Roll Call

President Donald Trump unveiled a nearly $2.2 trillion spending request for fiscal 2027 Friday that features an enormous defense boost, posing a major challenge to GOP leaders as they seek an election-year spending deal with Democrats. National security spending would soar to $1.5 trillion in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, a roughly 42 percent — or $445 billion — increase from this year’s level, the budget shows. But the administration is counting on Republicans to provide most of

President Donald Trump unveiled on Friday a nearly $2.2 trillion discretionary spending request for the coming fiscal year, a nearly 21 percent increase over the current year’s level because of a dramatic proposed boost in defense funding. The election-year spending blueprint doubles down on an administration drive to pump up the Pentagon’s budget while making major reductions to various domestic programs. It also calls for passing another filibuster-proof reconciliation bill

President Donald Trump’s effort to curtail mail voting through executive order will likely be ruled illegal in at least one of several lawsuits filed this week, experts said, the latest in the president’s long-running effort to assert federal control of elections. Democratic party groups and civil rights organizations have already filed three lawsuits over the executive order that Trump issued Tuesday entitled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” The orde

Welcome to At the Races! Each week we bring you news and analysis from the CQ Roll Call campaign team. Know someone who’d like to get this newsletter? They can subscribe here. By Mary Ellen McIntire and Daniela Altimari Republican leaders have landed on a plan to end the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, but implementing it would likely involve passing a reconciliation bill to fund two immigration agencies in the coming weeks. As GOP lawmakers showed last year,

President Donald Trump ousted Pamela Bondi as attorney general Thursday, closing out a tumultuous tenure punctuated by rolling controversies and attacks against the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House. Trump, who made the announcement in a social media post, said his former personal attorney, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, would lead the department as acting attorney general. The president described Bondi as a “loyal friend.” Bondi, in a statement on s

If the line separating church and state in America has not yet disappeared, it is certainly fading fast. The evidence? A Supreme Court willing to rule in favor of faith-based lawsuits; a secretary of Defense framing the war in Iran in apocalyptic terms; a president pushing a law restricting voting rights, exhorting legislators to pass it — for “Jesus.” Is today’s elevation of a certain kind of Christianity at odds with the ideals of a diverse country where freedom of and from religion is guar

Jason Dick and Jessica Wehrman wonder what members of Congress are doing on their two-week recess, coming as it does while the Homeland Security Department isn’t being funded by Congress, as well as what they did, and observed, on recent trips back home to Arizona and Ohio, respectively. Show Notes: Senate tees up bill to end Homeland Security shutdown Who’s the shutdown scapegoat now? Trump to address nation on Iran as gas prices rise, poll numbers drop — and midterms loom

As Democrats vie to take control of Congress in the midterms this fall, their main message on health care policy is fairly straightforward: Undo Republicans’ Medicaid cuts and restore the health care subsidies that lapsed at the end of last year.  But some analysts and lawmakers say momentum is growing for a bigger health care push in 2028.  Health care has historically been a winning issue for Democrats. Polling conducted by KFF earlier this year shows that the party has an advantage over

A group of Democratic senators led by Elizabeth Warren is pushing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to rein in abuses from Medicare Advantage insurers as the Trump administration considers a policy that would enroll more seniors in the program. The senators allege that Medicare Advantage is rife with waste, fraud and abuse, and CMS should focus on shoring up the program, rather than enrolling more individuals in it. They argue CMS should do so by adopting the congressional Medica

The Senate took the first step Thursday in a GOP-backed plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, sending the House for a second time its bill to fund the department except for immigration enforcement. In an early-morning pro forma session, the Senate agreed, by voice vote, to table a House measure that would have extended funding for the entire department for eight weeks. The move effectively restored the bill back to its original Senate-passed version, giving the House another cha

The House Appropriations Committee is set to undergo a major shake-up following the midterm elections, especially among its Republicans. With four members retiring, two running for Senate and four others in potentially tight reelection contests, nearly a third of the committee’s Republicans may not return in the next Congress. Democrats are looking at a lower level of turnover, with two retirements and four tight reelection contests. But three ranking members on Appropriations subcommittee

President Donald Trump and GOP leaders united behind a plan Wednesday to end the record-breaking partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, committing themselves to a two-track strategy that includes passing a reconciliation bill for immigration enforcement funding by June 1. With the shutdown stretching into its seventh week and pressure growing to pay DHS workers, Trump rallied behind a Senate plan that envisioned passing a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill to provide immig

President Donald Trump must still face civil lawsuits seeking to hold him accountable for his role in the lead up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a long-running litigation from Democratic House members and Capitol Police officers. Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in an opinion found that a range of actions Trump took leading up to the attack did not qualify for the legal immunity presidents have for official

A majority of the Supreme Court expressed hostility Wednesday to President Donald Trump’s executive order that seeks to restrict birthright citizenship, even as he became the first sitting president in the modern era to attend oral arguments. An attorney for the U.S. urged the justices to overturn multiple lower court rulings against the executive order, which would disallow citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrant parents or those with temporary legal stat

During the nation’s 250th anniversary, the British are coming — this time by invitation. His Majesty Charles III, king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is set to address a joint meeting of Congress on April 28, House and Senate leaders announced Wednesday. “The relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom has evolved into one of the most consequential partnerships in modern history,” the congressional leaders wrote in a letter to the king. “We b

President Donald Trump will address the nation Wednesday night as soaring gas prices, an unpopular war in Iran and his slumping approval number have become a collective political thorn for Republicans heading into November’s midterm elections. Trump will use the prime-time address to repeat his Tuesday declaration that the U.S. bombardment of Iran should end in two or three weeks, according to a White House official. The official, granted anonymity to be candid, described the speech as an “op

President Donald Trump’s planned ballroom on the former site of the White House’s East Wing cannot move forward without authorization from Congress, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Richard J. Leon said when issuing a preliminary injunction on Tuesday. Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, found that the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation, the plaintiff in the case, was likely to succeed with its argument that the Trump administration would overstep its statu

For a brief moment, it seemed like a bill to curb stock trading by members of Congress could see a vote in the House. Blessed by GOP leadership with hopes of a floor vote in the first quarter of the year, it would have been a victory for the small group of Republicans leading the charge. But that time frame has come and gone, with both chambers now out of town for a two-week recess.  “That’s frustrating that we’re not moving it, and the leadership knows that, and we’re pressing it,” said T

As Senate Majority Leader John Thune hashed out a deal aimed at ending the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, he may have thought Democrats were its biggest threat. Instead, his fellow Republicans across the Capitol were the ones to tank it. Now, instead of blaming Democrats for prolonging the shutdown, GOP leadership in the House and Senate are pointing fingers at each other. And it’s deepening fissures that were already forming between them ahead of the midterm elections.