SCOOP: House GOP memo highlights Republican wins in Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'
FIRST ON FOX: An internal House GOP memo sent to Republican lawmakers and obtained by Fox News Digital highlights the party's key accomplishments included in President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."
House Republicans passed all 1,118 pages of Trump's "one big, beautiful bill" on Thursday morning, after working through hourslong committee meetings, last-minute huddles in the speaker's office and even a last-minute push from the president.
Finally, late Wednesday night, House leadership found consensus among key factions of the Republican caucus. The late-night "manager's amendment" appeased lingering Republican holdouts, including fiscal hawks who wanted more reform on Medicaid and former President Joe Biden's green energy subsidies, and blue state Republicans seeking to raise the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction.
The bill is a sweeping multitrillion-dollar piece of legislation that advances Trump's agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt. It aims to slash the federal government's spending trajectory by cutting roughly $1.5 trillion in government spending. The U.S. government is over $36 trillion in debt and has spent $1.05 trillion more than it has collected in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the Treasury Department.
The bill raises the debt ceiling by $4 trillion.
The internal House Republican memo shared with Fox News Digital summarizes Republicans' key legislative accomplishments.
According to the memo, the bill reduces the deficit by $238 billion through the Agriculture Committee, securing $294 billion through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit reform. It reinvests $56 billion in SNAP benefit savings into rural America.
Republicans say the SNAP reform restores its integrity by requiring states to pay a larger share for its benefits and incentivizing more state efficiency. It requires congressional approval for states to increase enrollment eligibility and creates SNAP work requirements for able-bodied adults who do not have young dependents.
The Armed Services Committee increased defense spending by nearly $143 billion with improvements to service members' quality of life, healthcare and family support. There are billions of dollars allocated to building the military's arsenal, advancing technology and infrastructure and expanding military readiness.
The bill allocates $34 billion for shipbuilding, $5 billion for border security enforcement, $400 million for the Department of Defense and $25 billion for Trump's Golden Dome, which is a layered missile defense shield.
It reduces the deficit by $349.1 billion through the Education and Workforce Committee, which made a series of reforms to streamline student loan payment options, support students and save taxpayer money.
Specifically, the bill caps the total amount of federal student aid a student can receive annually to the median cost of the college, which is $50,000 for undergrad, $100,000 for graduate students and $150,000 for professional graduate programs. There is also a "lifetime limit" of $200,000.
The Education and Workforce Committee consolidated student loans into two plans – a fixed mortgage-style plan or a repayment assistance plan.
It also establishes a performance-based PROMISE grant program, prevents future attempts at the loan forgiveness program championed by the Biden administration and reforms Pell Grant programs.
The Energy and Commerce Committee, which had a lengthy overnight budget markup last week, includes a series of Medicaid reforms, which Democrats have railed against as conservatives pushed for more cuts. The bill establishes work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents, requires state cost-sharing for adults above the poverty line, eliminates illegal immigrants from enrolling and reduces state funding for states who prioritize coverage for illegal immigrants.
The Financial Services Committee in the "big, beautiful bill" includes reforms to save taxpayer money and reduce federal bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the Homeland Security Committee increases spending by a little over $79 billion to expand border security, and the Judiciary Committee increases spending by about $7 billion to stop illegal immigration.
The Energy and Commerce Committee also delivered on one of Trump's key campaign promises to unleash American energy by supporting domestic energy production and eliminating Biden-era green energy projects, including eliminating electric vehicle mandates.
The Natural Resources Committee reduces the deficit by $18 billion to deliver Trump's energy agenda. The bill reinstates quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales, requires geothermal lease sales and mandates at least 30 lease sales in the newly-renamed Gulf of America over the next 15 years and six in the Cook Inlet in south-central Alaska.
It returns oil and natural gas royalty rates to before Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, resumes leases on energy production in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, resumes coal leasing on federal lands, increases timber sales and long-term contracts on federal lands and walks back funds allocated by the Biden administration for climate change.
The bill includes amendments by the Oversight Committee that will reduce the deficit by $12 billion by eliminating retirement annuity payments for new federal retirees that are eligible to retire before age 62, allows new federal employee hires the option to elect to serve "at will" in exchange for higher take-home pay, requires a comprehensive audit of employee dependents currently enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program plans.
Finally, the Ways and Means Committee makes the 2017 tax cuts permanent, which prevents a 22% tax hike, and delivers Trump's campaign promises, including no taxes on tips, overtime pay or car loan interests. It also provides additional tax relief for seniors. The bill increases the university endowment tax and subjects the largest endowments to the corporate tax rate.
As touted in the House GOP memo, the bill also prevents taxpayer benefits from going to illegal immigrants by requiring a Social Security number for individuals claiming tax credits and deductions, ends illegal immigrant eligibility for Obamacare premium tax credits and Medicare, and applies new remittance payment fees for illegal immigrants.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in the U.S. House of Representatives 215 to 214. All Democrats and just two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, voted against it. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., voted "present."
Now, the Senate is tasked with passing their own version of the bill before it lands on Trump's desk. Republican leadership is eyeing a July 4 deadline, but sparks are likely to fly in the Senate before Trump can claim a legislative victory.
