How the White House is selling Trump’s agenda to Senate GOP

IN THIS EDITION

Team Trump pushes GOP to go on offense over his agenda

Johnson’s first big international trip: Israel

Can WH force a new map on Texas Republicans?

Are the Dem spotlight forums breaking through?

THE TOP

Team Trump pushes GOP to go on offense over his agenda

Happy Wednesday morning.

Here’s how the White House is selling President Donald Trump’s agenda to Senate Republicans.

Top administration officials are aggressively making the case to GOP senators that the massive Republican reconciliation bill is a political winner — and that they should be going on offense to sell it. It comes as Democrats hammer vulnerable Republicans over Medicaid cuts and other controversial provisions in the reconciliation package.

News: During a lunch meeting at the NRSC on Tuesday, Trump’s political team, led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, presented polling data to Senate Republicans showing that key elements of the bill are popular with the public.

The polling data centered on individual tax provisions that are major Trump priorities, including no taxes on tips and overtime pay, according to GOP senators and a White House official. Senate Republicans have indicated they want to impose limits on the latter due, in part, to the cost.

Both of these provisions polled above 70%. Other proposals were even more popular, such as raising the maximum child tax credit to $2,500 per child, modernizing air traffic control and extending tax cuts for lower-income Americans.

Blair also addressed what Democrats see as the GOP’s biggest political vulnerability — kicking millions of Americans off Medicaid. Blair argued that Republicans should highlight the imposition of tougher work requirements for Medicaid because it moves poll numbers against Democrats.

Senate Republicans were shown an ad from Senate GOP Conference Chair Tom Cotton’s super PAC that attacks Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) over Medicaid. The ad highlights Republicans’ push to prevent undocumented immigrants from obtaining Medicaid benefits and attacks Ossoff for opposing those efforts.

The ad, which is running on digital platforms throughout Georgia with an initial $100,000 buy, is one of the first examples of Republicans using the reconciliation bill to go on offense.

Blair cited this approach to argue that a “no” vote is politically risky for an incumbent Democrat because most Americans oppose allowing undocumented immigrants to enroll in Medicaid.

Blair showed polling data on that particular question, as well as whether to hire more immigration enforcement officers. Both polled slightly over 50%.

Here was Sen. Jim Banks’ (R-Ind.) impression after the presentation:

Meanwhile, key House Republicans are framing Trump priorities, like tax cuts on tips and overtime pay, as a crucial part of their political message. Some of the Trump campaign pledges strike a more populist tone. House Republicans see this as helpful to blunt Democrats’ attacks over tax cuts that benefit the wealthy.

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said Republicans should focus on selling what the tax bill does for working families, farmers and small businesses.

“No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, tax relief for seniors, increasing the child tax credit, increasing the standard deduction — those are all wins for working families that I represent in southeast Missouri,” Smith said.

The flip side. Not everyone was persuaded by Blair’s presentation. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who’s been on the receiving end of Trump’s attacks over his opposition to the reconciliation bill, told us that “there will be a point at which it’s a political loser.”

“Expectations were raised that something really good was happening from a fiscally conservative point of view,” Paul added. “And then when that hasn’t materialized, I think it’s gonna be a huge downer from our base.”

It’s worth noting that Blair has gone after Paul as well over the Kentucky Republican’s criticism of the reconciliation bill.

And as we’ve told you, Democrats see the GOP reconciliation package as a political gold mine and have argued that Republicans are late to the messaging game.

“We have laid the groundwork that is weakening them as they go through the next year, because they’re voting for something they know is wrong,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a recent interview. “The data shows that even if people like a little piece of the bill, they hate the overall bill. The overall negative theme has overwhelmed any positives.”

Looking ahead. Senate Republicans’ work on their reconstruction bill is far from finished. Rank-and-file senators are eager to hear how GOP leaders plan to address the most controversial elements of their reconciliation package. House and Senate conservatives are also demanding hundreds of billions of dollars more in spending cuts.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) is expected to give Republican senators a high-level overview of his panel’s yet-to-be-released legislative text during a conference meeting later today.

McIver indictment: Tuesday’s federal criminal indictment of Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver (N.J.) is setting off shockwaves inside the House Democratic Caucus.

