Congress

Republicans just cut Medicaid. Will it cost them control of Congress?

Published

12 months ago

July 6, 2025

Republicans just delivered Donald Trump a “big, beautiful” legislative win. Now they’re fretting it will lead to some ugly electoral losses.

GOP lawmakers are warning that slashing spending on Medicaid and food assistance will cost the party seats in the midterms — threatening their razor-thin House majority — by kicking millions of Americans off safety-net programs.

“You would be foolish not to worry about it,” Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) said in a brief interview. “If you don’t keep the voters right with you, you’re going to awaken to a bad, bad, bad day.”

Justice voted for the megabill last week, despite his concerns over some of its Medicaid provisions — and after warning Republicans “cannot cut into the bone.” Steep cuts, he said, would cost the GOP voters and lead the party to “awaken to [being in the] minority.”

Republicans have already lost one of their most vulnerable senators over the bill: North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, who privately told his colleagues he would lose his seat over Medicaid cuts before announcing his retirement and publicly torching the public-health overhaul on the Senate floor. Another vulnerable GOP senator, Susan Collins of Maine, opposed it over the “harmful impact” Medicaid cuts would have on low-income families and rural health care providers.

“When you don’t get health care right, it tends to have probably an outsized impact on politics,” Tillis said in a brief interview ahead of the Senate’s vote. He warned his party that slashing Medicaid could become a political albatross, like the Affordable Care Act was for Democrats during Barack Obama’s presidency.

The final bill, passed by the House Thursday, delivered a $1 trillion-plus cut to health care programs and could lead to an estimated 11.8 million people losing their insurance.

House Speaker Mike Johnson privately cautioned that the deeper cuts the Senate passed could cost him his slim majority next year, though he ultimately whipped his members to support the changes. Several Republicans said the cuts would make the bill a tougher sell to their voters.

Adding to the GOP angst: Democrats are preparing to weaponize the bill as they did Republicans’ failed efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017. That 2018 midterm election led to a GOP wipeout in the House, with the party losing 40 seats, including some districts in Trump-leaning territory. Democrats are planning to again hitch vulnerable Republicans to the cuts to social safety-net programs.

“I could have defended the House bill every day,” said GOP Rep. Don Bacon, who had raised concerns over cuts to food aid and announced he would retire from his Nebraska swing seat as the Senate prepared to deepen the cuts in the House bill.

“The other side is going to use Medicaid as an issue,” he said, even as he voted for the megabill. “And I think the Senate [version of the bill] gives them a little more leverage to do so.”

Republicans are walking a tightrope as they return to their districts to start selling the sweeping policy package. They’re going to lean into the megabill’s popular provisions, like eliminating taxes on tips, while trying to escape unpopular reductions to safety-net programs. The final bill slashes spending by $1.7 trillion.

Voters broadly dislike the megabill; some recent polling shows a 2-to-1 margin of disapproval, according to surveys conducted by Quinnipiac University, The Washington Post, Pew Research and Fox News. Nearly half of voters want more federal funding for Medicaid, while just 10 percent want less, according to Quinnipiac.

“What we know from past elections is that messing with people’s healthcare coverage is very problematic for politicians. And it has, in the past, yielded some very, very negative views about the people who supported it,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

Meanwhile Democrats are rushing to capitalize on the controversy and plan to make it a centerpiece of their midterm messaging.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke on the floor for eight hours and 45 minutes, reading letters from constituents of vulnerable GOP lawmakers who could lose access to both programs. Democratic candidates followed up with post-vote statements blasting the Republicans they’re looking to unseat for effectively kicking people in their districts off their health care plans.

Their campaign arms and allied super PACs have already released several rounds of ads hammering vulnerable Republicans and say they plan to keep up the pace.

Republicans are trying to figure out how to fight back.

Their early salvos have focused on painting Democrats as supportive of tax hikes since they opposed a bill that would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and eliminate federal taxes on tips and overtime. Republicans also argue they’re protecting the “most vulnerable” Medicaid recipients by removing undocumented immigrants and others they say shouldn’t have access to the program anyway.

