Congress
Congress waits on Trump as December health sprint begins
Congress returns to session Monday and kicks off a December sprint to address expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies and prevent health insurance premium hikes for millions of Americans.
Members of both parties acknowledge success hangs on one question: Will President Donald Trump ever figure out what he wants?
Since lawmakers left town 10 days ago, the picture has only grown foggier. Early in their holiday break, Trump appeared to be on the precipice of announcing a framework to temporarily extend the Obamacare subsidies with new eligibility restrictions, only to pull back after a mountain of internal GOP criticism.
In his only comments on the matter, Trump injected more uncertainty last week, saying he doesn’t want to extend the subsidies but understands it might be necessary.
The mixed signals have left the various factions on Capitol Hill trying to figure out where Trump will ultimately come down — and how to entice the president to back their side in a thorny policy fight that could have major political consequences in next year’s midterm elections.
“The president has got to sign whatever we do, otherwise it’s a legislative exercise,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who is drafting what he describes as a bipartisan proposal that would largely align with the leaked White House framework.
But Fitzpatrick and other lawmakers are quickly running out of time to pin Trump down. The Senate will vote next week, as soon as Dec. 9, on a health care proposal. It’s unclear what will be in the bill, but it’s the fulfillment of a promise Majority Leader John Thune made to Democrats as part of a deal to end the 43-day government shutdown.
“The question is, how quickly can something come together?” Thune said before leaving Washington for Thanksgiving.
Or as Fitzpatrick put it, “Time is not our friend.”
Fitzpatrick and other centrists are looking to build bipartisan support for an extension of the subsidies, a priority for Democrats, with new income restrictions and other safeguards, which are a priority for Republicans. Their efforts have loose backing from the Republican Main Street Caucus, whose chair, Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska, quickly endorsed the contours of the leaked White House framework last week.
But others in the GOP want to pursue a more radical overhaul of Obamacare, with Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rick Scott of Florida pitching the president on plans centered around individual spending accounts. Scott even termed his vision as “Trump Health Freedom Accounts.”
Trump has kept Congress in limbo as lawmakers try to figure out what he will support. Republicans spent much of November thinking the president was turning away from extending the tax credits, only to be blindsided by news that the White House framework would do just that.
Most House and Senate Republicans, including senior members of leadership, learned details of the tentative White House proposal — and how quickly it could be rolled out — from media reports, including POLITICO’s. Their objections prompted the White House to scuttle the rollout.
A House Republican granted anonymity to discuss internal conference thinking acknowledged that it would have been “wiser” if the Trump administration had consulted directly with Hill GOP leaders before word of the framework leaked out.
The GOP lawmaker added that Trump “cannot please everyone” with any health plan.
“Most took it as a good sign that the [White House] initially accepted a modified extension,” the lawmaker said. “Yes, a subset complained but I think they’re in the minority.”
Getting an extension of the subsidies through the House and Senate, not to mention Trump, will require navigating a political obstacle course.
For one, the framework was silent on new abortion restrictions, which are a key demand for many Republicans and a deal-break for many Democrats.
“We’re not going to allow public funds to be used for funding abortion,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told reporters before Thanksgiving.
While much of the GOP backlash to Trump’s unreleased framework was about how lawmakers found out about it, there’s a significant swath of Republicans who will simply never vote to extend anything related to Obamacare, according to three GOP aides granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics.
In addition to the Scott and Cassidy plans, a coalition of House and Senate Republicans that includes key committee chairs are working behind the scenes on a range of possible health care proposals, but there’s no guarantee the GOP will fall in line behind the plans or whether the lawmakers will even produce a bill this year.
As a fail-safe, House GOP centrists are preparing to launch a discharge petition to force a floor vote on a subsidy extension. But they are also trying to give space to the Senate to see if a bipartisan deal can be reached, according to two Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the talks.
Some lawmakers are already looking at Jan. 30, the next government funding deadline, as the real cutoff for a health care deal, even though the credits would have expired by then. And some hard-liners want GOP leaders to embrace a party-line approach amid widespread skepticism among their colleagues that’s even doable.
Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), whose committee shares oversight of the ACA, said he is “working to try to find a pathway to get some bipartisan solution” — not a partisan, filibuster-skirting bill Republicans could pursue under the budget reconciliation process.
“There are a lot of things going on,” he said. Crapo added that even if the promised Senate vote fails, “We will need to be continuing to work … with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to try to find some broader health care solutions.”
