Trump's budget bill faces "nightmare scenario," Hawley warns
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is warning that the Senate's version of " one, big beautiful bill" can't pass the House with the Medicaid changes it unveiled this week — urging leadership to change it fast and not to let the fight drag on.
Why it matters: Hawley has been the loudest GOP voice fighting against Medicaid cuts. He was shocked and angered by the Senate going even further than the House to find Medicaid savings. House leadership's concerns could help his case.
"It seems to me that now we're in a place where this provision is threatening the entire bill, and we just don't have time for that," Hawley told Axios in a phone interview.
President Trump wants the bill on his desk on July 4, which White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles reiterated to senators this week.
"I just think the idea of having now to go to a conference committee with the House because they say, well, we can't pass this... I mean, good lord, that's just a nightmare scenario," Hawley said.
Zoom in: Reports have been surfacing that House leaders and Republican moderates do not think they can pass the Senate bill as-is. The changes to Medicaid and the state and local tax deduction (SALT) cap are the two biggest issues.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)'s team has told people he has not been consulted on the changes, as Punchbowl reported.
Hawley is willing to support the House version of the Medicaid provider tax, which froze it at 6%.
What to watch: Earlier this week, Hawley told reporters he had been pitching solutions to leadership to help rural hospitals, which he and other Republicans worry would be hit hard by the even lower provider tax in the Senate bill.
He still likes the idea of a rural hospital fund, but also wants to scrap the Senate's slow decrease of provider taxes to 3.5% for states that expanded Medicaid.
"We could do both," Hawley said. "I mean, they're not mutually exclusive"
Zoom out: Hawley has been clearly frustrated by the changes in the bill, but said he still supports Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
"This is tough job," Hawley said. "I think he's doing a great job, and it's just... this is a hard job."
The bottom line:"I'm 100% confident it will not get to the floor the way they introduced it on Monday," Hawley said. "They will have to change it."
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The Hill
39 minutes ago
- The Hill
Supreme Court ruling scrambles battle for transgender care
The Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered a substantial blow to transgender-rights advocates in upholding a 2023 Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors, a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for the future of transgender health in the U.S. but whose impact won't be felt right away. 'The immediate outcome is that it doesn't change anything,' said Kellan Baker, executive director of the Institute for Health Research and Policy at Whitman-Walker, a Washington-based nonprofit. 'It doesn't affect the availability or legality of care in states that do not have bans, and it simply says that states that have decided to ban this care can do so if they survive other challenges.' Twenty-seven Republican-led states since 2021 have adopted laws that ban transition-related care, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and rare surgeries for minors. Laws passed in Arizona and New Hampshire — the first Northeastern state to have restricted gender dysphoria treatments for youth — only prohibit minors from accessing surgeries, a provision that was not at issue before the Supreme Court. In a 6-3 decision, the high court upheld a lower court ruling that found Tennessee's restrictions do not violate the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. The state's law, which allows cisgender children and teens to access medications that it bans for trans minors, makes distinctions based on age and diagnosis, the courts ruled, rather than sex and transgender status. Three Tennessee families, a doctor and the Biden administration, along with attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Lambda Legal, argued the measure amounts to illegal sex discrimination, warranting heightened review. 'Having concluded it does not,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority on Wednesday, 'we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.' At least 10 legal challenges to state laws prohibiting health professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors argue the restrictions discriminate based on sex in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court's ruling Wednesday could potentially weaken, in some cases, that line of attack, but it is not the only approach opponents of the laws have pursued. More than a dozen other lawsuits, including ones arguing equal protection under the U.S. Constitution, claim bans on transition-related health care for minors violate the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause, federal disability law or provisions of a state's constitution. In May, a federal judge struck Montana's ban on gender-affirming care for youth on grounds it violated privacy, equal protection and free speech rights guaranteed by its constitution. 'This ruling allows challenges to other state bans to continue,' said Baker, of Whitman-Walker, 'and they will.' Karen Loewy, senior counsel and director of Lambda Legal's constitutional law practice, told reporters on a Zoom call following Wednesday's ruling that the civil rights organization and others challenging state bans on gender-affirming care have other options at their disposal. 