Playbook PM: Hill holdouts hold out despite Trump pressure

Politico

20-05-2025

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THE CATCH-UP
THE ART OF THE DEAL: President Donald Trump went to Capitol Hill today to instruct both moderates and hard-liners to set aside their concerns and get the reconciliation megabill done. But even with an extremely loyal conference, he may not have broken through the logjam (yet).
Trump on the Hill: The president said on his way into Congress that he'd deliver a 'pep talk' for House Republicans. But behind closed doors, there was some tougher medicine: He urged conservatives to back down from demands for further Medicaid cuts — 'don't fuck around with Medicaid,' Trump said, per POLITICO's Meredith Lee Hill. And he urged blue-state Republicans who want a higher state and local tax deduction to stop fighting and accept Speaker Mike Johnson's latest offer. His big-picture message was to unify and pass the bill.
The warnings: Trump told reporters that Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) should be unseated, and other reconciliation opponents should 'possibly' face primary challenges. (Massie took it in stride and is still a no, POLITICO's Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully-McManus report.) Inside the meeting, Trump told Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) that 'I know your district better than you do,' per The Hill's Mychael Schnell and colleagues. 'If you lose because of SALT, you were going to lose anyway.'
Pushing ahead: Johnson still is aiming to get the bill through House Rules and to the floor tomorrow, and he was due to join the Senate Republican lunch today, per NOTUS. Get ready for negotiations to continue all afternoon, including on yanking clean-energy tax credits. There's a SALT meeting with Johnson at 2 p.m., per Punchbowl's Laura Weiss.
But but but: Many of the hard-liner holdouts are holding on. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) and others said they're still opposed. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) told WSJ's Olivia Beavers after the Trump meeting that the president still hadn't won over enough supporters for the current legislation. Harris indicated 'we can get there,' though 'maybe not by tomorrow.'
SALT not shaken: And SALT advocates aren't mollified either. Trump argued that blue-state Democratic governors would benefit from a higher deduction, as POLITICO's Benjamin Guggenheim reports. (That stands at odds with his campaign pledge last year, the AP notes.) The latest SALT offer from Johnson was for a $40,000 cap and super-high income limit for four years, falling to $30,000 thereafter, per Punchbowl's Jake Sherman. But the SALT caucus told Johnson they still oppose the bill, with Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) and Lawler all publicly stating their no votes. 'I'm not going to budge,' Lawler insisted.
Reality check: The bill Trump urged Republicans to pass was pretty different from the one they actually have, NOTUS' Riley Rogerson and colleagues note. His pitch to avoid most Medicaid reductions belies the major cuts that are already in the legislation, and he vastly overstated the tax hikes Americans would face if the bill didn't pass. 'He's not a detail guy,' said one member.
More reading: 'GOP's Tax on Foundations Takes Aim at Billionaire Philanthropy,' Bloomberg … 'Republican Plan to Tax Elite Colleges Could Hit in Unexpected Places,' NYT … 'Trump Threatens to Tax Payments That Power Latin American Allies,' Bloomberg
Good Tuesday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at [e-mail].
9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
1. THE LATEST DOCUMENTS: 'New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver faces felony assault charge in conflict at ICE facility, court filing shows,' by POLITICO's Josh Gerstein and Ry Rivard: 'The criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Newark alleges McIver 'slammed her forearm' into one agent and 'forcibly' grabbed him. The Democratic congressmember is also accused of using 'each of her forearms to forcibly strike' another officer, according to the complaint, which includes multiple photos from video cameras worn by officers, as well as others mounted outside the facility.' Said McIver, 'I'm looking forward to my day in court.'
2. TRAIL MIX: With three high-profile choices before him — House, Senate and governor — Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) announced that he'll run for reelection to his current seat, per the Portland Press Herald's Gillian Graham. (Good news for Hakeem Jeffries, less so for Chuck Schumer.) The centrist said he determined that the best path forward was to help Democrats flip the House; it would have been harder for the party to hold his seat if he vacated it.
Race for the states: Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms officially jumped into Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial primary, per The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein. She called for Medicaid expansion and tried to walk a line between fighting against Trump and seeking bipartisanship with Republicans. … Liberal judge Chris Taylor said she'll run for a Wisconsin state Supreme Court seat next year, aiming to oust incumbent conservative Rebecca Bradley, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Alison Dirr and Molly Beck.
