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House Democrats commiserate after Harris’ election loss as the blame game begins

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House Democrats’ path to the majority is rapidly narrowing. The blame game over what went wrong is only just starting.

In a subdued, somber call, their first since Tuesday’s election, Democratic leaders projected confidence in their party and told lawmakers to wait to see the results of the races that still haven’t been called — as many rank-and-file members are starting to air grievances.

Democrats felt their leadership set expectations for how the call would go when Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told lawmakers to sit tight, according to two people on the call, and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who was formerly whip of the House Democrats, told Democrats to stand with their leaders but to speak for themselves and their races rather than for the caucus as a whole.

Jeffries in a statement issued just before the caucus call said he congratulated Trump but believed House control was still up in the air.

“It has yet to be decided who will control the House of Representatives in the 119th Congress. We must count every vote and wait until the results in Oregon, Arizona and California are clear,” he said.

One Democratic lawmaker who requested anonymity to speak freely told Blue Light News they believe the call was calm as some incumbent Democrats are finding out they’ve lost their races and added they believed next week’s in-person caucus meeting will be where the real fireworks will happen.

“We need to be much more assertive when we’re telling leadership [what we think went wrong],” the lawmaker said.

But outside of the caucus call, Democrats from all sides of the party have begun sharing their thoughts on why they performed so poorly on Tuesday despite expectations that Vice President Kamala Harris could win and Democrats could flip the House.

One centrist Democrat, Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, blamed the party’s perceived lean into political correctness for why they lost the election.

“Democrats need to focus more on issues Americans care about, like wages and benefits, and less on being politically correct,” he said in a press release also posted on X. “We failed as a party to respond to the Republican weaponization of anarchy on college campuses, defund the police, biological boys playing in girls’ sports, and a general attack on traditional values.”

Lawmakers are scheduled to return to Washington next week, though House Democrats aren’t expected to hold their leadership elections until the week after. House Democratic leaders had largely been expected to slot up a rung if they took back the House, though being relegated to the minority again could shake up their plans.

Republicans currently have the lead in the vote count, but control of the House still remains in question. Democrats had staked their path to the majority on flipping Republican-held seats largely in New York and California, and so far three of the New York seats have flipped to Democrats. Races in California will take longer to count.

But Democrats’ remaining paths to the majority are closing off after a handful of losses, including incumbents Susan Wild and Matt Cartwright and an open seat in Michigan.

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Congress

Rep. Dusty Johnson to announce a bid for South Dakota governor Monday

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Rep. Dusty Johnson will announce a bid for South Dakota governor Monday, according to two people granted anonymity to speak about private conversations.

Johnson has served as South Dakota’s sole House representative since 2019. He’s been a key player in major deals on Capitol Hill in recent years as the head of the Main Street Caucus of Republicans.

Johnson, long expected to mount a bid for higher office, will make the announcement in Sioux Falls.

Johnson is the eighth House Republican to announce a run for higher office in 2026. Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Byron Donalds of Florida, Randy Feenstra of Iowa, John James of Michigan and John Rose of Tennessee are also seeking governor’s offices; Reps. Andy Barr of Kentucky and Buddy Carter of Georgia have announced Senate runs.

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Senate slated to take first vote on megabill Saturday

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Senate Republicans are planning to take an initial vote at noon on Saturday to take up the megabill.

Leadership laid out the timeline during a closed-door lunch on Friday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said after the lunch. A person granted anonymity to discuss internal scheduling confirmed the noon timeline but cautioned Republicans haven’t locked in the schedule yet.

During the lunch, Speaker Mike Johnson pitched Senate Republicans on the tentative SALT deal, according to three people in the room. He said the deal was as good as Republican can get, according to the people.

Johnson noted he still has “one holdout” — an apparent reference to New York Republican Nick LaLota, who said in a brief interview Friday that if there was a deal, he was not part of it.

Leaving the meeting, Johnson was asked by reporters whether he thought Senate Republicans would accept the SALT deal. “I believe they will,” he replied. “They’re going to digest the final calculations, but I think we’re very, very close to closing that issue.”

In the meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Johnson laid out details of the fragile agreement, telling Senate Republicans the House SALT deal would be cut in half, to total roughly $192 billion. They restated it would raise the SALT cap to $40,000 for five years under the current House-negotiated SALT deal, and snap back to the current $10,000 cap after that.

In related matters, Kennedy and Hoeven also said the Senate will keep its provider tax proposal but delay its implementation, which Republicans believe will help it comply with budget rules. and Johnson also told Senate Republicans that he wants to do another reconciliation bill — which senators took to mean they would get another opportunity to secure spending cuts or provisions passed that have been squeezed out of the megabill.

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Trump says July 4 is “not the end all”

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President Donald Trump on Friday backed off the July 4 deadline he set for Congress to pass his megabill, acknowledging that the timing could slip as Republicans work through a series of political and logistical hurdles.

“It’s not the end all,” Trump said of the self-imposed Independence Day goal. “It can go longer, but we’d like to get it done by that time if possible.”

The remarks represented a clear softening of the White House’s position from just a day earlier, when Trump administration officials insisted that the GOP lawmakers pass the domestic policy package within a week despite a series of fresh obstacles.

Senate Republican leaders are still struggling to lock down the necessary 51 votes for the bill, amid objections from competing factions over the depth of the legislation’s Medicaid cuts.

The effort has also been hamstrung by a flurry of adverse rulings by the Senate parliamentarian that are now forcing lawmakers to rewrite significant portions of the bill.

The president indicated that he has little interest as of now in trying to directly overrule or even fire the parliamentarian — a step that some close allies in Congress had called for after she disqualified several of the bill’s provisions.

“The parliamentarian’s been a little difficult,” Trump said. “I disagree with the parliamentarian on some things, and on other ways she’s been fine.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed those issues on Thursday, saying Trump still expected Republicans to coalesce in the coming days and put the bill on his desk by July 4.

But asked directly on Friday, Trump took a more ambivalent stance.

“We have a lot of committed people and they feel strongly about a subject, subjects that you’re not even thinking about that are important to Republicans,” he said, appearing to reference the policy divisions within the Senate GOP conference.

Trump also singled out Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) for praise despite his resistance to the bill, complaining instead about the lack of Democratic votes.

“The problem we have is it’s a great bill, it’s a popular bill,” Trump said. “But we’ll get no Democrats.”

If all Republicans vote for the bill, it would not need Democrats’ support to pass.

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