Longtime Democratic lawmaker dies; Navy secretary ousted

A federal judge today dismissed a defamation lawsuit from Laura Loomer, ruling in favor of comedian Bill Maher over a comment he made on his show that insinuated the far-right activist had an affair with President Donald Trump.

U.S. District Judge James Moody wrote in an 18-page ruling that Maher was clearly joking when he made the comment during a September 2024 episode of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

Moody said the episode aired “during a time when the environment was rife with jokes and speculation about Loomer’s relationship with President Trump,” and that a reasonable viewer of the show “would have understood Maher was making a joke, and not a statement of fact about plaintiff and President Trump.”

Read the full story here.

The Senate has begun its marathon vote series on an unlimited number of amendments to the budget resolution proposed by Senate Republicans, which would fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection through the end of Trump’s term.

The resolution directs the Senate Judiciary and Senate Homeland Security Committees to craft a bill of up to $140 billion to fund ICE and CBP, an effort to keep that funding from being used as a bargaining chip by Democrats in future funding fights.

By using the reconciliation process, Republicans can pass the measure through both chambers while bypassing the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.

The voting process can take hours to complete as lawmakers work their way through dozens of amendments.

Virginia voters signed off yesterday on a plan to gerrymander their state to boost Democrats in the midterms, making it the seventh state to draw new maps as part of a redistricting arms race that has altered the fight for the House majority coming up in November’s elections.

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Prediction market Kalshi said today that it had fined and suspended three political candidates for trading on their own races during primary campaigns.

“Just like in traditional financial markets, bad actors will try to cheat,” Kalshi said in a statement. “These three cases are an example of how developing proactive engineering solutions can help identify illicit trading activity.”

Kalshi described the actions taken by the politicians as “political insider trading.”

The fines ranged from $539 to more than $6,200, while the suspensions from Kalshi are set to last five years.

Read the full story here.

U.S. Navy Secretary John Phelan exits Trump's administration. Al Drago / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

Navy Secretary John Phelan will leave the Trump administration “effective immediately,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced today, marking the latest departure of a top defense official this year.

“On behalf of the Secretary of War and Deputy Secretary of War, we are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his service to the Department and the United States Navy,” Parnell said in a statement posted on X.

It was not immediately clear why Phelan will be departing his post. Parnell said that the new acting secretary of the Navy will be Undersecretary Hung Cao.

Phelan’s departure comes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forced out the Army’s top officer and two other Army generals earlier this month.

Read the full story here.

The Senate tonight rejected a war powers resolution related to the war in Iran, voting 46-51 to decline to bring the measure to the floor.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., was the only Democrat to vote against it, while Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was the only Republican to vote for it. Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Dave McCormick, R-Pa., and Mark Warner, D-Va., did not vote.

The result was expected and came after about an hour of debate on the Senate floor.

The resolution would “direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.”

This is the fifth resolution introduced by Democrats to rein in Trump’s actions in Iran without congressional approval. Democrats have said they will continue bringing war powers resolutions to the floor until Republicans agree to hold public hearings on Iran.

Secretary of the Navy John Phelan will be departing the Trump administration “effective immediately,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced today.

“On behalf of the Secretary of War and Deputy Secretary of War, we are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his service to the Department and the United States Navy,” Parnell wrote on X.

He added that the new acting Secretary of the Navy will be Undersecretary Hung Cao.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., spoke to reporters after Kennedy's testimony before his committee and gave his assessment on how the health secretary handled a recent measles outbreak.

"Well, he has publicly urged people to be immunized ... and provided resources for tracking cases. So that's what the secretary should do," Cassidy said.

Asked if he regretted his pivotal "yes" vote to advance Kennedy's nomination last year, Cassidy said, "I've been commonly asked that, and I've commonly said, 'You make a decision, you move forward.'"

Cassidy then left and did not respond to a shouted question on whether he can trust Kennedy's answers on vaccines.

