Congress
Megabill timeline in flux as House and Senate spar over changes
Republicans’ ambitious July 4 target for their sweeping domestic policy legislation is facing new doubts this week as GOP leaders in the House and Senate push and pull over changes to the complex megabill.
Speaker Mike Johnson said in an interview Wednesday that while he believed Republicans were “on track” for final passage by the self-imposed deadline, he said that depended on the Senate approving a bill that hews close to the version that passed the House last month.
“We’ll see what they produce,” Johnson said, adding: “I just need them to come to their final decisions on everything. So we’ll see how it shapes up.”
Privately, top leadership aides believe that while the Senate could still finish its work by July 4, the process might take several more weeks — or months — if the Senate departs dramatically from the House product.
Among the open questions leaders are working through is the endgame for final passage of the bill. Top officials in the House, Senate and White House all want to avoid another big fight over the bill in the House and another round of “pingpong” where the bill goes back and forth between the two chambers.
The hope is to incorporate any final negotiations into the Senate version, so the House can take a vote on final approval only, without any making changes. But to do that, the two chambers would have to resolve key fights — including over the level of spending cuts, business tax cut extensions and the cap on the state-and-local-tax deduction — in advance.
In an ideal scenario, Senate Republicans would offer a “wraparound” amendment reflecting a bicameral agreement at the end of the long series of amendment votes known as “vote-a-rama” — allowing for a relatively fast up-or-down vote in the House.
The alternative would be entering into a much lengthier conference between the two chambers after Senate passage — negotiations that leaders fear could add weeks, if not months, to the process. While several GOP senators have floated a conference, leaders have repeatedly tamped down the idea.
Johnson declined to weigh in on the procedural questions Wednesday: “I’m in constant communication with [Senate GOP leaders], but there’s still a lot of question marks over it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview that his team, as well as key Senate committee chairs, are working with Johnson to avoid a scenario where the House makes changes to the bill that passes the Senate. That includes weekly meetings, and more frequent phone calls, with the speaker and his team.
“There’s just a lot of coordination to hopefully avoid some of the potential snafus that could happen with something that’s this complicated,” Thune said.
For example, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) is meeting with Senate GOP leadership staff Wednesday to discuss the House’s proposed increase to the SALT cap ahead of the Senate vote. Meanwhile, House GOP rebels Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Scott Perry (R-Pa.) met with Senate GOP fiscal hawks Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) Tuesday night as they push the Senate to carve out deeper spending cuts and maintain the House’s rollback of clean energy tax credits.
The White House is keeping pressure on, as well. Trump border czar Tom Homan attended a Senate GOP lunch Wednesday, underscoring the need for the additional immigration enforcement funding in the bill.
Senate committees chairs continue to roll out pieces of the bill this week, with all eyes on Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), whose panel is handling the thorniest parts of the legislation and might not release text until next week. Thune and other GOP leaders are already planning to use next week to negotiate additional changes to the bill in the lead-up to floor action the following week.
Both Johnson and Thune met separately with President Donald Trump on Monday. Afterward, even the president acknowledged during a White House event that the July 4 timeline could slip.
“If it takes a little longer, that’s OK,” Trump said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raised $18 million in the third quarter of 2026 across his campaign and his joint fundraising committees, his campaign tells Blue Light News, a significant haul for the homestretch of the election.
Paxton’s number is double his $9 million second-quarter total, and signals Republican donors are rallying behind their Texas nominee. The campaign did not provide a current cash-on-hand total.
Democrat James Talarico’s campaign has yet to release his fundraising totals for the quarter. He raised $30 million last quarter.
“We now have the resources to make sure every Texan sees Talarico’s radical record between now and Election Day,” said Nick Maddux, senior adviser to the Paxton campaign.
The past quarter — the first full reporting period after Paxton’s primary runoff victory in May — saw Republicans flock to Texas for their midterm convention, which featured pro-Paxton fundraisers on the sidelines. Last week, the Paxton campaign announced a massive $20 million ad buy across the state, one of the largest-ever single media investments in a Texas Senate race.
Paxton needs the money: In a recording of a private donor event last month shared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”
Texas has emerged as a huge money suck for Senate Republicans, who have poured tens of millions into the state to aid Paxton. Senate Leadership Fund, their top super PAC, has spent or reserved well over $100 million in the state to date, and the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. and its affiliates plan to spend near $45 million in the state through Oct. 12.
