Seven Senate Republicans voted to block debate for a bipartisan deal to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for another three years, after Democrats tanked the plan over President Donald Trump’s pick for the director of national intelligence.
Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Rick Scott (R-FL), Rand Paul (R-KY), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Mike Lee (R-UT), and John Kennedy (R-LA) joined all Democrats, except for Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), in voting against the measure. While Democrats voted against it in protest of Trump’s pick of Bill Pulte as acting DNI, the seven Republicans justified their vote by arguing there weren’t enough protections for citizens. The vote failed 47 to 52.
There was a flurry of Senate action Thursday night into Friday morning, with Republicans passing the $70 billion immigration funding bill after an hourslong vote-a-rama, where senators can introduce and vote on various amendments to legislation. The bill passed without the proposed ban on the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, which the Trump administration walked back its support of earlier this week. The FISA 702 vote came after the immigration fund bill passed.
“And the FISA 702 reauthorization vote just failed—because it didn’t contain a warrant to protect Americans from U.S. citizen queries, Lee said in a post on X, gloating in an attached video message that the “intel bros” lost and “we won.”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: any extension of FISA needs significant reforms to protect Americans. I’ve been surveilled by the government multiple times, along with so many other Americans,” Scott said in his own post. “We can’t give the swamp unchecked power to spy on law-abiding Americans.”
“I voted against an extension because I want real REFORM and ACCOUNTABILITY, not the status quo,” he added.
Speaking with reporters after the FISA vote, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) tried to portray himself as unperturbed.
“We’ll take another run at it. We’re gonna need some help from Democrats, obviously,” he said, calling the Democratic vote against the bill “irresponsible.”
THUNE WARNS DEMOCRATS AGAINST TANKING FISA DEAL OVER PULTE: ‘REALLY RISKY’
Thune, amid rumors of a falling out with Trump, said “the timing arguably wasn’t the best” to announce Pulte as the DNI pick. The role this played in the vote is “something the administration will have to consider, Democrats will have to think about. But next week it gets real.”
Democrats pulled out of the vote after voicing fears that Pulte would weaponize the intelligence community to go after Trump’s political opponents. Congress has until June 12 to come up with another deal to extend FISA before it expires.