Congress
Capitol agenda: Trump jumps into a GOP tax cuts conundrum
President Donald Trump is bullish about wanting a “big, beautiful bill” on his desk in just three weeks. But to meet that goal, he’ll have to help settle a tricky tax fight.
Trump will huddle with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) at the White House this afternoon — the day before Senate Republican leaders want Crapo to release the bill text for the tax policy portion of the megabill. A likely discussion topic: Crapo’s pledge in a GOP conference meeting Wednesday to make three business tax cuts permanent.
The challenge isn’t about rounding up GOP support for larger tax deductions for research and development, debt interest and capital expensing. It’s how to pay for them all. The House-passed package already extends the three deductions through 2029, but making them fully permanent would cost an additional $450 billion.
At the same time, House fiscal hawks are demanding that any additional tax cuts be offset with dollar-for-dollar spending cuts. To achieve that, Senate Republicans will likely suggest watering down Trump’s campaign pledges to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime pay.
But the White House is making clear behind the scenes that would be a no-go.
“We’re not willing to entertain any scaling back of our signature promises,” a Trump administration official told Blue Light News.
GOP senators are eyeing another potential savings avenue: Lowering the state-and-local-tax deduction cap that the House had quadrupled to $40,000 as part of a crucial compromise with blue-state Republicans. Those SALT Republicans are now threatening to torpedo the bill if that’s changed — and House GOP leaders appear to be taking them seriously.
“Obviously, it was very heavily negotiated in the House and we don’t want to see it lower,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told Blue Light News Wednesday.
There’s another reason Trump has every incentive to urge Thune and Crapo not to meddle with the House’s hard-fought tax provisions: He doesn’t want to slow down the process with any more “ping-pong[ing]” of the legislation between the two chambers, the administration official told Blue Light News.
As the White House works to convince the Senate Republicans to lay off the revisions, Senate leaders are working toward issuing final bill text on June 23, followed by a vote-a-rama the back half of that week, according to Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla). That would go a long way in allowing the House to meet the GOP’s self-imposed July Fourth deadline.
Thune is quietly threatening to keep senators in town into that recess week to make it happen. But some GOP senators are openly questioning whether they can wrap their version of the tax-and-spending package by that date, let alone pass the whole thing.
If the Senate is able to adhere to its own timeline, it’ll come down to whether Speaker Mike Johnson can get his members to swallow the Senate’s changes — and there’s no guarantee how quickly that will happen.
What else we’re watching:
— Rescissions gets a floor vote: Johnson is pushing ahead with a vote Thursday on a package to rescind $9.4 billion in funds Congress already approved for global aid and public broadcasting. House Republicans can only afford three defections if they have full attendance and all Democrats oppose as expected.
— Crypto bill teed up: The Senate majority leader is one step closer to passing one of Trump’s biggest priorities outside of the megabill after landmark cryptocurrency legislation cleared another procedural hurdle in a bipartisan vote Wednesday. Senators are on track to adopt new base text for the stablecoin regulatory framework and begin voting on the underlying measure bill later this week.
— A new SNAP proposal: Senate Agriculture Republicans Wednesday evening unveiled a new plan to slash the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But it’s far less aggressive than what was included in the House-approved megabill, making it potentially more palatable for at-risk and moderate Republicans.
Rachael Bade, Jasper Goodman and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026 across his campaign and his joint fundraising committees, his campaign tells Blue Light News, a significant haul for the homestretch of the election.
Paxton’s number is double his $9 million second-quarter total, and signals Republican donors are rallying behind their Texas nominee. The campaign did not provide a current cash-on-hand total.
Democrat James Talarico’s campaign has yet to release his fundraising totals for the quarter. He raised $30 million last quarter.
“We now have the resources to make sure every Texan sees Talarico’s radical record between now and Election Day,” said Nick Maddux, senior adviser to the Paxton campaign.
The past quarter — the first full reporting period after Paxton’s primary runoff victory in May — saw Republicans flock to Texas for their midterm convention, which featured pro-Paxton fundraisers on the sidelines. Last week, the Paxton campaign announced a massive $20 million ad buy across the state, one of the largest-ever single media investments in a Texas Senate race.
Paxton needs the money: In a recording of a private donor event last month shared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”
Texas has emerged as a huge money suck for Senate Republicans, who have poured tens of millions into the state to aid Paxton. Senate Leadership Fund, their top super PAC, has spent or reserved well over $100 million in the state to date, and the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. and its affiliates plan to spend near $45 million in the state through Oct. 12.
