“Chuck Schumer, no one respects you,” Mullin said Thursday on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom.

Schumer spoke on the Senate floor Wednesday to condemn funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection without reforms.

“Adding $140 billion to an agency, to two groups, Border Patrol and ICE, that nobody respects in this country,” Schumer said.

“It makes my ears red,” Mullin responded. “The definition of a lying scumbag politician, that is you. You would be the definition if you Googled you right now.”

Mullin said Schumer should be honest with the American people and say that he is pro-open borders if he’s attacking the funding.

“You’re for the criminals running amok in our cities,” Mullin said, adding that Schumer’s comments are disrespectful to law enforcement officers who protect Americans.

The Department of Homeland Security has been without funding since Feb. 14 due to a partial government shutdown, the longest in history. 

President Donald Trump has since issued an emergency order to pay DHS employees, but Mullin said funding is running out, and employees’ last check will be in early May. 

“We’re at critical mass, and Democrats continue to play political theater,” Mullin said. 

SENATE GOP KICKS OFF $70 BILLION PLAN TO END-RUN DEMOCRATS ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

The Senate passed a budget resolution early Thursday, which now moves to the House of Representatives.

Trump set a June 1 deadline for Congress to pass the final funding bill.

The aptly titled Make DC Square Again Act would reverse an 1846 congressional action, known as retrocession, that ultimately ceded Arlington County and the City of Alexandria to Virginia a year later. At the time, the two areas were collectively known as Alexandria County.

If Arlington and Alexandria are added back, the district would look more like a slanted square as the bill’s title suggests. The capital is currently in the shape of an incomplete diamond.

McCormick argued that the retrocession process 180 years ago was unconstitutional because Congress had no authority to cede territory back to the states under the enclave clause in the Constitution. The clause grants Congress exclusive legislative authority over a district “not exceeding ten miles square,” or 100 square miles. Today, the district is roughly 68 square miles.

“The Constitution never authorized Congress to carve pieces out of the federal District and hand them back to a state,” McCormick said in a statement.

He framed the bill as a solution to combat Virginia Democrats’ redistricting agenda after the state passed a referendum approving a new congressional map that heavily favors Democrats. The ballot measure is already facing court challenges, but if the map is implemented, Democrats would have a 10-1 advantage in Virginia’s House delegation.

“Democrats have spent years manipulating maps and boundaries to rig elections,” the Republican lawmaker added. “The Make DC Square Again Act restores the original ten-mile-square District and ends the artificial advantage Virginia Democrats have recently gained from all the federal bureaucrats moving into Virginia.”

The congressman’s press release did not mention any other lawmakers attached to the bill.

It remains unclear if the Make DC Square Again Act will gain any traction in Congress or receive support among leaders in the district and Virginia.

VIRGINIA REDISTRICTING LOSS MAGNIFIES IMPORTANT FIGHT INSIDE GOP

In 1866, Sen. Benjamin Wade (R-OH) unsuccessfully tried to repeal the retrocession process that separated Arlington and Alexandria from the district. McCormick said his measure “finally corrects this unconstitutional error.”

Virginia originally ceded the territory along the west bank of the Potomac River to the district in 1791. The Residence Act of 1790 recognized the port city of Alexandria and the surrounding land, now known as Arlington, as part of the original 10-mile-square district.

The female lawmakers who filed the harassment complaint later requested the speaker of the Arizona House reprimand Gallego, then the assistant minority leader, for nondescript “sexual remarks” they believe had “been spoken and directed” at them. They also wanted Gallego reprimanded for other behavior they described as intimidating amid a policy dispute, according to records obtained by the Washington Examiner.

The documents, obtained through a public records request from the Arizona House, can be viewed in full at the bottom of this story.

Gallego and another male lawmaker involved in the alleged incident denied that Gallego made the comments and were “reminded of the restrictions against unlawful harassment,” a rules attorney for the Arizona House wrote in his report of the investigation, which was sent to the speaker. No further official action was taken.

Investigators determined there was “insufficient information available to reach a conclusion that there has been unlawful harassment” and were “unable to corroborate the allegation of the making of a sexual slur by Rep. Gallego because Rep. Gallego denies making such a slur and no one interviewed says they heard him say it.”

