Vice President Vance will visit Minneapolis on Wednesday following the shooting last week at Annunciation Catholic School. 

Vance will be joined by second lady Usha Vance, and the couple will pay their respects to victims and “hold a series of private meetings to convey condolences to the families of those affected by the tragedy,” his office announced on Tuesday. 

A shooter last week killed two students, aged 8 and 10, and injured 17 other people in an attack on a morning Mass at the Catholic school in southern Minneapolis. 

Police identified the suspect as 23-year-old Robin Westman, who they said barricaded the church door during the shooting, then died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

The vice president’s office didn’t say if he would be meeting with local officials on the ground. President Trump called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz following the shooting and ordered American flags to be flown at half-staff. 

House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Tuesday that he’s pushing for a stopgap that punts this month’s threat of a government shutdown into November to buy time for funding talks.

Congress has until Sept. 30 to strike a deal to keep the government funded or risk its first shutdown in years. 

Asked for his preferred timeline for a stopgap, which would freeze funding at current levels while lawmakers negotiate a bill for fiscal 2026, Cole said Tuesday that he wants to see a stopgap “into November.”

Cole said lawmakers are specifically discussing kicking the deadline into as early as Nov. 6, but added, “The latest we would go would be pre-Thanksgiving, like the 20th.”

“My aim is to try to get to a negotiated agreement on all 12 bills,” he said, referring to the 12 annual government funding bills Congress is working to craft. “That’s what [Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine)] and I are trying to work together on, and what we think the best thing is to begin the process and hope these other things resolve themselves over the course of discussion.”

Cole also signaled optimism about a potential deal that would greenlight several full-year funding bills for fiscal 2026, which begins Oct. 1, and use a stopgap to cover the rest, arguing such a move could help “get some momentum going” on funding. 

But Congress faces a tight crunch to hash out a deal, and tensions have risen in the past week in light of President Trump’s so-called pocket rescissions effort. The Trump administration is using the tactic to cancel about $5 billion in funding for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development without approval from Congress.

Democrats have come out strongly against the move, arguing it’s illegal and undermines already fragile bipartisan funding negotiations to fund the government. Some Republican appropriators have also criticized the effort as “unlawful,” although the administration has defended the tactic as legal. 

Cole told reporters on Tuesday that the effort by the administration is a “legitimate concern,” but he also argued the “legal case here really is unclear.”

“I would prefer not to do them. I would always prefer a congressional vote. I don’t have any problem with a rescission as long as Congress votes,” he said.

But he added, “It’s not clear what the law is.”

Emily Brooks contributed.

Senate Republicans are zeroing in on a rule change, which would be enacted through the “nuclear option,” that would allow them to expeditiously confirm scores of President Trump’s executive branch and judicial nominees.

The Republicans are hoping to move quickly and home in on a plan on Wednesday, when they convene for a special conference meeting specifically to address the issue after weeks of discussion.

The GOP has floated a number of ideas, but the leading option would allow the upper chamber to confirm nominees en bloc if they were greenlighted by the same committee. 

The idea is based off a Democratic proposal unveiled two years ago that would allow a single vote on up to ten nominees. The nascent GOP plan is unlikely to stick to the 10 nominee figure, and could be broadened out to include nominees from multiple committees in one bloc.

“Everybody has been talking through various options. …  One of the things that that process does is empower the committee process,” said Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who is a leader of a working group tasked with navigating and figuring out a rules change, adding that the panel-centric would “make committees great again.” 

“That [idea] has potential — for sure,” Britt said.

The Wednesday conference meeting is set to take place after the Senate GOP’s weekly policy luncheon. 

The discussion comes after the working group — Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Britt — huddled in Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-S.D.) office on Tuesday, ahead of the weekly leadership meeting, on the potential rule change. 

Any change could be approved by a majority of senators, meaning Republicans can make a change unilaterally. Making a rule change on a partisan basis with a simple majority vote, however, is known as the “nuclear option” because it is seen as so detrimental to bipartisanship in the chamber.

Britt noted that she has been discussing potential changes with Democrats as well. 

GOP members have also considered other ideas, including shrinking post-cloture debate time from two hours to mere minutes, making some nominations non-debatable and curtailing the amount of procedural votes required for a nominee.

Republicans are also refusing to rule out recess appointments. 

But the “en bloc” option has been gaining steam as the conference’s goal in this push is to confirm as many nominees as quickly as possible. 

“That is where the water seems to be flowing,” one Senate GOP aide said. 

Republicans have been beating the drum about potential rule changes since early July, as Democrats throw up procedural hurdles for even non-controversial nominees and refuse to allow any to be confirm via unanimous consent or voice vote, marking a major break with tradition.

As Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) noted in a recent op-ed, senators confirmed roughly 90 percent of nominations made by former Presidents George W. Bush and Obama via voice vote or unanimous consent. That number dropped to 65 percent for Trump’s first term and 57 percent for former President Biden.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also has been the lone nominee who did not face a filibuster, meaning that Republicans have been forced to use up all of the clock for nominees. That includes lower-level choices that are not usually subjected to the time consuming process. 

“I think we’re dealing with unprecedented obstruction. It’s never been this way,” Schmitt said. “We’re ready to move forward and then, if necessary, recess appointments are always an option.”

“There’s just so many nominations or types of nominations that never were ever roll call voted on, let alone filibustered. This is all about restoring balance to where the Senate always was,” he continued. “If the Democrats are going to continue to do this obstruction out of Trump derangement syndrome, then maybe we need some medicine.”

The working group spent time throughout the August break talking to members in an attempt to plan a pathway forward after Schumer and top Republicans were unable to strike a deal on a nominations package in the waning hours before the month-long recess. Trump panned Schumer for wanting too much in return, with the New York Democrat declaring victory in the battle. 

A rules alteration would mark yet another maneuver by a Senate majority over the past 15 years to grease the skids to confirm their preferred choices without help from the other party. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) got the ball rolling in 2012 by lowering the threshold needed to approve executive branch and judicial nominations, sans Supreme Court nominees.

Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) included Supreme Court nominees in that count five years later. He also helmed the conference when it lowered the debate time for lower-level nominees from 30 hours to the current two-hour mark.

Multiple senators added that they hope a resolution will get hammered out in the coming weeks. 

“As soon as possible,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a Thune ally, said about the timing for implementing the rule change. “We want to get it done. I don’t think we can do something this week, but we’d love to have something done next week.”  

“We’re going to let the conference work its will,” Mullin said while previewing the Wednesday afternoon meeting. “One thing we’re really good about is talking forever. We’ve got to hear it and then we’ve got to make a call.”