The U.S. Education Department directed its federal student loan servicers to restart interest accrual on Aug. 1 for participants in the Biden-era SAVE plan. (Catherine Lane/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Interest accrual on the debt of nearly 7.7 million student loan borrowers enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education plan will resume Aug. 1, the U.S. Education Department said Wednesday.

The Biden-era income-driven repayment plan better known as SAVE saw legal challenges from several GOP-led states beginning in 2024, creating uncertainty for borrowers who were placed in an interest-free forbearance amid that legal limbo.

The SAVE plan, created in 2023, aimed to provide lower monthly loan payments for borrowers and forgive remaining debt after a certain period of time.

In February, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court injunction that blocked the SAVE plan from going into effect. The department said Wednesday that it’s instructing its federal student loan servicers to start charging interest Aug. 1 to comply with court orders.

When the SAVE plan forbearance ends, “borrowers will be responsible for making monthly payments that include any accrued interest as well as their principal amounts,” the department said in a written announcement.

“For years, the Biden Administration used so-called ‘loan forgiveness’ promises to win votes, but federal courts repeatedly ruled that those actions were unlawful,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement alongside the announcement.

“Congress designed these programs to ensure that borrowers repay their loans, yet the Biden Administration tried to illegally force taxpayers to foot the bill instead,” she added.

McMahon said her department is urging borrowers under the SAVE plan to “quickly transition to a legally compliant repayment plan.”

“Borrowers in SAVE cannot access important loan benefits and cannot make progress toward loan discharge programs authorized by Congress,” she said.

‘Unnecessary interest charges’

Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, blasted the department’s decision in a statement Wednesday.

“Instead of fixing the broken student loan system, Secretary McMahon is choosing to drown millions of people in unnecessary interest charges and blaming unrelated court cases for her own mismanagement,” he said.

“Every day, we hear from borrowers waiting on hold with their servicer for hours, begging the government to let them out of this forbearance, and help them get back on track — instead, McMahon is choosing to jack up the cost of their student debt without giving them a way out.”

The agency has taken heat for its sweeping actions in the months since President Donald Trump took office as he and his administration look to dismantle the department.

The department is also mired in a legal challenge over some of its most significant efforts so far, including laying off more than 1,300 employees earlier this year as part of a reduction in force effort, an executive order calling on McMahon to facilitate the closure of her own agency and Trump’s proposal to transfer some services to other federal agencies. These actions have been temporarily halted in court.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump signed a massive tax and spending cut bill into law last week, part of which forces any borrower under the SAVE plan to opt in to a different repayment plan by July 1, 2028, or be automatically placed in a new, income-based repayment plan. 

Planned Parenthood has about 600 clinics in 48 states, and according to their calculations, more than 1.1 million patients could lose access to care because of a provision in the massive budget bill signed by President Donald Trump last week. (Photo by McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch)

Days after President Donald Trump signed a massive budget bill, attorneys for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its state members in Massachusetts and Utah filed a lawsuit Monday challenging a provision they say will affect more than 1 million patients who use their clinics across the U.S.

Planned Parenthood says if the defund provision stands, those targeted will be patients who use Medicaid as their insurance at its centers for services including birth control and cancer screenings. The organization says it only uses federal Medicaid funding for abortion in the very narrow cases allowed, including rape, incest, and to save a pregnant person’s life.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court of Massachusetts against U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicaid and Medicare administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, challenges a provision on page 597 of the reconciliation bill. It prohibits Medicaid funding from going to any sexual and reproductive health clinics that provide abortions and received more than $800,000 in federal and state Medicaid funding in fiscal year 2023. That prohibition will last one year from the date the bill was signed.

While there may be a few independent clinics with operating budgets that high, it effectively singles out Planned Parenthood clinics. The entire organization has about 600 clinics in 48 states, and according to their calculations, more than 1.1 million patients could lose access to care because of the change in the law.

“This case is about making sure that patients who use Medicaid as their insurance to get birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment can continue to do so at their local Planned Parenthood health center, and we will make that clear in court,” said Planned Parenthood Federation of America president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson in a public statement.

The organization identified 200 of its clinics in 24 states that are at risk of closure with the cuts, and said nearly all of those clinics — 90% — are in states where abortion is legal. In 12 states, approximately 75% of abortion-providing Planned Parenthood health centers could close. Because of that, some reproductive health advocates have called it a backdoor nationwide abortion ban.

The nonprofit also warned that eliminating Planned Parenthood centers from the Medicaid program would likely also impact patients who use other forms of insurance, if centers are forced to cut their services or close. 

Planned Parenthood argued this section of the bill is unconstitutional because it specifies and punishes them, saying it violates equal protection laws and qualifies as retaliation against free speech rights. 

“The Defund Provision is a naked attempt to leverage the government’s spending power to attack and penalize Planned Parenthood and impermissibly single it out for unfavorable treatment,” the complaint says. “It does so not only because of Planned Parenthood members’ long history of providing legal abortions to patients across the country, but also because of Planned Parenthood’s unique role in advocating for policies to protect and expand access to sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion.”

The complaint also details numerous instances when Trump said he was committed to defunding Planned Parenthood in 2016 and 2017, during his first presidential term, and it highlighted the provisions of Project 2025 that called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Project 2025 is the blueprint document drafted by the conservative Heritage Foundation, and the administration has followed many of its directives so far.

According to the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood members have “structural independence,” meaning no member “has control over the operations or decision-making processes of another.” It’s argued in the complaint that 10 members, including plaintiff Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, don’t meet the definition of prohibited entity under the new law, because they do not provide abortion services or did not receive over $800,000 in Medicaid funds during fiscal year 2023. They say these members are not “affiliates, subsidiaries, successors, or clinics” of any prohibited entity because they are separately incorporated and independently governed.

“But these Non-Qualifying Members can take no comfort in the plain text of the statute,” reads the lawsuit. “Defendants will willfully misinterpret the statute to disqualify them from receiving federal Medicaid funding, based solely on their association with PPFA and other Planned Parenthood Members.”

“As the Trump administration guts our public health care system, we know millions will suffer and struggle to get care. We will not tolerate these attacks,” said Shireen Ghorbani, interim president of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, in a statement. “For over 55 years, we have proudly cared for generations of Utahns, and we will always find ways to meet the health care needs of our communities. Here in Utah, we are used to politicians trying to strip away our rights for political gain. We haven’t backed down before, and we won’t now.”

Defunding will harm general wellness, not abortion care, Arizona clinic owner says

Planned Parenthood also noted in its complaint that the harms could be especially devastating because “even where alternative providers are theoretically available, those providers, who are already stretched to capacity, often do not offer the same comprehensive sexual and reproductive health service options, have long wait times for patients, and cannot accommodate the huge influx of patients who would need to find a new provider of care.”

Some clinics that operate independently of Planned Parenthood will be affected by the law as well. George Hill, president and CEO of Maine Family Planning, said they receive nearly $2 million from Medicaid funds (MaineCare) on a yearly basis, and about half of their patients are enrolled in some form of Medicaid. Hill said they plan to sue as well, but the timing is uncertain at this point. Abortion care makes up about 15% of their overall services, while the rest is routine gynecological and preventative health care, he said.

In the meantime, Hill plans to solicit as much support as possible from individual donors to keep the doors to their 19 clinics open and serving Medicaid patients.

“Whether or how long we’ll be able to do that is another question,” Hill said.

In Arizona, Dr. DeShawn Taylor operates the independent clinic Desert Star Institute for Family Planning. About 75% of the services at Desert Star are abortion related, and while Medicaid (AHCCCS in Arizona) dollars can’t be used for the procedure, Taylor said they could often at least get the initial consultation appointment covered by Medicaid.

The cuts that are coming, Taylor said, will not stop people from obtaining an abortion somehow. But there will be other downstream effects.

“People are already economically depressed,” she said. “What we’re going to see is people are still going to do what’s necessary to get (abortion) care, but what’s going to fall off is their ability to get their preventative care, their contraception, their wellness exams, those types of things.”

Plans for global growth rarely follow a straight line, especially when politics and international trade come into play. For BYD, one of the world’s fastest-rising automakers, a much-anticipated expansion into Mexico has been put on hold.

The reason? A mix of shifting geopolitical winds and concerns over U.S. trade policy, particularly in light of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Still, the company isn’t slowing down entirely, and has just opened its first factory outside of Asia, located in Brazil.

Read: Major Carmaker Sued Over One Toilet Per 31 Workers And Other Horrors

As we reported last year, had been scoping out three locations in Mexico for a new factory. However, it paused its search in September to wait to see the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election, likely anticipating that a victory for Trump would likely shake up the status quo of international trade. That’s exactly what the 45th and 47th President has done.

While recently speaking at the opening of BYD’s new factory in Brazil, executive vice president Stella La said the surging automaker is rethinking its strategy.

“Geopolitical issues have a big impact on the automotive industry,” she told Bloomberg. “Now everybody is rethinking their strategy in other countries. We want to wait for more clarity before making our decision.”

BYD’s efforts to establish a base in Mexico were hampered in March, even before President Trump announced sweeping tariffs. That month, China’s commerce ministry delayed approval of the Mexican factory due to concerns the carmaker’s technology could be accessed by the US.

From Pause in Mexico to Progress in Brazil

Although Mexico is no longer in play for the moment, BYD is still moving forward in the region. The company’s new facility in Camaçari, Brazil , is now operational and has room to grow. It currently produces up to 150,000 vehicles a year, with plans to double that figure to 300,000 within two years.

However, the site has not been without controversy. Late last year, Brazilian authorities reported that some international workers at the plant had been living in conditions likened to modern-day slavery.

In response, Li emphasized the company’s commitment to reform. Going forward, she said, BYD will work more closely with local partners to uphold labor and human rights standards.

“We should slow down, step back from the focus on speed,” Li said. “It will take longer, but that’s OK.”

Slate made a splash with an affordable, electric pickup that was slated to cost less than $20,000 after federal incentives. However, that’s no longer the case as the company has quietly updated their website to say the “Blank Slate is expected to be priced in the mid-twenties.”

The company went on to say the “price is subject to change” and “does not include taxes, fees, and accessories.” While the latter is to be expected, Slate’s revised statement suggests we can expect a price hike of around $5,000. That makes the truck far less appealing as the bigger and better equipped Ford Maverick begins at $28,145.

More: Slate Shakes Up EVs With A Pickup That Turns Into An SUV And Costs Less Than $20,000

Slate hasn’t publicly addressed the change, but it appears to be tied to President Trump’s signing of The One Big Beautiful Bill into law. The sprawling piece of legislation includes everything from a tax deduction on auto loan interest to funding for a “Golden Dome” missile defense system.

