Leader Look: Thune's biggest test yet

IN THIS EDITION

Leader Look: Thune’s turn in the reconciliation grinder

The Senate’s markup dilemma

Tech: It’s Apple v. Meta on app store bills

Protect Our Care launches Medicaid campaign

Ways and Means general counsel decamping for K Street

THE TOP

Leader Look: Thune’s turn in the reconciliation grinder

Happy Thursday morning.

This morning, we’re bringing you the latest Leader Look, a signature Punchbowl News tradition zooming in on the Big Four congressional leaders. We’re starting with the Senate. On Friday, we’ll take a look at the House.

As Senate Republicans prepare to take up the GOP’s massive reconciliation bill, the next four weeks will be hugely consequential for both of the chamber’s leaders.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune. The South Dakota Republican is getting ready for the most important stretch of his nascent tenure as Senate majority leader.

Senate Republicans want to get President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” across the finish line before the July 4 recess. The pressure is on Thune and other Senate GOP leaders to make that happen.

Senate Republicans have little appetite to reinvent the wheel here. They’re not expected to make dramatic, foundational changes to the House-passed bill. But Thune will need to juggle demands from several different factions of his conference that want revisions to the proposal. That’s in addition to the “Byrd Bath” for the package to ensure compliance with Senate reconciliation rules.

Speaker Mike Johnson, as he told us last week, is pushing the Senate to “fine-tune this product as little as possible.”

Thune will lean on his experience as GOP whip, as well as his prominent role during the 2017 tax bill debate, to get this done. Yet the stakes are a lot higher this time. Not only does Thune have the weight of passing Trump’s signature legislative achievement resting on his shoulders, but he’s also staring down a debt-limit deadline.

Meanwhile, Republicans are agitating for floor action on a sweeping Russia sanctions package intended to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin. Traditionally, legislation of this magnitude with 81 co-sponsors would force a president’s hand with a veto-proof majority. But Thune has said he’s waiting for a signal from the White House.

Let’s also take stock of recent developments. Senate Republicans circumvented a ruling from the Government Accountability Office to block California’s Clean Air Act waivers, essentially preventing the state from setting stricter environmental standards.

Thune and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso spent weeks working to convince GOP holdouts amid an onslaught from Democrats who accused Republicans of going “nuclear” and weakening the filibuster. Some Republicans were concerned about voting to overrule the Senate parliamentarian, who was deferring to GAO.

But Thune got Republicans in line and executed a procedural maneuver on the floor whereby they wouldn’t be forced to vote directly on overruling the parliamentarian.

This was a risky play. It could be seen as expanding the scope of the Congressional Review Act — applying the CRA’s simple-majority threshold to something that might otherwise be subject to a filibuster.

On the political side, Thune had a big setback when Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp said no to a Senate run. Kemp was by far the strongest candidate in a head-to-head with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.). Republicans now have to contend with a potentially messy primary.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer is still dealing with the lingering fallout from his handling of March’s government-funding fight.

Several Democratic Senate candidates are refusing to say whether they’d back Schumer for leader if they win in 2026. This includes Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) and Haley Stevens (D-Mich.). Mallory McMorrow, who’s also running in Michigan, has said flat-out she won’t back Schumer.

We don’t want to overplay this. Leadership elections are a long time from now. What a candidate says on the trail may be a lot different from how they vote in a secret-ballot leadership election. Ask Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about that. But clearly there’s still a lot of anger at Schumer over his handling of the CR battle.

The flip side is that Democrats are feeling better about 2026. Kemp’s decision not to run in Georgia helps Ossoff, Schumer’s most vulnerable incumbent.

Democrats are also on the offensive over the GOP reconciliation bill. They see it as an electoral gift, pointing to Republicans slashing popular programs like Medicaid paired with an extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Schumer plans to hammer that message over the next month and throughout the cycle.

If the GOP reconciliations bill passes, however, Schumer loses another leverage point — the debt limit. That leaves his only real leverage this year as the FY2026 spending bills. Until then, Schumer has some big challenges, including navigating a divided Democratic Caucus on the GENIUS Act, a stablecoin reform bill.

FY2026 budget news: We’re hearing the White House will send supplementary technical documents on Trump’s FY2026 budget plan to the Hill this week. There’s no word yet on how extensive these materials will be.

The real news here is that the 46-page “skinny” budget sent to Capitol Hill in early May remains what the White House and House Republicans will rely on as a basis for FY2026 spending bills. That plan called for $163 billion in cuts to non-defense spending while also boosting the Pentagon budget.

There’s no way this will fly with Democrats or moderate Republicans. Spending bills written to that target won’t pass the Senate, while House GOP leaders and the White House may balk at anything else. This will be a hot summer over funding federal agencies..

— Andrew Desiderio, John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman

RECONCILIATION

The Senate’s markup dilemma

It’s the first major decision Senate Republican leaders have to make as they gear up to pass President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” — whether to hold committee markups.

The Senate is planning to rewrite portions of the tax, spending cut and border security package that passed the House just before recess. But a lot of that work is likely to occur out of public view, especially the so-called “Byrd Bath.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told us last week that committee markups were still an open question.