The female Democrats who filed the complaint, Catherine Miranda and Lydia Hernandez, were not satisfied by the findings, however. After the investigation was concluded, the duo wrote a letter to then-GOP state House Speaker Andy Tobin seeking repercussions for the supposed slur and other interactions they said undermined their “protection and respect.”

Miranda and Hernandez expressed concern about a March 2013 tweet from Gallego, which he allegedly told Miranda was directed at her over a policy dispute, that stated: “Secret is out Harvard kids aren’t afraid to get dirty. Certain announced State Senate candidates should remember that.” Gallego graduated from Harvard University in 2004.

Miranda, now a state senator, and Hernandez cited further concerns that Gallego “does posess [sic] and carry a firearm, which under the circumstances are disturbing to both of us.” They alleged that an unnamed assistant to an unnamed lawmaker “was threatened with termination by Representative Ruben Gallego” related to the sexual remarks complaint.

“Regardless of the outcome and whether this proceeds to another level of review we are entitled to protection and respect consistent with the Rules of the House of Representatives,” Miranda and Hernandez wrote. “We are requesting that at a minimum an apology be made regarding the sexual remarks and whatever other actions are deemed appropriate to ensure that the dignity and protection of House members is maintained.”

A Gallego spokesman claimed the investigation, which state officials determined was inconclusive, “found no wrongdoing.”

The spokesman told the Washington Examiner: “This allegation has been publicly reported, investigated for over a decade, and Senator Miranda has confirmed the incident was hearsay.

“There is nothing new here,” the spokesman said. “The investigation found no wrongdoing, and the legislator who filed the complaint has since endorsed Senator Gallego and has a close working relationship with the senator. Republishing years-old, thoroughly reported material to drive a political narrative is advocacy, not journalism.”

The future political ambitions of Gallego are in the spotlight following his years of close proximity to former “best friend” Eric Swalwell, the Democratic congressman who resigned and ended his California gubernatorial bid earlier this month over sexual misconduct and rape allegations.

Gallego, a first-term senator elected in a 2024 battleground contest, is believed to have White House ambitions. He has shifted in recent years from grassroots progressive ideals to more centrist views he hopes can build coalitions with voting blocs whose support for Democrats has eroded in recent elections.

He recently denied knowing the seriousness of the Swalwell allegations and has dismissed suggestions that their longtime friendship meant he was aware of the former congressman’s behavior. Gallego acknowledged he had “heard rumors” over the years, describing Swalwell as “flirty” and living a “double life.”

The 2013 harassment complaint against Gallego followed a policy disagreement among Arizona House Democrats over a bill, which later became law, involving the impoundment of vehicles transporting suspected illegal immigrants. Gallego voted for the bill, while Miranda and Hernandez opposed it.

In 2018, the allegations received brief mention in an Associated Press story, and an anonymous article by conservative website Arizona Daily Independent went into greater detail. The original documents have not been previously published.

Miranda and Hernandez accused Gallego of making a “sexual slur” about them in Spanish in a meeting they did not attend between Gallego and then-state Democratic Rep. Juan Carlos Escamilla.

Escamilla relayed the conversation to Hernandez, who then spoke with Miranda, according to the investigation’s report. Hernandez believed the slur “had a sexual connotation that she understood to mean the giving of ‘a sexual favor,’” the report said.

Gallego denied to investigators that he made the slur. Escamilla told investigators that he made the slur when describing his meeting with Gallego to Hernandez but that it was misunderstood and that it was not attributable to Gallego.

Hernandez told investigators she felt Escamilla was covering for Gallego.

“She knew Rep. Escamilla and did not believe he would make a slur like that on his own,” the investigation’s report states. “This is a reason, she says, she believes the slang was really ‘from Ruben.’”

Miranda, who primaried Gallego in 2018 for the House seat he once held, told the Washington Examiner that she and Gallego are now friends and that she believes Gallego “did not make the comment. It was hearsay.” Miranda endorsed Gallego in his 2024 Senate race.

“Senator Gallego and I are friends. We’ve talked about this complaint from 2013 over the years,” Miranda said in text messages. “After I made the complaint based on hearsay, the legislature investigated it, and nothing was found. Ruben has always taken these matters seriously and remains committed to maintaining a respectful workplace for everyone. Even though I ran against Ruben in 2018, we have remained colleagues and friends over the years. We served in the legislature together and have done great work representing South Phoenix.”

