CQ on Congress

The Senate wants to pass an expanded version of a House-passed stopgap funding bill before it leaves town for the August recess. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley and Paul M. Krawzak join host David Lerman to discuss the prospects for a funding extension and why work on reconciliation 3.0 is being put on the back burner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is trying this week to adopt a budget resolution and pass the annual defense authorization bill and stopgap spending measure. CQ Roll Call's Aris Folley and Jacob Fulton join guest host Aidan Quigley to discuss the prospects of the continuing resolution and the budget resolution in the House's final week before August recess.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Molly Reynolds discuss how history will view the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., how congressional illnesses are starting to affect the institution, why things are getting stuck in both chambers, and what a weird time it is for the legislative branch.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., triggers a Senate Budget Committee shake-up as House Republicans make a new push this week for a third reonciliation package. CQ Roll's Paul M. Krawzak and Aidan Quigley join host David Lerman to assess the impact of Graham's death and prospects for a new reconciliation bill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick talks with film legend Sean Astin, the president of SAG-AFTRA, about his deep connections to Washington, D.C., public service, the issues he is advocating on Capitol Hill and meeting the moment at a pivotal time in human history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A push for new voting restrictions has held up business in the House, including appropriations bills. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley and Aris Folley join host David Lerman in assessing the leadership test facing Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and what it means for spending bills and a third reconciliation package. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While House appropriators move forward with their fiscal 2027 spending bills, the usually bipartisan Senate process has run into major roadblocks with disputes over spending levels and amendments. CQ Roll Call's Aris Folley and Aidan Quigley discuss the status of appropriations in both chambers, as well as the prospects for reconciliation progress and an Iran war supplemental funding bill.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Brandon Wetherbee discuss the big UFC bout at the White House, the relationship between President Donald Trump and combat sports and entertainment and the expansion of Brandon's media empire, Recommend If You Like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick talks with filmmaker Rory Kennedy about her new documentary, "Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing," a sequel to her 2022 "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing" and how, despite a very public airing of the company's quality control failings after numerous crashes, so little has changed and who is to blame.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

