Senate gears up to jam the House

IN THIS EDITION

Senate steps on the gas – and gets ready to jam the House

Dems move ahead on War Powers votes as Israel-Iran continue fighting

The Vault: Senators aren’t ready for a ‘big, beautiful’ crypto bill

The Future of Energy series launches

THE TOP

Senate steps on the gas – and gets ready to jam the House

Happy Tuesday morning.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is plowing ahead with plans to vote on the massive GOP reconciliation bill at the end of this week despite serious policy divides between the House and Senate, rifts within his own conference and unresolved Byrd Bath issues.

This is what it looks like when the Senate is about to jam the House — and many GOP senators are cheering it on.

News: During Monday night’s Senate GOP Conference meeting, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) stood up for his fellow Louisiana Republican, Speaker Mike Johnson, and insisted that the House won’t be able to pass what Senate Republicans have been cobbling together, citing the Senate’s stricter crackdown on Medicaid provider taxes.

Thune responded by saying the House will ultimately accept what the Senate passes, according to three senators in the room.

Several GOP senators told us they came away from the meeting — and this interaction in particular — with the impression that Thune is angling to use his substantial leverage to dare the House to reject any Senate-passed bill, especially with President Donald Trump eager to sign the measure by July 4.

Working in Thune’s favor here is the fact that no GOP lawmaker wants a formal conference or a “ping-pong” between the two chambers. And Republican senators are getting frustrated with the House’s SALT Caucus’ refusal to accept a compromise proposal. More on that in a moment.

Thune can also lean heavily on President Donald Trump to get a Senate-passed bill through the House and to his desk quickly — in theory.

House GOP leaders have made clear privately that they don’t believe the Senate’s provider tax language can pass in their chamber. They also don’t think a proposed “stabilization fund” for rural hospitals would alleviate enough of their members’ concerns. Some Republican senators, like Cassidy, want the House GOP’s preferences taken into consideration.

“This won’t work to not ever talk to the House and hope that they just take the bill,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.

Inside the room. The Senate’s provider tax freeze came under withering assault from several senators during last night’s meeting, according to multiple attendees.

As we scooped last night, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) handed out a flyer listing 10 states that would stand to lose the most amount of federal Medicaid funding over the next decade. North Carolina would forfeit the most by far — $38.9 billion, according to Tillis. That includes nearly $10 billion in lost hospital receipts.

At the bottom, the flyer stated: “Medicaid coverage for over 600,000 North Carolinians would be at risk.”

The political landscape is important here. Tillis is up for reelection in 2026 in a state that has elected Democrats to statewide offices in recent years. Democrats are expected to spend gobs of cash to try to defeat him next November.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who has stayed relatively quiet in public, also spoke up during the meeting, saying the provider tax language is bad for his state.

During the meeting, Senate GOP leaders confirmed plans to add a rural hospital stabilization fund to the bill, but they didn’t provide specifics.

SALT. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) is leading talks with the handful of New York, California and New Jersey SALT holdouts. Mullin is bullish on a potential deal to keep the House’s $40,000 cap on deducting state-and-local taxes but put harsher limits on how many high-income households can claim the full deduction.

The SALT crew says they’re not taking this deal. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) told reporters that GOP senators would have to “offer something in return” for lowering the income limit. Republicans could do that by increasing the $40,000 deduction cap or raising it more to account for inflation over time.

But Senate Republicans don’t want to do that. Plenty of them are itching to jam blue-state House members on SALT. There’s heavy skepticism that the SALT crew would torpedo Trump’s agenda over lowering the income limit from $500,000 to, say, $300,000.

“We’re to the point where people have to make a decision if it’s worth voting against. And that’s on both sides,” Mullin said Monday.

Speaking of taxes. Senate Republicans’ tax package costs $4.2 trillion over a decade using traditional accounting methods, per a preliminary JCT analysis. That shows the full price tag of extending the 2017 tax cuts, which aren’t counted under the GOP’s current policy baseline.

