The Senate has kicked off the long, arduous process of debating amendments on a party-line budget bill to provide $70 billion to cover immigration enforcement for the rest of President Donald Trump’s term without any Democrat support. On Wednesday afternoon, in a party-line vote, the Senate advanced what Republican leadership calls the “Secure America Act.” The legislative push comes after Democrats refused to provide funding to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection during the longest ever shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. The party demanded restraints on the agencies in exchange for their support. The bill follows the process of budget reconciliation, which allows for enacting sweeping budgetary changes with a simple majority in the Senate.  Under this process, a motion to proceed triggers 20 hours of debate, followed by what is colloquially known as a “vote-a-rama,” in which infinite amendments can be introduced. Normally, the majority party advancing the bill simply votes to table most of the amendments in order to ensure the bill’s ultimate passage. Democrats took advantage of the process, attempting to force Republicans into votes on controversial issues. In some cases, Republicans who could face campaign attacks in 2026 for their stances in the vote-a-rama chose to side with Democrats on measures that had little chance of becoming law. For example, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced a motion to send the bill back to the Judiciary Committee with instructions to add a ban on creation of an anti-weaponization fund to compensate those the Trump administration considers victims of unfair prosecution. The motion narrowly failed, but Republican Sens. John Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska—both of whom are in competitive races in 2026—voted for it after Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., voted against it, ensuring it would not actually pass. The motion failed 49-50. An update on the Secure America Act— if Democrats had their way, they’d defund law enforcement. @SenateGOP is working to superfund ICE and CBP and keep our border secure. pic.twitter.com/Uu77D9mQix— Sen. James Lankford (@SenatorLankford) June 4, 2026 The Senate also killed an amendment from Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., which would effectively block new construction at the White House without congressional approval—an attempt to put Republicans on the record on whether they support Trump’s ballroom project. Merkley’s amendment, which required 60 votes, fell short of the support it needed.  However, six Republican senators—Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski and Sullivan of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina—voted for it. If the Senate passes the final bill, it will have to be approved by the House before going to the president’s desk.  Any House amendment would require it to return to the Senate for approval and undergo another vote-a-rama. Related PostsSenate Tussles Over Ballroom Security FundingA Senate referee struck funding for security at the White House’s East Wing from a Republican budget bill on Saturday, in what Democrats are celebrating as a blow to President Donald Trump’s ballroom ambitions. Republicans, however, argue that the security funding is unrelated to the White House ballroom and will soon be restored. Republicans are…Senate GOP Leaders Pull a Bait-and-Switch With Reconciliation 3.0Conservatives have every right to feel betrayed by the Republican Congress’ recent antics. Free marketeers, from the U.S. House to homes across America, were told in April to accept Senate Republican Leader John Thune’s emaciated Reconciliation 2.0 bill. The South Dakotan employed a limited-use budget procedure that obviates that pesky 60-vote filibuster threshold and permits passage via simple…Reconciliation 3.0 Is the Best 250th Birthday Present Congress Can Give AmericaLeave it to the legacy media to turn a commemorative currency proposal into a five-alarm constitutional crisis. By now, you’ve probably heard about the scene at last week’s White House press briefing when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins confronted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about a proposed $250 bill featuring President Donald Trump. “Do you think politically it’s…

The war between affordability and climate activism continues to rage on in California after a recent decision by the California Air Resources Board to update its cap-and-invest program left both environmental activists and the oil industry upset. The program was first authorized in 2006 as a way to limit greenhouse gas emissions and incentivize “major polluters” to invest in cleaner energy. After multiple revisions to its goals over the years, CARB is now planning to achieve 40% fewer emissions than it had in 1990 by the year 2030. This is done through various methods, but the most effective is penalizing companies that naturally produce more emissions than others, such as oil refineries, by requiring them to pay for permits that allow them to continue emitting carbon. However, CARB had to rethink its goals after two major oil refineries shut down in the state, and officials are warning that war in the Middle East could leave Californians without much of the oil they depend on, making gasoline at the pump, and even air travel, unaffordable. Chevron was particularly outspoken on the subject, sending a letter to CARB warning that if the cap-and-invest program were made any stricter, it would raise gas prices for consumers