It also cut funding for solar and wind facilities as well as the clean vehicle credit. The latter will be phased out on September 30, 2025 instead of December 31, 2032. This applies to both new and used vehicles.

Photos Slate Auto

While the changes are brief – just one line for the previously-owned clean vehicle credit – they’ll have a huge impact on electric vehicles as consumers will no longer get a discount of up to $7,500. This means prices will likely rise, while demand could fall.

It’s not hard to see why as it would be easy to live with a few tradeoffs for less than $20,000. However, at around $25,000, things get a little more complicated.

That being said, the Slate truck will have a rear-mounted motor producing 201 hp (150 kW / 204 PS) and 195 lb-ft (264 Nm) of torque. It will be powered by 52.7 and 84.3 kWh battery packs, which deliver ranges of approximately 150 and 240 miles (241 and 386 km). Customers can also expect a leisurely 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) time of around eight seconds and a top speed of 90 mph (145 km/h).

H/T to TechCrunch

President Donald Trump holds up the "big, beautiful bill" that was signed into law as during a Fourth of July military family picnic on the South Lawn of the White House on July 4, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Brandon - Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed into law Friday evening his massive spending cut and tax break package to fulfill his domestic policy agenda on immigration and defense and overhaul American energy production.

The “big, beautiful bill,” which Trump signed on Republicans’ self-imposed Fourth of July deadline, will make permanent the 2017 tax cuts from his first term and provide billions to carry out his plans of mass deportations, an immigration crackdown and increased defense spending.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill could add $3.4 trillion to deficits over the next 10 years, according to its most recent analysis.

“America is winning, winning, winning like never before,” said Trump, speaking to military families at a Fourth of July picnic on the White House lawn prior to the bill signing. Military aircraft including a B-2 bomber flew over the White House as the national anthem was sung.

Trump saluted 150 airmen and their families at the event from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, where the B-2s that bombed Iran in June originated their flights.

But he also attacked Democrats who opposed his legislation, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who gave a speech on the floor in opposition on Wednesday that broke a House record for its length.

Members of the Cabinet were present for the bill-signing as well as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mike Crapo of Idaho and other top GOP members of Congress.

The president signed the bill seated at a desk in front of the picnic-goers, with lawmakers and Cabinet members surrounding him. Johnson presented Trump with the gavel that Johnson said he used when the vote closed to pass the “big, beautiful bill.” Trump pounded on the desk with the gavel and handed out pens to those gathered around him.

Medicaid slashed

In order to fulfill priorities in the tax and spending cut bill, congressional Republicans scaled back spending on Medicaid, food assistance for low-income people and clean energy programs.

Democrats objected to the cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and other provisions. But because Republicans have unified control of Congress, the GOP was able to pass the bill through a complex process known as reconciliation, skirting the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.

The Senate passed its version of the bill after Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking 51-50 vote Tuesday. The House managed Thursday to pass the new version of the bill after two chaotic days negotiating with far-right members who initially objected to the bill and later acquiesced, with a vote of 218-214.

The only Republicans to object in the Senate were Maine’s Susan Collins, Kentucky’s Rand Paul and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis. The House GOP members who voted with Democrats were Kentucky’s Thomas Massie and Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick.

Also tucked into the bill is a provision that raises the country’s debt ceiling by $5 trillion, which has brought objections from Republican fiscal hawks like Paul.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

We’ve learned a bit about American society amid the rhetoric over President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill.” For example, unauthorized immigrants don’t get Medicaid, but millions of working-age adults have gone on it. We’ve also knocked down some false claims about the bill along the way.

As of July 3, the nearly 900-page measure, filled with tax breaks and spending cuts, had moved toward passage but was still being debated in Congress.

Wisconsin Watch fact briefs have cleared up misstatements about the bill itself and about programs it would cut, such as Medicaid and food stamps.

Note: Our fact briefs answer a factual question yes or no based on the facts available when the brief is published.

Here’s a look.

Would the ‘big beautiful bill’ provide the largest federal spending cut in US history?

No.

The largest-cut claim was made by Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, who represents part of southeastern Wisconsin. His office cited a $1.7 trillion claim made by the Trump administration.

Even if the net cut were $1.7 trillion, it would be second to a 2011 law that decreased spending by $2 trillion and would be the third-largest cut as a percentage of gross domestic product, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

But when Fitzgerald made his statement, the bill’s net decreases were $1.2 trillion, after taking its spending increases into account, and $680 billion after additional interest payments on the debt.

Have millions of nondisabled, working-age adults been added to Medicaid?

Yes.

Millions of nondisabled working-age adults have enrolled in Medicaid since the Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility in 2014.

Medicaid is health insurance for low-income people.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that in 2024, average monthly Medicaid enrollment included 34 million nonelderly, nondisabled adults — 15 million made eligible by Obamacare.

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents most of northern Wisconsin, complained about “able-bodied” adults being added, saying they are “draining” Medicaid.

The nonpartisan health policy organization KFF said 44% of the working-age adults on Medicaid, some of whom are temporarily disabled, worked full time and 20% part time, many for small companies, and aren’t eligible for health insurance.

Are unauthorized immigrants eligible for federal Medicaid coverage?

No.

Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for traditional, federally funded Medicaid and have never been eligible.

Fourteen states, excluding Wisconsin, use state Medicaid funds to cover unauthorized immigrants. 

Trump’s bill proposed reducing federal Medicaid funds to those states.

Opponents of the bill, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Madison area, said Trump administration officials claimed that unauthorized immigrants receive traditional Medicaid.

Do half the residents in one rural Wisconsin county receive food stamps?

Yes.

In April, 2,004 residents of Menominee County in northeast Wisconsin received benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

That’s about 46% of the county’s 4,300 residents.

SNAP, formerly known as food stamps and called FoodShare in Wisconsin, provides food assistance for low-income people.

Menominee County’s rate was cited by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention. He commented on the bill’s provision to remove an estimated 3.2 million people from SNAP, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Is Donald Trump’s megabill projected to add more than $2 trillion to the national debt?

Yes.

Nonpartisan analysts estimate that the “big beautiful bill” would add at least $2 trillion to the national debt over 10 years.

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.

After we published this brief, the Senate passed a version of the bill that would increase the debt by $3.3 trillion.

Would ‘the vast majority’ of Americans get a 65% tax increase if the GOP megabill doesn’t become law?

No.

Most Americans would not face a tax increase near 65% if Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are not extended under the bill.

The tax cuts are set to expire Dec. 31. 

The Tax Foundation estimates that if the cuts expire, 62% of taxpayers would see a tax increase in 2026. The average taxpayer’s increase would be 19.4% ($2,955).

GOP U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who represents western Wisconsin, made the 65% claim. 

Do you have questions about this bill and how it affects Wisconsin? Submit them here, through our Ask Wisconsin Watch project.

Here are 6 claims about Donald Trump’s big bill — and the facts 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.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Spending cuts proposed in President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” would not be the largest ever, according to nonpartisan analysts.

The largest-cut claim was made by Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, who represents part of southeastern Wisconsin, ahead of the House vote. His office cited a $1.7 trillion claim made by the Trump administration.

The House-passed version of the bill nominally would have cut $1.6 trillion in spending over 10 years.

But the bill’s net decreases were $1.2 trillion, after taking spending increases into account, and $680 billion after additional interest payments on the debt.

The heaviest spending reductions don’t begin until around 2031, increasing the chances that they could be changed by future legislation.

A $1.7 trillion net cut would be second to a 2011 law that decreased spending by $2 trillion and would be the third-largest cut as a percentage of gross domestic product, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

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

Sources

• Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: House Spending Cuts Would Not Be Largest in History
• Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: House Reconciliation Bill Barely Slows Spending Growth
• Cato Institute: Senate Big Beautiful Bill: More Growth, More Subsidies, More Debt
• Economic Policy Innovation Center: The Fiscal Effects of the Senate Reconciliation Bill
• The White House: Mythbuster: The One Big Beautiful Bill Cuts Spending, Deficit — and That’s a Fact
• Axios: Deficit hawks hate the latest version of the "big, beautiful bill"

Would Donald Trump’s big bill provide the largest federal spending cut in US history? 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.

Shelley Feist, 61, of Washington, D.C., who was raised in North Dakota, protests outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, July 2, 2025, as House Republicans try to pass the "big beautiful bill." Feist said she's worried about effects on rural hospitals as a result of Medicaid cuts because her parents, in their 80s, depend on rural health care in Minot, North Dakota. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Protesters demonstrated against the “big beautiful bill” outside the U.S. Capitol Wednesday as House Republicans whipped votes to get the bill across the finish line and to President Donald Trump’s desk by a self-imposed July Fourth deadline.

Shelley Feist stood on Independence Avenue near the entrance to the House of Representatives holding signs above her head, one reading “Cruel Corrupt Cowards,” the other a Republican elephant with the word “Treason” written on it.

“I think they’re being cruel. I think cruelty is the point,” Feist, 61, of Washington, D.C., and originally from North Dakota, told States Newsroom. “It’s also extremely alarming that there’s such cowardice in the GOP.”

The massive budget reconciliation package, passed by Senate Republicans Tuesday with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President JD Vance, extends and expands 2017 tax cuts at a cost of roughly $4.5 trillion over the next decade. It also yanks funding from federal food and health safety net programs.

The bill aggressively rolls back clean energy tax credits, as well as raising the nation’s borrowing limit to $5 trillion.

Latest figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office show the package would add $3.4 trillion to the nation’s deficit over the next decade, when the country is mired in record-breaking debt. That office’s earlier analysis of the House-passed bill found the package would reduce resources for low-income families while padding higher earners.

Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, who chaired an hours-long final committee hearing about the bill overnight, said Wednesday the package is an “embodiment of the America First agenda and we would all do well to remember that.”

Medicaid cuts

Top of mind for Feist is the bill’s cuts to Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income individuals and some with disabilities. The Senate version of the package, passed Tuesday, included a  $1 trillion cut to Medicaid over 10 years, according to the CBO.

“I have parents in North Dakota who are 85 and 86. They already have difficulty seeing their doctor. For every doctor that leaves, he takes on 14 times more burden. Rural health care is already extremely difficult. I would expect there will not be a hospital near where my parents live if this bill is signed into law,” said Feist, whose parents live near Minot.

Rural hospitals rely on Medicaid payments. In a last-minute move before Tuesday’s vote, Senate Republicans doubled a fund to $50 billion to subsidize hospitals that will lose funding. Critics say that amount is not enough to fill the gap.

GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted no after voicing concerns over Medicaid cuts.

