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IN THIS EDITION

Pope Francis dead at 88

House GOP leaders urge lawmakers to avoid specifics in Medicaid fight

Tran’s take on Black April, life in Congress and advice for Dems

House Dems head to El Salvador

THE TOP

Pope Francis dead at 88

Happy Monday morning.

Breaking news: AP/Vatican City at 5:31 a.m.: “Pope Francis, first Latin American pontiff who ministered with a charming, humble style, dies at 88”

Vice President JD Vance met with the pope Sunday in Vatican City. Francis addressed Congress in 2015, one day before then Speaker John Boehner announced he was resigning the post.

Even as tributes to Francis began pouring in from all leaders all over the world, the Vatican began the ritual for burying one pope while picking another. The process is expected to take several weeks or longer.

News: House GOP leaders tentatively plan to vote on President Donald Trump’s package to claw back billions of dollars in federal funding already approved by Congress during the week of May 5, according to multiple people familiar with the issue.

Trump’s White House plans to send a rescissions package to Capitol Hill this week, sources tell us. The package includes $9.3 billion in cuts to the State Department, NPR and PBS and more.

White House officials briefed Republican aides on the Hill in both chambers last week on the package, we’re told.

The vast majority of these cuts will be on the foreign aid side, making up roughly $8 billion, sources said. Trump has already shuttered USAID, folding it into the State Department.

What to expect: The recissions package has a fast-track procedure in the House and Senate that allows it to be considered with just a simple majority required for passage in the Senate.

Some conservative hardliners wanted Trump to go bigger with the rescissions package, but White House officials and GOP leaders are wary of a re-run of 2018, when a rescissions effort narrowly failed in the Senate. And even with a 53-47 majority this time, Senate passage is hardly guaranteed. Moderate Republicans and defense hawks may balk at some of the foreign aid cuts.

Democrats will object to the White House rescinding money already approved by Congress, arguing that this is the executive branch interfering with the legislative branch’s power of the purse. The shuttering of USAID has had a huge impact internationally, with China and other foreign powers moving in to take advantage of the American withdrawal.

More cuts ahead: The Trump administration is cutting hundreds of foreign aid programs. The State Department also wants to axe embassies and consulates under a major organizational shift initiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Yet the package is just a small part of what Trump and White House officials are planning on slashing in FY 2026. The Health and Human Services Department faces potentially dramatic cuts, while Trump has ordered the elimination of the Education Department.

Medicaid and SNAP could see hundreds of billions in spending reductions and new restrictions. DOGE has fired tens of thousands of federal employees. Overall, these are some of the biggest changes to the structure of federal agencies and the direction of federal spending in decades.

The DOGE initiative, however, has yielded only a fraction of the savings that Elon Musk and the White House have claimed it would bring, while causing a national uproar.

GOP senators also have been talking about a rescissions package more as a way to shield DOGE from the myriad of lawsuits targeting its authority to slash spending already approved by Congress. Senate Majority Leader John Thune met with OMB Director Russell Vought recently. The South Dakota Republican told us that senators have “a high level of interest” in this.

In addition, Trump and Hill Republicans want to use the budget reconciliation process to boost spending on the Pentagon and border security while extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts.

Several House panels will begin committee markups next week on the programmatic and legal changes needed to comply with the budget resolution instructions for reconciliation, including Armed Services, Education and Workforce, Judiciary, Homeland Security, Oversight and Transportation and Infrastructure.

Committees with the more difficult tasks – Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means, for instance – will mark up later.

House GOP leaders are rushing to try to finish work on the reconciliation package by Memorial Day, although we still have our doubts about that proposed timetable.

— Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Andrew Desiderio

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LEADERSHIP PLAYBOOK

House GOP leaders urge lawmakers to avoid specifics in Medicaid fight

The House Republican leadership has privately warned rank-and-file GOP lawmakers to refrain from publicly drawing red lines over Medicaid cuts in the upcoming reconciliation package, according to multiple lawmakers and aides involved in the discussions.

In turn, some moderate House Republicans have watered down public statements warning about deep cuts to the popular programs, which helps pay for health care for millions of low-income Americans and children.

Case in point: Rep. David Valadao’s (R-Calif.) letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Speaker Mike Johnson was relatively circumspect. The letter didn’t include any firm demands for what the moderates who signed it would be for or against.

Meanwhile, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) has considered sending a more specific letter detailing what he would oppose in a reconciliation bill. But LaLota hasn’t decided whether to send it, according to multiple sources.

The House Republican leadership has been working with the Energy and Commerce Committee for months and feels as if it can reach Medicaid savings targets without draconian cuts. And moderates are giving the Republican leadership space to achieve that, according to sources in the leadership and rank and file.

Many of these issues will come to a head next week when Congress comes back into session and House Republicans get busy with marking up the reconciliation package.

House Republicans are tasked with cutting $880 billion from programs under the purview of the Energy and Commerce Committee. That will include Medicaid, spectrum sales and new energy policies. E&C is planning to mark up its section of the reconciliation package May 7.

Also, in case you missed it: We scooped on Friday that the White House is looking to sunset a host of Trump administration tax priorities after four years. Those policies include no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security benefits.

– Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan, Laura Weiss and Mica Soellner

FRONTLINE CHECK-IN

Tran’s take on Black April, life in Congress and advice for Dems

Freshman Rep. Derek Tran (D-Calif.) flipped a Republican seat in November by hundreds of votes, a minuscule total which he attributes to his strength in the Vietnamese-American community.

We caught up with Tran to hear how he’s preparing to mark the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, the freshman’s take on his opening months in Congress and how Democrats can win back the House.

Remembering Black April: Black April, a somber day for the Vietnamese diaspora, commemorates the fall of the South Vietnamese government on April 30, 1975. For many families like Tran’s, the day is meant to honor the sacrifices that refugees undertook to flee Vietnam.

“My father, in his initial attempt, lost his first family, his wife and four kids,” Tran said. “This story is so common with the Vietnamese community outside of my district and inside my district, because they were all boat people for the most part.”

Tran has spent his first months in office seeking to be a voice for Vietnamese-Americans in D.C. He’s working to bring community members to Washington to share their immigrant stories with the Library of Congress.

Tran will also take part in a ceremony on April 27 on the USS Midway in San Diego, one of the ships that facilitated the evacuation from Vietnam in 1975.

Life as a Frontliner: Tran’s 653-vote win over former Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.) immediately made him a Democratic star while also marking him as one of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents.

Tran is touting his bipartisan bona fides, pointing to his support for a GOP-introduced bill that seeks to cut down on foreign donations to U.S. academic institutions.

“That was something that was important to my community,” Tran said. “They wanted to make sure that there is no foreign influence in our research institutions or universities.”

But Tran said he’s been disappointed by the lack of cooperation from Republicans. Tran — a veteran himself — introduced legislation to protect veterans from being affected by DOGE cuts but said he got a cool reception from his GOP colleagues.

“I went to a few Republicans on the other side, and they told me to my face, ‘What a great bill, but I can’t touch this. We’re not going to mess with Trump,’” Tran recounted.

Tran’s advice: Tran urged Democrats to intervene earlier in primaries to make sure the party is “running the right candidate in the right district.”

“Pushing out candidates that may not be the right fit is something that they should look into, instead of letting it be a free-for-all,” Tran said.

Tran cited his own expensive 2024 primary victory over Kim Nguyen-Penaloza as a situation he wishes had been handled differently.

“At what point do we let Dems kill each other and waste all this money so that the Republican can just swoop in with all this money saved?” Tran said.

— Max Cohen

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

House Dems head to El Salvador

News: Four House Democrats are heading to El Salvador to visit the notorious CECOT prison and keep attention on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who was wrongfully deported to the country.

Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia (Calif.), Maxwell Frost (Fla.), Maxine Dexter (Ore.) and Yassamin Ansari (Ariz.) will meet with officials at the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador and receive classified briefings during their visit. They will advocate for Abrego Garcia’s release but currently have no plans to meet with him directly.

Garcia and Frost, both House Oversight Committee members, initially requested to travel as an official CODEL to El Salvador. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) rejected that request, saying he wouldn’t “approve a single dime of taxpayer funds” for the trip.

The Abrego Garcia case has become a flashpoint for both parties in recent weeks, with Democrats slamming President Donald Trump for defying a court order and denying Abrego Garcia due process. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) flew to El Salvador and met with Abrego Garcia last week.

Abrego Garcia, an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant who is married to a U.S. citizen, was deported by ICE despite a court order that barred his removal from the country. Abrego Garcia was briefly housed at CECOT, known for its harsh conditions, before recently being moved to another detention center.

Several Democrats, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, have said they want to visit CECOT recently. But Republicans have also had an interest in the prison complex.

House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), along with a handful of other GOP lawmakers, visited El Salvador last week. Some of those members shared photos of themselves at CECOT with a message praising Trump’s deportation efforts.

– Mica Soellner

… AND THERE’S MORE

The Campaign. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ BOLD PAC is endorsing JoAnna Mendoza in the Democratic primary for Arizona’s 6th District. Mendoza posted an impressive fundraising tally of $816,000 in Q1 and is hoping to unseat Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.).

The endorsement comes amid infighting among Arizona’s top Democrats. On Saturday, Arizona Democratic Party Chair Robert Branscomb II wrote a letter to members of the state’s Democratic committee attacking Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). The two senators, along with Gov. Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state and attorney general, shot back declaring Branscomb “has lost their trust.”

Also: American Rights and Reform PAC is airing an ad in D.C. in favor of medical marijuana. The spot says that “Joe Biden’s DEA deep state” rebuffed efforts to reschedule marijuana.

“President Donald Trump has beat the deep state before. And now Trump can finish what he started by leading the fight to reschedule cannabis and expand research and access to care. It’s time to end Joe Biden’s deep state war on American patients,” the ad says in closing.

American Rights and Reform PAC is backrolled by companies like Cresco Labs, a top cannabis producer, and the United States Cannabis Council. The USCC donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration, according to a recently released FEC report. View the ad here.

Downtown Download. The NFL has hired Doug Schwartz of HillNorth to lobby on general issues related to the league’s business. Schwartz is a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

— Max Cohen and Jake Sherman

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