ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
Republicans managed to pass three years of immigration enforcement funding through the Senate on Friday. The House is expected to pass it this week. GOP senators also defeated an effort to ban the president's nearly $2 billion fund of taxpayer money that he said he wants to give to people who have been targeted by a weaponized government. That might include January 6 insurrectionists who attacked police and threatened lawmakers. NPR's Eric McDaniel covers Congress, and he is here now. Hey, Eric.
ERIC MCDANIEL, BYLINE: Hey.
FLORIDO: So let's start with its immigration funding. It is expected to pass the House, as I said. This would be a big legislative win for Republicans, wouldn't it?
MCDANIEL: Well, they're certainly accomplishing a big goal. Three years of funding through the rest of Trump's term will insulate immigration enforcement from a lot of political pressure, right? They can't hold funding back. And mass deportations were a central campaign talking point for Trump, but it took basically six months to get here, and they weren't quiet. Public opinion started to turn on immigration enforcement after federal agents killed two American citizens in Minnesota early in the year.
And Democrats, of course, shut down the agency that oversees immigration enforcement for months in a failed effort to secure reforms, like body cameras and limits on face covering, stuff like that. Republicans ultimately had to find a way to pass this 70 billion in funding on a party line vote, but even that was delayed further by controversial ideas from the president.
FLORIDO: Like that almost $2 billion fund he wants to pay people he says have been unfairly prosecuted by the federal government.
MCDANIEL: Yeah. And not to mention a billion dollars in taxpayer money for the Secret Service to fund the president's security for the president's ballroom project. That ballroom money was eventually stripped, but the antiweaponization fund that President Trump created caused a longer delay. It was the target of a number of unsuccessful amendment votes in this immigration enforcement package at the end of last week.
But even after that, President Trump told Kristen Welker on NBC's "Meet The Press" in an interview that aired on Sunday - today - that he'd like to see the fund go forward anyway, that it's likely - and it's likely to continue to be an issue in Congress, especially in the House, where we're dealing with what amounts to a single-vote majority to get things through and some Republicans who have either been ousted from their seats by Trump or face very competitive general elections.
FLORIDO: Eric, you know, what else is on the agenda?
MCDANIEL: Well, more things that were making progress until Trump waded into the fight. So one thing I'm tracking is the reauthorization of America's most central spy tool. It's a thing called FISA, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and it lets the government scoop up electronic communications between non-Americans located outside of the U.S. when those communications cross American servers. It usually targets something like 300,000 people or groups each year. The authority for that collection expires Friday.
Congress has already had to pass a series of stopgap, and from my reporting, it really looked like a deal was coming together, finally, that could pass the House with a two-thirds bipartisan vote. Then the president picked an acting director of national intelligence - a guy named Bill Pulte. And Pulte has attracted attention in his current administration job for using the role to undermine the president's perceived political enemies. The fear is that he would do the same in this new job - director of national intelligence - where he'd oversee the nation's spy agencies' intelligence gathering. Even before this, lawmakers of both parties were already concerned that FISA could be used for domestic surveillance and potential abuses.
FLORIDO: What would happen if FISA did expire?
MCDANIEL: Well, let me say that I think another stopgap extension is probably more likely than an outright expiration.
FLORIDO: OK.
MCDANIEL: But even if FISA did lapse, the people I talk to say the collection has been authorized by the courts to continue for the rest of this year. So you'll still hear lawmakers sounding the alarm bells, and even some Republicans are telling him - are telling the president that Bill Pulte cannot stay in this job.
FLORIDO: I've been speaking with Congress reporter Eric McDaniel. Eric, thanks.
MCDANIEL: Adrian, thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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