Nadine Seiler, 60, of Waldorf, Maryland, stood near a press conference by the Congressional Hispanic Conference protesting the bill. Seiler held a large spray-painted sheet above her head with a message on each side: “Free America from Big Bad Bill” and “Coming Soon Freedom in Name Only.”

“I’m concerned about my fellow citizens who are going to be losing Medicaid, food stamps, human health services. People are going to die,” Seiler said.

“And I know Joni Ernst says that we all gonna die, but we gonna die faster and unnecessarily and I care about that.”

Seiler was referring to Sen. Ernst’s response to her Iowa constituents who expressed concern about Medicaid cuts at a town hall on May 30.

SNAP and ICE

Mark Starr sang a protest song he wrote about the “big beautiful bill” as he played guitar and harmonica outside the Longworth House Office Building Wednesday.

The 39-year-old Albuquerque, New Mexico, native told States Newsroom he drove to the capital in late April to begin protesting the bill. He said he’s particularly focused on additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement contained in the package as well as cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides food benefits to low-income households.

“New Mexico is pretty poor, and so if these cuts to SNAP go, kids can go hungry in New Mexico,” Starr said. “It’s just, like, really gonna mess us up, and we’re just one of the many states that will be affected that way.”

New Mexico has one of the highest poverty rates in the nation.

A provision in the bill will shift food assistance costs to state governments for the first time in the federal program’s history. Critics worry that states could tighten eligibility requirements or drop the program because of the financial burden.

The left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates 55,000 teens age 14 and up, and adults up to age 64 could lose food assistance in New Mexico because of the bill’s cuts to state work requirement waivers. Children would remain eligible but households would overall see significantly decreased SNAP dollars.

The CBO found in late May that the House-passed bill would result in over 3 million people nationwide losing food assistance.

Starr said he’s also against additional funding provided for immigration enforcement.

“I think they have enough,” he said, pointing to Trump’s visit to a new detention facility in Florida that the White House is touting as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

The Senate-approved version includes an additional $45 billion for ICE detention facilities and $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement and deportation, among billions more directed toward the Southern border.

Clean energy to take a hit

Tiernan Sittenfeld, of the League of Conservation Voters, huddled just outside the House with a group wearing t-shirts that read “Hands off our air, land and clean energy.”

Sittenfeld, the organization’s senior vice president of government affairs, argues the rollbacks of clean energy tax credits in the Senate version will “kill clean energy jobs.”

“It is bad for our economy. It’s bad for jobs. It’s going to raise people’s energy bills. And of course, it’s bad for the planet,” she said.

Senate Republicans accelerated the phase-out of some residential, manufacturing and production credits at a faster rate than the House bill. A last-minute change loosened the timeline on some tech-neutral energy credits though, and removed a previously added tax on wind and solar projects.

Industry groups and energy companies small and large have warned early termination of the credits will have a major impact on growth.

The tax credits for solar, wind, batteries for energy storage, and electric vehicles, among others, were enacted under Democrats’ own 2022 budget reconciliation bill known as the “Inflation Reduction Act.”

The majority of investment in new clean energy manufacturing and production has been concentrated in rural states and states that elected Trump to his second term, according to data collected since 2022 by the Clean Investment Monitor, a joint project by the Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.

“Any Republican who votes for this legislation is voting against the interest of their constituents, voting to kill jobs in their district, voting to kill clean energy projects, voting to make their constituents’ energy bills go up,” Sittenfeld said.

Far-right House members who as of Wednesday afternoon were withholding their votes maintain the rollbacks on the clean energy tax cuts, which they’ve dubbed the “green new scam,” do not go far enough.

Customs and Border Protection agents question families who have presented themselves at the Paso del Norte bridge to request asylum on May 11, 2023. (Photo by Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Wednesday ruled as unlawful an executive order by President Donald Trump that barred asylum by claiming an “invasion” at the southern border and the need to protect states.

It’s the first major blow to the Trump administration in its attempt to end the ability for asylum seekers to make asylum claims.

“The President cannot adopt an alternative immigration system, which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted,” District of Columbia U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss wrote in his opinion.

“Here, nothing in the (Immigration and Nationality Act) or the Constitution grants the President or his delegees the sweeping authority asserted in the Proclamation and implementing guidance,” continued Moss, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

The order from Moss also prevents the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from enforcing the executive order.

He also agreed to certify a class for potential asylum-seekers, which comes after last week’s Supreme Court ruling that curtailed nationwide injunctions from lower courts. Certifying a class was suggested by the court to give judges an avenue to make an order broader.

Moss put his order on hold for 14 days, to give the Trump administration time to appeal his ruling. If the order is upheld by an appeals court and the Supreme Court, it would require the Trump administration to begin processing asylum applicants for migrants.

“(The executive order) is unlawful insofar as it purports to suspend or to restrict access to asylum, withholding of removal, or the existing regulatory processes for obtaining (Convention Against Torture) protection,” Moss wrote in his order.

Inauguration Day

The asylum order was one of several immigration-related executive orders that Trump signed on the Inauguration Day of his second term. The order proclaimed that the “current situation at the southern border qualifies as an invasion” and barred asylum-seekers from being able to claim asylum.

Trump characterized asylum-seekers seeking entry at the U.S.-Mexico border as an “invasion” and said that the states need “protection,” so the White House would suspend physical entry until the president deemed the “invasion” over.

Encounters at the southern border have been the lowest in several years.

The section Trump cited in his proclamation, section 212(f), is part of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Under that section, the president has the authority to “suspend the entry” of people who are not U.S. citizens under certain circumstances.

Complaint filed in February

The suit from the American Civil Liberties Union and other legal organizations, on behalf of Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, and other immigration legal service providers, argued the executive order unlawfully denies asylum and other humanitarian protections that are “expressly granted by Congress.”

“It is returning asylum seekers—not just single adults, but families too—to countries where they face persecution or torture, without allowing them to invoke the protections Congress has provided,” according to the initial complaint filed in February. “Indeed, the Proclamation does not even exempt unaccompanied children, despite the specific protections such children receive by statute.”

RAICES, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Florence Immigrant And Refugee Rights Project, which provide legal services to immigrants, argued that the proclamation harms the legal aid work of the individual plaintiffs.

Those individual plaintiffs in the suit include people who allege they fled persecution in Afghanistan, Ecuador, Cuba, Egypt, Brazil, Turkey and Peru. Some plaintiffs have either been removed to their home country, or to a third country such as Panama, according to the filing.

The days of generous federal tax credits for electric vehicles may be numbered, and the countdown is moving faster than expected. Lawmakers in the Senate are now pushing to end the $7,500 tax credit for new EV purchases even earlier than previously proposed, potentially phasing it out by September 30, 2025.

Read: Republican Senators Are After Your EV Tax Credit

If the bill passes, the cost of buying a new EV could rise significantly once the credit disappears. And it’s not just new vehicles facing changes. The same Senate budget proposal also targets the $4,000 tax credit for used EVs, which may be eliminated as part of the legislation.

A Rapidly Accelerating Timeline

As we reported in mid-June, President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” first proposed cutting the EV tax credit, and more recently, Republican Senators aimed to axe the EV credit within 180 days of legislation being passed. They also proposed ending the used EV credit within 90 days, and wanted to immediately cancel it for leased vehicles not manufactured in the United States. This timeline could be accelerated.

Now, under the latest revisions, both credits could vanish as soon as late September, less than three months from now. Lawmakers are aiming to finalize the legislation by July 4, so a decision may come sooner than expected.

A Double-Edged Bill for Automakers

If the credits do disappear, it’s likely to affect demand, at least in the short term. Fewer incentives usually mean fewer buyers, and many automakers could see EV sales take a hit. Yet in a somewhat contradictory move, the same bill also proposes eliminating penalties for manufacturers that fall short of federal fuel economy targets. That change could ease regulatory pressure on automakers, potentially softening the financial blow from declining EV sales.

Dealers Ask for a Grace Period

Auto retailers are already bracing for disruption. Speaking with Auto News, the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) urged lawmakers to allow for a smoother transition.

“Dealers are still carrying a high EV inventory with approximately 140,000 EVs currently on dealer lots,” NADA said. “If EV tax credits are going to be repealed, NADA urges Congress to include a reasonable transition period.”

Even if the final cutoff date shifts slightly, it’s increasingly likely that both new and used EV credits will disappear before the end of 2025. So if you’re thinking about buying or leasing an electric vehicle, you may want to move sooner rather than later.

Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, John Thune of South Dakota, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Lindsey Graham of South Dakota speak to reporters after passage of their sweeping tax break and spending cut bill on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans approved their signature tax break and spending cuts package Tuesday with a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President JD Vance, following days of tense, closed-door negotiations that went until the few last minutes of a marathon amendment voting session.

The 51-50 mostly party-line vote sends the legislation back to the House, where GOP leaders hope to clear the bill for President Donald Trump’s signature this week. But frustrations throughout the conference over changes made in the Senate could delay or even block final approval. 

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted against approving the legislation over concerns it would not benefit the country’s finances or Republican voters.

Changes made in final negotiations were not immediately clear or publicly available.

Majority Leader John Thune said the passage marked “a historic day.”

“We’re very excited to be a part of something that is going to make America stronger, safer and more prosperous, and it really starts with the agenda that President Trump laid out when he was running last year.

“He talked about modernizing our military, securing our borders, restoring energy dominance in this country, bringing tax relief to working families and low income taxpayers in this country, and doing something about the runaway, spiraling spending and debt,” the South Dakota Republican said minutes after the vote.

“So this was an incredible victory for the American people, and we as a team are delighted to be a part of it.”

The bill now heads back to the House. The chamber’s Committee on Rules is expected to meet Tuesday afternoon, which will be the final stop for the bill before it reaches the House floor.

Thune said he believes Senate Republicans have given the House “a really strong product.”

“I think we took what they sent us and strengthened and improved upon it. And so I’m hopeful that now, when it gets sent over there, as they deliberate about how they want to handle it, we’ll find the votes that are necessary to pass it and want to put it on the president’s desk,” he said.

Trump praised the Senate’s passage on his Truth Social media platform, saying “Almost all of our Great Republicans in the United States Senate have passed our ‘ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL.’”

He added: “We can have all of this right now, but only if the House GOP UNITES, ignores its occasional “GRANDSTANDERS” (You know who you are!), and does the right thing, which is sending this Bill to my desk. We are on schedule — Let’s keep it going, and be done before you and your family go on a July 4th vacation.”

Several House conservatives have railed against the Senate version, including Reps. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and others.

