Congress

Megabill teeters after hard-liners make their stand

Published

1 year ago

May 15, 2025

House Republican leaders are having to salvage their party-line megabill a lot sooner than they thought.

A surprise holdout by ultraconservative members of the House Budget Committee Thursday is forcing Speaker Mike Johnson to entertain significant changes to the GOP sweeping domestic policy bill, endangering his ambitious Memorial Day timeline for House passage.

The hard-right objections surrounded missing fiscal scores for the legislation and ongoing concerns about the depth of Medicaid cuts that Republicans are prepared to make. One option under serious discussion as a concession to fiscal hard-liners is moving up the onset of work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries by two years — from 2029 to 2027.

Three Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the negotiations confirmed the possible change, and Johnson himself was overheard discussing the proposal with House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington as the two left a Capitol Hill meeting Thursday.

“We’re working to settle all the pieces, so stay tuned,” Johnson said. Later he promised that the package “will clear the Budget panel Friday.”

The urgency of addressing the hard right’s concerns was heightened when several conservative members of the Budget Committee suggested they would withhold their votes at a scheduled Friday meeting. The panel needs to package up various pieces of the bill advanced by other committees and send it to the floor, a perfunctory but necessary step toward passage that is now threatened by the holdouts.

Johnson huddled with several of them just off the House floor Thursday evening, including GOP Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. Both said they would vote no in the Budget Committee on the existing bill. Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin also declined to commit to supporting the bill.

The group demanded three key changes, according to two Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations: speeding up the phase-out of tax credits enacted under former President Joe Biden; immediately removing immigrants in the country illegally from any Medicaid access, rather than allowing states several years to comply; and moving up the Medicaid work requirement start date.

“We’ll kill it,” Norman said leaving the meeting. “I don’t want to. But I will.”

Norman and Roy both said they were pushing for the work requirements to hit as soon as possible, in the fall of 2026. Hardliners and GOP leaders are expected to hold a call late Thursday evening, with just hours to spare before the Budget panel meeting Friday.

Such a move could create tens of billions more savings for Republicans’ megabill, the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s agenda on taxes, energy and the border, while helping satisfy conservatives’ demands for deeper cuts. It would also create deeper coverage losses more quickly, potentially ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

Crucially, Republican moderates appear to be on board with the accelerated timeline, which could give leaders more space to address their own concerns — including the highly contentious state-and-local-tax deduction, or SALT.

Several moderate Republicans huddled separately with Johnson throughout the day Thursday, raising concerns about shifting Medicaid and SNAP food aid costs to states, changes to a federal pension program and other issues they want changed before the bill hits the House floor, according to three other Republicans with direct knowledge of the talks.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said in an interview he was promised that a controversial change to ban legal immigrants from accessing federal food assistance would be stripped before the bill hits the floor. Senior Republicans added the provision from Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) to the Agriculture panel’s portion of the bill this week.

As for moving up the start date of some Medicaid changes, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise told reporters to expect the requirements to come sooner than originally planned and that Republicans would revise the bill. He said the change could help leaders address the SALT demands from a separate group of Republicans.

“I think everybody in the room wants that,” Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) said leaving a briefing Thursday afternoon, and asked if he wants work requirements moved up. “I think they’re going to move it up.”

Bacon, a key moderate, also said in an interview that he’s comfortable moving the timeline up. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) told reporters that when the requirements begin is “not that consequential.”

Still, the White House would still need to sign off on the move; Trump and most of his senior aides have been in the Middle East this week, leaving Johnson and other GOP leaders to settle the various policy skirmishes themselves. But the speaker has remained in contact with the president while he’s been overseas.

Quickly implementing the Medicaid changes could be difficult. Most states will have to update their systems to incorporate the new work requirements, which they will be responsible for enforcing. The bill includes $100 million in federal grants to help update those systems; only Georgia currently has a work requirement program in place.

Arrington said Thursday afternoon that a committee markup Friday is “absolutely” possible but separately told reporters it wasn’t clear that the meeting could continue as scheduled given the sheer scale of issues raised inside the closed-door meeting.

Even if GOP leaders agree to tweak the package before passage, it can’t be amended during the Budget meeting Friday. The next opportunity for changes would come in the House Rules Committee, which Johnson wants to meet Monday to prepare the bill for floor debate.

“It’s what we do around here,” Johnson said. “We’re working to settle all the pieces.”

Robert King, Jennifer Scholtes and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate confirms 74 Trump nominees

Published

3 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans confirmed dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees Friday, just before they leave for a five-week congressional recess.

Senators voted 51-47 to approve officials at the Departments of Defense, Energy, State and other agencies.

