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Senate Republicans advance Trump's tax and spending cuts bill after dramatic late-night vote
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans voting in a dramatic late Saturday session narrowly cleared a key procedural step as they race to advance President Donald Trump's package of tax breaks, spending cuts and bolstered deportation funds by his July Fourth deadline. The tally, 51-49, came after a tumultuous night with Vice President JD Vance at the Capitol to break a potential tie. Tense scenes played out in the chamber as voting came to a standstill, dragging for more than three hours as holdout senators huddled for negotiations, and took private meetings off the floor. In the end, two Republicans opposed the motion to proceed, joining all Democrats. There's still a long weekend of work to come. Republicans are using their majorities in Congress to push aside Democratic opposition, but they have run into a series of political and policy setbacks. Not all GOP lawmakers are on board with proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid, food stamps and other programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8 trillion in Trump tax breaks. 'It's time to get this legislation across the finish line,' said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. Ahead of roll call, the White House released a statement of administrative policy saying it 'strongly supports passage' of the bill. Trump himself was at his golf course in Virginia on Saturday with GOP senators posting about the visit on social media. But by nightfall, Trump was lashing out against holdouts, threatening to campaign against one Republican, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who had announced he could not support the bill because of grave Medicaid cuts that he worried would leave many without health care in his state. Tillis and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against. The president was working the phones from the Oval Office late Saturday night, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Pressure was mounting from all sides — billionaire Elon Musk criticized the package as 'utterly insane and destructive.' The 940-page "One Big Beautiful Bill Act was released shortly before midnight Friday, and senators are expected to grind through all-night debate and amendments in the days ahead. If the Senate is able to pass it, the bill would go back to the House for a final round of votes before it could reach the White House. With the narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate, leaders need almost every lawmaker on board. A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would increase by 11.8 million the number of people without health insurance in 2034. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Republicans unveiled the bill 'in the dead of night' and are rushing to finish the bill before the public fully knows what's in it. He immediately forced a full reading of the text late Saturday in the Senate, which would take hours. Make-or-break moment for GOP The weekend session could be a make-or-break moment for Trump's party, which has invested much of its political capital on his signature domestic policy plan. Trump is pushing Congress to wrap it up and has admonished the 'grandstanders' among GOP holdouts to fall in line. The legislation is an ambitious but complicated series of GOP priorities. At its core, it would make permanent many of the tax breaks from Trump's first term that would otherwise expire by year's end if Congress fails to act, resulting in a potential tax increase on Americans. The bill would add new breaks, including no taxes on tips, and commit $350 billion to national security, including for Trump's mass deportation agenda. But the cutbacks to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments, which a top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said would be a 'death sentence' for America's wind and solar industries, are also causing dissent within GOP ranks. The Republicans are relying on the reductions to offset the lost tax revenues but some lawmakers say the cuts go too far, particularly for people receiving health care through Medicaid. Meanwhile, conservatives, worried about the nation's debt, are pushing for steeper cuts. Tillis said he spoke with Trump late Friday explaining his concerns. Paul of Kentucky had been opposed to the bill's provision to raise the nation's debt limit by $5 trillion. And GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who initially voted no, switched hours later after private talks to agree to advance the bill. As the roll call teetered, attention turned to Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who was surrounded by GOP leaders in intense conversation. She voted to proceed. A short time later, Thune drew conservative holdouts Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming to his office, with Vance and Johnson also joining. Talks dragged on. Then swiftly, Vance led them all back in to vote. Later, Scott said he had met with the president, adding, 'We all want to get to yes.' Lee said the group "had an internal discussion about the strategy to achieve more savings and more deficit reduction, and I feel good about the direction where this is going, and more to come.' After setbacks, Republicans