Brawling in the ring at Sunday’s UFC fight came with a show of Republican unity, as congressional leaders like Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson turned up to watch the event on the White House lawn.

But outside the Octagon and behind the scenes, another fight was brewing over reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expired Friday night.

It’s part of a final summer stretch before the nation’s 250th birthday, with splashy celebrations colliding with national security fears. While leaders in Congress want to re-up the spy powers authority and move on to other things, the sucker punches keep coming. 

You can’t control the “timing of White House announcements,” Thune told me during a sit-down interview last week, and that rang true again on Sunday.

“I’m against FISA if it doesn’t come with The Save America Act (Full version!) firmly attached to it,” President Donald Trump posted on social media, referring to the GOP’s sweeping voter ID and election overhaul package.

That legislation doesn’t have the votes needed for passage in the Senate, with a handful of Republicans opposing it. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, for example, has said the bill’s narrow ID requirements could disenfranchise Alaskans, while Sen. Mitch McConnell believes most federal election matters should be left to the states.

Thune said Trump’s “got a passion” for doing SAVE, but “there are limitations to what we can do in the Senate, given the vote count.” 

“If there was a better answer to [Trump’s] questions, I wish I had one, but I don’t. I mean, it really does come down to arithmetic,” Thune said Thursday of the legislation, which would require voters to prove citizenship.

And tying the two issues together could create new wrinkles in the Section 702 debate. Some of the loudest privacy hawks calling for new warrant requirements — not included in a bipartisan agreement reached in recent weeks — are also the biggest advocates of SAVE, like Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. 

Also part of Thune’s FISA calculations for this week: moving quickly to get a successor in place for departing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

It comes after Bill Pulte, Trump’s pick for a temporary replacement, landed like a knockout blow for Section 702’s bipartisan reauthorization chances, with Democrats saying he was unfit to oversee sensitive intelligence programs.

Leaders are hoping Trump’s permanent choice of Jay Clayton, announced last Thursday, will help get Democrats on board to renew 702. The Senate Intelligence Committee has a confirmation hearing on Clayton scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

But confirming Clayton on the floor before the start date Trump named for Pulte — Friday, June 19 — would require unanimous consent from Democrats to speed things up.

National security summer

The lapse sends the surveillance power into uncharted territory, with questions over whether it will hamstring the government’s ability to collect information from service providers during a busy summer.

Sunday’s UFC fight at the White House was just one of several high-profile events planned to mark the United States’ semiquincentennial anniversary, and cities around the country have been welcoming travelers as the World Cup enters its second week. 

National security remains top of mind in another way, too, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill look ahead to Friday’s official signing of a tentative agreement between the U.S. and Iran to end the war there. 

“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all!” Trump posted to social media on Sunday evening. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” 

Plans include the U.S. and Iran lifting blockades of the Strait of Hormuz; its closure has driven up prices for fuel, fertilizer and more back home.

Thune addressed those concerns in Thursday’s interview, saying “even though gas prices might be high today, we know they’re going to come down.” 

“They’re going to trend in the right direction,” he said at the time. “I think people are willing to accept and tolerate more of the economic hardship they might be feeling in the short term, but there has to be a sense of confidence that we are ultimately going to find a good landing spot here. I think that’s the challenge for the president and his administration.” 

The leader also added this of Iran: “If the goal is to keep them from having a nuclear weapon, then we ought to make sure they don’t.” 

Some worry that the war has done little to dismantle Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and Democrats on Capitol Hill are already voicing skepticism about Trump’s deal and its prospects of bringing lasting peace.

“Unfortunately, the president has made many promises about this war and fulfilled few of them. The fact that we have not seen any text of an agreement, while he and Iranian leaders once again say different things about what has been agreed, highlights why we need to see this deal immediately,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said in a Sunday night statement.  

Housing and more 

In the weeks remaining before the midterm elections in the fall, Thune said he wants to spend time legislating again and looking beyond “things you just don’t control.” 

“It’s all going to be what can we get to 60 [votes] on over here,” he said.

On Thursday, Thune identified a housing and affordability bill — the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act — that passed his chamber in March as a “natural candidate” for action, with likely bipartisan support.

He said members were having “good conversations” surrounding that bill, and on Monday, aides confirmed the Senate would be putting a reworked version of the bill on the floor this week. 

But House Republicans may be tapping the brakes, with House Financial Services Committee spokesperson Dan Schneider saying they had not received Senate text and the approach did not “reflect an agreement” they’d reached.

“We urge the Senate to work with the House and not waste valuable floor time in the Senate,” Schneider said. 

Mark Schoeff Jr. contributed to this report.