Senate Republicans are pushing $1 billion in White House security upgrades for President Donald Trump's ballroom project. A Republican bill released late Monday would give the U.S. Secret Service money for "security adjustments and upgrades" related to the ballroom. Trump and Republicans have been pushing the project since an incident last week at a media dinner where a man was charged with trying to assassinate the president. Republicans say the president needs the ballroom as a secure location to hold events. Democrats oppose funding the ballroom and The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued to stop it.

Donald Trump won the presidency by promising to lower costs and end wars. A year and a half later, he is a wartime president contemplating whether to send U.S. ground troops into an expanding conflict in Iran. Gas prices are spiking and Trump is urging Americans to be patient. Everything adds up to a perilous situation for Republicans in the midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress. The president did little to sell the war to skeptical voters before it started, and he defended his leadership on Wednesday night in his first major presidential address on the conflict.

TMZ is turning its celebrity lens on Congress, tracking lawmakers on recess as a nearly six-week Department of Homeland Security shutdown drags on. Viral videos of senators in airports, Las Vegas and Disney World have fueled backlash and intensified pressure for lawmakers to return. That pressure now extends beyond social media, with unions and President Donald Trump all urging Congress back to Washington. But even if they return, there is no clear path to a deal. A bipartisan Senate agreement collapsed after House Republicans rejected it, leaving lawmakers at a deeper impasse and raising fresh questions about how — or whether — the standoff can end.

Senators are clashing over an Iran war resolution as Congress' first vote on the conflict draws near. In their debate Wednesday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer implored fellow senators to ask themselves if they stand with Americans "exhausted with forever wars" or with a president and defense secretary set to "bumble us headfirst" into another one. Sen. John Barrasso is second in Senate Republican leadership and said Democrats would rather obstruct President Donald Trump than "obliterate Iran's national nuclear program." The vote is expected later Wednesday.

Democrats are threatening to block funding for the Homeland Security Department when it expires in two weeks unless there are "dramatic changes" and "real accountability" for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies who are carrying out President Donald Trump's campaign of federal immigration enforcement. Congress is discussing potential new rules for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection after officers shot and killed two Minneapolis protesters in January. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries reiterated their party's demands on Wednesday, with Schumer telling reporters that Congress must "rein in ICE in very serious ways, and end the violence."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom begins a two-day tour of South Carolina, meeting voters in rural and Republican-leaning areas. The trip over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday includes eight stops at coffee shops, small businesses, and churches. Newsom's visit to this early-voting state signals potential interest in a 2028 presidential run. On Wednesday, he plans to visit Seneca, a conservative town in a county where Donald Trump won over 75% of votes in 2024. South Carolina holds significant influence in Democratic primaries due to its diverse electorate. Newsom's efforts reflect a strategy to broaden his appeal beyond his liberal California image.

House Republicans have missed another deadline to produce a massive budget package of tax cuts and slashed spending. Instead, Senate Republicans on Friday jumped ahead, unveiling a more tailored $340 billion blueprint focused on President Donald Trump's deportation agenda and bolstered U.S. defense spending. Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledges his own chamber's plan will slip into the weekend but insists it has just a few details to iron out. At stake is the Republican president's priority legislation that includes some $4 trillion in tax breaks, massive program cuts and a possible extension of the nation's debt limit. Republican senators are headed to Trump's private Florida club to discuss.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said after the 2020 election that then-President Donald Trump was "stupid as well as being ill-tempered" and a "despicable human being." That's according to a new biography of McConnell that'll be released this month. McConnell made the remarks in private as part of a series of personal oral histories that he made available to Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief of The Associated Press. Tackett's book, "The Price of Power," draws from almost three decades of McConnell's recorded diaries and from several years of interviews with the normally reticent Kentucky Republican.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Sen. Lindsey Graham's testimony in a Georgia investigation of possible ille…