Left to right, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul are sworn in before the start of a hearing with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the U.S. Capitol on June 12, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Three Democratic governors from states that leave immigration enforcement to the federal government said Thursday they oppose President Donald Trump’s decision to send more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines into Los Angeles without the consent of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The lengthy and tense U.S. House hearing where the trio appeared — highlighted by a shouting match among members and accusations of Nazi tactics — came as the nation’s capital prepared for a major military parade and Trump’s birthday Saturday, along with thousands of “No Kings” protests across the country.

In Los Angeles, a U.S. senator was tackled and removed from an immigration press conference by federal law enforcement agents accompanying Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The governors, whose states have submitted an amicus brief to a lawsuit by Newsom challenging Trump, said the decisions to bring in the military should be made by local officials.

“It’s wrong to deploy the National Guard and active-duty Marines into an American city over the objection of local law enforcement, just to inflame a situation and create a crisis, just as it’s wrong to tear children away from their homes and their mothers and fathers, who have spent decades living and working in our communities, raising their families,” Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee.

The hearing with Govs. Pritzker, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Kathy Hochul of New York marked the second time House Republicans have called in leaders in blue states that have policies of non-cooperation with federal immigration officials in enforcement efforts. Those policies do not bar immigration enforcement from occurring.

Republicans brought in the mayors of Boston, Chicago and Denver in March.

The eight-hour hearing came after multi-day protests in Los Angeles sparked when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began widespread immigration raids at Home Depots in their communities in an effort to carry out the president’s mass deportation efforts.

The governors stressed that the president’s decision to send in the National Guard set a dangerous precedent and posed a threat to democracy.

Republicans on the committee defended the president’s actions and instead accused the governors of violating federal law because of their state policies, dubbed as “sanctuary cities.” Immigration policy is handled by the federal government and states and localities are not required to coordinate with officials.

Shouting match over Noem

More than four hours into the hearing, video circulated of California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla being forcibly removed and handcuffed by Secret Service agents while trying to ask a question of Noem during a press conference in LA.

Democrats on the panel, such as Arizona Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari, slammed the video and raised concerns that a “sitting senator was shoved to the ground.”

It led to a shouting match, with Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost asking the chair of the panel, James Comer of Kentucky, if the committee would subpoena Noem.

Comer said Frost was out of order and tried to move on.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was next in line for questioning, heckled Frost and said that Democrats “can’t follow the rules.” Comer eventually told Frost to “shut up.”

Pritzker said that he could not “believe the disrespect that was shown to a United States senator” who was trying to ask Noem a question.

“That seems completely irrational,” Pritzker said.

Democrats on the panel such as Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez and Dan Goldman of New York called for Noem to appear before the committee.

“Anyone with two eyes that can see, can see that was authoritarian, lawless behavior that no person in America, much less a senator conducting congressional oversight, should receive,” Goldman said.

‘People are living in fear’

The Democratic governors defended their immigration policies and criticized the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, pointing to ICE officers wearing face coverings to arrest immigrants.

“People are living in fear in the shadows,” Hochul said. “People can’t go to school, they can’t worship, they can’t go get health care. They can’t go to their senior center. What is happening has been traumatic.”

Several Republicans including Reps. Comer, Tom Emmer of Minnesota and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, took issue with comments by Walz at a commencement speech in May, in which he accused the president of turning ICE agents into a modern-day Gestapo, the official secret police of Nazi Germany.

Republican Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri said that Walz should apologize.

Walz said that as a former history teacher, he was making an observation about ICE tactics — such as wearing a face covering to arrest people — that were similar to those used by secret police.

The top Democrat on the panel, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, defended Walz’s statement, and said that ICE is operating like a modern-day Gestapo.

Lynch pointed to the video of the international Tufts University student who was approached by masked men on the street and taken into a van for writing an op-ed in defense of Palestinian human rights.  

“ICE agents wearing masks and hoodies detained Rümeysa Öztürk and those of you who watched that, that abduction, when you compare the old films of the Gestapo grabbing people off the streets of Poland, and you compare them to those nondescript thugs who grabbed that student, that graduate student, it does look like a Gestapo operation,” Lynch said.

 

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., holds up an Elmo toy while the chamber debates a bill that would eliminate previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides grants to public radio and television stations, including the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, which airs "Sesame Street." (Screen shot taken from House Clerk website livestream.)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House narrowly passed legislation Thursday that would revoke $9.4 billion in previously approved funding for public media, including National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, as well as foreign aid, though the bill’s future in the Senate amid a strict timeline is uncertain.

The 214-212 mostly party-line vote marks just the third time in several decades the House has approved a bill to claw back funding that lawmakers formerly agreed to spend. President Donald Trump sent the rescissions request that led to the House bill to the Republican-controlled Congress earlier this month.

Republican Reps. Mark Amodei of Nevada, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Mike Turner of Ohio voted against approving the bill along with all of the chamber’s Democrats.

Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon and New York Rep. Nick LaLota, both Republicans, switched from opposing to supporting the bill after Speaker Mike Johnson spoke with them on the floor as the vote was held open.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., contended during floor debate that pulling back the funding is the right place to start, but said the GOP will seek to do much more in the months and years ahead.

Scalise said PBS and NPR should have to compete against other media organizations without grant funding from the federal government.

“There is still going to be a plethora of options for the American people,” Scalise said. “But if they’re paying their hard-earned dollars to go get content, why should your tax dollars only go to one thing that the other side wants to promote? Let everybody go compete on a fair basis.”

Maine Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree said every state in the country would feel the impact of eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

“I rise today in strong opposition to the reckless attack on public media contained within this rescissions bill and millions of Americans who rely on and treasure their local public television and radio stations,” Pingree said.

Efforts to defund CPB, she said, were the result of Trump’s “agenda against the free press and his authoritarian desire to control the media.”

Public media would lose $1.1 billion

The seven-page bill would rescind all funding that Congress approved for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for fiscal years 2026 and 2027, a total of $1.1 billion.

CPB, which provides grants to public radio and television stations throughout the country, is one of the few programs that receives an advanced appropriation. So the funding elimination envisioned in the House bill would take effect starting on Oct. 1.

The legislation revokes more than $8 billion from several foreign aid programs run by the U.S. State Department or the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Florida Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, chairman of the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee, said during an interview Wednesday there were extensive talks between GOP lawmakers and the Office of Management and Budget before the Trump administration officially submitted this rescissions request.

But Díaz-Balart cautioned there would need to be substantial pre-negotiations ahead of any future rescissions requests for programs within his annual funding bill.

“This rescission package — which I’ve had communication with OMB on — if this passes, we can move forward,” he said. “Now, if you’re talking about a potential for future additional rescissions, that could potentially create a problem and tie the president’s hands when it comes to dealing with adversaries or helping allies.”

Díaz-Balart said that OMB officials hoping to make any additional rescissions requests on foreign aid would need to engage in “a level of coordination that is so detailed, so intense to make sure that nothing comes forward that could potentially hurt the president’s ability to really do the America First agenda internationally.”

Florida Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel, ranking member on the State-Foreign Operations spending panel, said during floor debate Thursday the bill was an attack on American values and posed a threat to national security.

“It’s not charity, it’s strategy,” Frankel said of foreign aid. “Don’t take my word for it, military leaders from both parties have warned us for years — if we fail to lead with soft power, we’ll end up paying in blood, bombs and more boots on the ground.”

“Cutting foreign assistance will deepen desperation, fuel extremism, push fragile societies toward collapse and when that happens we all pay the price,” she added. “Refugee crises surge, diseases spread, trade routes shut down, our troops and diplomats face greater danger and our homeland security is weakened.”

First of many requests

The House vote took place just one week after the Trump administration sent lawmakers the rescissions request, the first of many proposals the White House budget office plans to submit. 

The $9.4 billion cancellation proposal represents a small fraction of the roughly $6.8 trillion the federal government spends each year.

The recommendation said some of the foreign aid should be cancelled because it supported “programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health,’ LGBTQI+ activities, and ‘equity’ programs.”

The rescissions request allows the Office of Management and Budget to legally freeze funding on the programs listed for 45 days while lawmakers decide whether to approve the recommendation as is, amend it, or ignore it.

The House and Senate must agree to approve the same rescissions bill before mid-July for the changes to take effect. Failure to reach a bicameral agreement before then would require the Trump administration to spend the funding and block the president from requesting the same cancellation for the rest of his term.

Rescissions requests are rare since Congress typically negotiates spending levels on thousands of federal programs in the dozen annual spending bills that are then signed by the president.

The first Trump administration proposed rescissions in 2018, but the bill never made it through the Senate.

The last time Congress actually approved rescinding funding was in 1992 during the George H.W. Bush administration, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

More action in the Senate

The Senate will need to take up the bill before mid-July if it wants to approve any of the spending cuts, though several GOP senators told States Newsroom during brief interviews Wednesday ahead of the House vote they may amend the package, which would require it to go back to the House for final approval before the 45-day clock runs out.

