President Donald Trump’s call for House Republicans to support releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents was a stunning capitulation after a months-long campaign to block the vote.

It was also a specific defeat for Trump at the hands of a despised GOP opponent: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

“He got tired of me winning,” Massie said of Trump’s U-turn in an interview Monday morning.

Insisting “I DON’T CARE!” in a late-night Truth Social post, Trump was bowing to the inevitable — a broad House Republican mutiny on a vote that was only scheduled because Massie forced it. It was the result of Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) launching a discharge petition aimed at sidestepping senior GOP leaders who desperately wanted to avoid bringing the issue to the House floor.

The campaign to avoid the vote got remarkably ugly in the days before Trump finally conceded, with the president personally attacking Massie for recently remarrying after the sudden death last summer of his wife of more than 30 years. Just hours before Trump’s reversal, one of his top political advisers called him “garbage” in an X post.

That adviser, Chris LaCivita, is carrying out a Trump-ordered effort to unseat Massie from the rural northern Kentucky seat he has held since 2012. Trump recently endorsed a challenger, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, in the GOP primary.

Massie has not flinched from the threats. Politically, he has seen the best fundraising of his congressional career, entering October with more than $2 million in his campaign coffers. As for the personal attacks, Massie said Monday he and his wife were laughing them off.

“She said, ‘I told you we should have invited him to the wedding!’” Massie said.

Massie’s efforts around Epstein have been no laughing matter for the White House, with top aides and legislative affairs staff furiously scrambling late last week to head off the completion of the discharge petition.

That included pulling Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) into the White House Situation Room in the final hours to try to persuade her to remove her name from the petition she had signed alongside GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a survivor of sexual assault. All three have cast their support for the petition as an effort to protect women.

The effort failed. The three female House Republicans held firm, and the petition notched its final and 218th signature Wednesday moments after Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was sworn in following her September special election win.Despite a final barrage of attacks from the president over the weekend — which included Trump calling his once-close ally Greene a “traitor” and threatening a GOP primary against her — backers of the Massie-Khanna discharge effort knew they had the president beat.

There were emerging signs that it was Massie, not Trump, who had his fingers closer to the pulse of the MAGA base.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), a top Trump ally in the House, posted online he would be “voting NO on the Epstein Hoax” as he sought to rally Republicans to “stand by” the president’s side. Nehls received an immediate barrage of online pushback, suggesting a position against full transparency on Epstein would not be sustainable.

Massie, in conjunction with the three GOP women who signed the discharge petition, have sought to put Epstein’s victims front and center amid the battle. They invited several to Capitol Hill in September to keep the fight in the public eye as members returned from the summer recess. They are tentatively scheduled to appear together again Tuesday ahead of the final House vote.

“This shouldn’t have been a battle, and unfortunately, it has been one,” Greene said as she left a meeting with Epstein victims in September.

Yet for months, senior White House officials labored to convince rank-and-file Republicans to keep their names off Massie’s discharge effort. That, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, included warnings that any effort to support an Epstein vote would be viewed as a direct and personal move against the president.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations, and no evidence has suggested that Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation. The president also has maintained that he and Epstein had a falling out years ago.

“President Trump has been consistently calling for transparency related to the Epstein files,” said Abigail Jackson, a deputy White House press secretary, in a statement. “The Democrats knew about Epstein and his victims for years and did nothing to help them until they thought they could weaponize the files against the President.”

In an effort to undercut Massie’s effort, GOP leaders and the Justice Department worked to release 30,000 pages of DOJ documents in early September, right after Massie could begin gathering signatures on his petition. But lawmakers quickly realized most of the materials had been previously released.

Around that time, the White House’s key legislative affairs liaison to the House, Jeff Freeland, was on the Hill, seeking to head off Massie right after lawmakers returned from recess.

“Jeff introduced himself to me outside of the Capitol, and he said I was moving too fast for him,” Massie said in the interview. “I told him I made a mistake by getting 12 sponsors [on the Epstein bill], because I had given him his whip list to block the most likely signers” of the discharge petition.