House Speaker Mike Johnson issued a joint statement with House Republican leaders saying the chamber “will work quickly to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill that enacts President Trump’s full America First agenda by the Fourth of July. The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay.”

“Republicans were elected to do exactly what this bill achieves: secure the border, make tax cuts permanent, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength, cut wasteful spending, and return to a government that puts Americans first,” the Louisiana Republican said in the statement that included House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota and conference chair Lisa McClain of Michigan.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski , whose support had been unclear until the vote, and Majority Whip John Barrasso, of Wyoming, left the chamber to catch an elevator together just after 9:30 a.m. Eastern.

Asked if the bill was in the hands of the parliamentarian, Murkowski quipped, “I think it’s in the hands of the people that operate the coffee machine.”

Barrasso said “Yes” when asked if it would pass this morning.

Murkowski: ‘difficult and agonizing legislative 24-hour period’

Flooded by reporters after the vote, Murkowski said “we do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination.”

“My hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet, and I would hope that we would be able to actually do what we used to do around here, which is work back and forth in the two bodies to get a measure that’s gonna be better for the people in this country and more particularly, for the people in Alaska,” she said.

“This is probably the most difficult and agonizing legislative 24-hour period that I have encountered, and I’ve been here quite a while, and you all know I’ve got a few battle scars underneath me,” Murkowski added. “But I think I held my head up and made sure that the people of Alaska are not forgotten in this, but I think that there is more that needs to be done, and I’m not done.”

“I am gonna take a nap, though,” she said.

When asked about Murkowski’s decision to vote for the bill, Thune said, “She, as you know, is a very independent thinker and somebody who studies the issues really, really hard and well. And I’m just grateful that at the end of the day, she included what the rest of us did, or at least most of the rest of us did, and that is that this was the right direction for the future of our country.”

Democrats react

Senate Democrats walking off the floor seemed somber, a sentiment that Senate Leader Chuck Schumer said also extended to Republicans after the bill’s passage.

“On the Republican side, when the bill passed, there was a bit of somberness that I don’t think was expected, and that’s because they knew deep in their hearts how bad this bill is for them, their states and the Republican Party,” Schumer said.

“When people start losing their Medicaid, when they start losing their jobs, when their electric bills go up, when their premiums go up, when kids and parents lose SNAP funding, the people of America will remember this vote,” the New York Democrat continued.

Criticism poured in from others as well, including the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which likened the Senate’s bill passage to jumping “off a budget cliff.”

“The level of blatant disregard we just witnessed for our nation’s fiscal condition and budget process is a failure of responsible governing. These are the very same lawmakers who for years have bemoaned the nation’s massive debt, voting to put another $4 trillion on the credit card,” the organization’s president Maya MacGuineas said in a statement.

CRFB estimates the Senate version of the bill would add $600 billion to the national deficit just in 2027.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a calculation Sunday showing the bill would add $3.25 trillion to deficits over 10 years.

Trump weighs in ahead of vote

Trump told reporters on Tuesday morning before leaving for a Florida visit to the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention site that “it’s very complicated stuff” when asked about Senate Republicans’ debate over spending cuts.

“We’re going to have to see the final version. I don’t want to go too crazy with cuts. I don’t like cuts. There are certain things that have been cut, which is good. I think we’re doing well,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to see, it’s some very complicated stuff. Great enthusiasm as you know. And I think in the end we’re going to have it.”

The heart of the nearly 1,000-page legislation extends and expands the 2017 tax law to keep individual income tax rates at the same level and makes permanent some tax breaks on business investments and research and development costs.

The bill would also put in motion some of Trump’s campaign promises, including no tax on qualifying tips, overtime or car loan interest, but only for a few years.

And it slashes spending on the Medicaid program for low-income people and some people with disabilities as well as shifting significant costs of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to states for the first time. It also overhauls federal education aid.

It would also bolster spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, including line items for the “golden dome” missile defense system and additional barriers along the southern border.

The measure would provide a substantial funding increase for federal immigration enforcement for detention and removal of people without permanent legal status, aiding the president in carrying out his campaign promise of mass deportations.

The Senate version of the bill also would revive the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act fund, a bipartisan measure championed by Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. The fund provides money to victims of certain types of cancer and surviving family members in several states affected by the United States atomic bomb testing program and radioactive waste left behind. 

Uranium miners would also be eligible under the measure. While reviving the fund has received wide bipartisan approval in the Senate, the House has not shown the same support.

The Senate bill would raise the debt limit by $5 trillion, a figure designed to get Congress past next year’s midterm elections before the country would once again bump up against the borrowing limit.

On to the House

House approval is far from guaranteed.

Johnson can only lose four Republicans if all lawmakers in that chamber attend the vote. Several GOP members have voiced frustration with how the Senate has reworked the legislation, signaling an uphill climb for the bill.

House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith said as he left the Senate cloakroom just after 9:20 a.m. Eastern that lawmakers are “getting closer to a bill signing on July Fourth.”

“If you followed this journey over the last six months, over and over, people said that we could not accomplish a budget (reconciliation bill). We did. They said we would never pass it out of the House. We did. The Senate is going to pass it. The House is going to pass it, and the president’s going to sign it into law,” the Missouri Republican said.

Three amendments succeed

The Senate had adopted three amendments to the bill following an all-night amendment voting session, known as a vote-a-rama.

Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn was able to remove language from the package that would have blocked state and local governments from regulating artificial intelligence for five years if they wanted access to a $500 million fund. That vote was 99-1 with only North Carolina’s Tillis voting to keep the language in the package.

Blackburn said the change was necessary because lawmakers in Congress have “proven that they cannot legislate on emerging technology.”

Senators approved an amendment from Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst by voice vote that would disqualify “anyone making a million dollars or more from being eligible for unemployment income support.”

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy was able to get an amendment adopted by a voice vote that would move up the date when Medicaid administrators must begin checking the Social Security Administration’s death master file to determine if a new enrollee is alive before adding them to the health program. It was set to begin on Jan. 1, 2028, but will now begin one year earlier.

Senators rejected dozens of amendments offered by both Democrats and Republicans, some of which deadlocked on 50-50 votes. Maine’s Collins and Alaska’s Murkowski broke with their party several times to vote with Democrats.

National private school voucher program

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono tried to eliminate a sweeping private school voucher program that’s baked into the reconciliation package, but that vote failed 50-50. Collins, Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer and Murkowski voted in support.

The original proposal called for $4 billion a year in tax credits beginning in 2027 for people donating to organizations that provide private and religious school scholarships.

But the parliamentarian last week deemed the program to not comply with the “Byrd Bath,” a Senate process named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd, forcing senators to rework the program.

Details on the finalized version of the program remain unknown as the final bill text has not been released.   

Safety funding for Virginia airport across from D.C.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner tried to add language to the bill that would have increased safety funding for airports near Washington, D.C., and established a memorial for the victims who died in a crash this January. The vote failed on a tied 50-50 vote, with Collins, Kansas GOP Sen. Jerry Moran and Murkowski voting with Democrats in support.

“Colleagues, we all know that on January 29 of this year, 67 individuals lost their lives when a military helicopter and a passenger jet collided near Reagan National Airport. This tragedy underscores the need for more safety improvements at National Airport,” Warner said. “The reconciliation bill increases, actually doubles, the amount of rent that National and Dulles pay the government but doesn’t use any of that money to make those airports and the people who use them any safer.”

He argued there was “no good rationale for increasing those rents and not using them for aviation safety.”

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz spoke against Warner’s amendment, saying the rents for the two airports in Virginia near the nation’s capital haven’t been updated in decades.

“The federal government originally calculated the rent in 1987 at $7.5 million dollars, massively below market rates,” Cruz said. “This bill increases that to $15 million, still dramatically below market rates.”

Cruz — chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation — said the legislation includes $12.5 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration to “transform the air traffic control system” and said his panel is looking into the collision in order to prevent something similar from happening again. 

Trump budget director’s office targeted

Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen also got within one vote of having an amendment adopted when he tried to remove a section from the bill that would increase funding for the White House budget office by $100 million.

“This is at a time when (Federal Emergency Management Agency) grants to many of our states have been canceled, grants for law enforcement have been frozen, grants for victims of crimes are on hold,” Van Hollen said. “That is not efficiency. That is creating chaos and uncertainty. And I ask my colleagues, why in the world would we want to send another $100 million to OMB?”

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson opposed the efforts, saying “the Office of Management and Budget needs to identify budgeting and accounting efficiencies in the executive branch. They need the resources to do it.”

The amendment was not added to the bill following another tied 50-50 vote with Collins, Murkowski and Paul voting with Democrats in favor.

Had GOP leadership wanted either of those proposals added to the package, they could have had Vance break the tie, but they did not.

Collins loses vote on rural hospital fund

Maine’s Collins tried to get an amendment added to the legislation that would have increased “funding for the rural health care provider fund to $50 billion dollars and expand the list of eligible providers to include not only rural hospitals but also community health centers, nursing homes, ambulance services, skilled nursing facilities and others.”

Collins said the additional $25 billion in funding for the fund would be paid for by “a modest increase in the top marginal tax rate, equal to the pre-2017 rate for individuals with income above $25 million and married couples with income above $50 million.”

Collins’ amendment was subject to a Senate procedural limit known as a budget point of order. She was unable to get the votes needed to waive that on a 22-78 vote.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden spoke against Collins’ proposal, calling it “flawed,” and introduced the budget point of order against her amendment.

“The danger Senate Republicans are causing for rural hospitals is so great, Republicans have had to create a rural hospital relief fund so they can look like they are fixing the problem they are causing,” Wyden said. “It is a Band-Aid on an amputation. It provides just a tiny fraction of the nearly $1 trillion in cuts the bill makes to Medicaid. It would be much more logical to simply not cut $1 trillion from Medicaid in the first place.”

Collins received a mix of support from Republicans, including West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, Utah’s John Curtis, Nebraska’s Fischer, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, Ohio’s Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno, Mississippi’s Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker, Louisiana’s Kennedy, Kansans Roger Marshall and Moran, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Alaskans Dan Sullivan and Murkowski and Indiana’s Todd Young.

Also voting to waive the point of order and move forward with the amendment were Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and Virginia’s Warner, all Democrats, and independent Maine Sen. Angus King. 

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., talks to reporters as he walks to the Senate Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on June 25, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis announced Sunday he won’t seek reelection when his term ends next year, opening up a seat that will become central to control of Congress during next year’s midterms.

Tillis’ announcement came just hours after he voted against moving forward with Republicans’ tax and spending cuts package, eliciting a wave of criticism on social media from President Donald Trump.

Tillis wrote in a statement that it “has been a blessing to go on a journey from living in a trailer park and making minimum wage as a young man to having the honor of serving as U.S. Senator for North Carolina.”

