Congress
Trump’s health care plan in flux amid GOP backlash
Donald Trump’s health care plan is in limbo after pushback from Republicans who were caught off guard by the president’s forthcoming proposal — questioning, in particular, whether it would include additional abortion restrictions.
Trump had been expected to unveil a new policy framework Monday afternoon, said two people familiar with the plan and granted anonymity to describe deliberations around it. That framework was expected to center around a two-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies with income caps and other new limits backed by conservatives.
But while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Trump remained focused on “unveiling a health care proposal,” she declined to get into specifics about subsidy extensions or a timeline for the rollout: “I’ll let the president speak for himself.”
A White House official separately noted Trump’s daily schedule never listed plans for a Monday rollout.
The uncertainty around the timing of the announcement comes as Hill Republicans remain sharply divided over whether to extend the enhanced tax credits to prevent premiums from skyrocketing next year or to let them expire at the end of the year and coalesce around an alternative approach to keep health care costs down.
One House Republican granted anonymity to speak freely said in an interview Monday they needed to see “what structural changes” Trump might float, adding that GOP lawmakers should demand “reforms … in exchange for extending the subsidies.”
According to three additional people granted anonymity to share details of the plan ahead of its release, Trump was preparing to place new income caps on individuals receiving the subsidies and require minimum premium payments for Obamacare enrollees. He also was expected to propose an option for enrollees to receive part of their tax credit in a tax-advantaged savings account if they downgrade to a lower-premium health plan.
These policy changes align with what many conservatives have been seeking. But it wasn’t clear Monday whether the plan would also include expanded restrictions under the so-called Hyde amendment, which bans federal funds from being used for abortions.
One of the people who described the tentative plan and two other people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions said congressional Republicans still didn’t know how Trump’s proposal would deal with that thorny issue.
The ACA has always barred federal subsidies from paying for abortions but left it up to states to determine whether health insurance plans in the individual market could cover abortion using other funding.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of SBA Pro-Life America, reiterated in a statement Monday her anti-abortion group will penalize any lawmaker who votes for a subsidies extension without additional abortion guardrails that ban coverage nationwide.
“We oppose any health care plan that fails to include this safeguard,” she said. “Our position is consistent and will not change.”
Trump’s plan to extend the ACA credits — even with changes sought by conservatives — also blindsided some Hill Republicans who have dug in against any bipartisan deal to extend the credits.
“I know that we’ve got different ideas in our conference,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said in a Monday morning interview on Fox Business Network. “I think you’re going to hear more from the White House.”
House GOP leadership last week gave a presentation to the House Republican Conference slamming the subsidies for perpetuating what they dubbed the “Unaffordable Care Act,” a moniker Emmer repeated Monday.
Not all Republicans reacted negatively to the news of a forthcoming health policy announcement from Trump. Rep. Tim Burchett in an interview Monday credited the president with having “some guts” to get lawmakers “to the table.” Trump’s forthcoming framework, Burchett added, “starts the negotiating.”
“I don’t like the subsidies,” the Tennessee Republican continued, “but everybody griping about it doesn’t have a plan, so get some guts, put up a plan … or get the heck out of the way.”
Burchett also said the White House will now roll out the plan Tuesday, underscoring confusion and mixed messaging around the forthcoming presentation.
Leavitt left open a broad array of possibilities for the final White House plan Monday, including that it might not ultimately include a subsidy extension. Asked specifically if that provision would be included, she told reporters, “As you all know, sometimes you report things and then President Trump comes out with an announcement and those things are not always true.”
Some Democrats expressed cautious optimism upon learning that Trump was preparing to embrace an extension of the ACA credits.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who has been heavily involved in the bipartisan negotiations on health care, said in a statement Monday that she has had “constructive conversations” with Republicans about extending the enhanced tax credits.
“If the reports are true and the President is considering coming to the table in good faith, I believe we can find a path forward that can earn broad bipartisan support in Congress,” Shaheen said.
She added that anything Trump puts out on the issue could signal “a serious proposal to begin negotiations.”
Democrats, including Shaheen, have been discussing what their strategy should be ahead of a floor vote in mid-December on a proposal to extend the subsidies, which was promised to Democrats by Senate Majority Leader John Thune in exchange for their votes to end the government shutdown. Democrats will get to decide what proposal they want a vote on, though Republicans are expected to offer their own alternative unless there is a bipartisan deal.