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Liz Magill had survived five hours of congressional testimony, mostly unscathed. Then she was asked a simple but loaded question that would embroil her presidency at the University of Pennsylvania in national controversy and mark a new chapter in American politics. It was Dec. 5, 2023, and Magill was appearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce alongside her Harvard and MIT counterparts, Claudine Gay and Sally Kornbluth. They'd been summoned by Republicans, in the words of Chair Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, to 'atone' for the 'vitriolic hate-filled antisemitism on your respective campuses.' Magill felt 'depleted,' as she put it in a series of interviews with me — her first extended on-the-record comments about the episode since she resigned four days after the hearing in a swirl of recriminations and political backlash. Foxx's staffer had told her that witnesses were expected to remain seated throughout the entire hearing, and so Magill had eaten the lightest of breakfasts and allowed herself only a few sips of water until the committee broke after four hours for a floor vote condemning antisemitism. Despite everything, Magill felt the first part of the hearing had gone well. She was particularly pleased with her opening statement, in which she condemned Hamas' 'abhorrent and brutal terror attack' in October and outlined steps she'd taken to combat antisemitism while stressing the importance of universities as forums for diverse viewpoints. 'As a student of constitutional democracy,' she said, 'I know that we need both safety and free expression for universities and ultimately democracy to thrive.' But she sensed the dynamic in the chamber shift perceptibly after the break. Republican lawmakers started yielding their time to New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, the one-time Donald Trump critic turned enthusiastic MAGA supporter. 'The air in the room changed,' Magill recalled. Stefanik repeatedly pressed Gay about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard's rules on bullying and harassment, and Gay replied that the college took action when the speech crossed into conduct, a response many would deem unsatisfactory. Then Stefanik briefly interrogated Kornbluth, who answered similarly, before setting her sights on Magill. Stefanik's question would blow up Magill's presidency. It would also represent a turning point in the politics of higher education. While Republicans had long used colleges as a liberal bogeyman, this had rarely translated into actions with consequences on campus. Stefanik's question demonstrated the power of using charges of antisemitism as a cudgel, and how difficult — daresay near-impossible — the attack was to rebut. Stefanik's salvo marked the opening of a new phase of the conservative war on elite universities that has culminated in Trump's demands that they submit to his control over what and how they teach or be starved of federal funding. In retrospect, Magill says, she would have responded differently had she known what was coming. 'I wish I could've done it again because this harmed Penn's reputation,' she told me. 'I just didn't seem like a person with common sense and humanity, and I am.' But in the moment, she had no notion of the force of the meteor hurtling toward her in the form of a simple but loaded question. 'Ms. Magill,' Stefanik asked, 'at Penn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct?' Magill assumed the presidency of the University of Pennsylvania 17 months earlier, in July 2022, heralded by the school newspaper as a widely popular choice. 'She was the clear consensus candidate,' said Jared Mitovich, a former editor-in-chief of the Daily Pennsylvanian who covered Magill's presidency. 'I heard echoed over and over from people on the search committee, faculty and students that Liz Magill made sense.' Magill's path to Penn's presidency was textbook: Yale undergrad, UVA Law, a Supreme Court clerkship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and deanships at Stanford and Virginia. But what impressed friends and colleagues most wasn't her résumé — it was her temperament. 'She's gifted in her ability to connect with people,' said Julie Goldsmith, a sociologist who roomed with Magill at Yale. 'It's her superpower.' A native of Fargo, North Dakota, Magill caught the political bug in college, gravitating to mainstream center-left causes; she protested in support of South African divestment and phone banked for the doomed 1988 Michael Dukakis campaign. Her father, who'd been nominated to the federal judiciary two years earlier by Ronald Reagan, once called his daughter 'tendentiously truculent.' Before she attended law school, Magill worked for North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, a centrist Democrat. Magill arrived at Penn with a reputation as an engaged, effective administrator. Ryan Daniels, former president of Stanford's Jewish Law Students Association, who got to know Magill when she sponsored a Shabbat dinner following the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, recalled Magill being close to students. 'She was caring and thoughtful,' he said, 'and she was always present.' As provost at UVA, she was credited with helping the university navigate Covid and develop campus free speech standards. 'She was a very strong provost,' UVA President Jim Ryan told me in an email. 'She's also one of the smartest and most compassionate people I know.' When she began her tenure at Penn, college campuses were still emerging from the pandemic and Magill resolved to be 'out and about,' hiring new deans and starting work on a new strategic plan. 