Rep. Erin Houchin discusses housing affordability, we roll out three bills, House Intel members back DNI Tulsi Gabbard, and more!

When Rep. Erin Houchin (R., Ind.) was 26, she and her husband purchased land in Indiana that they still live on today — an experience that would be almost impossible to replicate today, Houchin told the Washington Reporter in an interview.  

“We were building in the Midwest many years ago, when the interest rates were a lot better,” Houchin said. “So we didn’t have an interest rate problem. We also could refinance, which we ended up doing much later. But we had to have a co-signer on our loan, and we had to have some collateral of some kind, and we were able to, through family support, have that collateral support, and many people don’t have that, we were very fortunate to.”

“But we look back on that time and think, ‘how did we survive?’” she said. “I think you just find a way to do it.” 

INTERVIEW INCOMING: Our editor-in-chief Matthew Foldi scored another interview with President Donald Trump — we’re going to roll out a special edition of the Washington Reporter featuring a series of articles Foldi wrote about his latest conversation with the 47th president. HISTORY MADE: President Donald Trump celebrated one year back in the White House following his historic 2024 comeback earlier this week. Rep. Lisa McClain (R., Mich.), the House GOP’s Conference Chair, hosted another media row that the Washington Reporterwas on-site for. Stay tuned for coverage of that! 2026 WATCH: Austin Rogers, the general counsel to Sen. Rick Scott (R.,…

As former Republican Hill staffers who’ve lived through countless budget fights and health care debates, we know how hard it is to get a real policy win. TrumpRx is one of those rare wins. It’s already lowered costs for patients in the most tangible, obvious way imaginable. And the president deserves our praise for getting this done. 

TrumpRx is the product of sustained negotiations and dealmaking with industry, backed by a White House that put affordability first. It’s arguably the most consequential health care achievement not just for this administration, but for any administration in recent history. 

It’s also something Democrats never would have done. Not because they don’t talk about drug prices, which they do, but because their instinct is always more price controls and government. A serious public-private partnership that forces real price concessions through negotiation rather than regulation is something that is foreign to the Democratic Party. 

A bipartisan group of lawmakers will introduce legislation to empower first-time homebuyers by allowing them to use leftover tax-free 529 plan funds to buy or build their first homes, giving buyers more options to use tax-advantaged savings.

The First-Time Homebuyer Empowerment Act, a copy of which was obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter, will be introduced by Reps. Tracey Mann (R., Kansas), Mark Alford (R., Mo.), Tom Barrett (R., Mich.), Lou Correa (D., Calif.), James Moylan (R., Guam), John McGuire (R., Va.), Russ Fulcher (R., Idaho), Sharice Davids (D., Kansas), and Nancy Mace (R., S.C.). It comes among a bipartisan push to lower the cost of housing — especially for first-time homebuyers. Lawmakers want to remove barriers for first-time homebuyers, especially when it comes to putting down large down payments.

“Homeownership is the heart of the American Dream,” Mann told the Reporter. “The ability to provide a safe, stable place to raise a family is so important for the future of our country. Today, too many young Americans feel that owning a home continues to become more and more out of reach. Our legislation gives people more flexibility on how to use their savings, opening up pathways for more Americans to own equity in their homes.”

Rep. Buddy Carter (R., Ga.) introduced legislation, obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter, to assist the Trump administration in its crackdown on illegal immigration.

Carter’s No Sanctuary Cities Act would ensure that dangerous individuals don’t slip through the cracks because of sanctuary city policies. The bill requires state and local governments to cooperate with federal immigration authorities by sharing custody and release information, holding certain detainees for up to 48 hours when requested, protecting officers who comply, and punishing jurisdictions that try to block or limit that cooperation.

Carter’s home state of Georgia has been rocked by the battle over illegal immigration; Laken Riley, a nursing student at Augusta University, was murdered in 2024 by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. Her murder led to the bipartisan passage of the Laken Riley Act, that requires the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take illegal immigrants who have been charged in the United States with theft into custody.

The NASA Reauthorization Act led to a bipartisan bill that would instruct NASA to “use the satellites and data infrastructure it already runs to deliver more accurate methane measurements, without adding new regulations or expanding enforcement authority,” one of its sponsors told the Washington Reporter.

Reps. Pat Harrigan (R., N.C.) and Don Beyer (D., Va.), are introducing the Methane Monitoring Science Act of 2026, obtained exclusively by the Reporter, which builds off of what Harrigan described as a “common-sense, high-impact R&D measure that directs NASA to evaluate and integrate its existing methane characterization assets, including satellite hardware, public-private partnerships, and data systems, to sharpen the competitive edge of American energy.”

