The House passed President Donald Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package just after midnight. The vote was 216-213. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Mike Turner (R-Ohio) voted no along with all the Democrats.
House GOP leaders also passed their version of the FY2026 Defense funding bill, 221-209. Five Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans.
This morning, we have our Leader Look for Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Let’s get into it.
Johnson. Speaker Mike Johnson had the biggest legislative success of his career by helping deliver the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4. Yes, everyone doubted he’d be able to do it. And he did it.
Johnson also set fundraising records in the second quarter, keeping vulnerable House Republicans flush with cash.
But in Congress, you’re judged on what you’ve done lately. And since OBBB was signed into law, things have gotten awfully choppy for House Republicans. Consider what’s happened during the last week.
House Republicans voted down a procedural motion to allow consideration of three cryptocurrency bills. Trump cut a ham-handed deal with the House Freedom Caucus to change the structure of these bills. Then the rule came back up and Johnson kept the floor open for hours while he was getting the HFC to fold again.
That was followed by a political headache that may linger for a while: Jeffrey Epstein.
Republicans on the House Rules Committee grew frustrated over the last few days of having to vote against Democratic amendments related to the late disgraced financier.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) voted for a Democratic amendment Tuesday to force the Justice Department to release its Epstein files. All other Rules Republicans voted no, sparking a backlash among GOP members of the committee. Rules Republicans wanted political cover.
So Johnson huddled with these members all day, and ended up greenlighting a non-binding resolution, which the House didn’t even vote on.
The Epstein issue isn’t going to go away.
Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) discharge petition – which mandates the release of the documents – has nine GOP co-sponsors. If all Democrats sign the petition when it ripens after the August recess, it will come up for a vote.
Johnson is stuck between a Republican Party that wants to see the release of the Epstein files and an all-powerful president who badly wants the issue to go away. Trump said Thursday night he wanted to unseal “pertinent” grand jury testimony in the Epstein case.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said she’s willing to do that. But that won’t stop the pressure on Johnson – or Trump. There’s plenty in the so-called files that goes beyond the scope of grand jury testimony.
Johnson never asked to be a referee in a decades-old sex trafficking case. But that’s part of the job of being the speaker.
There is some frustration with the speaker. One GOP member reached out to us to say that they have the votes to depose Johnson after the August recess.
And, of course, Johnson’s job is only going to get harder. He has 74 days until the government-funding deadline.
Jeffries. The Democratic rank-and-file have been clamoring for their leaders to get more aggressive in taking on Trump. Jeffries is starting to deliver.
Consider the past few weeks. Confined to the House minority, Jeffries was powerless to stop the passage of the OBBB. But Jeffries did have the ability to force Republicans to cast their vote in broad daylight.
So he did, breaking the record for the longest House floor speech in the process. Speaking for over eight hours, Jeffries read into the Congressional Record the stories of average Americans who would suffer from the massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in the OBBB.
Democrats are winning the messaging wars so far on the bill too, thanks to publicity from members of the caucus and TV ad spending. (On that note, Unrig Our Economy is out with new TV and digital ads slamming GOP Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Iowa) and Juan Ciscomani (Ariz.) for their OBBB votes.)
Next, Jeffries fought back as Trump has embarked on a brazen effort to force Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional map to doom Democrats. Huddling with California Democrats, Jeffries endorsed a plan to muscle through a new map in the Golden State.
As we reported, this idea — if successful — could add a half-dozen blue seats. More importantly, Democrats don’t look like they are hopelessly standing by as Trump and Johnson scheme their way to keeping the majority in 2026.
Our last example: With Jeffries support, Democrats’ have aggressively exploited MAGA divisions over Epstein to troll the GOP.
Jeffries made this point succinctly in his weekly presser when he laid out Republicans’ Catch 22. Either there’s nothing in the Epstein files and Trump fanned a false conspiracy theory, or there’s something nefarious and Trump is hiding it (Thursday’s WSJ story is going to help with that too.)
“Now they are reaping what they have sown,” Jeffries declared.
We’ve long called Jeffries “ever-cautious” — and it’s true. The minority leader is still navigating how to address the controversy around Zohran Mamdani, the Democrats’ New York City mayoral nominee. Jeffries has work to do on this issue, and it’s a difficult one, especially for someone so careful. Mamdani is widely popular with the left but he makes others in the House Democratic Caucus nervous, especially regarding his stances on Israel.
History is on Democrats’ side this cycle, yet Jeffries has a lot riding on the midterms. His members are counting on him to lead them back to the majority. It won’t be easy. GOP incumbents raised globs of money last quarter, outperforming many Democratic incumbents. The NRCC raised an impressive $18 million last month.
At the end of the day, Jeffries leads the minority party and there are serious limits to what he can do. But he has had a string of successes recently for a leader out of power.
Speaking of the House. DNC Chair Ken Martin will be in Houston to meet with Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu and other leaders of the state’s Democratic caucus. This comes as GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has the legislature redrawing the Texas congressional map to add new Republican seats. Texas Democrats are considering fleeing the state to deny a quorum. In a statement, Martin said that he is supportive of California Gov. Gavin Newsom being ready to “punch back.”
