Congress
Capitol agenda: Megabill hardball isn’t over yet
GOP fiscal hawks let their party’s tax and spending package advance toward a floor vote. But they’re threatening to tank President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” if they don’t see even more spending cuts and conservative policy changes.
Catch up: Republican hard-liners who sank the Budget Committee’s initial vote on the vehicle for Trump’s domestic agenda last Friday allowed the measure to proceed late Sunday after securing promises from GOP leaders that changes would be made before the legislation hits the House floor. According to Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), those changes could include speeding up enforcement of Medicaid work requirements, nixing green-energy tax perks enacted during the Biden administration and revoking Medicaid benefits from undocumented immigrants.
Speaker Mike Johnson huddled privately with the holdouts — Norman and Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Andrew Clyde of Georgia — just before the Budget panel reconvened Sunday night. Emerging from the confab, he described agreed-upon changes to reporters as “minor modifications.” The four conservatives went on to vote “present” rather than “no,” allowing the package to move forward. But the eleventh-hour tweaks are likely to have massive implications for already-wary moderates (more on that below).
The hard-liner headache isn’t going away. Roy and Norman also are on Rules, which represents the last hurdle the bill needs to clear to get a floor vote (a notice that went out after midnight says the panel will meet on the measure at 1 a.m. Wednesday). Norman on Sunday night said GOP leaders put their latest concessions in writing. Yet negotiations are ongoing — Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) predicted Sunday that talks “will continue on into the week and I suspect right up until we put this big, beautiful bill on the floor of the House” — and conservatives are far from fully satisfied.
“The bill does not yet meet the moment,” Roy said in a post on X, asking for a complete repeal of Biden-era clean-energy subsidies and deeper federal spending cuts to Medicaid. The House Freedom Caucus released a similar statement drawing its red lines.
Those are going to be tough concessions to make without backlash from the moderate Republicans in the conference, some of whom are pushing to protect more of the clean-energy tax provisions currently benefiting their districts and states.
Norman, Roy, Brecheen and Clyde were enraged when GOP leaders told them the conference did not have the votes for a full repeal of the Democrats’ 2022 climate law. One option GOP leaders and White House officials are discussing with the hard-liners is moving up the sunset date for certain green credits beyond what is now included in the megabill.
The Medicaid issue is even trickier. Hard-liners appear to be close to notching one big win with moving up the work requirements from 2029 to 2027. Yet as hard-liners make their push for more Medicaid changes, moderates are warning leaders to apply a lighter touch. Johnson is meeting with the Main Street Caucus Monday night, including with a group of moderates who requested to meet with the speaker over Medicaid, food aid and pension concerns in the bill.
Trump has been reluctant to make any moves that could be seen as cutting Medicaid benefits. But as talks lingered through the weekend, one thing became clear: “In the end, the president is gonna have to weigh in on where he stands” on the matter, according to one person involved in negotiations.
Speaking of the president: Keep an eye out for any White House meetings this week. Johnson’s leadership circle has debated at what point to ask the White House to invite the various factions of the conference to the Oval Office and get Trump involved.
What else we’re watching:
— Crypto vote: For the second time in less than two weeks, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is preparing to advance landmark cryptocurrency legislation — starting with a procedural vote this evening. Senators struck a tentative deal last week and circulated revised text over the weekend. The latest legislative language largely mirrors the previous draft, with some small tweaks that would affect data sharing and the treatment of foreign crypto firms.
— Trump admin on Blue Light News: A slew of top Trump administration officials will hit Capitol Hill this week to defend their agencies’ budget proposals, including HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. The Trump administration’s proposed deep budget cuts across agencies have drawn scrutiny even from some Republican lawmakers, and this week’s hearings will be the latest test of how much slashing they can stomach.
Jasper Goodman, Meredith Lee Hill and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
The chair of the House Agriculture Committee said he’s not willing to “accept bad results” as a tradeoff for the benefits of advancements in artificial intelligence — a direct rebuttal to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“As someone who practiced health care for 28 years, I’m never willing to accept bad results. I think we just need to do our best,” Rep. G.T. Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, told reporters Monday.
He was responding to Altman’s comments to Decoded by Blue Light News that people “should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”
Pressed further on whether he agreed with Altman’s premise, Thompson replied, “No, I think we have to work harder to prevent any bad things from happening.”
