Congress
Capitol agenda: Inside Trump’s hesitation on Medicaid
Make no mistake: Medicaid is at the center of the GOP’s challenges as they try to assemble their “big, beautiful” bill. And the problems start at the very top.
Donald Trump is deeply skeptical of the emerging House Republican plan to make deep cuts to Medicaid to pay for the GOP’s megabill. And Speaker Mike Johnson is running out of time to convince him.
Senior House Republicans are expected in the coming days to present Trump with a menu of potential Medicaid changes, along with estimates of the savings they will generate and the impacts on beneficiaries.
Among the options the White House has agreed to consider is “per capita caps” — a controversial proposal that would limit the federal allotment to states that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
The Trump administration has other ideas that have nothing to do with Medicaid: White House officials have requested proposals to instead find savings by pursuing a “most favored nation” drug-purchasing policy linking certain government payments for pharmaceuticals to the lower prices paid abroad, reviving a failed push from his first term.
Johnson has been scrambling to secure Trump’s support, shuttling up and down Pennsylvania Avenue and calling him multiple times a day to ensure they remain in lockstep and avoid a repeat of the GOP divisions that doomed the president’s 2017 push to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
But divisions abound: While moderates continue raising concerns about rolling back Medicaid expansion, fiscal hawks have been angling for even steeper cuts to the program. House Freedom Caucus members, including Reps. Chip Roy, Andrew Clyde and chair Andy Harris, met with Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie late into Wednesday night — without reaching an agreement on how to proceed.
GOP senators, meanwhile, were briefed Wednesday on polling and options for Medicaid changes, including new work requirements, during their closed-door lunch by Foundation for Government Accountability’s Tarren Bragdon. Sen. Josh Hawley issued a warning afterward, saying benefit cuts would be “catastrophically unwise.”
Elsewhere, House Republicans are being hammered on multiple other fronts as their megabill dreams come crashing into political reality. Johnson failed Wednesday to resolve his standoff with vulnerable Republicans over raising the cap on state and local tax deductions, even as he expects Ways and Means to take up its draft of the GOP tax plan next week.
Key GOP lawmakers also yanked controversial provisions around car fees and antitrust enforcement from their Wednesday markups. And GOP Rep. Mike Turner is warning that a provision cutting federal government pensions that Oversight Republicans advanced Wednesday won’t pass the full House in its current form.
What else we’re watching:
– Thune’s Ed Martin problem: Senate Majority Leader John Thune has churned through the most controversial of Trump’s nominees, but he’s facing early warning signs over another: Ed Martin, the acting U.S. attorney for D.C. Sen. Thom Tillis, whose Judiciary committee vote could be pivotal, says he plans to meet with Martin as controversy swirls over his past comments about Jan. 6.
– “Skinny budget” incoming?: White House budget director Russ Vought will meet this morning with House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole and his dozen subcommittee chairs. The appropriators are clamoring for Vought to send a “skinny budget” this week, followed quickly by a full budget request, so they can start cranking out their dozen fiscal 2026 funding bills.
– Raining on REINS: Senate Republicans are already casting doubts that the version of the REINS Act that their House counterparts advanced Wednesday as part of Judiciary’s megabill markup can pass muster with their chamber’s parliamentarian. And that’s after House Judiciary Republicans stripped a different provision, on consolidating antitrust oversight, for a similar reason. “They always think they know what the Byrd rule is, and they have no clue what the Byrd rule is,” Sen. Rand Paul said.
Rachael Bade, Adam Cancryn, Jordain Carney, Brian Faler, Meredith Lee Hill and Myah Ward contributed to this report.
Congress
White House releases DHS funding offer
The White House on Tuesday released a letter detailing changes it is willing to make to the Department of Homeland Security as it looks to secure a deal with Democrats to end the nearly five-week long partial government shutdown.
The move is the Trump administration’s attempt to show it is making a good faith effort after Democrats derided their proposal as unserious and comes as staffing issues at the Transportation Security Administration grow more acute — leading to longer wait times at airports across the country.
