Congress
House Republicans move closer to SALT deal, Johnson says
Speaker Mike Johnson says he’s closer to ending a politically charged standoff over a key tax provision that is one of the major hang-ups standing in the way of the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill.”
House GOP leaders and the so-called SALT Republicans from high-tax blue states are discussing ways to further boost the limitation on the state and local tax deduction. They’re discussing using the additional fiscal space from the GOP’s tax bill coming in underneath a $4 trillion cost target, according to two Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter.
“That’s part of the discussion,” Johnson confirmed in a brief interview Tuesday as he dashed out of an evening meeting with the SALT Republicans. A Ways and Means Committee draft released Monday pegged the deduction at $30,000 — up from the existing $10,000 cap — but subject to a phaseout for those earning more than $400,000. Some of the Republicans want the break set north of $60,000 for an individual filer.
Johnson said he thought the SALT issue was close to being resolved but probably would not be closed out Tuesday night. He added that the “marriage penalty is part of the discussion” — referring to the fact that the current deduction does not double for joint filers, as many other income tax breaks do.
The issue is one of the thorniest of the remaining issues for Johnson to resolve in the megabill. Ways and Means Republicans have also been weighing in on the SALT issue, with many in the GOP conference wary of handing a large cap increase that would mainly benefit residents of Democratic states.
Trump-endorsed Marty O’Donnell won the GOP primary Tuesday to take on Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in Nevada’s battleground 3rd District.
The seat, which touches parts of Las Vegas, is one of Republicans’ targeted pickups this November since President Donald Trump carried it by less than 1 percentage point in 2024 after losing it by nearly seven points in 2020.
But O’Donnell — who also has the backing of the National Republican Congressional Committee — will face an uphill battle. He recently came under fire for hosting a neo-Nazi influencer on his podcast. Trump’s tariffs have hit the district hard, with Canadian tourism to Sin City down by 17 percent, leaving Democrats confident they can hold the seat.
O’Donnell is best known for his role as the audio composer for the “Halo” video game series. It’s his second run in the district after placing fourth in the 2024 Republican primary.
O’Donnell bested several candidates Tuesday, with businessperson Tera Anderson and former Ambassador to Iceland Jeff Gunter — who ran for Senate in 2024 — putting up the most significant challenges.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is on his way to clinching his fifth term in the Senate.
Graham won the Republican primary for Senate on Tuesday, vanquishing five opponents that included businessperson Mark Lynch — who challenged the senator over his staunch support for the war in Iran and long history in Washington. Lynch also drew support from some of the president’s most prominent MAGA Republican critics.
But Graham won more than half the primary vote, allowing him to avoid an embarrassing two-week runoff sprint. He is expected to cruise to victory in November; a Democrat has not represented the state in the Senate since 2005, when longtime Sen. Fritz Hollings chose not to seek reelection.
The four-term senator spent big in the final weeks of the campaign to make sure he won, combining with his allies to spend over $18 million in television and digital ads touting his record and endorsement from President Donald Trump. That spending proved to be decisive in staving off Lynch’s challenge from the right.
He even called in the big guns for a last minute bump, bringing in Trump, who reaffirmed his support for his occasional frenemy in a telerally on the eve of the primary election.
Graham’s success is a loss for the strict “America First” wing of the GOP that has criticized the president’s new interventionist foreign policy streak, including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and former counterterrorism official Joe Kent. They came out in support of Lynch during the final stretch of the campaign, though that was not enough to upset Graham, a fixture of Columbia and Washington politics.
Twenty House Republicans broke with Speaker Mike Johnson to help pass a Democratic-led bill Tuesday aimed at making it easier for workers to form unions, widening the divide between a bloc of pro-labor Republicans and GOP leaders.
Democrats successfully used a discharge petition to sidestep Johnson and force the vote with the help of a handful of House Republicans, including Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Nick LaLota of New York.
“It’s passing,” Fitzpatrick said before the vote when asked about Johnson’s efforts to whip Republicans against the bill.
The Faster Labor Contracts Act aims to reduce the amount of time between workers voting to form a union and negotiating their first collectively bargained contract, in part by requiring the parties to more quickly enter federal mediation. It’s the latest in a series of employment bills that pro-union House Republicans have bucked their party on in recent months.
House Education and Workforce Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) spoke out sharply against the bill on the floor Tuesday, saying it would “threaten jobs, kill growth and in some cases, shut business down entirely.” But a hefty subset of Republicans backed the bill nonetheless, joining all voting Democrats.
- Trump-backed Marty O’Donnell wins primary for battleground Nevada House seat
- Sen. Lindsey Graham wins primary over ‘America First’ challenger
- US to reach $41T debt ceiling as soon as late winter, forecasters predict
- The Democratic establishment begrudgingly moves to embrace Graham Platner
- Teresa Benitez-Thompson wins crowded Dem primary for Nevada House seat
- IRAN FIRES MISSILES AT ISRAEL
- Trump-backed Marty O’Donnell wins primary for battleground Nevada House seat
- US to reach $41T debt ceiling as soon as late winter, forecasters predict
- US to reach $41T debt ceiling as soon as late winter, forecasters predict
- US to reach $41T debt ceiling as soon as late winter, forecasters predict
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