revise some proposals The release of the bill's draft had been delayed as the Senate parliamentarian reviewed the measure to ensure it complied with the chamber's strict 'Byrd Rule,' named for the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd, It largely bars policy matters from inclusion in budget bills unless a provision can get 60 votes to overcome objections. That would be a tall order in a Senate with a 53-47 GOP edge and Democrats unified against Trump's bill. Republicans suffered a series of setbacks after several proposals, including shifting food stamp costs from the federal government to the states or gutting the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, were deemed out of compliance with the rules. But over the past days, Republicans have quickly revised those proposals and reinstated them. The final text includes a proposal for cuts to the Medicaid provider tax that had run into parliamentary hurdles and objections from several senators worried about the fate of rural hospitals. The new version extends the start date for those cuts and establishes a $25 billion fund to aid rural hospitals and providers. The CBO had said that under the House-passed version of the bill, some 10.9 million more people would go without health care and at least 3 million fewer would qualify for food aid. The budget office has started releasing initial assessments of the Senate draft, which proposes steeper reductions. Top income-earners would see about a $12,000 tax cut under the House bill, while the package would cost the poorest Americans $1,600, the CBO said. SALT dispute shakes things up The Senate included a compromise over the so-called SALT provision, a deduction for state and local taxes that has been a top priority of lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states, but the issue remains unsettled. The current SALT cap is $10,000 a year, and a handful of Republicans wanted to boost it to $40,000 a year. The final draft includes a $40,000 cap, but limits it for five years. Many Republican senators say that is still too generous, but House Republicans are not fully satisfied either. House Speaker Mike Johnson sent his colleagues home for the weekend with plans to be on call to return to Washington. ___ Associated Press writers Ali Swenson, Fatima Hussein, Michelle L. Price and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.
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Trump's Deportation Goals Are Unrealistic
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In March, President Donald Trump was preparing to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport noncitizens. This use of the law, which was passed in 1798 and previously used to intern Japanese Americans during World War II, was unprecedented, and Emil Bove III, a top Justice Department official, was concerned that it was illegal. To be clear, Bove wasn't troubled that the administration might be breaking the law; rather, according to a new whistleblower complaint, he was concerned that the courts might try to block removals. In that case, 'DOJ would need to consider telling the courts 'fuck you' and ignore any such court order,' Bove said, according to the document. The complaint was made by Erez Reuveni, a fired DOJ lawyer, and first reported by The New York Times this week. The administration says that his allegations are falsehoods from a disgruntled former employee, but this is difficult to credit. A career lawyer, he was promoted by the Trump DOJ but says he was fired after he acknowledged in court that the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was an administrative error and refused to accuse him of being a terrorist. The complaint details Reuveni's 'attempts over the course of three weeks and affecting three separate cases to secure the government's compliance with court orders, and his resistance to the internal efforts of DOJ and White House leadership to defy them.' It also suggests that Reuveni has emails and texts to back up many of his claims. A top Justice Department official allegedly conspiring to defy court orders would be very dangerous; what makes it darkly amusing, too, is that senators are this week considering Bove's nomination to the federal bench that, according to Reuveni, he wanted to ignore. This led to a sharp exchange in a committee hearing yesterday between Bove and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, two veteran federal prosecutors, in which Bove repeatedly insisted that he did not 'recall' making the comments that Reuveni alleged. 'Did you say anything of that kind in the meeting?' Schiff asked. 'Senator, I have no recollection of saying anything of that kind,' Bove said. 'Wouldn't you recall, Mr. Bove, if you said or suggested during a meeting with Justice Department lawyers maybe they should consider telling the court, 'Fuck you'?' Schiff replied. 