Congress: The Senate & The House

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? Thune's go-time

Senate Majority Leader John Thune at a press conference yesterday. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Senate GOP leadership is full steam ahead on passing the "one big, beautiful bill" next week and giving House Speaker Mike Johnson an outside chance to put it on President Trump's desk by July 4. Why it matters: It's an aggressive timeline of their own making, and there are a lot of angsty lawmakers. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune is sticking to the plan, for now. Thune told reporters today his plan is to bring the bill to the floor mid-next week, and they are "making good headway" on ensuring key parts are approved by the parliamentarian and Byrd bath. But Thune is also facing early backlash from the House, where GOP leadership feels blindsided by the changes to Medicaid — and uncertain whether the new version could pass the chamber, as Punchbowl reported. What they're saying: Asked if they can get the votes needed for passage next week, Senate GOP Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told us, "That's the plan, yes." Congress is on recess the week of July 4, making June 27 the effective deadline to get a bill passed by Independence Day. Leaders have threatened to keep working into the break, if needed. What to watch: "I don't think the votes are quite there yet," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) admitted. "It's coming up like a freight train," Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told Axios when asked if the July 4 deadline was realistic to address her concerns with the bill. "I don't think they're at 51," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a key holdout, told reporters. He argues that the impact of the Medicaid provider tax changes on rural hospitals "has become a huge sticking point." Zoom in: Hawley has pitched various solutions to leadership, whom he says he has been talking with "constantly." One of his ideas includes a provider relief fund for rural hospitals. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) told us he has "ongoing" conversations with leadership to win his vote, and expects a version of the REINS Act to make it into the final bill. SALT's still a problem: The Senate needs to finalize its number for the state and local tax (SALT) deductions cap. The other side: Not everyone believes in leadership's optimism on the timeline. "It's probably 50-50, to be honest with you," said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). — Stef Kight

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⏰ Tick, tock, TikTok

Some Senate Republicans wish Trump would quit standing in the way of the TikTok ban.

Why it matters: A bipartisan majority passed legislation requiring TikTok to divest or be banned in the U.S., and many Republicans view the app as a serious national security threat. But Trump is fine keeping it around a little longer.

• "I'm not overly delighted," Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told reporters about the delay.
• "That's not my favorite thing," Hawley told us about Trump's extension. "I'm fine with him trying to sell it, that's fine, but I think at a certain point we've got to enforce this law."

Between the lines: Some senators did not directly respond to the latest plans for delay but again warned about the dangers of TikTok and urged a quick solution.

• Thune told us yesterday he's "hoping that the negotiations on a buyer are making headway enough" to find a suitable match, but "I don't think they have yet."
• He added he had "to think about" whether another delay is the right move.
• The White House announced yesterday that Trump will again extend the deadline for the TikTok ban another 90 days.

The bottom line: "It's probably taking second place to everything else going on in the world," Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said, adding that "at some point," it will have to be eliminated from the U.S. — either by sale or ban.

— Stef Kight

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? Dems target "despicable" posts

? Senate Democrats are increasingly policing social media after the Minnesota shootings, publicly and privately urging their GOP colleagues to delete posts they say are insensitive or even dangerous.

Why it matters: The deadly shootings involving two state lawmakers have raised sensitivity levels on Capitol Hill to any rhetoric that could be interpreted as condoning or minimizing violence against public officials.

• Minnesota's two Democratic senators — Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith — sought out Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) for a private conversation after Lee's now-deleted posts about the shootings prompted outrage and calls for his resignation.
• And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer publicly condemned a Wednesday post from the Senate GOP's X account, calling it"despicable, dangerous and deadly."
• The post quoted President Trump as saying, "I was the hunted — and now I'm the hunter" in response to a question about Iran.

? Multiple sources tell us that a number of Senate Democrats reached out to Republican colleagues, pressing them to have the post taken down.

• But the post remains up on X.
• "THIS is what we're talking about when we say that the President's political rhetoric is so hot people are being killed," Schumer posted in response.

