Good Friday evening. In this edition: Senate passes modified funding package; Trump picks Warsh as new Fed chair; and DOJ releases huge tranche of Epstein files.
Plus, Pretti, Lemon, Walz and IndyCar.
Government Funding
The Senate approved a modified government funding package, sending the measure back to the House hours before funding for most of the federal government was set to expire.
The final vote was 71–29, surpassing the 60 votes needed for passage.
The package includes five full-year appropriations bills, covering the departments of State, Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Transportation, among other agencies.
The full-year Homeland Security Department bill approved by the House last week was removed from the package and replaced with a two-week funding patch for the agency.
Democrats demanded the DHS bill be reworked to include reforms to immigration enforcement operations following the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis last weekend.
The two-week continuing resolution (CR) will allow DHS operations to continue at current funding levels while lawmakers negotiate over possible reforms.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) outlined a list of changes Democrats want to see, including tighter rules governing the use of warrants, a uniform code of conduct for federal officers, a ban on agents wearing masks, and a requirement that agents wear body cameras.
Those demands were met with swift pushback from Republicans and the White House but will serve as the starting point for the negotiations expected to play out over the next two weeks.
Senate Democrats reached the revised funding deal with the White House on Thursday after threatening to block the entire six-bill package unless the DHS measure was removed.
Unanimous consent was required to move the legislation through the chamber on an expedited basis, prompting a day-long delay as leaders worked to line up support and determine which senators would receive amendment votes.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was the final holdout but dropped his objection after receiving assurances from Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) that the chamber would hold future votes on separate issues.
Because the package was amended, it must now return to the House, which is not scheduled to reconvene until Monday.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he intends to bring the package to the floor under suspension of the rules, a process that would require a two-thirds majority for passage.
A partial government shutdown will technically begin just after midnight, though the effects are expected to be minimal if the House approves the bill on Monday.
President Trump announced his intent to nominate Kevin Warsh as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, elevating the former Fed governor to lead a central bank the president has long criticized over interest rate policy.
"I would say that this was the, you know, perfect candidate," the president told reporters at the White House, describing his new pick as "very smart, very good, strong, young" and "the central casting guy that people wanted."
"This was not a surprise or anything. This was the man that's most qualified, top student, best schools ... got the whole package. Looks don't mean anything, but he's got the look."
Mr. Warsh, a lawyer, served on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011, a tenure that spanned the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing recession.
In recent years, he has been an outspoken critic of the Fed, telling CNBC last summer that the central bank needed "regime change" and that "the credibility deficit lies with the incumbents that are at the Fed."
The announcement caps an extensive search led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who presented President Trump with four finalists, including National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, who until recently had been viewed as the frontrunner.
"A great Chairman he would have been but, quite honestly, he is doing such an outstanding job working with me and my team at the White House, that I just didn't want to let him go," President Trump wrote on social media about Mr. Hassett.
If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Warsh would succeed current Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who has faced incessant criticism from President Trump for not lowering interest rates more aggressively.
Mr. Powell, who was nominated by President Trump during his first term, disclosed earlier this month that the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation into him, which he cast as part of the president's interest rate pressure campaign.
Those attacks have fueled concerns about the independence of the central bank and prompted backlash from some Republican senators, including Sen. Thom Tillis (NC), who said he would oppose any Federal Reserve nominee until the Powell investigation is dropped.
"My position has not changed: I will oppose the confirmation of any Federal Reserve nominee, including for the position of Chairman, until the DOJ's inquiry into Chairman Powell is fully and transparently resolved."
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the chair of the Banking Committee, praised Mr. Warsh's "deep knowledge of markets and monetary policy" and said his pick will bring "accountability and credibility" to the central bank.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the panel's ranking member, disagreed and quipped that Mr. Warsh had "apparently passed the loyalty test."
President Trump told reporters he never asked Mr. Warsh whether he would commit to cutting interest rates before nominating him, but indicated they were on the same page.
"No, but we talk about it. I've been following him. And I don't want to ask him that question," he told reporters. "But he certainly wants to cut rates."
The Justice Department released more than 3 million pages of materials related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche described as the completion of its review of the files.
"Today's release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act," he said at a press conference. "The department has engaged in an unprecedented and extensive effort to do so."
Mr. Blanche said the tranche of materials, which also includes some 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, fulfills the Justice Department's obligations under a law passed by Congress last year requiring their disclosure.
The White House and GOP leadership initially opposed the legislation, but their opposition collapsed after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) successfully led a discharge petition forcing the measure to the House floor.
The release comes more than a month after the Trump administration missed the Dec. 19 statutory deadline to make public all materials in its possession related to the Epstein case.
Administration officials attributed the delay to the need to review and vet the massive trove of records, which included sensitive information about victims as well as material depicting child sexual abuse.
Mr. Blanche said he took "umbrage" at suggestions the administration had slow-walked the release and insisted no one at the Justice Department sought to protect President Trump, who maintained close ties with the disgraced financier for years.
"[The White House] had no oversight and they did not tell this department how to do our review and what to look for and what to redact or not redact," Mr. Blanche told reporters.
He nevertheless acknowledged the release was unlikely to satisfy public demands for accountability.
"We did not protect President Trump, we didn't protect or not protect anybody," Mr. Blanche said. "There's a hunger, a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents … there's nothing I can do about that."
The Justice Departmentopened a civil rights investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis last weekend, a significant shift in how the administration has handled the case. "I don't want to overstate what is happening," Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said, seeking to downplay the probe. "I don't want the takeaway to be there is some massive civil rights investigation. I would describe it as a standard investigation by the FBI." Earlier in the day, President Trump described Mr. Pretti as an "agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist," citing video that shows the Minneapolis intensive-care nurse in an altercation with federal agents the day before he was fatally shot.
Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor and longtime critic of President Trump, and another journalist, Georgia Fort, were indicted for civil rights crimes in connection to a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month. The charges are expected to be challenged on First Amendment grounds since both said they entered the church to cover a protest against the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in the area. "Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done," his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. "The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable."
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and state Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) will testify on March 4 before the House Oversight Committee as the panel investigates the welfare fraud scandal in the state. "Americans deserve answers about the rampant misuse of taxpayer dollars in Minnesota's social services programs that occurred on Gov. Walz's & Attorney General Ellison's watch," Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the panel's chair, said on social media.
President Trumpsigned an executive order directing federal agencies to explore holding an IndyCar race on the streets of Washington, DC, this summer as part of America's 250th anniversary celebration. The order instructs the Interior and Transportation departments to work with DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) on designing a race route near the National Mall that "will showcase the majesty of our great city as drivers navigate a track around our iconic national monuments."
For your radar…
The House Rules Committee on Monday debates several pieces of legislation related to critical minerals, DC tax policy, and holding former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress. Watch LIVE on C-SPAN3 at 4pm ET.
Host Dasha Burns is joined byOklahoma City Mayor David Holt(R) and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria(D) — chair and vice chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors —for a bipartisan conversation on the top issues facing American cities.
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