Rescissions bills come with a vote-a-rama in the Senate, giving Republicans and Democrats the chance to call up as many amendments as they want for a floor vote. The GOP holds a 53-member majority, so four or more Republicans opposing any element of the bill would likely lead to its removal.

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she will give the rescissions bill “careful consideration.”

In a statement released earlier this month just after the White House sent the request to lawmakers, Collins wrote the committee would “carefully review the rescissions package and examine the potential consequences of these rescissions on global health, national security, emergency communications in rural communities, and public radio and television stations.”

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee, said he’s mostly supportive of the rescissions request, though he didn’t rule out offering an amendment to restore full funding for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, often called PEPFAR.

“I think I’ll be okay with most of it. I’m concerned about PEPFAR. I’ll have to look at that,” Graham said.

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, chairwoman of the spending panel that oversees the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said she’s planning to evaluate the bill once it arrives.

“We’ve got all these other things I’m thinking about. I haven’t even focused on it,” Capito said, referring to ongoing negotiations over the party’s “big, beautiful bill.”

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said she’s going to “try to” ensure the Corporation for Public Broadcasting keeps its funding.

“I’m a supporter of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It’s a lifeline for many of my small, rural communities,” Murkowski said

Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, a senior appropriator, said he’s “trying to figure out a strategy of how to deal with” both the foreign aid and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting provisions once the bill comes over from the House.

“I’m looking at both of them to see what the right outcome should be.”

‘The risk of living in a news desert’

Both PBS and NPR released statements following the House vote, pledging to do their best to keep their funding intact.

Katherine Maher, NPR president and CEO, wrote in a statement the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is essential to the organization.

“Americans who rely on local, independent stations serving communities across America, especially in rural and underserved regions, will suffer the immediate consequences of this vote,” Maher wrote. “If rescission passes and local stations go dark, millions of Americans will no longer have access to locally owned, independent, nonprofit media and will bear the risk of living in a news desert, missing their emergency alerts, and hearing silence where classical, jazz and local artists currently play.”

Paula Kerger, president and CEO at PBS, wrote in a separate statement the “fight to protect public media does not end with this vote, and we will continue to make the case for our essential service in the days and weeks to come.

“If these cuts are finalized by the Senate, it will have a devastating impact on PBS and local member stations, particularly smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets. Without PBS and local member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.”

In a political tug-of-war that’s been playing out for a long time, the battle between Donald Trump and California over vehicle emissions has landed back in the spotlight. The US president has now taken formal action to reverse California’s aggressive push toward electric vehicles and clean air regulations, signing a trio of resolutions that target the state’s authority on the matter.

With these resolutions, the President is effectively blocking California’s plan to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035. The move also eliminates federal support for the state’s plans to retire medium and heavy-duty diesel trucks, and strips California’s ability to enforce its own tailpipe emissions and nitrogen oxide pollution limits.

Read: Trump’s Big Beautiful Tesla Just Got Fired

Trump has pushed back on California’s environmental authority since his first term, and with these latest actions, the battle is now heading to court.

“We officially rescued the U.S. auto industry from destruction by terminating the California electric vehicle mandate once and for all,” he said during a White House news conference.

Unsurprisingly, the move has both supporters and detractors. In a statement, the president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an important representative of major car manufacturers, applauded Trump’s move. “Everyone agreed these EV sales mandates were never achievable and wildly unrealistic,” he said.

California Hits Back

Almost immediately after Trump signed the bills, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit, the New York Times reports, describing them as “illegal resolutions.”

“Trump’s all-out assault on California continues – and this time he’s destroying our clean air and America’s global competitiveness in the process,” Newsom said. “We are suing to stop this latest illegal action by a President who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big polluters.”

California’s ability to set its own emissions standards dates back to the Nixon administration. The state is home to five of the ten cities with the worst air pollution in the United States. According to the governor’s office, clean air efforts over the past 50 years have saved $250 billion in health costs through reduced illness.

Attorney General Bonta echoed the urgency, calling the resolutions a reckless rollback. “The President is busy playing partisan games with lives on the line and yanking away good jobs that would bolster the economy – ignoring that these actions have life or death consequences for California communities breathing dirty, toxic air,” he said. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: California will not back down. We will continue to fiercely defend ourselves from this lawless federal overreach.”

Union members and supporters rally in Grand Park calling for the release of union leader David Huerta, who was arrested during an immigration enforcement action on June 9, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A federal judge in California late Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to relinquish command of 4,000 National Guard troops the president called to help contain Los Angeles protests over immigration raids.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard was illegal, and ordered the return of control to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had opposed the deployment. He said his order would go into effect noon Pacific time Friday, likely setting up an emergency appeal by the administration.

Trump’s “actions were illegal—both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Breyer wrote.

He issued the 36-page order mere hours after an afternoon hearing at which he appeared skeptical that Trump’s order was lawful.

Breyer at the hearing appeared not to accept the Trump administration’s argument that obtaining consent from Newsom, a Democrat, was not a prerequisite to federalize the California National Guard.

Newsom has been backed up by Democratic attorneys general across the nation in the closely watched case.

Breyer noted the law Trump cited when mobilizing the troops requires the order to go through a state’s governor, but Trump’s order bypassed Newsom and went directly to the adjutant general of the California National Guard.

“I’m trying to figure out how something is through somebody if, in fact, you didn’t give it to him, you actually sent it to the adjutant general,” Breyer said. “It would be the first time I’ve ever seen something going through somebody if it never went to them directly.”

‘A constitutional government and King George’

U.S. Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate, who argued for the administration, said Newsom’s approval was not necessary for the commander-in-chief to call National Guard troops into service.

“There’s no consultation requirement, pre-approval requirement,” he said. “The governor is merely a conduit. He’s not a roadblock. The president doesn’t have to call up the governor, invite them to Camp David, ‘Let’s have a summit, negotiate for a week about what are the terms that we’re going to call up the National Guard in your state, what are the terms of the deployment?’”

The president alone can determine whether the conditions allowing for the federalization of the National Guard are met, Shumate said.

But Breyer, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the president faced more limits on his authority than Shumate had argued.

“That’s the difference between a constitutional government and King George,” Breyer said.

Nicholas Green, who argued on behalf of the state, called the federal government’s argument “breathtaking in scope,” in part because the troops appear to be assisting in domestic law enforcement.

“They are saying, Your Honor, that the president, by fiat, can federalize the National Guard and deploy it in the streets of a civilian city whenever he perceives that there is disobedience to an order,” Green told Breyer. “That is an expansive, dangerous conception of federal executive power.”

Breyer seemed less opposed to Trump’s order to deploy 700 U.S. Marines to the area, noting those troops are not yet on the ground in Los Angeles and, as federal troops, were already under Trump’s command without needing to satisfy any other criteria.

Breyer’s order Thursday night did not direct any action regarding the Marines.

Pause requested

The judge, who is the brother of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, said he would rule quickly, possibly late Thursday, on California’s request for a restraining order to stop the deployment in Los Angeles.

Shuman requested that, if Breyer found in favor of the state, he should pause any restraining order while the federal government appeals.

Green said the state would “strongly oppose” such a pause because of the urgency of the situation in Los Angeles.

The city has seen days of protests starting on Friday over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on workplaces. Trump ordered the National Guard to the area on Sunday, saying it was necessary to restore order.

Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass objected to the decision and have said it has caused more chaos and inflamed tensions.

Democrats’ amicus brief

The hearing on California’s request for an injunction came a day after 21 Democratic attorneys general and the Democratic governor of Kansas filed an amicus brief in the case backing up California.

Trump wresting control of a state National Guard sets a dangerous precedent that undermines National Guard missions, they said.

“National Guard troops fight fires, respond to hurricanes, protect their residents from flooding, and provide much-needed security,” they wrote. “By undermining states’ authority, unlawfully deploying the National Guard troops, and leaving the door wide open to deploy the Guards of every state, the President has made us all less safe. This Court should enjoin the federal government from continuing down this unlawful and perilous path.”

In addition to Kansas Gov. Laura Kelley, the attorneys general of Washington, Delaware, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Wisconsin and Rhode Island signed the brief.

Evers talks to reporters in March 2025. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner. )

Wisconsin Republicans considering running for governor in 2026 are criticizing Gov. Tony Evers for supporting California Gov. Gavin Newsom as he pushes back against President Donald Trump for sending armed troops into the state to respond to protests. 

As of Tuesday, President Donald Trump has authorized deployment of 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines to Los Angeles as protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids continue in the southern California city. This is the first time in six decades that a president has called National Guard troops to respond to civil unrest without a governor’s request for help. The last time, in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights protesters.

Democratic governors, including Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, asserted their support for California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a joint statement Monday, saying that Trump’s actions were an “alarming abuse of power.”

“Governors are the Commanders in Chief of their National Guard and the federal government activating them in their own borders without consulting or working with a state’s governor is ineffective and dangerous,” the governors said. “Further, threatening to send the U.S. Marines into American neighborhoods undermines the mission of our service members, erodes public trust and shows the Trump administration does not trust local law enforcement. It’s important we respect the executive authority of our country’s governors to manage their National Guards — and we stand with Gov. Newsom who has made it clear that violence is unacceptable and that local authorities should be able to do their jobs without the chaos of this federal interference and intimidation.”

The Los Angeles police have said they could handle the protests, which had been mostly peaceful, though some violence had occurred.

Newsom has said he is suing Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense for taking over the California’s National Guard unit, saying it has “needlessly escalated chaos and violence in the Los Angeles region.” 

White House border czar Tom Homan has suggested that he would arrest Newsom, but he hadn’t “crossed the line” yet. Trump, asked about the idea of arresting Newsom, said that he would “do it.” After Trump appeared open to the idea, Homan said there is “no intention to arrest the governor right now.”  

Wisconsin Republicans are standing behind Trump’s actions in LA and connecting Newsom to Evers’ actions regarding ICE. 

In reaction to the governors’ statement, Wisconsin businessman and Navy veteran Bill Berrien, who is considering running for governor in 2026, issued a press release through his Never Out of the Fight PAC saying that Newsom and Evers are enabling the “invasion of illegal immigrants” and “violent protests.” Berrien formed the PAC in April to advance conservative causes and to help Republicans win federal, state and local elections.

“We should be condemning this violence but our governor is once again putting violent criminals above law-abiding citizens,” Berrien said. “I served as a Navy SEAL to protect our country. President Trump is right to step up and end this chaos.”

Josh Schoemann, the first GOP candidate to officially launch a 2026 campaign, responded to a social media post that said the Democratic governors were endorsing “lawlessness and chaos on American streets,” noting a memo on ICE that Evers sent to state employees with guidance on handling ICE, and declaring “Tony’s Gotta Go!!”

COVID Lockdowns
Kenosha Riots
ICE Obstruction Memo
Dem Guv Anti-Law & Order Pact

Tony’s Gotta Go!!! https://t.co/94E58PzpP7

— Josh Schoemann (@JoshSchoemann) June 9, 2025

Republicans have been critical of Evers for his handling of increased ICE activity in Wisconsin, including calling for him to be arrested when he stood by guidance that he gave to state employees to call a lawyer if ICE showed up at their office. Those calls came after Homan previously made comments that were interpreted as a threat to arrest Evers. 

Evers released a three-minute video following Homan’s vague threat, saying that it represents a “concerning trajectory in this country.” 

“We now have a federal government that will threaten or arrest an elected official — or even everyday American citizens — who have broken no laws, committed no crimes, and done nothing wrong,” Evers said in early May. “As disgusted as I am about the continued actions of the Trump Administration, I am not afraid. I have never once been discouraged from doing the right thing, and I will not start today.”

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National Institutes of Health Director Jayanta Bhattacharya speaks at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Capitol Hill on March 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya testified Tuesday that he will work with Congress to potentially reverse a steep cut to the agency’s funding the White House proposed earlier this year in its budget request.

Bhattacharya told highly critical Republicans and Democrats on the Senate panel that writes the NIH’s annual spending bill that he’s “happy” to work with lawmakers to find a funding level that everyone can support in the months ahead.

“This is my first time through this budget fight and so I’m still learning. But I’ll tell you, what I understand is that the budget is a collaborative effort between Congress and the administration,” Bhattacharya said. “I look forward to working with you all to advance the real health needs — not just the folks here in the room who represent Alzheimer’s patients, but also the health needs of all Americans.”

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said it was “disturbing” that the president’s budget request suggested lawmakers cut NIH funding by about $18 billion, or 40%, in the upcoming spending bill.

“It would undo years of congressional investment in NIH,” Collins said. “And it would delay or stop effective treatments and cures from being developed for diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer, type one diabetes. I could go on and on.

“We also risk falling behind China and other countries that are increasing their investment in biomedical research.”

Collins said the committee planned to work with Bhattacharya “to remedy these problems and the deficiencies” in the budget request in the months ahead as the committee writes the annual government funding bills.

Collins also rebuked Bhattacharya for seeking to reduce how much the NIH pays grantees for facilities and administrative costs, which go toward paying bills that aren’t directly associated with just one research project.

NIH efforts to cap those indirect costs at 15% are on hold as lawsuits from Democratic attorneys general, the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Association of American Universities work through the federal court system.

“This proposed cap is so poorly conceived,” Collins said. “And I have seen firsthand how harmful it is. It is leading to scientists leaving the United States for opportunities in other countries. It’s causing clinical trials to be halted and promising medical research to be abandoned. It’s also against federal law. Since 2018, we in Congress have specifically included language to prevent NIH from arbitrarily imposing such a cap.”

Collins told Bhattacharya to talk with Kelvin K. Droegemeier, who worked as President Donald Trump’s science adviser during his first term. Droegemeier is chairman of a group put together by the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities to propose changes to the indirect costs model.

‘Frankly, catastrophic’

Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, pressed Bhattacharya to defend the actions he’s taken so far and those proposed in the budget request.

“What the Trump administration is doing to NIH right now is, frankly, catastrophic,” Murray said. “Over the past few months, this administration has fired and pushed out nearly 5,000 critical employees across NIH, prevented nearly $3 billion in grant funding from being awarded and terminated nearly 2,500 grants totaling almost $5 billion for life-saving research that is ongoing that includes clinical trials for HIV and Alzheimer’s disease.”

Murray added that no one in America wants less research into treatments and cures for cancer, or Alzheimer’s disease.

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, chairwoman of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations subcommittee that held the hearing, expressed concern about NIH’s proposed budget cuts, saying they have raised alarms at numerous research universities.

“These institutions are the reason America has kept the edge in biomedical research and innovation,” Capito said. “As with many changes in leadership, there seems to be a heightened set of concern and confusion that diverting resources from research will result in a less healthy America.”

Capito emphasized she expects NIH to continue to focus research efforts on Alzheimer’s, a disease that affects more than 7 million Americans.

“For almost a decade, this committee has supported research towards the goals of finding treatments and a cure for Alzheimer’s disease,” Capito said. “This goal is very personal to me, as you know, since both of my parents lived with and eventually succumbed to this disease. And I could look out behind you and see in the audience that many folks here are extremely interested in that area of research.”

Delayed funding in the states

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, ranking member on the subcommittee, also reprimanded Bhattacharya for cutting off funding for projects looking into Alzheimer’s and several other illnesses.

“NIH has delayed $65 million in funding for 14 Alzheimer’s disease research centers in nine states, including at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,” Baldwin said. “It has delayed $47 million in cancer center support grants at nine cancer centers in eight states, it has delayed $55 million for 11 rare disease clinical research network grants in eight states.

“Let that sink in: This administration is making a conscious choice not to fund research into Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and rare diseases. And NIH has terminated grants for maternal morbidity and mortality centers, a grant developing new digital imaging techniques for cervical cancer screening and a clinical trial studying a potential cure for infants born with HIV, just to name a few.”

Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt called on Bhattacharya to ensure NIH refocuses on maternal health research and ways to decrease the country’s high maternal mortality rate.

“Look, far too many women in this country are dying from pregnancy-related causes,” Britt said. “You look at Alabama, we have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation. It disproportionately affects Black women, Native American women, those women in rural areas.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies before the House Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee at the U.S. Capitol on June 10, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Tuesday was the first time Hegseth testified before Congress since his confirmation hearings in January.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles will cost the federal government about $134 million, a Pentagon budget official said Tuesday, as the response to the protests further divided officials in California and Washington, D.C.

The situation in the country’s second-largest city captured the attention of lawmakers in the nation’s capital, even as the Republican-led Congress charted a path forward for the Trump-backed tax and spending cut bill.

Democrats in Congress on Tuesday warned the administration’s actions bordered on authoritarianism, while President Donald Trump said his intervention saved the city from destruction.

“If we didn’t send in the National Guard quickly, right now, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground,” Trump said in the Oval Office Tuesday.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, sought a restraining order blocking the 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines deployed to Los Angeles from assisting with domestic law enforcement. Trump ordered the troops to the city over Newsom’s and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ objections.

Budget question

Democrats on Capitol Hill criticized the administration over several aspects of the deployment, saying Trump was instigating violence, overstepping his authority and wasting taxpayer money.

At a previously scheduled Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing, Democratic Reps. Betty McCollum of Minnesota and Pete Aguillar of California asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the financial cost of placing 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in Los Angeles.

Hegseth, who is originally from Minnesota, declined to answer McCollum’s question directly, instead invoking the riots in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 and saying Trump sought to avoid similar chaos in Los Angeles.

“President Trump recognizes a situation like that, improperly handled by a governor, like it was by Gov. (Tim) Walz, if it gets out of control, it’s a bad situation for the citizens of any location,” he said.

When Aguillar asked a similar question about cost, Hegseth deferred to acting Pentagon comptroller Bryn MacDonnell, who estimated the current cost at $134 million, mainly for housing, travel and food. That money came out of existing operations and maintenance accounts, she said.

Hegseth told the panel the deployment was authorized for 60 days.