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Escamilla, who is no longer in public office, corroborated the version of events laid out in the report, describing it as a misunderstanding with Hernandez. Escamilla said he used the phrase “que ni las pela” with Hernandez to describe how Gallego “doesn’t even pay attention” to her and Miranda, but that it was misinterpreted as “que me la pela,” a vulgar Mexican slang phrase.

Escamilla described Gallego as a “pushy” and “tough” member of state Democratic leadership who “might have friction with other people with the same personality.” Escamilla was unaware of the additional concerns raised by Miranda and Hernandez about Gallego following the investigation, but said he did not witness any inappropriate behavior by Gallego during their time as colleagues.

ERIC SWALWELL SCANDAL HANGS OVER ‘BEST FRIEND’ RUBEN GALLEGO’S 2028 HOPES

Hernandez, still a state representative, did not respond to requests for comment.

“While by Rep. Escamilla has admitted making a slur in Spanish while speaking to Rep. Hernandez, and Rep. Hernandez reports hearing the same slur in that conversation, each of those two parties attribute different meanings to the slur and to whether the slur was made by or on behalf of Rep. Gallego based on varying interpretations of context and words spoken,” the investigation’s report concluded.

So it’s little wonder the 25th Amendment is having another moment: So far, more than 70 congressional Democrats have called for Trump’s constitutional removal on grounds of mental unfitness.

But it’s almost certainly not going to happen. Recent history shows that the 25th Amendment’s “eject button” is almost impossible to trigger. 

DONALD TRUMP IS LOSING HIS MIND

Drafted in the wake of the John F. Kennedy assassination and ratified in 1967, the 25th Amendment provides two ways the vice president can take over for a dysfunctional president. Under Section 3, the president steps out voluntarily; under Section 4, the vice president can take them away when he or she and a majority of the Cabinet determine that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” But there’s a reason Section 4 has, to date, only been invoked in TV-thriller plots: In real life, it’s unworkable.

“Unless the Vice President already knows that a majority of the Principal Officers supports invoking the Amendment—and who those officers are,” a 2018 Yale Law School white paper explains, broaching the subject risks “triggering a cascade of firings.” Guess wrong, and a single dissenter can short-circuit the process by running to the president. Canvassing votes would be a delicate and dangerous operation in any administration. In this one, given the “Dear Leader” aura of Trump Cabinet meetings, it looks like a suicide mission. Even if Vice President JD Vance had the inclination — and the testicular fortitude — to make this move, the odds are it would blow up before it ever got off the ground.

But imagine Vance manages to pull it off — what then? Section 4 provides that unless “by two-thirds vote of both Houses” Congress ratifies the switch, “the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.”

Given the party breakdown of the 119th Congress, that means 20 GOP senators and more than 70 House Republicans would have to publicly affirm that their party’s standard-bearer is too crazy to be president. Without those votes, all Vance and company could do is put the president in a temporary time-out, after which Trump returns to the Oval Office hell-bent for vengeance. In politics as in gang warfare, “come at the king, you best not miss.”

“We were concerned about the politics of the palace coup,” one of the amendment’s framers, former Democratic Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh explained years later. So they set the bar even higher than required to remove a president via the impeachment process (something that’s also never happened).

Recent history suggests they overcorrected. One of the drafters’ central goals was preventing a replay of the Woodrow Wilson debacle, in which first lady Edith Wilson and a handful of advisers ran the executive branch while the 28th president lay bedridden by a stroke. 

Our last administration featured something close to the paradigmatic Wilson case. In Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s 2025 exposé, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, top Biden aides describe the 46th president as “‘disoriented’ and ‘out of it,’ his mouth agape” — someone who couldn’t “form a f***ing sentence” or make it through tightly scripted Cabinet meetings without a teleprompter. Even so, triggering Section 4 was never seriously considered.

Granted, Trump presents a different set of risks than a semiconscious figurehead behind the Resolute Desk. Here, the worry isn’t that he’s literally “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It’s that he’ll do something dangerous and abhorrent with the powers he has.

FETTERMAN SAYS ‘TACO’ CHANTS ON IRAN CEASEFIRE RUN COUNTER TO 25TH AMENDMENT CALLS

In theory, one can imagine circumstances dire enough to force this faulty constitutional failsafe to work. Suppose, in the next round of fighting, a frustrated Trump decides to act on his threat to destroy “an entire civilization.” At that point, the secretary of war could table the order, call the vice president, and set Section 4 in motion. With the president sidelined, Congress would vote knowing that failure to ratify means nuclear war.