But in a tacit acknowledgment of the potential electoral fallout, some Republicans have pledged to try to reverse provisions such as the provider tax drawdown before they take effect in 2028.

“To the extent that there’s reform, and … you can legitimately argue it’s the waste, fraud, abuse, that’s a good position to be in,” said Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho). “If it’s just strictly a situation where you say, ‘We’re just cutting and spending’ and it’s not cognizant as to how and where, that’s where we get into trouble.”

Another potential security blanket for the GOP: Many Americans at risk of steep Medicaid cuts reside in deep-red swaths of the country that are unlikely to turn blue next year. But there are also high percentages of Medicaid enrollees in some GOP-held swing districts Democrats are itching to flip.

The Senate’s harsher Medicaid language prompted Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) to vote against the megabill, putting him in the company of deficit hawk Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Fitzpatrick, in a statement, said the Senate’s changes “fell short” of protecting constituents in his suburban Philadelphia district that has more than 100,000 enrollees.

Another top Democratic target, Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), voted in favor of the bill despite expressing “several concerns” with the stricter limits on provider taxes and state-directed payments that he unsuccessfully lobbied Senate Majority Leader John Thune not to include.

Valadao lost his seat in Democrats’ health-care-fueled 2018 wave, when liberal groups successfully yoked him to GOP efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and won it back in 2020. Now those groups are running the same playbook in his Central Valley district that enrolls nearly two-thirds of his constituents in Medicaid — the highest percentage in the GOP conference.

Valadao, who fought for months to rein in some of the changes to the program, sought to justify his vote in a statement Thursday by arguing “it does preserve the Medicaid program for its intended recipients” and includes a $50 billion stabilization fund to offset harm to rural hospitals.

New York Rep. Mike Lawler, whose lower-Hudson Valley district has more than 200,000 people enrolled in Medicaid, said in a brief interview that he “fought extensively to make sure that there were not draconian changes to Medicaid” and that lawmakers will have time to address some of the others before they take effect.

“At the end of the day, this is about strengthening the program,” he said. As for electoral consequences: “You just tell people what’s actually in the bill, as opposed to what the Democrats have been trying to fearmonger on.”

But Democrats are confident that “putting shine on a turd” will not work, said Ian Russell, a consultant who served as the political director of Democrats’ House campaign arm in 2014 and 2016.

“Republicans are running back their 2018 playbook,” said CJ Warnke, communications director for House Majority PAC, the Democratic leadership-aligned super PAC. “And it’s once again going to cost them the majority.”

Samuel Benson, Cassandra Dumay, Melanie Mason, Nicholas Wu and Holly Otterbein contributed to this report.

Congress

Bill Gates denied association with Epstein’s crimes in closed-door Hill interview

Published

1 hour ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Tech mogul Bill Gates told the House Oversight Committee he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s prior sex crime conviction but that he did not know Epstein was continuing to engage in misconduct at the time of their acquaintance, according to a transcript of his testimony.

In his transcribed interview with the panel earlier this month as part of its ongoing Epstein investigation, Gates recounted details of his dealings with Epstein over the years — which extended from 2011, when he was first introduced to Epstein, to 2014, when he realized Epstein would not make good on his promise to steer donors towards Gates’ philanthropic work.

“I was aware that he had a criminal conviction,” Gates said, according to the transcript. “I knew that it was of a sexual nature, but, no, I don’t think I … dug into the specifics, although I probably should have.”

Gates’ decision to shrug off the conviction from 2008 underscored the extent to which many of those who chose to associate with the disgraced financier opted to ignore potential warning signs of impropriety. It was not until more than a decade after his first brush with law enforcement that Epstein was arrested on federal sex crimes charges; he died by suicide in jail in 2019 while his case was pending.

Gates’ relationship with Epstein has drawn new scrutiny since materials released by the Justice Department revealed new details about their relationship. In one draft correspondence contained in the so-called Epstein files, Epstein appears to have written and sent to himself a letter to Gates, where he alleged that Gates asked Epstein to “delete the emails regarding [his] std” and give him antibiotics to “surreptitiously give to Melinda [French Gates].”