'The Supreme Court did not endorse the entirety of the lower court's ruling; it did not mandate or even greenlight other bans on gender-affirming medical care, even for young people, or other forms of discrimination,' she said. 'It really is about how it viewed Tennessee's in this specific way, and left us plenty of tools to fight other bans on health care and other discriminatory actions that target transgender people, including other equal protection arguments about transgender status discrimination, about the animus-based targeting of trans people.' Loewy added that the court's ruling also left the door open to arguments based on state and federal sex discrimination statutes and parental rights, which the justices did not address Wednesday. Nearly all of the cases brought against youth gender-affirming care bans argue those laws infringe on the rights of parents to make medical decisions on behalf of their children. 'As a parent, I know my child better than any government official ever will,' Samantha Williams, the mother of L.W., a transgender teenager who was at the center of the case before the Supreme Court, wrote in a New York Times op-ed after Wednesday's ruling. The Supreme Court's determination that Tennessee's law does not discriminate based on sex also raises questions about how opponents of transition-related health care for minors will use the ruling to inform their own legal strategies. In Arkansas, the ACLU successfully argued in 2023 that the first-in-the-nation ban on gender-affirming care for minors violated the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause, as well as its Due Process Clause and the First Amendment's protections of free speech. 'We'll have to see, but it's possible that that ban could stand because the court made that decision on equal protection, as well as on other grounds,' said Lindsey Dawson, director for LGBTQ health policy at KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization. 'This is likely to be an area that's going to face continued litigation and is not settled at this point in time.' In a statement Wednesday, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) said he is 'preparing an official notification' for an appeals court detailing the implications of Wednesday's Supreme Court decision on the state's ban, which the Legislature passed — and former Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson initially vetoed — in 2021. 'Because our law is similar to Tennessee's law, today's decision has positive implications for our case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit,' he said. Montana and Arkansas are the only states whose bans on gender-affirming care for youth remain blocked by court orders, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit group that tracks LGBTQ laws. The Supreme Court's ruling Wednesday also declined, as some court watchers had anticipated, to apply the reasoning of its earlier decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shields employees from discrimination based on their sex or gender identity. Some lawsuits challenging state bans on care for minors have said the ruling should apply to contexts other than workplace discrimination. Former President Biden's administration similarly sought to use the court's reasoning in Bostock to back new nondiscrimination policies protecting transgender people in health care and sports, arguments largely rejected by conservative political leaders and courts. 'We still don't have a sole understanding of where Bostock might apply outside of Title VII, and it's going to be something that's important to watch,' Dawson said. 'It's certainly something that the Bostock court warned us about,' she said. 'In that decision, the court said, this court is making its ruling and it's quite narrow, but it's going to be for future courts to decide how this applies outside of Title VII. That remains a question mark.'
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
The Memo: Trump pumps brakes, lightly, on joining Israel's assault on Iran
President Trump is pumping the brakes, at least for the moment, on direct U.S. engagement in Israel's assault on Iran. On Thursday, Trump determined that he would make a 'decision on whether or not to go within the next two weeks,' according to a statement read by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump had also determined there was 'a chance for substantial negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future,' Leavitt said. But that pause could be unpaused at any moment, given Trump's mercurial nature, the volatility of the situation in the Middle East and the voices within American politics arguing that the time is ripe for the U.S. to deliver a decisive blow on Israel's behalf. Trump on Friday said the two-week period was the 'maximum' period that would elapse before he decided on the question. That left the overall positive muddy — but it also gave Trump some room to maneuver. And even his current equivocal stance shows him edging back toward his more anti-interventionist 'America First' instincts. That is a turn from earlier in the week, when Trump had seemed right on the brink of sending American forces in some capacity to back Israel's assault. At that point, he had bragged on social media that 'we' had control of the skies over Iran and, in a separate all-caps post, appeared to demand Iran's 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!' Trump's fuzzy position since then reflects several different facts. First, for all his aggressiveness on the domestic stage, Trump has long been skeptical of foreign adventuring. In his first run for the presidency — a campaign that began a decade ago — he was critical of former President George W. Bush's war in Iraq, to an extent that was highly unusual for a Republican candidate. Relatedly, Trump's