That sort of thriller-plot scenario remains unlikely — or so we should hope. Because in that moment, the fate of the Republic and countless lives would depend on … War Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Gene Healy is the author of The Cult of the Presidency.

Yet the 501(c)(3) nonprofit group still stands today. CAIR still collects tax-free donations to fuel its anti-American advocacy, and it’s still the Muslim darling of the corporate media Left. 

Fortunately, CAIR’s seemingly bulletproof legal standing may soon crumble, precipitated by the first serious piece of legislation aimed at designating the Hamas-aligned group as a terrorist entity. On April 9, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) introduced a bill, H.R. 8236 — “the Designating Hamas Affiliates in America Act,” — that directs the U.S. Treasury Department to list CAIR as a “specially designated global terrorist.”

OPINION — GREG ABBOTT GETS IT: THE CONSTITUTION ISN’T A SHIELD TO PROTECT RADICAL ISLAMISTS

Roy’s bill is long overdue. In 1993, the FBI secretly recorded CAIR founders Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad at a Hamas strategy session in a Philadelphia hotel. Attendees discussed creating a media-savvy group to downplay “radicalism” accusations aimed at the pro-Hamas lobby. Months later, CAIR registered as a nonprofit organization.

As detailed in H.R. 8236, CAIR was subsequently listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial, a landmark terrorism financing case that sent senior CAIR official Ghassan Elashi to prison for 65 years for his part in funneling over $12 million to Hamas. Following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres in Israel, Hamas sought to negotiate Elashi’s release in exchange for the lives of American hostages held in Gaza. 

Elashi is one of at least seven CAIR officials who have been arrested, convicted, or deported for terrorism-related crimes.

Unlike previous legislation and executive actions, Roy’s bill offers the first real chance to shut down America’s most widely recognized Islamist organization. Recent government efforts to identify CAIR as a terrorist threat have fallen short. 

A House bill introduced in June 2025 urged the State Department to designate CAIR as an FTO. Besides the obvious problem with calling a nonprofit group “foreign” when it is located and registered in the United States, a State Department designation comes with criminal penalties stemming from violent acts of terrorism. 

Criminal sanctions are inappropriate for domestic charities such as CAIR, which mostly uses lawful methods in pursuit of its interests while manipulating democratic freedoms to advance undemocratic goals. Its operatives aren’t planting bombs and hijacking airplanes; they’re suing the Department of Homeland Security to do away with the terrorist watchlist, or lobbying Congress to boycott Israel. 

Meanwhile, experiments with state-level terrorist designations targeting CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, though well-meaning, are toothless and legally infirm. In fact, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) executive order sanctioning CAIR as an FTO was quickly blocked in federal court, prompting state legislators to create a new law establishing the statutory framework required for states to designate “domestic terrorist organizations.”

There’s just one problem: Florida lawmakers may have legislated themselves out of designating domestic groups like CAIR, since the new law applies only to entities involved in violent acts or cybercrimes. There are no provisions in place for organizations that fund, recruit, train, or advocate on behalf of violent terrorists. 

As a result, the best pathway for designating CAIR is through the U.S. Department of the Treasury as an SDGT — precisely as Roy’s bill directs. Passed in the weeks following 9/11, Executive Order 13224 provides the legal basis for designating terrorist support networks. The law was instrumental in shutting down Osama Bin Laden’s global terrorism financing empire, including several U.S.-based charities that funded al Qaeda and Hamas. 

In line with legal precedent, H.R. 8236 would allow the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to freeze CAIR’s assets, prohibit Americans from doing business with it, and take away its tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status. In other words, CAIR and its affiliated chapters, lobby organizations, and political action committees would cease to exist. 

CAIR’s attorneys might argue that the nonprofit organization has reformed itself since its earliest days as an alleged Hamas front. Indeed, terrorism sanctions are intended to change behavior, not punish past offenses, and as such require recent evidence of terrorist activities. 

OPINION: MARCH BROUGHT ISLAMIC TERRORISM. WHAT WILL APRIL BRING?