The White House lowered its flags to half-staff today in recognition of the death of Rep. David Scott, D-Ga.

The flags will be raised back to full staff tomorrow at midnight, the White House said.

Scott, first elected to Congress in 2002, was the first Black chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. The 80-year-old congressman was seeking a 13th term.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., will lead Senate Democrats in forcing a vote around 4:45 p.m. today on a war powers resolution to “direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.”

The vote will be subject to a simple majority, and it is not expected to pass.

This is the fifth resolution introduced by Democrats to rein in Trump’s future actions in Iran without congressional approval. Democrats have said they will continue bringing war powers resolutions to the floor until Republicans agree to hold public hearings on Iran.

Kennedy's hearing before the Senate HELP Committee has wrapped. It was his second hearing of the day.

Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., grilled Kennedy about whether Aaron Siri — an anti-vaccine lawyer who previously served as Kennedy’s personal attorney — has undue influence over federal health policy.

“Aaron Siri is an American citizen. He has a right to say what he wants,” Kennedy said.

Former CDC Director Susan Monarez testified last year that Kennedy asked her to meet with Siri, then fired her for refusing to blindly approve vaccine guidance changes. Siri also delivered a misinformation-riddled presentation at a meeting of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel in December.

Siri, who has regularly sued federal and state health agencies, threatened in March to sue HHS if it didn’t add 300 conditions to a list of vaccine injuries eligible for compensation. HHS has not taken such action.

“Well, I guess Aaron Siri doesn’t have much influence on me after all, does he?” Kennedy told Alsobrooks.

Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., asked Kennedy about his decision to slash more than $500 million in mRNA research contracts last year.

“I terminated the Covid vaccines because they didn’t make any sense,” Kennedy said. “Covid is gone, and the mRNA vaccines have a limited efficacy against respiratory illnesses.”

Both claims are false. Covid continues to claim lives worldwide and a new variant, BA.3.2, is currently circulating in the U.S. Covid vaccines continue to protect against severe illness and death, and scientists say mRNA vaccines could be an important tool to prepare for future pandemics.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are demanding that FBI Director Kash Patel fill out a screening test used to assess “harmful patterns of alcohol consumption and routinely used by individuals to help identify hazardous drinking behaviors,” following allegations published in an Atlantic article.

In a letter to Patel, the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and more than a dozen other Democrats suggested the alleged behavior could harm U.S. national security.

Read the full story here.

Kennedy claimed early in the hearing that almost none of the reductions in mortality from chronic disease in the 20th century was attributable to vaccination, and was instead due to other factors like improved hygiene and sewage systems, citing a 2000 study from the CDC and Johns Hopkins.

Cassidy interjected during Kennedy’s questioning to get more details about the study, then again to fact check Kennedy’s description of the findings.

The study in fact found that vaccination did not account for dramatic declines in mortality early in the 20th century, but that once vaccines were more widely introduced in the mid-1900s, they were instrumental in eliminating deaths.

“That’s the complete context,” Cassidy said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., pressed Kennedy about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's decision to remove the requirement for U.S. troops to receive the flu vaccine.

"Secretary Kennedy, is CDC, or any agency at HHS ready and able to detect or monitor localized flu outbreaks in our military as a result of this new, what I think is a, backwards policy?"

Kennedy referred to a psychedelic drug called ibogaine as “the most promising treatment for depression and PTSD that anybody’s ever seen.”

The drug has become popular among some veterans who obtain it via clinics in Mexico. Psychedelics are illegal to prescribe and dispense in the U.S. and have no currently accepted medical use here.

Trump on Saturday signed an executive order to create a pathway for patients with serious conditions who have exhausted other treatment options to access ibogaine. However, many public experts say efforts to widen access are premature. Although some preliminary evidence suggests ibogaine could help with post-traumatic stress disorder and opioid addiction, the drug has been associated with deadly heart issues.

Cassidy asked Kennedy about steps HHS is taking to address potential measles outbreaks during the World Cup this year amid the global outbreak.

