Category Archives: House of Representatives

Mike Johnson would have ‘great pause’ about a Ghislaine Maxwell pardon

Posted on by

Another Republican says it should be on table, illustrating challenge posed by scandal for Maga base and the party

The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, said on Sunday he would have “great pause” about granting a pardon or commutation to Ghislaine Maxwell while another House Republican said it should be considered as part of an effort to obtain more information about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.

Donald Trump and his allies, including Johnson, have been under immense pressure to disclose more information about Epstein for weeks, especially amid scrutiny over the extent of Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The splits over what to do with Maxwell illustrate the complicated challenge posed by the scandal for Trump, his Maga base and the broader Republican party.

Continue reading...

US House passes Trump plan to cut $9bn from foreign aid, public broadcasting

Posted on by

Along with Democrats, only two House Republicans voted against the cut

The US’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed president Donald Trump’s $9bn funding cut to public media and foreign aid early on Friday, sending it to the White House to be signed into law.

The chamber voted 216 to 213 in favor of the funding cut package, altered by the Senate this week to exclude cuts of about $400m in funds for the global PEPFAR HIV/Aids prevention program.

Continue reading...

Adelita Grijalva wins Arizona Democratic primary for House seat

Posted on by

Grijalva beat Gen Z activist Deja Foxx in the race and will succeed her late father, Raúl Grijalva, in the role

Adelita Grijalva won the Democratic House primary in Arizona to succeed her father, beating a young social media activist in a closely watched election seen as a test of the party’s generational divide.

Raúl Grijalva, a longtime congressman in southern Arizona, died from cancer earlier this year and left a vacancy in the state’s seventh district. The younger Grijalva, a 54-year-old who served for 20 years on a Tucson school board, has been a Pima county supervisor since 2020.

Continue reading...

Republicans complain to Canada over wildfire smoke despite supporting planet-heating bill

Posted on by

Lawmakers send letter railing against ‘suffocating’ smoke days after voting for Trump plan likely to boost pollution

A group of Republican lawmakers has complained that smoke from Canadian wildfires is ruining summer for Americans, just days after voting for a major bill that will cause more of the planet-heating pollution that is worsening wildfires.

In a letter sent to Canada’s ambassador to the US, six Republican members of Congress wrote that wildfire smoke from Canada had been an issue for several years and recently their voters “have had to deal with suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin the summer”.

Continue reading...

Elon Musk’s proposed new political party could focus on a few pivotal congressional seats

Posted on by

Billionaire said his ‘America party’ would try to turn attainable House and Senate seats to decide major issues

The new US political party that Elon Musk has boasted about possibly bankrolling could initially focus on a handful of attainable House and Senate seats while striving to be the decisive vote on major issues amid the thin margins in Congress.

Tesla and SpaceX’s multibillionaire CEO mused about that approach on Friday in a post on X, the social media platform which he owns, as he continued feuding with Donald Trump over the spending bill that the president has signed into law.

Continue reading...

Twisted arms and late-night deals: how Trump’s sweeping policy bill was passed

Posted on by

With narrow majorities and intra-party splits, Republicans faced a battle to give Trump his bill to sign – but they did it

Just a few months ago, analysts predicted that Republicans in Congress – with their narrow majorities and fractured internal dynamics – would not be able to pass Donald Trump’s landmark legislation.

On Thursday, the president’s commanding influence over his party was apparent once again: the bill passed just in time for Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.

Continue reading...

Trump makes case for ‘big, beautiful bill’ and cranks up pressure on Republicans

Posted on by

President calls for passage of signature tax bill but it’s not yet clear whether Senate Republicans have sufficient votes

Donald Trump convened congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday to make the case for passage of his marquee tax-and-spending bill, but it remains to be seen whether his pep talk will resolve a developing logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.

The president’s intervention comes as the Senate majority leader, John Thune, mulls an initial vote on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Friday, before a 4 July deadline Trump has imposed to have the legislation ready for his signature.

Continue reading...

