The GOP goes to war

Politico

07-02-2025

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DRIVING THE DAY
Happy Friday. This is Eugene Daniels, up early to help you make sense of a frenzied end to the week here in Washington.
TODAY: It might be Friday, but the internal Republican battle for the upper hand on reconciliation is still in full swing. Speaker Mike Johnson had promised House Republicans he and fellow GOP leaders would unveil their reconciliation framework this morning — but it now seems they'll still be working on it all through the weekend. (Majority Leader Steve Scalise said late last night they still hadn't agreed on a topline.) As that work continues, Senate Republicans will descend on Mar-a-Lago for dinner tonight with President Donald Trump, where they'll try to woo him toward their own competing vision for reconciliation. In the balance is nothing less than Trump's entire legislative agenda … No pressure.
And smack dab in the middle of it all … Trump will meet with Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba at 11:30 a.m. — followed by an inevitably news-packed press conference at 1:10 p.m. (More on that in a moment.)
RECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES: Top House Republicans huddled in the White House for a roughly five-hour meeting yesterday that kicked off with a visit from Trump but continued mostly as a conversation amongst themselves.
How it began: 'Trump laid out a list of tax policies and other priorities for the legislation,' Benjamin Guggenheim and Meredith Lee Hill report. 'He then told lawmakers he had other meetings, told them to work out a plan among themselves, and let him know when they had settled on something that could pass.'
Then what? 'We don't exactly know what went down, which is how we know it might have actually been a productive meeting,' senior Congress editor Mike DeBonis told us for today's Playbook Daily Briefing. 'The aphoristic rule of Washington meetings is: The more you know about what happened in it, probably the less fruitful it was.'
Here's what we do know: House Republicans are looking for a deal that includes not only border, energy and defense, but also a permanent extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, as Benjamin and Meredith report.
That's different from the Senate approach: The Senate Budget panel looks to mark up its own package next week, tackling the border, energy and defense in one bill while punting taxes until later.
The view from the House: Trump 'is very clear about what he wants,' Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) tells us on t his week's episode of Playbook Deep Dive. 'He gives us a lot of latitude on how to get there, so he's not a micromanager. But he is very clear on his expectations.' (You can listen to that interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.)
What Trump wants: The president's tax priorities, as Benjamin and Meredith report, include 'eliminating a tax break for owners of sports teams' as well as zeroing out 'taxes on overtime pay, tips and Social Security.' Also on the table, per Bloomberg's Akayla Gardner, Billy House, and Alicia Diaz: 'ending the carried interest tax break used by private equity fund managers and expanding the state and local tax deduction,' which is a top priority for a number of swing-district Republicans in blue states.
The potential cost: Depending on the details, a package like that would reduce revenue by between $5–11.2 trillion over 10 years, according to a new analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, while boosting debt 'to between 132 and 149 percent of GDP by 2035, if not offset.'
Where some offsets might come from: 'Trump has vowed to 'love and cherish' Medicaid — but the White House and House Republicans will continue to build support within the party for making deep cuts to the program,' Ben Leonard and Adam Cancryn report. Working with the administration, 'the House Energy and Commerce Committee was already on track to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from programs within the panel's purview to offset the budget reconciliation effort, much of it coming from Medicaid.' (Cue the attack ads!)
Meanwhile, in the Senate: Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has indicated he's ready to start moving on his two-bill plan next week, and Majority Whip John Barrasso told our colleague Jordain Carney yesterday that Graham 'is ready to go.'
Which brings us to tonight: Republican senators will be in Palm Beach for the annual NRSC retreat at The Breakers, and will make the jaunt to Mar-a-Lago this evening for a senators-and-spouses dinner with the president where they'll make the case for their two-bill approach.
But the lobbying won't stop there: Assuming that House Republicans work through the weekend, Speaker Johnson will surely lobby Trump for the House approach on Sunday, when the two are due to attend the Super Bowl together in New Orleans.
MEANWHILE IN THE WHITE HOUSE
TRUMP'S FRIDAY: The president is today hosting Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba — the second foreign leader to visit the White House this week seeking favor and face time with Trump.
A standard foreign visit: Trump will greet Ishiba in the driveway just after 11 a.m., they'll then head to the Oval Office, where you can be sure reporters will yell questions. After a bilateral meeting, the two will do a press conference in the East Room where, if the past is any indication, Trump will make lots of news — both on the scheduled topic and off.