'I would characterize her first few months as a honeymoon period,' Mitovich said. Scott Bok, the chair of Penn's board of trustees who oversaw Magill's hiring, told me, 'Liz had a great first year.' Shortly after Magill returned from a summer vacation with her husband, Magill's chief of staff, Mike Citro, showed her a letter from the Philadelphia Jewish Federation asking Penn to distance itself from an upcoming literature festival that was to take place on campus (but was not organized by the university) called Palestine Writes. The letter commended the goal of celebrating Palestinian culture, while raising concerns about the alleged prior antisemitic rhetoric of several speakers. These included Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, who'd once reportedly proposed that an inflatable pig that floats above his concerts be adorned with an antisemitic slogan, and suggested 'bombing' his audience with swastika-shaped confetti. It was the first Magill had heard of the event. She thought, 'This is something I'm going to keep an eye on.' Over the following days, the festival began to attract national attention from the Zionist Organization of America, the Anti-Defamation League and several Penn alumni, including billionaire investor Marc Rowan. Soon billboard trucks began circling the campus demanding that the 'hatefest' be canceled and saying that Magill 'refused to protect Jewish students.' One depicted Magill standing behind Waters wearing an outfit that evoked a Nazi uniform. Antisemitism is a real problem in America, and it can be found in the fetid corners of the left and right, both online and on college campuses. Penn is no different in that sense; it saw vandalism at a Hillel and a swastika spray-painted in one building in 2022. But prior to the festival, it had not been a major issue on campus. In its 2022 report card, the watchdog group StopAntisemitism assigned a grade of A- to Penn, finding that the majority of respondents to a survey felt they could 'be open with their Jewish identity and their support for Israel.' By contrast, Harvard received a grade of D, and Yale and Columbia each earned an F. On Sept. 12, nine days before the festival's start, Magill and two other administrators took an unusual step of issuing a statement in advance. Without identifying anyone by name, the letter said that 'many have raised deep concerns about several speakers who have a documented and troubling history of engaging in antisemitism by speaking and acting in ways that denigrate Jewish people.' They condemned 'antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values' while strongly supporting 'the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission. This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.' The statement seemingly pleased no one. A group of alumni circulated a letter on the internet demanding a stronger condemnation of the event, though the letter did not call for outright cancelation of the event. In a new book, Bok writes that Rowan, a Wharton alumnus who headed the business school's advisory board, appeared to be spearheading an effort to garner signatures for the letter, and that other emails calling for cancelation of the 'hatefest' flooded his inbox. Rowan declined a request for an interview. Meanwhile, many faculty took exception to the suggestion that the thrust of the festival was antisemitic. These included Eve Troutt Powell, a MacArthur fellowship winner and history professor who'd served on the presidential search committee. Powell called Magill 'delightful and personable.' But, Powell said, 'I disagree with Liz about what antisemitism is. I disagree specifically about the evidence for why she was frightened of Palestine Writes.' Powell characterized the festival as peaceful, an account confirmed by the Daily Pennsylvanian and CNN. CNN noted that some speakers acknowledged — and forcefully denied — charges of antisemitism, saying they were critical of Israel but bore no ill will toward Jewish people. Critics of the festival still said they found instances of antisemitism, but the allegations largely couldn't be substantiated by CNN. 'So the [festival] happened,' Powell said, 'But then, of course, two weeks later, we have October 7th.' Magill learned about the Hamas attacks midday. From that moment, until her resignation two months later, dealing with the aftermath of Palestine Writes and the Israel-Hamas war dominated her life. 'That's all I was doing,' she said. 'All I was thinking about.' The first question was whether to issue a statement. 'In my experience, most of the time, people are dying to hear you speak and they are so disappointed in what you have to say,' Magill told me. 'The amount of time presidents spend on those statements. It's shocking.' On Oct. 10, Magill issued a statement deploring the 'horrific' and 'abhorrent' attacks and cataloging the resources available to community members. Again, no one seemed satisfied. The next day, Rowan circulated a letter calling Palestine Writes a 'tragically prescient preview' of Oct. 7 and urged donors to cease donations until Bok and Magill resigned. One day later, Rowan went on the CNBC show Squawk Box and reiterated his call for Magill to step down. Soon thereafter, Rowan began an email campaign to Penn trustees highlighting supporters of his position, Bok reports, equating it to a corporate takeover, only without SEC limitations. 'It was like a corporate proxy battle meets the political world,' Bok told me. 'You can say anything you want, whether it's true or not true, and even if you know it's not true. So, it was less constrained in some ways than a corporate one.' Asked for Rowan's response to Bok's corporate-takeover characterization, a spokesperson referenced his October 11 letter, in which Rowan urged Penn donors to close their checkbooks until Magill and Bok resigned. Five days later, Bok published his own letter in The Daily Pennsylvanian rebutting Rowan's claims that Penn's response to Palestine Writes had normalized violent ideologies. 'Magill,' he wrote, 'was unequivocal in condemning antisemitism in all its forms.'Still, the storm continued. 'It was relentless,' Magill said. 'It was just wildfire on social media.' Magill faced threats of violence. On Nov. 6, she received a letter saying, 'I'm going to kill you and all the Jews on this campus.' Bok told Magill to move off campus, but she refused, saying she was determined to remain visible throughout the crisis. Three days later, Magill received a notice to testify before Congress. Still, as time passed, things cooled. Magill delivered a speech to the board, which Bok describes in his book as rousing and well-received. 