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May 20, 2025
Presented by UL Standards & Engagement
The bipartisan Setting Consumer Standards for Lithium-Ion Batteries Act will keep uncertified batteries off the market and out of homes — reducing the fire risk and preserving consumer access. It passed the House by an overwhelming majority. Now it’s the Senate’s turn to make a smart decision to protect Americans.
PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Trump finally enters the fray
Happy Tuesday morning.
Welcome to the maelstrom, Mr. President.
President Donald Trump will leave the gold-gilded White House this morning to join a rambunctious and divided House Republican Conference in the dank Capitol basement.
Trump’s goal is to try to get the House Republican Conference to coalesce around the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” Speaker Mike Johnson can’t close this vote out on his own. As we saw with the speaker vote, the government-funding bill and the budget resolution earlier this year, Trump remains the only person in town who can move House Republicans en masse.
But what he’ll find this morning is a House Republican Conference with vastly different interpretations of Trump-era Republicanism.
The House Freedom Caucus – led in this instance by Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) – believe the core of Trumpism includes deep cuts to the federal social safety net.
House Freedom Caucus members want to accelerate work requirements for Medicaid and change the formula by which the federal government helps states pay for it. This would be an enormous shift that could leave millions more Americans without health coverage. They also want to gut the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
In the view of hardline Republicans, GOP control of Washington under Trump has given them a golden opportunity to reshape government by cutting spending dramatically.
Then there are moderate Republicans who helped deliver the House GOP majority. These Republicans – think of Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.), Nick LaLota (N.Y.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Mike Lawler (N.Y.) – are much more wary that this Medicaid makeover could harm millions of their constituents, as well as their own standing back home. They recognize that companies have taken advantage of the IRA to create jobs, and they want an orderly wind down to the program – if there’s a wind down at all.
These GOP lawmakers view their job as cutting taxes and making common-sense changes to popular government programs like Medicaid.
The reality. We don’t expect Trump to weigh in on the finer points of the debate over FMAP or the provider tax. Trump has won his major campaign-driven asks – the extension of the 2017 tax cuts, plus no taxes on tips and overtime.
But if House Republican leaders want to bring this nearly $4 trillion package up for a vote Wednesday – or even this week – several outstanding disagreements have to be resolved.
Trump’s job is to effectively tell the GOP conference that the time for talk is over, and it’s time to vote. That message is potentially useful for the Republican leadership. But it may not move lawmakers still locked in critical policy fights.
SALT. Johnson hasn’t been able to put together a SALT deal despite lengthy negotiations. This might be Republican leaders’ biggest stumble during the entire reconciliation process. The House SALT holdouts – LaLota, Lawler, and GOP Reps. Young Kim (Calif.), Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Tom Kean (N.J.) – have said for months they’ll oppose the bill if the cap isn’t lifted to their liking.
The SALT group met with Johnson for more than an hour late Monday night but left the Capitol without locking in a deal. Garbarino said Johnson gave the group several options for raising the deduction cap. The holdouts had questions and planned to follow up after House GOP leaders got more data, per Garbarino.
Johnson told reporters there was no resolution on SALT yet but that they were “getting very close.”
But there’s trouble on the horizon, potentially. Norman told us on Monday that in addition to offsetting an increased SALT cap by spending cuts elsewhere, blue-state Republicans should be forced to find those spending cuts.
“We would put that on them, let them decide,” Norman said.
FMAP. Altering FMAP has been a prime ask of conservatives over the last few days. Effectively, this is a way to cut away at Obamacare without repealing the law. Johnson has repeatedly taken it off the proverbial table, only to see it later resurface.
But conservatives are hell bent on forcing a change in the FMAP formula. This could force millions of Medicaid recipients out of the program as states pare back spending.
“Phase it down over eight years,” Roy said Monday.
Johnson said FMAP is no longer part of the discussions.
This will be a major flashpoint between conservatives and moderates that can only be solved by Trump.
IRA. There’s still disagreement over how much to cut from the IRA. Roy and other hardliners want these tax credits ripped out ASAP. The GOP leadership responded by tentatively agreeing to accelerate the phase out of clean-energy tax credits to 2028. But moderates have complained to party leaders that this is way too fast.
LaLota said the phase out should be “gentle and deliberate, rather than sudden and chaotic.”