Democrats see this as yet another Trump power play, along with sending the California National Guard and Marines into Los Angeles, stepping up ICE raids nationwide and this weekend’s big military parade in D.C., which just happens to coincide with Trump’s 79th birthday.

Interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba – Trump’s former defense attorney – announced the three-count indictment of McIver, who was elected to the House in September to replace the late Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.). McIver faces two felony counts and one misdemeanor.

The indictment grew out of a May 9 protest at an ICE detention facility in Newark. 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 moved to arrest Baraka. McIver allegedly “forcibly impeded and interfered” with federal officers, per the indictment.

In a statement, McIver denied any wrongdoing and said she was carrying out her official duties as a member of Congress while inspecting the facility: “The facts are on our side, I will be entering a plea of not guilty, I’m grateful for the support of my community, and I look forward to my day in court.”

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

Correction: An earlier version of this item incorrectly stated that Rep. LaMonica McIver replaced the late Rep. Bill Pascrell. McIver took the late Rep. Donald Payne’s seat.

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THE SPEAKER X THE WORLD

Johnson’s first big international trip: Israel

News: Speaker Mike Johnson will travel to Israel to address the Israeli parliament on June 22.

The Knesset will convene on a Sunday – a rarity – to hear from Johnson.

Johnson has been the speaker since October 2023 and has not taken many major international trips. He attended a G7 head of parliament conference in Italy last fall.

Johnson is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem during the brief trip.

The Louisiana Republican will become the third speaker in U.S. history to address the Knesset. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke before the chamber in May 2023 amid a debt-limit standoff with former President Joe Biden. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich spoke to the Knesset in 1998.

Johnson’s speakership has been intertwined with a pivotal chapter in Israel’s history. Johnson became speaker just weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza. Johnson was criticized early in his speakership for trying – and failing – to pair U.S. aid to Israel with IRS spending cuts.

Yet Johnson has been a staunch ally of Netanyahu and his government in Jerusalem. The Johnson-led House approved aid to Israel in April 2024. And when Biden put a hold on weapons sales to Israel amidst a wave of Palestinian civilian casualties, the speaker pressed the White House to back off.

The speaker’s visit comes at a perilous time for Netanyahu. The Knesset is set to vote today on a measure that could dissolve Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition.

Furthermore, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement condemning England, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and Australia for sanctioning Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, two of the far-right members of Netanyahu’s government. The five U.S. allies blame the pair for “inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.”

– Jake Sherman

THE LONE STAR STATE

Can WH force a new map on Texas Republicans?

The White House is exploring having Texas redraw its congressional map to create more GOP-friendly House seats in 2026.

Hardly anyone in the Texas GOP delegation seems on board with the plan. Every Texas Republican lawmaker we spoke to declined to comment on the record, and many told us privately that they have no interest in blowing up the Lone Star State’s districts.

Redistricting is always uncomfortable for members. But this situation is especially so. Republicans control 25 of the state’s 38 districts. Incumbents would need to give up reliably red voters to create more Republican districts but not so many that they could lose their seats. That’s a hard balance to strike.

“With any state, if you’re looking at redistricting, there may be states where you can get additional seats, but you don’t want to stretch it too thin where you make a safe seat vulnerable,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who served on the redistricting committee in Louisiana for 12 years.

Not to mention, the midterms are historically bad for the party that controls the White House.

This is a huge power play for President Donald Trump. Redistricting is often a parochial affair. In the past, state legislators have refused to cow to national party leaders. But that was in the pre-Trump era.

It’s hard to imagine congressional leaders, Texas Republicans or GOP Gov. Greg Abbott telling Trump no. The Texas delegation will meet Thursday – as we scooped in Midday Tuesday – and a representative from the Trump administration is expected to be in attendance. James Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs, has been involved in this push.

Targeted Democrats: No one we talked to seems to have a framework in mind for a new Texas map. Adding two more red seats is a lot more feasible than adding five.

The most obvious Democratic targets are in South Texas: Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar. Trump carried those seats by 4 points and 7 points, respectively.

Republicans could try to make those districts more red. But remember, GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s district is wedged in between the two Democrats. Texas Democrats have targeted De La Cruz in the past.

Republicans could also try to unpack one or more of the three deep-blue seats they created in 2021 in Austin, Houston and Dallas.