Paxton has acknowledged that money has changed the race’s narrative: In a recording of a private donor event last monthshared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”
Most recent public polling shows Talarico with a small lead in the race in spite of the recent onslaught in GOP spending, though Paxton’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing Paxton leading by three points.
Sen. Raphael Warnock is hitting the road for the last month before Election Day.
The Georgia Democrat’s final midterm campaign surrogate sprint will only increase chatter around the possibility that he might run for president in 2028, according to a nine-stop itinerary shared first with Blue Light News.
First, he’ll touch down in New Hampshire on Tuesday before hitting Nevada on Wednesday. Next, he’ll travel to South Carolina (Oct. 13), Mississippi (Oct. 14), North Carolina (Oct. 15), South Carolina (Oct. 16-17), Michigan (Oct. 20-21), Wisconsin (Oct. 23) and Ohio (Oct. 24-26).
“Senator Reverend Warnock will be hitting the trail to energize voters who are sick of the President enriching himself while ordinary people continue to pay more for everything,” a spokesperson told Playbook. “Tapping into the righteous anger that voters are feeling across the country, the pastor in the Senate will again make the campaign trail his pulpit: calling out Trump’s corruption, while leaving voters hopeful for the next generation of Democratic leadership.”
Asked recently at the Texas Tribune Festival about whether he would run for president, Warnock said: “We’ll see what happens.”
Democrats are eager to win back subpoena power if they retake Congress, but they’re split on how hard they’ll go after corporate America.
The party is united by the idea of aggressive oversight of President Donald Trump’s administration, which will help shape their messaging in the run-up to the 2028 election. But Democrats are at odds over how fiercely to use their probing power to go after the corporations, law firms and universities that courted the White House over the past two years.
“We don’t want to turn into a banana republic where you lose an election and it’s all about retribution,” Rep. Bill Foster, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, said.
“We’re going to have to be a little bit wise about when companies simply did something they had to do to survive this unprecedented level of corruption, compared to companies that actually got on board and profited more by being a partner in his corruption,” he added.
Some progressives counter that a restrained approach would sit uneasily with the party’s base.
“It would be political suicide for Democrats to campaign on fighting corruption and then turn around and go easy on the very companies that are facilitating it,” said Ella Fanger, corporate power policy adviser at the liberal nonprofit group Demand Progress.
Prime targets for some Democrats are the tech companies that have taken steps to be on the president’s good side, like Apple, Amazon and Meta, which have all donated to Trump’s ballroom effort. Major cryptocurrency players, including Coinbase, Ripple and Tether also chipped in for the ballroom, and will be subject to questioning from Democrats.
The late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s networks and associates are also poised for probes — a push that has ensnared big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America in the past.
Sen. Chris Murphy said the party should focus on the nexus between Trump and corporate corruption.
“We should get to the bottom of the corrupt relationship that exists between corporations in this country and the Trump administration,” Murphy said, pointing to questions he’s posed about a tobacco company’s donation to Trump’s super PAC before new e-cigarette rules were unveiled.
Still, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who serves on Senate Banking, warned against the weaponization of power.
“Our focus should be solving problems that we’re seeing happening,” she said, pointing to cost-of-living issues around health care, housing and energy.
What else we’re watching:
— FIRST IN IC: BUILD AMERICA CAUCUS AGENDA — Energized by progress on permitting and housing legislation this term, a bipartisan development-focused caucus is rolling out a detailed agenda for next term. The 40-member Build America Caucus is releasing a 95-page package of proposals, first shared with Blue Light News, that outlines plans touching on health care, transportation, child care and research. The group launched last year with the goal of cutting red tape and regulatory bottlenecks to spur development.
— AI COLLAB STILL ILLUSIVE FOR CRUZ, CANTWELL — Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and ranking member Maria Cantwell might still be celebrating Senate passage of their landmark college sports bill last week, but it’s unclear the momentum will carry forward to agreement on another committee priority: artificial intelligence. Among the dozen lawmakers, aides and industry experts who spoke to Blue Light News, few expect the two senators to shed their well-established ideologies and styles after the mutual win. That could doom their ability to replicate their latest achievement in something as complex and divisive as an AI regulatory framework.
Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
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