“We are laser-focused on that,” Kennedy said, adding that there will be testing booths “all over the games.”

Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., asked whether Trump’s new pick for CDC director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, would have the right to make decisions independently of political appointees or reassign them so they can’t undermine trust in vaccines.

Kennedy responded: “Your characterization of the political appointees is wrong, and the CDC director has that power now.”

Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., said in his opening statement that many "pro-life Louisianans have been disappointed" with the Trump administration's actions to protect women from medication abortion.

"We need a willing partner to stand up for life, Mr. Secretary," Cassidy said.

Cassidy continued, "It's time to stop stalling on the safety study for abortion drugs. It's time to reinstate the in-person safeguards protecting women from abuse and coercion."

Wide-ranging data has shown that mifepristone, used for medication abortions, is safe to use and has a low likelihood of serious adverse effects.

Kennedy is now testifying at his second congressional hearing of the day and his seventh of this month.

His testimony before the Senate Help, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee comes after he faced questions from the Senate Finance Committee earlier about vaccines, cuts to health agencies under the Trump administration and deals the Trump administration negotiated with drug companies with the aim of lowering drug prices.

A federal judge in Texas has tossed a defamation suit brought by FBI Director Kash Patel against former FBI assistant director-turned-MSNBC contributor Frank Figliuzzi.

Patel had sued Figliuzzi over comments he made on “Morning Joe” about the FBI director’s evening activities.

Read the full story here.

Trump criticized the results of the Virginia redistricting vote yesterday, saying without evidence that the election was "rigged."

Trump has a history of calling elections into question when the result is not what he wanted, most notably when he repeats the false claim that he won the 2020 election against Joe Biden.

Trump also criticized the Virginia ballot language, calling it "purposefully unintelligible and deceptive."

"As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they!" Trump said in the Truth Social post. "Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of 'Justice.'"

The results of the state referendum could allow Democrats to gain four House seats in the redrawn map. Earlier this year, Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps to give Republicans an advantage in the upcoming midterm elections. Several Democratic-led states, including Virginia, responded with redistricting pushes of their own.

After he applied to his 599th job, John Burg stopped counting. 

Burg was laid off as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development in January 2025 after a decadeslong career that took him to Thailand, Kosovo and El Salvador. He was one of more than 300,000 federal workers and contractors whose jobs were eliminated by the Department of Government Efficiency.

One year, one massive spreadsheet of job leads and only a handful of interviews later, Burg has returned to the job he had in college, doing carpentry work in his Takoma Park, Maryland, neighborhood, just outside of Washington.

Read the full story here.

Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., has died at the age of 80, according to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

“Congressman Scott’s passing is deeply sad,” Jeffries told reporters. “David Scott was a trailblazer who served the district that he represented admirably, rose up from humble beginnings to become the first African American ever to chair the House [Agriculture] Committee. He cared about the people that he represented. He was fiercely committed to getting things done for the people of the great state of Georgia, and he’ll be deeply missed.”

NBC News reached out to Scott’s office for comment.

Scott was first elected to Congress, representing a district outside of Atlanta, in 2002. He was running for re-election for a 13th term in the House.

Read the full story here.

The hearing ended with a heated exchange between Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Kennedy when the Democratic senator asked if he was familiar with a report about a 3-year-old girl being abused at a foster home within an agency HHS oversees.

"No, I am not," Kennedy said.

"You’re the secretary of Health and Human Services, and it’s in a national publication, and you didn’t know that a 3-year-old girl was being sexually abused on your watch?" Wyden said.

While grilling Kennedy over CDC staffing cuts that have diminished the agency’s capacity to respond to diseases like rabies and mad cow disease, Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., said the secretary seemed “distracted.”

Kennedy's actions during the questioning were not immediately apparent.

“Even as you seem distracted while I talk to you about deadly diseases, I think you’re dangerous to the American public, and you ought to be fired. And if you’re not fired, you ought to have the decency to resign. You’re way in over your head,” Warnock said.

