Congress
2 Ohio Republicans launch bids to unseat Kaptur
Two Ohio Republicans announced campaigns on Monday to challenge Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur from her battleground district seat, setting up a crowded primary in a race Republicans are targeting.
Former state Rep. Derek Merrin is seeking a rematch after winning the GOP nomination in the Toledo-area district but narrowly losing to Kaptur in 2024.
State Rep. Josh Williams, the first Black majority whip in the Ohio legislature, also launched his campaign on Monday.
They join Alea Nadeem, an Air Force veteran who filed to run last week, in a primary battle to unseat Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in Congressional history. Kaptur, 79, was first elected to Congress in 1982 and has served for over 42 years.
Republicans are hoping to flip the northwest Ohio district to capitalize on the broader statewide trend favoring Republicans. Last year, Merrin lost by less than 1 percent to Kaptur, who outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris by more than 7 percent.
In 2022, Kaptur defeated J.R. Majewski, the controversial Trump ally who reportedly lied about serving in combat in Afghanistan. Ahead of last year’s election, Republicans mounted an aggressive effort to block him from winning the nomination again.
Republicans may gain an advantage in the district through Ohio’s redistricting process, which mandates the legislature redraw Congressional lines ahead of the 2026 midterms. Ohio Republicans have indicated they will seek to redraw Kaptur’s district to lean more in their favor.
Merrin, 39, served in Ohio’s legislature for eight years before leaving to run for Congress, and promised to make up for his close defeat last year.
“I’m officially running for Congress in Ohio’s 9th District — and this time, we’re going to FINISH THE MISSION,” he wrote in a post on X.
Williams, 41, was elected to the state legislature in 2022. He dropped out of high school at 18 due to homelessness and was disabled for six years after an injury to his spine before earning a law degree from the University of Toledo College of Law.
In an interview with a local Toledo radio station, Williams highlighted Kaptur’s age and extensive tenure as a reason to push her out of office.
“She’s been in Congress longer than I’ve been alive, and every bad thing you’ve read about me happened under her leadership,” he said. “It’s time for her to go.”
Congress
Rep. Dusty Johnson to announce a bid for South Dakota governor Monday
Rep. Dusty Johnson will announce a bid for South Dakota governor Monday, according to two people granted anonymity to speak about private conversations.
Johnson has served as South Dakota’s sole House representative since 2019. He’s been a key player in major deals on Capitol Hill in recent years as the head of the Main Street Caucus of Republicans.
Johnson, long expected to mount a bid for higher office, will make the announcement in Sioux Falls.
Johnson is the eighth House Republican to announce a run for higher office in 2026. Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Byron Donalds of Florida, Randy Feenstra of Iowa, John James of Michigan and John Rose of Tennessee are also seeking governor’s offices; Reps. Andy Barr of Kentucky and Buddy Carter of Georgia have announced Senate runs.
Congress
Senate slated to take first vote on megabill Saturday
Senate Republicans are planning to take an initial vote at noon on Saturday to take up the megabill.
Leadership laid out the timeline during a closed-door lunch on Friday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said after the lunch. A person granted anonymity to discuss internal scheduling confirmed the noon timeline but cautioned Republicans haven’t locked in the schedule yet.
During the lunch, Speaker Mike Johnson pitched Senate Republicans on the tentative SALT deal, according to three people in the room. He said the deal was as good as Republican can get, according to the people.
Johnson noted he still has “one holdout” — an apparent reference to New York Republican Nick LaLota, who said in a brief interview Friday that if there was a deal, he was not part of it.
Leaving the meeting, Johnson was asked by reporters whether he thought Senate Republicans would accept the SALT deal. “I believe they will,” he replied. “They’re going to digest the final calculations, but I think we’re very, very close to closing that issue.”
In the meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Johnson laid out details of the fragile agreement, telling Senate Republicans the House SALT deal would be cut in half, to total roughly $192 billion. They restated it would raise the SALT cap to $40,000 for five years under the current House-negotiated SALT deal, and snap back to the current $10,000 cap after that.
In related matters, Kennedy and Hoeven also said the Senate will keep its provider tax proposal but delay its implementation, which Republicans believe will help it comply with budget rules. and Johnson also told Senate Republicans that he wants to do another reconciliation bill — which senators took to mean they would get another opportunity to secure spending cuts or provisions passed that have been squeezed out of the megabill.
Congress
Trump says July 4 is “not the end all”
President Donald Trump on Friday backed off the July 4 deadline he set for Congress to pass his megabill, acknowledging that the timing could slip as Republicans work through a series of political and logistical hurdles.
“It’s not the end all,” Trump said of the self-imposed Independence Day goal. “It can go longer, but we’d like to get it done by that time if possible.”
The remarks represented a clear softening of the White House’s position from just a day earlier, when Trump administration officials insisted that the GOP lawmakers pass the domestic policy package within a week despite a series of fresh obstacles.
Senate Republican leaders are still struggling to lock down the necessary 51 votes for the bill, amid objections from competing factions over the depth of the legislation’s Medicaid cuts.
The effort has also been hamstrung by a flurry of adverse rulings by the Senate parliamentarian that are now forcing lawmakers to rewrite significant portions of the bill.
The president indicated that he has little interest as of now in trying to directly overrule or even fire the parliamentarian — a step that some close allies in Congress had called for after she disqualified several of the bill’s provisions.
“The parliamentarian’s been a little difficult,” Trump said. “I disagree with the parliamentarian on some things, and on other ways she’s been fine.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed those issues on Thursday, saying Trump still expected Republicans to coalesce in the coming days and put the bill on his desk by July 4.
But asked directly on Friday, Trump took a more ambivalent stance.
“We have a lot of committed people and they feel strongly about a subject, subjects that you’re not even thinking about that are important to Republicans,” he said, appearing to reference the policy divisions within the Senate GOP conference.
Trump also singled out Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) for praise despite his resistance to the bill, complaining instead about the lack of Democratic votes.
“The problem we have is it’s a great bill, it’s a popular bill,” Trump said. “But we’ll get no Democrats.”
If all Republicans vote for the bill, it would not need Democrats’ support to pass.
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