His proudest accomplishments, he wrote, were the “bipartisan victories,” including “working across the aisle in the Senate to pass the largest investment in mental health in American history, passing the Respect for Marriage Act and monumental infrastructure investments, and reestablishing the Senate NATO Observer Group.

“Sometimes those bipartisan initiatives got me into trouble with my own party, but I wouldn’t have changed a single one.”

Tillis wrote he looks “forward to continuing to serve North Carolina over the next 18 months. I look forward to solely focusing on producing meaningful results without the distraction of raising money or campaigning for another election. I look forward to having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit and representing the great people of North Carolina to the best of my ability.”

Targeted by Trump over vote

Tills’ announcement followed several hectic days on Capitol Hill, where GOP leaders sought to sway him to support the party’s “big, beautiful bill,” though he ultimately voted against advancing the tax and spending cut legislation toward final passage on Saturday night.

That vote elicited a torrent of rebuke from Trump on social media.

“Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the Primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis,” Trump wrote in one post. ‘I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks, looking for someone who will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina and, so importantly, the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Tillis, 64, became a member of the state House of Representatives in 2007 before rising to become speaker in 2011. He held that position until 2014, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Tillis secured reelection in 2020 with 48.7% of the vote compared to his Democratic opponent’s 46.9%. The two were separated by fewer than 96,000 votes out of more than 5.2 million cast.

His term will officially expire in January 2027, but the contest to replace him is expected to begin quickly.

2026 election

Republicans will want whoever emerges from their primary well positioned to fend off a general election challenge. Democrats will be just as focused on the state as they look to regain control of the Senate following the 2026 midterm elections.

Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate and while the map is highly favorable to the GOP, Democrats are expected to spend a considerable amount of time and money trying to flip seats.

North Carolina and Maine are the two most likely pick-up opportunities for Democrats and an open seat in North Carolina could help them a bit. But Democrats still face long odds to flip other seats in deeply red states like Alabama, Florida, Montana and West Virginia.

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter had rated both Maine and North Carolina as leaning toward Republican wins next year, though its analysts moved North Carolina into the “toss-up” category a few hours after the Tillis retirement announcement.

Jessica Taylor, the Senate and Governors editor for CPR, wrote that Tillis’ retirement “officially makes the Tar Heel State Democrats’ top pickup opportunity.”

“The vulnerability of this seat, however, does not alter the overall Senate math for 2026,” Taylor added. “Even if Democrats were to win here in 2026, they’d still need to flip three more seats, including at least two in deep red states, in order to win a bare majority.”

Democrats not only need to pick up several seats to regain control of the Senate but will need to defend an open seat in Michigan and Sen. Jon Ossoff’s seat in deeply red Georgia.

The Cook Political Report rates both Georgia and Michigan as “toss-up races.”

Campaign committees react

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., wrote in a statement he expects North Carolina will stay red following the midterms. 

“President Trump has won North Carolina three times, and the state’s been represented by two Republican Senators for over a decade,” Scott wrote. “That streak will continue in 2026 when North Carolinians elect a conservative leader committed to advancing an agenda of opportunity, prosperity, and security.”

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Maeve Coyle released a written statement just minutes after the announcement that “Tillis’ decision not to run for reelection is another blow to Republicans’ chances as they face a midterm backlash that puts their majority at risk.

“Even Tillis admits the GOP plan to slash Medicaid and spike costs for families is toxic — and in 2026, Democrats will flip North Carolina’s Senate seat.”

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said during an interview with NC Newsline just a few days before Tillis’ announcement that the state represented “one of our best pickup opportunities in the Senate” in 2026.

Martin said he had spoken with former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper about potentially running for the Senate seat.

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, June 28, 2025. Hawley said he will vote for the budget reconciliation measure after a rural hospital fund was added. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate voted mostly along party lines late Saturday night to move forward with Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” that President Donald Trump wants on his desk in less than a week, after a dramatic three-hour pause when several GOP senators withheld their votes.

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina  and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against moving forward with the sweeping tax break and spending cuts package that contains many of the GOP’s campaign promises. All Democrats were opposed. Vice President JD Vance came to the Capitol in case a tie-breaking vote was required, but in the end was not needed.

Tillis, who is up for reelection in 2026, had told reporters earlier that he would vote “no” on what is called a motion to proceed and on final passage. 

He said in a statement the legislation would result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina and force the state to make “painful decisions” about Medicaid. Trump in a post on social media later threatened to find primary candidates to challenge Tillis.

The 51-49 vote doesn’t guarantee the bill will make it through a final passage vote but does make it significantly more likely, even with Republicans’ narrow 53-47 majority.

The procedural vote kicked off a maximum of 20 hours of floor debate on the bill, with half of that time controlled by Democrats and the other half by Republicans — though Democrats after the motion to proceed vote forced a reading of the giant bill expected to take as long as 15 hours. That would mean floor debate would not begin until sometime Sunday.

Unlike regular bills, budget reconciliation packages are not subject to the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, so as long as at least 50 Republicans support the package, and Vance casts the tie-breaking vote if needed, the measure will go back to the House.

The vote on the motion to proceed that began at about 7:30 p.m. Eastern was held open for more than three hours, with the votes of four senators in suspense — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mike Lee of Utah, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Rick Scott of Florida. All four eventually voted aye and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson switched his vote to aye after earlier voting against the measure.

Lee, however, just before the vote was over, announced he had pulled from the bill an extremely controversial proposal to sell some public lands that was opposed by other lawmakers from the West. He said because of the process being used for the bill, he was unable to obtain enforceable safeguards to ensure the land would be sold to American families and not China or foreign interests.

The latest version of the measure had set up the Interior Department to sell at least 600,000 acres of public land and up to 1.2 million acres of public land within 10 years, advocates said.

Critics, including hunters, anglers and other Western state constituents, have ripped the measure as a “land grab,” as put by Jennifer Rokala, executive director for the Center for Western Priorities.

A summary of the provisions by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee said the Bureau of Land Management “must sell a minimum of 0.25% and a maximum of 0.50% of their estate for housing and associated community needs. This will increase the supply of housing and decrease housing costs for millions of American families.”

Golfing with Trump

Senate GOP leaders released new bill text just before midnight Friday that satisfied rural state lawmakers’ worries about financial threats to rural hospitals posed by cuts in Medicaid. The bill also addresses concerns by Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska about access to food assistance for their constituents despite new restrictions on a USDA program for low-income people.

As talks continued on Capitol Hill Saturday afternoon, a handful of Senate Republicans, including Missouri’s Eric Schmitt and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, were on the golf course with Trump, according to the White House. Graham said on social media that Kentucky’s Paul also played.

Senate Democrats said a fresh financial analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the preliminary Senate text would result in $930 billion in cuts to Medicaid, the joint federal-state low-income health insurance and disability assistance program.

The CBO score was not yet publicly available but Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Finance, pointed to it and slammed the Medicaid provisions as “cruel” in a statement Saturday afternoon. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, also cited the preliminary analysis, pointing to the nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.

Collins promises amendments

Senate Republicans planned to take their negotiations to the floor and push for amendments after the procedural vote that triggered official debate on the bill, which in its current public version runs 940 pages.

GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who voiced concerns throughout negotiations about rural hospitals and health cuts that would harm low-income individuals, said her vote on the motion to proceed “does not predict my vote on final passage.”

“I will be filing a number of amendments,” she told reporters as she headed into a closed-door working lunch before the Senate convened at 2 p.m. Eastern.

While Sen. Tim Sheehy wrote on social media Saturday afternoon that he was a “no” on the motion to proceed because of a provision to sell off federal public lands, the Montana Republican changed his mind nearly an hour later and declared he would propose an amendment to strip the provision — which was later removed by its sponsor.

GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma painted somewhat of a rosier picture of the mood in the Senate, telling reporters “we’re good.”

“We won’t bring it to the floor if we don’t have the votes,” said Mullin, who was the lead negotiator with House Republicans on state and local tax deductions, or SALT — a sticking point for Republicans who represent high-tax blue states like New York and California.

The lawmakers settled on a $40,000 deduction through 2029 for taxpayers who earn up to $500,000 annually. The level then reverts to $10,000, the current limit under the 2017 tax law.

Medicaid turmoil

Proposed changes to Medicaid have been strongly resisted by rural medical providers who say they are already financially strapped.

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley told reporters Saturday he would be a “yes” on both the motion to proceed vote and the final bill based on the new rural hospital “transformation program” Senate leadership included in the bill overnight. The measure has yet to be finalized.

The bill’s new version includes $25 billion in a stabilization fund for rural hospitals from 2028 through 2032. The amount is frontloaded to give more of the funds in the first two years.

Critics warn that amount will not fill the financial gaps that rural medical providers will face from losing a sizable portion of federal funding via Medicaid cuts.

While Hawley called the fund a “win” for Missouri over the next several years, he said his party needs to do some “soul searching” over the “unhappy episode” of wrangling over Medicaid cuts.

“If you want to be a working-class party, you’ve got to deliver for working-class people. You cannot take away health care for working people,” he said.

Senators had not yet agreed on other Medicaid provisions as of Saturday afternoon, including a phase-down of the provider tax rate from 6% to a possible 3.5% that’s become hugely controversial.

States use a combination of general revenues, provider tax revenues and in some cases local contributions to fund their Medicaid programs.

Advocates warn that it’s not a guarantee states would be able to backfill the lost revenue, and if they can’t, provider rate cuts and losses of benefits for patients could be on the horizon.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the House version’s provider tax changes — not as deep as the current Senate proposal — could lead to 400,000 people losing Medicaid benefits.

A full and final financial score for the Senate bill is not yet out as the several provisions remain up in the air.

Hawley also praised the inclusion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act fund, or RECA, that revives payments for survivors and victims who suffered cancer as a result of U.S. atomic bomb testing and radioactive waste dumps.

Clean energy tax credits

In what clean power advocates dubbed a “midnight dumping,” Senate GOP leadership added language to accelerate the phase out of clean energy tax credits that were enacted under Democrats’ own massive mega-bill in 2022 titled the “Inflation Reduction Act.”

The language, which wasn’t yet finalized by Senate GOP tax writers as of 6 p.m. Eastern Saturday, tightened restrictions on foreign components in wind and solar projects — and added a new tax on those that don’t comply.

Senators largely targeted wind and solar credits, ending them for projects not plugged into the electricity grid by 2028. Additionally credits for wind turbine manufacturers would terminate in 2028.

Other tax credits would be phased out at a faster pace, including those for the production of critical minerals, though a credit for metallurgical coal, used in steelmaking, was added in.