But, Harrigan noted, “to maintain our competitive edge, U.S. industry will increasingly depend on the accurate monitoring of methane emissions across the entire natural gas supply chain. Currently, we have a ‘blind spot.’ Today’s methane characterization technologies are often fragmented or limited in their ability to deliver the complex, real-time measurements required by a modern economy. This technical gap puts America’s carbon advantage and our energy dominance at risk. If we cannot measure it, we cannot defend our lead in places like Europe.”

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard is getting backup from key lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee, after a highly-classified whistleblower complaint alleging that she restricted the distribution of an intelligence report for political purposes came out.

The “whistleblower complaint against Director Gabbard is just another attempt to smear the Trump administration,” Rep. Austin Scott (R., Ga.), the chair of the subcommittee on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that oversees the DNI, explained to the Washington Reporter. This is Scott’s first public defense of Gabbard amidst the fallout from the whistleblower complaint. 

“The media conveniently omits the fact that both the Biden-era [Intelligence Community Inspector General] Tamara Johnson, and current IC IG, Chris Fox, determined the complaint to be non-credible,” Scott added. Gabbard’s own team made similar points to the Reporter in rejecting the report; one GOP senator who viewed the report described it as “bunk.”

Rep. Ben Cline (R., Va.), one of the Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, is the latest to explain exclusively to the Washington Reporter why he is backing Director of National Intelligence (DNI) following a whistleblower complaint that has already been dismissed as “bunk.”

“The whistleblower complaint alleging that Director Gabbard improperly restricted the distribution of an intelligence report has been reviewed, and both the Biden-era Intelligence Community Inspector General and the current inspector general found it to be non-credible,” Cline exclusively told the Reporter. 

“There is no evidence to support any of these claims, which are based on unverified assertions rather than documented intelligence or firsthand confirmation,” Cline added. “These allegations are just attempts by Democrats to distract from the great work being done by the Trump administration. Director Gabbard continues to carry out her national security responsibilities, and congressional oversight should be based on facts and established processes, not speculation or politically driven narratives.”

As the Senate prepares to examine whether to loosen longstanding limits on media consolidation, a new national poll obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter shows the Republican base is overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed Nexstar-Tegna merger, a deal critics like Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy warn would raise consumer costs, reduce local news coverage, and concentrate unprecedented control over local television in the hands of a single company. 

The findings come just days before Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) is set to hold a hearing Tuesday on whether the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should loosen its national television ownership cap, which is currently set at 39 percent of U.S. households. Lifting or waiving that cap would allow Nexstar Media Group to complete its acquisition of Tegna, expanding its reach to more than 80 percent of American television households, more than double what the current cap permits.

According to a new survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, Republican primary voters oppose the Nexstar-Tegna merger by a 68 percent to 7 percent margin. After voters were informed about the practical effects of the merger, including higher prices, reduced local coverage, and increased centralized control, opposition surged to 96 percent, with more than eight in ten Republican voters saying they strongly oppose the deal.

Lawmakers are defending Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard following a highly-classified whistleblower complaint alleging that Gabbard undertook a series of politically-motivated moves within the intelligence community (IC), which was recently fact-checked by the Washington Reporter.

One senator who directly viewed the whistleblower’s allegations described the complaint as “bunk,” the Reporter can confirm. Following widespread criticisms of both the complaint and of its coverage, which first came from the Wall Street Journal, a senior GOP aide remarked to the Reporter that it appears “the complaint really was liberal BS.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, noted that he has “reviewed this ‘whistleblower’ complaint and the inspector general handling of it. I agree with both inspectors general who have evaluated the matter: the complaint is not credible and the inspectors general and the DNI took the necessary steps to ensure the material has handled and transmitted appropriately in accordance with law.”

The Trump-Kennedy Center (TKC) hosted a pair of shows geared toward combating anti-Semitism. 

Back to back, the TKC hosted Enduring Music: Compositions from the Holocaust, which was sponsored by the Counter Extremism Project, and a stage reading of the play October 7, which was written by a pair of Irish producers and based on interviews with survivors of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack in Israel.

Prior to the Enduring Music performance, the TKC hosted a VIP dinner; among those in attendance were Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Martin Marks, the President of Yeshiva University Rabbi Ari Berman, and Counter Extremism Project Ambassador Mark Wallace.

China is building the power grid of the future. Meanwhile, America lags, slowed by regulations and permitting delays. Without a modern power grid, the U.S. risks falling behind China in a race that will define the next century of technological and economic growth. 

Over the past decade, Beijing has aggressively expanded its energy capacity at a pace Washington has struggled to match. Over the last few years, China has added more than 11 times the generating capacity of the U.S. It has outpaced the U.S. in generating electricity for more than 14 consecutive years and is on track to add 60 percent additional capacity by 2040. 

This divergence is no accident. China treats energy as a strategic national industrial project, while the U.S. relies on an aging grid pieced together over decades. China invests hundreds of billions of dollars more into its energy systems, including more than 18,000 miles of ultrahigh voltage transmission lines. Over the same time frame, the United States hasn’t built a single mile of comparable systems.