and possibly force more California oil refineries to shut down. After extended deliberation, CARB released its new decision. In an attempt to soften the blow to refineries, manufacturers, and various other industries facing rising compliance costs, CARB doubled the Manufacturing Decarbonization Incentive Fund from $2 billion to $4 billion and created $800 million in additional compliance support to help businesses deal with those rising costs. The board also agreed to slow the rollout of emission permit reductions so businesses aren’t shocked with the new costs all at once. CARB has long said its program is the best way to reach California’s climate goals while still maintaining affordability for Californians. “The program is the most cost-effective way for California to achieve its statutorily mandated climate goals,” CARB said in an April 2026 update. Gov. Gavin Newsom released a statement after the decision, saying, “California’s nation-leading Cap-and-Invest program has proven that we can cut pollution, create jobs, and invest in a cleaner future at the same time.” Newsom went on to criticize President Donald Trump for what he views as “ongoing chaos and uncertainty” regarding how war in the Middle East could impact gas prices. However, critics say this decision by CARB was not enough and still prioritizes the agendas of climate activists over everyday Californians. In an article by News from the States, Zach Leary, a lobbyist for the petroleum association, said California needs to lock in a higher level of free permits permanently. “The state is acknowledging that affordability and ambition are not getting along very well right now.” In an article by Edward Ring, director of water and energy policy at the California Policy Center, he argues that this decision by CARB is too little, too late, and that unless a more major change is made, further refinery shutdowns are inevitable. “You can’t siphon tens of billions out of an industry that operates on thin margins and not expect their plants to accumulate a deferred maintenance debt and backlog of unfulfilled upgrades that has by now put them on a potentially irreversible trajectory toward permanent shutdown,” Ring wrote. The debate over cap-and-invest is ultimately about more than emissions targets—it’s about whether California can pursue its climate ambitions without making everyday life more expensive for the people who live there.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin fired back at Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing over claims that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is lawless, dangerous, and unconstitutional. “We’re doing the job that Congress gave us the authority to do,” Mullin said. “If you don’t like the laws, you can change them.” "We’re not picking and choosing which laws we enforce. We're simply enforcing the law. Period. Full stop." @SecMullinDHSWATCH IN FULL: Secretary Mullin opening testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee. pic.twitter.com/elhQfA3af6— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) June 2, 2026 During the Tuesday Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security hearing titled “A Review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request for the Department of Homeland Security,” Murphy accused ICE and DHS of violating court orders. “Every day, this agency is breaking the law at scale and wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. The DHS does not implement the law any longer; it makes up the law,” the senator charged. Murphy argued that the committee should not choose to fund agencies that allegedly break the law. “We swear an oath when we arrive here to ensure that their money is not used to fund unconstitutional or illegal behavior,” the senator said. “Every single day, this agency is violating the Constitution and the law. This cannot continue.” Secretary Mullin, who was sworn in less than three months ago, used up the time for his opening statement to fire back at Murphy’s attacks. “I do have an opening statement here, but wow. Senator Murphy, the outlandish claim you made there is just flat wrong,” Mullin said. “What’s unconstitutional that we’re doing? We swore to uphold the Constitution just like you swore to uphold the Constitution,” the secretary added. “We’re simply enforcing the law. Period. Full stop.” Mullin also accused Murphy of recklessly spreading dangerous rhetoric about DHS and ICE. “When you throw out reckless terms and you start referring to our agents as being dangerous, unconstitutional, and lawless, that’s why our agents’ death threats are up by 8000%.” “I know that’s not what you want, but your political theater, that’s what it causes. When you start looking at assaults on our officers, they’re up by 1300%.” Mullin said. The secretary argued that the federal government needs to prioritize immigration enforcement and continue to fund ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. “If you don’t want Customs and Border Patrol, and their job is to control our borders and the customs entry points, then be honest with the American people and say ‘we want open borders,’ but don’t sit there and accuse us of a bunch of stuff that you know isn’t true,” Mullin told Murphy. The hearing came after a reconciliation bill stalled in the Senate due to a dispute over an included anti-weaponization fund that gave the Department of Justice an additional $1.776 billion. The disagreement over the reconciliation bill and DHS funding threatens another partial government shutdown if Congress cannot agree on a budget by June 30.