Last October, CAIR-Ohio executive director Khalid Turaani hosted an online panel featuring remarks from Majed al Zeer, a specially designated national and card-carrying member of Hamas. If Treasury officials can demonstrate that this act represents a continued pattern of material support for Hamas, then CAIR’s days are numbered. 

Of course, everything is easier if the Trump administration acts independently, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent exercises his authority to designate CAIR. Every Congress member who co-sponsors Roy’s bill sends a message to the White House that the legislative branch stands behind efforts to sanction and shut down Hamas’s unofficial lobby in the United States. 

Benjamin Baird is the director of MEF Action at the Middle East Forum. He consulted on this legislation and advocates its passage. 

In that time, Trump led the Republican ticket three times and each time he won the GOP more votes than in the previous election, both nationally and in blue states such as New Jersey.

But brow-beaten Republicans, crass political insiders, and corrupt consultants refuse to admit that Trump is right in his messaging and in his policies. The result: congressional candidates are performing far worse than the president and hindering his second-term successes.

THE ANALILIA MEJIA CAUTIONARY TALE: REPUBLICANS DESPERATELY NEED AN ANSWER TO SOCIALISM

The recent special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District is just the latest example. An avowed socialist, aspiring “Squad” member, and cultural marxist, Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-NJ) soundly defeated the Republican nominee even though he had all the right credentials for the upscale district.

Joe Hathaway is Yale-educated, a prominent mayor, and has a picture-perfect family. But he lost by a whopping 20 points to a radical, antisemitic zealot who would burn the Declaration of Independence if it meant a few more straw donations on her Act Blue page.

Why such a lopsided loss?

Hathway was portrayed by his own team as a dithering domestic better suited to changing his baby’s diapers than strengthening the resolve of the Republican caucus in Congress.

Unsurprisingly, MAGA Republicans weren’t excited. While the Trump administration has delivered massive wins on taxes, prescription drug prices, border security, and the MAHA policies that forged a winning coalition in 2024, base voters are still waiting for mass deportations, COVID-19 accountability, and prosecutions over the stolen 2020 election.

Hathaway was hampered by consultants whose sole priority seemed to be saving the neighboring seventh district for Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ) rather than running an aggressive race that would put Democrats on the defensive.

The last thing Kean’s consultants wanted was a candidate in the same media market courageously supporting the president when Kean didn’t want to. So they kept Hathaway on a short leash. They branded him as the “Chief Diaper Changer” in his own household and literally pushed out mail and TV ads depicting the candidate as a weak domestic unphased by the demographic suicide his opponent desires.

When the polls closed on election night, and Hathway was declared the loser, weak-on-Trump RINOs quickly blamed the president and compared Hathaway’s loss to Jack Ciattarelli’s gubernatorial campaign last year — but for the wrong reasons. 

The president wasn’t to blame for the outsized victories of Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) in 2025 or Mejia last week. Rather, it was the refusal of the Republican candidates to laud the administration, promote “America First” policies, and court Trump voters while their opponents embraced the No Kings movement, leaned into the affordability scam, and rallied the anti-Trump crowd day in and day out.

How can we be sure this analysis is true?

In 2024, Trump shared the New Jersey ballot with Senate candidate Curtis Bashaw. Bashaw ran away from Trump much as Ciattarelli and Hathaway did. No matter the venue, his first instinct was always to describe how he wasn’t similar to Trump, what he would do differently than Trump, and the ways in which Trump was supposedly bad for New Jersey. But while Trump lost the state by 5 points without spending a penny competing for it, Bashaw lost by 10.

The truth is, Trump supporters are the first critical cohort of voters any Republican needs to win.

In fact, CNN recently reported polling that shows 100% of self-described MAGA Republicans support the president and that the share of Republicans who regard themselves as MAGA is actually increasing, not shrinking.

ANALILIA MEJIA SWORN IN TO REPLACE MIKIE SHERRILL

Blame for the embarrassing loss last week in NJ-11 lies with the party bosses who prefer the status quo, political insiders obsessed with protecting the weak Republican congressmen New Jersey sends to Washington, and the consultants who fear the ramifications of authentic America First policies that Trump has used to build an unstoppable juggernaut.

Hopefully Hathaway will learn these lessons for his rematch this November.

Mike Crispi and Michael Byrne are Co-Chairmen of ‘America First Republicans of New Jersey,’ the largest grassroots political organization in the Garden State. 

