Congress
House GOP will hear from Wall Street deficit hawk as lawmakers struggle over tax cut costs
Ray Dalio, a billionaire investor who repeatedly has warned about America’s unsustainable debt trajectory, will brief House Republicans on Tuesday morning, at the invitation of Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).
His appearance comes as Republicans struggle with how to account for the cost of their tax cut plans, with some pushing for an accounting strategy that would zero-out the price tag and others warning that would amount to fiscal fraud.
Just in recent weeks, Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, has said that America’s debt situation could cause an “economic heart attack” and “shocking developments.”
“It is imperative that members of Congress engage with thought leaders like Mr. Dalio, who have extensive, real-world experience that can help guide us as we work to restore fiscal sanity in Washington before it’s too late,” Arrington said ahead of the briefing.
Dalio’s appearance, planned for after the House GOP conference meeting, comes as congressional Republicans are still hashing out some of the big-picture questions on a huge budget package this year, including how much a potential plan might add to deficits.
One particularly large outstanding question is whether Republicans should use a current policy baseline, which would assert that there is no cost to extending the temporary parts of the 2017 Trump tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of this year.
It’s not clear whether the Senate parliamentarian will allow such an approach in a budget reconciliation measure, which is how Republicans plan to pass their agenda. But it would give the GOP more headroom than the traditional current law baseline, which would hold that keeping the expiring provisions would cost $4 trillion or more over a decade.
The budget resolution that passed the House last month uses the current law approach.
Some House deficit hawks haven’t held back in knocking the current policy baseline — and just within recent days, a CBO analysis requested by Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) found that the federal debt would soar if the tax provisions were extended without being offset.
Sen. Raphael Warnock met Tuesday with Speaker Mike Johnson after the Republican leader requested the Democratic senator privately discuss comments Warnock made regarding Johnson’s faith in a recent interview.
Warnock was asked in the New York Times Q&A about Johnson praying ahead of the passage last year of the GOP megabill that included tax cuts and reductions in social-service programs and how he “understands that.”
Warnock, the pastor of a prominent Atlanta church, responded that he is a “Matthew 25 Christian,” referencing the chapter of the Gospel where Jesus describes the responsibility of the faithful to treat the hungry, sick and foreign with compassion.
“I don’t understand how you read that, say a long prayer, hold hands with your fellow legislators, and then cut a trillion dollars — $1 trillion — out of Medicaid calling it waste, fraud, and abuse,” Warnock said.
Leaving the meeting in Johnson’s office, Warnock said he raised the very same point personally to the speaker on Tuesday.
“We talked about the policy, and we agreed to disagree,” he said. “But we also talked about our faith and our upbringing, and that, for me, was important because I think just at a human level it would help around this place if we had more authentic conversations across our differences.”
“The stakes are too high for us to be engaged in political fencing around here and not have authentic conversations at a human level about why you believe what you believe,” he continued. “And so I left hopeful that we might have more of that kind of conversation.”
Johnson struck a similar note in a statement: “I was happy to meet with Senator Warnock today and have a positive, fruitful discussion about matters of faith and our different opinions regarding public policy. Such dialogue is important because it is always more productive to have these conversations face to face.”
Warnock and a spokesperson for the speaker both confirmed Johnson requested the meeting after the Times interview was published.
Warnock described the tone of the approximately 30-minute meeting as “honest, candid” and “respectful.” He said that the two men exchanged phone numbers and agreed to stay in touch.
Johnson, a devout evangelical Christian, often talks about his faith as he navigates his slim majority and near-constant GOP infighting. He often cites the Bible and advised President Donald Trump earlier this year to take down a photo from his Truth Social account that depicted Trump as Jesus.
“I think there are people gathered in this building every week who go to church on Sunday,” Warnock said after the meeting. “And I just sometimes wonder what their preacher is preaching about. The gospels that I preach center the poor.”
A key U.S. spy law remains on track to expire at the end of the week after Speaker Mike Johnson met with President Donald Trump Tuesday about the future of a key section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Trump indicated in the private White House that he’s not inclined to appease Democrats and pave the way for a FISA extension by nominating a permanent director of national intelligence to succeed Bill Pulte, the acting director he installed last week, according to three people briefed on the conversation who were granted anonymity to describe it.
Most Democrats are refusing to move forward with any FISA extension so long as Pulte, a close political ally of the president with no national security experience, remains in the intelligence post. Some Republicans have been hoping a new Trump nomination could provide an off-ramp ahead of the quickly approaching FISA deadline.
But the people briefed on the meeting were left with the impression it didn’t go very well as Trump continues to push back on any suggestion that he needs to placate Democrats to pave the way for a FISA extension.
Johnson told reporters Tuesday the meeting went well but declined to discuss specifics. He added that “Democrats have taken a hostage” and that the Senate would need to quickly figure out a path forward.
Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant Lesley Groff said in a closed-door interview Tuesday that she arranged phone calls between the late, disgraced financier and President Donald Trump, two Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee told reporters.
“I believe she referred to a time before, before Mr. Trump was president, that she did arrange for multiple phone calls between the two,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said of Groff, who worked for Epstein for around 18 years beginning in 2001.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) also said that Groff told the panel that “she arranged calls for them to connect,” referring to the president and Epstein, but that those calls were not frequent.
Groff is on Capitol Hill to speak to the Oversight committee as part of its ongoing Epstein investigation. Trump has insisted he cut off ties with Epstein years before his death and has not been charged with any misconduct, but Democrats have repeatedly questioned whether the administration has worked to cover up evidence of a continued relationship.
“Just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in a statement. “And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”
Groff was never charged with any wrongdoing, but in a class-action lawsuit against the co-executors of Epstein’s estate, she is cited as “Epstein’s secretary who made travel arrangements for the girls, tended to their living needs, and scheduled massage sessions.” She also was named as an unindicted co-conspirator as part of Epstein’s 2008 non-prosecution agreement.
A key player in Epstein’s orbit throughout his life, Groff’s name is featured prominently in the Epstein files rolled out by the Justice Department late last year, showing her on the front lines of arranging meetings on her former boss’s behalf.
But behind closed doors Tuesday, lawmakers said Tuesday that Groff sought to distance herself from Epstein’s improprieties, telling the Oversight committee she did not see Epstein engage in misconduct.
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) said in an interview that he did not believe it was “remotely plausible” for Groff to be oblivious to Epstein’s deeds.
“He was a registered sex offender, and she arranged young women for massages with a registered sex offender, and I just question whether, whether she can rightfully and truthfully maintain that she saw nothing improper,” said Lynch.
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said in an interview Monday night he was eager to “get [Groff] on the record, so that when we find out later she was lying, we can arrest her.”
An attorney for Groff did not return a request for comment.
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