If you stayed up past midnight on Thursday, you got to watch the United States Congress completely fall apart in real time.
The House was supposed to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the controversial program that lets U.S. intelligence agencies collect foreign communications without a warrant. The problem? That same program has been used to sweep up Americans’ private data without any judicial oversight. And a growing number of Republicans finally said “enough.”
What followed was one of the most chaotic nights on Capitol Hill in recent memory.
Speaker Mike Johnson tried to push through a five-year renewal of the program. It failed. Then he tried an 18-month extension that President Trump had been pushing for. That failed too. More than 20 House Republicans joined with Democrats to block both proposals, refusing to extend warrantless surveillance powers without major reforms.
Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the leaders of the rebellion, explained exactly what went down in the early morning hours:
Last night between midnight and 2am, they tried to pass two bad versions of FISA…
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 17, 2026
Both would have allowed Feds to unconstitutionally spy on Americans.
We stopped both versions, but the fight isn’t over. Eventually, it was decided to give them two more weeks to fix FISA. https://t.co/VkckZwH5j4
After both plans crashed and burned, GOP leaders scrambled for a fallback. The only thing they could get through? A pathetic 10-day extension, pushing the deadline to April 30. It passed by voice vote after 2 a.m. because at that point, nobody even wanted a recorded roll call.
The Senate rubber-stamped the short-term patch unanimously later on Friday, meaning the whole circus will start up again in less than two weeks.
Axios called it a rare defeat for both the President and the Speaker:
This was a rare defeat for President Trump with his own party, exposing the limits of his influence and leaving Johnson exposed. More than two dozen Republicans voted down two separate procedural votes early Friday morning, and that failure left GOP leaders with no choice but to fall back on a 10-day extension of the spy powers program.
FISA always exposes deep divides among lawmakers, with adding warrant requirements risking losing intelligence hawks while falling short alienates privacy-minded conservatives.
The Daily Caller covered the late-night meltdown:
DELAY OF GAME: Late Night FISA Push Tanked By House GOP Hardliners https://t.co/L1Af532gam
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 17, 2026
Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, summed up the absurdity of the entire evening with one question that nobody in leadership could answer: “Are you kidding me? Who the hell is running this place?”
Meanwhile, Rep. Ro Khanna celebrated after the five-year extension went down, posting: “Now, they will have to fight in daylight.”
The Daily Signal broke down the procedural chaos:
House leaders first unveiled a new plan that would have extended the program for five years, then they tried to salvage a shorter 18-month renewal that Trump had demanded and Speaker Mike Johnson had previously backed, but some 20 Republicans joined most Democrats in blocking its advance.
The core issue remains unresolved. Section 702 allows intelligence agencies to collect overseas communications without warrants, but the program also captures communications involving Americans. Privacy advocates want a warrant requirement added before any long-term renewal.
Here is the bottom line. Johnson has 12 days to figure out how to unite a fractured conference on one of the most divisive issues in American politics. The privacy hawks want warrant protections for Americans. The intelligence hawks want a clean extension. And so far, nobody has found a way to give both sides what they want.
This fight is far from over.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