He has not voted on the House floor since March 5 and missed nearly 50 roll-call votes, according to Politico. Kean’s staff said the New Jersey congressman has been facing health issues, though they did not specify what they were.  

“Congressman is addressing a personal health matter. He will be returning to a full regular schedule,” said Dan Scharfenberger, Kean’s chief of staff.

“I know the congressman and his family appreciate all of the well wishes and support,” said Kean consultant Harrison Neely. “Please know that he will be back on a regular full schedule very soon.”

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) have tried contacting him but to no avail, and it has caused them both to worry. Some have speculated he has suffered some health issues, but there remains no confirmation if that is the case. His whereabouts remain unknown, according to Kean’s colleagues.

“We’ve both reached out,” said Smith. “Don’t know.”

Van Drew said he’s worried about Kean.

“Complete radio silence,” said Van Drew when asked about trying to contact Kean. “Nobody’s covering up. We just haven’t heard a word.” 

“We talk about it,” Van Drew added, referring to conversations he has had with Smith about Kean. “We’re worried about him.”

While Smith and Van Drew have remained worried about him, other Republicans were not aware he was missing. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told Politico he didn’t realize Kean was absent.“I was looking for him,” Bacon said on Wednesday.

“I didn’t know it was that long.”

Even Kean’s colleagues from across the political aisle have expressed concern over his health and whereabouts.

“I’m worried,” said Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ), who is on the Energy and Commerce Committee with Kean. “They’re keeping this really tight-lipped. Members have reached out and haven’t heard back.”

Kean, the son of former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, is up for reelection this year, if he is healthy enough to campaign and run. He is expected to face tough competition in the general election in November, with many sources claiming he is particularly vulnerable to being voted out of office. He won his has election in November 2024 by 5.4 points, defeating Democrat Sue Altman. He focused on economic issues and affordability concerns during his campaign in 2024, two topics expected to be at the center of the 2026 election as well.

SENATE GOP KICKS OFF $70 BILLION PLAN TO END-RUN DEMOCRATS ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

“We must address inflation, and we must make life more affordable for the families by cutting wasteful government spending and securing American energy independence,” Kean said at a campaign celebration the night of the election after learning of his victory in 2024. “This will help drive down prices, it will create jobs, and it will strengthen our nation’s resilience.”

Then-gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill won Kean’s district in 2025 by nearly two points, according to Politico. Predictions by the Cook Political Report assessed Kean’s district as likely to be a “toss up” for the 2026 election, despite Kean being a two-term congressional representative.

Senate Democrats are powerless to stop Republicans from advancing roughly $70 billion in funding for immigration enforcement, part of a two-step plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. But the convoluted rules of budget reconciliation, the party-line process Republicans are using to bypass the filibuster, are giving Democrats a rare chance to hold an unlimited number of votes, and they are promising to gum up the floor for hours with amendments focused on the rising cost of healthcare, electricity, and more.

“We’re going to keep at it, and keep at it, and keep at it,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a press conference teeing up the vote-a-rama, which is expected to begin at 8 p.m. Wednesday and stretch late into the night.

To be germane and have a chance at passing, those amendments would need to be focused on the underlying substance of the bill, which directs the Senate to craft legislation funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its sister agency, Customs and Border Protection.

But Democrats, lacking the votes to derail the process, see the vote-a-rama as a messaging exercise ahead of the midterm elections and are content to get Republicans on the record, whether the amendments pass or not.

In an appeal to their base, the prolonged debate is designed to show Democrats are standing in the way of agencies that became a political lightning rod after officers fatally shot two protesters in Minneapolis. It also forces vulnerable GOP incumbents to decide whether to stick with their party, or lend their support to amendments that, considered apart from the funding debate, are politically popular.

In his press conference, Schumer named amendments to lower the cost of child care, groceries, and housing as some of the votes reporters can expect as Democrats try to turn lingering inflation against Republicans. The dynamic is the inverse of 2024, when Republicans were able to capitalize on voter anxiety over a pandemic-era spike in prices to recapture the Senate and White House.

The vote-a-rama is also unfolding against the backdrop of skyrocketing energy prices due to the war in Iran.

Trump urged Senate Republicans to “stick together and UNIFY to get this done” in a Wednesday post on Truth Social.

