4 loose ends as Congress enters August recess

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The Hill's Headlines - Sunday, August 9, 2026

The Hill's Headlines - Sunday, August 9, 2026

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Senators leave DC with unresolved issues 

Depleted stockpiles undermine US leverage over Iran 

Netanyahu breaks with Trump 

Questions linger over Strait of Hormuz talks 

4 loose ends as Congress enters August recess 

Senators checked two large items off their to-do list — passing a continuing resolution to fund the government until December and confirming Todd Blanche as attorney general — when they adjourned for a five-week recess over the weekend.  

But there are several unresolved issues to watch out for— including two major priorities for President Trump — when the House returns at the end of August and when the Senate comes back in mid-September. 

▪ The Hill: Senate embarks on recess after funding government and confirming Blanche, punting other priorities 

Trump’s oft-championed voter registration bill has been stalled in the Senate for months, and the deadlock will now persist until at least September. 

It’s a major frustration for the president, but one that Republicans saw coming for months. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) repeatedly warned Trump he did not have the votes to pass the legislation.  

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act would require people to prove U.S. citizenship when registering to vote and show photo identification to cast a ballot. 

Senate Budget Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and GOP Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Rick Scott (Fla.) all spoke with Trump on Friday evening and got his approval to leave Washington, D.C., without taking further action on the legislation, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports. 

Lee and Scott had been the major public faces of the latest push to get the bill approved, which was clearly doomed from the outset.  

▪ The Associated Press: Senators head for the exits without meeting Trump’s demands for voting bill 

Thune has repeatedly conveyed to Trump and the White House that he hasn’t had the votes to pass the bill. Still, at one point, the president demanded that senators cancel their August recess to get it passed. 

The Senate has voted five times on the SAVE America Act or elements of it, and no Democrat has voted for it. Several Republicans, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.), have also voted against the legislation. 

“We’re not in a position right now where we have the wherewithal to pass it,” Lee said before the recess. 

The decision by Lee to at least temporarily throw in the towel was both a bend to reality and an illustration of how much Republicans in the Senate wanted to start their scheduled recess.  

There are political reasons for that, too. For several embattled GOP senators such as Susan Collins of Maine and John Husted of Ohio, it’s much better to have as many days as possible in their home states to make their case to voters ahead of election day.  

Hanging around D.C. wasn’t going to help move the bill, and it wasn’t going to help their electoral fortunes either.   

The president has also pushed for the Senate to advance a House-passed budget framework to fund the war in Iran with $73 billion and raise the national debt limit through the end of his term. 

The package would also include $12 billion for farmers and $10 billion in incentives for states to reform election procedures. 

But, like the voter registration bill, Thune has told Trump he doesn’t have the 50 votes needed to advance the package. The GOP leader, president and other Senate conservatives agreed on Friday to punt a vote on the budget resolution until after the recess. In the meantime, Johnson said senators will “work diligently through August and September to do an actually better budget reconciliation bill.” 

▪ Politico: Republicans face likely year-end test after punting Trump spending bill 

The Senate left town without voting on the........

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