Warnock, along with other Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, have called on Kennedy to resign before.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies today. Jose Luis Magana / AP

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., criticized the Trump administration's "most favored nation" agreements to reduce prescription drug prices.

Tillis, who's retiring at the end of this Congress and has become much more critical of the administration in his final term, said these deals are similar to the kinds of policies Democrats have embraced over the years.

"China gets the IP, China gets the manufacturing, America gets the lower prices on drugs we didn’t invent, produced in facilities that we don’t own," he said.

The "most favored nations' deals "tells the world that America will no longer invent in the future, in my opinion," Tillis said, adding: "It doesn’t address supply chain concentration or IP theft. It just hammers the end price and hopes that the rest of the system magically adjusts."

Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., grilled Kennedy about HHS’ employment of David Geier, a discredited researcher with a history of spreading misinformation about vaccines, as a senior data analyst.

Geier is believed to be working on a federal study on whether vaccines cause autism. Decades of scientific research has found no such link.

Kennedy said Geier is a contract employee and that he would share information with the Senate about the scope of Geier’s contract, but could not share the protocols that go into Geier’s work because they haven’t been developed yet.

Kennedy told Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., that he would comply with the senator’s inquiry into reported deaths and injuries from Covid vaccines. 

Johnson has long repeated misinformation about the safety of Covid shots, pointing to reports of injuries made to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The system allows anyone to submit reports about what they say are adverse events, but the claims have not been verified and do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused an adverse event.

The CDC has consistently found that Covid vaccines protect against severe illness. The vaccines come with a very small risk of myocarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle — but the risk is much higher after an infection with Covid itself.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., did not bring up vaccines in his round of questioning of Kennedy. Cassidy is a big proponent of vaccines, and he backed Kennedy's confirmation when Kennedy promised to maintain federal vaccine guidelines, which he did not ultimately do.

Cassidy spent a portion of his question period asking Kennedy about fraud issues, which is also a top priority for the administration.

Cassidy is facing primary challenges for his seat next month.

Kennedy hinted at how he intends to reform the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which makes national screening recommendations for diseases. 

Kennedy told Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., that his agency is accepting resumes to fill the positions of members who are “rotating out.” The terms of five task force members expired at the end of last year.

Kennedy also said he is looking for a more varied group of specialties and plans to increase the number of meetings. The task force’s last several meetings were postponed and it has not convened in more than a year.

Sen. Bill Cassidy is up now to question Kennedy.

Cassidy, R-La., provided the necessary support to confirm Kennedy to his Cabinet position after Kennedy agreed to keep the federal vaccine recommendations in place. Kennedy has not kept that promise.

Cassidy will also get another chance to question Kennedy later today when the secretary appears before the Senate Help, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Cassidy chairs.

The senator faces two Republican primary challengers next month. Trump is backing one of his opponents.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked Kennedy whether he would release information about tariff reductions for pharmaceutical companies with products on TrumpRx.

Kennedy said the tariff relief is just for companies that agree to produce the drug in the U.S. He said he was "happy to make the deals available, except for proprietary information and trade secrets."

TrumpRx, the self-pay platform for prescription drugs, so far offers cash prices on about 80 medications.

Experts have noted, however, that many of the drugs listed on the site have generic versions that cost less than the advertised prices. Most of those deals also don’t change what people with private insurance or Medicare pay. Medicaid patients already tend to pay little or nothing for prescriptions.

Trump posted a lengthy rant this morning lambasting conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices for not ruling in the Trump administration's favor across a variety of cases.

He wrote on Truth Social that the liberal-leaning justices are unified and vote as a bloc.

"The Republican Justices don’t stick together, they give the Democrats win after win, like a 159 Billion Dollar pile of cash on a completely ridiculous Tariff decision, and nasty, one sided questions on the country destroying subject of Birthright Citizenship, something which virtually NO OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IS STUPID ENOUGH TO ALLOW," he said.

