Congress
Capitol agenda: One major agreement on Trump’s agenda
Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated there was at least one point of agreement from their White House meeting Tuesday: Adding a debt ceiling hike to their party-line tax, border and energy bill.
That’s a gamble some Senate Republicans fear could sink the whole package. And while President Donald Trump told GOP lawmakers that was his preference earlier this month, he’ll now have to convince several skeptical Republicans to get behind the idea.
Johnson called it “everybody’s preferred outcome at this point.” Thune said it was “clearly a preferable outcome,” though he acknowledged he still needs to “determine whether or not the Senate can get on board with that idea.”
Still, plenty of sticking points remain as both chambers hope to work out a deal on a reconciliation bill framework they hope to adopt by the week of April 7.
House Republicans are digging in on the spending cuts their budget blueprint would prescribe for the reconciliation process, with Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie defending the $880 billion in cuts his committee has been tasked with finding as “realistic.” But Republican senators have aired doubts on that point, fearful of major reductions to Medicaid benefits. Many of them want to adjust the level of savings the committee would be tasked with finding to spare slashes to the popular safety net program.
“I’m not going to vote for something that would lead to Medicaid cuts,” said Sen. Josh Hawley.
That’s not a position all Senate Republicans share, however. Some conservatives want even deeper spending cuts. Thune is hoping to appease those lawmakers by pointing out all the federal funding reductions already undertaken by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Senate Republicans also want to make the expiring 2017 tax cuts permanent — something that wasn’t included in the House GOP blueprint. And Republican senators are making clear they intend to tweak the House-passed budget resolution on that point.
“They said they needed time to do one big, beautiful bill,” Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham told reporters, referring to House Republicans. “They had a chance; the product is woefully inadequate.”
What else we’re watching:
- X-date projection: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is planning to release its projection for when the U.S. will breach the debt limit at 10 a.m. The Bipartisan Policy Center predicted Monday that the so-called X-date would occur sometime between mid-July and early-October if Congress doesn’t act.
- Discharge petition drama: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is pushing her discharge petition to allow new parents in the House to vote remotely, which has secured the necessary 218 signatures. Hard-liners and GOP leaders both want to kill Luna’s proposal, and hard-liners engaged in a brief standoff with leadership on the floor Tuesday as a way to push for Johnson to find a way to table the effort.
- NPR and PBS face the DOGE spotlight: The heads of NPR and PBS are set to appear Wednesday in front of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Federal Communications Commission is actively investigating both public media broadcasters over their corporate sponsorships and Trump has said he would “love to” defund both organizations.
Jordain Carney, Ben Leonard, Benjamin Guggenheim, Meredith Lee Hill and Hailey Fuchs.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is in the Capitol meeting with holdout GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Bill Cassidy of Louisiania as he tries to lock down their support for his confirmation as permanent leader of the Justice Department.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) declined to respond directly Wednesday to Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal to denounce his former son-in-law Rep. Max Miller over abuse accusations leveled by Moreno’s daughter: “These aren’t accusations in my world,” he said.
“In my world, this is the reality,” Moreno told reporters at the Capitol. “This is not something that is theoretical to me. This is my lived reality of my daughter and my family every single solitary day.”
In an interview with Dasha Burns for Blue Light News’s The Conversation, Johnson declined to take sides in the dispute between Miller (R-Ohio) and Emily Moreno. He called for a House Ethics probe to “play out.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s expected choice for Army chief of staff faces resistance that could imperil his confirmation, according to the chair of the panel that needs to approve it.
Senate Armed Services head Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Wednesday that he was aware of “some opposition within the committee” to acting Army chief of staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve taking the job on a permanent basis.
LaNeve, previously Hegseth’s senior military aide, was confirmed as Army vice chief of staff in January. But he has also served as acting chief of staff since April when Hegseth forced out popular Gen. Randy George, a move that drew widespread criticism from lawmakers in both parties.
Wicker said he was “not able to predict right now” if lawmakers could address concerns about LaNeve. He did not specify whether the concerns were raised by Republicans, but GOP resistance is likely given that nominees could advance through the committee on a party-line vote.
LaNeve has only held the position of four-star general for six months, an anomaly for the the senior most Army officer.
The Wall Street Journal first reported about Republican opposition to LaNeve, citing Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) concerns about his lack of experience at the four-star rank.
Ernst, in an interview, did not dispute that she was the source of the holdup. But she called it a moot point as President Donald Trump has not yet formally nominated LaNeve to the position. And she disputed reports that LaNeve’s lack of experience was the sticking point.
“I don’t think that time and grade has anything to do with leadership ability, so I don’t know how that came about, honestly.” she said. “That’s not what I’ve told anyone.”
If the opposition continues, Trump could decide to leave LeNeve in the acting position indefinitely.
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