'By Thanksgiving,' he writes, 'It felt like we, and Penn, were persevering.' Magill spent the holiday working on her congressional her appearance on Capitol Hill, Magill worked closely with the high-powered law firm, WilmerHale. Her preparation was led by Alyssa DaCunha and Lauren Moore, a pair of attorneys from the D.C. office of the firm, which regularly counseled Penn. DaCunha had a moderate-right leaning resume — she'd graduated from George Mason Law School (now named for Antonin Scalia) and clerked for appellate court judge J. L. Edmondson, a Reagan appointee. Moore, a Harvard Law School graduate, had served in the White House Counsel's office under Joe Biden. Before that, she'd been general counsel to then-Sen. Kamala Harris on the Judiciary Committee. DaCunha and Moore came to Philadelphia three times. The first, Magill recalled, was an orientation to testifying before Congress. The next sessions involved substantive discussion of a plethora of topics including the Penn Biden Center, a think tank founded after Biden left the vice presidency and which was a target of Republicans; a transgender swimmer who'd won a national championship for Penn; diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and, of course, antisemitism. Ultimately Magill would be armed with what she called 'a giant briefing book' and a big one-pager of the sort a lawyer might use in an appellate argument. The final preps were held on the Sunday and Monday before her congressional appearance at WilmerHale's D.C. office, where they arranged a conference room as a miniature congressional hearing. Several other partners joined including Jamie Gorelick, who'd served as deputy attorney general during the Bill Clinton administration; Seth Waxman, the former U.S. solicitor general under Clinton; and Susan Lagana, a communications strategist. Neither WilmerHale and its partners nor Lagana accepted an invitation to comment for this story. 'There were four or five people up on the dais,' said Magill, and she received all kinds of advice. 'Be respectful, keep your poker face, be gracious,' Magill recalled being told. 'And do not get mad at them no matter how they're asking the question.' 'At one point, they said, 'This is just like teaching a class.' And I said, 'This is nothing like teaching a class.' If you're asked a question in a class, you clearly answer the question.' Still, she mostly received positive feedback, and, overall, Magill felt the prep went well. 'They generally said that I was handling the questions fine.' Magill wasn't asked the specific question Stefanik asked — about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated college policy. 'I know in retrospect it looks obvious, but before the hearing it didn't. No one at Penn had said anything of the sort Stefanik implied.' Indeed, there have been no reports of anyone at Penn advocating for the genocide of Jews. Rather, where the frame of 'genocide' had been invoked, it was to characterize Israel's prosecution of the war in Gaza. Magill spent Monday evening in her room with Goldsmith, her college roommate who'd flown in for support, and her brother, Frank. Everyone felt the weight of the situation. 'It was clear to me that she wasn't going to be able to eat,' Goldsmith said. Eventually, ignoring the pit she'd felt in her stomach since arriving in D.C., Magill tried to get some sleep. In the morning, she made her way to the House, where she waited in the majority staff's conference room, joined by her chief of staff Citro and Wendy White, Penn's general counsel. The presidents of Harvard and MIT were also there with members of their respective staffs. 'There were a lot of people in the room, but there wasn't a lot of talking,' Magill said. 'I was just trying to quiet my mind.' As she entered the hearing room the next morning, Mitovich, covering the event for the Daily Pennsylvanian, said, 'You could see the past few months on her face.' Magill and her peers sat down in front of a gaggle of photographers and were sworn in. 'It was a blur,' Magill said. 'But I definitely heard, 'You're here to atone.'' Then the questioning began. Magill's answer to Stefanik's question is now well known: 'If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes.' Stefanik pressed. 'I am asking specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?' 'If it is directed and severe or pervasive, it is harassment.' 'So the answer is 'yes'?' 'It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman,' Magill replied, finally. What happened next wasn't obvious to anyone in the room, except perhaps to Stefanik and her GOP allies. Goldsmith, who was seated behind Magill, said, 'I didn't think the answer was going to be a big deal. I saw her as giving an answer that was in alignment with Penn's policies.' Mitovich, who'd also attended the entire hearing, agreed. 'The sound bite was not something that I would have predicted as being the defining moment.' Bok had stayed home to watch the proceedings, but he became bored, assumed 'nothing too bad would come of this' and Ubered to work. After the hearing, Magill immediately drove back to Philly. At first, she got messages from board members congratulating her on having done a good job. But, around five o'clock, Citro called and told her that her answer was 'blowing up' on Instagram and that she might need to issue an apology. Stefanik has claimed that the video attracted over one billion views. (A spokesperson for Stefanik did not respond to a request for comment for this story.) 'I hadn't seen any of the Instagram stuff,' Magill said, 'but it was quick.' Soon, she said, she understood that the situation was exploding. 'In the car, it became clear what had happened,' Goldsmith said. 'I couldn't believe anything she said could be interpreted that way.' But Goldsmith took a call from a close relative, a Republican, who asked how she could be friends with an antisemite. 'Liz Magill,' who held the ceremonial chuppah at Goldsmith's wedding, 'doesn't have an antisemitic bone in her body,' Goldsmith responded, and thought to herself, 'They could never do this to a man.' Lost in the frenzy that followed: Magill's reply to Stefanik was accurate. 'One of the ironies about Liz Magill's testimony was that technically she was correct on the law,' said Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. 'It is a matter of context.' Except when it comes to politics, obviously, technical accuracy can be the least important thing there is. It wouldn't matter in the ensuing days in Washington, just as it wouldn't matter in Philadelphia, as trucks once again began circling Penn's campus, calling Magill 'the best friend Hamas has ever had.' It wouldn't matter that even Rowan, her harshest critic, had said during his appearance on Squawk Box before the hearing that Magill wasn't an antisemite. Magill worried about amplifying her response to Stefanik, but, nevertheless, began drafting a script the following morning for an apology video, which she released around 4 p.m. In answering Stefanik, Magill explained, she had been focused on university policy and constitutional law. 