They included David Cummins to head the Transportation Security Administration, Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hal Duncan to be OMB deputy director and Francis Brooke to be Treasury deputy secretary. Among the group were several ambassadors, including former Rep. David Brat to be ambassador to Australia.

Senate Republicans changed the chamber’s rules last year to be able to confirm lower-level nominees as a package instead of having to hold a vote on each.

After finishing the expedited procedure Friday, Senate Republicans estimate they will only have a small number of civilian nominees awaiting confirmation.

Congress

Trump says voters are mad at other Republicans, not him, as midterms approach

Published

7 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump said voters may seek to punish Republicans — but not him — in the November midterm elections, as GOP lawmakers sweat that affordability concerns and the war in Iran could mean Democrats flip the House and perhaps even the Senate.

“They’re angry at Republicans,” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News that aired Friday. “But they’re not angry at me. They’re not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.”

The GOP faces the prospect of heavy losses this November, as gas and grocery prices remain stubbornly high due in part to the White House’s five-month-long war in Iran. The administration’s guidance on campaign trail messaging has been “tone deaf,” House Republicans fear.

Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating has tumbled since he returned to the Oval Office last year, and even his biggest supporters have grown frustrated over his Middle East war.

And with a messy, jam-packed slate of primaries now all but in the rearview mirror, Democrats are determined to go on offense. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has 58 seats on its midterm target map that stretches into redder territory — while still facing an uphill climb to take the Senate.

Trump has a massive war chest at his disposal. His MAGA Inc. super PAC reached $400 million in June. The president told Punchbowl he plans to use it to “help Republicans,” but he stressed that he faces no pressure in this campaign cycle.

“I said to somebody, ‘Wait a minute, you don’t understand, I won,’” Trump said, referencing his 2024 presidential election victory. “I’m not campaigning.”

The biggest issue for Republicans this year? That Trump himself is not on the ballot, he said.

“If I don’t run, will those people go out and vote? And that’s the one thing I can’t tell, I’m going to ask them to,” he said.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Senators find their exit strategy

Published

9 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate’s plan to get out of town is coming together.

Majority Leader John Thune teed up a final vote on the Russia sanctions legislation for this morning, as well as a confirmation vote for dozens of nominees and a procedural step on a stopgap funding bill.

But there’s still a number of questions that need to be answered if Thune wants to adjourn for recess by the end of the day:

— BLANCHE’S FATE: President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general needs to secure at least one more vote to be confirmed before the break.

It looks like it’s all up to Sen. Bill Cassidy after Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday morning she is opposed. Thune indicated Thursday night Blanche’s fate was uncertain and that leaders were “still working to get the final vote.”

— SAVE AMERICA ACT: Thune said to expect a vote related to the SAVE America Act as well as an initial vote on a budget blueprint for a third party-line spending bill — which includes elements of Trump’s election security legislation.

The decision to hold the budget vote comes after two Republican senators, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told Blue Light News Thursday they believed Sen. Mike Lee or another member of the GOP’s right flank would have otherwise forced a vote on the framework.

But as we’ve previously reported, Republicans don’t believe the budget resolution has the votes within the conference to be adopted — meaning the expected initial vote today will fail to clear a simple majority threshold.

And it’s not clear Lee or like-minded senators will be satisfied and allow for lawmakers to adjourn for recess without more action on the elections measure. The senator has made similar threats over the past year but has never followed through.

— TIME AGREEMENT: GOP leaders need to strike an agreement to finish other business, including passing the stopgap government funding bill and advancing a college sports bill.

At this point, any single senator could still object to expediting the chamber’s agenda, which would derail Thune’s goal of getting members out of town by the end of the day.

“We’ve been having these conversations with Democrats trying to figure out what’s the path,” Thune said.

“We’ll see how it goes,” he added.

What else we’re watching:

— GOP EXPECTS CRYPTO BILL DELAY: The Senate will leave for the chamber’s August recess without holding a vote on a landmark cryptocurrency bill, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Thune may still file cloture on the bill, but it likely won’t come to the floor until lawmakers return to Washington next month, two of the people said.

— COLLEGE SPORTS BILL STUMBLES: Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell’s legislation to impose new guardrails on college sports is looking increasingly unlikely to hit the floor this week. Eleven senators objected to expedited consideration of the Protect College Sports Act after Thune filed cloture earlier this week, two people familiar with discussions told Blue Light News.

— OGLES OUSTED: GOP House leaders lost an incumbent — and a perennial headache — with Rep. Andy Ogles’ primary defeat in Tennessee Thursday night. His loss to former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher represents the second Trump-endorsed candidate to lose a primary this week.

Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Andrew Howard and Jacob Wendler contributed to this report.