Thune said he believes markups can “improve the product” and allow the Senate to put its “imprint” on the bill.

But “regular order,” as Thune called it, only really matters for GOP leaders if it moves any wavering Republican senators closer to backing the bill. It’s not clear at the moment whether it would.

Some senators believe a Finance Committee markup could help tame Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and other fiscal hawks who are demanding additional spending cuts.

Markup detractors: Others believe markups would be a fool’s errand and that they’d come with significant drawbacks:

1) A markup gives Democrats an opportunity to make an already-painful process even more so. They can force Republicans to vote on politically uncomfortable amendments. Markups would give Democrats a forum to rail against the bill.

2) Senate Republicans are trying to get the reconciliation bill to Trump’s desk by July 4, an extremely fast timeline considering the vast scale of the legislation they’re drafting. They also need to wrap things up by the August recess at the latest to meet the debt-limit deadline.

Senators and aides already have legislative language and the “Byrd Bath” to deal with.

3) If any GOP senator’s support seems squishy, the math gets dicey for GOP leaders. For example, Johnson sits on the Finance Committee, which is responsible for taxes and Medicaid cuts. It would take only one Republican voting “no” to block the bill in that committee.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said this week it’s “crazy” to do a markup because “it’s a shirts-and-skins game all the way.”

Here’s more from Cramer:

— Andrew Desiderio and Laura Weiss

THE AIRWAVES

Protect Our Care launches Medicaid campaign

Liberal group Protect Our Care is running a digital ad campaign targeting 11 House Republicans for backing the GOP reconciliation package.

The ads, part of the group’s $10 million “Hands Off Medicaid” campaign, slam the battleground lawmakers for supporting “the biggest cut to Medicaid in history.”

“More than 13 million Americans could lose health care — seniors, veterans and children with disabilities,” the ad’s narrator says, adding Republicans want “to give another huge tax break to billionaires and big corporations.”

The 11 lawmakers targeted are Republican Reps. David Schweikert (Ariz.), David Valadao (Calif.), Young Kim (Calif.), Ken Calvert (Calif.), Nick LaLota (N.Y.), Andrew Garbarino (N.Y.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Ryan Mackenzie (Pa.), Rob Bresnahan (Pa.) and Dan Newhouse (Wash.).

Here’s a link to the ad going after Bresnahan, a freshman who knocked off former Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) in November.

The effort is the latest Democratic initiative targeting at-risk Republicans over their support for the sweeping reconciliation bill. Democrats have vowed that the passage of the bill will ensure that Republicans lose their slender majority in the midterms.

Tester time. Former Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) is joining Unite the Country as a senior adviser. Tester will help “guide the organization’s strategic efforts in 2026 and beyond.”

Unite the Country is a Democratic super PAC that is seeking to restore Democrats’ ties to working and middle-class voters.

Tester, a three-term senator who lost his reelection bid last November, is also a political analyst for MSNBC.

In other ad news: Climate group EDF Action is launching a billboard campaign attacking House Republicans for supporting efforts to repeal clean energy tax credits through the reconciliation package. The billboards go after Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Mark Harris (R-N.C.) and Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.).

EDF Action is running 18 video billboards around Charlotte Douglas International Airport that slam Harris for voting to raise the power bills of North Carolinians. The anti-Spartz video billboards have a similar message and are on display at four locations around Indianapolis International Airport.

The Perry billboards are in 27 locations across the battleground 10th District and accuse Perry of costing Pennsylvania jobs.

Democratic groups like Protect Our Jobs are also going after House Republicans on the clean energy tax credit front.

— Max Cohen

… AND THERE’S MORE

Ways and Means general counsel decamping for K Street

Downtown Download. Molly Fromm, the general counsel and parliamentarian for the House Ways and Means Committee, is leaving the Hill to join the Nickles Group.

Fromm has been on the Hill for 22 years, starting with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and the House Oversight Committee. Fromm also served on the Science and Space Committee, the Financial Services Committee and the Ways and Means Committee.

The Nickles Group, founded by former Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.), represents companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton, the American Hospital Association, Comcast, FedEx, General Dynamics, Koch, Nvidia and Walmart.

Virginia news. Amy Roma, a lawyer at Hogan Lovells, will announce today that she’s jumping in the race to succeed the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). Roma worked with the New England Patriots to deliver masks to hospitals across the U.S. She also worked on helping Afghan women and children evacuate from Afghanistan.

Leo Martinez, a Venezuelan immigrant and former Venezuelan politician, is entering the Democratic primary in Virginia’s 11th District. Former President Joe Biden nominated Martinez in 2021 to lead the Inter-American Development Bank, but his nomination stalled due to GOP opposition in the Senate.

The frontrunner in the race is James Walkinshaw, a former Connolly staffer and a Fairfax County supervisor.

South Carolina news. Former congressional candidate and pediatrician Dr. Annie Andrews is running for Senate in a longshot bid to knock off Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Andrews’ launch video slams Graham as a dishonest politician who is a rubber stamp for President Donald Trump.

In 2022, Andrews lost to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and faces an uphill battle against Graham in a state that voted for Trump by 18 points in 2024.

— Jake Sherman and Max Cohen

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