The other side: Republicans called the Democratic response, particularly to the Senate GOP account's post, "fake outrage."

• "Democrats are soft on Iran, so of course they wouldn't think of hunting Iran's nuclear weapons program," a Senate GOP spokesman told us.
• Longtime Trump ally Laura Loomer told us today Democrats "dish it but can't take it," adding they "haven't figured out that people don't like social media censorship."

— Stephen Neukam

? Hawley's "nightmare scenario"

Sen. Josh Hawley is ramping up the pressure on Majority Leader John Thune to quickly modify his chamber's version of the "one, big beautiful bill" so that it's more palatable to House Republicans.

Why it matters: Hawley has been one of the biggest thorns in Thune's side when it comes to resisting Medicaid cuts — with Trump's July 4 deadline to send him a finished bill fast approaching.

• Reports that House leaders are worried they won't be able to pass the bill with the Senate's Medicaid changes could give arguments from critics, such as Hawley, more power in the Senate.

? "It seems to me that now we're in a place where this provision is threatening the entire bill, and we just don't have time for that," Hawley (R-Mo.) told us in a phone interview.

• ? "I just think the idea of having now to go to a conference committee with the House because they say, well, we can't pass this. ... I mean, good lord, that's just a nightmare scenario," Hawley said

What to watch: This week, Hawley told reporters he had been pitching solutions to leadership to help rural hospitals, which he and other Republicans worry would be hit hard by the even lower provider tax in the Senate bill.

• He still likes the idea of a rural hospital fund, but he also wants to scrap the Senate's slow decrease of provider taxes to 3.5% for states that expanded Medicaid.
• "We could do both," Hawley said. "I mean, they're not mutually exclusive."

The bottom line: "I'm 100% confident it will not get to the floor the way they introduced it on Monday," he said. "They will have to change it."

• He hopes the changes include a significant return to the House framework.

— Stef Kight

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? Big "Byrd bath" weekend

The Senate parliamentarian's office is expected to issue rulings throughout the weekend on the GOP budget bill. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

? GOP senators will reconvene Monday evening to discuss the "one big, beautiful bill" — after the Senate rule-keeper finishes taking a hatchet to it, we have learned. Why it matters: The meeting will be critical for determining how much work Thune and his leadership team have to do to get to 51 votes by July 4. ? Driving the news: Democrats are already cheering some of Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough's early moves to ax provisions she determined were not primarily budget-related. That includes GOP proposals to hollow out funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and slash pay for Federal Reserve staff. "Democrats fought back, and we will keep fighting back against this ugly bill," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Banking Committee Democrat, said in a statement. What to watch: More rulings are expected all weekend, with leadership hoping to complete the "Byrd bath" process by Monday evening's meeting. Key provisions to watch include a moratorium on state AI regulations, whether some version of the REINS Act makes it into the text, the deregulation of gun silencers and abortion access restrictions. — Stef Kight and Stephen Neukam

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? Congress questions constitutionality

While most congressional Republicans and some pro-Israel Democrats are praising President Trump's strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, pockets of opposition are already emerging in both parties, Axios' Andrew Solender reports.

• The big picture: The objections center on the argument that Trump needed congressional authorization for such a provocative use of military force.

"We need to immediately return to DC and vote on [Rep. Thomas Massie's] and my War Powers Resolution to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war," said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

• Massie (R-Ky.), a libertarian who often breaks with Trump, said in a post on X reacting to the strikes: "This is not Constitutional."

?️ What to watch: There's little appetite among the ruling Republicans to be in direct conflict with Trump on the issue.

• Both Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) publicly backed the strikes on Saturday night.

Zoom in: The position that Trump's strikes were constitutionally unsanctioned is more mainstream with Democrats. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) floated impeaching Trump for striking Iran without explicit authorization from Congress.

• It's a shocking declaration by one of House Democrats' most high-profile progressives at a time when most in the party are instinctively rejecting the mere mention of impeachment.