Gates has denied that allegation and, during his interview with the Oversight Committee, Gates questioned whether Epstein was attempting to blackmail him.

“Now that I see the January release of documents, it appears that in many cases he, at least in emails to himself, was sort of rehearsing how either he or he coaching someone else might choose to blackmail me, but none of those messages were ever sent to me,” Gates said. “You know, I never paid Jeffrey Epstein anything.”

He also said that Epstein “certainly wasn’t a friend,” and insisted he never engaged in sexual conduct or received massages from individuals introduced to him by Epstein. And despite knowledge of his 2008 conviction, Gates said he was unaware at the time of their relationship that Epstein was a registered sex offender. He also said he never visited Epstein’s island.

The Oversight Committee also on Tuesday released a transcript of its June interview with Lesley Groff, one of Epstein’s former assistants who was among those named as a potential co-conspirator as part of Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement in 2007. She was never charged with any wrongdoing and, according to the transcript, recalled that law enforcement’s decision came as a surprise.

“I am not a conspirator, and I never would have agreed to this language,” she said, according to the transcript. “Their unilateral decision to label me as a potential conspirator remains my scarlet letter.”

Like others who have come before the panel, Groff claimed she was unaware of his crimes during the time of her employment and that Epstein, following his 2008 conviction, said that he was “set up.” Groff said she believed him, so she continued to work for him.

“I also saw the same VIPs continue to surround Epstein after his conviction,” she explained as a rationale for maintaining her own ties.

For instance, Groff told the Oversight Committee she “would connect phone calls” between President Donald Trump and Epstein multiple times a year.

Trump has not been charged with any wrongdoing tied to Epstein, but his relationship with the financier has raised eyebrows while fueling speculation that the administration has been working to cover up its connections — including by pushing back against making the Epstein files public last year and then slow-walking their release.

The Justice Department has defended its handling of the files’ release, and Trump has maintained he broke off his relationship with Epstein years before his death.

Congress

Senate votes to halt Iran war despite Trump’s push for peace deal

Published

4 hours ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate on Tuesday voted to cut off the U.S. military campaign against Iran, handing a fresh loss to President Donald Trump despite his attempts to convince lawmakers and the public that a deal to end the war is at hand.

Four Republicans broke ranks to help approve a resolution to block further military action unless it is green-lighted by Congress.

The war powers measure is largely symbolic — the resolution cleared Tuesday doesn’t go to the president to sign or veto. But the bipartisan 50-48 vote is a damaging milestone for the Trump administration: Both the Senate and House have now weighed in against the Middle East conflict that’s stretched on for more than 100 days. The same measure passed the House in early June after months of close calls.

Congress

Housing bill threatened in GOP elections-bill spat

Published

4 hours ago

June 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The long-anticipated bipartisan housing bill is under threat from a Florida Republican who threatened to “shut the floor down” if House GOP leaders move forward with passing it Tuesday.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said Republicans instead need to prioritize passage of the SAVE America Act, the GOP elections bill that has been stuck in the Senate for months. Speaker Mike Johnson has scheduled a Tuesday evening vote on the housing bill in hopes of sending it to President Donald Trump for a planned Wednesday signing at the White House.

Luna posted her threat on social media Tuesday afternoon and later specified in an interview that she would oppose procedural measures teeing up GOP-backed legislation going forward if party leaders didn’t abandon their plans to hold the housing bill vote via special fast-track procedures that would effectively sideline Republican hard-liners.

Luna cannot single-handedly block those procedural votes, but she said there is “a group” of lawmakers who would join her. She separately called on Trump to veto the housing bill in a bid to force the SAVE America Act to be added to it.

Johnson plans for now to proceed with the Tuesday evening vote on the housing bill, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. If Luna and her unnamed allies follow through with their threats, they could derail a pair of appropriations bills set for House consideration this week and potentially freeze the floor indefinitely given the GOP’s razor-thin majority.

“I have been telling them,” Luna said of her complaints to GOP leaders.