On the agenda: A White House official tells Playbook that the two 'will discuss trade and investment, economic security, and defense industrial cooperation, among other topics.' Experts on U.S.-Japan relations aren't forecasting any huge announcements; they're expecting this to be more of a sizing up, if you will. (Then again, this is Trump, so be ready for anything.)
What the U.S. wants: Under the surface of those public-facing agenda items, one topic looms large: countering China. The timing of foreign visits at the beginning of the administration tells you a lot about their priorities, and that the Japanese PM was invited so soon indicates just how important countering China's influence in Asia is to this White House. (We're told that a surefire sign they went deep on specifics is if Taiwan comes up.)
What Japan wants: There's an international angle and a domestic one. I'm told that Ishiba hopes to double check that the U.S. is still on Team Japan and nothing has changed in that key strategic partnership. But, just as importantly, Ishiba wants to prove to his own people that the powerful new leader of America is ready to, at the very least, have a friendly relationship with him.
What Ishiba wants: 'For Ishiba, this is a very high-stakes meeting,' said Yuki Tatsumi, former special assistant for political affairs at the Japanese Embassy in Washington and current director of the Japan Program at the Stimson Center. 'He wants to show to Japanese constituents that he's a strong and confident enough leader to be able to build, if not a personally friendly relationship with Trump, at least a positive [one].' In that, Trump's chummy relationship with the late Japanese PM Shinzo Abe provides a pretty easy blueprint for Ishiba to follow.
What Trump wants: At the end of the day, every meeting Trump has with foreign leaders is about how that relationship can make the U.S. more dominant. I'm told that Trump may bring up deals that Japan made with the Biden administration that he is interested in, if not renegotiating, then at least kicking the tires to make sure they are in line with his priorities.
On deck: After Ishiba, the next foreign leaders scheduled to visit the White House are Jordan's King Abdullah II on Feb. 11 and Indian PM Narendra Modi on Feb. 13, per Eric Bazail-Eimil and Robbie Gramer of our sister newsletter, National Security Daily.
WHIPLASH WEEK
HOW DO YOU COVER A WEEK LIKE THAT? Our White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns emails in with her reflections on a head-spinning week in Washington …
THE ART DEALER: If you can remember back as far as Monday, the week kicked off with America poised to enter a trade war with its closest neighbors … before President Trump suddenly struck last-minute agreements with both Mexico and Canada. The White House comms team was buzzing with excitement. 'Art of the deal!' one person cheered. 'Have you read it? This is straight out of the book!'
The chaos is the strategy: Plenty of observers have opined about the upsides and downsides of the tariff whiplash. But for those close to President Trump, that debate misses the point: He is a destabilizing force; the chaos is the strategy. And they say it's getting results. (Naturally, opponents disagree.)
And so to the Middle East: The following day, standing next to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room, the president described his vision of turning war-torn Gaza into the 'Riviera of the Middle East,' prompting a uniform double-take among the assembled press.
That statement has meaning: The common mantra from Trump allies is to 'take him seriously, not literally.' For reporters, this is the daily tightrope we now live on: Take the president too literally and we risk raising a false alarm. Don't take him seriously enough, and we risk missing a hugely important story. Before the election, the press may have treated his Gaza comments as just another outlandish campaign promise. But on Tuesday, these words weren't coming from a candidate; they were being said by the sitting president during his administration's first White House visit from a foreign leader.
So what's a White House reporter to do? My approach is to report what the president says, check its factuality, note the tenacity with which he does or doesn't double down — and then start making calls to understand what happened behind the scenes. Following his Gaza remarks, a White House aide told me the whole thing was designed to send a message that we are not where we were before, and we're not going back. Trump is injecting 'intentional uncertainty' into the process, they said. It is, once again, 'The Art of the Deal.'
Substance vs. signal: A big part of the so-called 'art' is just that: optics, visuals, PR. Among the flurry of executive orders the president has signed, quite a few lack real teeth to consequentially change policy without additional action from Congress. But what they lack in substance they make up for in signal. Already, companies are dismantling DEI initiatives — the NFL is even removing the 'End Racism' slogan from the endzones for the Super Bowl. That's not happening because of the hard power of the pen atop the Resolute Desk; it's happening because of the president's soft power — his ability to influence private and public sectors alike.