Over the past week, it became clear to House GOP leaders that they would no longer be able to keep the Epstein measure off the House floor. Shortly after Grijalva signed, Speaker Mike Johnson announced he would expedite the vote, holding it this week rather than next month as required under the discharge petition. Still, with Trump opposing the effort, he maintained Massie’s legislation was reckless and “moot” now that the House Oversight Committee was heading up its own probe.

Last week, Johnson tried calling one of the three GOP women who had signed on to Massie’s discharge petition. The member looked down at her phone and let the call go to voicemail, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter who declined to identify the specific lawmaker.

Trump’s Sunday night edict was directed only at House Republicans, according to Trump officials. The president could order the release of the entire Epstein document trove at any time, vote or no vote. So far, he’s declined to do so.

Senate GOP leaders have not committed to holding a vote on the Epstein bill if the House passes it as expected this week. While Republicans still widely assume the measure will die in the other chamber, it will be hard to argue to GOP senators that they should take the political heat while their House counterparts get to take a consequence-free vote.

Massie has been working with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who authored a Senate version of the bill, to bring the matter to a head across the Rotunda. Senate Democrats are already exploring options to force a vote in the coming weeks.

Massie said last week that the Epstein drama reflects how Republicans are starting to take stock of a post-Trump political world.

“They need to look past 2028 and wonder if they want this on their record for the rest of their political career,” he said.

“Right now, it’s OK to cover up for pedophiles, because the president will take up for you if you’re in the red districts — that’s the deal,” Massie told reporters last week. “But that deal only works as long as he’s popular or president. … If they’re thinking about the right thing to do, that’s pretty obvious: You vote for it.”

President Donald Trump is suddenly reversing his monthslong campaign to bottle up a bipartisan effort to disclose federal records dealing with Jeffrey Epstein — just as scores of House Republicans prepare to defy his demands concerning the late convicted sex offender.

“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax,” he wrote Sunday night on Truth Social, adding, “I DON’T CARE! All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT” discussing economic issues.

The U-turn came after months of drama inside the House GOP over a bill that would compel the Justice Department to release its entire Epstein file. An effort by Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson to prevent a floor vote on the measureimploded last week amid an intense White House push to try to keep Republicans in line. The vote is now expected Tuesday.

At the end of last week, Johnson and senior House leaders appeared powerless to stopperhaps as many as 100 Republicans from breaking ranks and voting with Democrats to release the files. The situation worsened over the weekend, as Trump lashed out in deeply personal terms at Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who is leading the effort to force a House vote on Epstein, and publicly spurned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a one-time close ally who has recently broken with Trump on Epstein and other matters.

Even before that, some members closest to House GOP leadership were mulling whether to support Massie’s effort.

Those include lawmakers like Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who as Rules Committee chair is among the most trusted members of Johnson’s inner circle. She declined to say in an interview last week whether she would support Massie’s measure. But she suggested she favored it coming to a vote, which GOP leaders expect to happen Tuesday.

“I’m a big full disclosure person,” Foxx said. “I have nothing to hide, and I assume nobody else does, either.”

Rep. Blake Moore of Utah, the Republican conference vice chair, said in an interview last week he normally doesn’t discuss how he will vote. Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, the House GOP policy chair, acknowledged “a lot of consternation” inside the party about what to do.

Asked about his own vote, Hern said, “We’ll make that decision at game time.”

The internal GOP strife underscores how politically toxic Trump’s association with Epstein has become, especially after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released an email Wednesday in which Epstein suggested thatTrump “knew about the girls.”

Evidence has not linked Trump to wrongdoing in the Epstein case, and the president has maintained that he and the disgraced financier had a falling out years ago.

Trump appeared trained on keeping the defections to a minimum as recently as Friday, when he sent multiple Truth Social posts where he accused Democrats of pushing an “Epstein Hoax … in order to deflect from all of their bad policies and losses” and ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi toinvestigate Democrats’ connections to Epstein. The posts, according to three Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, were part of an effort to limit mass GOP defections on this week’s vote.

“Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish,” he wrote, telling them, “don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”

Trump normally enjoys an iron grip over the House, where Republicans are rarely anything but subservient to the president. He’s seen hints of pushback recently onkey nominees and his demand toeliminate the Senate filibuster.

But he’s lost all control over the chamber when it comes to the Epstein matter, and Hill Republicans have grown increasingly wary of Trump’s fixation on the issue, according to five other people granted anonymity to describe internal GOP conversations.

One senior Republican marveled at Trump’s “erratic” and unsettling effort last week to kill the bipartisan end-around led by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). That included pulling Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) into the White House Situation Room to try to remove her name from the discharge petition she had signed alongside GOP Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

The effort failed, and Trump administration officials privately warned that Mace’s defiance is likely to cost her an endorsement in the South Carolina governor’s race. One of her Republican opponents in that campaign, Rep. Ralph Norman, suggested he may not vote for the bill in an interview last week: “Oh, I don’t know. We’ll see.”

A major source of Trump’s obsession over the House vote is Massie, who has opposed a raft of major GOP legislation, including spending bills and the megabill that passed this summer. Trump is nowintent on ousting Massie in next year’s primary, but the Kentucky Republican has now managed to outmaneuver the president despite Trump and Johnson trying to hold him off for months.

Massie said in an interview that the Epstein vote will reflect how Republicans are starting to take stock of a post-Trump world.

“They need to look past 2028 and wonder if they want this on their record for the rest of their political career,” he said.

“Right now, it’s okay to cover up for pedophiles because the president will take up for you if you’re in the red districts — that’s the deal,” Massie later told reporters. “But that deal only works as long as he’s popular or president. … If they’re thinking about the right thing to do, that’s pretty obvious: You vote for it.”

That is reflected in the broad swath of House Republicans who said last week they were ready to back Massie, ranging from conservative hard-liners to moderate dealmakers to endangered swing-seat targets, including Rep. Tom Barrett of Michigan and Reps. Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania.

“If it’s on the floor, I’ll be voting for it,” Mackenzie said.

On the right flank, Reps. Eli Crane of Arizona, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Eric Burlison of Missouri and Tim Burchett of Tennessee said they planned to support the measure. (Burchett sought to pass it on a voice vote last week, but Democrats insisted on a recorded vote.)

More centrist-leaning Reps. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, Kevin Kiley of California and Don Bacon of Nebraska said they would vote for the bill. Bacon, who is retiring, suggested the last-minute pressure campaign from the White House was ill-advised.

“The train has already left the station, so we should move on,” he said.

Johnson, arguing Republicans have been “for maximum transparency of the Epstein files from the very beginning,” made clear last week he would not vote for the bill himself. He has argued thatthe bill would not do enough to protect Epstein’s victims, a claim Massie and Khanna reject.

He and Trump still had good reason to try and avoid a total GOP jailbreak: A big vote could increase pressure on the Senate to take up the bill and send it to the president’s desk, forcing an embarrassing veto that would prolong the controversy.

Senate GOP leaders have not committed to holding a vote, and Republicans widely expect the measure to die in the chamber. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who authored a Senate version of the bill, is coordinating with Massie, and Democrats have some options to force the issue, including seeking to force a vote by unanimous consent or to amend unrelated legislation.

Some key GOP blocs remained split on the matter, including the hard-line House Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study Committee, composed of 189 conservatives. But the legislation is likely to get universal Democratic support in addition to considerable GOP backing, Khanna said before Trump reversed course.

“While there might be pressure from the White House, there is even more pressure from the public,” he said. “People are sick of our system protecting the Epstein class.”

Nicholas Wu and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.

Rep. Ro Khanna is buckling down on criticisms of Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, throwing his support behind bolder Democrats as he calls for a change in Democratic leadership.