Clean energy industry manufacturers and small businesses had hoped Senate Republicans would ease up rollbacks in the House version.

Kurt Neutgens, president and chief technology officer of Orange EV, told States Newsroom in an interview Friday that any further rollbacks would amount to “cutting our legs out from underneath us.”

Neutgens, whose Kansas City, Kansas-based company manufactures heavy duty electric trucks and chargers, was watching for changes to credits to the commercial clean vehicles credit. New Senate GOP text would terminate the credit in September of this year.

Jason Grumet, president of the Clean Power Association, said in a statement Saturday that imposing new taxes on the industry “will strand hundreds of billions of dollars in current investments, threaten energy security, and undermine growth in domestic manufacturing and land hardest on rural communities who would have been the greatest beneficiaries of clean energy investment.”

Alaska carve-outs

Proposed cuts to federal food assistance remained largely unchanged in the new text released Friday night except for a few carve-outs for Alaska.

If the bill were enacted as written, Alaska’s state government could request a waiver for its citizens from stricter work reporting requirements that critics say will result in some SNAP recipients losing their food benefits.

GOP lawmakers also slightly shifted the timeline for when states will have to begin shouldering SNAP costs — the first time states will be on the hook for the federal food assistance outside of administrative costs.

States would be required to pick up a portion of the costs depending on their “payment error rate” — meaning how accurate states are at determining who needs SNAP, including both overpayments and underpayments.

States that have error rates at 6% or above would responsible for up to 15% of the food program’s cost. According to SNAP error rate data for 2023, the latest available, only seven states had an error rate below 6%.

The new text delays the cost-sharing for states until 2028 and allows states to choose the lesser of their two error rates in either 2025 or 2026.

Starting in 2029, states will be required to use their error rate from three years prior to the current year.

The new text includes the option for Alaska and Hawaii to waive their cost share burden for up to two years if their governments implement an improvement plan. In 2023, Alaska had the highest payment error rate of all states, reaching just above 60%. 

Advocates for low-income families worry the cost, which will amount to billions for most state governments, will incentivize states to tighten eligibility requirements for the program, or even drop SNAP altogether.

The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the cuts will affect up to 40 million people who receive basic SNAP assistance, including 16 million children and 8 million seniors.

The Senate bill would also increase a state’s share of administrative costs for the program to 75%, up from the previous 50% cost-sharing responsibility with the federal government.

Despite inaccurate public statements from Republicans as recently as in a bill summary released overnight, the bill does nothing to limit food assistance to immigrants without documentation because SNAP was never available to them.

SNAP benefits will remain available to legal permanent residents, and Republicans loosened some language to allow certain immigrants from Cuba or Haiti to access the program.

But if the bill passes, federal food assistance will not be available to refugees and asylees who are already in the U.S. — for example, people from Afghanistan, Ukraine and other war-torn places.

Education revisions

Republicans on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions revised or scrapped several measures that the parliamentarian deemed to not comply with the “Byrd Bath,” a Senate process named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd, according to a summary and new bill text out Friday.

Under the revised text, for any loans made starting July 1, 2026, borrowers will have only two repayment plan options: a standard repayment plan and an income-driven repayment plan. The original proposal would have applied these restrictions to existing borrowers, but the parliamentarian struck that down.

Republicans also nixed a proposal that opened up the Pell Grant — a government subsidy that helps low-income students pay for college — to institutions that are not accredited.

The new plan also scraps a restriction that barred payments made by students enrolled in a medical or dental internship or residency program from counting toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

‘Even worse than any draft’

Senate Democrats remain united in opposition to the bill and are expected to slow down final passage by introducing numerous amendments on the floor during what is called the vote-a-rama.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer continued to rally against the package during remarks on the Senate floor Saturday afternoon, saying it’s “hard to believe this bill is worse — even worse — than any draft we’ve seen this far.”

The New York Democrat said “it’s worse on health care, it’s worse on SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), it’s worse on the deficit.”

Schumer added that “if Republicans proceed, Senate Democrats will hold them to account.”

“We’ll gear up for another night of vote-a-rama very soon. We’ll expose this bill piece by piece. We will show how it cuts health care, raises costs, rewards the ultra rich.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities condemned the cuts to safety net programs as “all in service to tax cuts that are heavily skewed toward the wealthy and corporations.”

“None of this harm has anything to do with fiscal responsibility: our deficits and debts would soar under this bill,” said Sharon Parrott, the think tank’s president, in a statement Saturday.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan watchdog, released a new analysis Saturday finding the Senate version will add roughly $4 trillion to the national deficit over 10 years.

“If you thought the House bill borrowed too much — and it did — the Senate manages to make things even worse,” CRFB’s president Maya MacGuineas said in a statement.

House action

Senate Republicans have spent more than a month rewriting the bills that make up the measure in order to meet the strict rules for moving a budget reconciliation package and to earn support from enough Republicans to actually pass the legislation.

The lawmakers have been struggling to maintain spending cuts passed by House Republicans that will pay for the nearly $4 trillion price tag for extending and expanding the 2017 tax cuts.

The House voted 215-214 to approve its 11-bill version of the package in May. Many of that chamber’s GOP lawmakers hoped the Senate wouldn’t change much, though that hasn’t been the case.

The Senate has modified numerous proposals, including those addressing tax law; Medicaid; and SNAP. The Senate bill also raises the country’s debt limit by $5 trillion, a full $1 trillion more than the House version.

The revisions have led to concerns among both centrist House GOP lawmakers and far-right members of the party, muddying the waters around whether Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., can cobble together the votes needed to clear the package for Trump’s signature.

Republicans hold a 220-212 majority in the House, so leaders there can only lose four members if all of the chamber’s lawmakers are present and voting.

Trump has encouraged Congress to approve the legislation before the Fourth of July, but with time running short and some tempers rising over how the legislation will impact the country’s deficits, that might not be possible.

“The Great Republicans in the U.S. Senate are working all weekend to finish our ‘ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’,” Trump posted on social media Friday.

“The House of Representatives must be ready to send it to my desk before July 4th — We can get it done,” he added. “It will be a wonderful Celebration for our Country, which is right now, ‘The Hottest Country anywhere in the World’ — And to think, just last year, we were a laughingstock. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on May 7, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Republicans cannot exempt gun silencers, short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns from being classified as firearms under a federal gun regulation law from the 1930s, according to the Senate parliamentarian’s latest ruling on the “big, beautiful bill.”

The provision addressing silencers, also called suppressors, was added to the House’s version of the bill by Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde. The Senate Finance Committee expanded it, adding in the other two classifications.

Also out of the bill is a sweeping private school voucher program that would have extended billions a year in tax credits to parents who move their children out of public schools.

The rulings mean those sections now will be dropped from the Senate version of the tax and spending cut measure, or rewritten in a way that meets the rules. 

Friday morning’s disclosure of the latest parliamentary ruling came as the Senate continues to struggle with the massive legislation, which GOP leaders in Congress want to pass in time for a self-imposed Fourth of July deadline for President Donald Trump’s signature.

The Senate will likely stay in session throughout the weekend and possibly into early next week to finish negotiations on provisions and release the final text, take a procedural vote, debate the bill, hold a marathon amendment voting session and then vote on final passage.

The House, which is scheduled to be in recess all next week for the holiday, is expected to return to Capitol Hill about two days after the Senate approves the bill to clear the legislation for Trump’s signature.

Gun silencer debate in House

Clyde said during floor debate in May that because silencers were included in the National Firearms Act, they were also subject to a $200 tax that he argued violates people’s Second Amendment rights.

“Under the law, they are firearms and therefore are protected by another law enacted in 1791 called the Second Amendment of our beloved Constitution,” Clyde said. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and neither shall it be taxed.”

Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost spoke out against the House provision during floor debate, saying that during mass shootings, “silencers make it harder to identify and respond to the source of the gunshots.

“Earlier, I put forth an amendment to strip this tax cut for the gun lobby, and House Republicans wouldn’t even let it come up for a vote.”

Frost said that during 2023, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “recovered over 400 silencers from violent crime scenes. For this reason, silencers have been highly regulated for nearly 100 years.”

Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., released a statement Friday following the parliamentarian’s ruling, saying it eliminated Republicans’ “scheme to eliminate background checks, registrations and other safety measures that apply to easily-concealed firearms and gun silencers.”

“It’s no surprise that Republicans will jump at any opportunity to please the gun lobby by rolling back gun safety measures, but that kind of policy does not belong in a reconciliation bill,” Wyden wrote.

Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the committee has been going back and forth with the parliamentarian on how to rework other provisions deemed noncompliant to get them into the final bill.

A summary of the provision from Crapo’s office says it would have resulted “in the elimination of the transfer and manufacturing tax on these devices” and preempted “certain state or local licensing or registration requirements which are determined by reference to the National Firearms Act by treating anyone who acquires or possesses these rifles, shotguns, or other weapons in compliance with federal statute to be in compliance with the state or local registration or licensing requirements.”

Private school vouchers scrapped

The parliamentarian struck down the private school voucher program tucked into the Senate Finance Committee’s portion of the package, marking a significant blow to Trump’s and congressional Republicans’ school choice push.

The umbrella term “school choice” centers on alternative programs to a student’s assigned public school. Though advocates say school choice programs are necessary for parents dissatisfied with their local public schools, critics argue these efforts drain critical funds and resources from school districts.

The committee proposed $4 billion a year in tax credits beginning in 2027 for people donating to organizations that provide private and religious school scholarships.

The tax credit provision mirrored a bill that GOP lawmakers — Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana along with Reps. Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Burgess Owens of Utah — reintroduced in their respective chambers earlier this year.

Immigration

Several provisions to reshape how immigrants apply for asylum were struck down by the parliamentarian Friday.

Those provisions would have required a $1,000 fee for an immigrant to apply for asylum – something that is currently free to people fleeing harm or persecution – and imposed a $5,000 fee for someone to sponsor an unaccompanied minor.

Some of the provisions would have added extra fees to immigration courts, which are already facing a historic backlog of millions of cases, for a mandatory $100 fee to continue a case.

The parliamentarian also struck out a policy that would have extended quick deportations, known as expedited removal, to immigrants arrested for a crime regardless of legal status.

Expedited removal is a deportation tool used to swiftly remove an immigrant near a U.S. border without appearing before an immigration judge. The Trump administration has already expanded its use of expedited removal to include the interior of the U.S., rather than just at borders such as Mexico and Canada.

