Thune's rocky road to July 4

IN THIS EDITION

Trump, Thune push Senate GOP on reconciliation timeline

Cornyn down big in new poll. New Tillis hires.

The Vault: Lobbyists duel over swipe fee push

Scalise comms staffer leaving Hill, former Biden DOJ official to law firm

The Future of Medicine: The Players

THE TOP

Trump, Thune push Senate GOP on reconciliation timeline

Happy Tuesday morning.

Senate Republicans are stepping on the gas.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is charting a four-week sprint to pass a reconciliation bill that can clear the House quickly and get President Donald Trump’s signature by July 4.

The stakes are extraordinarily high for Thune, Trump and Senate Republicans. The House passed the massive reconciliation package by one vote on May 22. Speaker Mike Johnson is urging his Senate GOP counterparts to move cautiously in revising the proposal despite their many concerns over the spending and tax-cut provisions.

“It’ll have to track very closely to the House bill because they’ve got a fragile majority and struck a very delicate balance,” Thune said Monday. “But there are some things that senators want to add to the bill or things we’d do slightly differently.”

Thune added that Senate Republicans are “on track” to deliver by Independence Day, but he acknowledged there are “a lot of moving parts.”

That’s an understatement.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants GOP congressional leaders to pass a debt-limit increase by mid-July, providing a backstop for any negotiations. Wall Street is already nervous about the fiscal implications of the Republican proposal, so the White House wants to avoid rattling markets on a debt-limit showdown too.

Trump hosted Thune for a meeting at the White House on Monday. The president phoned a few other GOP senators who have reservations about the House GOP version of reconciliation, including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Trump met with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) in-person. He’s also spoken with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has publicly opposed the reconciliation package over the debt-limit increase.

Trump’s aggressive posture underscores the White House and Senate GOP leadership’s need for speed. Trump posted Monday that he wants a bill to sign by July 4. Setting fast-approaching deadlines has been an asset for GOP leadership during the process so far, but this timeline will require warpspeed.

“Things are going to have to move at a much faster clip,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.

But Senate Republican leaders have problems as they try to satisfy one end of the conference that wants deeper spending cuts while the other is already squeamish about slashing federal programs – especially Medicaid.

Medicaid & IRA cuts. The House’s Medicaid provisions continue to be problematic for several GOP senators, especially the limiting of states’ provider taxes.

“To a lot of states, we can’t just let [provider taxes] get undermined. Because if you get that undermined, you hurt a lot of nursing homes,” Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) said. “There could be things [in the bill] that absolutely hurt people. And I think our president, nor I, in any way — I promise you, we don’t want to hurt people.”

Hawley told us that during their phone call, Trump agreed with his red line on Medicaid — that there shouldn’t be benefit cuts. According to Hawley, Trump said politicians who cut Medicaid are “stupid” and “lose elections.”

Hawley noted that while they didn’t discuss the provider tax provisions, he still has major concerns about the potential impact on rural hospitals.

He’s not alone.

“I’m still unclear on how the provider tax base would work and what the impact would be on states like Maine,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said. “I’m very concerned about not only low-income families but our rural hospitals.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) is warning about the scale of House Republicans’ cuts to Inflation Reduction Act clean-energy tax credits. Tillis said the GOP needs to consider that some subsidies fuel economic growth, including in his home state.

“We need to be smart about where capital has been deployed,” Tillis said, “and to minimize the impact of the message we send businesses that every two or four years, we have massive changes in our priorities for energy transition.”

Remember: accelerating the elimination of the IRA tax credits was key to winning the House Freedom Caucus’s votes for the package.

House fault lines. There are some crucial pieces of the bill that senators are thinking about for maintaining the House Republicans’ vote math.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a former House member who often acts as a liaison with House Republicans, said the Senate needs to keep intact the House’s spending-cut total and SALT deal.

“As long as we leave those two things there and then we put our fingerprints on the rest of it, I think we’re in good shape,” Mullin said.

Byrd Bath. The House may be forced to accept watered-down elements of the reconciliation bill because of the Byrd Rule, which governs the Senate’s reconciliation process. Thune reiterated Monday that he doesn’t want to vote to overrule the Senate parliamentarian, who will be responsible for determining what’s in and what’s out.