The fourth African Regional Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty is convening in Accra, Ghana, this week. There, parliamentarians and civil society leaders from across Africa will seek to respond to the many contemporary challenges affecting African families, cultural identity, and national sovereignty. Topping the agenda at the conference will be a discussion of the draft African Charter on Family, Sovereignty and Values, which its proponents hope to adopt this week and bring to the African Union for consideration. The Charter emphasizes the family, formed from the marriage of a man and woman, as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It urges governments to protect the family in law and policy, to strengthen sovereignty in the face of cultural and economic imperialism, and to preserve Africa’s traditional values. It notes that African countries should reject any international agreements that impose sexual and reproductive health rights or gender ideology in opposition to African cultural traditions and domestic laws. United Nations agencies—primarily the U.N. Population Fund, the World Health Organization, and U.N. Women—are the major drivers and implementers of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) programming in Africa. While diplomats at the U.N. go to great lengths to avoid defining the controversial “sexual and reproductive health and rights,” U.N. agencies use it as a broad umbrella term to include contraception; “safe” abortion; “comprehensive” sexuality education; and the enjoyment of “sexual rights,” including those based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression.   Throughout Africa, the issue of sexual and reproductive health rights has extensive external support from U.N. entities and Western donors, but it remains very controversial at the national and local level. U.N. entities fund non-governmental organizations like the International Planned Parenthood Federation, EngenderHealth and MSI Reproductive Choices. The U.N. Population Fund partners with such organizations to deliver SRHR through programs like 2gether 4 SRHR, which operates throughout East and Southern Africa. As an intergovernmental organization, the African Union appears to be following a trajectory heavily influenced by the European Union, the U.N., and other progressive actors. The African Union is not a supranational organization like the EU (which makes binding laws over its member states), and African Union leadership’s decisions and opinions are often ignored or blocked by African member states. Nevertheless, the national governments and parliamentarians coming together for this week’s conference are responding to several recent African Union actions that have necessitated a coordinated response to defend life, family, and national sovereignty. For example, the Pan-African Parliament advanced a draft model law on gender equality and equity to harmonize national legislation with multilateral instruments such as the Maputo Protocol and the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. These documents advance a progressive agenda that conflicts with traditional pro-life and pro-family beliefs. The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights—the African Union’s human rights body—recently reiterated its position that abortion access is a legal obligation under the Maputo Protocol, irrespective of many national laws that protect unborn life. And last year, the African Union proposed a Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, which risks introducing controversial policy changes under the guise of protecting women. It contains vague and expansive definitions of key terms—such as “gender,” “family,” and even “violence”—that depart from established understandings in African legal frameworks. Left undefined, these terms could be interpreted to require far-reaching legal shifts, including the incorporation of contested gender identity concepts or new obligations related to abortion policy. Equally concerning is the treaty’s reliance on external international frameworks and “soft law” instruments that embed these same ideas. By referencing such documents, the convention risks importing “evolving international norms” that have not been democratically debated or agreed upon by African states. Hence the need for the new African Charter on Family, Sovereignty, and Values. At last year’s interparliamentary conference, Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni warned attendees that “too often, aid is not offered freely, it now comes with conditions that threaten to redefine our societies according to foreign standards, thereby eroding the values we hold sacred and undermining our right to govern ourselves.” Uganda is no stranger to this phenomenon. When Uganda’s legislature passed its Anti-Homosexuality Act in 2023 to prohibit sexual relations between persons of the same sex, its government became the target of unrelenting pressure from the international community to repeal or moderate the law. The World Bank immediately announced that it would halt any new public financing to Uganda and then froze all funding for nearly two years, until it had determined that there were sufficient safeguards in place. It is not unusual for donor countries and international organizations to use a combination of carrots and sticks to motivate developing countries to conform to their priorities. While such practices sometimes serve benign foreign policy interests or noble human rights goals, they are increasingly employed by progressive actors to advance a radical social agenda centered on promoting abortion and gender ideology.   A recent report on the World Bank’s practice of conditioning loans and other financing on recipient countries’ social and demographic policies—including liberalizing abortion laws—discussed several examples from Africa. The European Union’s core foreign assistance instrument is the Gender Action Plan III, which prioritizes sexual and reproductive health and rights programing alongside gender-based violence prevention and women’s economic empowerment. From 2021 to 2023, the EU gave €415 million of bilateral funding for SRHR to sub-Saharan African countries alone. That is a large sum of donor dollars for contraceptives and abortions, especially when compared to the €273 million allocated by the EU in the same time period for programs to treat malaria and other infectious diseases. In its foreign and development policies, the United Kingdom also emphasizes sexual and reproductive health and rights as a central priority. Its flagship program, Women’s Integrated Sexual Health, supports SRHR service delivery across multiple African countries and partners with International Planned Parenthood Federation. Clearly the leaders attending this week’s Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty are responding to a multitude of threats. African leaders are accustomed to the ideological colonization and policy obfuscation that international progressives push. This new African Charter is a reminder to the rest of the world that family values and African sovereignty are at risk, and Africans care. The U.S.—particularly under this administration that values life, family, and sovereignty—should support these courageous African leaders in their ongoing cultural and political battlefront.