Altman’s comments come in the wake of increased panic over the risks of catastrophic destruction from AI, with many industry leaders and experts arguing that guardrails are needed on the technology to prevent it from spinning out of human control.
Pressure is building on Congress to regulate the rapidly-advancing technology, but lawmakers are divided over whether the AI industry needs federal regulation or if it’s capable of governing itself.
The executives of major AI labs and tech companies gathered at the White House last week to discuss solutions with President Donald Trump, who believes overregulating AI will have national security repercussions. The group ended up signing a “morally binding” AI accord that critics say won’t do enough to prevent a worst-case scenario.
Thompson noted Monday he believes that AI will bring “tremendous solutions,” specifically in regards to finding cures for health issues like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. But he also said AI has to be led with “principle” — comparing it to how he addressed digital assets in a bill to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, which he worked on as chair of the Agriculture Committee.
“The first principle is ‘do no harm.’ So we need to protect consumers, and that means, I think, building some guardrails — some guidelines — to do that,” Thompson said. He added that the second principle is to “foster innovation.”
“I think AI has a lot to do with that,” he added. “I don’t think AI works without RI: Real Intelligence.”
LE SUEUR, Minnesota — Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is no “consensus” yet on advancing a bill establishing permanent daylight saving time even as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Republicans to pass it.
Thune addressed the matter in a Monday interview after Trump used his Truth Social account multiple times over the weekend to rail against the legislation, known as the Sunshine Protection Act — going so far as to post the personal cell phone number of one of its GOP opponents, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
“The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues,” he said. “It’s something we’re having conversations about but there’s no clear path forward or consensus on it yet.”
While Trump singled out Cotton for scrutiny, Thune made clear the opposition to the permanent daylight saving time proposal — which would lead to very late winter sunrises in some parts of the country — ran deeper than one senator.
Cotton has publicly voiced opposition to the proposal for year, citing, among other things, the fact that children in his state would be going to school in the dark for part of the year.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) voiced similar objections Monday to reporters in the Capitol, saying he was mindful of “safety concerns in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus in very early hours.”
Thune, who spoke during a campaign swing in Minnesota with GOP Senate nominee Michele Tafoya, has himself opposed previous daylight saving bills. He said Monday that “a lot of it depends on where you are in the country” and that “your geography probably has as much to do with your position on that as anything.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who has aligned himself closely with Trump, is among the lawmakers who have been pushing to get the bill through the Senate. He recently told POLITICO, “I’m going to make sure it gets passed this year.”
Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.
Democrats have pulled back some of their ads in North Carolina’s Senate race, days after the top Senate Republican super PAC paused its future spending in the state.
WinSenate, a group affiliated with the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, has removed roughly $1.1 million in North Carolina ad buys this week, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact. The group still has roughly $18.8 million in future reservations through Election Day.
“Senate Majority PAC is committed to seeing this race through to victory, and will continue to make spending decisions based on how to best build a strong Senate majority,” Senate Majority PAC spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.
The move, combined with the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund’s decision to pause future spending, are a signal that both parties are shifting resources amid an ever-expanding Senate map. Democrats are increasingly confident in their North Carolina Senate nominee, Roy Cooper, as he continues to hold a sizable lead in public polling over Republican Michael Whatley — but some privately say states like Michigan and New Hampshire need more resources.
Meanwhile, multiple Republican groups, not just SLF, have retreated from the state in recent weeks, effectively deciding that it’s no longer worth the money to boost Whatley’s campaign.
The Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity Action left North Carolina off its $22 million list of future spending across key Senate contests, and Old North Action removed $6.5 million in ad reservations last month.
The Cooper campaign, however, is still treating the race as competitive, pointing to North Carolina’s closely divided electorate and the fact that President Donald Trump won the state in each of the past three presidential elections.
“North Carolina is a truly 50/50 state and Democrats haven’t won a US Senate race in 18 years. We can’t take anything for granted or our eye off the ball,” said Morgan Jackson, a senior adviser to the Cooper campaign. “DC is broken and we’re going to continue to run this race like we’re ten points down to ensure North Carolinians get the change they desperately need.”
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