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President Trump on Thursday amped up pressure on senators to pass his signature domestic policy bill by July 4, calling it “the ultimate codification of our agenda.”
The “big, beautiful bill” is on life support in the Senate, with Republicans scrambling to save the megabill following a major setback delivered by the chamber’s rules enforcer this week.
“We don’t need grandstanders,” Trump said of the Senate GOP holdouts during an event at the White House, telling members of the public to call their senators and representatives. “We have to get this vote.”
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has said several of the bill’s major provisions could not be included in their current form as Republicans aim to shield the megabill from a Democratic filibuster.
Senate Democrats estimate the parliamentarian rejected approximately $250 billion in spending cuts from the Republican bill, giving GOP leaders a huge task in finding new ways to offset the cost of Trump’s tax cuts.
The White House on Thursday dug in on the July 4 deadline, saying the president expects to have the legislation finished and on his desk for a signature despite the rulings from the Senate parliamentarian.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said the parliamentarian’s ruling against a key spending cut in the bill is going to be a major problem for Senate conservatives.
“I don’t anticipate now us voting on the motion to proceed tomorrow. I think my colleagues who view the bill more as a spending reduction bill than an extend-the-tax-cuts bill are probably going to be screaming like they’re part of a prison riot because this substantially reduces savings,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) had hoped to hold a vote today to start debate on the bill, but several Republicans said the initial vote may be pushed to Saturday.
Thune reportedly met with Trump on Thursday at the White House, saying the pair discussed a “number of issues” tied to the bill and the president insisted on having the bill passed by the Senate, and then again the House, by Independence Day.
▪ The Hill: Senate parliamentarian’s no-go list: 15 pieces struck from Trump’s megabill.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: Who is the parliamentarian and what is her power in the Senate?
▪ The Hill: Trump economic advisor warns of recession if ‘big, beautiful bill’ is delayed
MacDonough advised Thursday that major pieces of the GOP megabill’s Medicaid policy can’t pass with a simple majority. Much of the savings in the bill come from Medicaid cuts, and the ruling impacts several of the largest and most controversial ones, including a plan to slash states’ use of health care provider taxes as well as several measures related to health care for immigrants.
Thune told reporters his leadership team has “contingency plans” to keep the bill moving forward, even though the key piece may now fall out of the bill.
“We have contingency plans, plan B, plan C,” he said as he walked into a Republican lunch meeting.
Senators will need to rewrite the provision to satisfy the complex legislative rules that will allow them to bypass the filibuster and advance their bill on a party-line vote — or scrap it altogether and find another way to earn the savings.
Republicans had already been struggling to reach a consensus on the provider tax provision, as GOP senators including Josh Hawley (Mo.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) said they were worried about the impact it would have on rural hospitals.
“We have no idea what’s going to happen here, we got to work on some kind of a fix,” Hawley said. “Hopefully their fix will involve protecting rural hospitals.”
▪ The Hill: House GOP hard-liners fume at Senate parliamentarian’s Medicaid rulings.
▪ The New York Times: MacDonough has not yet ruled on all parts of the bill. The tax changes at the centerpiece of Trump’s agenda are still under review.
▪ The Hill: These House Republicans are a “no” on the Senate megabill amid a public land sales push.
Thune said Thursday the Senate would not move to overrule the parliamentarian even as multiple conservative Republicans called on the Senate to sideline MacDonough. Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) called for MacDonough’s removal.
“No, that would not be a good option for getting a bill done,” Thune told reporters at the Capitol.
Other senators said they would find a way to move forward without taking drastic action.
“We’re doing the usual process of trying to figure out how to achieve the same goal without having to go there,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who added he still expected to vote on the megabill before next week.
With the megabill’s timing and content up in the air, Kennedy questioned whether Republican lawmakers would stay in town if there’s no certain timeline for voting.
“I’m prepared to stay the whole week but as a practical matter a lot of people are running for an election, a lot of people have plans. One of John’s challenges is going to be … keeping people here,” he said of Thune. “People say, ‘Well, when you’re ready, call me. I’m going home.’”
SMART TAKE with BLAKE BURMAN
One of the biggest questions in Washington is if Republicans can pass the “one, big beautiful bill” before July 4, which President Trump wants. I asked White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran if the real deadline is actually later in the year when the debt ceiling needs to be raised.
“If you push out the deadline, the economy, markets, companies, CEOs, start to wonder, ‘Are you really going to do it? Are you going to get it passed?’” Miran told me. “If that confidence starts to ebb, that will seep into the economy.”
