Congress
Capitol agenda: Thune’s biggest megabill fires
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has some “big, beautiful” conflicts to resolve — and fast — if he wants to pass his party’s tax-and-spending package next week as planned.
Here’s a look at the biggest fires Thune needs to put out to meet his deadline, some of which are newly raging following Senate Finance’s release of long-awaited bill text:
MEDICAID JITTERS — “Medicaid moderates” are reeling after Republicans on the key committee proposed lowering the provider tax,from 6 percent to 3.5 percent by 2031 for states that have expanded Medicaid offerings under the Affordable Care Act. Several states rely heavily on this tax to help fund their Medicaid programs.
Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), were already rebelling against the House-passed megabill’s move to find savings by freezing the provider tax. Now, Hawley is saying he’s “alarmed” that Senate Finance would go even further and that the plan “needs work.”
“I don’t know why we would defund rural hospitals in order to pay for Chinese solar panels,” he told reporters Monday evening, in a nod to Senate Republicans’ plan to ease some of the House GOP’s deep cuts to clean-energy tax credits (more on that below).
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also expressed concern about the provider-tax change, though she declined to elaborate as she left the closed-door meeting Monday night where Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) was briefing GOP senators on his proposal. But Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he doesn’t think the plan would go far enough in slashing spending on the safety-net program, suggesting senators should reconsider including a provision that would scale back the federal government’s share of paying for states’ Medicaid expansion.
Expect this to be a topic of discussion when GOP senators meet with CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz Tuesday during the conference’s weekly lunch.
HOLD THE SALT — Blue-state House Republicans are seething as senators continue to haggle down their state-and-local-tax deduction cap. GOP senators included the current $10,000 deduction limit — rather than the $40,000 the House passed — as a placeholder in the draft bill text Senate Finance released Monday, giving space for talks to continue.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) declared the Senate’s proposal “dead on arrival” in the House. But Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who’s been backchanneling with SALT Republicans including Lawler, insisted to reporters that the deduction is “fully open for negotiating.” Thune also told reporters Monday that senators are “prepared to have discussions” amongst themselves to “figure out a landing spot.”
LESS GUTTING FOR GREEN CREDITS — Senate Republicans are extending some of the House’s aggressive phase-out dates for credits benefitting “baseload” energy technologies like nuclear, geothermal and hydropower, leaving one GOP proponent of the incentives, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), “generally satisfied.” They are still making significant cuts to solar, wind and electric vehicle incentives in Democrats’ 2022 climate law, but that’s not going to satisfy conservatives who want a full repeal of what they call the “Green New Scam.”
House Freedom Caucus members, who pushed for deep cuts to the green credits in order to get behind the megabill in their chamber last month, could fight the Senate’s slower roll. One member, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), declared on X he “will not vote for this.”
Dive deeper into the long list of other Senate Finance megabill changes.
What else we’re watching:
— Lawmaker safety after Minnesota shootings: Senators have a classified security briefing with the chamber’s sergeant at arms and Capitol Police this morning, where the question of resources for lawmaker safety could come up. Across the Capitol, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is asking Speaker Mike Johnson to increase funding for members’ security as more elected officials learn they were potential targets of the man suspected of the shootings in Minnesota.
— Senate’s first major crypto overhaul: The Senate is set this afternoon to pass landmark cryptocurrency legislation, one of Trump’s biggest policy priorities outside the megabill. The bipartisan bill would create a regulatory framework for digital tokens known as stablecoins that are pegged to the value of the dollar. But the legislation faces a murky future in the House.
— Gabbard, Ratcliffe on Blue Light News: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and NSA acting Director Lt. Gen. William Hartman will testify on behalf of the president’s fiscal 2026 budget request for intelligence during a closed Appropriations subcommittee hearing.
Jordain Carney, Brian Faler and Jasper Goodman contributed to this report.
Congress
WHCD shooting fuels new efforts in Congress to get Trump his ballroom
President Donald Trump’s allies in Congress want to quickly authorize completion of the White House ballroom after the Saturday shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. But it’s not going to be simple.
Trump’s ambitious ballroom project was put on hold earlier this year after a federal judge said Congress needed to explicitly approve it. Responses from lawmakers were relatively muted at that time. Then over the weekend, Trump and several members of the presidential line of succession were sitting down to their salads at a Washington hotel when a gunman tried to storm past a security checkpoint.
Now, what was once regarded by many lawmakers as a nice-to-have is being viewed as a necessary venue for future events and celebrations. Multiple Hill Republicans have made public promises to try to approve the ballroom’s construction as soon as this week despite there being no clear path to getting a bill quickly to Trump’s desk.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.S.C) said he has been hearing from Trump directly about the ballroom and wants Senate Majority Leader John Thune to “expedite” consideration of his new bill with GOP Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama and Eric Schmitt of Missouri that would provide up to $400 million for the project.
Schmitt told reporters that while the ongoing legal battle isn’t over and that he believes Trump has the authority to build the ballroom on his own, Saturday’s shooting “renews the focus” on finding ways to finish the project without delays or complications.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is expected to try Tuesday to pass his bill that would authorize construction of the ballroom. Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) is also expected to go to the Senate floor this week to try and pass his own bill.
Yet Republicans are facing multiple hurdles, the most serious of which is that senators don’t have support to overcome a filibuster. Democrats are furious the ballroom is being built on the rubble of the East Wing that Trump bulldozed without consulting with lawmakers or planning and preservation review boards.
That’s giving way to talk among some Republicans about trying to jam it into the party-line immigration enforcement bill Trump wants on his desk by June 1 — a maneuver that might not work or could, at the very least, complicate the GOP’s ability to meet its deadline as the Department of Homeland Security shutdown drags on.