Thune said Byrd-related conversations have been ongoing. But one major Byrd element that remains unresolved is the House’s inclusion of a version of the REINS Act, a proposal giving Congress new authority to claw back federal regulations.

The REINS Act is popular with conservatives. Thune told us Monday he hopes it passes muster with the parliamentarian.

“We’re seeing what can comply with the Byrd test,” Thune said. “In some areas it’s harder than in others. But we’re going to be doing everything possible to have it included.”

News: Speaker Mike Johnson raised $4 million over the recess during a swing through California. On the swing, alongside a majority of the state’s GOP delegation, Johnson spoke about polling that showed House Republicans on offense in California battleground districts. The money raised goes to Grow the Majority, Johnson’s joint fundraising committee.

— Andrew Desiderio, Laura Weiss, John Bresnahan, Jake Sherman and Max Cohen

SENATE NEWS

Cornyn down big in new poll. New Tillis hires.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) trails Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by 22 points, according to a new independent poll of the Senate GOP primary.

Paxton snagged 50% of the vote to Cornyn’s 28% in the survey, which was obtained by Punchbowl News. And here’s another tough finding for Cornyn: Only 27% of those polled want to see him reelected while 54% want someone new. Cornyn has been in office since 2002.

Republican pollster Robert Blizzard conducted the poll of 600 Republican primary voters on May 27-28. It was done on behalf of the Educational Freedom Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for school choice programs.

This isn’t the only poll in the past month that has shown some deeply unsettling numbers for Cornyn. We scooped that the Senate Leadership Fund, the GOP leadership-aligned super PAC backing Cornyn, found the incumbent down 16 points in a survey conducted from April 27 to May 1.

When asked in a recent TV interview why he was trailing Paxton in early polls, Cornyn attributed it to “primarily name identification.” But only 7% of voters hadn’t heard of Cornyn, per Blizzard’s poll, while 5% had not heard of Paxton.

Both men had favorability ratings that were rightside up, although Paxton’s was higher. Cornyn’s was 48/37 while Paxton’s was 65/22. Check out the full crosstabs here.

Scoop on Tillis’ big hires: Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has enlisted President Donald Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio for his reelection campaign, a big hire as the North Carolina Republican has weathered intense criticism from Trump World in recent months.

In addition to Fabrizio, Tillis is announcing several other campaign hires this morning, per a list first shared with Punchbowl News. That includes Tim Saler, who was Trump’s chief data consultant, and Jim McCray, who helped lead the Trump campaign’s fundraising.

The Trump World connections are important for Tillis, who could face a viable primary challenge from the right. Yet he’s also gearing up for a potentially difficult general election in a state that has elected Democrats to several statewide offices in recent elections.

Tillis’ steadfast support for Ukraine has caused some friction with Trump allies. More recently, Tillis effectively tanked Trump’s nominee to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, over Martin’s posture toward the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Tillis also had a dust-up earlier this year with Arthur Schwartz, a key figure in Trump’s orbit and a close confidant of Vice President JD Vance.

— Ally Mutnick and Andrew Desiderio

The Vault: Lobbyists duel over swipe fee push

Lobbyists are swarming around a piece of legislation that might give lawmakers the opportunity to hold a vote on swipe fee reform in the Senate.

The GENIUS Act could come up for a final vote as early as this week — but a contentious amendment process will drag this out as late as next week. “That’s a fly in the ointment,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said on Monday night.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) is pushing for an amendment vote on the Credit Card Competition Act.

Enter the lobbyists: Advocates for and against the bill have blitzed the Senate over the last month.

The possibility of the CCCA coming up for a vote is greater than it’s been in years, thanks to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his commitment to “regular order.”

We spoke to two key lobbyists. Richard Hunt leads the bank- and payment-company backed Electronic Payments Coalition, and Doug Kantor is a member of the Merchants Payments Coalition. Both are projecting confidence.

“We’re advocating for the Marshall-Durbin amendment all the ways we know how,” Kantor said. “We’ve had folks here every month since the beginning of the year, and we have folks here again this week too.”