Byrd news. The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) proposal to allow the sale of millions of acres of federal land fails to comply with the Byrd Rule. We scooped this last night.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats fought hard to scrap the provision during Byrd arguments. The Montana and Idaho GOP senators opposed Lee’s effort too.

The Oversight race. The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee backed Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) to be the ranking member of the Oversight Committee on Monday night. That makes him the heavy favorite heading into today’s caucus-wide vote.

“We’re gonna run through the tape,” Garcia told reporters after the Steering vote.

Garcia notched an impressive 33 votes. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) got 15 votes. Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) got 8 votes and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) got 6 votes.

— Andrew Desiderio, Laura Weiss and Ally Mutnick

TODAY at 9 a.m. ET, we’ll sit down with Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) to discuss the news of the day and the future of medicine. RSVP to join us in person or on the livestream!

WASHINGTON X THE WORLD

Dems move ahead on War Powers votes as Israel-Iran continue fighting

House and Senate Democrats plan to force votes calling on President Donald Trump to get congressional approval before launching any military campaign against Iran. Trump made a high-profile announcement of an Israel-Iran ceasefire on Monday, only to see it apparently fall apart overnight.

But it still seems unlikely any War Powers resolution will pass. And the House vote in particular may not happen until mid-July, weeks from now.

Thanks to GOP support — or the unwillingness by Republicans to confront Trump over Iran — the president will have launched a military campaign against a longtime U.S. nemesis, weathered a retaliatory Iranian missile attack and then declared victory.

Trump would’ve shown that – once again – Congress has little incentive or political will to rein in a president’s use of American military force even without approval.

Trump – who heads to a NATO meeting in The Hague today – took a huge gamble with his MAGA base in attacking Iran. So far, he’s kept GOP lawmakers and MAGA in line.

Hill action. The House and Senate will have separate briefings on Iran today from senior Trump administration officials. The briefers will include Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine and other senior State and Pentagon officials.

House Republicans and Democrats both will hold private party meetings today, with the latest events in the Middle East sure to be at the top of those conversations.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has a War Powers Resolution that will ripen on Friday, meaning it can be called up then for a vote.

But with Senate Republicans moving ahead on reconciliation, Kaine and GOP senators suggested a vote on his resolution could happen as soon as Wednesday if the two sides can reach a deal. We reported this on Monday morning.

“Sen. Schumer is doing a really good job. He’s negotiating with [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune on the timing,” said Kaine, who noted there would be a classified briefing on Tuesday. “It could be as early as Wednesday, as late as Friday. They’re working on it.”

Other than Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Senate Republicans overwhelmingly appear ready to back Trump and oppose Kaine’s resolution. And Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) – who is strongly pro-Israel — sounds like he’s ready to vote no as well.

House action. As we scooped for you on Sunday, Democratic Reps. Greg Meeks (N.Y.), Jim Himes (Conn.) and Adam Smith (Wash.) – ranking members of the Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Armed Services panels – introduced their own War Powers Resolution on Monday.

Yet the Meeks-Himes-Smith resolution doesn’t ripen for 15 calendar days, although that doesn’t include recesses. If the House is out next week for the July 4th holiday as scheduled — this depends on what happens with the One Big, Beautiful Bill in the Senate — a House vote on a War Powers resolution may not happen until about July 18 or 19, nearly a month from now, per Democratic aides.

The House also can’t call up Kaine’s resolution if it were to somehow pass that chamber because of procedural differences in how the resolutions are structured.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has introduced his own War Powers Resolution along with Democrat Ro Khanna (Calif.), but told us Monday night he was backing off.

Massie has come under tremendous criticism from Trump, who is now searching for a primary opponent to take on the eight-term GOP lawmaker. Massie voted against the BBB in the House — one of only two Republicans to do so — as well as openly questioning whether Trump had the constitutional authority to attack Iran.

That doesn’t mean the resolution can’t be called up for a vote, but Massie won’t be doing it.

