Congress
Dems launch group to hit Trump on tax cuts
Democrats are launching a tax-focused group as their newest messaging megaphone in an attempt to counter President Donald Trump on one of his signature issues.
Organizers said the nonprofit group, Families Over Billionaires, will be backed by an eight-figure funding campaign, which will include advertising, rapid response and surrogate operations. They said the campaign will serve as a centralized war room to attack Trump and Republicans during the looming tax debate in Congress. The details of the group were shared first with Blue Light News.
The campaign’s launch marks one of the first outside efforts to push back on Trump’s agenda in his second term, as Democrats look to regain ground with voters on economic issues — a major weakness for the party last year. Democrats plan to blast Trump over his effort to extend his own 2017 cuts, which they argue will hand “out trillions in tax giveaways to billionaires and big corporations,” a memo about the group reads, while ignoring his promises to lower costs on everyday expenses.
But it’s not clear when Republicans, who have argued that allowing the cuts to lapse would hurt the economy, will take up the debate. There’s still plenty of wrangling on Capitol Hill over how to push through their priorities of tax cut extensions, immigration and slashing spending — a sprawling list of priorities that will be difficult to push through with their razor-thin majority in the House.
Democrats, for their part, are still searching for a way to reach voters on the economy. Throughout the 2024 election, more voters trusted Trump on the economy than Kamala Harris, according to public polling. Trump improved his standing with nearly every demographic group last November, when a majority of voters said the economy remained their top issue. Reaching voters on economic issues is becoming an existential challenge for the party.
A coalition of elected officials, labor unions and Democratic groups signed on to the Democrats’ messaging effort, including former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), former Office of Management and Budget Shalanda Young, the Service Employees International Union and the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
“For me, politics has never been about left or right, it’s about whose side you’re on. That’s what this fight will come down to,” Brown said in a statement. “Are you fighting for the people who make this country work, or more handouts for the wealthy and the largest corporations? We must make that contrast clear.”
Michael Linden, a Biden administration alum and a senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, will serve as its director.
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley rescheduled a planned vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general late Friday in a preemptive move as negotiations between the Trump administration and GOP holdouts continue.
The vote, now set for Tuesday after a scheduled Thursday vote was postponed, isn’t an indication that a deal allowing for Blanche’s confirmation is near, so much as it is a nod to Judiciary Committee rules that require three days of notice for a panel meeting.
There is no sign that President Donald Trump is about to acquiesce to the unflinching demands of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who wants a controversial settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS substantially pared back.
Cornyn, who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed candidate, wants the Justice Department to nullify a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and limit the scope of a tax audit immunity component of the pact.
Trump told reporters earlier Friday the fund is “dead” but added “I wish it weren’t.”
“I’d like to see them compensated,” he added, referring to people he considers victims of government abuse, including participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
To advance Tuesday, Blanche needs to pick up Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another senator on the panel with similar concerns. He can’t lose any GOP votes if he wants to be reported favorably out of the Judiciary Committee.
“Chairman Grassley wants Todd Blanche’s nomination to be successful,” said a Judiciary Committee spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Noticing the markup gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee. Grassley would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess as he has an excellent record restoring law and order and keeping Americans safe.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.
Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.
Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.
After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.
He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.
President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.
Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.
“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.
Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.
“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”
On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.
“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.
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