GOP lawmakers returning to Washington face an array of controversies triggered by President Trump and his senior Cabinet officials, political headaches that Republican senators and House members have largely managed to avoid dealing with during the long August recess.
The biggest challenge will be to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month, a worst-case scenario that’s growing more likely after Trump on Thursday signaled his plan to rescind nearly $5 billion in congressionally appropriated funding through a “pocket rescission” package, which Democrats have loudly condemned.
But Republican lawmakers face other thorny issues, such as Trump’s and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to fire Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which sparked a huge controversy that led to the resignation of several other senior officials and raised questions about vaccinations for children.
Trump’s controversial decision to deploy National Guard troops to the nation’s capital and take over the District of Columbia’s police force, his deal for the federal government to acquire a 10 percent stake in Intel, and Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, are other issues that lawmakers will have to confront starting next week.
Government funding deadline and $5B rescissions package
Trump’s plan to claw back funding already approved by Congress has split Republicans.
Democrats, for their part, will insist on restoring the funds as part of any stopgap funding deal to keep federal departments and agencies open in October.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the Government Accountability Office found that such a rescission is “unlawful.” She and other Republicans on the Appropriations panel say that they, and not the administration, should handle rescissions.
Republican lawmakers such as Sen. Mike Rounds (S.D.) have urged the administration to let members of the Senate and House Appropriations committees handle rescissions instead of sending up another rescissions package.
Instead, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought is moving forward with a pocket rescission that will bypass congressional spending authority altogether. Neither the House nor the Senate is expected to act on the proposal Trump submitted to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) before federal funding lapses on Sept. 30.
Former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said “keeping the government open” is “going to be a really heavy lift this time.”
“With the extremely virulent atmosphere that is dominating Washington in a partisan way, it would be hard for a lot of Democrats to cast a favorable vote for a continuing resolution,” he said. “I’m not sure that we’re not at a point where the antagonisms are so deep and so virulent that you can’t get a continuing resolution.”
Chaos at CDC
Republicans will have to deal with the political fallout from the decision to fire Monarez as CDC director, which has intensified talk about whether Kennedy, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is pushing a political agenda on vaccines over sound science.
Senators will have a chance to grill Kennedy on the decision, which he declined to talk about in detail last week, when he appears before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday. Kennedy is set to testify on Trump’s 2026 health care agenda.
The appearance will give Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who is chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee but also sits on the Finance panel, a chance to challenge Kennedy on the firing of Monarez and the resignations of other officials.
Demetre Daskalakis resigned as head the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Daniel Jernigan stepped down as director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, and Debra Houry quit as the CDC’s chief medical officer.
Cassidy said the shake-up at the agency “will require oversight” and called on the Department of Health and Human Services’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to indefinitely postpone a Sept. 18 meeting in which it was expected to make recommendations on vaccinations.
Trump versus the Fed
Republicans have stayed mostly quiet on Trump’s effort to fire Cook, who was appointed to the Federal Reserve by former President Biden and whose term doesn’t expire until 2038.
Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said he doesn’t know whether Trump has the authority to fire Cook but noted the unusual nature of the president’s bold move to assert authority over the central bank.
“It’s breaking new ground, but I don’t know whether the law allows it or not,” he said.
Several Republican senators have warned Trump against trampling on the Fed’s independence, expressing concern that it could undermine market confidence in U.S. debt and the broader domestic economy.
Cook has refused to resign and stayed on in her post, opting instead to sue the administration to challenge Trump’s attempt to dismiss her.
The Trump administration on Friday urged a federal judge to dismiss Cook’s attempt to keep her job, asserting expansive authority to fire members of the Federal Reserve.
GOP senators have pushed back on Trump’s claim that he has broad power to terminate Fed board members.
Trump had threatened to fire Powell earlier this year, prompting Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) to warn: “I do not believe a president, any president, has the authority to fire the Federal Reserve chair.”
Russia sanctions, military aid to Ukraine
Republican senators, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), are pushing for another large installment of military aid to Ukraine, while others such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) are pressing Trump to greenlight a tough sanctions package against Russia that would levy heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, such as China and India.
The issue is taking on new urgency after a major Russian drone and missile attack killed at least 21 people in Kyiv on Thursday.
Republicans thought that Trump was ready to support the Senate in moving ahead with bipartisan sanctions legislation backed by Graham and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
Trump expressed his frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the August recess, telling reporters at a July Cabinet meeting that Putin is “very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
The president, however, appeared to receive Putin warmly at an August summit meeting at Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where the Russian leader was greeted on a red carpet and warmly shook hands with Trump.
A big question heading into the fall is how hard Republicans will press Trump to keep the pressure on Russia to negotiate a peace deal either by approving more military aid or tough sanctions.
Stephen S. Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said Republicans may be able to quietly convince Trump to ship more military supplies to Ukraine.
“I think the president wants to avoid committing the United States to another large donation of military weapons and funding if he can, but I think he’s getting pushed in the direction to quietly sign off on a congressionally designed package,” he said.
Trump’s expiring authority over D.C.’s police force
Trump’s emergency takeover of the Washington, D.C., police force under the 1973 Home Rule Act expires on Sept. 10, and there’s little prospect that Congress will move a resolution to extend Trump’s authority, according to GOP aides.
A resolution has little chance of passing the Senate, where it would be subject to a filibuster and need 60 votes to advance.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said there’s “no f—ing way” he would agree to let Trump keep the National Guard deployed for a longer period in the nation’s capital.
Trump plans to deploy National Guard members in other cities, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has asked for access to a Navy base just north of Chicago to serve as a base of operations for federal law enforcement activities in that state.
Republicans generally support Trump’s effort to crack down on crime and illegal immigration in big cities, but deploying troops in major cities to assist with law enforcement activities is an uncomfortable subject for some GOP lawmakers.
Trump’s deal for 10 percent U.S. stake in Intel
Trump hailed his landmark deal to give the federal government a 10 percent stake in Intel in exchange for roughly $11 billion in federal subsidies the company received through the CHIPS and Science Act.
But many Republicans are not enthusiastic about the United States becoming a major investor in a private tech company, which Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called a “step toward socialism.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said the public stake in a major semiconductor manufacturer made him “uncomfortable,” explaining that it “starts feeling like a semi state-owned enterprise a la CCCP,” referring to the USSR.
Young, who drafted the legislation that became the foundation of the CHIPS and Science Act, said the authors of the bill didn’t envision it leading to a partial government takeover of Intel.
“There are clear concerns about precedent here and also concerns about what is allowed under the law. The intent was not for this to happen under the law,” the Indiana Republican said.
Source: The Hill
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