⚡ Zoom out: Last night, the MAGA movement largely coalesced in supporting Trump's strikes, despite its bitter infighting recently over the prospect of the U.S. entering the Israel-Iran war.

• Skepticism of foreign entanglements is a foundational pillar of Trump's "America First" credo — but so is support for the president.

"Iran gave President Trump no choice," Charlie Kirk, a voice for non-interventionism, posted on X. "Iran decided to forego diplomacy in pursuit of a bomb. This is a surgical strike, operated perfectly."

• "For the next few hours spare us the arm chair quarterbacking and instead trust our Commander in Chief," Kirk added.

But there were warnings that MAGA's support could wane, especially if the U.S. gets drawn further into war.

• "He's got to talk to MAGA. There's a lot of MAGA that's not happy about this," former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said on his "War Room" podcast yesterday. "I believe he will get MAGA on board, all of it, but he's got to explain exactly and go through this."

More on Congress ... More on MAGA media.

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Mike Lee’s posts about the Minnesota shootings incensed fellow senators. They refused to let it go

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mike Lee has in recent years become one of the Senate’s most prolific social media posters, his presence seen in thousands of posts, often late at night, about politics. Fellow senators have grown accustomed to the Utah Republican’s pugnacious online persona, mostly brushing it off in the name of collegiality.

https://apnews.com/article/mike-lee-posts-senate-minnesota-lawmakers-shot-eb58f097a2e627b9441f64ac6f7bbaa8?

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How Senate Republicans want to change the tax breaks in Trump’s big bill House and Senate Republicans are taking different approaches when it comes to the tax cuts that lawmakers are looking to include in their massive tax bill. While the two bills are similar on the major tax provisions, how they work out their differences in the coming weeks will determine how quickly they can get a final product over the finish line. Read more.

Why this matters: The child tax credit currently stands at $2,000 per child. The House bill temporarily boosts the child tax credit to $2,500 for the 2025 through 2028 tax years. The Senate bill provides a smaller, initial bump-up to $2,200, but the bump is permanent.   Trump promised on the campaign trail that he would seek to end income taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security benefits. Also, he would give car buyers a new tax break by allowing them to deduct the interest paid on auto loans. The House and Senate bills incorporate those promises with temporary deductions lasting from the 2025 through 2028 tax years, but with some differences.   The caps on state and local tax deductions, known in Washington as the SALT cap, now stand at $10,000. The House bill, in a bid to win over Republicans from New York, California and New Jersey, lifts the cap to $40,000 per household with incomes of less than $500,000. The credit phases down for households earning more than $500,000. The Senate bill keeps the cap at $10,000.

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Senate's sour SALT

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) says negotiators are nearing a deal that will keep the House-passed $40,000 SALT deduction cap in the Senate's version of President Trump's "big, beautiful bill."

Why it matters: The SALT cap is one of several major differences between the House and Senate that need to be resolved if congressional GOP leaders want to meet their July 4 deadline.

• "I wouldn't say an agreement, just an acceptance," Mullin told reporters. "It does it with the income threshold but not the cap."
• The House version phased out the deduction for income above $500,000. The Senate's compromise version will likely lower that threshold.
• "No side is going to be happy, but it's something that we've got to put a number in. We want to get it where it's palatable for both sides, but neither side is going to love it," Mullin said.

Driving the news: Republican senators met tonight to once again hash out priorities for their major piece of legislation — after the Senate parliamentarian took a hatchet to it over the weekend.

• The chamber rule keeper knocked out roughly $300 billion in revenue sources, Mullin estimated, ruling them ineligible under budget reconciliation rules.
• "So, we're grabbing everything we can to make sure we have the deficit cuts," Mullin added.

Zoom in: Agriculture Chair John Bozeman (R-Ark.) explained to senators how he thinks they can work back in cuts on SNAP spending after the parliamentarian declared some of them ineligible for the bill.

• Meanwhile, Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) got into a heated debate over the AI moratorium provision, with Blackburn arguing to protect songwriters, according to two attendees.