In an exclusive interview, Daily Signal legal analyst Mehek Cooke discussed with Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, why the Justice Department launched its inaugural state partnership roundtable in Ohio, how data sharing could help investigators identify fraudsters who target multiple government programs, and why other states should join the effort.This transcript has been slightly edited for clarity.Mehek Cooke: Assistant Attorney General McDonald, thank you so much for being here in Ohio today.  Colin McDonald: Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.  Mehek Cooke: So I was able to witness a closed-door roundtable where you’re leading a charge to detect fraud in Ohio with multiple partners and Ohio officials. Can you tell me why you started in Ohio with this?  Colin McDonald: Well, thanks for chatting with me here. It’s so important to get the word out about the fraud efforts that we’re engaged in. We started here on the strength of some great U.S. attorneys who are here in the state of Ohio and some willing state partners who, when we came to them and said, “Hey, we have these ideas for how we can do better together, to come together as one team,” they were willing down the line to say, “Yes, we’re willing to do that and to become one team to fight for the American taxpayer and to make sure that we can stop the bleeding when it comes to the fraud.”  So this morning’s event was a kickoff event, an inaugural event, with state and federal partners to get together in a room and say, “Hey, if we don’t solve it, no one else will.”   And so we’ve had great reception here in Ohio. Partnerships including the sharing of data and also including the provision of prosecutors to join the Department of Justice’s Fraud Division and other agreements down the line to make sure that we can remove information silos so that we can have and sing off the same sheet of music when it comes to the data that exists out there, so that we can more quickly illuminate the fraudsters in Ohio and then bring them to justice.  Mehek Cooke: Well, thank you. It’s exciting that Ohio’s the first and shining example, but I have to share with you that people in Ohio are deeply frustrated because fraud has been rampant for decades. Why do you think it’s taken so long, and what can we do to make sure we expedite these processes?  Colin McDonald: Yeah, fighting fraud requires resolve and focus and leadership. And I’m grateful on the federal side, under President [Donald] Trump, Vice President [JD] Vance, Acting Attorney General [Todd] Blanche. Those three men are laser-focused on solving this problem for the American people.   And so I would say that is the biggest sea change, leadership, and the leaders in the room saying, “We’re not going to tolerate this anymore. We’re going to actually do something about it, and we’re going to put our money where our mouth is, which is we’re going to put resources behind this work so that we actually have a broad enough fraud-fighting apparatus to engage with the fraudsters so that we’re not outnumbered.”  So we’re in that process right now of building out our squad, both in DC but more so nationally, to make sure that we have prosecutors out there in the districts, in the states where the fraud is happening so that we can bring bad actors to justice.   So that would be my answer, leadership. And we have that leadership, steer, and desire and purpose. There’s a purpose behind what we’re doing, and that comes from the top.  Mehek Cooke: Well, I have to say there’s no doubt that the political will and desire to protect taxpayers is there by this administration.  I think the deeper concern is Ohio and then Columbus, Ohio. We have the second-largest Somali population, and out of that we have seen a robust operation of home health care fraud. We’re seeing other avenues of fraud in other programs as well.   And the silo approach in our states, and I’m seeing this across the country, where there’s no data sharing even amongst state agencies.  Like a Republican state in Ohio, we have the governor’s office here who’s refusing to give public records. So we’ve asked for, at the Daily Signal, public records of just how much we’re spending for home health care services, not patient data, nothing confidential. And after five months, the Ohio Governor’s Office Department of Medicaid responded that they subcontracted this to a private operator and that I had to go to them to ask for those records.   What can you do at the DOJ so a taxpayer like me and millions of others across the state just have visibility into how the states are managing our money?  Colin McDonald: Yeah. Well, it’s a very big problem on the federal side where we give over billions of dollars to states across the country, and then in many instances, we never see what happens with that money afterwards. And some states do good, some states do not do well at all with providing proper accounting for that money. So it is a big problem.  And those information silos that you talk about, where the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, and the federal government is denied visibility into certain documents, we’re dealing with that in the state of Minnesota right now, and other states who are even going so far as to sue us to prevent us from having access to records that would probably very likely demonstrate fraud.   And you kind of have to ask, why would someone be trying to keep records from us to help us illuminate the fraudulent actors? It is a question I think everyone should pose.  