He went on to say "certain 'Republican' Justices have just gone weak, stupid, and bad, completely violating what they 'supposedly' stood for."

Sen. Maggie Hassan questions Kennedy about 'vanity projects'

01:49

During the HHS budget hearing, Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., pressed Kennedy on "self promotion" using "official government channels and resources."

She pointed to an HHS video of Kennedy and Kid Rock working out together, an apparent AI video posted by Kennedy depicting the shirtless secretary fighting a man in a Twinkie costume, and another video depicting a cartoon Kennedy as a video game character fighting a donut.

"Does the president know about the self promotion campaign that you're carrying out with official HHS resources?" she asked.

Kennedy said he did not "know about about a number of those videos," adding that he "happened to not see them."

Hassan asked whether Trump authorized him to use official HHS resources for the "vanity projects."

"I've never discussed it with the president," he said.

Kennedy has repeatedly distanced himself from the measles outbreak in his hearings on Capitol Hill this week and last. Public health experts have said the secretary did not do enough to emphasize the importance of vaccination and touted unproven treatments like steroids as the virus barreled through West Texas.

Kennedy, meanwhile, insisted again today that the U.S. handled the measles outbreak better than any country in the world and pointed to higher case counts in Mexico and Canada.

“The vaccination rate levels dropped during Covid because people stopped trusting the American government. I am here to restore that trust,” he told Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

The U.S. recorded 2,287 measles cases last year — the most since the disease was first considered eliminated in the U.S. 25 years ago. Another 1,748 cases have already been recorded this year. Experts worry the country is on track to lose its measles elimination status.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Kennedy whether he would commit to releasing his written agreements with pharmaceutical companies in the interest of transparency.

"No, I will not," Kennedy responded. "And I can explain why. Those agreements contain proprietary information and trade secrets."

"When you passed the Inflation Reduction Act and ordered me to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies, you put in a provision that required NDAs, because nobody is going to come to the table with me if I start releasing proprietary information," he said.

Wyden then accused Kennedy of trying to "hide the information" on "consequential issues."

The HHS website says that the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act authorizes the HHS secretary "to negotiate prices directly with participating manufacturers for selected drugs that are high expenditure, single source drugs without generic or biosimilar competition."

Kennedy began his opening remarks by expressing condolences to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., whose daughter died days ago of long-standing health problems, before instantly pivoting to talking about the unhealthiness of U.S. children.

"First, I'd like to take a moment to express my deepest condolences to your colleague, Sen. Mark Warner, over the recent loss of his daughter, Madison," Kennedy said. "My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family."

"We stand at a generational turning point," he continued. "Our children are the sickest generation in modern history, and decades of failed policies, captured agencies and profit-driven systems caused it."

Warner's daughter Madison Warner died at age 36 following a "decades-long battle with juvenile diabetes and other health issues," Warner's office announced Monday.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, praised Kennedy's leadership at HHS in his opening statement, saying that the department has "taken sizable steps to fix the failures in our health care system that frustrate both patients and providers."

"I appreciate your commitment to making America healthy again by empowering patients with the tools and information they need to create a healthier future under your leadership," Crapo said.

But ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in his opening statement that he believes Kennedy will "serve up enough fakery this morning to help Senate Republicans ignore the real harm that's being caused" to the nation's health care system "while twisting the truth enough so he can go back to pushing anti-vax policies that make kids sick when he's out of the hearing room."

"Time and again, when Republicans are put in charge of Americans health care, there's a never-ending flood of benefits for special interests, while American families get left further behind," he said.

The Senate hearing featuring Kennedy's testimony has begun.

He is testifying before the Senate Finance Committee this morning, and he will testify before the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions this afternoon. The hearings center on the administration's 2027 budget request, though senators can ask about any topics.

Other administration officials will testify before Senate Appropriations subcommittees on the budget today as well. The administration officials heading to the Hill include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, among others.

Kennedy has had a marathon series of hearings on Capitol Hill this week. This is his first time facing the Finance Committee since Sept 4, 2025, when senators on both sides of the aisle grilled him on vaccines, Covid and turmoil at the CDC.