The White House, in five points, said it was willing to codify a number of policy changes, including an expansion of the use of body cameras for federal immigration agents; the limit of enforcement in certain sensitive locations, including hospitals and schools; greater oversight of DHS detention facilities; the enforcement of visible officer identification and the adherence to existing law prohibiting the deportation or detention of U.S. citizens.
“We feel that this offer is serious — that it is a good faith attempt to continue to try to come to a reasonable and expeditious conclusion to the shutdown, which we are now seeing is becoming ever more disruptive on Americans’ travel plans, as well as the security mission at the department,” said a senior White House official granted anonymity to describe the private talks.
The White House offer includes some public safety exceptions for the policy changes. For sensitive locations, there is a carve-out for “national security, flight risks and public safety,” and undercover officers would not have to display identification. Undercover officers would also not be required to wear body cameras.
The proposal also doesn’t address two of Democrats main concerns: requiring officials to obtain a judicial warrant before entering private property and prohibiting federal agents from wearing masks. Administration officials have previously said the warrants are a redline.
“We’re trying to move a little bit, but they’ve got to get serious. They are not getting serious,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday. “The key issues of warrants when you bust in someone’s house. The key issue of identity, of police and no masks. They haven’t budged on that.”
Spokespeople for Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the White House letter.
It’s the first time in the monthslong negotiation that the White House has released details about its proposal. Republicans have been eager for the White House to share details of its offers to validate their view that the administration had moved toward Democrats on some issues.
The White House letter argued that the majority of Democrats’ demands would “make it impossible to fully protect American citizens from dangerous criminal aliens and expose law enforcement and their families to increasing threats of violence.”
The senior White House official said that at this time, there are no plans for President Donald Trump to meet with Schumer or Democrats to discuss the impasse. The president has tapped border czar Tom Homan — who co-signed the letter with James Braid, the White House director of the Office of Legislative Affairs — to take the lead on working on the policy changes to end the government shutdown.
“There are a lot of technical issues that have to be worked out” for a White House meeting to be a “productive exercise,” the senior official said. “Although, of course, the president is going to make that decision, and at any time, that could be something that does occur.”
Congress
Senate bills survive
Threats from some hard-right House Republicans to block any Senate bill until the SAVE America Act passes appear to be falling flat.
A bill from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to reauthorize small business grant programs passed 345-41 Tuesday, a day after another Senate bill, aimed at recovering Nazi-looted art, passed on a voice vote.
Congress
Senate launches debate on SAVE America Act with endgame uncertain
Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to launch debate on a GOP elections bill President Donald Trump called his “No. 1 priority” in Congress. They are preparing to keep it on the floor at least into next week.
Senators voted 51-48 to take up the House-passed SAVE America Act that would institute new citizenship and photo ID requirements in order to participate in elections. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted against opening debate, and Rep. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) did not vote. Both had aired concerns about the process.
The Senate is expected to spend days, and potentially weeks, debating the bill in a bid to pacify conservatives and corner Democrats who oppose the new election restrictions. The debate is expected to include some late-night and weekend sessions.
But in the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote, discussions of the bill devolved into an increasingly contentious GOP-on-GOP fight over how far the party should go to try to pass it.
Conservative hard-liners, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), want to force a “talking filibuster,” which they argue can overcome the usual 60-vote legislative threshold by requiring Democrats to hold the floor in order to block the bill.
But after weeks of internal conversations, Republicans have rejected that effort, which they fear could tie up the floor indefinitely and potentially let Democrats hijack the Senate agenda by forcing amendment votes on their own priorities.
Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to call up several amendments, including a proposal to expand the bill to include Trump-backed restrictions on mail voting, on transgender women participating in women’s sports and on gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
Thune’s move will limit Democrats’ ability to call up their own amendments and try to sidetrack the bill. Democrats have other options to frustrate the GOP, however, such as moving to adjourn the Senate or killing the bill.
Lee continues to advocate for a more aggressive approach: “If your senators don’t support using the talking filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, you might need to replace them,” he wrote on X late Monday night.
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