Let’s just note this here once again: This reconciliation bill is on the floor Wednesday. House Republicans are still squabbling over policy decisions. And this whole package is going to be overhauled by the Senate anyway.
The best argument that Trump can make is that the House needs to pass this bill to get the process moving.
That’s not going to cut with the HFC Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.):
– Jake Sherman, Laura Weiss and John Bresnahan
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CONGRESS X TRUMP
House Democrats furious over McIver charges
House Democrats reacted angrily to the announcement that the interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey — Alina Habba, a former top aide and defense lawyer for President Donald Trump — will bring charges against Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver (N.J.) over a chaotic May 9 incident at a controversial ICE detention facility in Newark.
Habba announced Monday that she plans to charge McIver with assaulting federal officers during the protest, a dramatic move that ups the political stakes in the battle between Democrats and the Trump administration over immigration and Congress’ power to take on Trump over it.
McIver, plus Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, were at the Newark site when ICE agents went to arrest Baraka. McIver “forcefully attempted to protect Baraka both physically and verbally as he was led away,” according to the New Jersey Globe, which reported last week that the two-term lawmaker would likely be charged.
McIver denounced the charges as “purely political – they mischaracterize and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight.”
In a joint statement, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the rest of the Democratic leadership slammed Habba as well:
“The proceeding initiated by the so-called U.S. Attorney in New Jersey is a blatant attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate Congress and interfere with our ability to serve as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch,” the leaders said.
Habba countered that she tried to resolve the dispute without criminal charges – it’s not clear what this means – but McIver “has unfortunately declined.”
The Delaney Hall incident has become a focal point for both parties. McIver can be seen on video attempting to protect Baraka during his arrest. Habba has now dropped a misdemeanor charge against him. Despite the altercation, the three House members were later allowed to tour the facility as permitted under federal law.
DHS officials later accused the Democrats of “storming into a detention facility,” while McIver said ICE agents “shoved me, manhandled [Watson Coleman], and arrested [Baraka.]”
McIver has some constitutional protection under the Speech or Debate Clause from being charged with a crime while engaged in legitimate legislative activity. The New Jersey Globe reported that McIver has retained defense lawyers to handle the case, including Paul Fishman, a former U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
There will also be an Ethics Committee investigation into McIver as required under House rules if a member is charged with a crime. Democrats can block anything from happening there.
We’ll see how Speaker Mike Johnson and top Republicans handle this. While some rank-and-file Republicans have called for McIver’s arrest, congressional leaders have to be concerned about what kind of precedent it would set.
Johnson and Jeffries haven’t discussed the incident, we’re told, although Democrats privately believe Johnson could’ve stopped any criminal charges if he wanted to.
– John Bresnahan
The Vault: What’s next for the GENIUS Act
The Senate cleared a key procedural hurdle Monday night to advance the GENIUS Act, a bill that would regulate stablecoins. Sixteen Democrats backed the effort in a 66-32 vote.
This is a significant achievement for the crypto industry. But the bill still has a ways to go before final passage. That vote likely won’t come until after the Memorial Day recess. And serious political risks remain.
The stakes over this Senate procedural vote were real. As we scooped Monday, the crypto sector warned senators that this cloture vote would be considered a “key vote” for the Stand with Crypto Alliance, a Coinbase-backed nonprofit that rates lawmakers on their crypto friendliness.
Senators are aware that unsupportive lawmakers could be targeted by the Fairshake super PAC network.
All things equal: The support from Democrats was significant, but not as heavy a blowout as many progressives had feared.
The Senate Democrats who voted in favor of moving ahead were Sens. Angela Alsobrooks (Md.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), John Fetterman (Pa.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Jon Ossoff (Ga.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) and Mark Warner (Va.).
Ultimately, two-thirds of Democrats voted against cloture. That includes Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sens. Raphael Warnock (Ga.) — who flipped his vote from “yes” to “no” before the end of the vote — and Andy Kim (N.J.). Kim voted in favor of the GENIUS Act advancing in the Senate Banking Committee earlier this year.
Republicans had their own dissenters. Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) voted against cloture, while Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) was absent.
What’s next: We wrote Monday night that Senate Majority Leader John Thune is committed to an open amendment process. That’s causing deep consternation across Washington.