That will be part of a White House push to congressional Republicans to get the bill done and soon, even though the Senate parliamentarian just made the July 4 timeframe more challenging for them.
Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.
3 Things to Know
- An advisory panel recently appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted to walk back longstanding recommendations for flu vaccines, a move critics see as the beginnings of a more restrictive approach to providing vaccines.
- The U.S. is creating two new expanded military zones along the border with Mexico. “We have the most secure border in the history of this nation today,” White House border czar Tom Homan said Thursday during a White House event with the president.
- The U.S. economy in the first quarter slowed faster than initially reported as consumers pulled back on their spending.
Leading the Day
SUPREME COURT: For months, suspense has been building about how nine justices would rule on Trump’s novel executive push to revise birthright citizenship, as spelled out in the Constitution.
On this blockbuster day of final opinions for the term, the question appears to have shifted to whether federal judges can block a president’s authority nationwide. It’s a pending ruling with potentially far-reaching sway over the power of federal judges.
Trump issued his birthright citizenship executive order in January, seeking to restrict citizenship for children born on U.S. soil who don’t have at least one parent with permanent legal status. The order was challenged immediately.
On the penultimate day of Supreme Court opinions, justices ruled 6 to 3 Thursday that states can deny Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, which could effectively defund its operations in many parts of the country.
The conservative majority on the high court ruled that Planned Parenthood and one of its patients may not sue South Carolina to challenge its effort to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, reasoning that the relevant federal statute does not authorize such lawsuits.
The question for the justices was whether Medicaid beneficiaries may sue to receive services under a law that lets them choose any qualified provider. Planned Parenthood serves clients with reproductive health care services in addition to abortion.
In other legal news, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a third country not including El Salvador. The Maryland resident, who the administration has alleged to be a member of the MS-13 gang, was sent to a megaprison in El Salvador earlier this year despite an existing court order. He was brought back to the U.S. and charged by the Justice Department this month.
▪ The Associated Press: A federal judge ordered the Labor Department to keep the Job Corps operating while a lawsuit plays out.
EMPIRE STATE POLITICS: 👉The Hill’s Julia Manchester scooped that Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) plans to run for governor next year in what may be a crowded competition to try to defeat Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who is seeking reelection. Stefanik for months has used her role in the House to criticize New York leadership coming out of Albany.
Also in New York, mayoral candidate and political juggernaut Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who knocked former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) out of contention on Tuesday, is now a political weapon for Republicans, including Trump. Eager to target vulnerable Democrats as extremists heading into 2026, some Republicans are using Mamdani’s Muslim faith and policy positions against him and arguing he should be ejected from the United States.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) turned to social media platform X to flag a letter he wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging the administration to deport “Zohran ‘little muhammad’ Mamdani” as “an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York. … I am calling for him to be subject to denaturalization proceedings.”
Mamdani, during a CNN interview Thursday, detailed how he proposes to pay for his New York affordability proposals — which he calls “Trump-proofing” the city — to freeze rents, launch a pilot program to put city-run grocery stores in the boroughs, raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers, cover universal child care and make bus rides free.
Where and When
- The president will receive his intelligence briefing at 11 a.m. Trump will meet with foreign ministers from the Congo and Rwanda at 3 p.m. in the Oval Office.
- The House will meet for a pro forma session at 9 a.m.
- The Senate will convene at 3 p.m.
Zoom In
IRAN’S NUCLEAR PAST AND FUTURE: Senators on Thursday split along party lines following a classified briefing about the impact of U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Hill’s Al Weaver and Rebecca Beitsch report. Many cautioned the impact of the bombings could fall short of the “obliteration” Trump has described, sparking questions about the future.
The administration says it remains “on a diplomatic path with Iran” through special envoy Steve Witkoff. Trump on Wednesday said the U.S. would talk with Iran next week but suggested he did not believe a formal diplomatic accord would be necessary.
CNN reports the administration has discussed the possibility of helping Iran access as much as $30 billion to build a civilian-energy-producing nuclear program, easing sanctions and freeing up billions of dollars in restricted Iranian funds as options to try to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Gen. Dan Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed senators Thursday about its intelligence assessments. The president’s team today will repeat their classified presentation for all House members.
The briefers repeated that the U.S. bombings at three Iranian nuclear facilities were successful in damaging Iran’s nuclear program, according to senators from both parties.
“Certainly, this mission was successful insofar as it extensively destroyed and perhaps severely damaged and set back the Iranian nuclear arms program,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “But how long and how much really remains to be determined by the intelligence community itself,” he added.