Just 2 miles away at the White House, though, Trump implied the decision could be more open-ended, saying during the Oval Office event that troops would stay in Los Angeles “until there’s no danger.”

“When there’s no danger, they’ll leave,” he said.

Restraining order

California’s federal lawsuit challenging the deployment, which state leaders filed Monday, includes a request for the court to issue a restraining order by 1 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer did not issue such an order by that deadline.

The administration intended to use the military personnel “to accompany federal immigration enforcement officers on raids throughout Los Angeles,” the request for a restraining order said.

“These unlawful deployments have already proven to be a deeply inflammatory and unnecessary provocation, anathema to our laws limiting the use (of) federal forces for law enforcement, rather than a means of restoring calm,” the state said.

“Federal antagonization, through the presence of soldiers in the streets, has already caused real and irreparable damage to the City of Los Angeles, the people who live there, and the State of California. They must be stopped, immediately.”

Democrats in California’s congressional delegation and members of the congressional caucuses for Black, Hispanic and Asian and Pacific Islander Democrats also blasted the administration’s role in inflaming the standoff between protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who’d conducted recent raids on workplaces in the area.

“President Trump’s unlawful decision to deploy the National Guard onto the streets of Los Angeles is a reckless and inflammatory escalation, one designed not to restore calm, but to provoke chaos,” Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette D. Clarke said at a press conference.

“Let’s be clear about how this began: with peaceful protests sparked by the unlawful and inhumane targeting, detention and deportation of our immigrant neighbors.”

Clarke, a New York Democrat, said in response to a reporter’s question that she believed the sending in of troops constituted an impeachable act by Trump.

“I definitely believe it is, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” she said.

‘Met with force’

Other Democrats on Capitol Hill have said Monday and Tuesday that Trump engineered the conflict to distract from unpopular provisions of Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” and other issues.

“Donald Trump, cornered by his own failures – from pushing a heartless bill that would rip health care away from 16 million Americans, to raising costs from his reckless tariffs, to waging war with Elon Musk – Trump is desperately seeking a distraction,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor Tuesday.

“His order to deploy the National Guard and Marines – our own troops – on Americans is not just outrageous and provocative, it’s a dangerous authoritarian overreach that threatens the very fabric of our democracy.”

Rep. Jimmy Gomez led a press conference of California’s U.S. House Democrats Tuesday where he warned that the militarization in Los Angeles could happen elsewhere.

“If it can happen in Los Angeles, it can happen in any state in the union,” he said.

Later, at the Oval Office, Trump said protesters at his military parade on Saturday would be “met with very strong force.”

‘Tarred and feathered’

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Trump acted responsibly to protect Southern Californians and blamed Newsom for “failed leadership” that he said led to the clash this weekend.

Asked if, as Trump and White House border czar Tom Homan have suggested, Newsom should be arrested for interfering with immigration enforcement, Johnson initially demurred before suggesting an 18th-century punishment.

“I’m not going to give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested,” the Louisiana Republican said.

“But he ought to be tarred and feathered… He’s standing in the way of the administration and the carrying out of federal law. Right? He is applauding the bad guys and standing in the way of the good guys. He is trying to — he’s a participant, an accomplice — in our federal law enforcement agents being not just disrespected but assaulted.”

Johnson said House Republicans were fully behind Trump’s actions and deflected a question about if there was a point at which he would oppose the administration’s efforts.

“He is fully within his authority right now to do what he is doing,” Johnson said. “We have to maintain order.”

U.S. Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, speaks to reporters on Feb. 6, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Members of a Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee panel Tuesday probed witnesses about how the federal government can ensure public safety at major international sporting events such as the Olympics and World Cup.

The hearing came at the same time as protests in Los Angeles over the administration’s immigration crackdown and shortly after President Donald Trump announced his travel ban.

While athletes, coaches and other staff are exempt from the travel ban, it’s unclear how fans wanting to support their home countries will fare.

Nationals from 12 countries face travel bans – Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Iran is the only country from that list to qualify in the  World Cup this year.

Citizens from seven countries have partial restrictions –  Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

Senators, like the head of the panel, James Lankford, were concerned about visa wait times for international visitors wanting to attend the World Cup, which starts Thursday in Miami, Florida.

“While I’m confident there has been a lot of preparation, I am concerned we are getting a late start,” the Oklahoma Republican said.

Senators on the Border Management, Federal Workforce and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee also raised concerns about drones and said local and federal partnerships can help in hosting sporting events to avoid terrorism threats, such as the New Year’s Day attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana.

One of the witnesses, Gina Ligon, leads the Department of Homeland Security’s Academic Center of Excellence for Counterterrorism Research at the University of Nebraska. She said the attacker in New Orleans used artificial intelligence through Meta smart glasses to scope out the location before the attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens.

“The threats we observed in the New Orleans attack remain a very real concern that needs significant planning and resourcing given the spread of crowds before, during, and after these events,” she said.

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, the top Democrat on the panel, said hosting international sporting events is “an incredible opportunity to show the best of America to visitors.”

Los Angeles and the Olympics

Two GOP senators, Ashley Moody of Florida and Bernie Moreno of Ohio, questioned how LA would be capable of handling the Olympics in 2028, given the ongoing protests sparked after federal immigration officials raided several Home Depots across Los Angeles looking for people in the country without legal authorization.

In response, Trump has deployed 4,000 National Guard troops – without California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s authority – and 700 Marines to LA.

One of the witnesses, CEO of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games Reynold Hoover, said local and state officials in California were capable of handling the Olympics and working with the federal government for security measures.

“There’s no place in the world like LA to host the world’s largest Olympics ever,” Hoover said. “I am confident, come July 14 of 2028, when we do the opening ceremony in the Coliseum and the stadium in Inglewood, the world will be watching and see America at its best.”

Hoover said that hosting the Olympics will be the equivalent of holding seven Superbowls for 30 days straight with more than 11,000 Olympic athletes and more than 4,400 paralympic athletes. 

Drones and the Olympics

Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Fetterman raised concerns about drones getting too close to sporting events.

Hassan said while the federal government has taken steps to address private drones, she asked Hoover how he was preparing to address any drone issues for the 2028 Olympics.

Hoover said that “tools to include counter (unmanned aircraft systems) drone technology remain key priorities for our ongoing collaboration with our federal, state and local partners.” He added that coordinating with the Secret Service has been helpful in dealing with unmanned drones.

Ligon said she has seen drones being used near global sporting events.

“Malign actors can now more easily acquire, build, or customize drones at lower costs, with extended ranges, higher speeds, and greater payload capacities,” she said. 

Rising tariffs are doing more than sparking political arguments, as hey’re reshaping where, how, and even if some companies build their next-generation manufacturing hubs. While former President Trump’s trade policies have nudged a few automakers toward building more vehicles in the United States, they’ve also sent car prices climbing and stirred chaos in the global auto market.

One of the latest casualties? A $1.6 billion battery factory in South Carolina, where construction is on hold before production has even begun.

Read: EV Support In America Is Falling Faster Than Anyone Predicted

In 2023, Automotive Energy Supply Corp., better known as AESC, began constructing a battery plant in South Carolina to supply BMW with cells for its electric vehicles, including the upcoming production models based on the Neue Klasse Vision concepts, the iX3 SUV and i3 sedan..Work on the physical buildings at the site is almost complete, but efforts to install equipment and establish assembly lines have been halted.

In a memo addressed to employees that was seen by The Wall Street Journal, AESC’s chief executive for the US and Europe, Knudt Flor, said work was being paused because of “economic uncertainty arising from current federal policy and tax issues.” However, he added that “Our intent is to finish construction of the facility once stability and predictability have returned to the market.”

According to the WSJ, AESC would face a substantial tariff bill if it were to import the necessary machinery from China. Additionally, separate tariffs on steel and aluminum could hurt the battery giant.

AESC announced its South Carolina plant while Joe Biden was still President and the administration was providing huge subsidies to attract battery manufacturers to the United States. Through the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration helped attract more than $130 billion in investments across the automotive sector, with many focusing on batteries for electric vehicles.

Now, many subsidies are in the firing line of Republicans. A new bill proposes ending EV battery production subsidies a year early and making them unavailable to companies with ties to certain countries, like China. Although AESC is headquartered in Japan, it is majority-owned by the Envision Group in China.

“AESC has invested over $1 billion into the Florence facility, and we anticipate being able to resume construction once circumstances stabilize,” the company told the news outlet in a statement. “AESC fully intends to meet our commitments to invest $1.6 billion and create 1,600 jobs in the coming years.”

Demonstrators protest outside a downtown jail in Los Angeles following two days of clashes with police during a series of immigration raids on June 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump called for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to be arrested Monday and dispatched Marines to Los Angeles, shortly after Trump’s mobilization this weekend of California National Guard troops to quell protests without the governor’s consent.

Protests of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ activity in Los Angeles sparked a weekend of conflict between protesters and federal agents downtown and in nearby Paramount, California. Newsom on Monday said California is suing the administration over the violation of its state sovereignty.

Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn that he endorsed the idea of White House border czar Tom Homan arresting Newsom. Homan had said elected officials could be arrested for impeding raids by ICE agents.

Newsom on Sunday challenged Homan, saying, “Come after me, arrest me, let’s get it over with, tough guy.”

“I’d do it if I were Tom,” Trump said when asked if Homan should arrest Newsom. “I think it’s great. Gavin likes the publicity…. He’s done a terrible job. I like Gavin Newsom, he’s a nice guy but he’s grossly incompetent, everybody knows.”

Newsom, a Democrat, has framed the conflict with the White House as a fundamental test of every state’s ability to self-govern.

“This is a preview for things to come,” he told the progressive podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen in a clip the governor’s X account shared Monday morning. “This isn’t about LA, per se. It’s about us today. It’s about you, everyone watching, tomorrow. I promise you. I mean, this guy is unhinged. Donald Trump is unhinged right now.”

Marines deploying

About 700 U.S. Marines will travel to Los Angeles as part of the federal response, according to the U.S. military, with the objective of “protecting federal personnel and federal property in the greater Los Angeles area.” CNN first reported the Marines’ mobilization. The move could further aggravate the state-federal tension surrounding the protests.

That deployment followed Sunday’s mobilization by Trump of 2,000 California National Guard members, even as Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass vocally objected, saying the troops’ presence would only inflame the situation.

It marked the first time since 1965 — when President Lyndon Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights protesters — that a president deployed the National Guard to a state over the governor’s objections.

Trump has also not ruled out invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act to take greater operational control of the situation. He and allies have referred to the protesters as “insurrectionists” several times.

He told reporters Sunday night that he was not invoking the act, which allows the president to use the military domestically, saying a decision to do so would depend “on whether or not there’s an insurrection.” On Monday, he said “insurrectionists” were causing problems in California.

According to CalMatters, “protesters on Sunday faced off with police officers who fired dozens of less-lethal rounds attempting to disperse people in the streets surrounding the 300 North Los Angeles Federal Building.

“At least two self-driving vehicles were set on fire near the protest, and police continued to pepper the rally with rubber bullets well into the late afternoon.”

Law and order

Trump, who took hours on Jan. 6, 2021, to implore his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol to disperse, and later pardoned hundreds of people charged with crimes that day, has said repeatedly controlling the California protests is necessary to protect ICE agents and Californians from protesters.

Trump has called “law and order” a top priority and has floated extreme methods to preserve order.

Asked Sunday about what the bar should be for sending U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, he responded, “The bar is what I think it is.”

On X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested Marines could be used in the situation.

“The National Guard, and Marines if need be, stand with ICE,” he posted Sunday.

State sovereignty at issue

Newsom and other Democrats have called the deployment of National Guard troops a violation of state sovereignty.

Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta said they’d filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the move on 10th Amendment grounds. The Constitution’s 10th Amendment protects states’ rights.

“Donald Trump is creating fear and terror by failing to adhere to the U.S. Constitution and overstepping his authority. This is a manufactured crisis to allow him to take over a state militia, damaging the very foundation of our republic,” said Newsom in a written statement announcing the suit.

“Every governor, red or blue, should reject this outrageous overreach. This is beyond incompetence — this is him intentionally causing chaos, terrorizing communities, and endangering the principles of our great democracy. It is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism. We will not let this stand.”

A copy of the lawsuit was not immediately available Monday.

Newsom won backing from his Democratic colleagues across the country, including a Sunday statement from the Democratic Governors Association, a political group that includes every blue-state governor in the country.

“President Trump’s move to deploy California’s National Guard is an alarming abuse of power,” the governors said. “Governors are the Commanders in Chief of their National Guard and the federal government activating them in their own borders without consulting or working with a state’s governor is ineffective and dangerous. Further, threatening to send the U.S. Marines into American neighborhoods undermines the mission of our service members, erodes public trust, and shows the Trump administration does not trust local law enforcement.”

Republican governors saw the issue differently, backing Trump and praising his approach to law enforcement.

“Every Democrat governor just endorsed lawlessness and chaos on American streets,” the RGA said on social media in response to the DGA statement.

Republicans in Congress broadcast similar messages, describing the deployment as a step toward law and order.

“If Gavin Newsom won’t enforce the law, President Trump will,” Oklahoma U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin wrote on X.

A protester holds a photo of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia as demonstrators gather to protest against the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador outside the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the United Nations on April 24, 2025. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man wrongly deported to his native El Salvador three months ago, was brought back to the U.S. on Friday and will face federal charges, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

Abrego Garcia’s case had become a flashpoint in a debate over what due process rights protect immigrants from deportation after federal officials conceded he was sent to a notorious El Salvador mega-prison because of an administrative error. 

Still, President Donald Trump, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Bondi and other administration officials said for months Abrego Garcia could not be released because of criminal conduct they had not publicly produced evidence of.

In a gaggle with reporters on Air Force One Friday night, Trump declined to say whether it was his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., according to White House pool reports.

“He should have never had to be returned,” Trump said. “It’s a disaster.”

Bondi said Friday a federal warrant for Abrego Garcia’s arrest on human trafficking charges compelled his release from the Salvadoran prison system.

“Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Bondi said at a Department of Justice news conference Friday afternoon. “He was a smuggler of humans and women and children.”

The 10-page indictment filed in the Middle District of Tennessee comes after a federal grand jury indicted him on May 21 for allegedly transporting migrants in the U.S. without legal authorization within the country.

Chris Newman, an attorney representing the Abrego Garcia family said at a virtual press event Friday that he remained skeptical of the federal charges lodged at Abrego Garcia.

“I can tell you that we should all treat whatever charges that are being leveled against him with a high degree of suspicion,” Newman said. “We should make sure that he gets a fair (trial) in court because he’s clearly not getting a fair hearing in the court of public opinion.”

Bondi did not detail when the investigation into Abrego Garcia began, but said the federal indictment charges contained “recently found facts.”

“This is what American justice looks like upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador,” Bondi said.

WKRN in Nashville said Abrego Garcia’s arraignment has been scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday. 

Outcry over due process

Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation to the notorious mega-prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, drew national outcry as the Trump administration clashed with a federal court that ordered the return of the Beltsville man and resisted the U.S. Supreme Court’s order to “facilitate” his return.

Despite the orders, Trump administration officials did not appear to take any public steps to secure Abrego Garcia’s release, and at times seemed to relish their defiance of the courts.

Bondi thanked El Salvador’s government Friday for releasing Abrego Garcia in compliance with the warrant.

The Trump administration has argued in federal court in Maryland for months that Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador and therefore cannot be returned, despite a $15 million agreement between the U.S. and the Salvadoran government to keep roughly 300 men removed from the U.S. and detained at CECOT. Abrego Garcia had been moved to a different El Salvador prison prior to his release.

Abrego Gacia had deportation protections to his home country of El Salvador since 2019.

He was pulled over by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in March and informed that his immigration status had changed. He was later placed on one of three deportation flights on March 15 to CECOT.

The Trump administration admitted his removal was an “administrative error” but has since alleged that Abrego Garcia was a leader in the MS-13 gang without producing evidence in the federal civil court overseeing the suit challenging his removal.

Maryland U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to press for Abrego Garcia’s release and return to the U.S., welcomed the news as a victory for due process rights.

“As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,” the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. “The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”

William J. Ford contributed to this report.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., left, listens as Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, center, speaks to reporters outside of the West Wing of the White House on June4, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republican Leader John Thune will spend a crucial next few weeks working behind the scenes with other top GOP senators to reshape the party’s “big beautiful bill” — a balancing test accompanied in recent days by incendiary exchanges between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk over whether the current proposals are so bad that Congress should just go back to the drawing board.

South Dakota’s Thune will need to gain support from deficit hawks, who want to see the mega-bill cut at least $2 trillion in spending, and moderates, who are closely monitoring how less federal funding for safety net programs like Medicaid and food assistance could harm their constituents and home-state institutions like rural hospitals.

Interviews by States Newsroom with Republican senators in early June showed many major elements of the package could change, including provisions that would put states on the hook for unanticipated costs. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, for example, indicated the Senate may rewrite a proposal in the House-passed bill that would shift some of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food aid to low-income people, to state governments.

“We can do whatever we want to do,” the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee chairman said when asked by States Newsroom about amending that policy.

The final deal — intended to extend the 2017 tax cuts — cannot lose more than three GOP senators and still make it back across the Capitol to the House for final approval, since all Democrats are expected to oppose the bill. Thune only needs a majority vote in the Senate for the special process being used by Republicans.

Internal debates about just how to rework the Trump-backed tax and spending cuts measure began in the first week of June during meetings on Capitol Hill and at the White House, as GOP senators began critiquing the House-passed package line-by-line to ensure it complies with their strict rules for the complex reconciliation process and their policy goals.

Republicans said during interviews that several provisions in the House version likely won’t comply with the chamber’s Byrd rule, which could force lawmakers to toss out some provisions.