This will also be the first time since September that Kennedy comes face-to-face with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a doctor who is supportive of vaccines and has repeatedly clashed with Kennedy since voting to confirm him in his role at HHS.

Hundreds of Afghan refugees who helped the United States fight the Taliban may be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo after the Trump administration halted their U.S. resettlement, an advocacy group said.

Shawn VanDiver, president of San Diego-based advocacy group AfghanEvac, said he had been briefed on the DRC plan by multiple officials with direct knowledge of it who work either at the State Department or in close coordination with it.

Read the full story here.

YORK, Maine — Graham Platner says he will push Democrats to rethink their vision of power and pursue an aggressive agenda if he’s elected the next U.S. senator from Maine.

In an interview Friday, Platner called for replacing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; organizing an anti-war movement; removing two conservative Supreme Court justices; potentially expanding the court and weakening the filibuster.

Read the full story here.

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., struck a defiant tone today in saying he has no plans to resign over a House Ethics Committee investigation and bipartisan pressure for him to leave Congress.

“If someone can give me a good reason, I’d be more than happy to listen to it. But until we can do that, absolutely not, no — I don’t plan to resign. We’re going to seek re-election,” he told reporters at the Capitol.

Mills said he is complying with the Ethics Committee’s probe and has turned over documents, but that he has no sense of whether the panel is close to wrapping up the investigation it began in November.

“Anything they’ve asked of us, we’ve complied,” he said. “Why not let the investigating body and the Ethics Committee to be able to do their jobs? And so we comply. We’re very happy to see what the outcome is.”

Read the full story here.

The top California gubernatorial candidates will participate in a debate tonight in San Francisco, just days after the race was shaken up when former former Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat, dropped out amid sexual assault and misconduct allegations.

Swalwell, who also resigned from Congress amid the accusations, denies the allegations against him.

The Democrats joining the debate include billionaire activist Tom Steyer, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Rep. Katie Porter and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.

Participating on the Republican side will be former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

The debate will kick off at 7 p.m. PDT.

California's primary system advances the top two candidates, regardless of party. The number of Democrats in the race have raised concerns from some liberals that the candidates could potentially get shut out of the general election because of Californians splitting their votes amid the broad field.

The Senate voted 52-46, along party lines yesterday to move forward with a budget resolution that would lay the groundwork for a bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of Trump’s presidency.

The vote was on whether to proceed to the budget resolution, which only requires a simple majority for final passage, and starts up to 50 hours of debate which is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans are not expected to use much of their time.

At the end of the debate, senators will be allowed to offer unlimited amendments in what’s become known as a vote-a-rama, which will culminate in passage of the budget resolution. The vote-a-rama could happen as soon as tomorrow night.

The budget resolution directs two committees — Senate Judiciary and Senate Homeland Security — to draft a bill for up to $70 billion that would fund ICE and Border Patrol through the end of Trump’s term in an effort to inoculate those agencies from being used as a bargaining chip by Democrats in future funding fights.

After the budget resolution is passed in the Senate, it will also need to be passed in the House, and only then can the committees start writing the bills, which Republican leaders hope to send to Trump’s desk for his signature by the Memorial Day congressional recess.

Virginia voters approved a Democratic redistricting plan yesterday that could allow the party to pick up as many as four new seats in the midterm elections, NBC News projects.

With 97% of the vote in, the “yes” vote on the ballot referendum held a narrow lead of 3 percentage points.

Read the full story here.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. returns to Capitol Hill today for a potential collision course with the Republican who helped put him in the job: Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy.

It will be Kennedy’s first appearance in nearly a year before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Cassidy chairs. The senator, who is up for reelection, cast the key vote to confirm Kennedy last year after securing a series of promises from Kennedy, including that he would preserve federal vaccine recommendations and regularly appear before the committee.

Kennedy has not kept those promises.

Read the full story here.