The flip side of that debate is what Republicans claim is Democrats’ disregard for law enforcement and a desire to return to the looser border policies of the Joe Biden era. For a time, Democrats were negotiating guardrails on ICE designed to prevent more officer-involved shootings, but those talks with the White House fell apart last month.

Now, Democrats are vowing to oppose GOP attempts to pass the funding.

“You remember the cry to ‘defund the police’? Well, it’s back,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said in a Wednesday floor speech. “Democrats want to defund law enforcement, defund border security, and effectively reopen America’s borders to the flood of illegal immigration and criminal activity we saw under the Biden administration.”

In a nod to the immigration debate, Schumer accused Republicans of wanting to “shell out billions of dollars to Donald Trump’s private army without any common-sense restraints or reforms.”

The border is not the only topic Republicans plan to highlight as part of the vote-a-rama. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is asking for a vote to defund Planned Parenthood beyond the one year provided in last year’s tax law.

Rank-and-file members have also weighed whether to make the SAVE America Act, Trump’s signature election bill, a part of the marathon session. The Senate had been debating the legislation, but the vote-a-rama has indefinitely sidelined that debate and stoked conservative frustration over its dim prospects of passing.

As of now, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), the SAVE America Act’s lead author, won’t force the issue, according to the Deseret News. Similarly, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), a fiscal hawk, plans to let the focus be on immigration enforcement. He is crafting language to offset the cost of the funding but told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that he will introduce it at a later step in the process.

Once the legislation, a blueprint that jump-starts the reconciliation process, advances later this week, Republicans will draft text for the bill and eventually hold a second vote-a-rama that actually approves the money for ICE and CBP.

SENATE GOP KICKS OFF $70 BILLION PLAN TO END-RUN DEMOCRATS ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

In a brief interview, Thune nodded to the GOP “appetite to make this a bigger conversation” but has repeatedly argued to his conference that the legislation, which Trump wants on his desk by June 1, needs to stay narrowly focused on immigration enforcement to ensure it passes both chambers of Congress.

“I mean, it’s an opportunity to offer amendments, and I try to keep this place as open as possible and have an open amendment process,” Thune said. “So, we’ll see what our colleagues come up with.”

President Donald Trump reacted to the April 21 Virginia redistricting referendum on Wednesday, calling it “rigged.” He claimed there was a “massive ‘mail-in ballot drop’” and that the language on the ballot was “purposefully unintelligible and deceptive.” I don’t know about any ballot drop, but he’s absolutely correct about the ballot language.

Virginia voters were literally asked whether they wanted to “restore fairness” on the ballot. That’s not at all what the ballot was about. The state voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump by a margin of about 5 points, 52% to 47%. It has congressional representation that reflects the population incredibly well, with six Democrats and five Republicans. What Virginia voters just elected to do was to allow Democrats to alter the maps to make it 10 Democrats in Congress to just one Republican. What, exactly, is fair about that?

JOHNSON WANTS DESANTIS TO GERRYMANDER FLORIDA AFTER VIRGINIA REFERENDUM

The way questions are framed in polls objectively impact the results. If such framing occurred in a scientific study, it would be thrown out and laughed to scorn. When you frame a referendum as “restoring fairness,” you’re impacting — if not outright predetermining — the results. Even if it were true that giving 47% of the state just 9% of congressional representation is fair, that framing taints the legitimacy of the results.

Even Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) recognizes that the referendum’s results do not produce a congressional delegation that reflects the Virginia voting populace. He told Fox News this week, “90% of Virginians are not Democrats. That’s true. … But we need a delegation that will stand up to Donald Trump’s tyranny.”

In order to stand up to Trump’s so-called “tyranny,” Virginia Democrats want to rule by the tyranny of the slight majority. Would the majority of Virginian voters really support this, even if they’re liberal? I have a hard time believing that. But with the referendum being framed in such an unfair and, as Trump put it, “deceptive” way, the winner was picked before the first ballot was cast. We would expect such electoral practices in places such as Russia or Venezuela, but never at home in the United States.

Trump suggested that the courts might “fix this travesty,” and indeed, there is a good shot of that happening. There are multiple lawsuits pending in regards to Virginia’s redistricting referendum, including on the ridiculous language of the ballot.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that states cannot attempt to influence congressional elections through ballot designs that favor or disfavor candidates. While April 21 wasn’t a congressional election, it does directly impact the outcomes of the 2026 midterm elections. As a result, courts may apply those same neutrality principles to the language of the referendum.

