Republicans face tough vote on Trump-backed budget bill

A hard-won, warts-and-all budget pact between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump is facing a key vote in the GOP-held Senate, with many conservatives torn between supporting the president and risking their political brand with an unpopular vote to add $2 trillion or more to the government's credit card.

The Trump-supported legislation backed by the Democratic speaker would also stave off a government shutdown and protect budget gains for both the Pentagon and popular domestic programs. It's attached to a must-do measure to lift the so-called debt limit to permit the government to borrow freely to pay its bills.

For many Republicans it's a tough vote, expected Wednesday afternoon. The tea party-driven House GOP conference broke against it by a 2-1 margin, but most pragmatists see the measure as preferable to an alternative fall landscape of high-wire deadlines and potential chaos. The government otherwise would face a potential debt default, an Oct. 1 shutdown deadline, and the return in January of across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is confident it will pass despite the misgivings of many Republicans.

But for new arrivals to the Senate, particularly those who ran against a broken Washington culture, the sweeping measure represents a lot of what they ran against: unrestrained borrowing and trillion-dollar deficits, fueled by a bipartisan thirst for new spending.

"This budget process, if we can even call it a process, put taxpayers at the mercy of a House Speaker who has no interest in prudent budgeting," said freshman Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. "Our system is not supposed to work this way. When the entire federal budget depends on four or five people striking a deal among themselves, something is not right."

The budget and debt bill, however, is a top priority for McConnell, who set up the initial talks — taken over by Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin earlier this month — and pushed to isolate conservative forces in the White House who were disruptive. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California are also supporting the deal.

For House Republicans, as the minority party, it was easy to take a pass on voting for the legislation. Pelosi also made a point of showing she had enough Democratic votes to push it through without their help. But it's a different dynamic in the Senate, where Republicans hold the majority and are expected to deliver a strong vote for a Trump-backed agreement.

"Given the realities of divided government, it is a strong deal that achieves my Republican colleagues' and my No. 1 priority," McConnell said, citing gains for the military. "The Trump administration has negotiated their way to a major win on defense. The House has passed the compromise legislation. The president is ready and waiting to sign it."

Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he expected a strong showing by the Senate's Democrats in favor of the bill. And GOP leadership stalwarts like Sens. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, swiftly swung behind the measure, calling it about the best result possible in a legislating matrix that demands Pelosi's blessing for bills to become law.

"So what price did we have to pay to get this? We had to give Nancy Pelosi a 4% increase this year in domestic spending and zero increase next year for an average annual increase that's less than the growth in (gross domestic product)," Wicker said, adding that many House Republicans took the "vote no, hope yes" approach to the legislation.

"I want to know what better deal anybody could have crafted that got Nancy Pelosi's sign-off in the House and Mitch McConnell's sign-off in the Senate, along with McCarthy and Schumer," Wicker said.

The agreement between the administration and Pelosi lifts the limit on the government's $22 trillion debt for two years and averts the risk of the Pentagon and domestic agencies from being hit with $125 billion in automatic spending cuts that are the last gasp of the 2011 budget deal.

PARIS (AP) — France's top diplomat Monday requested that U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner no longer be allowed direct access to members of the French government after he skipped a meeting to discuss comments by the Trump administration over the beating death of a far-right activist.

French authorities had summoned Kushner, the father of U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, to the Quai d'Orsay, which houses the Foreign Affairs Ministry, on Monday evening but he did not show up, according to diplomatic sources.

Jean-Noel Barrot, the foreign affairs minister, moved to restrict Kushner's access “in light of this apparent misunderstanding of the basic expectations of the mission of an ambassador, who has the honor of representing his country.”

The ministry, however, left the door open for reconciliation.

“It remains, of course, possible for Ambassador Charles Kushner to carry out his duties and present himself at the Quai d’Orsay, so that we may hold the diplomatic discussions needed to smooth over the irritants that can inevitably arise in a friendship spanning 250 years,” it said.

Kushner had been summoned following a statement by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, which posted on X that “reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all.” The U.S. Embassy had posted that statement on social media.

Deranque, a far-right activist, died of brain injuries this month from a beating in the French city of Lyon. He was attacked during a fight on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker was a keynote speaker.

His killing highlighted a climate of deep political tension ahead of next year’s presidential vote.

“We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot said over the weekend. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”

The State Department said in its post that “violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We will continue to monitor the situation and expect to see the perpetrators of violence brought to justice.”

Kushner was summoned in August over his letter to French President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism. France’s foreign officials met with a representative of the U.S. ambassador since the diplomat did not show up.

FILE - U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner gives a news conference marking the 250th birthday of the U.S. in 2026, in Paris, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)