Congress
White House gives Congress a midterm pitch: focus on tax cuts and follow 2024 playbook
The White House has a messaging hurdle with President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” – and they’re looking for Congress to help clear it.
Senior administration officials, including Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, met Wednesday with lawmakers to make the case that they should be selling their constituents on the more popular elements of the bill and their impact on working families, including tax cuts.
“There’s a lot of really good, popular stuff in there when you break down the bill individually,” said a person familiar with the thinking of senior White House officials granted anonymity to speak about strategy.
Republicans can only lose a handful of seats to retain control of the House and prevent Democrats from thwarting the president’s agenda in his final two years in office — which makes selling the megalaw a major priority for the White House.
Democrats were able to attack the “blob of the bill,” the person said, referring to the unpopular nature of the overall law. But, “now you’re going to have the individual parts.”
White House aides, including press secretary Karoline Leavitt and deputy chief of staff James Blair, urged Republicans to underscore the law’s tax cuts such as those on tipped wages and an increase in the child tax credit.
The pair also warned them against shying away from Democrats’ attacks on Medicaid, according to a senior White House official granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
“We encourage them to remain firm on messaging the fact that Medicaid spending is actually going to increase,” the same official said. “We did not cut Medicaid, as the Democrats are lying and saying we did.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that nearly 8 million fewer Americans will have access to Medicaid by 2034 because of the new law, including a work requirement that the GOP has long supported.
Leavitt and Blair also equipped lawmakers with a tangible midterm playbook closely following Trump’s 2024 strategy, according to the White House official. The key components: target low propensity voters and blitz the local media market.
Wednesday’s meeting, widely attended by House Republicans fresh off the August recess, included a polling presentation from Tony Fabrizio, Republican pollster and strategist, who guided members toward the economic components of the megalaw that White House aides believe polls better with constituents, according to the same White House official.
Two senior White House officials say Trump will hit the campaign trail to galvanize some of those atypical, unmotivated midterm voters but is unlikely to do so until 2026.
Republicans have their work cut out for them. A Pew poll conducted last month found that 46 percent of Americans disapprove of the law, while 32 percent approve. Another 23 percent said they’re unsure, perhaps providing an opening for Republicans – or Democrats – who are trying to brand the effort.
After months of pushing the legislation through Congress under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” label, the rebranding effort isn’t rolling off the tongue on Capitol Hill.
“Remember all the machinations getting to the conclusion of the – what are we calling it now? Working Families Tax Act something?,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) mused to reporters Thursday morning.
“It’s the Big, Beautiful Working Families Tax Act,” Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) jumped in.
“Correct,” Roy laughed. “Exactly.”
Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
Congress
DHS stopgap set for quick House action after Rules Committee vote
The House Rules Committee advanced a measure Friday evening that would fund the entirety of the Homeland Security Department through May 22 — without setting up debate or a separate vote on the funding bill itself.
The panel, after a raucous meeting that devolved into shouting at multiple points, voted 8-4 on party lines to advance the measure to the floor.
The rule includes a “deem and pass” provision, a tactic that allows legislation to be passed by the House automatically once the rule itself is adopted. While there will be one hour of floor debate and a vote on the rule, there will not be a standalone House vote on the DHS spending bill.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) described himself as needing “a neck brace” from the whiplash of hearing Republicans argue for hours that the Senate’s early-morning voice vote on a different DHS funding measure was “shameful” for lack of transparency and accountability.
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) accused the Senate of moving their bill “in the middle of the night, with the smell of jet fumes in the air,” lamenting that the House was left “to take it or leave it.”
House leaders, McGovern suggested, have chosen a similar path by fast-tracking the eight-week DHS stopgap.
“You’re in charge,” he told Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.). “You can do whatever the hell you want to do.”
Congress
Rand Paul weighs a 2028 presidential bid
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is considering a bid for president in 2028, as Republicans jockey for the future of the GOP post-Trump.
In a “CBS Sunday Morning” interview airing Sunday, a reporter asked Paul about an article that implied he would be running for president.