Between the lines: Senators also discussed differences on Medicaid proposals, with Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) indicating that changes to the federal matching share (FMAP) for new Medicaid enrollees are unlikely to be included in the final bill.

— Hans Nichols and Stef Kight

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⛺️ Dems hunker down on Iran

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) tells us that he and colleagues want to see what comes of their classified briefing tomorrow before scheduling a vote on his war powers resolution, which could come as soon as Wednesday.

Why it matters: The procedural vote will allow Democrats to register objections to Trump's strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. But it will also put pro-Israel Democrats in a potentially difficult position.

• A vote would force them to choose between their party's base, which distrusts Trump, and their deeply held policy positions.
• Trump announced an Iran-Israel ceasefire tonight and told Congress he ordered the military action against Iran under his constitutional authority.

Over in the House, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) is getting cold feet on a war powers vote, but non-interventionist Democrats still want to have the vote to send a broader message about congressional war powers.

— Hans Nichols, Stephen Neukam, Andrew Solender and Kate Santaliz.

? Lights, camera, Thune!

Thune — still fairly fresh to his majority leader role — has been notably active in promoting the benefits of Trump's "big, beautiful bill" in recent weeks.

Why it matters: His public pitches come as he faces an ambitious, rapidly approaching July 4 deadline — and an American public that is not thrilled with the legislation he has been tirelessly working to pass.

• ? Since June 3, when the committee text of the bill was released, Thune has sat for five national TV interviews and four national radio shows.
• He also wrote an op-ed that was published on Fox News on Monday.

— Stef Kight

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GOP plan to sell more than 2 million acres of federal lands is found to violate Senate rules

A plan to sell more than 3,200 square miles of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans’ big tax and spending cut bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber’s rules. Read More.

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Senate set to vote on "big, beautiful bill"

Senate Majority Leader John Thune expects to start voting Friday on President Trump's "one big, beautiful bill," he told Axios' Stef Kight in an exclusive interview.

• That would set up a long slog of votes over the weekend.
• "I think we get on it, and then we will plow through, and we'll get into vote-a-rama and grind it out until — until whenever," Thune (R-S.D.) said. "It's just the nature of the beast at the end."

? What we're watching: There are still significant disagreements between House and Senate Republicans over major pieces of the bill, including Medicaid provisions and the state and local tax (SALT) deduction.

• House leaders have reportedly said they're worried about whether they'll have enough votes to pass the Senate's version of the bill.

? Thune has asked Trump to help whip Senate votes. He believes Republicans will meet Congress' self-imposed deadline to pass a bill by July 4.

• "I feel pretty confident that come the end of the week, the sense of urgency around this that [Trump has] conveyed to a lot of our members is going to be the compelling force that gets on his desk," Thune said.

Go deeper.

Mike Johnson calls War Powers Act "unconstitutional"

Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday called the War Powers Act "unconstitutional" amid a bipartisan push to check President Trump's authority to carry out unilateral military strikes on Iran.

https://www.axios.com/2025/06/24/mike-johnson-war-powers-act-unconstitutional-iran?

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? Exclusive: Thune vs. the polls

Senate Majority Leader John Thune admits Democrats "have done a good job out-demagoguing" President Trump's "big, beautiful bill," he told us in an exclusive interview today.

Why it matters: Republicans know they are down at halftime, with the polls looking ugly on the overall package. But parts of it are very popular, and Thune thinks they can run up the score after the final bill is passed.

• "Congress doesn't do comprehensive well," Thune told us.
• Democratic arguments about "slashing Medicaid" or "letting billionaires have tax cuts" are just "the early arguments that people are hearing," Thune said.
• He called it hard to effectively talk about a bill this big.

? Some Senate Republicans are feeling the heat: Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) warned Tuesday that changes to Medicaid could earn the GOP a level of backlash that Democrats felt on Obamacare, Punchbowl News reported.

• But Thune thinks the GOP will be fine, once there is a final law. "You're going to be talking about all the individual components of this that are incredibly popular — and they are," he told us.