Complicating all of it was the very public back-and-forth between not just Trump but GOP leaders and former White House adviser Musk over the bill, which Musk on social media labeled “a disgusting abomination” and a “big, ugly spending bill” for its effect on the deficit and debt limit. “KILL the BILL,” Musk said on X, the platform he owns. Senate leaders so far have dismissed Musk’s criticisms.

Fragile House coalition

The talks, and whatever the legislation looks like after a marathon amendment voting session expected in late June, have already raised deep concerns among House GOP lawmakers, who will have to vote on the bill again in order to send it to Trump.

The extremely narrow majorities mean House Republican leaders cannot lose more than four of their own members if all the lawmakers in that chamber vote on the party-line bill.

Any changes the Senate makes could unbalance the fragile coalition of votes Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., cobbled together last month for a 215-214 vote. But GOP senators are adamant they will amend the legislation.

Complicating matters is a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that shows the proposed changes to tax law, Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and higher education aid wouldn’t actually help to reduce deficits during the next decade but raise them by more than $2.4 trillion.

The numbers are the exact opposite for what Republicans hoped their sweeping tax and spending cuts package would accomplish.

Scrutiny begins

The first stop for the House-passed reconciliation package in the Senate appears to be the parliamentarian’s office, where staff have begun evaluating whether each provision in the current version of the bill complies with the upper chamber’s strict rules.

Boozman said staff on his panel have already begun meeting with the parliamentarian to go over the House provisions within its jurisdiction.

He expects that section of the package will have to change to comply with the strict rules that govern the reconciliation process in the Senate and to better fit that chamber’s policy goals.

“We can’t really decide exactly what we want to use in the House version until we know what’s eligible,” Boozman said. “We’ve got some other ideas too that we asked them about. But we need to know, of the ideas that we have, what would be viable options as far as being Byrd eligible.”

The Byrd rule, which is actually a law, requires reconciliation bills to address federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit. This generally bars lawmakers from using the special budget process to change policies that don’t have a significant impact on those three areas.

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is campaigning to become his home state’s next governor, said pushing some of the cost of the nutrition program to states may be problematic.

“We’re trying to send more costs to the states. Most states can’t afford that, so we want to take care of people, but we need people to go back to work,” Tuberville said. “It’s not a forever entitlement. It’s for part-time, you know, take care of yourself until you get a job, go back to work and let people that need it really, really get it.”

Rural hospitals on edge

Senate GOP leaders will have to navigate how best to reduce federal spending on Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower-income people and some with disabilities, that is relied on by tens of millions of Americans, many of whom are loyal Republican voters.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that 7.8 million people would lose access to Medicaid during the next decade if the House’s policy changes are implemented as written.

There are also concerns among GOP lawmakers about how losing the revenue that comes with treating Medicaid patients would impact rural health care access and hospitals.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said under no circumstances would he vote for a bill that cuts benefits to Medicaid recipients and is worried about how provisions in the House package would affect rural hospitals.

“They’re very concerned about it, rightly so,” Hawley said, referring to conversations he’s had with health care systems in his home state.

“This is something that we need to work on. I don’t know why we would penalize rural hospitals,” he added. “If you want to reduce health care spending, then cap the price of prescription drugs. I mean, that’s the way to do it. If you want to get major savings in the health care sector, don’t close rural hospitals, don’t take away benefits from working people. Cap the costs, cap the price that (the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) is going to pay for prescription drugs.”

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she’s not yet come to a decision about whether to keep, amend, or completely scrap some of the House changes to Medicaid.

“I talked to a lot of our hospitals when I was home to see what the impacts would be, because we have a very high Medicaid population,” Capito said. “I want to see it work and be preserved, but I want it to be there for future generations. And it’s just getting way out of control on the spend side. So right now, we’re looking at everything.”

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy — chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — said he doesn’t expect all of the health care provisions in the House bill make it through the “Byrd bath” with the parliamentarian. But he declined to go into detail.

“Some of it is more regulatory, that’s all I can say,” Cassidy said.

West Virginia’s Sen. Jim Justice said he is in favor of requiring some Medicaid enrollees to work, participate in community service, or attend an educational program at least 80 hours a month to stay on the program, a sentiment shared by many of his GOP colleagues.

“I’m good with every bit of that,” he said. 

But Justice expects the Senate will make its own changes to the package and that it will be “proud of their own pond.”

“Any frog that’s not proud of your own pond’s not much of a frog,” Justice said.

He did not go into detail on what those changes would entail.

SALT shakers

The state and local tax deduction, or SALT, represents another tightrope  for Thune, who is no fan of the changes made in the House. But he has said repeatedly this week he understands altering that language too much could mean a Senate-amended version of the bill never makes it back through the House to actually become law.

Thune said outside the White House following a June 4 meeting with Trump and others that there will very likely be changes to SALT.

“There isn’t a single Republican senator who cares much about the SALT issue,” Thune said. “It’s just not an issue that plays.” States that are most affected generally don’t elect Republicans to the Senate.

The House tax-writing panel originally proposed raising the SALT cap from $10,000 to $30,000, but Johnson had to raise that to $40,000 in order to secure votes from House Republicans who represent higher tax states like California, New Jersey and New York. The revised cap would benefit more high-income taxpayers in their states.

“In 2017, that was one of the best reforms we had in the bill,” Thune said. “But we understand it’s about 51 and 218. So we will work with our House counterparts and with the White House to try to get that issue in a place where we can deliver the votes and get the bill across the finish line.”

Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, but can rely on Vice President J.D. Vance to break a tied vote if necessary.

At least 218 House lawmakers must vote to pass bills when all 435 seats are filled. But with three vacancies at the moment, legislation can move through that chamber with 216 votes. The GOP has 220 seats at the moment, meaning Johnson can afford four defections on party-line bills.

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven told reporters this week that he’d like to see GOP senators rework the SALT section of the bill, even if that causes challenges for Speaker Johnson’s ability to pass a final version.

“Let’s talk about SALT, for example. The House has a very large SALT number. The Senate is probably going to take a look at that,” Hoeven said. “There’ll be a lot of areas we can look at. There’ll be other things we’re going to look at. We’d like to get to $2 trillion in savings.”

Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno joined in putting his House colleagues on notice that they likely won’t get the agreement they struck with the speaker in the final version of the bill.

“I think we’re going to make common-sense changes. For example, the SALT cap, by the way, something that definitely helps very wealthy people in blue states,” Moreno said. “I think that cap, the 400% increase, is too much, so we’re going to work on tweaking that.”

Hawley, of Missouri, speaking more generally about the tax provisions, said he would like the Senate to make sure middle-class Americans benefit from the tax changes, just as much as companies.

“I want to be clear, I’m in favor of additional tax relief for working people. So my view is this corporate tax rate, which they lowered in 2017, they made that permanent back then. I know some workers that would like permanent tax relief,” Hawley said. “So I think it’s imperative that we do some addition to tax relief for workers. So I think that’s important.”

A new $4 trillion debt limit

Deficit hawks in the Senate have also voiced objections to raising the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion, arguing that GOP leaders haven’t done enough to assuage their concerns about the nation’s fiscal trajectory.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul argued that the debt limit increase is more about next year’s midterm elections than good governance.

“​​This is really about avoiding having to talk about the debt during election times because people like to go home and talk to the Rotary or the Lions Club and tell them how they’re fiscally conservative and they’re against debt,” Paul said. “It’s embarrassing to them to have to vote to keep raising the debt. But they’re unwilling to have the courage to actually look at all spending.”

Paul suggested that House Republicans created problems by inflating some of the spending levels in their package, including to continue construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Paul is chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“The $46.5 billion for the wall is eight times higher than the current cost of the wall. If you’re going to do 1,000 miles, you can actually do it for $6.5 billion. They want $46.5 billion,” Paul said. “We can’t be fiscally conservative until it comes to the border, and then we’re no longer fiscally conservative.”

The border wall has been a constant focus for Trump, who made it a central part of his 2016 presidential campaign, when he said repeatedly that the United States would build it and Mexico would pay for it.

South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Budget Committee, hinted during a brief interview that Congress can only cut so much spending without going near programs like Social Security, which accounted for $1.5 trillion in expenditures last year, or Medicare, which spent $865 billion. Both are normally considered untouchable.

“I think we’re going to make some changes to try to find more spending reductions. I think that’s a fair criticism of the bill, but you can’t do Social Security by law,” Graham said, referring to one of the many rules that govern the reconciliation process. “Nobody’s proposed anything in the Medicare area.”

Graham added that “trying to make the bill more fiscally responsible is a good thing, but we need to pass it.” 

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The Trump administration must restore hundreds of millions of dollars in AmeriCorps grant funding and thousands of service workers in about two dozen states, including Wisconsin, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman granted a temporary block on the agency’s cancellation of grants and early discharge of corps members, but only for the states that sued the administration in April.

The federal lawsuit, filed by Democratic state officials across the country, accused President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting efforts through the Department of Government Efficiency of reneging on grants funded through the AmeriCorps State and National program, which was budgeted $557 million in congressionally approved funding this year.