House Republicans are scrambling to produce a third reconciliation bill focused on defense spending and combating fraud, but they face numerous obstacles. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley and Paul M. Krawzak join host David Lerman to assess the bill's prospects and all the complications that lie ahead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick talks with Sky Sitney about this year's DC/DOX documentary film festival, which brings a slate of more than 100 nonfiction movies about Billie Jean King, Earth Wind and Fire, AI, a Washington Commanders superfan, Sea Monkeys and even Yugoslavian leader Josip Tito's parrot.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Republicans appeared set to clear a Senate-passed reconcilation bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies through the rest of President Donald Trump's term. CQ Roll Call's Aris Folley and Paul M. Krawzak join host David Lerman to discuss the final chapter of the reconciliation battle and how a controversial Justice Department "anti-weaponization" fund continues to complicate the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Nathan Gonzales talk about Super Junesday, with its reality-tv-infused results in California, missing persons intrigue in New Jersey and dusting of Rep. Dusty Johnson, among many, many results. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trump administration began to back down from its push for a $1.8 billion Justice Department fund rewarding alleged victims of past administrations. CQ Roll Call's Michael Macagnone and Aidan Quigley join host David Lerman to discuss what the apparent retreat might mean for a GOP reconciliation bill on immigration enforcement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The surprise creation of a Justice Department "anti-weapononization" fund outraged Senate Republicans and disrupted plans to pass their reconciliation bill for immigration enforcement before the Memorial Day recess. CQ Roll Call's Aris Folley and Jacob Fulton join host David Lerman in assessing the blow-up and the challenge ahead for getting the reconciliation bill back on track. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Republicans are scrambling to rewrite portions of the $72 billion budget reconciliation bill after the Senate parliamentarian advised against key parts, including Secret Service funding connected to the White House ballroom project. CQ's Paul M. Krawzak and Aidan Quigley discuss the parliamentarian's advice and the prospects of passage before the upcoming Memorial Day recess. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's been a weird election cycle, and one only has to look at Roll Call's Most Vulnerable Incumbents list to see the multiple storylines playing out. Jason Dick talks with Mary Ellen McIntire and Daniela Altimari about who's on the list, who's leaving the list and why making a House list is so difficult. (Spoiler alert: It's redistricting) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Democrats are taking aim at $1 billion in the GOP's reconciliation bill for security funds connected to plans for a White House ballroom. CQ Roll Call's Paul M. Krawzak joins host David Lerman for a look at the procedural challenges facing the security money and how it could complicate passage of a bill designed to provide immigration enforcement funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Passage of a bill to end the record-breaking shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security exposed widening tensions between House and Senate Republicans. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley and Aris Folley join host David Lerman to discuss what it took to end the shutdown, the source of simmering friction between the two chambers, and what it could mean as Republicans attempt to pass a reconciliation bill for immigration enforcement funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick talks with Mark Kassen, the director, writer and star of the new movie "PH-1," a contemporary political drama whose mix of mystery, social media and taut pacing make it a pretty good encapsulation of our fraught time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Black women show up – as election workers, activists, advocates, voters – they make a difference. So, when they step forward, why do they so often meet resistance, not just from opponents, but also from supposed allies? And why has that never stopped them. Atima Omara's new book, “The Instigators: How Black Women Have Been Essential to American Democracy (And what we can learn from them),” is both a history lesson and a blueprint for the future. In an almost two-decade career, Omara, founder of the award-winning Omara Strategy Group, has worked at the intersection of electoral politics and advocacy in the progressive movement. She is my guest on this episode of Equal Time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick talks with George Condon, long-time White House reporter, historian and a past president of the White House Correspondents Association, about Saturday's White House Correspondents Dinner, putting the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump into the context of the century-old event. They also talk about The Great Ribber. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Real estate magnates, secret societies, alternative means of communicating, psycheledic drugs used as therapy? It's not our world; it's the world of Thomas Pynchon's ”The Crying of Lot 49.”Jason Dick, Sean Carswell and Alan Tuszynski discuss Silent Tristero's Empire and whether we're living in it.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Molly Reynolds discuss the Brookings Institution's latest update to Vital Statistics on Congress, the recent resignations of two members of the House for alleged misconduct and whether the legislative branch is truly representative of the U.S. population. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Donald Trump has backed Senate Republicans' plan for two more reconciliation bills, the first of which would focus solely on immigration enforcement funding. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley and Aris Folley describe the prospects of the bill and the next steps for the fiscal 2027 spending process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If the line separating church and state in America has not yet disappeared, it is certainly fading fast. The evidence? A Supreme Court willing to rule in favor of faith-based lawsuits; a Secretary of Defense framing the war in Iran in apocalyptic terms; a president pushing a law restricting voting rights, exhorting legislators to pass it -- for “Jesus.” Is today's elevation of a certain kind of Christianity at odds with the ideals of a diverse country where freedom of and from religion is guaranteed in the Constitution? David Gibson -- award-winning religion journalist, author, and filmmaker -- is director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, and the guest on this episode of Equal Time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Jessica Wehrman wonder what members of Congress are doing on their two-week recess, coming as it does while the Homeland Security Department isn't being funded by Congress, as well as what they did, and observed, on recent trips back home to Arizona and Ohio, respectively.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The House and Senate standoff over homeland security funding exposed a stunning disconnect between the top two Republican leaders. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley and David Lerman discuss the clash over funding strategies between the two chambers, the prospects for reaching a deal and whether a two-week recess will have to be cut short. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Nathan Gonzales talk about what we learned from March's congressional primaries in Texas, North Carolina, Illinois, as well as special elections and what to expect as the primary season takes a little break before revving back up in May.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Donald Trump is preparing to send Congress a fiscal 2027 budget request, even as lawmakers try to find a deal on this year's Homeland Security funding and consider a potential supplemental funding package for the Iran war. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley, Aris Folley and David Lerman assess all the fiscal and political pressures shaping the upcoming budget cycle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about plans for a supplemental war funding package, while providing Congress with little information about the costs of military operations against Iran. CQ Roll Call's John M. Donnelly and David Lerman assess the potential timing for a war funding bill, the options for passing it, and what else might get attached to it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Brody Mullins talk about the ongoing disruption of politics, business and journalism, how history repeats itself, Brody's book and podcast, "The Wolves of K Street" and his new podcast, "The Deciders," which focuses on the lobbying and influence world.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Donald Trump threatened to block all legislation until Congress passes an expanded voter ID bill that Democrats oppose. CQ Roll Call's Paul M. Krawzak and David Lerman assess what the president's stance means for long-stymied Homeland Security funding and a potential emergency military spending package for the Iran war. We also discuss the status of Trump's fiscal 2027 budget request. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Sean Carswell discuss Thomas Pynchon's 2013 novel "Bleeding Edge," and how its story about the dot-com bubble and 9/11 applies to the present day, with politics and society dominated by AI, technology and venture capitalism firms running wild and the national security apparatus pushing war here, there and everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The war against Iran gave Republicans a new line of attack in a push to end the partisan standoff over Homeland Security Department funding. CQ Roll Call's Aris Folley and David Lerman assess how the war might impact negotiations over an immigration enforcement overhaul compromise that could clear the way for full-year appropriations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just who is a “domestic terrorist,” and what is the danger when a protest is labeled “an act of domestic terrorism”? President Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, has announced a drawdown of troops in Minnesota, where immigration raids swept up many, including U.S. citizens, triggered protests and left two of those citizens dead. But the administration hasn't ruled out future surges across the country. In analyzing federal actions – in the past and yet to come -- Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, does not deny the presence of domestic terrorists among us. But does the Trump administration's expansive definition of the term clash with First Amendment rights? And do recent enforcement activities make us more or less safe? Levinson-Waldman explains on this episode of Equal Time.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Brandon Wetherbee discuss the artistic merits of the 2026 State of the Union, whether Hollywood or Washignton is the entertainment capital and the reasons for sitting through President Donald Trump's one hour, 47-minute, 43-second event. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a partial Homeland Security Department shutdown enters its first full week, there's no sign of a bipartisan immigration deal that could unlock a full-year funding bill. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley, Savannah Behrmann and David Lerman assess the major sticking points to reaching a deal and the state of negotiations in the Senate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Mark Schoeff Jr. talk about Mark's new position as president of the National Press Club and the club's mission, press freedoms, how politicians and journalists interact and explain how legendary Purdue basketball coach Gene Keady fits into all this. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lawmakers are staring down a Friday deadline for Homeland Security funding, with little hope to avoid a partial shutdown. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley, Chris Johnson and Valerie Yurk examine the Democrats' demands for changes to immigration enforcement policies and the limited potential areas for compromise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Dick and Jessica Wehrman digest their experience at the Washington Press Club Foundation dinner, which came at a time of trauma for the national press and frayed nerves in the nation's capital.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

House leaders face a difficult challenge to muster the votes for ending the second partial government shutdown of this fiscal year. CQ Roll Call's Aidan Quigley, Aris Folley and David Lerman examine how mounting Democratic opposition and a fractious GOP conference put a $1.2 trillion spending package in jeopardy, and whether any compromise is in sight for a Homeland Security bill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The ongoing conflict in Minneapolis has increased the chances of a partial government shutdown, and the stress of finding a solution is only building, with talk of impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem circulating, the public souring on the administration's immigration actions and a double-whammy winter storm in the mix.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices