Congress

Les Wexner sat in a closed-door deposition Wednesday with members of the House Oversight panel.

Democrats are skipping Trump’s address and holding a rally on the National Mall instead.

GOP lawmakers prefer a more targeted approach as the president rails against mail-in ballots.

President Donald Trump’s Feb. 24 address to Congress is set to collide with a DHS funding lapse.

A small group of politically insulated members is causing headaches for party leaders and anxiety among their GOP colleagues.

Negotiations will keep going but Democrats and the White House are far apart.

Bipartisan congressional pressure helped push Mexico’s legislature to approve a joint military exercise between the U.S. and Mexican militaries, according to two people familiar with a U.S. delegation to the country. The U.S. and Mexico had been considering a joint exercise for which 19 U.S. Marines would train with the Mexican Navy in the city of Campeche along the Gulf of Mexico (the U.S. calls it the “Gulf of America”). But Mexican lawmakers balked at approving the exercise after the U.S. conducted a Jan. 3 operation to capture former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The plan got back on track following […]

Lawmakers are heading for the exits following a failed Senate vote Thursday, all but guaranteeing the Department of Homeland Security shuts down early Saturday morning. The funding lapse, which will hit parts of DHS harder than others, comes as the White House and congressional Democrats have failed to move closer to a deal after trading proposals to rein in immigration enforcement practices in the wake of two high-profile shootings in Minneapolis. Democrats called the latest offer from the White House insufficient Thursday and are expected to send a counteroffer. “Democrats have been very clear: We will not support an extension […]

Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday he disapproves of the Justice Department surveilling lawmakers who come to agency headquarters to review the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files. “I don't think it's appropriate for anybody to be tracking that,” Johnson told reporters. “So I will echo that to anybody involved with DOJ, and I'm sure it was an oversight. That's my guess.” This week, members of Congress have been invited to a DOJ office building to read materials related to the federal case against Epstein that have not been scrubbed for public consumption. “Members should obviously have the right to peruse those at […]

Utah Sen. John Curtis will vote against Jeremy Carl's nomination for a top post at the State Department — dealing a crippling blow to the Trump nominee's chances of ascending to the job of assistant secretary of state for International Organizations. "After reviewing his record and participating in today’s hearing, I do not believe that Jeremy Carl is the right person to represent our nation’s best interests in international forums, and I find his anti-Israel views and insensitive remarks about the Jewish people unbecoming of the position for which he has been nominated,” Curtis said in a statement Thursday. The […]

Former Rep. Billy Long apologized to lawmakers for a private joke he made to former House colleagues saying Iceland would be the “52nd state” with him as its governor. Appearing Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as ambassador to the Arctic nation moved to clean up a diplomatic mess of his own making. “It was totally inappropriate,” Long told senators, describing the remark as an attempt at humor that did not land well. “I just hope that the people in Iceland will give me a second chance to make a first impression.” Long’s […]

The comments come as White House border czar Tom Homan announced an end to the surge in immigration operations in Minneapolis.

Sen. Jacky Rosen will introduce a resolution Thursday designed to put the Senate on record opposing the prospect of President Donald Trump granting a pardon or clemency to Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who is currently in prison. The Nevada Democrat, in a statement first shared with POLITICO, said she wanted to “make sure the U.S. Senate sends a clear message to the White House that a convicted sex trafficker of minors should not receive any clemency.” “If Leader Thune won’t bring this up for a recorded vote, I'll do everything I can to […]

Justice Democrats and the Peace, Accountability, and Leadership PAC, or PAL PAC, have jointly endorsed progressive influencer Kat Abughazaleh in the hotly contested Democratic primary to replace Rep. Jan Schakowsky in Illinois. In a statement, Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas described Abughazaleh as “the type of progressive leadership we need in Congress — leadership that isn't too afraid to take on AIPAC or corporate PACs to defeat right-wing fascism or corporate corruption in the Democratic Party.” Abughazaleh faces more than a dozen opponents in a March primary that’s turned into a national proxy fight. Last week, a newly formed […]

Two dozen House members could miss a major national security gathering in Munich this weekend, thanks to the Senate's struggles to strike a deal that would avert a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. With DHS funding past Friday in doubt, Speaker Mike Johnson told members this week they will not be allowed to travel with official funding during the upcoming recess. That includes military flights, which are frequently arranged for congressional delegations overseas. House members could arrange commercial flights, but it's unclear whether they could seek House reimbursement for them. Among the trips in doubt is the Munich […]

Americans for Prosperity Action, the political arm of the powerful conservative Koch network, has placed a 7-figure ad buy for former RNC Chair Michael Whatley’s Senate campaign in North Carolina, banking an early investment in a must-win seat for the GOP in what's expected to be one of the most expensive races in the country. The total spend in the Tarheel State will amount to over $1 million and will run on cable, marking the organization’s first TV ad buy of the 2026 midterms cycle. The 30-second spot, shared first with POLITICO, hits on perennial Koch priorities, casting Whatley as […]

A DHS shutdown is coming Friday night, and there’s no telling how long it could last. The White House on Wednesday night sent Congress the legislative text of its immigration enforcement counterproposal, a White House official and two people granted anonymity to disclose the private action told POLITICO. But key Democrats have already said they don’t believe the administration is serious enough about reining in the immigration agencies, all but guaranteeing a funding lapse despite the text exchange. — State of play: Senators are headed into doomed DHS appropriations votes Thursday. Majority Leader John Thune teed up a vote to […]

House GOP leaders shielded their most vulnerable members from politically explosive votes for more than a year. Now the fallout is reverberating.

Tensions flared between Democrats and the Attorney General during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

The House passed a major GOP elections overhaul Wednesday after intense pressure from President Donald Trump, tech mogul Elon Musk and hard-right influencers. But the legislation still has no clear path forward in the Senate, where Republicans privately acknowledge there is not enough GOP support to skirt a Democratic filibuster as Trump is demanding. The SAVE America Act, an updated version of a bill tightening voter registration standards that the House passed last year, was approved on a 218-213 vote. One Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, voted for it — down from the four who backed the earlier effort. […]