The California Democrat told host Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that though Schumer was “terrific” under former President Joe Biden, the New York lawmaker no longer inspires confidence in Democratic voters.

“The question is what is the future of Democratic leadership. Who is going to be effective? And most Democrats around the country just don’t think that person is Chuck Schumer,” Khanna said.

“I mean, he doesn’t inspire confidence. He’s not bold. He’s out of touch with the grassroots. He’s someone who cheer-led us into the war in Iraq. He doesn’t have the moral clarity on Gaza. He couldn’t say [Zohran] Mamdani’s name. And this was the final straw, where he was not strong on fighting for health care.”

Following the Senate’s vote to advance a variation on the House-passed stopgap last week — which passed only with the help of seven Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the party — Khanna accused Schumer of being ineffective and called for his removal.

On Sunday, Khanna praised some leading Senate Democrats, calling Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.) a “top leader” and Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.) and Brian Schatz (Hawaii) “dynamic” as well as saying he “appreciates” the ideology of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.).

Some Democrats have rushed to Schumer’s defense.

In a separate interview with Welker on Sunday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — who voted for the resolution — said Schumer has been an “effective leader.”

Kaine also revealed he told Schumer ahead of the vote that he didn’t need a “permission slip” from the minority leader.

“Being the minority leader is tough,” said Kaine. “We don’t control what’s on the floor. And you know if you’re dealing with senators … it’s not exactly like senators just get in line and follow the leader.”

“I don’t tell Ro Khanna or AOC or anybody else who you should pick as your House leader because I got a full-time job being a senator,” Kaine added. “I don’t need to freelance opinions about House leadership. They should focus on their own leadership and let senators do what we need to do to keep this country moving forward.”

President Donald Trump escalated his feud with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Saturday, as Democrats delighted over the latest relationship to turn sour in MAGA world.

“Lightweight Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Brown (Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!), betrayed the entire Republican Party when she turned Left, performed poorly on the pathetic View, and became the RINO that we all know she always was,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday.

Trump said he severed ties with Greene on Friday, withdrawing his endorsement of the GOP firebrand and longtime ally in a series of social media posts and reposts in which he accused her of pulling away only after he convinced her not to run for Georgia’s Senate seat.

Greene — who the president also described as “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green,” Saturday morning — has repeatedly bucked the party line in recent months. She’s lambasted the administration’s handling of the investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, criticized Trump’s focus on foreign affairs over domestic policy, lashed out at his tariffs and in July accused Israel of committing a “genocide” amid its war against Hamas in Gaza.

Democrats have cheered on the breakup between the two onetime allies, looking to further drive a wedge between the president and his base. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) — who has had several public brawls with Greene — said on Friday that this is a moment where Greene should “phone a friend,” adding that “I’m here for you girl… I told you not to trust him… all he cares about is HIMself.”

“The GWORLS are fighting!” she added.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) posted a meme in response to one of Greene’s posts, with her face superimposed on the body of X-Men superhero Wolverine, gazing mournfully at a picture of her and Trump sharing a close embrace.
Greene was at one time one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, with the president regularly praising her and promoting her political career. But this weekend’s blowup was preceded by months of simmering tension between the two, with the biggest divergence coming over Epstein.

Greene was one of just four Republicans to sign onto a discharge petition to force a House vote on the full release of the files related to the late financier, who died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019.

And she’s called on the White House to be more transparent.

Trump has instead accused Democrats of drumming up drama over the files and fabricating a connection between him and Epstein. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing associated with Epstein, his onetime friend, and long said that the pair had a falling out many years before Epstein’s death.

“The Democrats are doing everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again, despite the DOJ releasing 50,000 pages of documents, in order to deflect from all of their bad policies and losses, especially the SHUTDOWN EMBARRASSMENT, where their party is in total disarray, and has no idea what to do,” he wrote on Friday. “Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish.”

Greene was unrepentant in a post on X on Saturday, and said the president’s tirade wouldn’t stop her from advocating for Epstein’s victims.