'I was not focused on, but I should have been,' she confessed, 'the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate.' 'I got positive and negative reaction to the video,' Magill said. 'I don't really feel particularly good about the video, but I was certain that I needed to put something out and have people see my face.' It didn't quiet the storm. A social media platform for university students called Sidechat exploded both with calls for Magill to resign and concern that forcing her out might set a damaging precedent for government and donor interference with college affairs. 'At that point,' Mitovich said, 'everybody had reason to be angry with her.' Student and faculty supporters of Israel and Palestine were equally dissatisfied. Inexorably, events took their toll. 'I felt like I was in a maelstrom,' Magill told me. 'It was a remarkable thing to experience.' The Penn board was also in chaos. In his book, Bok describes the remainder of the week as a blur. On Thursday, the full Penn board, including emeritus members, gathered for a 90-minute Zoom discussion. Immediately thereafter, the executive committee spent five hours behind closed doors debating how to proceed. The views ranged from staying the course to the board issuing its own values statement to discipling students and faculty. Everything played out in the media. 'Things were just breaking down in terms of any consensus or willingness to keep things confidential,' Bok told me. 'It was a frenzy, and it had become an unmanageable group of people.' Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a prominent Jewish Democrat, stoked the fire when he called Magill's comments 'absolutely shameful.' He added that if calling for the genocide of Jews didn't 'violate the policies of Penn, well, there's something wrong with the policies of Penn that the board needs to get on, or there's a failure of leadership from the president, or both.' By Friday, Magill had decided to resign. 'The situation was utterly untenable,' she told me. 'I couldn't keep being president with the wide variety of board views about what I should do going forward.' That evening, Bok called her from Palm Beach, Florida, and said he'd reached the same conclusion about her position. 'This was not a case of my handing down a guilty verdict,' Bok writes in his book. 'Far from it — in my view she was a new president caught in the crossfire of a culture war that was not of her making.' Magill recalled Bok saying, ''We have to get you out of here.' Then he has this line about this was not him issuing a command. This was two soldiers who'd gone through a fight.' On Saturday afternoon — just four days after her congressional testimony — Magill resigned, followed by Bok, 15 minutes natural to wonder what Magill might have done differently. Nearly everyone I interviewed had an opinion. Goldsmith thought her friend received too much advice. 'She was given guidance by such a diverse set of people and so much of it,' she said. 'Liz didn't have time or space to think.' 'My reaction was toward WilmerHale,' said Powell, the Penn history professor, who watched the testimony from home. ''Why did they let Liz sit through this in the first place?'' she recalled thinking. 'And why wasn't she prepared to call out Elise Stefanik for lying? The question may have been hypothetical, but it was based on a lie. Nobody called for the death of somebody.' Bok wonders whether Magill would've been better prepared by political consultants than lawyers. 'I don't want to throw into the bus, as many have, those who prepared the three presidents,' he said. 'But clearly, I think a little more political answer, as opposed to a legalistic answer, would have worked better.' Dan McGinn, a highly regarded crisis consultant who followed the hearings closely, advised against Monday morning quarterbacking. 'Going in, I felt there was a high probability that one or more of the witnesses would lose their jobs,' McGinn told me, calling the hearing an 'impossible situation' that was 'destined to be a train wreck.' McGinn also said, however, that briefing books can distract witnesses from offering clear value statements. Each president, he said, should have had a set of 'simple, real-world themes' as a guide. 'They needed answers that were less legalistic and academic and more passionate and sensitive,' he said. Magill somewhat shares this view. 'I knew intellectually I was speaking to an audience who were not lawyers,' she said. 'The best answer on the genocide question would have been to start with my genuine reaction to those vile words, to say, 'That's abhorrent. That's against my values.' If I could do this part again, I would start with humanity and common sense, as I did many times earlier in the hearing.' But Jon Ronson, perhaps the world's leading authority on disproportionate public punishment and the author of the bestseller So You've Been Publicly Shamed, says that after Magill's response began circulating on the internet there was nothing she could've done. 'Explaining yourself doesn't work,' he said. 'You would think it would since humans are social creatures, but people are bastards. Ideology trumps humanism.' According to Ronson, the most sensible course of action is to go completely silent until everybody forgets. He added, 'I've always thought that's very depressing.' Ronson says things have changed in the 10 years since he published his book, most notably that power has shifted from the left to the right. 'The era of someone being destroyed on Twitter for some minor transgression by the left is over,' he says. 'Now it's the right that's doing the exact same thing.'Among the right's tactics is using the charge of antisemitism as a bludgeon. This is a remarkable turn given Trump's history of trafficking in antisemitic tropes and once dining with the Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Stefanik has used language playing on themes of the 'great replacement' theory, which holds that elites, sometimes manipulated by Jews, want to supplant white Americans. Yet, both Trump and Stefanik are treated as credible — or irrebuttable — arbiters of the pervasiveness of antisemitism on college campuses. Such claims are overstated, says Rabbi Shaul Magid, visiting professor of modern Judaism at Harvard Divinity School, who observed the campus protests at Harvard, Columbia, NYU and Williams. 