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Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) says a House-passed spending bill providing $5.7 billion for a border wall is dead-on-arrival in the Senate, signaling raising odds of a partial government shutdown. “The bill that’s on the floor of the House, everyone knows, will not pass the Senate,” Schumer said moments before the House voted in support on the measure. He accused Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) of “cynically” putting the bill on the House floor “knowing it can’t pass the Senate.” “Everyone knows it can’t pass the Senate. It’s a cynical attempt to just...

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned President Trump and House conservatives that the only option to prevent a partial shutdown is a seven-week stopgap bill, adding that they shouldn't reject it because of a "temper tantrum" on the border wall. "With less than two days to go until the appropriations lapse, if we are to avoid a shutdown the House must pass this continuing resolution and President Trump must sign it," Schumer said from the Senate floor on Thursday. Schumer argued that if Trump rejects the stopgap measure, it would be "indisputable" that he and Republicans would be blamed...

Much misplaced anger is visible. President Trump wants the southern border wall; he is being opposed by every interest who doesn’t want it. The people in DC who are opposed to border security, are the people who write the laws. I’m not talking about congress; I’m talking about the real people who actually write the laws, the lobbyists. Right now Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are writing a short-term continuing resolution to fund government and avoid a shutdown. They know President Trump is quite comfy with a shutdown. Why would republican Mitch McConnell take such an...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned Tuesday in front of the White House that there will be a government shutdown if President Donald Trump refuses to budge from his demand for $5 billion of wall funding. He spoke after the tense meeting with President Trump.The bottom line is simple. The President made clear that he wants a shutdown. His position, if he sticks to his position for a $5 billion wall, he will get no wall and he will get a shutdown. The bottom line is very, very simple. That is, we want border security. We offered him border security....

PELOSI: No, I'm -- I'm -- I'm OK with what our -- our -- our chairwoman, Lucille Roybal-Allard -- she is a person who has fought on these issues her -- her entire stay in Congress, which has been for a couple of decades. We're blessed that she's in the position that she is in. She knows that we -- most of us, speaking for myself, consider the wall immoral, ineffective and expensive... So even if they did, it's immoral still., and then they're not going to pay for it.

Hispanic Democrats drew a red line Wednesday in budget negotiations, saying they cannot support any year-end spending bill unless it reduces the government’s ability to detain illegal immigrants ahead of deportation. The Democrats also said they want to eliminate all money for the border wall — not the $5 billion President Trump is seeking, nor even the $1.6 billion that Senate Democrats have said they’re willing to spend. “We urge the Committee to provide zero funding for the border wall,” the chair and vice chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said in a letter to GOP leaders. “Five billion dollars...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced Wednesday that he is canceling votes on nearly two dozen of President Trump’s judicial nominees that were expected to come up in the Judiciary Committee this week. The cancellation of the committee’s Thursday business meeting comes as Senate Republicans are in a standoff with outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has vowed to oppose all court picks until he gets a vote on legislation protecting special counsel Robert Mueller. The notification from the Judiciary Committee didn’t specify when, or if, the committee votes on the nominations would be rescheduled. Six circuit court nominees had been...

Three Democratic senators on Monday filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general. Whitaker was appointed by Trump to lead the Justice Department after Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced out of the role earlier this month. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono filed the complaint against Whitaker in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday. All three issues fiery statements. “Installing Matthew Whitaker so flagrantly defies constitutional law that any viewer of School House Rock...

Republican senator insists there is no threat to the special counsel after Sen. Flake threatens to oppose judicial nominees until a vote on legislation to protect Mueller.

Democrats boycotted Wednesday’s hearing on another slate of President Trump’s judicial nominees, continuing their attempts to hinder Republicans’ plans to stock the courts with an army of conservative judges. The Judiciary Committee heard from four nominees, including two picks for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most liberal panels in the country and long a target for Republicans who complain of activist liberal judges. Wednesday’s boycott is the second in a row after Democrats refused to show for a hearing last week on other court picks. Democrats say it is unprecedented to hold hearings on judges...