Trump himself urged the House to approve the budget blueprint as-is that the Senate advanced last week, which would tee up a bill through the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol activities — part of a two-step plan to reopen DHS after bipartisan negotiations fell through.
Even House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, who has called for expanding the pending reconciliation bill, is warning against making changes.
He said Monday the package will be “completely focused” on ICE and Border Patrol funding. And he warned that if Republicans start adding things now, it would open the door to adding items from a much larger conservative wish list.
“Listen, if we were going to add stuff to this, I’ve got a list and it’s going to start with fiscal reforms on preventing more fraud, and then you’ve got a host of other reforms on health care and housing affordability,” Arrington said.
Three Senate aides said Monday that a ballroom-related provision would not comply with the chamber’s rules for inclusion in the measure under the budget reconciliation process, anyway. Further complicating matters is that Republicans aren’t united behind one specific ballroom proposal, with Paul noting he would support putting a nominal amount of funding in but not hundreds of millions of dollars like Graham is envisioning.
Thune kept his options open Monday, telling reporters his conference would see what was “achievable.” But he acknowledged that the budget blueprint his chamber drafted did not task all of the relevant committees with oversight of the ballroom project to draft the reconciliation bill itself.
“I don’t know,” Thune said when pressed if it could be included in the immigration enforcement package.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) also urged his colleagues to tread carefully on the reconciliation plan.
“If we change it, then we put it in jeopardy. So I would prefer not to put it in jeopardy,” he said to reporters Monday evening. “I understand that there’s a desire to move forward with some of the construction over there, but let’s get a win under our belt.”
Graham, who chairs the Budget Committee, didn’t close the door to trying to tackle the ballroom through the party-line process but appeared to be frustrated about the prospect that it could come to that.
“I’d like to do it as a freestanding bill with an offset,” Graham said at a news conference Monday. “Let’s give it a chance, and if we fail, we’ll have to go to Plan B.”
Yet so far, with the exception of Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), no Senate Democrat is biting.
“If Republicans truly want to improve security, they should join Democrats in funding the Secret Service, not Donald Trump’s luxury ballroom,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday on the Senate floor.
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
Congress
Florida Republicans make peace with proposed new House map
Some House Republicans spent weeks warning against a drastic redraw of Florida’s congressional map.
Now that it’s out — with Gov. Ron DeSantis targeting as many as four Democratic seats for a GOP takeover — they’re mostly keeping any criticism to themselves.
“I think they did a pretty good job,” said Rep. Gus Bilirakis, who said he was one of the Florida Republicans whose district changed “quite a bit.”
“But I think they could touch it up a little bit, too,” he added.
Rep. Scott Franklin said he is set to represent his third constituency in four terms. He still lives within the confines of the 18th district, he said, though it is much smaller in area.
“Mine gets significantly less red than it was,” Franklin said. “But it’s still a conservative performing seat.”
DeSantis’ map still has to be approved by the Florida legislature, and it’s almost certain to face challenges in court. But many of the states’ 20 Republicans are already making peace with new districts that will be at least slightly more competitive.
Many warned that redrawing the existing GOP-favored map to pick up more than one or two Democratic seats could dangerously dilute the Republican vote. And at least one, Jacksonville-area Rep. John Rutherford, said targeting four “could be a bit much.”
Down the Atlantic coast, the reviews were more positive. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar’s Miami-area district remains largely untouched under the new maps, while her neighbor Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart could see his safe Republican seat only slightly diluted.
“Not bad, right? I’m used to those lines, so I’m happy,” Salazar said. “And I was one of the people that could have been highly damaged.”
She declined to comment on whether she expects the new map to net the four seats the GOP is craving: “God knows what’s going to happen.”
Several of the Florida Democrats who are now in danger expressed more concern. They now face running in unfriendly districts or switching districts and possibly running against a current colleague.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a South Florida Democrat, said he plans on running again and that he believes DeSantis’ effort will backfire by creating more tossup districts. Rep. Darren Soto called the map a violation of state and federal law but said he plans to run in his current Orlando-area district nonetheless.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a veteran Democrat representing a district south of Fort Lauderdale called the new map “a completely unconstitutional partisan gerrymander” and said she was waiting to review detailed data on her redrawn district.
“But the main thing is that this is illegal, and we’re going to sue,” she said.
Congress
Charles to argue for a strong US-UK partnership in address to Congress
King Charles will use his speech to Congress to help repair the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain that has been under strain over the Iran war.
The king plans to focus on reconciliation and renewal in a speech Tuesday before the House and Senate that is expected to run about 20 minutes, according to royal aides.
Charles will celebrate “one of the greatest alliances in history,” which has been tested as President Donald Trump complains about Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s reluctance, along with other NATO allies, to provide assistance to the U.S.-led attacks on Iran, the aides said.
He will reference the shared national security interests of the U.S. and the U.K., including NATO, the Middle East, Ukraine and the trilateral AUKUS pact with Australia.
Starmer’s handling of some of those issues has provoked criticism from Trump, who derisively referred to the prime minister as “not Winston Churchill” after the U.K. initially didn’t allow the U.S. to use its bases to bomb Iran at the beginning of the war.
When asked earlier in this month about his relationship with Starmer and the state of the U.S.-U.K. partnership, Trump told ITV News it was “not good at all.”
Charles is expected to acknowledge that tension by noting that the two nations have not always seen eye to eye, but that “time and again, our two countries have always found ways to come back together,” according to royal aides.
In his address, Charles also plans to tout the need to respect the rule of law and democratic traditions, and argue for the importance of trade and technology deals — a message that may go over less well with the administration.
Royal aides said the king’s remarks will also include a brief message of sympathy for Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Dan Bloom contributed to this report.
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