“It might not be necessary,” Massie said. “If there’s no hostilities. The resolution is to withdraw or end hostilities.”

Massie then joked he’d like the “same deal on the ceasefire with the president.”

– John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman

The Vault: Senators aren’t ready for a ‘big, beautiful’ crypto bill

Washington is in the midst of a quiet power struggle to control the future of crypto policy. For the most part, the Senate has picked a side.

President Donald Trump has called for the House to quickly pick up and pass the Senate’s GENIUS Act, which would regulate stablecoins. House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) has, in so many words, said not so fast.

Instead, Hill is talking a lot about the importance of passing a stablecoin bill as well as a crypto market structure reform bill. That’s fueling speculation that the House could produce a two-pronged piece of legislation that fuses the crypto industry’s top agenda items together.

Across the Hill. The Senate is not thrilled by that prospect.

“All you have to do is take a look at what the president has stated publicly, and I think that’s quite important,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), who was lead sponsor of the GENIUS Act. “I don’t think we should take a chance of losing this win right now.”

Hill told an audience at The Brookings Institute Monday that Trump had asked lawmakers to produce both stablecoin and market structure reform before the August recess. Hill’s hope is that when House Republican leadership receives the GENIUS Act, lawmakers “can figure out how we’re going to move both the idea of stablecoin and market structure ahead.”

Senators say they need more time to figure out what exactly they want to do in market structure reform. The Senate Banking Committee will host its first subcommittee hearing on the subject this afternoon.

Some senators would love to avoid reliving the process around the GENIUS Act, which was a bit of a procedural nightmare that stretched well over a month. “We went through 77 different versions of the bill here,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said. “We don’t want to go through that again.”

Senate Democrats aren’t itching to vote on a massive crypto package, either. “It was challenging enough to get to yes on the GENIUS Act that it would not be wise to try to combine them,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said.

Industry pulse check: Hill’s positioning speaks to a real anxiety among some major players in the crypto industry. Advancing stablecoins through the Senate was painful, and some advocates fear getting another vote on a much-more-complicated market structure bill this year could be difficult.

One key voice isn’t sweating the House’s moves. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told us: “The House is going to need to do what they think is best. There’s a divergence of opinion, even within the industry.”

– Brendan Pedersen

SPECIAL PROJECTS

The Future of Energy series launches

Our latest editorial project, The Future of Energy, launched today.

Global energy demand is quickly rising, driven in part by artificial intelligence and the increasing electrification of transportation means.

The four-part series, in partnership with Duke Energy, will provide an overview of the state of the energy industry and the factors driving it into the future, the regulatory landscape and the outlook for the sector, as well as the key players. We’ll also speak to a leading lawmaker to gain important insight into how Congress is approaching the issue.

The State of Play: The first segment in the series, live now, highlights the way energy production is quickly evolving, with a lens pointed at the key drivers like AI, transportation electrification and the efforts to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign critical minerals.

We examine how policymakers are working with industry to fulfill the growing needs while accommodating the divergent views on how to balance the 21st-century energy needs with global decarbonization efforts.

Each segment will feature an accompanying podcast, so be sure to look out for them.

– Elvina Nawaguna

… AND THERE’S MORE

Issue watch. The DSCC is relaunching a website — GOPonAbortion.com — to attack Republicans on their abortion rights stances on the third anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.

Ad news. The Republican Main Street Partnership is airing a new ad boosting vulnerable Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) by praising his support for the reconciliation bill. The $100,000 ad buy hails Ciscomani for backing “the biggest tax cut in American history.” Republican groups are homing in on the tax cut portions of the package in messaging.

Anti-Trump effort. The Home of the Brave campaign, a $15 million project to highlight the voices of people negatively affected by President Donald Trump’s administration, is launching on Tuesday. The first round of testimonials features small business owners affected by tariffs, workers impacted by government cuts and Americans who depend on NIH medical research.

— Max Cohen

MOMENTS

CLIPS