We met with Hunt in the basement of Dirksen Monday in between meetings. “I want to make sure that every member of Congress is fully educated about the draconian ramifications of this bill,” he said.

The strategy: Banks are making the case that the GENIUS Act isn’t a vehicle for credit card reform.

“This is a serious bill that deserves serious debate,” Hunt said. “You’re talking about people having credit cards withdrawn or their credit limits dropped.”

Banks still have support from the airline industry, which loves its credit card rewards. A group including Boeing, American Airlines, United Airlines, RTX and some industry unions sent a letter to Senate leadership yesterday opposing the CCCA.

Retailers counter this is an opportunity to fix the payments system. Kantor argued the CCCA would loosen the dominance of large credit card players.

“You need the Credit Card Competition Act in order to clear the way for stablecoin to see its potential, because otherwise the big credit card companies will lock it, dominate it,” Kantor said.

As for a vote: Both lobbies think they’ll win a vote on the CCCA if it comes to the floor.

“We’ve had these conversations with every office multiple times, and we have a pretty good feel for where people are,” Kantor said.

Heaven knows the banks feel the same.

– Brendan Pedersen

…AND THERE’S MORE

Scalise comms staffer leaving Hill, former Biden DOJ official to law firm

Michael Comer, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s deputy communications director, is leaving Capitol Hill to join S-3 Group.

Comer has been with Scalise since 2018. He was previously Scalise’s digital director – Scalise has a healthy digital presence.

The S-3 Group is home to a number of former Scalise staffers, notably Matt Bravo and Marty Reiser. S-3 represents clients such as the American Petroleum Institute, Blue Origin, CTIA, DoorDash, Expedia, H&R Block, Intel, JPMorgan Chase and Boeing.

Comer is only the most recent Scalise staffer to leave the leader’s office. Ben Napier recently went to Andreessen Horowitz and Francis Brooke was nominated for an assistant secretary role at the Treasury Department.

Uriarte lands: Carlos Uriarte, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legislative Affairs in the Biden administration, is heading to the law firm Morrison Foerster to run its congressional investigations group.

Uriarte helped lead the Biden Justice Department’s response to a number of GOP investigations during the 118th Congress.

Uriarte has extensive Capitol Hill experience, including serving as chief counsel for investigations on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and as counsel on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Uriarte was also judiciary and oversight counsel to Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.).

Other executive-branch stints for Uriarte include associate deputy attorney general at DOJ and as senior counsel at the Interior Department.

BEAT tax ad. The Common Sense Leadership Fund is running a new $1.5 million ad campaign, targeted at changing international tax law – the Base Erosion and Anti-Abuse Tax and Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income. The spot is running nationwide on cable.

Bacon targeted: Liberal outside group Unrig Our Economy is running an ad attacking Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) for backing Medicaid cuts. Check out the ad here, which features a South Omaha, Neb., resident whose family relies on Medicaid.

Equality PAC endorsements: The campaign arm of the House Democratic LGBTQ caucus is endorsing JoAnna Mendoza in Arizona’s 6th District, Eric Chung in Michigan’s 10th District and Jeremy Moss in Michigan’s 11th District.

– Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Max Cohen

THE FUTURE OF

The Future of Medicine: The Players

For our final installment of the Future of Medicine, we highlight the players shaping this industry at a pivotal time.

These key stakeholders, including lawmakers, government agencies and advocacy groups, are contending with the chaotic first few months of the second Trump administration.

They’re navigating through several policy flashpoints. Republicans’ changes to Medicaid will send waves through the health care system. And research funding frozen by the White House has lawmakers in both parties warning about catastrophic effects on America’s capacity to make new biomedical advancements.

We also probably don’t need to tell you that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is upending the federal government’s approach to vaccines, health and safety protocols, pesticides and more.

Federal agencies are evolving as well. The FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research and Center for Drug Evaluation and Research are both streamlining approvals and embracing AI in drug development. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is piloting new models like value-based care and drug price negotiations.

We also unpack the critical influence of organizations in this space. Groups like PhRMA, the American Cancer Society and the National Venture Capital Association are advocating for policies that support innovation, research funding and equitable access.

– Brendan Pedersen

MOMENTS

CLIPS