Democrats were initially buoyed by news that Trump was preparing to endorse an extension of the subsidies, despite the eligibility restrictions, believing that it was a good sign that he was even thinking about it. But that optimism faded after witnessing the Republican backlash.
They have their own internal divisions over what their own strategy should be as the clock ticks. Senate Democrats, as part of the agreement with Thune, will get to decide what proposal they vote on. But they haven’t yet come to consensus and are expected to use a Tuesday caucus lunch to discuss their options.
A group of Democrats, including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, has been in close contact with Republican lawmakers including Fitzpatrick and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska about what could get bipartisan support. But others, such as independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, want Democrats to instead embrace a sweeping health care plan that would have no chance of winning GOP votes but would give them a rallying point heading into the midterm elections.
That divide has haunted congressional Democrats since January as they’ve repeatedly struggled to unify at key moments. There’s also widespread skepticism that Republicans will ever agree to any health care plan that isn’t fully endorsed by Trump.
“That’s the trouble today: You can have good-faith negotiations with Republicans, but it just doesn’t matter until Donald Trump weighs in,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “The pollsters have obviously told them that they are going to get their clocks cleaned if they don’t fix the health care mess they created. They may hate the ACA and Barack Obama so much they are willing to lose an election.”
Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
A top pollster for President Donald Trump is pushing back on recent public polling showing Republican Mike Rogers trailing progressive Abdul El-Sayed in the marquee Michigan Senate race.
Tony Fabrizio, who is conducting polling for Rogers, says the polls released this month are over-sampling Democratic-leaning voters, specifically college-educated and Black voters, according to an internal memo obtained by Blue Light News. A Susquehanna poll released this month showed El-Sayed leading by seven points and a TIPP poll showed him leading by four points.
El-Sayed’s lead in those polls is a “fake narrative,” Fabrizio wrote. His polling for AARP — conducted alongside Democratic firm Impact Research — showed the race essentially tied.
The warning follows huge polling misses in the Democratic primaries in the Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida, which he wrote were “some of the most egregious examples of public polling failures in recent memory.” It’s also a sign that Republicans are wary of the string of bad polling numbers for Rogers in the race, which is crucial for determining control of the chamber.
Jim Lee, CEO of Susquehanna Polling and Research, told Blue Light News that the firm did not oversample any demographics. “I think their head is in the sand,” Lee said, noting in part what he said was a gap in enthusiasm between Democratic and Republican voters this cycle.
TIPP didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Fabrizio, in the memo, argued on the Susquehanna poll: “50% of the sample in this survey is college-educated – making them massively overrepresented to what they should be. We took a look at 2022 and 2024 Exit Polls and VoteCast data and, as shown below, there is no indication that the Michigan electorate will be anywhere near 50% college-educated. In fact, it is unlikely they will be even 40% college-educated.”
He also noted “a huge gap” between college-educated and non-college educated voters.
“This was the driving issue of the public polling misses for President Trump in 2016 and 2024, especially in the Upper Midwest states of Michigan and Wisconsin,” Fabrizio added. “By increasing college-educated voters by 10+ points, and thus decreasing non-college educated voters by the same, we can pretty much guarantee this poll is significantly overestimating El-Sayed’s vote share.”
President Donald Trump and hemp industry lobbyists are hoping to win a final vote on Capitol Hill next week to skirt a ban on intoxicating products — with shutdown politics as leverage.
Nine months ago, Congress cleared a bill to close a loophole created in 2018 that allowed the sale of some hemp-derived products containing types of THC colloquially known as “diet weed.” That ban is supposed to take effect in mid-November, or roughly 11 weeks, to limit overall THC levels in hemp products that can get people high — including gummies, canned drinks, pills and vapes.
But Trump and industry leaders successfully lobbied Senate leaders to add language to a government funding patch earlier this month to delay the ban until mid-December, with the administration promising instead to finalize regulations cracking down on how the products are made and sold.
Now House Republican leaders are aiming to clear that bill for Trump’s signature early next week, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions. And many GOP lawmakers are not pleased at the prospect of being rolled.
Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) told reporters last week that he expected House lawmakers would “iron out” some “sticking points” with the Senate-passed funding bill, “particularly the hemp issue,” rather than pass the legislation without changes — which appears to be GOP leadership’s current plan.
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) was more blunt: “it is morally reprehensible to threaten a shutdown over a loophole Congress agreed to close to less than a year ago,” he said in a statement Thursday.
Yet despite fierce pushback from lawmakers warning that the intoxicating products are harming Americans, hemp industry leaders are preparing for a victory, betting members of Congress ultimately care more about swiftly passing legislation to avert a Sept. 30 government shutdown before the midterms.