Some Democrats said Trump’s team sidestepped questions or, as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) put it, raised more questions during the discussion than were answered. He said he would press the Trump team for additional information.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said the U.S. bombings resulted in “catastrophic damage to Iran’s nuclear program,” adding, “That’s not to say they won’t reconstitute it at some time.”
The senator, speaking to reporters, broadened the focus to include the combined strikes by Israel and the United States over 12 days, referring to the assassinations of some Iranian nuclear scientists and the targeting of Iranian infrastructure such as centrifuges manufactured for its nuclear program. “We’ve had an extraordinary success,” he added.
Asked if he knew the whereabouts of Iran’s near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, Cotton declined to comment. “It was not part of the mission to destroy all their enriched uranium or to seize it, or anything else,” he said. “It’s not a ‘Mission Impossible’ movie.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said the damage to Iran’s program by U.S. and Israeli military strikes is clear, but that in his view, the setback for Tehran amounts to “a handful of months” rather than the obliteration Trump claims. “I just do not think the president was telling the truth,” he added.
A NEW NUCLEAR DEAL? Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, a physicist who helped negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 as part of former President Obama’s Cabinet, this week said if the ceasefire holds between Israel and Iran, the U.S. could shift to discussing a future nuclear program.
“I would argue that there may be really an opportunity to think about a regional initiative, including the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Iranians, to have a kind of a unified approach to the development of nuclear power,” he said during a Q&A with WBUR.
▪ Bloomberg’s “Big Take” podcast with Moniz: “It’s time” for a new nuclear deal.
▪ The Washington Post: New questions about Iran’s leader — and a successor.
▪ The Hill: Trump’s messaging playbook amid a 12-day war and its aftermath puts news outlets on the back foot.
Elsewhere
UKRAINE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky formally approved plans to set up a new international court to prosecute senior Russian officials for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — targeting senior leaders for the “crime of aggression” underpinning Moscow’s war crimes.
The special tribunal will be created through an agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights body. Zelensky visited the Strasbourg-based organization as part of the announcement.
Existing international courts, including the International Criminal Court in The Hague, lack jurisdiction to prosecute Russian nationals for that specific offense.
▪ The Moscow Times: U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy is leaving her post after two and a half years in Moscow. The Trump administration has not announced her replacement.
▪ The New York Times: Why Ukraine fell down the agenda at the NATO summit.
▪ The Washington Post: With no end to the war in sight, Ukraine’s economy teeters on the edge.
GAZA: Israel stopped aid from entering northern Gaza but is still allowing it to enter from the south, claiming Hamas was stealing the supplies. The announcement came after images circulated of masked men on aid trucks who Gazan clan leaders said were protecting aid, not Hamas stealing it.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed over the past month near aid hubs set up under a new Israel-backed system, according to Gaza health officials.
▪ The Washington Post: The ceasefire in Iran has given rise to new calls for a deal to end the Gaza war.
Opinion
- The woman who could impede RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine agenda, by The Washington Post editorial board.
- Trump is cutting holes in the country’s natural disaster safety net, Reps. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) and Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) write in The Hill.
The Closer
And finally … 👏👏👏 Congratulations to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners who delivered four correct puzzle answers tied to seasonal hazards.
☀️ Here’s who triumphed by guessing or Googling details about summertime risks: Richard E. Baznik, Lynn Gardner, Michael McGinnis, Sari Wisch, Harry Strulovici, Jess Elger, Stan Wasser, Robert Bradley, Laura Rettaliata, Ned Sauthhoff, William D. Moore, Joe Atchue, Jenessa Wagner, John van Santen, Patrick Clark, Steve James, Savannah Petracca, Jose Ramos, Carmine Petracca, Pam Manges and Linda L. Field.
They knew that Africanized honeybees, known as “killer bees,” appeared in U.S. headlines this week because a man mowing his property died after a killer bee attack, bees spooked by a lawn mower swarmed and killed three horses, and 13 states report the presence of killer bees, which are spreading north. The answer we looked for was “all of the above.”
This year’s abundance in New York state of summertime blood-sucking, potentially Lyme disease-carrying ticks has been blamed by experts on a 2023 bumper crop of acorns.
With the recent anniversary of the 1975 film “Jaws,” the news media this month pointed to stats in Florida, home to a beach (in New Smyrna) known as the “shark bite capital of the world.”
Mosquitoes are swarming in states’ news headlines because of updated lab evidence that the biting pests are carrying West Nile virus.
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