Boardman also said all AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps members that were discharged from their service terms early should be reinstated, if they are willing and able to return.

But Boardman allowed the 30-year-old federal agency for volunteer service to proceed with its reduction in force, denying the states’ request to restore the majority of staff that were put on administrative leave in April. The agency employs more than 500 full-time federal workers and has an operating budget of roughly $1 billion.

AmeriCorps did not immediately respond to request for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment.

The 30-year-old agency created to facilitate volunteer service across the country oversees several programs that dispatch hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of people to serve in communities.

It sends roughly 200,000 corps members across the country as part of its service programs. Most corps members get a living stipend during their service and become eligible for funding for future education expenses or to apply for certain student loans.

As part of the AmeriCorps State and National grant program, state volunteer commissions distributed more than $177 million in formula-based distributions, as well as $370 million in competitive grants that supported nearly 35,000 corps members serving at 300 organizations, according to announcements last year.

Notices of grants being terminated were sent late on a Friday in April, explaining “the award no longer effectuates agency priorities” and directing grantees to immediately shut down the projects, according to a copy reviewed by The Associated Press.

The states that sued the administration said those extensive and immediate cancellations did not provide the legally required notice and comment period. They said the result would be severely curtailed services and programs for vulnerable populations since states and organizations could not fill the funding void.

AmeriCorps argued in court filings that a temporary block on the agency’s actions as the lawsuit proceeds would disrupt efforts to comply with Trump’s executive order creating DOGE and to “act as responsible stewards of public funds,” according to court filings.

Despite bipartisan support, AmeriCorps has long been a target of critics who decry bloat, inefficiencies and misuse of funds.

“President Trump has the legal right to restore accountability to the entire Executive Branch,” Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary, previously said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed.

The lawsuit was filed by officials in Maryland, Delaware, California, Colorado, Arizona, Connecticut, Washington, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Judge: AmeriCorps must restore grant funding and workers to Wisconsin and other states is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Then-President Joe Biden gives a pen to Bette Marafino, president of the Connecticut Chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans, after he signed the Social Security Fairness Act during an event in the East Room of the White House on Jan. 5, 2025. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump late Wednesday ordered the White House legal counsel and U.S. attorney general to investigate when Biden administration staff used an autopen to sign the former president’s name on official documents, alleging that Biden might not have known or approved of their actions.

The inquiry represents an escalation in Trump’s animosity toward and legal action against former President Joe Biden, who vehemently denies the allegations that he didn’t know what executive orders or pardons were signed during his term.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that Biden wasn’t fully cognizant during the end of his administration. Similar concerns were reported on by dozens of news organizations following Biden’s answers and behavior during a debate in June 2024.

Biden’s apparent confusion during some of the debate raised alarm bells among fellow Democrats and eventually led him to withdraw from his reelection campaign, later endorsing then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump’s memorandum alleges “Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority.

“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.” 

The memo stated that if Biden staff used an autopen, a mechanical device that mimics a person’s signature, “to conceal this incapacity, while taking radical executive actions all in his name, that would constitute an unconstitutional wielding of the power of the Presidency, a circumstance that would have implications for the legality and validity of numerous executive actions undertaken in Biden’s name.”

Trump said Thursday during an appearance in the Oval Office that he hadn’t discovered any evidence that Biden aides violated the law.

“No, but I’ve uncovered the human mind,” Trump said. “I was in a debate with the human mind and I didn’t think he knew what the hell he was doing. So it’s one of those things, one of those problems. We can’t ever allow that to happen to our country.”  

Biden released a written statement rejecting the claims Trump laid out in the memo, arguing the investigation “is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.”

“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,” Biden wrote. “Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”

President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 20, 2025. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump issued a long-awaited “travel ban” late Wednesday to bar entry of nationals from a dozen countries and partially restrict entry for nationals from a smaller set of countries.

Countries that will have a full ban are Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Countries with partial bans are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

The proclamation goes into effect Monday.

Wednesday’s proclamation is a modified version of the travel ban from the president’s first term that barred entrance to nationals from predominantly Muslim countries. Federal courts struck down several versions of the travel ban until the Supreme Court upheld it in 2018. Former president Joe Biden repealed the travel ban when he came into office in 2021.

Wednesday’s proclamation allows for some exceptions, including visas that were issued to people from those countries before Wednesday, those who have been granted asylum by the U.S. or have a refugee status and lawful permanent residents.

The president’s proclamation cited national security concerns, but gave little detail on the reasoning that led to selecting the countries.

“Publicly disclosing additional details on which I relied in making these determinations, however, would cause serious damage to the national security of the United States, and many such details are classified,” according to the proclamation.

The Trump administration has moved to end temporary legal status such as humanitarian protections for nationals that hail from some of the countries on the ban list: Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela. Immigration advocates have challenged those moves to end those legal protections in federal courts across the country.  

Donald Trump and Elon Musk seemed like a match made in heaven as they’re both rich, egotistical billionaires that crave attention. However, they both have thin skin, a questionable definition of the truth, and a tendency to retaliate.

The latter three characteristics are now on full display as their bromance has ended in a rather public fight. Musk got the ball rolling by attacking Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill as a “disgusting abomination.” He went on to call it a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill” … that “contains the largest increase in the debt ceiling in US history!”

More: Trump’s Tax Bill Promises Car Loan Relief But The Devil Is In The Details

Musk described it as the “Debt Slavery Bill” and urged Congress to kill it. He also told his 220 million followers on X to call their legislators as “bankrupting America is NOT ok!”

President Trump was initially quiet on the criticism, but he tore into Musk today. In a series of posts on Truth Social, Trump claimed he asked Elon to leave his administration as he was “wearing thin.” Trump also said Musk went “CRAZY” after “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted.”

Trump then made a not so subtle threat, despite claiming “I don’t mind Elon turning against me.” In particular, he said the “easiest way to save money … is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts.”

That’s a rather blatant threat of retaliation and Wall Street appears to be taking it seriously. Tesla stock plummeted 14.27% today to close down $47.37 per share at $284.68.

Time to drop the really big bomb:@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.

Have a nice day, DJT!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025

In response to Trump’s threat, Musk said SpaceX will “begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.” This would effectively leave NASA up a creek without a paddle, although they could use Boeing’s troubled Starliner.

Aside from that, Musk said Trump is “in the Epstein files” and claimed “that is the real reason they have not been made public.” He went on to suggest Trump’s tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year.

The mudslinging will likely continue for the foreseeable future, although it will be interesting to see if the two can mend fences. If not, Tesla could have just added to its increasingly complex set of challenges.

The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year https://t.co/rbBC11iynE

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025

New Nissan cars are driven onto a rail car to be transported from an automobile processing terminal located at the Port of Los Angeles on April 3, 2024, in Wilmington, California.  Tariffs are being levied by President Donald Trump on most foreign vehicles and auto parts.  (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s tariffs would decrease the deficit over the next decade but overall shrink the U.S. economy and raise costs for consumers, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released Wednesday.

Tariffs are paid to the U.S. government by domestic companies and purchasers who buy goods from abroad.

The nonpartisan CBO found that tariffs would reduce the nation’s primary deficit by $2.5 trillion from now until 2035, plus an additional $500 million saved from avoiding even more mounting interest payments on the U.S. debt.

But the office also found that tariffs would slow down the U.S. economy over the same time, in part by affecting behavior in the private sector.

For example, businesses may pull back from investment and growth when faced with higher costs. The CBO, the official financial scorekeeper for Congress, estimates that Trump’s tariffs, as they stand now, would lower the U.S. gross domestic product, or the total value of a country’s goods and services, on average by 0.6% per year through 2035. 

In addition to increasing costs on supplies and other assets businesses use in production, the tariffs are expected to raise prices on consumer goods in the next couple years. The CBO projects the price index used to measure personal consumption will be 0.9% higher by the end of 2026.

While lower-income households spend a higher percentage of their income on consumer goods, the CBO projects that prices will increase the most on goods like home appliances and vehicles more likely to be purchased by higher earners.

The eight-page analysis only takes into account the effects of Trump’s tariffs as of May 13. These include the following taxes calculated on the value of imports: a baseline 10% on goods from most countries; a base of 30% on all goods from China and Hong Kong; 25% on most foreign vehicles and auto parts; 25% on steel and aluminum; and 25% on certain goods from Canada and Mexico.

The CBO released the figures in response to a request from U.S. Senate Democrats wanting to know the cost of the administration’s import taxes.

The report did not take into account any tariff changes after May 13, including Trump’s doubling to 50% the import taxes on steel and aluminum. The report also did not factor in changes that could result from a May 29 trade court decision striking down most of Trump’s tariffs — though an appeals court swiftly left them in place while the case plays out. 

The U.S. Capitol on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released detailed analysis Wednesday showing Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” would increase federal deficits by $2.4 trillion during the next decade.