“I never thought that fighting to release the Epstein files, defending women who were victims of rape, and fighting to expose the web of rich powerful elites would have caused this, but here we are,” she wrote.

In a separate post, she said she forgave Trump, and “will pray for him to return to his original MAGA promises.”

Greene has long been a foil for Democrats, who have regularly lambasted her since her election in 2020 as a pro-Trump MAGA loyalist. But over the last several months they’ve repeatedly sought to elevate her criticism of the president. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday night that Greene is “crushing” Trump, adding a go-to line from the president, “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) reposted Greene’s text exchange Saturday morning, writing on X, “If Trump is working so hard to keep the Epstein files from coming out, how bad are they?”

Trump reposted five posts referencing Greene’s break on Friday evening, including one that said Greene “chose” her side when she “joined Democrats,” adding that she “wants to better your political future in 2028 instead of helping President Trump fix this country which is why we voted for him again. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

House Republican leaders are planning to hold a vote Tuesday on legislation to force the release of federal files related to Jeffrey Epstein, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal plans ahead of a public announcement.

The tentative scheduling decision follows a successful effort by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force a floor vote on their bipartisan bill to compel the Justice Department to release all of its records related to the late convicted sex offender.

President Donald Trump has made repeated attempts to kill the effort, which continued in a series of Truth Social posts Friday. But Johnson said Wednesday he intends to move quickly to hold the vote and put the matter to bed.

Under the current GOP plan, the House Rules Committee would approve a procedural measure Monday night to advance eight bills for floor consideration, including language to tee up the Epstein legislation. If that measure is approved on the floor, likely early Tuesday afternoon, debate and a final vote on the Epstein bill could immediately follow. GOP leaders are considering whether to postpone the Epstein vote until Tuesday evening.

Scores of Republicans are expected to break ranks and support the bill, which would then have to be approved by the Senate and signed by Trump to take effect. Neither is likely, but the process could drag out for weeks, extending the controversy over Trump’s ties to Epstein.

Epstein said in a 2019 email released by the House Oversight Committee this week that Trump “knew about the girls” he was trafficking, but Trump has denied wrongdoing and there is no evidence has suggested that Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation.

The four Republicans who signed on to the discharge petition forcing the vote — Massie, plus Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — are likely to examine Johnson’s moves very closely. They could together block any procedural measure that would undercut the Epstein legislation, postpone it or otherwise alter it.

That would freeze the House floor just as GOP leaders are trying to bring the House back for an aggressive work schedule following a seven-week recess ordered by Johnson amid the record government shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune thought he was giving Republicans a gift when he secured a provision in the shutdown-ending government funding package that could award hundreds of thousands of dollars to senators subpoenaed as part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump.

It turns out, several of them don’t want it.

Of the eight known Senate Republicans whose phone records were subpoenaed as part of Smith’s probe into Trump’s 2020 election interference, only one so far — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — has announced definitive plans to take advantage of the new legislative language that would allow senators to sue the federal government for $500,000 or more if they discover their electronic records were seized without notification.

“Oh definitely,” Graham said at a news conference after the passage of the government funding bill. “And if you think I’m going to settle this thing for a million dollars — no. I want to make it so painful, no one ever does this again … I’m going to pursue through the court system — remedies.”

The others, however, were less enthusiastic or more opaque about their intentions. In public comments, social media posts or statements to POLITICO over the past few days, the seven remaining Senate Republicans declined to publicly commit to seeking compensation for being singled out by Smith — as the Democrats pummel the GOP for endorsing a taxpayer-funded windfall and fellow Republicans in both chambers decry the provision as poorly conceived.

“I think the Senate provision is a bad idea,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in a statement. “There needs to be accountability for the Biden DOJ’s outrageous abuse of the separation of powers, but the right way to do that is through public hearings, tough oversight, including of the complicit telecomm companies, and prosecution where warranted.”

It could all soon be moot. Republicans in the House were enraged over the provision’s inclusion, and Speaker Mike Johnson responded by promising to hold a vote for a bill that would repeal the legislative language. The effort is expected to pass overwhelmingly with bipartisan support.