apparent flirting with war provoked significant pushback from influential figures within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base. The most prominent of these is Tucker Carlson, whose skeptical questioning of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during a long interview went viral in recent days. Carlson, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and widely-watched influencers on the online right such as Theo Von have all argued that the dangers of getting sucked into a new Middle East war are acute. Then there is broader American public opinion to consider. There seems remarkably little appetite among the public for direct U.S. involvement in an attack on Iran. A Washington Post poll released on Wednesday found 45 percent opposed to U.S. airstrikes on Iran, just 25 percent supporting such action and 30 percent undecided. So, it's no surprise that Trump is returning to a long-established tactic of playing for time. As some sardonic media reports have noted since Thursday's 'two weeks' pronouncement, this is a timescale he has cited in the past for things that have never ultimately happened. One example was a promise to produce a detailed health plan that would purportedly replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed under President Obama. He has also cited 'two weeks' as a timeframe by which various facets of his views on the war in Ukraine would become clear. On Iran, the president is to be sure under some pressure from those who believe this is a rare opportunity to strike at Iran, debilitate its uranium enrichment capacity for good and perhaps topple the nation's theocratic leadership. This school of thought holds that Iranian proxies and allies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the former regime of Bashar Assad in Syria have been so worn down (in the case of the first two) or removed (in the case of Assad) that stronger action is possible today than would have been the case even a couple of years ago. The Trump administration has its fair share of vehement supporters of expansive Israeli power. For example, Trump's ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has in the past been supportive of Israel's decades-long occupation of the West Bank, despite that occupation being deemed illegal by numerous interpretations of international law. Huckabee also wrote Trump a message in recent days — which Trump duly published on social media — in which the ambassador suggested that Trump was positioned to act as a vehicle of divine will regarding Israel. Yet another wrinkle in Trump's approach is his seeming split with his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, on the question of whether Iran is actively seeking a nuclear weapon. Gabbard's belief flies in the face of the purported Israeli rationale for the attack on Iran. But on Friday, Trump was confronted by a reporter on the question. The reporter asked what evidence Trump had that Iran is building a nuclear weapon and said U.S. intelligence had reported that it had not seen such evidence. 'Well then, my intelligence community is wrong,' Mr. Trump insisted. 'Who in the intelligence community said that?' When the reporter named Gabbard, Trump shot back, 'She's wrong.' Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, is renowned for her general skepticism of American interventionism. Trump appears to yet hold out some hope of a breakthrough in talks with Iran. His envoy Steve Witkoff remains engaged on the issue. Any major Iranian concessions at this point would allow Trump to claim — as he often likes to do — that his high-risk approach to diplomatic negotiation had paid off. On the other hand, it's hard to see how any deal between the U.S. and Iran would placate the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, the possibility of such a deal in the first place is seen by some as one of the reasons Netanyahu launched the assault on Iran in the first place. For now, Trump has bought himself some time. But there are risks in every direction. The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Newsom's stock rises after clash with Trump
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is seeing his name rise toward the top of potential 2028 contenders following his fight with President Trump over the unrest in Los Angeles. In the wake of immigration protests that roiled the city and prompted Trump to send in the National Guard without Newsom's approval, the governor has framed himself as the face of resistance to Trump's second-term moves, energizing Democrats and upping his 2028 primary chances in a recent Morning Consult poll. But Democrats also acknowledge Newsom faces an uphill climb as he handles the end of his tenure as governor and navigates the nation's polarized political climate. 'He's doing really well among Democrats, both in California and throughout the nation. He's getting a boost in 2025,' said John Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. 'Unfortunately for him, a presidential nomination won't happen until 2028.' Newsom, who emerged during Trump's first administration as a leader of the Democratic resistance, started the year with what appeared to be a friendlier approach to the administration and a GOP-controlled Washington. He struck a conciliatory tone as he lobbied Trump for aid after catastrophic wildfires ravaged California in the winter, and then he made headlines with the launch of a podcast hosting prominent Trump supporters. The moves were a pivot toward the center amid speculation about whether he would launch a 2028 bid. But when Trump responded to protests this month over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids by sending in hundreds of National Guard troops against Newsom's objections, the governor embraced the face-off. In fiery speeches, TV appearances and social media posts, Newsom has cast Trump's moves in California as executive overreach and warned of an existential fight for democracy, drawing ire from the right. He dared Trump's border czar Tom Homan to arrest him, which Trump later said he'd support. 