CBO projects that if enacted as written, the legislation would result in 10.9 million people losing access to health insurance by 2034, a number that includes “1.4 million people without verified citizenship, nationality, or satisfactory immigration status who would no longer be covered in state-only funded programs in 2034.”

The score is the most up-to-date analysis by Congress’ official scorekeeper on how the sweeping tax and spending cuts package the House approved last month will impact the federal budget in the years ahead.

Republicans have been highly critical of the CBO’s assessment of the legislation’s real-world impacts, arguing that keeping tax rates as they are now, instead of letting them rise at the end of the year when the 2017 GOP tax law expires, will boost economic growth.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., lambasted the CBO during a press conference shortly after the report came out, arguing its economic growth projections haven’t been completely accurate.

“This bill will actually reduce the deficit, if you recognize the historical economic growth that has always been there,” Scalise said. “To say you’re going to get 1.8% growth. At a minimum, we think you can get 2.5 to 4% growth. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, says over 4% economic growth. So I get that we’ve got to play by the rules of the referee, but the referee has been wrong.”

During the last decade, U.S. growth only surpassed 3% during one year, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Gross domestic product growth measured 2.5% in 2014, 2.9% in 2015, 1.8% in 2016, 2.5% in 2017, 3% in 2018, 2.6% in 2019, -2.2% in 2020 during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, 6.1% in 2021, 2.5% in 2022, 2.9% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2024. 

White House budget director Russ Vought posted on social media that the CBO score “confirms what we knew about the bill at House passage.”

“The bill REDUCES deficits by $1.4 trillion over ten years when you adjust for CBO’s one big gimmick–not using a realistic current policy baseline,” Vought wrote. “It includes $1.7 trillion in mandatory savings, the most in history. If you care about deficits and debt, this bill dramatically improves the fiscal picture.”

Disagreement over the ‘big beautiful bill’

GOP lawmakers have also sought to brush aside criticism from some of their own members, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who both argue the legislation must cut spending more to reduce the federal deficit in the long run.

Billionaire and former Trump administration staffer Elon Musk has also become increasingly vocal about his opposition to the package, writing on social media this week that the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.”

The House voted mostly along party lines in May to send the sweeping spending and tax cuts package to the Senate, which is expected to debate and amend the legislation in the weeks ahead.

CBO’s analysis will likely inform some of that conversation, and help senators better understand how the policy changes proposed by their House colleagues would affect state government budgets and the communities they represent. 

The CBO previously shared analysis of each of the 11 bills that make up the package, but those didn’t reflect several changes GOP House leaders made just hours before the floor vote in that chamber.

Updated numbers

The updated projections show Republicans’ plan to extend the 2017 tax law and make other tweaks to tax policy would increase the deficit by $3.754 trillion during the next decade. That increase to the deficit caused by the tax changes, which CBO has also found would decrease resources for low-income families over the next decade while increasing resources for top earners, would be partly offset by spending reductions on certain programs.

The Armed Services Committee’s bill would increase deficits by $144 billion, more than the $100 billion ceiling Republicans envisioned in the budget outline that was supposed to set guardrails on the package. Homeland Security’s provisions would increase deficits by $79 billion. And the Judiciary Committee’s language would increase deficits by $9 billion during the 10-year budget window.

The section of the package drafted by the Energy and Commerce Committee, which would make substantial changes to Medicaid and several other programs within the panel’s jurisdiction, would decrease spending by $1.086 trillion during the 10-year budget window.

The panel’s bill has four subcategories: energy, environment, communications and health. The health provisions, which include substantial changes to Medicaid, would reduce federal spending by $902 billion between 2025 and 2034.

Language barring Medicaid from covering gender transition procedures for anyone in the state-federal health program would reduce federal spending by $2.6 billion during the next decade.

Requiring some people on Medicaid to work, participate in community service or attend educational programs for at least 80 hours a month would reduce federal spending by $344 billion during the next 10 years.

Blocking any Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood would cut federal costs by $261 million during the 10-year budget window. Federal law already bars health care programs like Medicaid from covering abortions unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or it endangers the life of the woman.

Separate analysis from CBO, released later Wednesday, projects that 7.8 million people would lose access to Medicaid because of the policy changes laid out in the House GOP bill. Another 2.3 million would lose access to health insurance due to changes to tax policy and 1.3 million people would no longer be able to purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

CBO estimates that about 500,000 people would be impacted by interactions among the various health care policy changes. That number, subtracted from the numbers of those who would lose access, leads  to a total of 10.9 million people losing access to health insurance by 2034.  

Democratic criticism

Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, wrote in a statement that it’s “shocking House Republicans rushed to vote on this bill without an accounting from CBO on the millions of people who will lose their health care or the trillions of dollars it would add to the national (deficit).

“The truth is Republican leaders raced to pass this bill under cover of night because they didn’t want the American people or even their own members to know about its catastrophic consequences.”

The Agriculture Committee’s provisions, including pushing off some of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to states, would reduce federal spending by $238 billion during the next decade.

The Education and Workforce Committee’s language would decrease federal spending by $349 billion. The Financial Services section of the package would reduce federal spending by $5 billion. Natural Resources would lower spending by $18 billion. And Transportation and Infrastructure would reduce spending by nearly $37 billion. 

The Oversight and Government Reform bill would decrease spending by $12 billion, significantly less than the minimum of $50 billion the panel was supposed to cut under the reconciliation instructions included in the budget resolution. 

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. 

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Nonpartisan analysts estimate that President Donald Trump’s megabill would add at least $2 trillion to the national debt over 10 years.

The Congressional Budget Office’s preliminary estimate says the tax-and-spending bill now in Congress will add $2.3 trillion.

Other estimates are higher: Tax Foundation: $2.56 trillion; University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model: $2.79 trillion; Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: $3.1 trillion, including interest payments.

Some estimates under $2 trillion account for projected economic growth, while other estimates over $5 trillion note some provisions in the bill are temporary and will likely be extended.

The debt, which is the accumulation of annual spending that exceeds revenues, is $36 trillion.

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., claimed the bill would add trillions.

Among other things, the bill would make 2017 individual income tax cuts permanent, add work requirements for Medicaid and food assistance, and add funding for defense and more deportations.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• The Hill: GOP beats down key budget office over tax plan projections
• Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: CBO's First Score of House Reconciliation Bill
• Tax Foundation: “Big Beautiful Bill” House GOP Tax Plan: Preliminary Details and Analysis
• Penn Wharton Budget Model: The House-Passed Reconciliation Bill: Illustrative Budget, Economic, and Distributional Effects with Permanence
• Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: Breaking Down the One Big Beautiful Bill
• Wisconsin Watch: Did the US debt increase by $7.8 trillion during Donald Trump’s presidency?
• U.S. Treasury Department: Debt to the Penny
• U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore: Congresswoman Moore Slams Republican Cuts to Health Care to Pay for Tax Giveaways for the Wealthy
• PBS Wisconsin: Ron Johnson says Trump can't bully him off his deficit-reducing demands for a federal budget bill
• Associated Press: Trump’s ‘beautiful’ bill spans more than 1,000 pages. Here’s what’s inside it

Is Donald Trump’s megabill projected to add more than $2 trillion to the national debt? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A widely anticipated list of “ sanctuary jurisdictions” no longer appears on the Department of Homeland Security’s website after receiving widespread criticism for including localities that have actively supported the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.

The department last week published the list of the jurisdictions. It said each one would receive formal notification the government deemed them uncooperative with federal immigration enforcement and whether they’re believed to be in violation of any federal criminal statutes.

The list was published Thursday on the department’s website, but on Sunday there was a “Page Not Found” error message in its place.

The list was part of the Trump administration’s efforts to target communities, states and jurisdictions that it says aren’t doing enough to help its immigration enforcement agenda and the promises the president made to deport more than 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal authorization.

The list is being constantly reviewed and can be changed at any time and will be updated regularly, a DHS senior official said.

“Designation of a sanctuary jurisdiction is based on the evaluation of numerous factors, including self-identification as a Sanctuary Jurisdiction, noncompliance with Federal law enforcement in enforcing immigration laws, restrictions on information sharing, and legal protections for illegal aliens,” the official said in a statement.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that there had been anger from some officials about the list. However, she didn’t address why it was removed.

“Some of the cities have pushed back,” Noem said. “They think because they don’t have one law or another on the books that they don’t qualify, but they do qualify. They are giving sanctuary to criminals.”

The list, which was riddled with misspellings, received pushback from officials in communities spanning from urban to rural and blue to red who said the list doesn’t appear to make sense.

In California, the city of Huntington Beach made the list even though it had filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s immigration sanctuary law and passed a resolution this year declaring the community a “non-sanctuary city.”

Jim Davel, administrator for Shawano County, Wisconsin, said the inclusion of his community must have been a clerical error. Davel voted for President Donald Trump as did 67% of Shawano County.

Davel thinks the administration may have confused the county’s vote in 2021 to become a “Second Amendment Sanctuary County” that prohibits gun control measures with it being a safe haven for immigrants. He said the county has approved no immigration sanctuary policies.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

List of ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’ removed from US government website following criticism is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.