Happy conclave day, Dispatchers!
Waiting for the release of the pivotal parts of Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill can feel sort of like waiting for the election of a new pope. We might even know who the next pontiff is before we know all of what’s in the legislation.
The House Agriculture, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means committees were scheduled to hold markups this week in which they would presumably have voted on the parts of the bill dealing with SNAP, Medicaid, and taxes. But the House pushed them to next week while it finishes sorting out those issues. Today’s Morning Dispatch has the details of the major disagreements within the House GOP conference.
Of course, passing the bill through the House is one battle, but getting it through the Senate is another. It’s possible that the Senate makes serious changes to the House’s framework and jeopardizes the new version’s passage when it sends it back to the lower chamber, so that’s something to watch. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson downplayed any concerns of that at a press conference yesterday, saying there was “no daylight” between his chamber and Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s.
“I don't expect that it will take much modification. I hope that there's very little at all and that we can have an agreement,” he said. “But the difference now and in years past is that our colleagues over there know exactly what we're doing. We're in careful, close communication—and with the White House team as well. So, we're not sending over some package that they'll receive blindly and not know what’s in it.”
Despite Johnson’s assurances, there are some in the Senate who are wary of cutting as much as the $1.5 trillion congressional GOP leaders promised. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wants to cut even more.
For what it’s worth, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, who often acts as an unofficial liaison between the House and Senate, said he was unsure whether there would be major changes to the reconciliation bill when it comes to his chamber.
“Everything's on the table right now. So much of it starts in the house in this case, so I don't know. We just have to see it,” he told Dispatch Politics.
—Charles
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Top Stories From the Dispatch Politics Team
We still don’t know exactly what will be in Republicans’ “one big, beautiful” reconciliation megabill that they hope to pass through the House of Representatives by Memorial Day. Most assumed we would have an idea by this week, as three committees were supposed to hold key markups in which they would vote to advance their parts of the bill. As fate—or unruly majorities—would have it, leadership had to delay those meetings to next week.
Among Donald Trump’s team of losers, few are more emblematic of how unbending loyalty outweighs political success than Ed Martin, the acting United States attorney for the District of Columbia. He has never won an election for public office, despite running multiple times. His tenure as chairman of the Missouri Republican Party more than a decade ago was unremarkable, while his time as chief of staff to Missouri’s governor ended with Martin resigning amid a scandal. But since 2016, Martin has been a prominent conservative defender of Trump in op-eds and media appearances. He later became a vocal proponent of the idea that the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump, attended the march on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and even represented January 6 defendants. When the House select committee investigating that event subpoenaed him, he refused to show up. For all this, he was rewarded with a post as the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital.
Trump insists that tariffs are “going to make our country very rich,” and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed last month “tariffs are a tax cut for the American people.” But stories like Dan Turner’s—who now face extraordinary tariff rates on items on container ships on their way to the United States—exemplify the reality that tariffs are indeed a tax paid by businesses and consumers alike. “It’s going to take away from our resources. We’re going to borrow money from the bank, and that’s not what our business plan was for this year. We were planning for growth,” Turner said.
The departure of Mike Waltz from his post means national security hawks in both parties have lost a vital ally in a White House that is otherwise broadly more dovish in its foreign policy. From a vice president hand-selected by Tucker Carlson to the powerful aide keeping Reaganites out of key positions, Hill hawks are looking at an administration more hostile to the idea of using American power abroad than they would prefer. Members of Congress certainly sound concerned about the change, especially since Rubio seems to be only a temporary replacement until the White House can settle on a permanent one.
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