America’s largest anti-hunger program could be transformed under proposals now being debated by congressional Republicans, with some of the costs for the safety-net program potentially pushed onto states for the first time. But White House officials are urging caution as GOP lawmakers move to finalize their massive domestic policy bill, with concerns mounting about benefit cuts hitting President Donald Trump’s own voters.

Lawmakers are discussing more than a dozen iterations of the still-tentative plan to scale back federal spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by forcing states to split at least some of the cost, according to five people granted anonymity to describe the private deliberations. Governors would have to decide whether to foot the bill or put new limits on who would be eligible for food aid in their states.

Given the changes to Medicaid that Republicans are also pursuing, White House economic and political advisers are sensitive to piling more strain on deep-red states and Trump voters — and further imperiling passage of the megabill. Those advisers have generally urged a careful approach to overhauling food aid, and already Republicans on Capitol Hill have stepped back from the most drastic alternatives.

The talks around efforts to cut federal spending on SNAP, which currently helps to feed more than 40 million low-income Americans and is formerly known as food stamps, are still ongoing. The House Agriculture Committee, which oversees the program and is tasked with securing $230 billion in savings, is further behind schedule than most other panels, senior GOP leadership aides said.

The plan is part of a larger set of House GOP proposals to overhaul SNAP, which is a ripe target for many House Republicans, who argue that the program is rife with overpayment issues. The list includes limiting future increases to food aid benefits for families, blocking undocumented immigrants from accessing benefits, implementing stricter work requirements and forcing states to pay penalties for overpayment errors.

While the SNAP changes are politically sensitive, they have not been as big of a flashpoint inside the GOP as potential cuts to Medicaid. But one White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics, said the administration wants to avoid a “one-two punch” ahead of the midterms to low-income MAGA voters and red states that could be forced to stretch their budgets.

Versions of the plan now under consideration wouldn’t phase-in any cost-sharing until after the 2026 midterms, or possibly even after the 2028 presidential election. That reflects an awareness among Trump officials and senior Hill Republicans that their most vulnerable members are already facing a barrage of Democratic ads claiming they’re slashing safety-net programs to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. Republicans also want to give states time to adapt to the proposals.

The potential SNAP changes would disproportionately hit the Senate battlegrounds of Georgia and North Carolina, the presidential swing states of Arizona and Pennsylvania, as well as blue states like New York and California, home to a significant bloc of vulnerable House GOP members.

House Republicans have also tempered an earlier plan that would have gradually increased the states’ share of SNAP costs to 25 percent by the end of the next decade. The most drastic recent proposals reach 22.5 percent at the end of the 10-year window while waiting longer to phase-in the requirement.

No final decisions have been made, according to the officials with knowledge of the plans, and plans for a House Agriculture meeting to hash out the legislation remain in flux. Republicans were targeting May 8 for the markup, but May 7 is now more likely, the officials said — and it could be delayed into the following week.

A House Agriculture Committee spokesperson said Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) “is doing his due diligence to leave no stone unturned in finding reforms that will curb wasteful spending and that includes looking at how states administer SNAP, which spends over $13 billion per year in erroneous payments.”

“All options to rein in that waste and incentivize better state administration of the program are on the table,” the spokesperson added. A White House spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry Sunday.

Republicans are struggling to reconcile the gap between the House GOP’s $230 billion instruction for spending cuts across the Agriculture Committee and the Senate’s $1 billion minimum target.

There was some doubt among lawmakers that the House could find $230 billion in SNAP reductions, and senior Republicans privately assured at-risk GOP members that the final bill would land somewhere in the middle. But after Speaker Mike Johnson promised hard-liners he would deliver steep spending cuts, one House Republican lawmaker said the Agriculture panel will “have to hit” its target.

Beyond the White House sensitivities over SNAP, Republicans are weighing a slew of competing concerns. Vulnerable members are highly sensitive to changes that could strip benefits from their constituents and want a more moderate approach, according to two Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the talks.

But a large segment of the GOP conference wants steep cuts across a program they argue blue states exploit — starting with the rollback of a pandemic-era increase in benefits under then-President Joe Biden. Many argue that forcing states to pay for even a small percentage of SNAP benefits would make states administer the program more carefully.

Most White House officials who have been involved in conversations around the cost-sharing proposal in recent months aren’t outright opposed to it. But on private calls with Hill Republicans, Trump officials have cautioned against punishing states who voted overwhelmingly for the president in 2024.

One of the people with knowledge of the plans noted that deep-red states such as West Virginia are “going to be hit pretty hard by this,” and Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida and other states that voted overwhelmingly for Trump would also incur a significant financial burden.

Senior Republicans are making efforts to shore up support among vulnerable Republicans, many of whom hail from blue states that could see a huge financial responsibility for SNAP if the GOP plans ultimately survive.