Johnson told reporters Wednesday that he had spoken with Thune about the issue earlier in the day, and that he communicated his disapproval of his Senate counterpart’s maneuvering.

It’s not clear what Thune plans to do with the bill, assuming it passes the House. A person familiar with the provision’s introduction into the funding bill, who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, said that Senate Republicans requested that Thune include the language in the legislation.

The person cited a “strong appetite” among the GOP to pursue accountability for the so-called Arctic Frost investigation, a Biden-era probe that Republicans say constituted a weaponization of the Justice Department.

But as it turns out, the provision in the funding bill related to Smith’s probe is already creating political liability for Senate Republicans. Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.), who is running for governor of his state next year, quickly introduced legislation in the House that would reverse the provision. His challenger for the Republican nomination, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, later said she would vote for a bill to undo the language — but expressed a desire to take some legal recourse as a Smith target.

“Senator Blackburn’s plan has always been to seek a declaratory judgment — not monetary damages — to prevent leftists from violating the constitutional rights of conservatives,” a spokesperson for Blackburn said in a statement.

Even Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who is co-leading the investigation into Smith’s probe with Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), said that while he stood by the provision he wouldn’t act on the cash opportunity.

“I have no plans at this time,” he said in a statement. “If I did sue, it would only be for the purpose of using the courts to expose the corrupt weaponization of federal law enforcement by the Biden and Obama administrations. With the full cooperation in our congressional investigations from the Trump DOJ and FBI, that shouldn’t be necessary.”

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said he would not seek damages nor did he want taxpayer money.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) tried to distance himself from the provision’s origin story, with a spokesperson saying he only learned about the payout language while reading the bill. He would support a House measure to repeal it, the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Sen. Cynthia Lummis also emphasized that the Wyoming Republican did not play a role in the provision’s formulation — but added that the lawmaker supported the language.

“We must not allow the politicization of federal agencies to become routine,” the spokesperson said. “Liquidated damages provisions are commonly used and this provision is the only way to hold Jack Smith and wrongdoers accountable.”

A spokesperson for Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), another gubernatorial aspirant, pointed to the lawmaker’s statement on social media, noting that he would “sue the living hell out of every Biden official involved” if Smith was not jailed and Judge James Boasberg — who approved the effort to prevent senators from being notified of the subpoena — was not impeached.

The spokesperson wasn’t clear on whether Tuberville intends to sue the federal government under the provision in the funding bill.

Graham, during his press conference this week, said he believed the language would benefit everyone.

“This wasn’t about investigating me or other Senators for a crime — it was a fishing expedition,” Graham said. “I’m going to push back really hard … that will protect the Senate in the future.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman was hospitalized Thursday morning after falling and hitting his face, sustaining “minor injuries,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

In a post to the Democrat’s account on X, a spokesperson said Fetterman fell to the ground after feeling lightheaded on an early morning walk near his home in Braddock, Pennsylvania. He was transported to a hospital in Pittsburgh “out of an abundance of caution,” where doctors determined the dizzy spell was caused by a “ventricular fibrillation flare-up,” a heartbeat irregularity.

“Senator Fetterman had this to say: ‘If you thought my face looked bad before, wait until you see it now!’” the spokesperson relayed in the post.

Fetterman — who returned to his Pennsylvania home after the Senate’s vote to reopen the government on Monday — chose to stay at the hospital so doctors could “fine-tune his medication regimen,” though his team said he’s “doing well” and receiving routine observation. The post did not specify how long the senator is expected to remain at the hospital.

The incident is the latest in a series of health challenges the Pennsylvania senator has faced since his campaign for the seat. He was hospitalized due to a stroke in 2022 just days before winning the state’s Democratic Senate primary. He also spent several nights in the hospital in 2023 for a similar lightheadedness spell, but testing showed no signs of stroke or seizure, his office said at the time.

