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Oz to huddle with House tax writers

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Democrats and Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are set to have a bipartisan meeting next Wednesday with Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, as congressional tax writers eye year-end health care legislation following their work in helping craft the “big, beautiful bill.”

According to a notice of the meeting viewed by Blue Light News, Ways and Means members are invited “to discuss the priorities” of CMS on July 23, including issues “involving health care matters” that fall within the jurisdiction of the panel.

Conversation could turn to what’s next for Ways and Means and its counterpart in the Senate, the Finance Committee, where Republicans are actively discussing interest in moving an overhaul to the operations of pharmaceutical benefit managers, the intermediaries who negotiate drug prices between pharmacies and manufacturers.

Discussion next week could also focus on the critical role Oz played in reassuring Senate Republicans that hospitals in their states could tap into a rural hospital relief fund amid steep cuts to Medicaid in the GOP megabill.

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Congress

Jordan talking to White House on reviving partisan immigration bill

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House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan is in touch with the White House about bringing his sweeping immigration overhaul bill up for a vote — in exactly the same form as in the previous Congress.

In an interview this week, the Ohio Republican said he wants to revive consideration of legislation that passed the House in May 2023 without any Democratic votes.

“What I’d like to do in our committee, and we’re talking to the White House about when it makes sense to do this, is look at … the language that we had last Congress,” said Jordan.

Jordan had previously signaled an openness to tweaking the bill text to include some changes to high-skilled visa rules — a policy change championed by Elon Musk, tech mogul and former head of the Department of Department Efficiency initiative.

Since that time, however, Musk left his administration posting on bad terms with Donald Trump over for the GOP’s sweeping domestic policy package, railing against the megabill and burning bridges with the president along the way.

And while Musk and Jordan had at one point been close allies, Jordan was recently one of the several high-profile Republicans who Musk unfollowed on his social media platform, X, following passage of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

Jordan’s immigration overhaul bill would significantly crack down on legal immigration in the United States through limits on asylum and parole eligibility. It also would require employers to use E-Verify, an online system where they can ascertain an individual’s eligibility to work in the U.S., while setting a new minimum of 22,000 active-duty agents for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

A 2023 report from the Congressional Budget Office found that the bill would lower population estimates by 2033 by 600,000 “mostly by reducing the number of unaccompanied alien children present in the country.” The nonpartisan scorekeeper also estimated that 4.4 million people would also no longer be eligible for parole or asylum.

It would come on the heels of the megabill’s allocations of tens of billions of dollars for completing the border wall and implementing new fees for applicants seeking entry into the country.

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Senate rejects Democrats’ initial attempts to trim Trump’s cutbacks

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Senate Republicans batted down Democratic attempts on Wednesday to shrink the $9 billion package of funding clawbacks the chamber is expected to pass after a “vote-a-rama” amendment spree.

Democrats are seeking to knock out pieces of President Donald Trump’s request to cancel $8.3 billion in foreign aid, along with $1.1 billion from public broadcasting. But they failed in their initial attempts Wednesday at protecting funding for international disaster relief and public broadcasting that supports public safety.

In a 50-49 vote, the chamber rejected an amendment from Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) that would retain $496 million in international disaster relief Trump wants Congress to slash in the rescissions package.

GOP Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted with Democrats in favor of the amendment. Those Republicans also voted earlier in the week against debating the package and knocked the White House for not providing lawmakers with account-by-account totals for what will be cut if Congress clears the bill before the Friday night deadline.

Global disaster aid doesn’t just “save lives in countries around the world,” Coons argued. “It strengthens our standing, brings us closer to our allies and helps us compete with China.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), who is leading the Senate GOP effort to pass the package, argued that “many foreign governments and U.N. agencies have become reliant on U.S. emergency funding, using it to avoid investing in their own disaster preparedness.”

The Senate also voted 51-48 to reject an attempt from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) to send the bill back to committee and bar public broadcasting cuts that would affect public safety efforts, including the work of first responders and law enforcement.

Cassandra Dumay and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

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Super PAC backing Bill Cassidy to reveal $2.5M haul

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Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, facing a MAGA revolt over his vote in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, is about to get a boost from a super PAC committed to the Republican’s reelection.

Louisiana Freedom Fund is set to announce that it has $2.5 million in cash on hand to support Cassidy, according to a person granted anonymity to disclose the total ahead of a formal filing. Cassidy is up against multiple GOP challengers attacking his 2021 vote to convict Trump over his involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The infusion of outside funds comes after Cassidy’s campaign revealed Tuesday it already holds a massive cash advantage over his opponents. The four-term incumbent has $8.7 million banked, compared with State Sen. Blake Miguez’s $1.7 million and state treasurer John Fleming’s $2.1 million, per campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Those reports also showed that Cassidy raised $1.6 million in the second quarter, significantly more than donors gave the other top candidates, who are running largely self-funded campaigns. Miguez raised $800,000 and loaned himself an additional $1 million, while Fleming raised $121,000 and loaned his campaign $2 million.

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