3. VAX NOT: 'FDA Stops Recommending Covid Vaccine Boosters for Most Americans,' by The Free Press' Olivia Reingold: 'In a paper published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, Martin Makary, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Vinay Prasad, the newly appointed head of the FDA's vaccine division, have unveiled a new policy in which the government will no longer recommend Covid booster shots for healthy Americans ages 64 and younger. In addition, as of today, Covid vaccine manufacturers like Moderna and Pfizer will have to conduct trials to prove that their updated vaccines offer clinical benefits such as fewer symptoms, hospitalizations, or deaths.'
4. MUSK READ: Elon Musk said today that he'll significantly scale back his political spending, after the world's richest person became a crucial megadonor for Republicans last year, per the WSJ. Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum, Musk indicated that he doesn't 'currently' see a need to spend big: 'I think I've done enough.' (Of course, he at first intended not to spend in the 2024 election either.) At the same time, NYT's Mara Hvistendahl and colleagues detail how Musk personally benefited from striking deals on Trump's Middle East trip last week.
In the DOGE house: Musk may be taking a step back, but the ongoing impact of his slashing of the government is massive. WaPo's William Wan and Hannah Natanson have a deep dive into the intentional traumatizing of the federal workforce, which left many civil servants 'feeling devalued, demoralized and scared for themselves and the country' — and some struggling with suicidal ideation or panic attacks. Meanwhile, as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calls for more healthful food, USDA cuts to a school nutrition program have made achieving that goal more difficult, Reuters' Renee Hickman reports from Tucson, Arizona.
5. IMMIGRATION SIREN: 'Trump proposal to repatriate Ukrainians, Haitians would use foreign aid funds,' by WaPo's Adam Taylor and Martine Powers: 'The Trump administration has devised plans to spend up to $250 million earmarked for foreign assistance to fund instead the removal and return of people from active conflict zones, including 700,000 Ukrainian and Haitian migrants who fled to the United States amid extreme, ongoing violence … [T]he draft documents also mention Afghans, Palestinians, Libyans, Sudanese, Syrians and Yemenis, saying they, too, could be targeted as part of the voluntary deportation program.'
Another notable program: 'Trump administration fined this low-income migrant $1.8 million,' by Reuters' Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke: 'Trump has started to operationalize a plan to fine migrants who fail to leave the U.S. after a final deportation order, issuing notices to 4,500 migrants with penalties totaling more than $500 million … [People were] fined from several thousand dollars to just over $1.8 million.'
Top talker: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem couldn't correctly state what habeas corpus is when pressed to define the concept by Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), per CNN. Watch the video
6. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: Trump is increasingly fed up with the war in Gaza and upset by starving Palestinian children, Axios' Barak Ravid reports. He wants Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to end the conflict quickly and has instructed aides to convey that, though it doesn't yet amount to significant pressure on Israel. 'If the president wants a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza he needs to put much more pressure on both sides,' one Israeli official says.
7. BIG JOHN THUNE DECISION: The Senate majority leader said he'll tee up a vote this week to rescind EPA clean-air waivers that allowed California to impose an electric vehicle mandate, per POLITICO's Jordain Carney. That will set up a high-stakes showdown. The implications aren't just limited to the fight against climate change — California's standards are nation-leading — and the impact on industry. It could also upend Senate precedent: Democrats have made clear that they think using the Congressional Review Act to nullify the waivers, in contravention of the Government Accountability Office and Senate parliamentarian, amounts to undermining the filibuster. Republicans insist it's not a 'nuclear option.'
8. WHAT KASH PATEL IS UP TO: The FBI is shuttering a watchdog unit that sought to police abuses of surveillance, NYT's Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman report. It's a striking moment for Patel, who previously criticized misuses of national security surveillance powers before taking over the agency — and for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which will be up for reauthorization in Congress in less than a year.
9. ONLY HALF A DECADE LATE: 'Democrats Throw Money at a Problem: Countering G.O.P. Clout Online,' by NYT's Teddy Schleifer: '[T]he party's megadonors are being inundated with overtures to spend tens of millions of dollars to develop an army of left-leaning online influencers. … The quiet effort amounts to an audacious — skeptics might say desperate — bet that Democrats can buy more cultural relevance online, despite the fact that casually right-leaning touchstones like [Joe] Rogan's podcast were not built by political donors and did not rise overnight.'