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Tuesday said that she will not return her "blue slip" on a judicial pick from President Trump and urged the Judiciary Committee to delay a hearing on the nomination. Murray said in a statement that Republicans "have been trampling" on Senate precedent in order to place "extreme conservatives" on the courts, adding that she cannot be "complicit." "This needs to end. So I am not going to be complicit in this latest rushed process to load the courts with Trump nominees in the lame duck session and I will not be returning the blue slip...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday there is nothing she would trade for President Donald Trump’s border wall, setting a hard negotiating stance in advance of an expected December showdown over the issue. “It happens to be like a manhood issue for the president, building a wall, and I’m not interested in that,” the California Democrat said during a discussion at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley told committee Democrats Monday that he would move forward with two hearings for judicial nominees during the congressional recess despite their objections. "It's unfair to the nominees, who have already flown to Washington D.C. and made travel arrangements for their families to further delay this hearing," Grassley said in his letter to the committee's top Democrat, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, pointing to previous postponements for hearings. "And it's unfair to the American people." "As a result of Democratic delay tactics, there are now 154 current and future judicial vacancies, 63 of which are classified...

Here’s what’s going to happen this week. It does not require a Biblical-level prophet or a crystal ball. As a longtime mainstream media journalist and political consultant, I can see this as clearly as if I had it straight from Mount Sinai — minus the actual divine revelation. Seriously, just seeing forward by looking backward. First and foremost, at least one other allegation of a woman or women being sexually assaulted by Judge Brett Kavanaugh will breathlessly emerge after extensive consultation with Democratic lawyers and operatives. This is all but guaranteed. Somehow, another one will come forward because the heirs...

BOSTON - Sen. Jeff Flake said Monday he was working with the White House counsel's office to ensure that the FBI is able to do a "real investigation" into allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. "We certainly want the FBI to do a real investigation and we are working to make sure that happens. I've had discussions, many yesterday, with my colleagues, with the White House counsel's office, my staff is following up as well. I had one of those conversations just five minutes ago to make sure that the - that any current credible allegation...

Ask any casual observer what the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation fight is about, and the answer will be the allegation that at a high-school party 36 years ago, when Kavanaugh was 17, he drunkenly forced then-15-year-old Christine Ford onto a bed, tried to undress her, and, when she tried to scream, covered her mouth with his hand. That is now old news. In the last 48 hours, immediately after Senate Republicans and President Trump agreed to Democratic demands that the FBI investigate the 1982 incident, the Kavanaugh goalposts have moved dramatically. Now, a key issue is Kavanaugh's teenage drinking,...

FULL TITLE: Flake: “Not A Chance” I Would Have Agreed To Reopen Kavanaugh FBI Background Check If I Was Running For Re-Election Call this a Captain Obvious moment in last night’s joint interview on 60 Minutes. Jeff Flake joined his Gang of Two colleague Chris Coons to celebrate bipartisanship in the form of a one-week delay on Brett Kavanaugh’s final confirmation vote. Flake, who will retire from the Senate at the end of the year, laments that there is no incentive to reach across the aisle anymore, and that if he had to stand for election he never would have...

CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin on Monday praised Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., for calling for an FBI investigation into sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, a move that will delay his Senate confirmation until later this week. Toobin said Flake deserved credit for the move, after he had previously called Flake "pathetic" for stating that he was ready to confirm Kavanaugh. "I was very critical of Jeff Flake before last week, that he’s big talk, no action," said Toobin. "And I was wrong. He is the person who got this FBI probe going. It was all his initiative....

The "Flake-led rebellion" had "been building for nearly two weeks" According to a report published by Politico, Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) chose to appear pressured when, in fact, he masterminded the latest Kavanaugh delay. His subsequent media statements about his motivations and his media appearances in light of this report suggest Flake's true motivations are far less pure than he would have us believe. Flake's focus on optics, on his raw ambition (for 2020?), and on the kind of "swamp creature" political maneuvering surrounding this planned reversal paints for the American people a hideous and disturbing portrait of the Arizona...

Regardless of whether Senate Republicans succeed in confirming embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, it is increasingly likely that procedural hurdles will prevent him from taking his seat on the bench prior to the start of the court's term Oct. 1 -- a fixed date set by federal law. However, legal experts tell Fox News, the immediate impact of any delay filling the ninth seat on the Supreme Court may be minimal. The upcoming Supreme Court term is "fairly benign when it comes to hot-button issues," Adam Feldman, a Supreme Court expert who runs the blog Empirical SCOTUS, told Fox...