Congress

Trump aides plan megabill marketing reboot for GOP lawmakers

Published

1 year ago

September 3, 2025

Two months after President Donald Trump called it “the most popular bill ever signed,” congressional Republicans are facing a sputtering effort to sell their sprawling domestic policy law — and they’re getting fresh advice Wednesday from top administration officials.

During a morning briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and James Blair, the president’s top political aide, are set to walk House Republicans, and later their staffs, through the most popular pieces of the megabill that Trump wants them to tout ahead of next year’s midterms. Tony Fabrizio, a top Trump pollster, will also present a slate of fresh polling on the tax cut and spending law that Trump signed on July 4, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss plans for the private briefing.

The core message, according to one of the people who was briefed on the planned presentation, is that Republicans should focus on the bill’s tax cuts for “working families” — including the elimination of income taxes on some tips and overtime and increases to the child tax credit and employer child care tax credit.

“The overarching point is that Republicans can control their own outcomes in the midterms if they just talk to key voters about what voters care about and highlight for those voters what we have done for them so far and what we’re planning to do next,” the person said, urging Republicans to “just keep the main thing the main thing.”

Trump acknowledged a rare branding misstep last week, admitting that the name of the law — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — could be leaving voters mystified about what the legislation actually does.

House Republicans say they’re all ears for more advice. But many also strongly believe they’ve been doing a good job already selling the bill they spent six grueling months trying to pass.

“He is a marketer,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) said about Trump Tuesday. “He will figure it out.”

The “one big, beautiful bill” branding had its origin in a long-running fight between the House and Senate over whether to unite the GOP domestic policy agenda in a single bill or multiple bills. Trump embraced the House’s one-bill sales pitch to the point that he made it the law’s formal name.

It was a departure from the name of the signature legislation from Trump’s first term — the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — which put the purported benefits of the legislation front and center.

Trump said last week that the “big, beautiful bill” talk was “good for getting it approved, but it’s not good for explaining to people what it’s all about.”

Some Hill Republicans bristle at the notion their massive bill isn’t being well received or understood by voters — despite a spate of angry crowds at GOP lawmakers’ town halls and alarming polling that shows dismal views of the bill’s safety-net cuts and deficit impact. But they are willing to take direction from Trump on their sales pitch.

House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who helped shepherd the legislation, said it was “the substance of the bill that makes it so great” but said he was open to hearing about a new sales pitch.

“I don’t know how I would change any of the wins, no matter what the title of the bill is,” he said. “It’s a big, beautiful win for the country and it’s going to make a big difference.”

Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), another key leader on the bill, acknowledged that Republicans are still working to counter months of Democratic attacks. The trillions of dollars of tax cuts orchestrated by Crapo’s committee were largely extensions of current law rather than brand-new reductions. Democrats have teed off on restrictions Republicans imposed on Medicaid and other safety-net programs to pay for the tax portion of the bill.

“I don’t know that the name of the bill is really that definitive about the messaging on it,” he said. He added that Republicans need to “make it very clear that the so-called cuts in Medicaid were not what they are being described in the media, and in fact that they were true, waste, fraud and abuse.”

“There’s so much mischaracterization of the bill,” he said. “I just think it’s getting the information out.”

One of the people granted anonymity to discuss plans for Wednesday’s House GOP briefing said Democrats’ attacks “are easily refutable and a recipe for disaster for them in the midterms, as long as Republicans execute the appropriate counter messaging.”

“We are going to highlight the issues on which the party’s brand and trust factor is strong, and on which issues it can be shored up with the appropriate messages to voters,” the person said.

“While congressional Republicans’ image has room for improvement with key voting blocs, congressional Democrats’ image is completely and totally in the toilet,” the person added.

While Democrats have undertaken a national blitz to undermine what they are calling the “big, ugly bill,” some Republicans have already efforted a rebrand of the massive legislation, focusing on how the bill will specifically help “working families.”

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), a close Trump ally and senior appropriator, has been touting passage of the “Working Family Tax Cuts Bill.”

But others argue it’s the results of the bill that will speak for themselves, not the name. Rep. Andy Biggs, a Republican who is running to be governor of Arizona, said that “as the tax stuff and everything kicks in, that’ll ensure the popularity of the bill.”

“I usually refer to it as the BRB, the Budget Reconciliation Bill, but I don’t see a problem with its name,” Biggs added. “More than the name, I think the actual results will determine how popular the bill is.”

Calen Razor and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

7 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

7 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

12 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday released text of legislation intended to ban the use of Flock surveillance cameras and other license plate readers.

Flock has faced severe public backlash against the surveillance technology following reports that police officers misused the technology to track women, and it has the largest network of license plate readers across the U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) hosted a hearing last month probing its potential misuses, although the company’s CEO Garrett Langley did not appear.

The latest bill, unveiled Friday and named the Ban Flock Act, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from the technology and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use automated license plate readers.

“At a time of growing concern about the unchecked power of artificial intelligence, Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” Sanders, who has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI technology, said in a statement. “We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly condemned the surveillance capabilities of the technology and said the bill would “enforce our constitutional right to privacy and protect Americans from both corporate and government surveillance.”

“No one should have this unchecked surveillance power at their fingertips,” Merkley added.

Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches.

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.