The House Agriculture Committee’s portion of the Trump megabill is expected to include language to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools program, which provides federal funding for critical public services in counties with significant amounts of tax-exempt federal lands. That legislation is supported by Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.) and other at-risk Republicans who have warned in private and public against deep cuts to safety-net programs.

Adam Schiff is bringing House-style confrontation to his new seat in the Senate — and defying the chamber’s more staid, seniority-driven sensibilities along the way.

In the five months since the California Democrat left his two-decade House career for the Senate, he has blasted his leadership’s decision to advance a Republican bill to prevent a government shutdown; led a bicameral mock hearing as the junior-most member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and pledged to block Trump’s controversial nominee to be the District of Columbia’s top federal prosecutor.

First-year senators typically ease into the spotlight, wary of upstaging more senior colleagues. But Schiff — a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee who catapulted to national fame as the leader of President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial — has positioned himself at the center of confirmation fights. He’s even launched his own Substack, where he posts direct-to-camera videos explaining what’s happening in Washington.

Schiff, in an interview, said he might have been content with a more low-key launch had Vice President Kamala Harris won the election in November.

“I did arrive very intent on being seen and not heard, and I think frankly, if it had been a Harris presidency, I would have continued to be seen and not heard,” Schiff, 64, said. “But given that every day is a new crisis, none of us can afford to be seen and not heard.”

That approach, though, has not been well-received by all of his new Senate peers. In the House, interpersonal disputes and bickering often bleed into regular legislative business, and members focus on developing their own social media followings and personal brands. The Senate has a reputation for more understated maneuvering, with a tradition of civility and bipartisanship of which many longtime lawmakers are fiercely protective.

“Dump the House stuff,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said in an interview of what advice she’d give her new colleagues, including Schiff.

The Senate, she said, is a place where lawmakers work across the aisle, where “today’s foe is tomorrow’s conduit for something that you really need for your state.” And while she acknowledged it was important for Democrats to “articulate” opposition to the Trump administration, she said, “we don’t want to become the House.”

Schiff’s more aggressive posture, however, is giving Senate Democrats a playbook for more forcefully countering Trump and his legislative agenda. A resistance road map is something much of the base has been clamoring for, especially since the government funding fight last month left large swaths of the party questioning longtime Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s leadership.

As a frequent target of the president’s ire, Schiff is also used to being a pariah among Republicans. In 2023, he was removed from the House Intelligence Committee by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and was censured by the GOP-controlled House for his part in Democratic-led investigations into Trump.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who was early to endorse Schiff in his Senate primary race against two fellow House Democrats — vented frustrations in a recent interview about how Senate Democrats have handled confirmation proceedings for Trump nominees, arguing her party should have been more aggressive in battling the president’s Cabinet picks.

“In my view, this is the worst Cabinet we’ve ever had in the history of our country,” said Pelosi, another Californian. “I think that [Democrats] should have been tougher” in opposing them.

Schiff, in contrast, “has been particularly dogged about” calling out the nominees at confirmation hearings, said Pelosi. She added that her former protege was bringing “the House enthusiasm” to the process.

In one well-watched exchange during Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing to lead the FBI, Schiff pressed the former House Intelligence Committee aide about whether he was “proud” of his alleged involvement in fundraising off a musical recording from a group of rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He asked Patel to turn and face the Capitol Police officers in the hearing room whose force defended the building against the violent siege.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and the lead manager for Trump’s second impeachment trial, also praised Schiff for still operating with the urgency of the House. In the context of the stopgap funding measure, Raskin reflected, Schumer might have been thinking about the consequences of the government shutdown fight for the long term, but the current moment required Congress to see the fight through “a much more immediate lens.”

“The House was set up to be … much more of a weather vane of what’s going on in the country right now, whereas the Senate was designed to be a place where passions could cool off and people could take a longer view,” Raskin said in an interview. “But I think that Adam maintains the cadence and the rhythm of the House.”

Schiff said he sees benefits to the more collegial and congenial tone of the Senate, where bipartisanship is common and personal attacks in committee hearings are rare. At the same time, he said he and his fellow freshmen won’t be “wallflowers” and called old traditions about new senators waiting months for their first major speech on the chamber floor “completely outdated.”

Schiff was one of five House Democrats elected to the Senate last year, joining Sens. Andy Kim of New Jersey, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. Each joined Schiff in voting “no” on moving forward with the government funding bill, with Gallego characterizing Schiff’s ethos as an approach shared by the whole class: “I think we all brought House energy to the Senate.”

Still, Schiff is arguably experiencing the biggest adjustment in terms of losing his seniority inside his caucus. He tried to put himself back into the public eye earlier this month, teaming up with Raskin to convene Democrats from both chambers to hear testimony from former Justice Department officials who have since departed the Trump administration.

The so-called shadow hearing is a tactic frequently used by House members in the minority party to garner attention when they lack committee gavels or subpoena powers. Schiff wants to normalize this strategy in the Senate, saying a future forum could examine the GOP push to impeach judges who issue rulings against the administration’s agenda.