“Any effort to try to shut down the government — over a one-month delay on a hemp issue — I don’t think is going to fly well with most members of Congress,” Jonathan Miller, a top lawyer for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable advocacy group, said in an interview this week.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about its plans for imposing new rules on hemp products in the coming months. But the Trump administration is expected to need more time than mid-December to finalize regulations, so hemp industry representatives are discussing a “regulatory bridge” that would impose temporary rules while continuing to avoid a full ban, according to Miller.
That could include restricting purchase to adults age 21 and older, blocking imports from China, mandating certain manufacturing practices, cracking down on copycat products that look like popular candy or potato chips and requiring transparency in product labeling.
While lawmakers have been back home over their summer break, hemp industry leaders have fanned out across the country to make their case for this plan. “The hemp industry does not have an August recess,” Christopher Lackner, head of the Hemp Beverage Alliance, said in an interview this month of the group’s work to facilitate passage of the Senate-passed funding bill.
Trump administration officials have also been telling reluctant lawmakers they will use the one-month delay to work on regulations. “The White House has committed to me that they’re committed to regulate the industry,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said in an interview this month.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), who fought in the Senate to retain the ban as originally intended, said White House officials have said “they don’t want another extension, and I agree with that.”
In a statement, Ricketts said that “manufactured high-THC products like gummies and drinks are putting our kids in the hospital” and need to be taken “off our shelves.”
Some supporters of the ban say the White House and industry are just employing delay tactics to get to December, when lawmakers will face another pressure campaign to delay the ban while they are motivated to avert a shutdown before leaving town for the holidays.
“What they’re really after is to try to jam this on some must-pass, end-of-the-year funding,” Budd told reporters earlier this month. “That’s really what this is about.”
Budd fought to block the delay in the Senate as part of the government funding measure, but his amendment to that end was shot down 61-32 before the chamberpassed the legislation, sending it on for House action.
Trump personally called Budd after the senator filed the amendment and talked about creating federal regulations for hemp products, according to a Senate aide granted anonymity to describe the private discussion.
Days later, Budd demanded a vote on the amendment anyway and continues to slam the hemp industry.
“It is clear that businesses that sell unregulated, intoxicating products will stop at nothing to protect their bottom line, even at the expense of children’s health and safety,” he said in a statement this week.
Besides lawmakers fighting to ban intoxicating hemp products, others are pushing alongside the White House and industry for federal regulations.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-W.Va.) has crafted legislation that would direct the Food and Drug Administration to create federal rules for intoxicating hemp products and wants to see mandates for third-party testing, as well as new THC limits per serving.
Griffith told reporters Thursday the “deadline push” in the Senate-passed government funding measure “is not long enough” to finalize necessary regulations.
Since state limits for THC vary widely throughout the country and the federal government has taken years to step in since the hemp loophole was created in 2018, Griffith argued it makes more sense to regulate the intoxicating products than to enact a federal ban.
“That horse is out of the barn,” he said. “What we need to do is corral it.”
Kelsey Brugger, Amanda Friedman and Rachel Shin contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump’s $400-million super PAC is taking its first steps into the general election: hosting a public event in battleground Michigan, headlined by Vice President JD Vance.
Battleground Republicans have been clamoring for Trump’s MAGA Inc. to spend in competitive races. The Michigan event is an early indicator of how the massive group might seek to use its funds to help the party keep control of Washington.
Vance will be joined in Sterling, Michigan, on Monday by GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers, 10th District nominee Mike Bouchard Jr. and gubernatorial nominee John James, along with several other Michigan Republicans, according to an event advisory from MAGA Inc.
The GOP sees Michigan’s open seat as its best Senate pickup target this fall as Rogers faces former public health leader and progressive Abdul El-Sayed, who emerged from a grueling primary earlier this month.
“MAGA Inc. will be hosting events throughout the nation to ensure that Republicans retain control of Congress in order to finish cleaning up the mess the Biden-Harris-Pelosi-Schumer Democrats left,” said Alex Pfeiffer, spokesperson for MAGA Inc. “We’re not going back to their record inflation, open borders, and surging crime.”
MAGA Inc. is sitting on more funds than any other super PAC, and Republican donors and battleground candidates have been hoping it will unleash that money to help the party keep control of the House and Senate.
So far, the group has only spent only a few million dollars out of its massive fundraising haul, and its funds have largely gone to competitive Republican primaries. Most recently, it spent $827,000 on phone calls and text messages to boost Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) in the state’s special primary.
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