Business as usual: 'If it looks like things are a little chaotic, it's not,' Peter Navarro told me during my on-stage interview with him this week. 'It's genius.' Navarro's view may or may not be your main takeaway from a week of Trump's 'out of the box' ideas — but it's important to understand that this is the strategy. The real estate mogul's worldview that Trump sold in 'The Art of the Deal' has informed his method on everything from tariffs to immigration policy to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And if you want to prepare yourself for what the next four years will be like in Trump's Washington, you need to get comfortable (again) with whiplash, shock and confusion.
JOBS JOBS JOBS
BY THE NUMBERS: The January jobs report comes out at 8:30 a.m., and Dow Jones economists' predictions are for 169,000 new jobs and a 4.1 percent unemployment rate, per CNBC. It's far too early to gauge Trump's impact on hiring around the country, but there's a deluge of news on a different kind of jobs report: all his cuts to federal workers (and beyond).
Writ large: More than 60,000 workers have now opted in to the offer to leave their jobs and get paid through September, though a judge yesterday extended its deadline at least a few days, Reuters' Daniel Wiessner, Tim Reid and Nathan Layne report.
USAID: The Trump administration plans to reduce the agency's headcount from five digits to fewer than 300 employees, per NYT's Karoun Demirjian and Aishvarya Kavi. That could mean nearly 14,000 people placed indefinitely on administrative leave. There was fresh pushback last night, as employee unions filed the first lawsuits against the USAID gutting and the foreign aid freeze, per CNN's Jennifer Hansler and Devan Cole.
HHS: A coming White House executive order will force thousands of firings across the federal health agencies, WSJ's Liz Essley Whyte and Betsy McKay scooped, though the White House denied it.
EPA: The administration axed much of the agency's Office of Environmental Justice, putting 168 employees on leave, Alex Guillén and Annie Snider report. More broadly, upward of 300 career staffers have already left since the election, per ProPublica.
FEC: Democratic Chair Ellen Weintraub announced that Trump had tried to remove her — but his method wasn't legal, she said, appearing to reject the attempt.
And beyond … in the private sector: The knock-on effects of Trump's efforts to gut the federal government are playing out across the country, where related layoffs have already hit several thousand people in the past two weeks, WaPo's Abha Bhattarai reports. Thanks to the federal funding freeze and other cuts, the 'wave of job losses … could pick up steam in the coming weeks, threatening the broader labor market.'
NOW HERE COMES RUSSELL VOUGHT: The new OMB director will be sworn in today after he was confirmed last night in a 53-47 party-line vote. But even before he arrives, Vought's broader project to gut the federal government is already well underway, as our Megan Messerly writes in a must-read story that just published. Despite the pause placed on Trump's mass federal funding freeze, tens of billions of dollars are on hold for energy, transportation and other projects that Congress has already appropriated (which Democrats say is illegal), Reuters' Bo Erickson and Richard Cowan report. Some community health centers have closed, per Roll Call's Jessie Hellmann and Sandhya Raman.
USAID in the crosshairs: The foreign aid agency has, of course, been the earliest and biggest target. In Trump's very first week back in office, Treasury chief of staff Dan Katz tried to get DOGE-affiliated software exec Tom Krause access to actually freeze foreign aid payments, NYT's Andrew Duehren, Alan Rappeport and Teddy Schleifer revealed. These guys, remember, are only meant to have read-only access.
Rearguard action: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told diplomats that they're 'not walking away from foreign aid,' NYT's Michael Crowley scooped. But in the meantime, the large-scale dismantling of U.S. foreign aid continues to have huge real-world effects. Anti-famine systems have been laid low, Reuters reports. Anti-trafficking work in Latin America has been hit hard, per CBS News. Thirty clinical trials were frozen midair, with some patients left with experimental medical devices still in their bodies, per NYT. Damage to Ukraine's energy system could boost Russian President Vladimir Putin, per Semafor. And billions of dollars that flow into the U.S. economy — like supporting farms to produce food aid — are at risk, per WaPo.
The Muskovites: A judge yesterday reached an agreement with the Treasury and staff unions to temporarily limit DOGE's access to the payments system, per Bloomberg. Only Tom Krause and Marko Elez were given access, and at a read-only level. But a few hours later, as you may have seen, Elez resigned — after WSJ's Katherine Long dug up a series of proudly racist X posts. ('Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,' read one.)