“We should vigorously communicate with the public in every means that we can,” Schiff said. “When you’re in the minority, you have to be more focused on message, more disciplined on message than the other side, and you have to be more unified. And we haven’t done that yet, and it’s been much to our detriment, and it has to change.”

In a sign of his maneuvering for clout, Schiff was seated at the head of the dais leading the questioning with Raskin during that recent shadow hearing. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee and the No. 2 Senate Democrat who announced his retirement this week, sat, for the most part, quietly beside him.

“He’s in a unique position,” said Durbin of Schiff during the event, “bridging the experience you had in the House of Representatives with this administration and now your responsibility here in the United States Senate.”

CENTRAL ISLIP, New York — A federal judge on Friday sentenced disgraced former Rep. George Santos to more than seven years in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in a case that resulted in his expulsion from Congress and capped a colorful flameout for the first-term Republican.

The 87-month sentence for Santos, who wept as it was announced, comes after a memorable one-year stint in Congress in which he was exposed, in prosecutors’ words, as a “pathological liar and fraudster.”

In imposing the lengthy sentence, U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert decried his “flagrant thievery,” describing him as “an arrogant fraudster talking out of both sides of his mouth.”

His voice shaking, Santos told the court, “I betrayed the confidence entrusted to me by constituents, donors, colleagues and this court.”

He must report to prison by July 25. Seybert also ordered him to pay more than $373K in restitution, due immediately, and to serve two years supervised release.

Santos’ political saga gripped Washington and New York, where he flipped a Long Island House seat in a little-watched 2022 race that led to his prominent rise and ultimate downfall. After prosecutors charged him in May 2023, he refused to resign, buoyed by the support of many House Republicans. That support eventually dwindled, however, and Santos became the first member since the Civil War to be booted from the House without a conviction.

In August 2024, he pleaded guilty to two felony charges and acknowledged he used his campaign fundraising apparatus for personal gain. He admitted to submitting false reports to the FEC during his congressional run and to stealing the personal identity and financial information of elderly and cognitively impaired campaign donors. He fraudulently charged their credit cards, making unauthorized contributions to his campaign and others.

He also admitted to persuading donors to contribute money to a company that he claimed was a social welfare organization or super PAC, when in fact he used their contributions to put himself up at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, shop at Hermès, Louis Vuitton and Brooks Brothers, pay off his credit cards and gift himself thousands of dollars in cash.

“His campaign for Congress didn’t turn him into a fraudster,” prosecutor Ryan Harris said at the sentencing. “It simply revealed him for what he already was.”

The criminal investigation and a separate congressional inquiry, coupled with significant media coverage, revealed that Santos had promoted scores of lies about his educational and professional background, as well as numerous other falsehoods, including that his mother died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The House of Representatives voted to expel Santos in 2023 after the ethics committee released an explosive report that found “significant evidence” of Santos’ criminal wrongdoing. Democrats last year won back his Long Island seat in a special election.

“From his creation of a wholly fictitious biography to his callous theft of money from elderly and impaired donors, Santos’s unrestrained greed and voracious appetite for fame enabled him to exploit the very system by which we select our representatives,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo.

They had recommended he receive an 87-month sentence, in large part because, they argued, he wasn’t remorseful. In fact, after prosecutors submitted their sentencing memo, they provided an additional filing to the court highlighting Santos’ social media posts to demonstrate that he remains “unrepentant.”

In one post, he referred to himself as a “scapegoat,” and in another, he denied having used campaign contributions to shop at Hermès. “No matter how hard the DOJ comes for me,” he wrote in another post, “they are mad because they will NEVER break my spirit.”

In a letter to the court, Santos argued that he is “profoundly sorry for the criminal conduct to which I pled guilty,” but that he has the right to “protest” the Justice Department’s request for the lengthy sentence. Santos himself suggested he serve two years, the legal minimum for one of the counts to which he pleaded guilty.

A bipartisan Senate delegation will attend the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome on Saturday.

“It is a tremendous honor to be selected to lead this bipartisan delegation of United States Senators to Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Francis and pay our respects to his life and legacy,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who is leading the trip, said in a statement Friday.

Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Ed Markey of Massachusetts will join Republican Sens. Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Eric Schmitt of Missouri as part of the Collins-led Senate contingent.

The group marks the first official congressional delegation to announce plans to attend the pope’s funeral, though House members have also discussed traveling to Rome for the event. Lawmakers heard from Francis in a joint meeting on Capitol Hill in 2015 — the first time a pope has ever delivered such an address.

Francis had struggled with health issues in recent years and died at 88 on Easter Monday after a stroke. Tens of thousands of mourners have also lined up to view him lying in state inside St. Peter’s Basilica ahead of the funeral this weekend.

In addition to the showing from Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump is one of several heads of state expected to attend the funeral. It will mark Trump’s foreign trip since the start of his second administration.