Paxton has acknowledged that money has changed the race’s narrative: In a recording of a private donor event last monthshared with POLITICO, he said he has “never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign,” pointing to influence “from D.C.”
Most recent public polling shows Talarico with a small lead in the race in spite of the recent onslaught in GOP spending, though Paxton’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing Paxton leading by three points.
Sen. Raphael Warnock is hitting the road for the last month before Election Day.
The Georgia Democrat’s final midterm campaign surrogate sprint will only increase chatter around the possibility that he might run for president in 2028, according to a nine-stop itinerary shared first with Blue Light News.
First, he’ll touch down in New Hampshire on Tuesday before hitting Nevada on Wednesday. Next, he’ll travel to South Carolina (Oct. 13), Mississippi (Oct. 14), North Carolina (Oct. 15), South Carolina (Oct. 16-17), Michigan (Oct. 20-21), Wisconsin (Oct. 23) and Ohio (Oct. 24-26).
“Senator Reverend Warnock will be hitting the trail to energize voters who are sick of the President enriching himself while ordinary people continue to pay more for everything,” a spokesperson told Playbook. “Tapping into the righteous anger that voters are feeling across the country, the pastor in the Senate will again make the campaign trail his pulpit: calling out Trump’s corruption, while leaving voters hopeful for the next generation of Democratic leadership.”
Asked recently at the Texas Tribune Festival about whether he would run for president, Warnock said: “We’ll see what happens.”
Democrats are eager to win back subpoena power if they retake Congress, but they’re split on how hard they’ll go after corporate America.
The party is united by the idea of aggressive oversight of President Donald Trump’s administration, which will help shape their messaging in the run-up to the 2028 election. But Democrats are at odds over how fiercely to use their probing power to go after the corporations, law firms and universities that courted the White House over the past two years.
“We don’t want to turn into a banana republic where you lose an election and it’s all about retribution,” Rep. Bill Foster, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, said.
“We’re going to have to be a little bit wise about when companies simply did something they had to do to survive this unprecedented level of corruption, compared to companies that actually got on board and profited more by being a partner in his corruption,” he added.
Some progressives counter that a restrained approach would sit uneasily with the party’s base.
“It would be political suicide for Democrats to campaign on fighting corruption and then turn around and go easy on the very companies that are facilitating it,” said Ella Fanger, corporate power policy adviser at the liberal nonprofit group Demand Progress.
Prime targets for some Democrats are the tech companies that have taken steps to be on the president’s good side, like Apple, Amazon and Meta, which have all donated to Trump’s ballroom effort. Major cryptocurrency players, including Coinbase, Ripple and Tether also chipped in for the ballroom, and will be subject to questioning from Democrats.
The late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s networks and associates are also poised for probes — a push that has ensnared big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America in the past.
Sen. Chris Murphy said the party should focus on the nexus between Trump and corporate corruption.
“We should get to the bottom of the corrupt relationship that exists between corporations in this country and the Trump administration,” Murphy said, pointing to questions he’s posed about a tobacco company’s donation to Trump’s super PAC before new e-cigarette rules were unveiled.
Still, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who serves on Senate Banking, warned against the weaponization of power.
“Our focus should be solving problems that we’re seeing happening,” she said, pointing to cost-of-living issues around health care, housing and energy.
What else we’re watching:
— FIRST IN IC: BUILD AMERICA CAUCUS AGENDA — Energized by progress on permitting and housing legislation this term, a bipartisan development-focused caucus is rolling out a detailed agenda for next term. The 40-member Build America Caucus is releasing a 95-page package of proposals, first shared with Blue Light News, that outlines plans touching on health care, transportation, child care and research. The group launched last year with the goal of cutting red tape and regulatory bottlenecks to spur development.
— AI COLLAB STILL ILLUSIVE FOR CRUZ, CANTWELL — Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and ranking member Maria Cantwell might still be celebrating Senate passage of their landmark college sports bill last week, but it’s unclear the momentum will carry forward to agreement on another committee priority: artificial intelligence. Among the dozen lawmakers, aides and industry experts who spoke to Blue Light News, few expect the two senators to shed their well-established ideologies and styles after the mutual win. That could doom their ability to replicate their latest achievement in something as complex and divisive as an AI regulatory framework.
Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
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 Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words