A big to do list for Congress as it finishes the first month with a new administration
Congress has a lot to do as it finishes off its first month with a new administration. The branch itself has not impeded any of the White House’s agenda so far. It has its own policy initiatives to consider and there is the matter of funding for the government, which runs out in less than a month. Loren Duggan, deputy news director for Bloomberg Government, joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to break down what’s going on.
Interview transcript:
Eric White: So, yeah, let’s cover those nominations first. We saw the probably one of the more controversial ones in RFK Jr. setting confirmed for the Health and Human Services Secretary. There’s a few more coming through for some of the smaller agencies. And one that sticks out to me that could be a controversial one that may be up in the air. What do we know so far?
Loren Duggan: Yeah, we’re continuing to see action at the committee level and on the Senate floor as they work through this long list of nominations. The floor this week, the big vote will be on Kash Patel. They’re going to start their procedural moves tonight when they get back and then work to confirm him by the end of the week, if possible. Now, this is one where with everything going on with the FBI, somebody could raise objections. But if they can afford three losses on the Republican side, if all the Democrats stick together, that fourth one would cause problems for them. But we’ll be watching that vote just like all the others. But as you noted, so far, every nominee has gotten through, even if it was a squeaker as it was with Pete Hegseth that first week in office.
Eric White: The Senate is also considering a budget resolution and it’s a two-bill approach by the Trump agenda. Not a lot of coverage of that because of all the other moves that the Trump administration has made. But what can you tell us and the budget wonks that like to really deep dive into this stuff?
Loren Duggan: So you mentioned spending, that’s separate. This is about what to do with President Donald Trump’s agenda. Using the budget reconciliation process allows you to get something through the Senate with a simple majority, really powerful tool. The House and the Senate Republicans don’t agree on the approach here. The Senate approach that’s moving forward this week, if they move it on to the floor, would say, let’s do one bill now that has defense spending, border spending, leave the other stuff for later. The House approach that we saw them approved last week is a giant process that would have those defense and border priorities plus the tax bill that they need to deal with sometime this year for those expiring tax provisions. So the Senate moving forward with its two-bill approach with this first chunk right now, that could be a lengthy debate on the floor. A lot of amendments, late night votes. We’ll be watching that very closely if it comes up because if they move forward when the House is still only at the committee approval stage, we’ll see what that means for the resolution. But this one bill versus two has been a big debate all year. It’s insidery, of course, but it has a big implication for what moves fast onto the law books with what President Trump wants to get done.
Eric White: Yeah. I mean and it just goes to show the growth in power that the executive branch is now thwarting over Congress. I don’t know if you’ll know the answer to this or not, but have you ever seen an approach like this where the Senate is or anybody of Congress is really trying to do the bidding of a White House strategy? I mean, obviously, White House have their budgets that they submit to Congress and Congress can either say yay or nay to certain things. But they’re starting first from the White House policy. Are they not?
Loren Duggan: When there’s a first batch of nominees, a lot of times Congress will defer to the president on what he wants. But look back to the Clinton years where some of Clinton’s nominees were rejected by a Democratic Senator, didn’t come to a vote. This time, we’ve seen every nominee get through. And when it comes to the big agenda items and this sort of kind of spending package in 2021, we did see what President Biden then wanted with his COVID rescue plan, the American Rescue Plan Act, get through pretty quickly. They moved pretty quickly through that agenda, even with only that 50-50 Senate even more narrow than they have right now. So not unprecedented. But what I think is with some of the concerns people raise about nominees and then step back or whether it’s some of the things that Donald Trump has done in terms of changing the name of Denali to Mount McKinley, which has prompted some pushback from senators in Alaska who want that name to go back to Denali, reflecting what people in their state want, they would say. So there is some pushback, but maybe a lot of things are moving forward, as you suggest.
Eric White: We’re speaking with Loren Duggan from Bloomberg Government. We’re going to hold off until the end of that, but we might as well get into some of the executive moves that have prompted either criticism or support, especially when it comes to the Department of Government Efficiency. We saw more action over the weekend with health agencies reducing their number of staff. What has been the reaction from really all over because health agencies have a big footprint?
Loren Duggan: We’re seeing some reaction, some concern about home states when it comes to Republicans. Democrats, of course, have held rallies outside of government buildings where DOGE has been or used press conferences or speeches on the Senate floor to protest some of these actions. We haven’t seen anything legislative to push back really on what DOGE is done. We’ll have to see if they take those steps, especially as part of one of the must pass bills coming up. But for the most part, it’s been maybe quiet concerns that have been raised or maybe back channeling because there are a lot of places around the country you think federal government, everyone focuses on D.C., but programs are spread across the country. There are grant recipients or aid recipients around the country and senators and representatives are hearing from people and channeling that back for sure.
Eric White: Yeah. And speaking of must pass, government funding runs out in less than a month. A whole different political landscape than last time around, obviously. But with Republicans in the majority and seemingly supportive of what the White House is trying to do, are they going to give the White House a benefit of the doubt in maybe just extended it or is the honeymoon period going to continue and they’re going to just kind of kick the can down the road again? Could we actually see a real budget put out with support from all three branches?
Loren Duggan: Time is not on anyone’s side here. I think we count it up and there’s 11 days between now and then when both chambers are around or scheduled to be around at least. The Democrats have a say in this because unlike the simple majority process we talked about for those other things, there’s still 60 votes needed in the Senate. So Democrats have influence in what happens here. Now, one of the concerns is that with the clawing back of money or the withholding of funds that the administration tried, that’s sort of has changed the dynamic. Do you write bills that are then going to not be implemented the way you want them to? That’s going to be hanging over these discussions. But at the same time, Republicans do want to fund the government or they’ll be looking at this. Can’t rule out a shutdown because absent action, you would have that. There was a little bit of talk last week about maybe a stopgap, extend funding a little bit or even for the rest of the year. Full year CRs aren’t favored by agencies, in particular DoD, who would push back on that. So a lot to figure out when the House gets back into town next week. They can work on it staff level before then, but time is not on their side and there’s a lot to do in addition to answering this very important question.
Eric White: Yeah. Let’s touch on the in addition part, What are some of the other major legislation? After all, Congress does have its own initiatives it wants to enact. What is some of the legislative measures that are coming up, especially in the Senate this week?
Loren Duggan: Well, the Senate, the big thing is going to be that budget resolution, which is procedural, but that would lead to the second bill that they would then have to pass that has the actual funding for border and defense and things like that. So if they get this budget reconciliation process is ongoing, that’s going to take up some time in the next couple of weeks. Now they can walk and chew gum and have these separate debates in negotiations, but that’s really the big thing. And then there’s some smaller things seemingly, but there’s a lot of regulations they’d like to cancel using the Congressional Review Act. That’s another simple majority proposition in the Senate and a way for them to strike at those Biden administration rules that they don’t like.
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