Congress

Ron Johnson is threatening to tank the GOP megabill. He’s been here before.

Published

1 year ago

May 14, 2025

Ron Johnson is no stranger to being a squeaky wheel inside the Senate GOP. Now he’s asking for trillions of dollars worth of grease.

The frequently cantankerous Wisconsin senator is pushing his fellow Republicans to deliver huge spending cuts as part of their party-line domestic policy bill — and vowing to block President Donald Trump’s top legislative priority if his demands, which are shared by a small cadre of fiscal hawks, aren’t met.

As the megabill moves through the House, Johnson’s increasingly vocal warnings are an early indicator for Senate GOP leaders and the White House that they’ve got major headaches awaiting across the Capitol. Senate Republicans can only afford three defections on the expected party-line vote.

“I think there’s enough of us that would say, ‘No, that’s not adequate,’” Johnson said in an interview where he described his insistence on returning the federal government to “pre-pandemic” level of spending.

The math issue that creates for Republicans is stark: The House GOP is struggling to hit $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, while Johnson and his allies want to go much, much further. Returning to the level of federal expenditures that predates multiple rounds of pandemic stimulus, a major infrastructure bill and the Democrats’ own domestic-policy megabill would, by Johnson’s own estimation, require more than $6 trillion in cuts.

GOP leaders might laugh off such an audacious demand if Johnson didn’t have a history of getting what he wants.

The last time Republicans wrote a party-line tax bill, in 2017, he vowed to oppose the package as he pushed for better treatment of so-called “pass-through” businesses, which comprise most privately held companies. Formerly an executive for a Oshkosh plastics manufacturer, Johnson argued that the bill needed to benefit smaller businesses as much as it would benefit large corporations that were in line to get a major rate cut.

His hardball tactics paid off big time: Republicans ultimately included a new 20 percent deduction rate for pass-through business income, an estimated $414 billion line item in the $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Now, with key TCJA provisions expiring, he’s asking for roughly 10 times the fiscal impact, and his colleagues have learned not to brush him off.

“He’s as serious as a heart attack,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who credited Johnson for driving a hard bargain back in 2017. But he also suggested any Republican would have a hard time standing in the way of the party’s top legislative priority: “Sometimes when confronted with a binary choice people compromise a little more.”

While Johnson is setting his sights in the multi-trillion-dollar range, he’s hinting that a substantially smaller settlement might be possible: He suggested in an interview that lawmakers could enshrine a chunk of the overall cuts in the pending GOP bill while also setting up a bicameral commission to find the rest by going “line-by-line” through the federal budget.

“Elon Musk is showing us how to do this right?” he said. “You expose, ‘Whoa, what are we doing spending money on that?’” he said.

But Johnson hasn’t yet found buy-in for that idea from colleagues who have been burned by one too many deficit-cutting commissions that ultimately sputtered. The response he’s gotten, he said, is “we don’t have time to do it.”

“Well, okay then, I don’t have the support for the bill,” Johnson said.

GOP leaders believe they have a strategy to navigate around Johnson, which goes back to their decision to bundle together wildly disparate parts of their domestic agenda — tax cuts, border security upgrades, deportation funding, energy incentives, Pentagon plus-ups and more.

That, they believe, will make it too big to fail. But Johnson had a less optimistic metaphor as he gaggled with reporters on Wednesday, saying it instead “might be like the Titanic and may be going down.”

Johnson has instead repeatedly floated breaking up the bill into two or three or more pieces — something that would force GOP leaders in both chambers to abandon a hard-fought budget blueprint and go back to the drawing board.

He’s no stranger to playing the skunk-at-the-garden-party role inside the Senate GOP. Abandoned by national party committees during his 2016 Senate run, he has long felt unusually free to chart his own path and sometimes critique his own party’s leadership. He’s used his leadership posts on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to pursue matters top GOP leaders would otherwise just leave alone — most recently conspiracy theories related to the 9/11 terror attacks.

Johnson’s not the only potential Senate Republican holdout GOP leaders are dealing with on the “big, beautiful bill.” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is all but guaranteed to be a “no” after opposing the budget blueprint. Several others are viewed as potential swing votes, including Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

Asked about the House bill, Murkowski quipped, “It’s not beautiful yet.”

Senators are expected to make changes to the House bill, if and when it comes over, meaning Johnson will have an opportunity to put his stamp on the legislation. He’s a member of the Finance Committee, which has broad jurisdiction over both taxes and health care, where the GOP is looking to reap most of the savings.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, another Finance member who put a big stamp on the 2017 bill, said Republicans are looking to end up with spending cuts on the “north end” of the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion range.

“We take all our members seriously,” Thune said about Johnson. “I know it’s a huge priority for him, which is why I’ve suggested all along that [the House] prioritize spending cuts in the package.”

Republicans, of course, are also betting that Trump can ultimately force the fiscal hawks, who are typically more MAGA-aligned than moderates like Collins and Murkowski, to stand down. That’s what happened earlier this year when the budget plan was teetering, and Johnson was invited with other fiscal hard-liners on the Budget Committee to meet with Trump at the White House.

Johnson was among them, and he, too, eventually fell in line.

Now, he says, he’s determined to make good on campaign promises to get the nation’s fiscal house in order that date back to his first run as a tea-party-influenced political outsider in 2010.

“I’m trying to lead,” he told reporters Wednesday, adding, “When I talk to Trump about it, he agrees with my approach.”

Congress

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

Published

3 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

5 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.

Congress

Lisa Murkowski says she will oppose Blanche, endangering his confirmation

Published

7 hours ago

August 7, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination is on the brink after Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday that she would oppose confirming him.

The Alaska Republican said in a statement that she did not believe Blanche, who has been serving as acting attorney general since April, would act to rein in President Donald Trump and reverse the “politicization—even weaponization” of the Justice Department that has “accelerated” under Trump.

“The country needs an Attorney General who will check the worst impulses of this administration,” she said. “I hope Mr. Blanche is able to achieve that, if confirmed, but I simply do not have confidence that will be the case.”

Blanche’s fate is now thought to come down to Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who has been increasingly critical of the president since losing his renomination campaign to a Trump-backed Republican earlier this year.

Cassidy met with Blanche alongside Murkowski Wednesday afternoon but hasn’t yet said how he will vote. Blanche has to win his support in order to be confirmed, given unified opposition from Democrats and opposition from Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

The extended absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for health reasons has also left Republicans short of a vote.

Murkowski cited Blanche’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and the settlement agreement reached between Trump and the IRS under his watch as well as DOJ’s “repeated targeting” of Trump’s political enemies.

Senate Republicans rejecting Blanche would be a significant blow to Trump, who has pressured GOP senators to support Blanche over the past week as his nomination has been in limbo. And it would come as he’s already fuming at the conference, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, over their inability to end the legislative filibuster and pass the elections bill known as the SAVE America Act.