What to watch: Thune is betting most Americans do not have a good idea of what is in the bill. (To be fair, Congress is still figuring out the details.)

• He predicts specific measures — border or national security or energy or tax related — will surprise voters, in a good way.
• "People say, 'Oh, oh, I didn't realize that. I really like that. This is in there? I didn't know that.' And I think you're gonna hear a lot of that," he said.

Zoom in: Some of these potentially, popular details are still being worked on, with Trump feeling free to publicly weigh in.

• Trump said he hates provisions that would more slowly roll back some of the energy tax credits, calling them a "SCAM" on Truth Social on Saturday.
• Thune said he talked to Trump about it on Sunday. "He was really, really — This is something he feels passionate about," Thune said.
• "Our number and the House number will be very close," Thune said of the energy tax credit parts of the bill.

Zoom out: Thune is sticking to the July 4 deadline, even as House and Senate Republicans publicly fight over the details and pieces of the bill get struck down by Senate rules.

• "Absent deadlines, things drag."

— Stef Kight

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? Dems rage on briefing delays

Skepticism is raging in Democratic quarters that U.S. strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities were not as successful as Trump described them.

• "I'm very concerned about [Trump] distorting, manipulating and even lying about intelligence," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told us today.
• "We've been here before. We went to war in Iraq under false pretenses."

Why it matters: Reports in the New York Times and CNN suggesting that Trump and senior officials exaggerated the damage from the bunker-busting bombs spread across Congress this afternoon.

• The White House both criticized the reporting of a classified assessment and denied the reports' accuracy.

What they're saying: "If the press reporting about the impact of last weekend's strikes in Iran is true, and I cannot confirm them, then that might be the reason why the administration postponed our classified briefing today at the very last minute," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor.

• "We might be less worried about that had we not seen an administration lie us into a war in Iraq in 2002," Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told Axios.

Zoom in: Senators and lawmakers are still waiting for their separate classified briefings on the strikes, which have been delayed as top officials are attending the NATO summit with Trump in The Hague.

— Stephen Neukam and Hans Nichols

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? Youth rebellion just getting started

House Democrats' younger wing notched a major victory today as Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) won a landslide victory to become ranking member of the Oversight Committee — but they're not stopping there.

Why it matters: Multiple lawmakers told us several initiatives around term limits are still coming.

• "I think it gives them momentum," said Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), a 28-year-old member of Democratic leadership, about Garcia's win.

What happened: What initially looked to be a tight four-way race to be the top Democrat on the House's main investigative panel gave way to a rout for Garcia, a 47-year-old former mayor of Long Beach.

What to watch: Frost said he is pushing for a congressional term limits measure to be included among the fast-tracked bills that the House votes on first if Democrats retake control of the chamber in 2027.

• But Frost said he also expects a renewed push within the House Democratic caucus for term limits for the party's committee leaders.

— Andrew Solender

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? Massie unleashed

Screenshot via X Rep. Thomas Massie is adding fuel to the fire in his fight with Trump, poking fun at Vice President Vance in a new post on X. Why it matters: Trump and his allies have gone into full-blown attack mode against Massie. But Massie told us he's "raised $120,000 in the last 24 hours, and ultimately the president hates to lose." "If they don't follow through on this, this will all be blown over and nobody will remember it, other than it just increased my name ID," he said. Between the lines: Speaker Johnson gave a tepid response today when asked if he would back Massie against a primary challenger. "I'm leader of my party here, and the speaker leads the incumbent protection program," Johnson said. "But I certainly understand the president's frustration about the colleague you named, and he and I talk about that quite a bit," he added. — Kate Santaliz

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Thune urges "light touch" on AI

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) expects some form of freeze on state AI regulations to remain in the "big, beautiful bill" — even as his Republicans keep debating a House-passed 10-year restriction for states, he told Axios' Stef W. Kight in an exclusive interview.