State and local tax

Senate Republicans were still wrangling Friday afternoon over the amount of state and local taxes, or SALT, that taxpayers can deduct from their federal tax bills. House Republicans who represent high-tax blue states are pressuring their counterparts in the Senate to agree on a $40,000 deduction cap for taxpayers who earn up to $500,000 annually.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent briefly stepped out of closed-door negotiations to brief reporters, telling them a deal was “very, very close.”

The handful of House Republicans who represent blue states, including New York and California, carry a lot of leverage over final passage of the bill because of the party’s razor-thin margin in the House.

Reconciliation process

Republicans are moving their sweeping tax and spending cuts bill through Congress using a special process called budget reconciliation that comes with complex rules in the Senate.

The chamber’s parliamentarian combs through the bill, hears from Republicans and from Democrats before determining whether each provision has an impact on spending, revenue, or the debt limit.

There are several other aspects to the Byrd rule, named for former West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, including that a provision cannot have a “merely incidental” impact on the federal ledger. Reconciliation bills also cannot touch Social Security.

The parliamentarian has ruled several other provisions in the GOP mega-bill don’t comply with the guardrails for a reconciliation bill, though some committees have been able to rework certain policy changes to fit.

Republicans chose to move the bill through reconciliation because it allows them to get around the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, which typically forces bipartisan negotiations on major legislation. 

The process is time-consuming and opaque, but Republican leaders in Congress are still pushing forward with their self-imposed Fourth of July goal.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 24: New York mayoral candidate, State Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-NY) speaks to supporters during an election night gathering on June 24, 2025. Mamdani was announced as the winner of the Democratic nomination for mayor in a crowded field in the City’s mayoral primary to choose a successor to Mayor Eric Adams, who is running for re-election on an independent ticket. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

The run-away success of 33-year-old Democratic Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayor’s race shook the political establishment across the country. In Wisconsin, where Democrats are hoping to regain control of at least one legislative chamber in 2026, and where Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has not yet announced whether he’ll seek a third term, Mamdani’s overthrow of the uninspiring establishment candidate and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo should trigger some serious thinking about how Democrats win in the Donald Trump era, and who they represent.

On Wednesday, the morning after the New York City primary, the Republican Party of Wisconsin put out a press release attempting to connect Mamdani to Rebecca Cooke, the Democrat planning to run in a rematch race against U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District. The through-line between Mamdani and Cooke is that Sen. Bernie Sanders has endorsed both candidates. The Wisconsin GOP seized on what it saw as a political opportunity to defend Van Orden in a statement bashing “radical Rebecca” and asking: “Does Democrat political operative Rebecca Cooke agree with her fellow Bernie endorsed candidate on his radical positions? … Keep in mind, President Trump carried WI-03 by 8 points just last year.”

Cooke, contrary to Republican campaign propaganda, is a middle-of-the-road Democrat who earned the endorsement of the Blue Dog Coalition, the most conservative Democratic group in the U.S. House. She certainly agrees with Mamdani that the housing crisis and high prices are key issues for working class voters, but she’s unlikely to support his bolder proposals like publicly owned grocery stores. And Wisconsin Republicans are wrong to think they can easily beat Democrats by accusing them of being “radical” and tying them to Mamdani and Bernie Sanders.

The real radical in the 3rd Congressional District is Van Orden, a MAGA diehard who voted to take away medical care and nutrition assistance from his own constituents, and who likes to make a spectacle of himself, yelling at pages in the U.S. Capitol and mocking Democrats who expressed grief after the assassination of a state legislator in Minnesota.

It seems likely that by 2026, when the “big, beautiful” destruction of public goods from Medicaid to the Forest Service to infrastructure and education to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy have begun to bite, voters will have had more than enough of that brand of radicalism.

Wisconsin voters have a strong independent streak. 

Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primary here by 13.5 percentage points. Sanders’ anti-establishment, progressive populist message resonated particularly strongly with voters in the 3rd District, in the same counties that ultimately went for Donald Trump that year and again in 2024. 

As Democrats in our swing state try to figure out how to win again, they should take a lesson from the voters in New York City who rejected the arrogant and deeply compromised Cuomo and chose an inspiring progressive populist, catapulting him to leadership of a new generation of Democrats. 

That doesn’t mean Mamdani would win in the 3rd District, or that he’s the model for Democratic candidates everywhere. But it does say something that he triumphed over his detractors from both political parties despite their money and clout, by connecting directly with voters who were worried about housing and high prices. Like both Sanders and Trump, Mamdani presented an alternative to the political establishment and listened actively to voters’ actual concerns. He bravely stood up to big money and stale conventional wisdom. He recognized the urgency of the moment. He leveraged the enthusiasm of young people and beleaguered working people who feel overlooked. He inspired people. He was a breath of fresh air.

What does that mean for Wisconsin? 

This week the latest Marquette Poll reported that 55% of voters don’t want Evers to run for a third term as governor. Various political commentators have compared Evers to ex-President Joe Biden, warning that at 73 (almost a decade younger than Biden) he might be too old to win. The poll helped fuel a new round of that sort of speculation.

But the question for Democrats is not whether Evers should run again. Presented with no alternative, 83% of Democratic voters told Marquette pollsters they want Evers. 

The real question is, what is the party’s vision for its own future and the future of our state? For a long time, Democrats in Wisconsin have lacked a bench. If Evers decides not to run, there is no obvious candidate to take his place. Meanwhile, Evers is currently engaged in backroom negotiations with Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on the state budget. Embarrassingly, Democratic leaders in the Legislature are not included in those talks and appear not to know what’s being traded behind closed doors. 

Asked whether she thinks the closed door sessions are OK, Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein told reporters, “I think this is probably normal. I’ve talked to other majority and minority leaders in the past, and this is kind of how it’s happened in the past.”

That’s it?

As legislative Democrats conduct what some have called a dress rehearsal for real power, preparing to step into the majority for the first time in more than 15 years, it’s not clear how they will govern. Will they still let a Democratic governor call all the shots in budget negotiations? Will they play hardball if a Republican takes Evers’ place — following the example of the current Republican majority and blocking every initiative the governor proposes and seizing his powers whenever they get a chance? What are their bottom-line issues? How will they transform the lives of the people of our state? 

We badly need a more functional government and a more cohesive Democratic Party in Wisconsin.

More than anything, we need bold, progressive leadership that articulates a strong vision for a government that serves the interests of the majority of voters, not just rich people and insiders. Mamdani showed that there is real hunger for that in the electorate. That should be an inspiration to Wisconsin’s future leaders.

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The Trump administration has suffered another blow, this time from a U.S. District Judge in Washington. She ordered the government to release billions in funding for new electric vehicle charging stations.

In a lengthy ruling, which started off with a reference to a Simpsons episode, the judge noted Congress appropriated $5 billion to fund a National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program to “strategically deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure and to establish an interconnected network to facilitate data collection, access, and reliability.”

Despite the ruling, several states argued the Trump administration and his Secretary of Transportation decided they “would disregard Congress’s mandate.”

More: Trump Administration Hits Pause On EV Charger Funding

As part of this effort, the Federal Highway Administration rescinded its administrative guidance on the program, revoked state deployment plans, and stopped distributing funds. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia cried foul as the program was approved by Congress during the Biden administration.

They argued the move “represented an unlawful seizure of legislative authority under the separation-of-powers doctrine enshrined in the United States Constitution and an overextension of executive authority beyond what is permitted by law.”

While that’s the gist of the argument, Judge Tana Lin sided with Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin. As a result, she ordered a preliminary injunction that prevents the government from suspending or revoking any previously-approved electric vehicle infrastructure deployment plans from the aforementioned states.

The government also can’t withhold previously approved funding. However, the injunction was stayed and won’t go into effect until July 2. That being said, if the government appeals, the injunction won’t take place.

What happens next remains to be seen, but ABC News noted the Trump administration argued that the program was simply paused until new guidance was developed. Regardless, the delays and lawsuits will likely continue to slow the growth of America’s charging network.

White House

Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies during her confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on June 25, 2025. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions pressed President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about vaccine recommendations Wednesday after the Health and Human Services secretary fired members of a critical vaccine panel this month.

Trump’s pick, former acting CDC Director Susan Monarez, said that she trusted vaccines while defending HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision this month — widely seen as part of a vaccine-skeptical agenda — to fire all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, and recommend eight new members.

“Part of the secretary’s vision in restoring public trust is making sure that the American people can be confident in the way the evidence and science is driving decision-making,” she told senators.

The panel’s seven members — one dropped out this week — will meet Wednesday and Thursday to review data and vote on new vaccine recommendations. The recommendations carry significant weight as insurance providers and federal health programs like Medicaid use them to determine if shots are covered and schools rely on them for immunization mandates.

Cassidy questions

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the committee, said he was concerned about ACIP, especially as a non-CDC staff member is scheduled to give a presentation to the committee about thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative. The panel is expected to vote on approving flu shots that contain the compound.

Lyn Redwood, the former head of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group that Kennedy founded, is giving the presentation arguing that thimerosal causes autism. The CDC’s own research shows that thimerosal does not cause autism. 

Cassidy said that while Monarez had no part in this week’s ACIP meeting, or the agenda, he said that “if the ACIP hearing today is being used to sow distrust, I would ask that going forward, that you would make sure that there really was a balanced perspective.”

“Yes, someone can speak as a critic, but there should be someone who is reviewing the overwhelming evidence of the safety of vaccines,” Cassidy, who is a physician, said.

Monarez, who was the agency’s acting director from January to March, said that she trusted vaccines and that immunization was important to save lives.

If Monarez is confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first director of the CDC without a medical degree in nearly 70 years. She has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology.

More concerns about vaccine panel

Cassidy was not the only Republican on the panel concerned about the firing of all the members of ACIP.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was concerned about the backgrounds of the seven new panelists.

“I would hope that one of the things that you would all be looking into is to make sure that these individuals are going to be looking at the science in front of them, (and) leave their political bias at home,” Murkowski said.

Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington state and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland also pressed Monarez about Kennedy’s actions to fire everyone on the panel.

Murray asked Monarez if the new members of the panel voted to not recommend vaccines, if she would listen to that recommendation.

Monarez sidestepped the question and said the roles at ACIP were difficult to fill and that members needed to pass an ethics process.

“If they have not gone through an ethics approval process they shouldn’t be participating in the meetings,” she said.

Alsobrooks asked Monarez if she believed the 17 members fired from ACIP lacked qualifications.

Monarez did not answer the question, but said Kennedy’s reasoning for “resetting the ACIP to a new cohort was going to be on the path of restoring public trust.”

Grant funding and layoffs

Senators also raised concerns about grants that had been canceled, even though Congress already approved the funds.

Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said that her state is suffering from a high level of Lyme disease and as a result a vaccine was in the works at a research institute in Maine.