The senator checked himself into a hospital days later to receive inpatient care for clinical depression — something he’s lived with throughout his life and has since been vocal about in public appearances.

“It’s a risk that I wanted to take because I wanted to help people and know that I don’t want them to suffer the way — or put any kinds of despair that I’ve been in. And if that conversation helps, then that’s — I’m going to continue to do that,” Fetterman told NBC’s Kristen Welker in 2023.

A federal judge on Thursday declined to toss federal assault charges against New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver.

The first-term Democrat was charged with assaulting law enforcement officers following a chaotic scrum outside an immigration detention facility in May.

McIver argued that the prosecution — led by Alina Habba, a former personal attorney to President Donald Trump whom he picked to be the state’s top federal prosecutor — was unfair and that she was shielded from the charges by the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which grants members of Congress a form of immunity that is mostly impenetrable in investigations relating to the official duties of lawmakers.

U.S. District Judge Jamel Semper, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, disagreed and refused to toss two of the three counts, while reserving judgment on a third until he sees more evidence.

“Defendant’s active participation in the alleged conduct removes her acts from the safe harbor of mere oversight,” he said. “Lawfully or unlawfully, Defendant actively engaged in conduct unrelated to her oversight responsibilities and congressional duties.”

McIver is accused in a three-count indictment of slamming a federal agent with her forearm, “forcibly” grabbing him and using her forearms to strike another agent. Allegations of physical violence by a sitting member of Congress are rare.

The alleged assaults occurred during a 68-second span in the midst of a three-hour oversight visit to the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, New Jersey, when McIver and fellow Democratic Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez were part of a chaotic scene as immigration agents moved to arrest city Mayor Ras Baraka on a trespassing charge that was later dropped.

Semper seemed to draw a line between alleged contact inside a gated area at Delaney Hall, which the congressional Democrats were allowed to inspect, and actions outside, which is where agents moved to arrest Baraka and where prosecutors allege that McIver committed two crimes: assaulting an agent and impeding that arrest.

The count Semper did not fully rule on involves alleged contact between McIver and an agent inside the gated area after the scrum outside the gate.

The ruling — which is likely to be appealed — is a victory for Habba’s office. While she calls herself the “acting U.S. Attorney,” another judge in August ruled she was unlawfully serving in that role. An appeals court is now considering that ruling.

Semper also rejected a more long-shot attempt by McIver’s attorneys to dismiss the whole case based on selective prosecution. McIver’s team argued for that based on Trump pardoning hundreds of people who attacked police at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the Justice Department dropping numerous additional assault cases at Trump’s direction, despite video evidence of the attacks.

“Irrespective of the pardon, the January 6 defendants are not similarly situated to Defendant because the facts and circumstances surrounding their criminal cases are unambiguously distinct,” Semper wrote.

While McIver quoted Trump and Habba’s rhetoric to claim vindictive prosecution — including Habba’s wish to “turn New Jersey red” — Semper ruled that McIver failed to demonstrate the case against her is “the result of personal animus harbored by the prosecution.”

Spokespeople for McIver and Habba did not immediately comment on the ruling.

The longest shutdown in U.S. history is ending. Yet Congress’ most onerous government funding work remains unfinished — setting up a potential repeat early next year.

The bipartisan deal to end the funding lapse includes a long-term agreement on just three of the dozen bills lawmakers need to finish each year to keep cash flowing to federal programs. And those three measures are some of the easiest to rally around — including money for veterans programs, food aid, assistance for farmers and the operations of Congress itself.

Together, they represent only about 10 percent of the roughly $1.8 trillion Congress doles out each year to federal agencies. Under the deal, everything else is funded on a temporary basis through Jan. 30 at levels first set by Congress in March 2024, when Joe Biden was president.

That leaves behind major open decisions about the vast majority of discretionary dollars — including for the military and public health programs — along with the stickiest policy issues. It doesn’t help that House and Senate leaders still haven’t agreed on an overall total for fiscal 2026 spending, amid GOP divisions over how deeply to cut.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise acknowledged this month that the hardest part of the funding negotiations is ahead after President Donald Trump signs the current deal to end the shutdown.