• Why it matters: States are leading the way in passing and implementing AI guardrails while Congress lags behind.

Thune's support for a moratorium fits a top priority among many Republicans in Washington: Don't get in the way of innovation.

• "We want to be the leaders in AI and quantum and all these new technologies. And the way to do that is not to come in with a heavy hand of government. It's to come in with a light touch," Thune said.

Asked how Congress can know what policies will work in 2035, Thune responded frankly: "I don't think you can."

• "I think this is the kind of thing where you can put some basic sort of parameters in place. But you're going to have to come along and be able to tweak those in the future, too."

Keep reading ... Ashley Gold contributed reporting.

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? Trump stops sharing

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wants to know what President Trump is "hiding" after the White House decided to limit the classified intel it shares with Congress, as Axios scooped earlier today.

• But House Speaker Mike Johnson says "there'll be a price to pay" after "classified documents were not only leaked, they were offered for view by Democrats."

Why it matters: Democrats see the Trump decision — made after an alleged leak of intelligence earlier this week — as a significant escalation in what they say is the White House's attempt to stonewall Congress about the Iran conflict.

• But the White House is "declaring a war on leakers," a source told our colleague Marc Caputo.
• "Almost as soon as we put the information on [CAPNET, the system used to share intel with Congress], it leaks," an administration source said.

? Down the line, high-ranking Democrats vented to us about Trump's plans:

• "It must be bad news," Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin told us. "They were embarrassed by the leak because it suggested that they did not obliterate the Iran nuclear program as promised."
• House Intel ranking member Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said the leak is "unacceptable and should be fully investigated," but that it's "also unacceptable for the Administration to use unsubstantiated speculation" to "justify cutting off Congress."
• Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on Senate Intel, told us he wanted more information before issuing a full statement, but offered: "It would be extraordinarily disturbing."

The other side: "Leaks are a problem ... I was an FBI agent and I'm on Intel now — briefers are oftentimes afraid to honestly testify because they don't trust Congress' ability to keep quiet and respect the rules," Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) told us.

• "I am furious with the repeated, blatant disregard for the very simple, proper handling of classified information," House Intel chair Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) told us.
• I will continue to work with the Administration to ensure information to keep Congress fully and currently informed is shared via the appropriate Committees with appropriate oversight responsibilities," he said.

Johnson reiterated his dismay. "There was a very serious breach of rules and protocols here. It's really sad when the administration cannot trust members of Congress, in the other party."

Go deeper

— Stephen Neukam, Andrew Solender and Kate Santaliz

? "Ready to whip"

Lawmakers are being invited to attend Trump's East Room event tomorrow (4pm sharp!) for "everyday Americans" who'll benefit from the "big, beautiful bill," Axios scooped this afternoon.

Why it matters: The event will highlight Trump's proposals for increased border security funding and making tips, overtime pay and Social Security tax-free — daring Republicans to vote against popular positions from his campaign.

• The White House provided a list of attendees that includes a barber, a nurse, and a DoorDash driver.

The bottom line: "He's always ready to whip if he has to," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters today about Trump's eagerness to get the bill passed by July 4.

• "Hopefully he doesn't, and everyone just falls in line and gets this bill done."

— Alex Isenstadt

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? New ad: Schumer-linked group targets Ernst

Screenshot: Senate Majority PAC A group linked to Senate Democrats' top super PAC is putting $200,000 behind an online ad campaign that launches today against Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), featuring her viral "we all are going to die" quote on Medicaid. In response to questions during a May town hall about Medicaid cuts in the "big, beautiful bill," Ernst argued the program would protect the most vulnerable, but also told voters "well, we all are going to die." Why it matters: It's an early and expensive buy that could be the first shot in an uphill battle to defeat an incumbent senator in a solidly red state. But Democrats are looking to expand the map in 2026 and will try to use the next few months to test drive messages and soften up potential targets. "We're going to ensure she has to answer for not just her asinine and callous comments but for her continued support of policies that do nothing to lower costs for Iowans," Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement. Ernst spokesperson Palmer Brigham told us in a statement: "While Democrats fearmonger against strengthening the integrity of Medicaid, Senator Ernst is focused on improving the lives of all Iowans." — Stef Kight

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Senators Demand Investigation Into Canceled VA Contracts, Citing “Damning Reporting From ProPublica”

The senators are calling for a federal watchdog to investigate the Trump administration’s killing of hundreds of VA contracts. Among their concerns: ProPublica revealed DOGE used artificial intelligence to mark contracts as “munchable.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/doge-veterans-affairs-ai-senator-investigation?

