Rep. Robert Garcia won the approval of a key panel Monday to become the next top House Democrat on the Oversight Committee, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The 47-year-old Californian is in just his second term in Congress. But he pitched himself as a consensus candidate who could bridge the divides between Democrats seeking confrontation with President Donald Trump and the sensibilities of party elders.

Garcia, who previously served as mayor of Long Beach, California, also touted his management experience to colleagues. He quickly rose through the ranks in Congress and served as a co-chair of Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign. He’s currently a member of Democratic Caucus leadership.

The unofficial maneuvering for the top Democrat on Oversight began in April, when Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly announced he would step aside from his post in wake of the return of his esophageal cancer. He died in May at the age of 75.

The race became a litmus test for the party over questions of age and seniority. Two senior members — Reps. Kweisi Mfume, 76, and Stephen Lynch, 70 — faced off against two insurgent young progressives — Garcia and Rep. Jasmine Crockett, 44.

Connolly had triumphed over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 35, in a race for the post late last year that was similarly seen as a proxy fight over tensions around seniority in the party. Ocasio-Cortez’s decision to pass on a second bid opened the field for the handful of candidates that spanned different corners of the caucus.

The full Democratic Caucus will vote Tuesday on the Oversight post. Members usually, but don’t always, follow the Steering panel’s recommendation.

“I’m very grateful to the Steering and Policy Committee,” Garcia said after the meeting. “There’s still an election tomorrow, and there’s still obviously an important case to be made in the morning, and that’s a case I’m planning on making, and so we’re going to run through the tape.”

Rep. Thomas Massie told reporters Monday evening he won’t advance a measure to block U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict if an apparent cease-fire announced by President Donald Trump holds.

“I talked to the speaker on the floor just now and told him we wouldn’t push it if the cease-fire holds, so it’s really in their court,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters, adding that he would “wait and see” before making a final call.

Speaker Mike Johnson separately told reporters the measure is “‘moot” in light of the cease-fire news and has no chance of passing regardless. He called on Massie “to do right by the country and do right by the Republican team here” in dropping the measure, adding that “he plays almost every day on the other team, and that’s a deep regret.”

Massie is the sole Republican sponsor of the bill, which has picked up substantial support from Democrats. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the lead Democrat on the bill, wrote on X that he and Massie were “not looking to score political points, but to reassert the role of Congress & prevent wars of choice with disastrous consequences.”

Massie was targeted by Trump on social media following Saturday night’s U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities for his criticism of U.S. involvement in the conflict, and the president has threatened to support a primary challenge. He’s largely shrugged off the threat.

“I’ve raised $120,000 in the last 24 hours,” Massie said. “And ultimately, the president hates to lose. And I think what he’ll do probably is that time draws near, he’ll do some polling and see that he’s going to lose and maybe not get in the race.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Monday shared with GOP colleagues results from a new poll that showed overwhelming support among Republicans for President Donald Trump’s strikes in Iran.

The poll is the first conducted of Trump voters since Saturday night’s efforts to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities.

Nine in 10 respondents support the airstrikes on the three facilities, according to the poll from GrayHouse, the polling and data analytics firm that has become a go-to for Senate Republicans. The survey included 450 people who voted for Trump last year.

The numbers are meant to undercut the idea that Trump’s hawkish pivot is dividing the Republican base, which has taken on an increasingly isolationist flavor since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a Senate GOP conference spokesperson. Cotton is chair of the Senate Republican Conference.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance have repeatedly criticized past leaders for bogging down the United States in foreign conflicts, and some on the right, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Tucker Carlson, voiced concern that the president was making a similar mistake.

But only 10 percent of respondents thought Saturday’s strikes were the same kind of military intervention that has led to long-term problems in the U.S. and only 13 percent thought strikes constituted a “war” with Iran.

The spokesperson said one goal of the poll is to show that the isolationist influencers “don’t remotely speak for Republican voters who back Trump’s effort as close to unanimously as you can be.”

Cotton, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), have emerged as two of Trump’s chief defenders, arguing that a nuclear-armed Iran posed an existential threat to America and its allies.

GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida are separately headed to the White House Monday afternoon to meet with President Donald Trump about the pending Republican megabill, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the private plans.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, another conservative Republican who has aired issues with the legislation, was also set to meet with Trump earlier Monday.

It’s a sign that GOP leaders are already working to keep their most vocal conservative critics behind the “big, beautiful bill” ahead of expected Senate votes later in the week.

Attorney General Pam Bondi came under bipartisan pressure Monday from lawmakers who argued that proposed funding cuts to the Justice Department, including the FBI, are unwise as the conflict between the U.S. and Iran intensifies.

During Bondi’s first congressional testimony since her confirmation hearings, House members said the threat of attacks in the U.S. had risen significantly in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites and Iran’s apparent retaliation with a missile attack Monday on a U.S. base in Qatar.

“When the DOJ submitted their budget, the United States was a nation at peace, and now we’re a nation at war,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) said. “I want us to, as much as we can, get ahead of it to give you the resources, the instruments that you need to go out and make sure that we’re preventing things from happening, not waiting until after the fact.”

