After a weeklong recess, Senate Republicans return Monday with their focus set on ways to move their budget reconciliation package, which hit several hurdles before the Memorial Day break.
The House, which has been on standby while Senate leadership works out how much of the White House wishlist they can salvage, is returning later this week, with its first vote scheduled for Wednesday.
Congress is already behind the June 1 deadline that President Donald Trump gave to get the package to his desk. Republican senators had hoped to pass the bill before they jetted for the recess, but concerns over the Justice Department’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund — which Democrats and some Republicans have warned could reward participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — derailed those efforts.
The bill, which would provide nearly $72 billion, mostly for immigration enforcement funding, also faces an uphill battle to fold in $1 billion in security funding for the Secret Service, including for a White House ballroom. That provision’s chance of inclusion seems to be dimming, given that the Senate parliamentarian raised objections to it on procedural grounds last month.
And House Republican appropriators are not planning to include that full $1 billion amount in their fiscal 2027 Homeland Security spending bill, set for release this week, according to Homeland Security Appropriations Chairman Mark Amodei, R-Nev.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., on Monday vowed that Senate Democrats would fight the DOJ fund and force what could be politically tough votes related to it.
“This week, Senate Democrats will launch a coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door. And no matter what Republicans do, we will force them to vote,” Schumer said in a letter to colleagues.
“If Republicans return to reconciliation, we will be ready with amendments to shut the fund down,” he said. “If they try to bury the issue, we will force them to the Senate floor. If they try to sneak behind appropriations, we will fight them there too.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who attempted to justify the DOJ fund to senators ahead of the recess in a contentious closed-door meeting, will be back on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, this time speaking before the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee about the DOJ’s budget for the next fiscal year.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin will also appear in front of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday afternoon to discuss funding for his agency and the administration’s fiscal 2027 budget request.
Mullin will return to the Hill on Wednesday to give his funding pitch to the House Homeland Security Committee.
FISA fight
Lawmakers will also be racing to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on June 12.
Behind the scenes, since Congress passed a short-term extension in April, lawmakers have grappled over disagreements related to warrant requirements and whether to include language to prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency.
New legislative text could be introduced this week.
Iran intensifies
Meanwhile, while lawmakers were back in their home districts and states, the conflict in the Middle East persisted. An agreement between Iran and the U.S. was teased last week and then later doused in cold water.
“Iran really wants to make a deal and it will be a good one for the U.S.A.,” Trump said Monday in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end – It always does!”
But congressional Republicans are growing increasingly antsy. And there will likely be further attempts in both chambers aimed at forcing Trump to end the war in Iran.
While war powers resolutions have yet to pass either chamber, just before the recess, a push in the Senate garnered some GOP support. That number could continue to grow as the conflict drags on and Trump continues to anger Hill Republicans in his efforts to oust lawmakers he declares disloyal to him.
The next test of support could be as soon as this week, as House Democrats push for votes on their Iran and Lebanon war powers resolutions. There’s also a discharge petition for a bill to authorize support for Ukraine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is among those who will make the rounds this week on the Hill, with budget hearings Tuesday at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House National Security-State Appropriations Subcommittee.
Aidan Quigley and Aris Folley contributed to this report.