Congress Is Pushing for a Medicaid Work Requirement. Here’s What Happened When Georgia Tried It.

GOP lawmakers want to nationalize Medicaid work requirements to offset Trump’s proposed tax cuts. Yet Georgia’s example shows that this could threaten health care for nearly 16 million Americans and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-medicaid-work-requirement-big-beautiful-bill?

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Senate struggle over Medicaid cuts threatens progress on Trump’s big bill One key unsettled issue stalling progress on Donald Trump’s big bill in Congress is particularly daunting: How to cut billions from health care without harming Americans or the hospitals and others that provide care? Read more.

Why this matters: Republicans are struggling to devise a solution to the health care problem their package has created. Already, estimates say 10.9 million more people would be without health coverage under the House-passed version of the bill. GOP senators have proposed steeper reductions, which some say go too far.   A number of GOP senators, and the hospitals and other medical providers in their states, are raising steep concerns that the provider tax changes would decimate rural hospitals. In a plea to lawmakers, the American Hospital Association said the cuts won’t just affect those who get health coverage through Medicaid, but would further strain emergency rooms “as they become the family doctor to millions of newly uninsured people.”

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Key Medicaid provision in Trump’s bill is found to violate Senate rules. The GOP is scrambling

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate parliamentarian has advised that a Medicaid provider tax overhaul central to President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending bill does not adhere to the chamber’s procedural rules, delivering a crucial blow as Republicans rush to finish the package this week.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-big-bill-hospital-provider-tax-f6f4343bbc9c9a279bd7861c2e5c1b7b?

Senate parliamentarian blocks Medicaid changes in "big, beautiful bill"

The Senate parliamentarian ruled out the Medicaid provider tax provision in the "one big, beautiful bill," according to Senate Democrats.

https://www.axios.com/2025/06/26/senate-medicaid-provider-tax-trump-thune?

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Thune's max pressure

Everybody has demands for Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the "big, beautiful bill" — none bigger than President Trump, who wants the bill on his desk a week from tomorrow.

Why it matters: Thune needs more time, but the list of GOP holdouts is growing by the hour, especially in the House. (More in item 2).

• The Senate cloakroom has already begun calling offices, asking them to be ready to stay in town Saturday and Sunday, two sources familiar tell us.
• That doesn't kill the chances of votes tomorrow yet, but a group of senators is demanding to see finalized details of the bill, especially the Medicaid portions, even before taking a first procedural vote.

Zoom in: Thune needs to solve three interlocking sets of problems.

1. The Senate parliamentarian keeps axing critical parts of the bill. Thune will keep trying, but that eats up time and draws out GOP critics.
2. The Senate needs to decide on Medicaid, both in terms of how much to cut and how to do it. A growing number of senators are expressing a preference for going back to the House's freeze on provider taxes.
3. The House SALT caucus is savaging the Senate's offerings on a deal. (See No. 2).

Between the lines: House Speaker Mike Johnson opened the door today to going to conference and changing the Senate-passed version instead of an up-or-down vote.

• "If there are major modifications that we can't accept, then we would go back to the drawing board, fix some of that and send it back over," he told reporters.
• Earlier this week, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told CNN: "When it comes over, we'll pass it."

Zoom out: Trump is reengaging with Congress on what the final version of his "big, beautiful bill" should look like.

