Congress

GOP leaders prepare to squeeze hard-liner holdouts

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2025

House Speaker Mike Johnson, with backing from the White House, is making plans to muscle through the GOP’s domestic-policy megabill Wednesday, with top Republicans seeking to quickly quash a last-minute rebellion from conservative hard-liners.

The plans for a quick vote were described by three senior Republicans involved in the closely held negotiations who were granted anonymity to discuss them. They have developed amid rising frustrations on the hard right over a key tax deduction sought by blue-state Republicans and what they consider to be a walk-back of an agreement overnight on other concessions they have been seeking.

Several of the GOP hard-liners emerged from a late-morning meeting dismissing Johnson’s plan of passing the megabill through the House by Memorial Day, saying that substantial negotiations remained over issues such as Medicaid, clean-energy subsidies and other issues.

Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, who leads the House Freedom Caucus, said the holdouts had “accepted the White House’s offer last night,” referring to a handshake deal to speed up Medicaid work requirements and the phase-out of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, but then said their concerns had been “inadequately” addressed by House GOP leadership. He cast doubt on passage of the bill Wednesday.

“This is a completely arbitrary deadline set by people here to force people into a corner to make bad decisions,” he said.

Another key holdout, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, cited “progress” but said “there’s a long way to go.”

But top Republican leaders and President Donald Trump, whose policy agenda is embedded in the roughly 1,100-word bill, are in no mood to wait. They have grown frustrated, the senior Republicans said, that the ultraconservatives have shifted their demands after closing in on a deal late Tuesday evening.

And they are concerned, with the upcoming holiday weekend, that the GOP will have member attendance problems is the vote pushes much past Wednesday night.

The dispute is set to come to a head Wednesday at a 3 p.m. White House meeting where Trump and Johnson are expected to pressure the hard-liners to come to a deal. “It’s going very well,” Trump told reporters Wednesday morning. “We’re very close.”

Johnson’s leadership team is tracking roughly a half-dozen hard holdouts. But they believe they will be able to force through a procedural vote and final passage of the megabill, with potentially three defections. The holdouts, for now, are privately threatening to tank the procedural vote setting up final floor debate on the bill.

A key holdup is that the conservatives are continuing to push for deeper changes to Medicaid, the safety-net health program currently serving nearly 80 million Americans. The pending bill implements new work requirements for some beneficiaries, and leaders have discussed speeding up implementation by two years to placate the holdouts.

But Republicans involved in the talks say the hard-liners are pushing for more. They want to reduce the federal share of some Medicaid costs, known as FMAP, and to further limit the use of provider taxes in states that expanded Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act by lowering the so-called safe harbor rate from the current 6 percent to 4 percent.

GOP leaders are drawing a hard line in negotiations against further changes to Medicaid, citing their own members wariness about pursuing deeper cuts and Trump’s own reticence to to slash health care benefits. “Don’t fuck around with Medicaid,” he told lawmakers in a closed-door caucus meeting Tuesday.

Also infuriating the conservatives is a tentative deal leaders reached Tuesday night with a group of blue-state Republicans to boost the cap on the state-and-local-tax deduction to $40,000. Conservatives have strongly opposed further increasing the SALT cap.

Harris cited the agreement in an early morning Newsmax interview Wednesday: “I think actually we’re further away from a deal because that SALT cap increase, I think, upset a lot of conservatives,” he said, adding that “conservatives are pushing for some balancing spending reductions.”

Around that time, a person with direct knowledge of the talks who was granted anonymity to describe them candidly said “there is currently a zero percent chance this thing moves today,” saying leaders “walked away from a deal last night and even rolled back progress made over the weekend.”

In a brief interview Wednesday morning before the meeting with Harris, Roy and others, Johnson said “there is a chance for a vote today.”

Harris said in the Newsmax interview that hard-liners stopped negotiating just before midnight Wednesday, saying there was a deal but it was “pulled off the table.” He suggested that the deal would make further cuts to Medicaid and take more aggressive action to pull back on Inflation Reduction Act subsidies for clean energy development, saying those two issues are “pretty essential” to get his support.

“This bill actually got worse overnight,” Harris said. “There is no way it passes today. … We may need a couple of weeks to iron everything out.”

Johnson can afford to lose only a few GOP votes ahead of a potential House floor vote Wednesday. The House Rules Committee is debating the legislation, which is expected to be amended before it makes it through the committee Wednesday. It’s not clear when that will happen.

Congress

Senate confirms 74 Trump nominees

Published

8 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans confirmed dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees Friday, just before they leave for a five-week congressional recess.

Senators voted 51-47 to approve officials at the Departments of Defense, Energy, State and other agencies.