But Texas GOP leaders created these new districts for a reason — to shore up Republicans in the surrounding suburbs. For example, unraveling the Houston-area seat of Democratic Rep. Lizzie Fletcher means GOP Reps. Wesley Hunt and Troy Nehls could be forced to take on some of her Democratic voters.

2024 was a great year for the GOP, particularly in Texas. Latinos swung hard to the right. So much so Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar’s El Paso seat moved nearly 20 points toward Trump between 2020 and 2024. She could be a target, too.

The argument for. Texas has trended red since the 2021 redistricting. Some Republican incumbents have GOP voters to spare. But Republicans also don’t want to use what could be an electoral high-water mark to craft their congressional maps.

Democrats need to pick up only a few seats to flip the House. This redraw, along with another in Ohio, could stymie the Democratic path to the majority. Some Republican operatives see this is a no-brainer.

Reality Check: A lot has to happen to make this a reality. First, the Texas legislature is only scheduled to meet every two years, and the session ended on June 2. Abbott would have to call a special session, and legislators would have to put their summers on hold to travel back to Austin.

Oh, and Democrats could flee the state and deny the legislature a quorum as they did back in 2003 when Republicans tried a similar move. Republicans eventually were successful, however.

– Ally Mutnick and Jake Sherman

VIEW FROM THE MINORITY

Are the Dem spotlight forums breaking through?

In the past month, Senate Democrats have held nearly a dozen “spotlight forums” to draw attention to what they claim are the Trump administration’s harmful policies.

But amid a jam-packed news cycle dominated by President Donald Trump and GOP reconciliation infighting, the shadow hearings struggle to break through the noise.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), along with House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, will lead the latest of these meetings today, with a focus on how the reconciliation bill impacts women.

“It educates the public that the reconciliation bill is taking away health care from millions of Americans and adding to our deficit and debt,” Cortez Masto said.

Senate Democrats insist the forums — which have ranged from slamming Department of Education cuts to today’s event exposing the GOP reconciliation bill’s “Big Betrayal of Women” — are critical means of oversight at a time when their base is demanding action but they’re only in the minority.

“It’s about making the case in Washington with our colleagues, because Republicans aren’t doing it,” Klobuchar told us. “They’re not holding hearings about the impact of this bill, so we’re going to.”

The vision: Democrats launched the spotlight series this year with the aim of getting beyond the press conference format to push back against the White House. The goal was to get local news attention, attract eyeballs online and create social media content.

Yet the forums are no substitute for actual oversight mechanisms, such as subpoenas and calling Cabinet officials to testify. Many of the events struggle to attract national media attention, although Democrats insist D.C. headlines aren’t the goal. Instead, the spotlight series can serve as a roadmap of what Democrats will do when the party regains committee gavels.

Viewed in full, the spotlight forums aren’t the most eye-catching affairs. But the events can produce easily clippable moments that can serve as evidence to a restless activist class that the party is fighting back against Trump.

For example, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has been active in holding forums on GOP cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Connecticut Democrat said the events serve as a “very valid way to break through the Republican ideological fence.”

The local angle: While the spotlight forums don’t always get play in national media, the events receive more vigorous local coverage.

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) recently led a forum on “the GOP’s Assault on SNAP,” and warned hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans could lose benefits. The event got major billing from multiple in-state media outlets, where SNAP is a major issue.

“We’re getting information out to the American people,” Luján said. “Our Republican colleagues refuse to hold any hearings.”

The topics: Forums include deep dives into “partisan voting attacks on voting,” “Trump’s destruction of HHS,” “reckless cancellations of VA contracts,” “the abuse of immigrants” and “the household impact of Trump’s tariffs.”

— Max Cohen

AND THERE’S MORE…

New Jersey. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) won the Democratic nomination for New Jersey’s governor race. She will face former state legislator Jack Ciattarelli in November.

News. Republican Jason Knight, a U.S. Army veteran, small business owner and local politician, is launching a run to succeed retiring Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) in Tennessee’s 7th District.

Knight is portraying himself as “a proven conservative who will fight tooth and nail to support and deliver President Trump’s agenda.” If elected, Knight would become the fifth Black Republican in the House.

The Money Game: Ryan Crosswell, a Democrat running in Pennsylvania’s 7th District, raised over $200,000 in the first two days of his campaign.

— Max Cohen

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