One provision that had been included in Trump’s tentative plan — pegging the eligibility cap for the subsidies at 700 percent of the federal poverty line — is among the ideas being mulled by Shaheen and her colleagues.
But other Democrats slammed the proposal outright, further casting doubt on how Trump’s opening salvo would land on Capitol Hill.
In a statement Monday afternoon, the three top House Democrats on committees with jurisdiction over health care — Reps. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Bobby Scott of Virginia — panned the White House’s forthcoming proposal, calling it the “greatest hits of Republican health care ideas the people have rejected for years.”
They continued, “At this point, anything short of a clean extension is unworkable and won’t avoid the price hikes people are now facing.”
A top pollster for President Donald Trump is pushing back on recent public polling showing Republican Mike Rogers trailing progressive Abdul El-Sayed in the marquee Michigan Senate race.
Tony Fabrizio, who is conducting polling for Rogers, says the polls released this month are over-sampling Democratic-leaning voters, specifically college-educated and Black voters, according to an internal memo obtained by Blue Light News. A Susquehanna poll released this month showed El-Sayed leading by seven points and a TIPP poll showed him leading by four points.
El-Sayed’s lead in those polls is a “fake narrative,” Fabrizio wrote. His polling for AARP — conducted alongside Democratic firm Impact Research — showed the race essentially tied.
The warning follows huge polling misses in the Democratic primaries in the Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida, which he wrote were “some of the most egregious examples of public polling failures in recent memory.” It’s also a sign that Republicans are wary of the string of bad polling numbers for Rogers in the race, which is crucial for determining control of the chamber.
Jim Lee, CEO of Susquehanna Polling and Research, told Blue Light News that the firm did not oversample any demographics. “I think their head is in the sand,” Lee said, noting in part what he said was a gap in enthusiasm between Democratic and Republican voters this cycle.
TIPP didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Fabrizio, in the memo, argued on the Susquehanna poll: “50% of the sample in this survey is college-educated – making them massively overrepresented to what they should be. We took a look at 2022 and 2024 Exit Polls and VoteCast data and, as shown below, there is no indication that the Michigan electorate will be anywhere near 50% college-educated. In fact, it is unlikely they will be even 40% college-educated.”
He also noted “a huge gap” between college-educated and non-college educated voters.
“This was the driving issue of the public polling misses for President Trump in 2016 and 2024, especially in the Upper Midwest states of Michigan and Wisconsin,” Fabrizio added. “By increasing college-educated voters by 10+ points, and thus decreasing non-college educated voters by the same, we can pretty much guarantee this poll is significantly overestimating El-Sayed’s vote share.”
President Donald Trump and hemp industry lobbyists are hoping to win a final vote on Capitol Hill next week to skirt a ban on intoxicating products — with shutdown politics as leverage.
Nine months ago, Congress cleared a bill to close a loophole created in 2018 that allowed the sale of some hemp-derived products containing types of THC colloquially known as “diet weed.” That ban is supposed to take effect in mid-November, or roughly 11 weeks, to limit overall THC levels in hemp products that can get people high — including gummies, canned drinks, pills and vapes.
But Trump and industry leaders successfully lobbied Senate leaders to add language to a government funding patch earlier this month to delay the ban until mid-December, with the administration promising instead to finalize regulations cracking down on how the products are made and sold.
Now House Republican leaders are aiming to clear that bill for Trump’s signature early next week, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions. And many GOP lawmakers are not pleased at the prospect of being rolled.
Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) told reporters last week that he expected House lawmakers would “iron out” some “sticking points” with the Senate-passed funding bill, “particularly the hemp issue,” rather than pass the legislation without changes — which appears to be GOP leadership’s current plan.
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) was more blunt: “it is morally reprehensible to threaten a shutdown over a loophole Congress agreed to close to less than a year ago,” he said in a statement Thursday.
Yet despite fierce pushback from lawmakers warning that the intoxicating products are harming Americans, hemp industry leaders are preparing for a victory, betting members of Congress ultimately care more about swiftly passing legislation to avert a Sept. 30 government shutdown before the midterms.