GOP TURNS TO FLORIDA AS NEXT REDISTRICTING BATTLEGROUND AFTER VIRGINIA MAP PASSES

Republicans currently hold a four-member majority in the House of Representatives. If the results of Virginia’s redistricting referendum are ratified, the Democrats will start the 2026 midterm elections at a +4 margin — erasing the GOP majority without having to spend a dime campaigning to flip those seats.

If Republicans lose the midterm elections, Trump will predictably say they were rigged, too. And if the margin of GOP defeat is four or fewer, he’ll have a point.

Republicans have long sought to amend the ESA, claiming the law has been weaponized by environmentalists and created bureaucratic and legal red tape for infrastructure and slowed economic growth, rather than encouraging species recovery.

The ESA Amendments Act, which was introduced by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR), was scheduled for a floor vote on Wednesday afternoon. However, just after 1 p.m., consideration of the bill was postponed.

House leadership did not give a reason for the delay in the vote. However, reporting from Politico indicated that some Florida Republicans had raised concerns about the text.

If passed, the legislation would make several significant changes to the 1973 law, focusing on species recovery and streamlining ESA-related permits. Republicans have claimed the existing law fails to live up to its intended purpose by keeping species on endangered or threatened lists indefinitely.

At the time the bill was introduced, Westerman cited that, since the ESA was enacted, roughly 1,700 species have been listed as threatened or endangered. Only 3% of that total have ever been classified as recovered or delisted.

“The Endangered Species Act has consistently failed to achieve its intended goals and has been warped by decades of radical environmental litigation into a weapon instead of a tool,” Westerman said at the time the bill was introduced.

Specifically, the legislation would order the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to submit a National Listing Work Plan that would set a five-year schedule and plan for listing endangered and threatened species, as well as the designation of critical habitats.

Within this plan, the bill would give the agencies more time to act on listing proposals and eliminate the requirement to act within 12 months.

The legislation would also limit what may be designated as a critical habitat for an endangered or threatened species and limit protections for threatened species. States would also be given more authority to regulate the recovery of a threatened species if federal agencies determine that state authorities have a proposed recovery plan to conserve the species.

Additionally, the bill would create voluntary conservation agreements for private landowners and loosen environmental review requirements for obtaining “take” permits, which allow for the accidental harming, harassing, or killing of threatened or endangered species or critical habitats.

It would also determine that the removal of a species from threatened or endangered listings is not subject to judicial review during the five-year monitoring period after a species is removed from either list.

The National Parks Conservation Association criticized this amendment, and several others, saying it “eliminates the checks and balances between the executive and judicial branches.”

The bill also proposes renaming the ESA to the Endangered Species Recovery Act.

Democrats and environmentalists, including movie star Leonardo DiCaprio, have lambasted attempts to amend the law, arguing that reforms to the ESA would strip protections to threatened species, lead to higher extinction rates, and prioritize industrial growth over wildlife conservation.

Even if the bill passes in the House, Republicans face a steep hill to climb to pass similar ESA reforms in the Senate, as any bill will need 60 votes to pass. To reach this threshold, at least seven Democrats will need to vote in favor.

However, in the last year, some Democrats have appeared more willing to discuss proposals put forward by Westerman in order to streamline the federal permitting process and make it easier to develop clean energy and infrastructure projects.

“I’m not going to throw my arms open, but if anyone can get me to the table, it’s Westerman,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), who sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told E&E News when the bill was first introduced.

But a recent move from the Trump administration to lift endangered species protections in the Gulf of America to bolster offshore oil and gas drilling may make Democrats in the Senate less willing to negotiate on the issue.

Wednesday’s canceled floor vote coincided with Earth Day, which some environmentalist and conservation groups said was not a coincidence, as the Trump administration has moved to roll back climate- and environment-related rules and regulations to promote its pro-fossil fuel energy agenda.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LIFTS ENDANGERED SPECIES PROTECTIONS IN GULF OF AMERICA TO BOOST DRILLING

Ahead of Wednesday, the Endangered Species Coalition said the bill’s passage would turn Earth Day into “Extinction Day.”

“If this bill becomes law, the consequences will be measured in lost protections, damaged ecosystems, and the irreversible extinction of species that can never be brought back,” said Jewel Tomasula, policy director of the Endangered Species Coalition.