“This vaccine is very promising and I want to make sure that it is allowed to continue to its conclusion,” Collins said.

Monarez agreed and said if she is confirmed, she will specifically work to make sure funding for that vaccine continues.

“It’s ironic that our dogs can get a vaccine to protect them against tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease but we humans can’t and I hope we can remedy that,” Collins said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, pressed Monarez about the elimination of the Office on Smoking and Health at the CDC. He asked if she was involved in laying off all the staff in April, the month after her brief stint as acting director ended.

“I had no participation in (the layoffs) after I left,” she said.

Fluoride in water

Alsobrooks pressed Monarez about Kennedy’s push to have the CDC stop recommending that low levels of fluoride be placed in public drinking water.

Fluoride is added in drinking water to help prevent cavities, tooth decay and other dental health issues.

Alsobrooks asked Monarez, who is her constituent, if the public water supply that contains fluoride in Potomac, Maryland, where Monarez lives, was safe to drink.

“I believe the water in Potomac, Maryland, is safe,” Monarez said. 

Immigration officials questioned and detained contractors working on apartment buildings in Tallahassee, Fla., on May 29. Construction employs more immigrant laborers, many likely living here illegally, than any other industry, and the industry is starting to draw more attention — even in conservative states — as the Trump administration pushes for more deportations. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)

As President Donald Trump sends mixed messages about immigration enforcement, ordering new raids on farms and hotels just days after saying he wouldn’t target those industries, he has hardly mentioned the industry that employs the most immigrant laborers: construction.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration is going after construction workers without legal status to meet its mass deportation goals — even as the country has a housing shortage and needs new homes built. A shortage of workers has delayed or prevented construction, causing billions of dollars in economic damage, according to a June report from the Home Builders Institute.

Almost a quarter of all immigrants without a college degree work in construction, a total of 2.2 million workers as of last month, before work site raids began in earnest. That’s more than the next three industries combined: restaurants (1.1 million), janitorial and other cleaning services (526,000) and landscaping (454,000), according to a Stateline analysis of federal Current Population Survey data provided by ipums.org at the University of Minnesota.

Within the construction industry, immigrant workers are now a majority of painters and roofers (both 53%) and comprise more than two-thirds of plasterers and stucco masons. U.S. citizens in construction are more likely to work as managers and as skilled workers, such as carpenters.

Many immigrant workers are likely living here illegally, although there are some working legally as refugees or parolees, and others are asylum-seekers waiting for court dates. There’s also a small number of legal visas for temporary farmworkers, construction workers and others.

The pool of immigrant workers Stateline analyzed were employed noncitizens ages 18-65 without a college degree, screening out temporary workers with high-skill visas.

About half of the immigrant laborers in construction are working in Southern states, including conservative-leaning Florida, North Carolina and Texas, where there is more building going on, according to the Stateline analysis. Another 584,000, or one-quarter, are in Western states, including Arizona, California and Nevada.

In recent months, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, has conducted construction worksite raids in Florida in Tallahassee and near Ocala, and in South Texas and New Orleans, as well as more immigrant-friendly California and Pennsylvania.

Roofers may have been the first targeted by new workplace raids because of their visibility, said Sergio Barajas, executive director of the National Hispanic Construction Alliance, a California-based advocacy group with chapters in five other states.

“That’s the first place we heard about it. Roofers are right out there where you can see them,” Barajas said. He added that all segments of construction work have been targeted for ICE raids, and that even some legal workers are not showing up for work out of fear.

“Six or eight weeks ago, I would have said we weren’t affected at all. Now we are. There’s a substantial reduction in the number of workers who are showing up, so crews are 30%, 40% smaller than they used to be,” Barajas said.

In residential construction, a system of contractors and subcontractors opens the door to abuses, said Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Low-Wage Work Program at the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center. Lopezlira said contractors hire workers, often immigrant laborers, for low-wage jobs and pay them in cash, to save money on benefits and make the lowest possible bid for projects.

“It becomes a blame game. The developers can say, ‘I hired this contractor and I thought he was above board and paying people a decent wage.’ And the contractors can say, ‘I rely on subcontractors,’” said Lopezlira. “It becomes a race to the bottom.”

In many places, residential construction draws more immigrant labor because of looser state and local regulations and lower pay. But in some states with weaker unions and rules that are less strict, such as Texas, the commercial construction industry also employs many immigrants who are here illegally.

Commercial construction labor costs are 40% lower in Texas than they are in large Northeastern cities where unions are more powerful, said David Kelly, a lecturer in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Michigan.

“The large difference [in cost] suggests workers and their employers in some regions are not paying for income taxes, overtime, Social Security or unemployment insurance,” Kelly said in an email. “Since undocumented workers have limited employment options they may be more willing than others to accept these conditions.”

Despite political claims that Democratic policies result in immigrants taking jobs others need, noncitizen immigrant laborers were about 7% of jobholders nationally as of May — about the same as 2015, according to the Stateline analysis.

That share has hardly budged over the past 10 years, including in 2019 under the first Trump administration, dipping to 6% only in 2020 and 2021.

In construction, however, the share of jobs held by immigrant laborers has increased from 19% in 2015 to 22% in 2024, according to the analysis. Immigrant laborers have gotten more than a third of the 1.5 million jobs added between 2015 and 2024, as home construction reached historic levels.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with the full name of  the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center and to clarify David Kelly’s remarks on regional labor costs. Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

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Recent presidents have repeatedly ordered military attacks on other countries despite questions over whether congressional approval was needed.

The latest was Republican Donald Trump’s June 21 bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. His administration said he had authority to limit nuclear proliferation.

Trump in 2017 cited national security interests for a missile strike on a Syrian base that was used to launch chemical weapon attacks on Syrian civilians. 

In 2021, Democrat Joe Biden ordered an airstrike on Iran-backed militia groups in Syria, citing “self-defense.” 

In 2011, Democrat Barack Obama ordered “limited” airstrikes on Libya. He said he was trying to protect pro-democracy protesters targeted by Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. 

The Constitution says only Congress has the power to declare war.

But that provision “has never been interpreted — by either Congress or the executive branch — to require congressional authorization for every military action that the president could initiate,” a Council on Foreign Relations legal expert wrote.

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

Sources

• Council on Foreign Relations: Does Trump Have the Authority to Strike Iran?
• New York Times: Is the U.S. at War With Iran?
• Associated Press: US inserts itself into Israel’s war with Iran, striking 3 Iranian nuclear sites
• NPR: Trump administration defends Iranian strikes as some lawmakers question its legality
• CBS News: How Trump was able to order U.S. strikes on Syria without congressional approval
• DOD News: Trump Orders Missile Attack in Retaliation for Syrian Chemical Strikes
• Politico: Democrats renew push for war powers overhaul after Biden’s Syria strike
• CNN: Biden sends letter to congressional leadership explaining justification for Syria strike
• Politico: Obama approves airstrikes against Libya, March 19, 2011
• U.S. Justice Department: Authority to Use Military Force in Libya
• National Constitution Center: Does the president need Congress to approve military actions in Iran?
• National Constitution Center: U.S. Constitution Section 1

Have recent presidents of both parties ordered military attacks without congressional approval like Donald Trump did in Iran? 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.

Essential immigrant workers and their families gather in front of the Federal Building in Milwaukee for the Day Without Immigrants call to action. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

People who believe the call to action, Black Lives Matter, to be controversial and provocative should buckle up.

What we’ve been witnessing these last weeks has been a new call to action: Immigrant Lives Matter.

Yes, even undocumented immigrant lives matter.

Black Lives Matter stirred passionate backlash unlike anything I’ve seen since the 1960s. 

Immigrant Lives Matter is now a cry to recognize the humanity of people who are suffering violent attacks after being demonized as “aliens.” 

I’ve written on immigration as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for decades. The most invective I’ve had directed my way has been about who I am as the son of immigrants.

“Go back to Mexico” was a common retort to things I wrote. Each time I’d chuckle to myself: “Hard to do since I’m from California.” 

Yup, I’m not from Mexico. But my parents were. And they lived in this country without legal status until I was in grade school.

I’m quite familiar with immigrant life, although, thanks to the 14th Amendment (also under attack by the Trump administration), I’m a citizen. 

I’ve seen up close what being afraid of deportation looks like. The fear that a family would be torn apart, loss of livelihood and loss of the country you chose to work in, pay taxes for, build a family in and the only one your children know. And, in my case as with many other immigrants and children of immigrants, the country in whose military you chose to serve.

That experience and those decades of writing on immigration taught me that among the hottest buttons around are those dealing with the border, particularly when people cross it who don’t look and talk like you. 

Standard disclaimer: You don’t have to be a racist to be concerned about immigration and immigrants, but using terms such as invasion, infestation, vermin, criminals and threat to American identity and values is a big tell.

As is calling out the military to combat a non-existent foreign invasion.

Black Lives Matter speaks to the current plight of people whose ancestors were unwilling immigrants, packed into slave ships and brought here by force. Dehumanizing racism and the shocking mistreatment of Black citizens by police has dogged our nation from the beginning.

But  even that call to action, after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, was roundly disparaged.

Wrap your head around that. Americans who have been around since the country’s founding and over whose slavery a country fought a bitter civil war are still not considered American enough to  insist on being treated as Americans.

All that immigrants and those who stand in solidarity with them are asking is that the basic precepts of fairness, humanity and, importantly, due process extend to them as well. 

Immigrants are in a vulnerable position. Demagoguing about invasion and infestation is just too tempting for nativists and opportunists who prey on prejudices for political gain.

Los Angeles has been in the news because of protests that the Trump administration has been trying very hard to depict as a violent conflagration. But the protests have been  mostly peaceful by people reasonably objecting to ICE raids. The ICE targets are people who have worked here for years, raising U.S. citizen children and doing the work Americans won’t do. 

Despite footage of “violent“ protesters cast as “invaders” faced by brave military troops, California’s governor and many others have noted that there was no widespread, destructive civil unrest, much less the foreign invasion that the demagogues claim justifies military involvement. 

Be afraid. We need to stop underestimating the appeal of nativism. It’s real in this country.

But something happened after President Trump’s unwarranted use of the military in Los Angeles and in reaction to his military parade in Washington D.C. (lightly attended, to the president’s dismay).

The “No Kings” protests. 

I saw them as solidarity with Immigrant Lives Matter.

Black lives will always matter. After the phrase was coined, some people  insisted that it meant other lives mattered less. 

Nonsense, then and now.

Immigrant lives matter, as with Black lives, as much as your life does.  And if we don’t protect the lives of the people in the crosshairs now, we all could be next.

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