“Any effort to try to shut down the government — over a one-month delay on a hemp issue — I don’t think is going to fly well with most members of Congress,” Jonathan Miller, a top lawyer for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable advocacy group, said in an interview this week.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about its plans for imposing new rules on hemp products in the coming months. But the Trump administration is expected to need more time than mid-December to finalize regulations, so hemp industry representatives are discussing a “regulatory bridge” that would impose temporary rules while continuing to avoid a full ban, according to Miller.
That could include restricting purchase to adults age 21 and older, blocking imports from China, mandating certain manufacturing practices, cracking down on copycat products that look like popular candy or potato chips and requiring transparency in product labeling.
While lawmakers have been back home over their summer break, hemp industry leaders have fanned out across the country to make their case for this plan. “The hemp industry does not have an August recess,” Christopher Lackner, head of the Hemp Beverage Alliance, said in an interview this month of the group’s work to facilitate passage of the Senate-passed funding bill.
Trump administration officials have also been telling reluctant lawmakers they will use the one-month delay to work on regulations. “The White House has committed to me that they’re committed to regulate the industry,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said in an interview this month.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), who fought in the Senate to retain the ban as originally intended, said White House officials have said “they don’t want another extension, and I agree with that.”
In a statement, Ricketts said that “manufactured high-THC products like gummies and drinks are putting our kids in the hospital” and need to be taken “off our shelves.”
Some supporters of the ban say the White House and industry are just employing delay tactics to get to December, when lawmakers will face another pressure campaign to delay the ban while they are motivated to avert a shutdown before leaving town for the holidays.
“What they’re really after is to try to jam this on some must-pass, end-of-the-year funding,” Budd told reporters earlier this month. “That’s really what this is about.”
Budd fought to block the delay in the Senate as part of the government funding measure, but his amendment to that end was shot down 61-32 before the chamberpassed the legislation, sending it on for House action.
Trump personally called Budd after the senator filed the amendment and talked about creating federal regulations for hemp products, according to a Senate aide granted anonymity to describe the private discussion.
Days later, Budd demanded a vote on the amendment anyway and continues to slam the hemp industry.
“It is clear that businesses that sell unregulated, intoxicating products will stop at nothing to protect their bottom line, even at the expense of children’s health and safety,” he said in a statement this week.
Besides lawmakers fighting to ban intoxicating hemp products, others are pushing alongside the White House and industry for federal regulations.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-W.Va.) has crafted legislation that would direct the Food and Drug Administration to create federal rules for intoxicating hemp products and wants to see mandates for third-party testing, as well as new THC limits per serving.
Griffith told reporters Thursday the “deadline push” in the Senate-passed government funding measure “is not long enough” to finalize necessary regulations.
Since state limits for THC vary widely throughout the country and the federal government has taken years to step in since the hemp loophole was created in 2018, Griffith argued it makes more sense to regulate the intoxicating products than to enact a federal ban.
“That horse is out of the barn,” he said. “What we need to do is corral it.”
Kelsey Brugger, Amanda Friedman and Rachel Shin contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump’s $400-million super PAC is taking its first steps into the general election: hosting a public event in battleground Michigan, headlined by Vice President JD Vance.
Battleground Republicans have been clamoring for Trump’s MAGA Inc. to spend in competitive races. The Michigan event is an early indicator of how the massive group might seek to use its funds to help the party keep control of Washington.
Vance will be joined in Sterling, Michigan, on Monday by GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers, 10th District nominee Mike Bouchard Jr. and gubernatorial nominee John James, along with several other Michigan Republicans, according to an event advisory from MAGA Inc.
The GOP sees Michigan’s open seat as its best Senate pickup target this fall as Rogers faces former public health leader and progressive Abdul El-Sayed, who emerged from a grueling primary earlier this month.
“MAGA Inc. will be hosting events throughout the nation to ensure that Republicans retain control of Congress in order to finish cleaning up the mess the Biden-Harris-Pelosi-Schumer Democrats left,” said Alex Pfeiffer, spokesperson for MAGA Inc. “We’re not going back to their record inflation, open borders, and surging crime.”
MAGA Inc. is sitting on more funds than any other super PAC, and Republican donors and battleground candidates have been hoping it will unleash that money to help the party keep control of the House and Senate.
So far, the group has only spent only a few million dollars out of its massive fundraising haul, and its funds have largely gone to competitive Republican primaries. Most recently, it spent $827,000 on phone calls and text messages to boost Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) in the state’s special primary.
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