'Columbia was clearly the most problematic on a lot of levels,' Magid says, but other protests he saw were tame. 'The Harvard campus protest was mostly students in tents, sitting around doing their homework on computers.' None of this is to suggest that antisemitism isn't a problem on many college campuses and in America, where two Israeli embassy staffers were recently killed. In January, the Anti-Defamation League published a campus climate study in which just 49.6 percent of the Jewish students surveyed reported being 'very' or 'extremely' comfortable with others on campus knowing their Jewish identity. The survey also found that 66.2 percent of students were not confident in their university's ability to prevent antisemitic incidents and that 83.2 percent of students had witnessed some form of antisemitism since Oct. 7. A spokesperson for the ADL said in an email, 'This alarming surge highlights the widespread normalization of antisemitic rhetoric and incidents on campuses.' Julia Jassey, CEO and co-founder of Jewish on Campus, a student-funded nonprofit focused on fighting campus antisemitism, says that following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, Jewish students — particularly those who supported Israeli self-determination — faced ostracization. 'Every campus is distinct,' Jassey said, 'But students who believed that Israel should exist, no matter how critical they were or supportive they were of Israel, were finding themselves excluded from campus life. Students found themselves isolated and struggling to find the community that they once had.' Jassey says 'nuanced conversations' are essential because 'how antisemitism is manifesting is really complicated.' But nuance has been elusive in the debate over antisemitism on campuses — and the ways in which its rise is attributable to the colleges themselves. For instance, does anti-Zionism inherently count as antisemitism? The ADL says its methodology for measuring antisemitism does not include anti-Israel activism or support for Palestinian rights, and the ADL spokesperson said that the organization 'takes a conservative approach to counting antisemitic incidents.' But the group has publicly taken a hard line against criticism of Israel and its interpretation of the data has been the source of controversy even among ADL staff. Part of the problem many universities face in trying to defend themselves and lower the temperature of the conversation is that they've been inconsistent defenders of free speech on campus. 'Penn had no credibility on freedom of speech,' Lukianoff said — referencing Penn's second-to-last performance in FIRE's free speech rankings. I myself have been critical of colleges for embracing the language of safe spaces and microaggressions and, with some notable exceptions, failing to establish clear guidelines to protect academic freedom and free speech. If campus conflicts surrounding the Gaza war prove anything, it's the terms of fair debate and free expression need to be established by cool heads and not amidst conflict. And it's not unfair to ask whether attacks against the Jewish community and Jewish interests have been condemned with the same moral clarity by the academy as has racism. Rowan referenced this inconsistency in his Squawk Box appearance. 'There's been a gathering storm around these issues,' he said. 'Microaggressions are condemned with extreme moral outrage and yet violence, particularly violence against Jews — antisemitism — seems to have found a place of tolerance on the campus.' 'If the question is, is there a double standard in condemnations of racist speech and antisemitic speech,' says Magill, 'I think that's a fair critique.' Another key element that Rabbi Magid cites as a reason the right has been able to weaponize antisemitism: the growing opposition to DEI based in part on a dissatisfaction with the exclusion of Jews from DEI rhetoric. Magid ranks among those who think that the exclusion of Jews from DEI is not an example of antisemitism; most American Jews are seen as white at this point and far less in need of the kind of support that DEI programs are intended to provide. But the perception that Jews have been unfairly excluded from DEI persists nevertheless. And so a motley alliance has formed between conservatives eager to target elite universities, some people legitimately concerned with antisemitism on campus, others concerned with rebuffing any criticism of Israel, and still others disgruntled by the exclusion of Jews from DEI. Under the terms of this silent treaty, the right can take up and somewhat overstate the cause of antisemitism to advance its broader agenda in the name of anti-wokism and meritocracy. Some on the left question whether this tradeoff subverts fundamental Jewish values and, more deeply, whether American Jews are being used by the right. 'It's about attacking wokism,' Magid says, 'and I don't think it serves the Jews particularly well.' 'I am deeply concerned that Jewish fear is being instrumentalized and weaponized against the very interests of the American Jewish community,' says Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and president of J Street, a liberal Zionist advocacy group that maintains an extensive student network. Ben-Ami offers a simple explanation for why exaggerations of widespread antisemitism have been politically successful. 'Fear is woven into the individual and communal DNA of the Jewish people based on reality and historical experience, and fear is the number one tool in the toolkit of the right,' he said. 'It's a match made in heaven, unfortunately.' The much-needed fight against antisemitism, he says, is now being used as a pretext for the far right's assault on higher education — a long-term authoritarian objective. 'This is what makes it so insidious,' Lukianoff agrees. 'Antisemitism is a problem on campus. But the way it's being used by the Trump administration to justify colossal paralyzing fines against universities, unless they adopt, for example, the International Holocaust Remembrance Act definition of antisemitism is something I've never seen before. They are using this as a way to punish higher ed.' The fallout has been staggering. Under the guise of combatting antisemitism, 60 universities have been targeted for investigation by the Trump administration, which has either frozen or is reviewing billions in funding. This justification — and actions taken in its name — have the potential to end or at least curtail the independence of the academy, just as it claimed the nascent presidency of Liz Magill. All under the battle cry of fighting antisemitism. I asked Ben-Ami whether at any point he thought that Magill was antisemitic or had acted antisemitically. 