The Dictatorship
House GOP passes health care bill going nowhere while real deal takes shape
Despite holding one of the smallest House majorities in history, Republicans muscled their health care bill through the chamber on Wednesday — a politically important win aimed at blunting Democratic attacks on affordabilitybut one that is largely symbolic, with the legislation likely to languish in the Senate.
The House passed the package of conservative health proposals, 216-211, with all but one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., supporting the bill. All Democrats opposed.
Notably, the bill doesn’t address the expiring Obamacare subsidies, meaning that even if the Senate were to sign off — which again, isn’t likely to happen — millions of Obamacare enrollees would still see their premiums skyrocket is Jan. 1.
Instead, the House GOP proposal incorporates a grab bag of conservative priorities, including expanded association health plans, cost-sharing reductions in the ACA marketplace and new transparency requirements for pharmacy benefit managers.
Top Republican leaders insist the bill would lower premiums for “all Americans.” But compared with the looming increases facing Obamacare enrollees, any potential savings would be marginal. And that assumes the bill somehow becomes law — a long shot given Democratic opposition and the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
As House Republicans acted publicly on a proposal going nowhere, however, a key group of more moderate lawmakers in both chambers were working behind the scenes on a bill that could go somewhere.
While that proposal still doesn’t quite exist — and just about everyone on Capitol Hill acknowledges it won’t come in time to avert the steep increases in Obamacare premiums — there’s a chance lawmakers could deliver something early next year that would alleviate some of the rising premiums.
Members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus met with key senators in the basement of the Capitol on Wednesday, as moderate Democrats and Republicans searched for an elusive compromise on the subsidies.
The plan, according to Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa. — who co-chairs the Problem Solvers Caucus — is for the House to send the Senate a three-year Obamacare extension, and then for the Senate to take up the product, make changes, and then send it back to the House.
“We will find a way to get that bill to the floor,” Fitzpatrick said.
How Fitzpatrick and other vulnerable House Republicans plan to send the Senate that initial three-year subsidy extension is no mystery.
After Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., blocked several amendments to the health care bill that would have extended the subsidies in some form — an important vote for numerous vulnerable Republicans looking to distance themselves from the GOP strategy of letting the tax credits expire — four House Republicans broke from GOP leaders and signed a discharge petition to force a vote on a Democratic proposal to extend the subsidies for three years. Those four signatures were enough to clinch the 218 mark required to force the vote.
The four moderate Republicans who signed on — Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Robert Bresnahan, R-Pa., Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa., and Fitzpatrick — all face difficult reelection bids in next year’s midterms and wanted a chance to vote on the subsidies.
“We did what was in the interest of my bosses back home,” Fitzpatrick told reporters.
Lawler argued the procedural step of signing the discharge petition wasn’t “an endorsement of the bill written,” explaining that he wants to see changes made to the subsidies.
“But when leadership blocks action entirely, Congress has a responsibility to act,” Lawler said.
It’s just the latest successful discharge petition in a string of successful discharge petitions in the House — a procedural maneuver that is historically rare, as it requires members of the minority party to effectively circumvent leadership and control action on the House floor. But in recent weeks, a handful of Republicans have joined with Democrats to force votes on legislation to release the Epstein files and to protect union rights for federal workers.
Pressed by reporters Wednesday, Johnson insisted he has not lost control of the House.
“When you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people who disagree on something, you know, you don’t have to deal with it,” he said. “But when you have a razor-thin margin, as we do, then all the procedures in the book, people think, are on the table — and that’s the difference.”
Democrats are hopeful that the combination of the discharge petition and voters paying higher premiums next month may finally shake loose a deal.
As Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., put it: ”The pressure on the Senate will be so enormous that I think the winds will change.”
But the communications director for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is already throwing cold water on the prospect.
“A clean, three-year extension of the Biden COVID bonuses was on the Senate floor last week, and it failed,” Ryan Wrasse posted on X.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, backed up that assessment, telling reporters that they “already saw that movie” when the Senate tried — and failed — to advance a three-year extension.
“We’re not going to do a straight up extension for three years without reforms,” Moreno said.
But Moreno was also somewhat bullish on the ability of lawmakers to find some sort of agreement.
“I would say we’re not in the red zone, but we’re in the field goal range,” Moreno told MS NOW on Wednesday afternoon.
What that product will look like, however, and if the House would ever stage a vote on the final proposal, is anyone’s guess.