• He hosted lawmakers, including Johnson, at the White House today at an event designed to build political pressure to pass a bill.
• Trump called Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) last night and ripped the Senate plan for Medicaid provider taxes, saying the House plan was better, according to a person familiar with the matter.
• On the so-called "revenge tax," which was included in the House version, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demanded that the Senate remove the provision, which had caused consternation among investors and foreign subsidiaries operating in the U.S.

The bottom line: "He just wants us to get a bill on his desk," Thune told reporters tonight after meeting Trump at the White House.

— Stef Kight, Hans Nichols and Kate Santaliz

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?‍♀️ "Insulting and disgusting"

House Republicans are looking on with a combination of horror and frustration at the Senate's last-minute changes to the "big, beautiful bill."

• Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) said he felt "humiliated" by the latest Senate proposal on SALT, which he called "insulting and disgusting."
• LaLota told us the Senate is offering $200 billion on SALT versus $340 billion in the House-passed version.

Between the lines: Some of the provisions ruled out by the Senate parliamentarian are hobby horses added to the bill to win over the votes of specific House Republicans.

• Others are key pay-fors intended to offset some of the cost of renewing the Trump tax cuts, which deficit hawks in the House say are necessary to honor a budget deal they cut with the Senate GOP.

? Thune "needs to honor the deal and find the savings and make math work," Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told us.

• Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) told us he is "willing to accept a lot of changes to the bill," but if it doesn't comply with the budget framework, "I won't be voting for it, and I think there [are] a lot of others."

The bottom line: We've heard this before, only for House Republicans to vote "yes" under pressure from Trump.

• "There are concerns with the changes that they have made [in the Senate]. ... I don't think we're just going to roll over," Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), a staunch Trump ally, told us.
• But "if Trump calls me and says you've got to pass the 'big, beautiful bill,' we've got to do it," he told us when asked if pressure from Trump would change minds.

— Andrew Solender and Kate Santaliz

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✈️ Jet fumes time

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is about to make GOP holdouts decide if they're really willing to torpedo President Trump's signature legislative agenda ahead of his July 4 deadline.

• The Senate wants to start voting on the "big, beautiful bill" at noon tomorrow, said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). It had hoped to vote today.
• "We'll find out tomorrow," Thune told reporters when asked if he has the votes to start the debate on the bill.

Why it matters: Each hard-fought deal at this point risks blowing up another. But leaders are getting ready to force holdouts' hands and get this thing done.

• Complicating the whip count: The Senate parliamentarian is still making rulings.
• "It's clear we're not going to have unanimity on some of this," Kennedy said.
• "That's why God made votes."

Zoom in: The Senate also has yet to agree on a tentative deal with the House GOP's SALT crew, which was presented to them at lunch. There were some skeptics, notably Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), per two attendees.

• There are lingering concerns about Medicaid. Senators leaving lunch told reporters that they plan to delay lowering the provider taxes.
• Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told us he did not see any substantial changes to Medicaid that would alter his analysis of the impact on his state. Asked about a vote tomorrow, he said, "It doesn't matter to me, if the baseline doesn't change, I'm a no."

What to watch: There also is a growing possibility of floor fights — with senators seeking to strike unpopular parts of the bill via amendments.

• The AI moratorium is one big issue to watch with growing skeptics. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told Axios she intends to file an amendment to strike it from the bill, after failing to resolve her concerns with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
• So is Sen. Mike Lee's (R-Utah) provision that would enable the sale of millions of acres of public land — though an altered version has not made it past the parliamentarian.

— Stef Kight

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? Schumer defends Mamdani

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went after GOP lawmakers today over their attacks on New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

• "That's disgusting," Schumer said about Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) urging U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into whether Mamdani should be subject to denaturalization proceedings.

Why it matters: The Democratic establishment is in a meltdown over Mamdani's being the party's nominee for New York mayor, but its leadership is backing him up against GOP attacks.

• Schumer notably hasn't endorsed Mamdani, a democratic socialist who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018.
• But Schumer said he has spoken with Mamdani and plans to meet with him in the coming days.

— Stephen Neukam