They included David Cummins to head the Transportation Security Administration, Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hal Duncan to be OMB deputy director and Francis Brooke to be Treasury deputy secretary. Among the group were several ambassadors, including former Rep. David Brat to be ambassador to Australia.

Senate Republicans changed the chamber’s rules last year to be able to confirm lower-level nominees as a package instead of having to hold a vote on each.

After finishing the expedited procedure Friday, Senate Republicans estimate they will only have a small number of civilian nominees awaiting confirmation.

Congress

Trump says voters are mad at other Republicans, not him, as midterms approach

Published

12 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump said voters may seek to punish Republicans — but not him — in the November midterm elections, as GOP lawmakers sweat that affordability concerns and the war in Iran could mean Democrats flip the House and perhaps even the Senate.

“They’re angry at Republicans,” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News that aired Friday. “But they’re not angry at me. They’re not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.”

The GOP faces the prospect of heavy losses this November, as gas and grocery prices remain stubbornly high due in part to the White House’s five-month-long war in Iran. The administration’s guidance on campaign trail messaging has been “tone deaf,” House Republicans fear.

Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating has tumbled since he returned to the Oval Office last year, and even his biggest supporters have grown frustrated over his Middle East war.

And with a messy, jam-packed slate of primaries now all but in the rearview mirror, Democrats are determined to go on offense. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has 58 seats on its midterm target map that stretches into redder territory — while still facing an uphill climb to take the Senate.

Trump has a massive war chest at his disposal. His MAGA Inc. super PAC reached $400 million in June. The president told Punchbowl he plans to use it to “help Republicans,” but he stressed that he faces no pressure in this campaign cycle.

“I said to somebody, ‘Wait a minute, you don’t understand, I won,’” Trump said, referencing his 2024 presidential election victory. “I’m not campaigning.”

The biggest issue for Republicans this year? That Trump himself is not on the ballot, he said.

“If I don’t run, will those people go out and vote? And that’s the one thing I can’t tell, I’m going to ask them to,” he said.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Senators find their exit strategy

Published

15 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate’s plan to get out of town is coming together.

Majority Leader John Thune teed up a final vote on the Russia sanctions legislation for this morning, as well as a confirmation vote for dozens of nominees and a procedural step on a stopgap funding bill.

But there’s still a number of questions that need to be answered if Thune wants to adjourn for recess by the end of the day:

— BLANCHE’S FATE: President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general needs to secure at least one more vote to be confirmed before the break.

It looks like it’s all up to Sen. Bill Cassidy after Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday morning she is opposed. Thune indicated Thursday night Blanche’s fate was uncertain and that leaders were “still working to get the final vote.”

— SAVE AMERICA ACT: Thune said to expect a vote related to the SAVE America Act as well as an initial vote on a budget blueprint for a third party-line spending bill — which includes elements of Trump’s election security legislation.

The decision to hold the budget vote comes after two Republican senators, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told Blue Light News Thursday they believed Sen. Mike Lee or another member of the GOP’s right flank would have otherwise forced a vote on the framework.

But as we’ve previously reported, Republicans don’t believe the budget resolution has the votes within the conference to be adopted — meaning the expected initial vote today will fail to clear a simple majority threshold.

And it’s not clear Lee or like-minded senators will be satisfied and allow for lawmakers to adjourn for recess without more action on the elections measure. The senator has made similar threats over the past year but has never followed through.

— TIME AGREEMENT: GOP leaders need to strike an agreement to finish other business, including passing the stopgap government funding bill and advancing a college sports bill.

At this point, any single senator could still object to expediting the chamber’s agenda, which would derail Thune’s goal of getting members out of town by the end of the day.

“We’ve been having these conversations with Democrats trying to figure out what’s the path,” Thune said.

“We’ll see how it goes,” he added.

What else we’re watching:

— GOP EXPECTS CRYPTO BILL DELAY: The Senate will leave for the chamber’s August recess without holding a vote on a landmark cryptocurrency bill, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Thune may still file cloture on the bill, but it likely won’t come to the floor until lawmakers return to Washington next month, two of the people said.

— COLLEGE SPORTS BILL STUMBLES: Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell’s legislation to impose new guardrails on college sports is looking increasingly unlikely to hit the floor this week. Eleven senators objected to expedited consideration of the Protect College Sports Act after Thune filed cloture earlier this week, two people familiar with discussions told Blue Light News.

— OGLES OUSTED: GOP House leaders lost an incumbent — and a perennial headache — with Rep. Andy Ogles’ primary defeat in Tennessee Thursday night. His loss to former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher represents the second Trump-endorsed candidate to lose a primary this week.

Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Andrew Howard and Jacob Wendler contributed to this report.