Lawmakers in both chambers have proposed more than a dozen health care plans — some involving the subsidies, others not — leaving members back in square one as they try to figure out what product can make its way to President Donald Trump’s desk.
Asked Wednesday afternoon if lawmakers could clinch a deal in January, Thune was noncommittal.
“We’ll see,” Thune said. “I think that’s the question. You know.”
Syedah Asghar, Peggy Helman and Lillie Boudreaux contributed to this report.
Kevin Frey is a congressional reporter for MS NOW.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance say their interim deal to end the war with Iran will deliver a financial windfall to American farmers.
But the Iranians deny it. And in the absence of more details, sanctions experts are flummoxed over exactly how billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian assets would make their way to the American heartland from the escrow accounts where they’ve been locked for years by U.S. sanctions.
A tentative agreement reached last week would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas once passed, and allow Iran to start selling its oil freely again during a 60-day period when the two countries will continue negotiating key issues. The memorandum of understanding also promised to unfreeze Iranian assets.
Trump’s deal has come under fire for failing to address the reasons the president cited for going to war with Iran on Feb. 28, including curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile program and its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Lashing back at critics Tuesday on his Truth Social media platform, Trump said U.S. farmers would get a payday: The U.S. Treasury Department, he wrote, would release the Iranian assets “into escrow, controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American farmers. These are things that are desperately needed by Iran.’’
Vance, who spoke about the proposal after high-level talks in Switzerland, and Trump say that any frozen funds and assets held outside of Iran will be used to buy U.S. crops.
But the Iranians deny that’s part of the deal. A spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said any agricultural purchases would be based on “prices and quality,’’ not terms dictated by Washington.
“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was the destruction of the Iranian civilization and the collapse of Iran, has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said.
Sign up for Morning Wire: Our flagship newsletter breaks down the biggest headlines of the day.
Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, rejected Vance’s contention that the U.S. and Qatar would dictate how Iran uses unfrozen funds. “Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he told reporters.
A U.S. official dismissed the contradiction, asserting that Iranian leaders were speaking to their domestic audience. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said Iran was unlikely to abandon its other trade partners on food.
Iran’s major suppliers include Brazil, India, Turkey, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Argentina, he said. Trump’s demand to buy from the U.S. would “create some hard feelings with some of our competitors.”
Under previous sanctions, the U.S. has required that money foreign countries spend on imports from Iran — such as South Korean purchases of oil and Iraqi purchases of Iranian electricity — be locked in escrow accounts and typically released only if the Treasury approves and if the proceeds go toward “non-sanctionable’’ items such as food and medicine.
On Monday, the U.S. Treasury approved the sale of Iranian oil, petrochemicals and petroleum products through Aug. 21. It did not mention any escrow accounts.
Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in the first Trump administration, said in a post on X that he would welcome “a clarification that Iran is actually restricted to only buying U.S. agricultural products.”
Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said it’s unclear what the new U.S.-Iran agreement actually means for releasing restricted Iranian assets.
Could the U.S. require that the assets be used to buy American farm products?
“Well, we can try!’’ Nephew, who helped design Iran sanctions in the Obama and Biden administrations, said by email. “All you really need to do is to tell a foreign bank that they can move the money but only to a U.S. bank to buy soybeans or whatever.”
Banks do not have to comply, he said. If they refuse, the U.S. could sanction them as well.
But it’s rare for the U.S. to conduct itself that way, he added, “in part because we don’t usually like to give the impression that we treat national security issues as a cash grab.”
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
Wednesday marks four years since the Supreme Court issued its landmark Dobbs decisionwhich effectively overturned Roe v. Wade and repealed the constitutional right to an abortion. On “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski explained how the ruling set off a domino effect across the United States, affecting not just abortion-related care, but also altering “the state of women’s healthcare as a whole.”
As Brzezinski noted, states across the country have enacted harsher abortion restrictions since the 2022 ruling, with 13 outright banning the procedure with very limited exceptions. This has created a climate of fear among those who treat pregnant patients, with many healthcare providers worrying that any care involving an abortion could violate the law, even when the mother’s health is at risk.
“We are talking about people dying when they’re miscarrying because doctors are too afraid to intervene and save their lives,” Amy Littlefield, abortion access correspondent for The Nation, told MS NOW.
Brzezinski said the laws have effectively limited women’s “access to lifesaving healthcare.”