'No,' he spends most of her time these days in Charlottesville, Virginia, where her husband, Leon Szeptycki, is a professor at UVA law school. Last year, she held a fellowship at Harvard and gave lectures at Stanford, Cornell and Georgetown. At the moment, she's a visiting law professor at the London School of Economics. She's been speaking, advising and is writing essays on academic freedom and a current Supreme Court case dealing with the separation of powers. She's also helping bring together thought leaders for confidential discussions about how to protect universities at a time when their future is uncertain. 'I want to be a constructive voice on higher education and the legal profession at a moment when each is under serious threat,' she told me. Things have died down somewhat, and Magill says that she's received many supportive emails and messages over the past year and a half. She says she also still receives the occasional hate mail and voicemail accusing her of being antisemitic. Her admirers and loved ones I talked to focus on how unjust her treatment was. 'Liz is the most fantastic, ethical, generous person I know, and they were demonizing her,' says Szeptycki. 'It was terrible to see her go through that.' 'We hadn't ended in a great way,' Powell said, 'But it broke my heart to see her face on that truck.' Bok says that while he has no regrets about his actions, he does about Magill's fate. 'I got through this whole thing largely unharmed,' he told me, 'but that's not the case for Liz and I feel very bad about that.' But in two days of in-person interviews with Magill, and dozens of subsequent conversations, she never once displayed any hint of anger or resentment over her fate. At first, I couldn't believe that anyone could be so phlegmatic, but I think that's at the essence of who Magill is. 'I would be so angry, but that's not Liz,' said Eleanor Magers Vuono, a law school friend. 'She doesn't let bitterness or anger or hurt drive her behavior.' 'It may have been an impossible situation,' Magill says, 'but it was my job to steer Penn through.' Magill has been watching Trump's assault on universities with great interest and concern. Looking back, she wishes things had gone differently but remains committed to the core beliefs that animated her actions. 'I defended higher education and constitutional principles under extraordinary pressure. If anything, one year later, those values seem more important than ever.'
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
In N.C., all eyes on Senator Tillis as IRA tax credits hang in balance
Now that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a measure to kill nearly every federal tax credit there is to support the clean energy transition, gobsmacked advocates and industry leaders in solar, wind, and electric vehicles are looking desperately to the Senate to amend it. In North Carolina, that means all eyes turn to senior U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a second-term Republican up for reelection next year in this steadfast purple state, which is already reaping benefits from the clean energy economy. 'Sen. Tillis is going to be so important, along with other voices,' said Stephen Smith, executive director of the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, 'because he has indicated that we don't want to whipsaw 180 degrees back and forth between approaches to energy policy.' Tillis is among four Senate Republicans who signed an April letter urging a targeted approach to reforming renewable energy tax incentives rather than a wholesale repeal. The four signatories alone could sink the House measure if they joined Senate Democrats in opposing it. The senator's stance, the economic benefits of clean energy, and bipartisan support among voters for solar, wind, and efficiency all give advocates in the state some cause for cautious optimism. So does the reality that solar and batteries are the quickest, cheapest way to solidify the nation's 'energy dominance,' a frequently stated goal of President Donald Trump. 'We need energy today and tomorrow,' said Chris Carmody, executive director of Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association, a trade group. 'Not only are renewables and storage the lowest-cost option, they're also the fastest to build.' The clean energy economy has an intricate foothold in North Carolina. Largely owing to its acres upon acres of solar fields, the state was home to the fourth most solar capacity in the country last year, supporting over 7,000 jobs, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. And the region doesn't just use solar equipment, it also makes it: Vietnamese panel manufacturer Boviet Solar opened its first U.S. plant in Greenville, North Carolina, in April, with plans for expansion next year that would create over 1,300 local jobs. The Tar Heel State is also a leader in the emerging electric vehicle supply chain, with lithium mines, Toyota's massive battery plant in Randolph County, and EV factories all in the works. Its robust manufacturing sector already produces a number of renewable energy components. In all, North Carolina boasts over 109,000 clean energy jobs, the ninth most in the country, per the national nonprofit E2. The federal tax credits that helped spur this economic activity were first enacted decades ago with bipartisan support. Combined with favorable state policies, that means that wind, solar, and battery storage were on the rise during the first Trump administration and before. But the incentives were undoubtedly supercharged by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The landmark climate law extended the tax credits for large wind and solar projects and rooftop solar through 2032, then tapered them down over several years. It enacted new and expanded incentives for rooftop solar, EV purchases, and energy-efficiency improvements, set to end around the same time. It also included an advanced manufacturing incentive, designed to spur domestic production of minerals, battery components, and more. This 10-year runway of economic certainty sparked a wave of clean energy development across the country. After the passage of the climate law in August 2022, E2 says 27 new projects were announced in North Carolina alone, representing an investment of over $21 billion. Experts say the House Republicans' budget measure, which cleared the chamber by just one vote, would imperil all of these economic gains. The tax credits that benefit large clean energy projects will last until 2028, but only for those that begin construction within 60 days of the bill's passage, an impossibility for most. 