TALK OF THE TOWN
John Fetterman, under recent pressure for his absenteeism, showed up to his first Homeland Security Committee hearing of the year, where he said Democrats 'failed to secure our border and we deserve to pay a political price for that.'
Donald Trump said that he didn't 'even know what the hell' NOTUS is, and that Reese Gorman should 'get yourself a real job.'
John Phelan's $8.6 million Kalorama home suffered damage in a gnarly fire, per CBS. The Navy secretary is not occupying the mansion as it undergoes renovations.
Melania Trump hung out with kids, including one in a Gulf of America cap, at a White House take-your-child-to-work day event. She has also put up quite the portrait of her husband.
Chuck Todd is starting a new Sunday show … at night.
EMILY'S NIGHT ON THE TOWN — 'For these liberal women, the future of Democratic politics is still female,' by WaPo's Kara Voght: 'At the Emily's List gala … [p]ress handlers hovered over this reporter's shoulder, interjecting warm yet stern reminders that conversations with attendees were strictly off-the-record. … Questions about Democrats' struggles with male voters were answered — mostly dismissed — with talking points. … In Emily's world, they're rightly having conversations about bridging gaps while supporting an ethos of authenticity that has worked for Democratic women.'
OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at the 2025 Energy Future Forum, hosted by RealClear, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Center for Energy Analytics in the Chamber's Great Hall yesterday: Daniel Yergin, Marty Durbin, David DesRosiers, Mark Christie, Mark P. Mills, James Robb, Eric Grey, Terrence Keeley, Clay Gaspar, Kimberly Greene, Brandon Craig, Mike Howard, Dan Lipman, Dan Golding, Scott Gatzemeier, Aaron Zubaty, Christopher Guith, Heath Knakmuhs, Ruth Demeter, Jeff Guittard, Ben Geman, Vijay Vaitheeswaran, Evan Halper, Callie Patteson, Jim Varney, James Downing, Nathan Worcester and Chris Knight.
— The Planetary Society hosted a kick-off reception for the bipartisan Congressional Planetary Science Caucus yesterday in the Rayburn foyer, including an exhibition of space science. Bill Nye and caucus co-chairs Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Judy Chu (D-Calif.) spoke, and Jack Kiraly emceed. SPOTTED: Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), George Whitesides (D-Calif.) and Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), Alicia Brown, Jen Lotz, Amanda Hendrix, Britney Schmidt and Newton Campbell.
MEDIA MOVES — Amanda Chu will be a health care influence reporter at POLITICO. She previously has covered U.S. energy for the FT. … The POLITICO Journalism Institute announced its 2025 class: Veronica Violet Bianco, Ronni Butts, Diya Contractor, Laney Crawley, Rachael Dziaba, Marisa Guerra Echeverria, Savannah Grooms, Mara Mellits, Maia Nehme, Caleb Ogilvie, Chinanuekpele (Chinanu) Okoli, Janelle Sears, Daviel (Davi) Schulman, Diamy Wang, Jerry Wu, Dorothy Quanteh and Jasmine Tucker.
TRANSITIONS — Former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig is joining Foley Hoag as senior counsel. … Jeremy Dalrymple is now associate director and fellow of governance at the R Street Institute. He most recently was counsel to the Senate Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee, and is a Heritage and Senate Budget alum. … Jason Todd is joining the National Automobile Dealers Association as policy and grassroots advocacy director. He previously was VP at Independent Electrical Contractors. …
… Sarah Salas is now policy adviser for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.). She previously was legislative assistant and professional staff member for Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). … Eun Young Choi is now a partner at Arnold & Porter. She previously was deputy assistant AG in the Justice Department's National Security Division. … Elizabeth Gregory is now a VP in the strategy and comms practice at Teneo. She most recently was a senior adviser to Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) and Dina Powell McCormick, as well as ColdSpark.
ENGAGED — Karalee Geis, senior associate director for the White House's Office of Public Liaison, and Niall McMillan, an attorney at Offit Kurman, got engaged Saturday at West Potomac Park. They met at a birthday party for Nick Lisowski. Pic
BONUS BIRTHDAY: Ben Yoho of The Strategy Group Company
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