“We’ve got to just find a resolution to get the lights back on,” Scalise said. “But the real negotiation is going to be: Can we get an agreement on how to properly fund the government with individual appropriations bills, packages of appropriations bills?”

If lawmakers don’t figure it all out by the new January deadline, Congress risks another partial shutdown or running most of the federal government on what are essentially two-year-old budgets. Some Democrats are already hinting they are willing to shut down the government again without a deal on Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that expire at the end of this year.

Compounding the challenge are fears that partisan strife during the six-week shutdown will only complicate the already-grueling task of striking a cross-party compromise.

“If we’re going to function again, we’ve got to be able to trust each other,” senior appropriator Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) told reporters this week, after helping broker the deal to end the shutdown.

The three-bill deal appears to have done little to repair the breach. One of Congress’ top four appropriators, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), objected to how final negotiations played out over the weekend to close out the funding package.

“The entire House was marginalized in this process,” she said Tuesday night during a Rules Committee meeting.

DeLauro accused Senate Republicans of “abruptly” stopping talks in the middle of negotiations, making the bills public before she signed off and secretly adding controversial language without consulting House lawmakers.

In the Senate, leaders have committed to quickly advancing more funding measures. Majority Leader John Thune said senators would be “off to the races” on a second package of spending measures when the chamber gavels back in on Tuesday.

Up to five bills are under consideration for inclusion in that package, covering funding for the military and the departments of Education, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Justice, Transportation, Interior and Housing and Urban Development.

Getting that done will be hard enough. All 100 senators would have to consent to quickly assemble the bills on the floor, likely followed by weeks of debate before a vote on passage. Then top Senate appropriators would need to strike a compromise with their House counterparts.

But the remaining spending bills will be even tougher. Four are so divisive that Senate appropriators didn’t even approve them in committee this summer. Lawmakers in both parties agree it is likely that agencies covered under that slate — among them the departments of Energy, Homeland Security, State and Treasury, including the IRS — will eventually be funded through a stopgap that spans through next September.

Democrats warn that any partisan demands from Trump or hard-liners in the House could deadlock the effort to reach agreements on the nine bills left.

“If they want to add poison pills, obviously the whole thing will fall apart,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a senior appropriator, said in a brief interview.

But Democrats are also motivated to strike bipartisan deals in light of Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought’s moves this year to shift, freeze and cancel billions of dollars Congress already approved.

Senators have been careful to be more explicit in the new trio of funding bills about how the Trump administration must spend the money.

“Obviously, those are not the bills I would have written,” the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, Washington Sen. Patty Murray, said in a floor speech this week. But those bills, she added, are “immeasurably better than Trump and Vought holding the pen.”

“We have a lot of work ahead, and I know we can get there — passing full-year funding bills to ensure Congress, not Trump or Russ Vought, decides how taxpayer dollars are spent,” she continued.

A couple of the remaining bills, however, are subject to much more profound disputes. An intraparty disagreement over funding levels between Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), for instance, has left the energy bill in limbo.

“I know that is a new experience for everybody on the committee,” Kennedy said this week. “But I’m not backing down.”

And then there’s the DHS measure, which hasn’t been unveiled, let alone advanced through committee amid a deep partisan dispute over curbing Trump’s immigration agenda.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the panel that funds DHS, said he wants “real constraints” to prevent what he calls the Trump administration’s “clearly illegal” transfers of funding to support border enforcement and mass deportations.

“It’s going to be really hard to get a bipartisan long-term budget,” Murphy said, pointing to $600 million the administration is now using for detaining immigrants despite Congress explicitly approving it for “non-detention” efforts.

Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, who has clashed with Murphy as his GOP counterpart on the panel, acknowledged appropriators have “a lot of hard work in front of us” when asked this week about the challenge of advancing the next tranche of spending bills.

“I don’t think anyone is naive,” she said.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.