Bondi was testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee on DOJ’s budget request proposing $33.6 billion for fiscal year 2026 — a $2.5 billion or roughly 7% decrease compared to the current year. About one-third of the total request would support programs directed at reducing violent crime. The difference in funding year over year would also represent a reduction of about 5,000 positions.

However, Gonzales noted that Trump’s budget reduces DOJ funding for national security, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, threat screening and efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction.

“Those are the programs that we need more resources [for], more manpower,” he said.

Bondi, who used part of her opening statement to urge Americans to “pray for our troops in Qatar,” was noncommittal about any budget changes related to the intensifying conflict between the U.S. and Iran.

Of course, you can always do more with more, but we’re doing more with less,” the attorney general said. “It’s a frightening time in which we live right now but President Trump is committed to keeping all Americans safe.”

Bondi also said the FBI is on guard against potential Iranian sleeper cells in the U.S., including Iranian citizens who entered the U.S. via the border with Mexico during the Biden administration.

“We are on high alert, and everyone is looking at that very closely,” she said, without elaborating.

Democratic Reps. Glenn Ivey of Maryland and Frank Mrvan of Indiana similarly urged Bondi to take another look at her department’s budget request in light of escalating tensions with Iran.

“Taking FBI agents off the street now … there isn’t a worse possible time you could do it,” Ivey said.

Mrvan said the U.S. needs to be bracing for potential Iranian attacks on banking systems and the electric grid. “That is a new threat,” he said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misspelled Tony Gonzales’ surname.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics in the Senate GOP, said in a podcast on Monday that there are certain situations in which she’d consider becoming an independent and caucusing with Democrats.

“There may be that possibility,” she told Galen Druke in an interview excerpt of his GD Politics podcast, scheduled to post in full on Tuesday.

Druke asked Murkowski how she’d respond if Democrats won three seats in the 2026 midterm election, “and they say, we’re gonna let you pass bills that benefit Alaskans if you caucus with us.”

“You’ve started off with the right hook here, is ‘if this would help Alaskans,’” she told Druke.

Murkowski has clashed with Trump several times since he returned to the White House, including accusing him of “walking away from our allies” after the president’s February fight with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. And in May, she criticized the administration for revoking the temporary protected status of Afghan immigrants, calling the move “a historic betrayal.”

In March, Murkowski told reporters her Republican colleagues were “afraid” of going against Trump and then-ally Elon Musk, and said the pair’s work reducing the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency was “traumatizing people.”

“There is some openness to exploring something different than the status quo,” she told Druke.

But switching parties likely isn’t the answer, she said in the podcast.

“My problem with your hypothetical is that as challenged as I think we may be on the Republican side, I don’t see the Democrats being much better,” Murkowski said. “And they’ve got not only their share of problems, but quite honestly, they’ve got some policies that I just inherently disagree with.”

Murkowski’s office was unable to provide a comment for this post before publication.

Several House Democrats are posting replicas of a commemorative plaque for police officers who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — needling Speaker Mike Johnson for the prolonged delay in installing the official plaque that was commissioned by Congress more than three years ago.

The plaque honoring U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement officers was mandated in a 2022 spending bill. It was created, then put in storage after Republicans took the majority later that year. Democrats have since urged House GOP leadership to follow the original law, which ordered it to be mounted inside the Capitol within a year of enactment.

Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) led the effort to create the replicas and asked Democratic colleagues earlier this month if they wanted one to put outside their office, according to a Dear Colleague letter obtained by POLITICO. They started appearing in Capitol office buildings — and House Democrats’ social-media feeds — on Monday.

“If you’re frustrated, like we are, with this embarrassing violation of law and spectacular disregard for the valor, honor and sacrifice of our police officers who responded on that day, please join us by displaying a poster replica of the plaque outside of your office,” the Democrats wrote in the letter. The same day, two Capitol Police officers who protected the Capitol on Jan. 6 filed a lawsuit seeking for a court order to hang the plaque.

Democrats are also pushing for the plaque’s installation as part of the fiscal 2026 spending process. The House Appropriations Committee is debating the bill funding the legislative branch this week, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the panel’s top Democrat, bashed Republicans for “failing to call for the immediate installation of the completed January 6 plaque honoring law enforcement” in their draft legislation.

A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson did not respond to request for comment on the replicas.

“President Trump incited a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol—and yet the plaque honoring the officers who defended us sits forgotten in the basement,” Morelle said in a post on X. “If Speaker Johnson won’t display it, then I will.”

Nicholas Wu, Meredith Lee Hill and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

CMS chief Dr. Mehmet Oz just indicated to a group of GOP chiefs of staff that they should stick with language closer to the House megabill’s Medicaid language, especially on the politically explosive provider tax, according to two people granted anonymity to speak about a private meeting.

It’s a warning that the Senate should avoid deeper cuts, which House GOP leaders have privately said won’t pass the House. People in the room also took that to mean the Senate should not pursue any politically explosive changes to the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP).