santaliz

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House votes for Department of War renaming as part of an annual defense bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Wednesday passed a defense policy bill that incorporates President Donald Trump’s request for a historic $1.15 trillion in spending for national security and that would designate the Department of Defense as the Department of War.

https://apnews.com/article/defense-pentagon-congress-iran-spending-trump-de65f6e0ee4f4d69699fb9f1f647083e?

House Republicans adopt $95 billion package for the Iran war and Trump’s priorities

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House adopted a Republican-only $95 billion budget proposal Wednesday, a long-shot effort to fund the Iran war and other White House priorities over objections from Democrats and a few GOP holdouts in a final push before the midterm elections.

https://apnews.com/article/gop-95-billion-iran-war-trump-johnson-f9dea5ef800bfeb0e343256e841af38f?

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Russia sanctions breakthrough

Democrats are indicating to their Republican counterparts that they are prepared to vote as early as next week on a Russia sanctions package that includes an 11th-hour demand from President Trump that the bill also include Iran, according to people familiar with the matter.

Why it matters: It would mark a rare bipartisan breakthrough on legislation to help end the war in Ukraine in a Senate that has spent much of the year engaged in partisan combat.

• 🤝 It also would show that Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer can work together weeks before Election Day — a dynamic that could prove critical as the Senate works to avoid a third government shutdown this year.

Tuesday's Capitol memorial for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will serve as an emotional backdrop to the Senate's consideration of the bill he spent his final days trying to shepherd across the finish line.

• 🚨 "I'm optimistic we'll be able to move forward soon," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said.
• "Ukraine has the momentum on the battlefield, and the Kremlin's position is increasingly precarious. It is vital that we move as quickly as possible."

Zoom out: The bill, which has more than 60 cosponsors, has been revised twice since Graham's sudden passing on July 11.

• First, senators lowered the overall rate of secondary tariffs from 500% to 100% and narrowed the scope of the bill, allowing Trump to tariff no more than five countries.
• In one of his last acts, Graham secured the Trump administration's blessing for the deal, according to his Senate colleagues.

'This is a big effing deal," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said, quoting Graham.

• Then, on July 19, Trump demanded that the legislation be expanded.
• "Republicans should add Iran to the Russian Sanctions Bill. That's what Lindsey wanted to do, and it was going to happen," he said on Truth Social.

🔎 Zoom in: At first, there was confusion about what Trump actually meant, but senators appear to have addressed his concerns by including noncontroversial sanctions on Iran that were set to expire at the end of the year.

• Thune indicated today that his conference was comfortable with the Iran additions.
• "I think everybody's fine with it, because we would do it anyway," Thune said.

The other side: Some Democrats oppose the overall notion of giving Trump another tool to impose tariffs. They may attempt to slow consideration of the bill, but they don't have the numbers to derail it.

• "The problem with the Russian sanction bill — because I very much support Ukraine — is that Trump is doing everything he can to just expand his reach into tariffs, and that's what he lives for," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
• "I think Leader Thune is getting ready to start moving procedurally. People have asked me, and I said I'm not giving up any procedural rights right now."

⏰ The bottom line: Thune and Schumer still need to reach a time agreement on the sanctions legislation.

• But with Thune indicating that the crypto bill — the CLARITY Act — won't get finished this work period, the Senate may have more floor time to consider the legislation and pay tribute to their late colleague. 

— Hans Nichols and Stef W. Kight

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👉 House's Senate marching orders

House GOP leaders are turning up the heat on Senate Republicans, calling on them to move quickly on the House's $95 billion reconciliation package despite resistance from Thune.

Why it matters: Before they split town, House leaders left some instructions for their Senate colleagues.

• ⚡️ "The Senate needs to move on reconciliation before November, and I think the pressure from the American people is going to be unbearable if they refuse to act," NRCC Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) told us today.
• "For the Senate to sit on their hands and do nothing, I think, will be unsustainable."

Driving the news: Thune poured cold water on the House's timeline, telling reporters this week that he plans to wait until government funding is resolved before taking up the budget resolution.

• The reconciliation measure would give billions for the war in Iran, farm assistance and include components of the SAVE America Act.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told us in a pen-and-pad session today that he expects the White House to ramp up pressure on the Senate.

• ☄️ "They can say all day long, you know, 'It's going to be hard.' Everything's hard. Give me a lecture about how hard things are. That's what I do every day. They've got to figure out a way to get it done," Scalise told us of his colleagues in the Senate.
• Scalise said the reconciliation package — because it only requires a simple majority — means Senate Republicans won't have the "excuse of the filibuster" to avoid passing the stalled SAVE Act.

🔥 White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump's "patience is running out" with Thune during a press briefing today when asked about SAVE.

• "Well, maybe she or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes," Thune told reporters when asked about the comments.

🎯 Between the lines: Thune has become a favorite target of House conservatives, who have spent months trying to shame him into taking up the SAVE Act.

• Thune has repeatedly said he doesn't have the votes.
• "He seems to be doing his best to try to pretend he's working on the SAVE America Act while not working on the SAVE America Act," Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) told us. 

— Kate Santaliz

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🚐 GOP's August road show

House Republicans' strategy for keeping the speaker's gavel and their leadership suites next year hinges on being anywhere but Washington this summer.

Why it matters: The Senate is in for another two weeks, but Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team are crisscrossing the country during the House's five-week August recess like German or Norwegian World Cup fans: no town too small, no state too far away.

• The plan is to tout their legislative wins in person and convince voters that they are, individually, the exception to the widely held belief that Congress doesn't work.

🚗 Driving the news: Johnson is leading the charge.

• He'll hit more than 30 districts in 17 states (18, if you count his home state of Louisiana) over the August recess, campaigning alongside Republican incumbents and challengers.
• Don't expect any X posts worthy of "Freddy," but he'll be seeing the country: Maine, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Washington and Alaska, to name a few spots.

✈️ His Southern colleague, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), is heading north for a major event in New York with the state's Republican members.

• "It'll be a good next few weeks to go around the country talking about what we did, letting people know, a lot of good things to talk about. But there's more to come," Scalise said.
• Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) will make dozens of campaign stops across the country, their offices told us.

📢 Between the lines: Republicans have acknowledged they've struggled to sell their signature legislative achievement — originally known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill" before being rebranded as the Working Families' Tax Cut Act.

• "Do we communicate our ideas great all the time? That's been a fault of the Republican Party," Scalise told reporters yesterday. "I think we're getting better at it."

🖼️ The big picture: Republicans are increasingly arguing the election is a choice between their economic agenda and what they characterize as a Democratic shift to the left — a contrast they'll spend August trying to reinforce.

• Or in blunter terms: "It's going to be a hate election," a Republican tied to President Trump's political operation told Axios' Marc Caputo.

The bottom line: Public polling suggests Republicans still have work to do convincing voters their agenda is benefiting them.

• Democrats have an 11-point lead over Republicans on a generic congressional ballot, according to a new poll from Emerson College.

— Kate Santaliz and Hans Nichols