The MS NOW host reflected on some high-profile stories of pregnant women who faced delayed care in states with near-total abortion bans, noting “the numbers of cases that we’ve covered here on the show of women who have had their lives threatened, have been forced to give birth to dying or dead babies, and then, by the way, denied the access to ever create life again, because they became sterilized in the process.”
“There’s an image I can’t get out of my head,” Brzezinski added, before sharing reporting from ProPublica about Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother who died in Texas in 2023 after not receiving timely care for a miscarriage.
“For months afterward, Porsha’s 3-year-old son would chase after women who looked like her on the street, shouting, ‘That’s Mommy!’” Brzezinski said. “That’s the detail I can’t forget. I can’t stop imagining that little boy chasing after strangers on the street. And that story repeats itself.”
You can watch Brzezinski’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
One of the biggest upsets in Tuesday night’s primaries came in New York’s 13th Congressional District, where Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old democratic socialist, managed to beat incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, 71, who was backed by establishment Democrats.
Chevalier, a doctoral student in sociology at the City University of New York, secured 49.4% of votes in the district — which encompasses upper Manhattan, Harlem and parts of the Bronx — defeating Espaillat, who received about 46% of the votes after representing the district for nearly a decade, according to The Associated Press. She now advances to the November general election, which she is presumed to win in the solidly Democratic district.
Chevalier’s primary win marks a major win for the Democrats’ left-wing flank that backed her, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdaniwho endorsed Chevalier last month during a joint interview on MS NOW’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Here is what to know about Chevalier and the platform she campaigned on.
She has never held elected office
Prior to her congressional campaign, Chevalier had never run or held elected office. But she has been involved with advocating for issues that became political flashpoints, including helping organize the pro-Palestinian encampments at Columbia University, according to her biography on the website of the Justice Democratsthe progressive group that recruited her to run.
The daughter of Dominican immigrants, Chevalier also worked as an organizer for Families for Freedom, a New York City group that assists immigrants facing deportation.
Chevalier earned a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern studies from Columbia University in 2016 and later worked as a paralegal, according to her LinkedIn.
Chevalier faced scrutiny during her campaign over previously articulated stances and incendiary comments, including her appearance at a Times Square rally the day after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, where attendees reportedly suggested the attack was justified.
At a March candidates’ forum, Chevalier declined to condemn Hamas, saying that a request to do so “ignores the 75 years of occupation that the Palestinian people have been subjected to and the conditions that that folks were living under before this genocide began,” the local outlet City & State reported. Later, on local radio station WNYC, Chevalier said she did condemn Hamas when asked, adding, “As far as I know, the U.S. does not send a single dime to Hamas. What we fund is the Israeli military.”
In a series of since-deleted social media posts between 2018 and 2022Chevalier also used expletives to refer to former Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic National Committee, calling for abolishing borders and stopping all deportations, according to BLN. Other reports noted that she called former President Joe Biden a “rapist” and disparaged white people in some of her posts.
Chevalier has said she has “grown considerably” since writing those posts and that she regrets them. Mamdani defended her after the social media posts surfaced but said he was unaware of them before endorsing Chevalier.
She’s the left’s preferred candidate
Chevalier’s focus on affordability, expanding housing access and opposing war and deportations made her the preferred candidate of many progressive groups. In addition to the endorsements from Mamdani and the Justice Democrats, she was also backed by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and several progressive members of the New York City Council.
After her primary win, the Democratic establishment also seems to have rallied behind her, despite her previous expletive-laden critiques of them.
In a statement Tuesday, DNC Chair Ken Martin called Chevalier “a tireless advocate for the hard-working people of New York City” who “will fight for healthcare, affordable housing, public education, civil rights, and an economy that works for everyone.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
- Tom Kean Jr., absent for months, to hold fundraiser on the day of his return
- Mamdani’s rent freeze passes for 1 million units
- Iran strikes cargo ship in Strait of Hormuz
- Sanders releases trove of internal HHS emails showing RFK Jr. pressured CDC over vaccine messaging
- Judge orders DOJ to produce, unredact sought after Epstein files
- Flu cases at Texas base hit 275 as services again require recruits to get shots
- Who’s who from the Trump administration
- Usha Vance, Kamala Harris and Hasan Piker walk into a … stadium
- Potential 2028er World Cup attendee leaderboard
- Usha Vance to attend match
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship10 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words