'Unless your project is shovel-ready and has gotten every permit, there's no project, in any type of energy, that can go from zero to begin in 60 days,' Carmody said. The rare developer who can begin construction that quickly faces another seemingly insurmountable hurdle: It must document that no component of its project, no matter how small, is linked to a 'Foreign Entity of Concern' such as China. That requirement also applies to the advanced energy manufacturing tax credit, rendering that incentive all but useless even though it's extended beyond 2028. 'It's never been done before for any industry. It's incredibly onerous,' said John Szoka, CEO of the Conservative Energy Network. 'We have a global interconnected economy. We definitely want more manufacturing back in the U.S., and I agree with the president 100% on that. But the way that [provision] is worded, it's almost impossible to meet.' The House bill abruptly eliminates at year's end an array of tax credits for EVs and charging infrastructure. Combined with the poison-pill provision on foreign components in advanced manufacturing, the termination of those incentives could kneecap the state's burgeoning EV sector. 'The bill passed by the House takes a sledgehammer to North Carolina's EV industry and undermines efforts to build secure and reliable access to critical minerals,' said Ben Prochazka, the North Carolina-based executive director of the Electrification Coalition, a national nonprofit. 'Removing these credits would pull the rug out from under the auto and aligned battery industries at a critical time, immediately putting North Carolina jobs at risk,' he said. Individual consumers are dealt perhaps the sharpest blow by the House bill. Like the EV incentives, the credits for rooftop solar, energy-efficiency improvements, and the like would be eliminated at the end of this year. Studies show the resulting spike in demand for gasoline and increased electricity use will raise costs for everyone. Tillis' office didn't respond to a request for comment. But the letter he penned in April — along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Jerry Moran of Kansas, and John Curtis of Utah — echoes concerns flagged by clean energy advocates and businesses. 'For energy credits that provide a direct passthrough benefit to ratepayers, repeals would translate into immediate utility bill increases, placing additional strain on hardworking Americans,' the senators warn. They advocate a 'balanced' approach to reforming the tax incentives. 'We caution against the full-scale repeal of current credits, which could lead to significant disruptions for the American people and weaken our position as a global energy leader,' the letter says. Noting the 'substantial' investments American companies have already made 'based on the current energy tax framework,' the senators also write that a complete repeal would inject uncertainty into the market — jeopardizing capital allocation, long-term project planning, and job creation. After the passage of the House bill just before Memorial Day weekend, Politico reported that Tillis wasn't backing away from his letter. 'We have a lot of work that we need to do on the timeline and scope of the production and investment tax credits,' the incentives that mostly benefit large wind and solar projects, he told Politico. 'Undoubtedly, there's going to be changes.' Carmody says the comments fit with Tillis' track record. 'We applaud his position so far and his effort to support a stable and predictable tax system here,' Carmody said. 'Sen. Tillis is long acquainted with energy business in North Carolina, and he understands the need for certainty for all kinds of industries.' Polls show Tillis would be on firm political ground if he stood up for the state's clean energy economy. The most recent survey from Conservatives for Clean Energy shows 72% of all voters in North Carolina, including 55% of Republicans, favor politicians who 'support policies that encourage renewable options.' Asked specifically about 'President Trump's American energy dominance policy,' only a quarter of the state's voters, including just under half of Republicans, said they agreed with his plan to 'expand fossil fuel production while limiting … renewable energy sources like wind and solar.' The conservative case for extending renewable energy tax incentives is straightforward, said Szoka, who is a former Republican legislator in the North Carolina House of Representatives. 'All forms of energy generation are subsidized in the United States. Every single one — some that have been around longer than newer technologies,' he said, noting that the oil and gas sector has access to tax deductions worth up to 80% of drilling costs. 'I've got nothing against the oil and gas industry,' Szoka added. But there's no reason it should continue to receive tax benefits while those for renewables are so abruptly axed, he said. Szoka and other conservatives say renewables shouldn't get incentives indefinitely, and they aren't committed to the timelines in the Inflation Reduction Act. They also say the fact that the law was passed with only Democratic votes makes it susceptible to attack from the Republican trifecta. The hope is that a bipartisan approach will be more durable, said Mark Fleming, head of Conservatives for Clean Energy, which covers six Southeast states, including North Carolina. 'I'm very glad to see Sen. Tillis and others in the Senate step up,' to foster a debate about individual tax provisions, Fleming said, 'rather than having a knee-jerk [partisan] reaction.' Still, political tribalism has become a powerful force in policymaking. After all, 21 House Republicans went on record supporting clean energy tax incentives. None voted against the final bill. 'So, that doesn't bode well,' Smith said. 'We are hopeful that Tillis is going to lead and hold his ground firmly.'