“We’re thinking about it,” Paul said. “I would say fifty-fifty,” adding that he would make a final decision after the midterm elections.
Paul ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2016 with a libertarianism-focused campaign but ultimately dropped out after a poor performance in the Iowa caucuses and a shortage of cash. He instead ran for reelection to the Senate.
Paul has had a complex relationship with his own party and with President Donald Trump, often finding himself the lone Republican on certain issues. More recently, he was the only Republican to support a joint resolution that would limit Trump’s war powers in Iran.
His father, former Rep. Ron Paul, also ran for president three times: first as a Libertarian in 1988, and twice as a Republican in 2008 and 2012.
Congress
‘Meltdown’: DHS shutdown set to drag on after House GOP rejects Senate deal
House Republicans moved Friday to further extend the six-week shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security by rejecting a Senate bill that would fund the vast majority of DHS agencies through September.
Instead, Speaker Mike Johnson proposed a temporary extension of DHS funding through May 22 — a plan that has uncertain prospects in the House and certainly won’t pass the Senate before the shutdown becomes the longest funding lapse in U.S. history Saturday.
But Johnson said House Republicans simply could not swallow the Senate bill, which omits funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Border Patrol and some other parts of Customs and Border Protection.
“The Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” he said. “We are going to deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens because it is a basic function of the government. The Democrats fundamentally disagree.”
The move toward an eight-week stopgap creates a tactical gulf between Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who called an end to weeks of abortive bipartisan talks Thursday and pushed through the funding bill in hopes of tacking on funding later for ICE and CBP in a party-line budget reconciliation bill.
President Donald Trump has largely stayed out of the GOP infighting on Capitol Hill, keeping his criticism trained on Democrats. He ordered DHS to pay TSA officers Thursday as long security lines snarls more U.S. airports.
Johnson played down the split with his Senate counterpart, saying the Democratic leader there bore more blame for the impasse.
“I wouldn’t call John Thune the engineer of this,” he said. “Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate have forced this upon the Senate. I have to protect the House. … Our colleagues on this side understand this is not a game. We are not playing their games.”
Thune said early Friday morning he did not speak directly to Johnson in the final hours leading up to the Senate’s voice vote, but he said they had texted. He acknowledged he did not know in advance how the House would handle the Senate bill.
“Hopefully they’ll be around, and we can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we’ll go from there,” he said.
Johnson made his game plan clear with House Republicans on a private call just minutes before addressing reporters in the Capitol, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the call. He warned that a failure to advance the short-term DHS stopgap would upend GOP plans for a reconciliation bill, the people said.
He suggested the Senate could quickly clear the stopgap measure once it passes the House. Most senators have left Washington for a recess running through April 13, but Johnson said the chamber could approve the House measure by unanimous consent at a planned pro forma session Monday.
But some House Republicans on the private call, including Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida, aired doubts it could pass the Senate — or even the House. Some fellow GOP centrists argued that the House should just swallow the Senate bill and end the standoff.
The House plan for a 60-day stopgap won a cold reception in the Senate, with even Republicans warning it will only prolong the partial government shutdown.
The plan is instead fueling frustration among both Republicans and Democrats who view House Republicans as essentially throwing temper tantrum. Three people granted anonymity to speak candidly each described the House as having a “meltdown.”
Schumer publicly slammed the House GOP plan Friday, saying it was “dead on arrival” across the Capitol, “and Republicans know it.”
A Senate GOP aide granted anonymity to speak candidly added that the quickest way to end the shutdown is for the House to pass the Senate bill.
Five people granted anonymity to comment on Senate dynamics said there was no possibility that Democrats would let the House GOP plan pass during the Senate’s brief pro forma sessions over the next two weeks. It would only take one Democratic senator to show up and object to any attempt to pass it.
The bill, according to the five people, also can’t get 60 votes in the Senate once the chamber returns. Democrats have previously rejected even shorter stopgaps, leaving some to privately question why House Republicans would ever think their plan would work.
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