So what we plan to do, we mentioned this morning at the roundtable, is we are building out a prosecutor-led national fraud detection center, which breaks down those information silos and brings together data from federal agencies and also state partners so that we can bring that data together to see and identify the fraudsters who are defrauding multiple programs at the same time in many instances.  And this has never been done before, to have that cross-program visibility.  We’re going to build that. We’re in the process right now of doing that so that we can identify the very small percentage of people who rip off the United States time and time again. This will give us the ability to put a microscope on those people, and they won’t be able to hide because the data talks and it talks loudly.   And when we get everybody to give it to us and we can look at it, we are going to be able to unmask those fraudulent actors.  Mehek Cooke: Will taxpayers have access to this data once you’re able to create it nationwide?  Colin McDonald: So the fraud detection center will be prosecution-focused.   Mehek Cooke: So …   Colin McDonald: It will fall in line with the standard protocols for the treatment and collection of criminal evidence. And so in that regard, no. But in the other sense, what we are trying to do is build out a robust platform for messaging to the American people.   What are we finding and who are we prosecuting?   And also being able to use what we’re learning to go to the policymakers and share that with the policymakers to say, “Hey, these are the flaws in the system. This is how you need to do better with your security protocols to make sure that the money doesn’t go out the door in the first place.”  Because that’s better for everybody if there are systems in place that can prevent the money and capture the fraudster before they have consummated the fraud.   So we will be as transparent as possible within the confines of what the federal rules of criminal procedure allow for us to be.   But also, we do plan to tell the American people how they are being ripped off, because the more they know, the more the public will support all the work that we’re doing and will ensure that no one can remain on the sidelines, that everyone will join the team because they’ll see that they need to get in the game.  Mehek Cooke: Well, that’s incredible because one of the big things you highlighted is not only transparency but deterrence, so that the bad guys out there know that you’re watching and that you’re exposing it, so they are less likely to commit fraud.   One of the best parts about the conference that you just led, the roundtable, was your drive to say there should be fewer prosecutions in years to come because deterrence is working. Can you comment a little bit more on that?  Colin McDonald: Yes. The best case for a country, for a state, for a society, is in the end you have demonstrated the power of the prosecutor to be able to reach those who are committing crime.   And when you demonstrate that, if there is a crime, there is a consequence, that you will reap what you sow, and you demonstrate that the prosecutor apparatus is large enough to reach you, then people don’t commit crimes. They think twice. They realize, “I shouldn’t lie. I shouldn’t cheat. I shouldn’t steal.” Very basic things.  But where you do not have that apparatus built out, people think they can get away with it.   So you have a lot of fraudsters who have, for many years, been enjoying the darkness and being able to steal from the American people in the dark, no visibility, and funding their very lavish lifestyles. So they do not feel the concern that a prosecutor might be knocking on their door, or a federal agent might be knocking on their door at 6:00 a.m. the next morning. That’s what I want to change.  I want to change that whole dynamic such that if you’re a fraudster and you go to bed tonight, you are worried that you are going to get a knock on your door at six o’clock tomorrow morning. And if you make it to 6:30 tomorrow morning, you should say a prayer because you’ve got another day. But guess what? You’ve got to go to bed that night worried about six o’clock the next morning. That’s what I want. I want fraudsters worried about six o’clock in the morning.  Mehek Cooke: Well, I congratulate the drive and the implementation. Ohio’s the first state. What’s your message to other states about getting on board so we have a 50-state solution to fraud? And the most important part of this is if there’s reluctance, what do you say to those states?  Colin McDonald: I would say leave the reluctance behind. Get on board the fraud-fighting team. We have room for everyone. Our division that we’ve created is the National Fraud Enforcement Division, and we chose that word purposefully, which is that the fraud is national.   And we’ve announced in the last 64 days or so over 550 major fraud takedowns, arrests, convictions, and sentences across the entirety of the United States of America. So we are moving quickly to build out our fraud-fighting apparatus.  We invite everyone to join us, as you’ve seen today with different members of the Ohio coalition agreeing to join us and come alongside us. That’s what we want. If we come together, we can solve this problem. If we stay in our own corners and not cooperate, it won’t work.  Mehek Cooke: Thank you so much for your leadership on this. It’s a pleasure to have you in Ohio, and I continue to see your great work across the country.  Colin McDonald: Thank you so much.