The next lawsuit: New York AG Letitia James and a dozen other Democratic AGs sued over DOGE's access to government systems, per NYT's Hurubie Meko.
But still it goes on: WaPo reports that DOGE staffers accessed sensitive, restricted employee records via OPM. And Energy Secretary Chris Wright gave DOGE access to DOE's IT system, which includes info about nuclear weapons, per CNN's Zachary Cohen.
Up next: DOGE now has its eyes on the Social Security Administration, Semafor's Shelby Talcott reports. It's also developing an AI chatbot, GSAi, Wired's Paresh Dave, Zoë Schiffer and Makena Kelly report. … The Labor Department has indefinitely suspended the Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health, surprising even its GOP members, NOTUS' Katherine Swartz scooped. … And DOJ employees are now concerned Elon Musk could make public the names of law enforcement officers, per WaPo's Spencer Hsu and Jeremy Roebuck. And on and on it goes.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
IMMIGRATION FILES: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem will visit Guantánamo Bay today, as flights there of detained migrants are expected to ramp up to a daily cadence, CBS' Camilo Montoya-Galvez and Eleanor Watson scooped.
In the courts: Federal judge John Coughenour again slapped down Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship, issuing a preliminary nationwide injunction, The Seattle Times' David Gutman reports. Coughenour accused Trump of trying to alter the Constitution and said the president sees the rule of law as 'something to navigate around or simply ignore.' This is headed to a federal appeals court now.
MIDDLE EAST LATEST: Speaker Johnson is due to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu at 10 a.m., after Trump signed an executive order yesterday targeting the International Criminal Court for sanctions because it accused Israeli leaders of war crimes. (CNN has more on that.) Rubio intends to go to the region in the middle of the month, Axios' Barak Ravid scooped. The Middle East, of course, is still reeling from Trump's proposal to seize Gaza, with Egypt privately pressuring the U.S. against it, per AP's Samy Magdy.
BEST OF THE REST
FOR YOUR RADAR: Trump's anti-transgender drive continues as the Education Department launched civil rights probes into Penn, San Jose State and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association over their inclusion of trans girls and women in women's sports, per NYT's Zach Montague. Prompted by Trump's executive order, the NCAA announced it would bar trans women from taking part in women's competitions, per ABC's Kiara Alfonseca.
On the flip side: Advocacy groups sued yesterday over Trump's transgender military ban, per ABC's Deena Zaru.
DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS: Federal employees will know a lot less about the world after the White House ordered the General Services Administration to end all its media subscription contracts, Axios' Zachary Basu and Marc Caputo scooped.
2026 WATCH: Florida first lady Casey DeSantis is 'seriously considering' running for governor, NBC's Matt Dixon scooped. … Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson jumped into Michigan's Democratic gubernatorial primary, per The Detroit News' Beth LeBlanc and Craig Mauger.
BILL TO WATCH: Nearly 100 Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the HALT Fentanyl Act in the House, Ben Leonard reports. The growing bipartisan support for toughening criminal penalties could give the legislation a good shot of becoming law, unlike last Congress, when Dem concerns about mass incarceration tanked it.
NOMINATION TO WATCH: Hawkish GOP senators have some reservations about Elbridge Colby and some other Pentagon picks whom they view as too isolationist, Roll Call's John Donnelly reports.
THE WEEKEND AHEAD
SUNDAY SO FAR …
FOX 'Fox News Sunday': Speaker Mike Johnson … Louisiana first lady Sharon Landry. Panel: Will Cain and Clay Travis. NFL panel: Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, Michael Strahan and Howie Long.
Fox News 'Sunday Morning Futures': Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth … Woody Johnson … U.S. Ambassador to Israel-designate Mike Huckabee.
CNN 'State of the Union': DHS Secretary Kristi Noem … Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
NBC 'Meet the Press': National security adviser Mike Waltz … Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) … Amanda Gorman. Panel: Sara Fagen, Gabe Gutierrez, Andrea Mitchell and Symone Sanders Townsend.
CBS 'Face the Nation': Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) … Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) … Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas).
ABC 'This Week': Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio). Panel: Terry Moran, Asma Khalid, Sarah Isgur and Susan Glasser.
MSNBC 'The Weekend': Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) … Norm Eisen … Brendan Ballou.
NewsNation 'The Hill Sunday': Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer … John Yoo. Panel: George Will, Burgess Everett and Julie Mason.
