The Dictatorship
In major blow to GOP, over $500 billion of megabill’s budget cuts deemed against the rules
In the past week, Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has ruled that several portions of the GOP megabillthe signature legislation of President Trump’s first year back in office, violated the chamber’s rules for the budget reconciliation process, and cannot be passed on party lines. Thursday morning, MacDonough issued a slew of new rulings — and dealt a major blow to Republican plans to rush the bill to Trump’s desk.
To avoid a Senate filibuster, Republicans are moving the bill through the chamber using the budget reconciliation process, which allows bills to be passed with a simple majority. But the Senate has strict requirements for what can be passed under budget reconciliation, and on Thursday MacDonough disqualified more than a dozen of the bill’s provisions under those rulesincluding several restrictions on Medicaid, student aid and other assistance for certain non-citizen immigrants, as well as a prohibition on Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program funding for gender-affirming care. Each provision, if Republicans left them in, would be subject to a 60-vote threshold — which means Democrats could block them. UPDATE (June 27, 2025, 9:25 a.m. ET): On Friday, MacDonough ruled against several more provisionsincluding increased penalties for disclosure of taxpayer information (which the GOP had pushed after leaks of Trump’s tax returns) and deregulation of gun silencers.
Senate Republicans will try to save what provisions they can by rewriting the bill’s language.
MacDonough’s most significant ruling, though, concerned the bill’s limits on the Medicaid provider tax, which helps states obtain more federal matching funds for the program. That change already faced opposition from several GOP senators, including Josh Hawley and Susan Collinswho particularly fear its impact on rural hospitals. But Republican leaders have pushed to keep it in because it would save approximately $250 billion, a desperately needed offset to the Senate bill’s additional tax cuts. In total, the parliamentarian’s decisions threaten well over $500 billion of the bill’s cutsaccording to a rough analysis from Bobby Kogan, a federal budget expert at the Center for American Progress.
Some Republican lawmakers criticized MacDonough after her rulings. On X, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. called for “the WOKE Senate Parliamentarian” to be fired. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., demanded Vice President JD Vance “overrule the Parliamentarian” — which Vance does not have the power to do.
In fact, while it’s true that the parliamentarian is unelected, the very-much-elected senators could overrule her at any time if they wish. But as Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Punchbowl News in January“That’s totally akin to killing the filibuster. We can’t go there.” There are good arguments for getting rid of the filibuster, and Democrats even tried to change the filibuster rules in 2022 to pass a voting rights bill, only for then-Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to join Republicans against the effort. But there’s little support for that path in the Senate GOP. “That would not be a good option for getting a bill done,” Thune reiterated to Politico Thursday.
Instead, Senate Republicans will try to save what provisions they can by rewriting the bill’s language. “But it’s not really clear how many of [the provisions] they can cure,” NBC News’ Sahil Kapur told MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera. Not that Trump will be interested in those details: Republican Sen. Josh Hawley told the New York Times earlier this month that Trump wasn’t even aware of the bill’s changes to the provider tax.
What Trump will care about, though, is how it affects the bill’s timeline. “The Republican sources I’ve talked to say this is not fatal to the bill,” Kapur reported, but “the bill clearly isn’t ready for prime time as is.” The Senate had hoped to begin voting on the legislation Friday, with the goal of getting the final version to the president by July 4. The necessary rewrites — and especially the lack of clarity about the changes to the provider tax — will at least scramble that timeline, if not delay it.
Republicans in Congress want this legislation off their plates.
Republicans likely could have avoided this slapdash process had they moved the bill along more slowly. “A slow process benefits the majority,” observed Koganas it gives them more time to ensure the bill’s language doesn’t fall afoul of Senate rules or contain other errors. And surely a bill that takes away health care from millions of Americans, mostly to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest, deserves a considered, thoughtful hearing?
But Republicans in Congress want this legislation off their plates: the bill is already unpopular and only gets less popular when you ask voters about specifics. And the president, with his approval ratings deeply underwater and creeping still further down, wants a bill he can sign and show to the cameras. The details — and the consequences — are someone else’s problem.
James Downie is a writer and editor for BLN Daily. He was an editor and columnist for The Washington Post and has also written for The New Republic and Foreign Policy.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
- Lawmakers, companies tread carefully on data center energy bill
- Capitol agenda: Jeffries gets preview of his future headaches
- OMB nominee ‘can’t commit’ to forgoing ‘pocket rescissions’ funding gambit this year
- Turek leads Hinson in Iowa Senate poll of likely general election voters
- Capitol agenda: House GOP races to make Recon 3.0 real
- A rising populist tide is threatening New York’s powerful incumbents
- Senate Judiciary schedules confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche
- OMB nominee ‘can’t commit’ to forgoing ‘pocket rescissions’ funding gambit this year
- Senate Republicans say it’s time to give Trump a reality check
- Senate Republicans exclude Democrats’ food aid demand from farm bill
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship10 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words