Eyes on Senate Republicans as Trump and Musk feud over tax and spend bill

Posted on by

Lawmakers still weighing whether to pass ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ at root of rift between US president and tech boss

As the simmering tensions between Donald Trump and his once top adviser, the billionaire Elon Musk, erupted into public view on Thursday, eyes turned to the Republican lawmakers still weighing whether to pass the president’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill”.

It was approved by just a single vote in the House of Representatives with no Democratic support last month, and nonpartisan analysts have found the sweeping legislation could add a whopping $2.4tn-$5tn to the $36.2tn US national debt and make deep cuts to Medicaid and food-assistance programs. Seen as an outline of Trump’s “America first” agenda, the bill would also extend tax cuts, fund beefed-up immigration enforcement and impose new work requirements for enrollees of federal safety net programs.

Continue reading...

US budget chief calls fears that cuts to benefits will lead to deaths ‘totally ridiculous’

Posted on by

Russ Vought defends Trump’s sweeping tax-cut bill that will slash safety net programs Medicaid and Snap

The White House budget director Russ Vought on Sunday dismissed as “totally ridiculous” fears expressed by voters that cuts to benefits in the huge spending bill passed by the House will lead to premature deaths in America.

Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill act, now awaiting debate in the US Senate, will slash two major federal safety net programs, Medicaid, which provides healthcare to poor and disabled Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps people afford groceries, which will affect millions of people if it becomes law.

Continue reading...

Top Republicans threaten to block Trump’s spending bill if national debt is not reduced

Posted on by

Prominent US senators warn Trump to ‘get serious’ about addressing budget deficit or they will block ‘beautiful bill’

Donald Trump has been warned by fiscal hawks within his own party in the US Senate that he must “get serious” about cutting government spending and reducing the national debt or else they will block the passage of his signature tax-cutting legislation known as the “big, beautiful bill”.

Ron Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin who rose to prominence as a fiscal hardliner with the Tea Party movement, issued the warning to the president on Sunday. Asked by CNN’s State of the Union whether his faction had the numbers to halt the bill, he replied: “I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”

Continue reading...

House passes Trump’s sweeping tax-cut bill, sends it to Senate

Posted on by

Measure would tighten eligibility for health and food programs for the poor and could add $3.8tn to US debt

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives narrowly passed a sweeping tax and spending bill that would enact much of President Donald Trump’s policy agenda on Thursday and saddle the country with trillions of dollars in debt.

The bill would fulfill many of Trump’s populist campaign pledges, delivering new tax breaks on tips and car loans and boosting spending on the military and border enforcement. It will add about $3.8tn to the federal government’s $36.2tn in debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Continue reading...

RFK Jr tells Congress ‘people shouldn’t take medical advice from me’

Posted on by

Health secretary demurs on questions about vaccine stance and defends Republican plans to cut healthcare

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, refused to say whether he would vaccinate his children if he had to choose today, and defended Republicans’ proposal to cut healthcare to fund tax cut extensions.

Kennedy’s back-to-back testimonies before House and Senate committees were his first appearances before lawmakers since his confirmation in February. The secretary was called to discuss Donald Trump’s proposed budget, which would impose disproportionately large cuts to scientific enterprises at the health department.

Continue reading...

New bill aims to allow research to catch up with US’s increasing cannabis consumption

Posted on by

Legislation would radically ease research restrictions on cannabis and other schedule I substances

A recently introduced bill, if it passes, would allow research on cannabis despite its schedule I status, which some experts say could help policymakers “craft effective” legislation in the future and potentially allow more clinical research on medical cannabis.

Representatives Dina Titus and Ilhan Omar introduced the Evidence-Based Drug Policy Act of 2025 (EBDPA) last week, which would radically ease research restrictions on cannabis and other schedule I substances.

Continue reading...