'Trump is trying to destroy Democracy. Do not let him,' Newsom wrote in his first post on a new Substack page this week. The protests and the clash between the leaders have carried political risks for both sides of the aisle, but they've also intensified the spotlight on the term-limited governor long suspected of having national ambitions. Polling on 2028 is sparse. But in a Morning Consult survey taken June 13-15, as the LA protests were dying down, 11 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they would back Newsom in a 2028 primary, up from 5 percent who said the same in March. Former Vice President Kamala Harris was still the clear front-runner, with 34 percent support, but her backing ticked down 2 points from March — while Newsom overtook both former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Newsom has so far stayed quiet about the speculation and his future plans. But he has signaled the door is open to a potential presidential run. 'I'm not thinking about running, but it's a path that I could see unfold,' he told The Wall Street Journal amid his latest feuding with Trump. Pressed on the question by guest Dr. Phil on the 'This is Gavin Newsom' podcast earlier this month, the governor said 'fate will determine that' and noted that he's got his 'hands full' for the next couple years. Democratic strategist Maria Cardona stressed that Newsom's resistance to GOP policies is part of the job description as governor of a big blue state like California — and not necessarily an 'auditioning' for higher office. Still, she said his public sparring with Trump about the protests 'certainly doesn't hurt' his future prospects. 'It highlights and it gives faith to the base of the Democratic Party, independents, frankly, also to common-sense Republicans … that there is fight in the opposition, that there are people willing to confront Trump and go toe to toe with him,' Cardona said. Newsom's high-profile resistance also comes at a key point for the party, as Democrats regroup after a devastating election last year, noted California Democratic strategist Steven Maviglio. 'Democrats are desperate for a leader, and I think he's had his 15 minutes, and that helped him rocket to the top of the latest polls,' Maviglio said. But a swell of energy three years before an election would be hard for any prospective candidate to maintain, experts noted, and Newsom faces some unique hurdles if he ends up pursuing the presidency. For one, California has increasingly become a target of the right, and the protests have given Republicans scenes of chaos to point to as they argue that Democrats are soft on crime and immigration. 'It's both a strength and a weakness … California is 20 percent of the country, so he's got a lot of name ID. He's a major national figure, just by virtue of the fact that he's the governor of a huge state,' said Matt Bennett, Democratic strategist and co-founder of centrist think tank Third Way. 'It's a weakness because California is perceived, fairly or not, as being very blue, very liberal. And he was mayor of San Francisco, which is even more blue and more liberal. So I do think he's got things in his past that are going to make it difficult for him to escape the stereotypical view of Democrats,' Bennett said. The protests are also unlikely to be Newsom's last brush with Trump, and the governor may need to further tweak his approach to help his state get what it needs, noted Pitney, the professor at Claremont McKenna College. 'Whether it's another set of wildfires, an earthquake, mudslides, something bad is going to happen. We know that that is part of living in California. And when that happens, we're going to need federal help, and at that point, he's going to have to turn on the mute button,' Pitney said. To that point, though, some are also questioning whether Newsom's effort to shift gears between conciliatory and confrontational with Trump could be a political liability moving forward. 'His weakness is that he's been all over the map in terms of his relationship with Trump,' Maviglio said. 'He tried to be the accommodating moderate for a few months, and that wasn't working. So now he's become the anti-Trump, and he gained steam from that. But this is precisely why he's not trusted by the progressive wing of the party or the moderate wing, because he's all over the map, and it's been inconsistent.' Bennett, on the other hand, shrugged off concerns about the shift in tone, arguing that Trump is so 'mercurial' in his own right that those engaging with him are 'going to be [as] all over the map as he is.' 'I think that Newsom's fight with Trump is good for him and his standing with the party. He has been resolute and tough, and I think that's probably helping him,' Bennett said. Yet another complication, though, is that Trump won't be on the ballot in 2028 — and opposition to him may not end up as a defining issue. If Newsom does decide to run, he'd have to navigate that new territory, while also dealing with a potentially tricky gap between his exit from the governor's mansion and the election. 'It's always a tough balancing act for governors and others, especially governors who tend to be term limited … to figure out what to do with that awkward year between them leaving office and running for president, and how do you stay relevant?' Bennett said. 'That is a challenge for anyone who's out of office when they go to try to run for president, and it's tough to do.'