Bank advocates have become acutely aware of the possibility that painful amendments could soon see floor action. That includes the dreaded Credit Card Competition Act, which would attempt to loosen the grip of the Visa and Mastercard “duopoly.”
The banking lobby is already gearing up for this fight. The Electronic Payments Coalition’s Richard Hunt told us in a statement that the CCCA would be a “legislative poison bill and, if adopted, will sink the bipartisan GENIUS Act.”
Crypto advocates aren’t sweating it.
“Within a year or two, the people who had doubts today will look back on that and wonder why they had doubts,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told reporters after the cloture vote. “I’m just a smidge ahead of some of my colleagues. But it’s only a smidge. They’re going to catch up.”
– Brendan Pedersen
WASHINGTON X THE WORLD
Inside Dems’ plans for Rubio’s appearance
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s highly anticipated return to the Senate today has elicited a common refrain from Democrats: Where do we even begin?
Rubio’s first public testimony since his confirmation as America’s top diplomat four months ago comes amid a myriad of global crises, in addition to policy decisions that Democrats — and a handful of Republicans — have strongly denounced.
Rubio will testify this morning before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the afternoon, he’ll appear before the Appropriations subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations. Here’s a link to Rubio’s opening statement before the Foreign Relations panel.
We have exclusive details on how Democrats plan to handle the Foreign Relations hearing. But first, consider everything that’s happened since Rubio was confirmed 99-0 on Inauguration Day:
The former Florida GOP senator now has four jobs: Rubio has overseen the complete dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development; Rubio has proposed a budget that would cut key programs; the Trump administration is no closer to brokering a peace deal in Ukraine, while Israel is preparing a new ground offensive in Gaza; and Trump’s trade war is raging on.
Dems’ plans: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), the Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, will focus her questioning on China, we’re told. She’ll argue that Beijing is taking advantage of the Trump administration’s decision-making on the global stage — from tariffs to USAID cuts to breaking with longtime allies.
Shaheen believes focusing on China is the best way to bolster public support for maintaining the diplomatic initiatives the Trump team has shunned, per a committee aide.
In opening remarks, Shaheen will say the administration has “eviscerated six decades of American foreign policy investments,” pointing to Elon Musk and DOGE taking a “chainsaw” to USAID while China increases its investments.
“Beijing is making the case that they are a more reliable, supportive partner than the United States,” Shaheen will say. “Mr. Secretary, I urge you to stand up to the extremists in this administration.”
— Andrew Desiderio
PRESENTED BY ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS COALITION
Mega-grocers hiked prices during the pandemic and now want to profit even more with credit card mandates.
Oppose the Durbin-Marshall Credit Card Mandates.
SPECIAL PROJECTS
The Future of Medicine: The Legislative Landscape
The latest installment of The Future of Medicine dives into how regulators in the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers are changing the way drugs come to market.
Republicans are largely focused on rolling back provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, the signature Democratic reconciliation package passed in 2022.
Chief among these legislative efforts is the Ensuring Pathways to Innovative Cures (EPIC) Act. That bill would undo a portion of the IRA that created a distinction between small molecule drugs and biologics in government price negotiations.
The White House supports the Hill’s efforts to roll back certain IRA provisions. But there’s deep suspicion among congressional Republicans regarding President Donald Trump’s latest drug pricing executive order.
You can read the full segment here. This is the second installment in a four-part series, in partnership with Incubate, which provides an overview on the state of the life sciences industry.
Check back next week for our conversation with Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.).
— Max Cohen
JOB MOVES
Jimmy Peacock, Sen. Eric Schmitt’s (R-Mo.) chief of staff, is heading to Cornerstone Government Affairs.
Peacock has been Schmitt’s chief of staff since Day One, helping build out the newly elected senator’s offices in Washington and Missouri. Peacock was also chief of staff to Rep. Ashley Hinson (Iowa), a rising star in the House Republican Conference.
Cornerstone has a slew of well-respected former Hill aides including David Planning, a former top aide to House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Keith Stern, a former top aide to House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
– Jake Sherman
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Presented by UL Standards & Engagement
E-bike fires are happening across the country, costing lives and forcing families out of their homes. The Senate can help stop these fires and protect Americans. The bipartisan Setting Consumer Standards for Lithium-Ion Batteries Act will keep uncertified batteries off the market, reducing the risk.