House panel on campus antisemitism likened to cold-war ‘un-American’ committee

Posted on by

Georgetown professor called to testify says Republican-led proceedings ‘an attempt to chill protected speech’

A congressional panel investigating antisemitism on US college campuses on Wednesday was accused of trying to chill constitutionally protected free speech and likened to a cold-war era committee notorious for wrecking the lives of people suspected of communist sympathies.

The comparison was made by David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University law centre, who told the House education and workforce committee that its proceedings resembled those staged by the House un-American Activities Committee (Huac) during and after the second world war.

Continue reading...

Gerry Connolly to step down as top Democrat on House oversight panel

Posted on by

Virginia representative says he will not seek re-election in Congress, citing return of esophageal cancer

Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ key oversight committee, has announced he will not run for re-election and resign his committee post, citing a return of the cancer for which he previously been successfully treated.

The Virginia Democrat was elected as the party’s ranking member on the high-profile committee last December, after its former chair, the Maryland representative Jaime Raskin, moved on to the judiciary committee.

Continue reading...

‘National disgrace’: US lawmakers decry student detentions on visit to Ice jails

Posted on by

Delegation visits jails where Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk are being held and denounce ‘authoritarian’ Trump

Congressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.

“We stand firm with them in support of free speech,” the Louisiana congressman Troy Carter, who led the delegation, said during a press conference after the visits on Tuesday. “They are frightened, they’re concerned, they want to go home.”

Continue reading...

US House panel drops inquiry into Northwestern’s law school clinics

Posted on by

Move comes after professors sued and alleged investigation violated their constitutional free speech rights

The US House education and workforce committee withdrew an investigation into Northwestern University’s law school clinics after professors there sued and alleged that the inquiry violated their constitutional free speech rights.

The professors secured what amounted to a legal victory for them on Thursday, when the House committee withdrew its investigative requests with respect to the university and its law school’s Bluhm Legal Clinic program on Thursday.

Continue reading...

‘Hands Off’ protests take off across US and Europe to oppose Trump agenda – as it happened

Posted on by

Protesters gather at more than a thousand events across the US and in cities abroad, such as London, Berlin and Paris. This blog is now closed.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in central London on Saturday as part of global demonstrations against Donald Trump’s administration.

Crowds gathered in Trafalgar Square with banners that read “No to Maga hate” and “Dump Trump”. The rally is one of hundreds of so-called “Hands Off” demonstrations around the world – including in cities across the US, Paris and Berlin.

We see the foundations of our society, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, the very safety nets that people have fought for, for generations, to ensure that our country lives up to its promise, are being targeted by the billionaires and the oligarchs and the corporations.

This insidious rise of authoritarianism is fueled by corrupt billionaires and mega corporations who believe that they have the right to control every aspect of our lives, our healthcare, to our schools, to our thoughts, to our very free speech under the false banner of patriotism and freedom …

Continue reading...

George Santos prosecutors seek seven-year prison term for campaign fraud

Posted on by

Disgraced Republican congressman ‘made a mockery’ of election system and merits long sentence, US officials say

Prosecutors are seeking more than seven years in prison for disgraced former congressman George Santos after he pleaded guilty to federal fraud and identity theft charges.

The US attorney for the eastern district of New York argued in a court filing on Friday that a significant sentence was warranted because the New York Republican’s “unparalleled crimes” had “made a mockery” of the country’s election system.

Continue reading...

She’s a waitress raised on a farm – can Rebecca Cooke win a key Wisconsin seat?

Posted on by

Moderate Democrat believes she can unseat Republican Derrick Van Orden, who was at the Capitol on January 6

Wisconsin’s third congressional district has voted for Donald Trump every time he’s been on the ballot, but the moderate Democrat Rebecca Cooke, a waitress who grew up on a dairy farm, thinks she can flip the state’s most competitive seat next year.

Last year, Cooke outperformed other Democrats when she tried to unseat incumbent Derrick Van Orden, a retired US Navy Seal who attended the January 6 “Stop the Steal
” rally at the Capitol and shouted “lies” during Joe Biden’s 2024 state of the union address. She lost the race by less than three points.

Continue reading...