TALK OF THE TOWN
Andrea Mitchell has her last day in the anchor chair on MSNBC today.
Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff checked out the Lakers game.
Mark Zuckerberg was at the White House yesterday.
Lorne Michaels faced serious internal 'Saturday Night Live' pushback over Donald Trump hosting in 2015, a new book reveals.
Patrick Mahomes rejected Tommy Tuberville's claim that he recruited the star athlete.
Tucker Carlson's ALP feels pretty similar to Zyn, Ian Ward finds.
PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — The FAA will reduce the number of hourly arrivals at Reagan National Airport, Reuters' David Shepardson scooped. And CBS' Olivia Rinaldi and Kris Van Cleave report that last year, FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker wanted to close one of the airport's three runways after near-accidents. … Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) introduced a bill to end D.C. home rule, per The Daily Caller's Henry Rodgers.
OUT AND ABOUT — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution hosted a live taping of its 'Politically Georgia' podcast at Washington's Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library yesterday evening. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) talked about DOGE and running for office; Ayesha Rascoe, Dana Bash and Kasie Hunt talked about covering the second Trump term; Keneshia Grant and Minkah Makalani discussed the dismantling of DEI; and VA Secretary Doug Collins said a federal hiring freeze won't block veterans' care.
— SPOTTED at an annual dinner for the DSCC hosted by lobbyists from Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid on Wednesday night, raising more than $225,000: DSCC Chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Seth Radus, Cristina Chou, Doug Calidas, Janelle McClure, Virginia Zigras, Amy Rosenbaum, Joy McGlaun, Corey Miller, Haider Murtaza, Elizabeth Sharp, Rich Santoro, Justin Goldberger, Natalie Armijo and Marty McGuinness.
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Carl Sceusa will be the next president of IMGE, a GOP-aligned digital marketing firm. He's a longtime GOP operative and former chief executive of WinRed. Current IMGE leader Ethan Eilon will remain with the company as a senior partner.
— Jack Stukel is launching Summa Insights in partnership with ColdSpark, providing opposition research and other intelligence to campaigns, groups and companies. He previously was research director at the NRSC for the 2024 cycle.
MEDIA MOVE — Kate Sullivan is joining Bloomberg News as a White House correspondent. She previously was a campaign reporter and producer at CNN.
TRANSITIONS — Don Andres is joining BGR Group as a VP in its appropriations practice. He most recently was chief of staff for Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.). … Annie Clark is joining Rokk Solutions as SVP. She previously was comms director for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and the Senate Appropriations Committee. …
… Elizabeth-Burton Jones is now comms director for Rep. John McGuire (R-Va.). She previously was comms director for Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.). … Caroline Carter will be deputy comms director for Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.). She most recently has been digital director for Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.).
ENGAGED — Jeff Hasselman, who advises blockchain and crypto startups at 926 Ventures and is an Amazon Web Services alum, proposed to Denise Grace Gitsham, founder of Vitamin D Public Relations, a NewsNation contributor and a former Republican congressional candidate, on Sunday at the Caribou Club in Aspen, Colorado. They met on Bumble in May. Pic
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Cara Edmundowicz Aftuck, a veteran GOP fundraiser, and Philip Aftuck, managing director of investments at The Bernstein Companies, welcomed Philip Maxwell Aftuck Jr. ('Max') on Wednesday (with the cool birthdate of 2/5/25). He joins big sister Margaux. Pic
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) … PBS' Laura Barrón-López … Dave Levinthal … Beth Frerking … IMF's Jeff Kearns … former Reps. Allen West (R-Fla.), Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.), Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) … John 'Rage' Criscuolo of Squire Patton Boggs (41) … Emily Hampsten … Patrick Ferrise … Judge James Gilbert of the U.S. Postal Service … Carleton Bryant … Community Change's Jasmine Nazarett … Jessica Kershaw ... Miguel L'Heureux ... Christine Grimaldi … Jeff Marschner … Invariant's Mary Beth Stanton … Justin Papp … Josh, Rachel and Eric Mogil … Austin Myhre of Sen. Raphael Warnock's (D-Ga.) office … Monica Medina … POLITICO's Patricia Iscaro and Marvellous Ogudoro … Marley Ward … Gay Talese (93)
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Correction: Yesterday's Playbook misstated the location in the Capitol where President Donald Trump would be speaking. It was Statuary Hall.