'It seems to me that would be something you'd remember—unless that's the kind of thing you say frequently.' Because no Republicans have yet come out against Bove's nomination to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, he's likely to win confirmation. (By way of reminder, Bove got here by serving as one of Trump's personal lawyers in some of his many criminal cases.) This presents the grim parlor question of whether it's better to have Bove in a lifetime appointment on the bench, where his opinions can be appealed, or at the Justice Department, where he's reportedly been a one-man wrecking crew. The allegations against Bove are what my former colleague James Fallows took to describing during the first Trump administration as shocking but not surprising. Trump himself has said repeatedly that he will abide by court orders, but his deputies have been less circumspect, especially Vice President J. D. Vance, who is a lawyer, and the former DOGE leader and current Trump frenemy Elon Musk. Outside observers, including me, have fretted over what will happen if the White House actually crosses the rubicon of defiance. This is arguably beside the point. Even though the Trump administration continues to deny that it has refused to obey court orders, the reality is that it has already done so. Judge James Boasberg said in April that he'd concluded that probable cause existed to find the administration in contempt of court for removing certain Venezuelan immigrants. (An appeals court has temporarily stayed proceedings on the contempt charge.) In another instance, last month, the administration deported a Salvadoran man despite a court order forbidding it, then blamed 'a confluence of administrative errors.' (These errors seem to be a consistent issue for this presidency!) The administration also insisted in a court filing that Abrego Garcia simply could not be returned as ordered, because the United States 'does not have authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.' The DOJ proved that false not long afterward, when it brought Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. to face charges. In a bizarre move this week, the administration sued every federal judge in Maryland—an attempt to evade an order that bans the government from immediately deporting migrants who are challenging their removal. The fights with courts are ironic, because although Trump has fared poorly in lower courts, the Supreme Court has been willing to let him expand his powers once cases reach it. As Reuters reported earlier this month, the justices, using what's known as the 'shadow docket,' have repeatedly granted emergency requests to proceed, pending full consideration. This week, the Court temporarily lifted an order preventing the executive branch from quickly deporting migrants to countries to which they have no ties. The White House has been seeking to send people—including Laotian, Vietnamese, and Filipino nationals—to extremely perilous countries such as Libya and South Sudan. This would be callous and morally abhorrent under any circumstances, but given the notable cases of the Trump administration deporting people who are legally protected, including Abrego Garcia, it is especially terrifying. The desperation to sidestep court restrictions on deportations is evidence of the shortcomings of the White House's plans. Trump aims to remove 1 million people this year, but as my colleague Nick Miroff reported yesterday, ICE statistics show that the agency has carried out only about 125,000 deportations since Trump took office, with roughly half the year gone. But as Reuveni's story suggests, in this administration, to be honest is to risk being fired. Attacking the courts is much easier than admitting that the president's signature promise is unrealistic. Related: The self-deportation psyop Trump's legal strategy has a name. Here are three new stories from The Atlantic: Tom Nichols on the president's weapon Humanity is playing nuclear roulette, Jeffrey Goldberg argues. Three ways to find purpose and meaning in a job Today's News The Senate parliamentarian advised rejecting some Medicaid changes that would offset the costs of other key policies in President Donald Trump's tax bill. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iran's strike on a U.S. base in Qatar was a 'slap to America's face'; he also warned against further U.S. attacks on Iran. A new Supreme Court decision allows states to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. Dispatches Time-Travel Thursdays: Isabel Fattal on how sleeping less became an American value. Explore all of our newsletters here. Evening Read The Blockbuster That Captured a Growing American Rift By Tyler Austin Harper In a cramped, $50-a-month room above a New Jersey furnace-supply company, Peter Benchley set to work on what he once said, half-jokingly, might be 'a Ulysses for the 1970s.' A novel resulted from these efforts, one Benchley considered titling The Edge of Gloom or Infinite Evil before deciding on the less dramatic but more fitting Jaws. Its plot is exquisite in its simplicity. A shark menaces Amity, a fictional, gentrifying East Coast fishing village. Chaos ensues: People are eaten … In June 1975, 50 years ago this month, the movie version of Jaws was released in theaters and became the first-ever summer blockbuster. Though the film retains Benchley's basic storyline—shark eats people; shark dies a bloody death—it turns the book's politics upside down. Read the full article. More From The Atlantic Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Pro-Palestine activists fell for Iran's propaganda. Alexandra Petri: Pete Hegseth's guide to war Radio Atlantic: What does Khamenei do now? Culture Break Watch. Thank God for The Bear. Season 4 of the show (streaming on Hulu) is exactly what it—and we—needed, Sophie Gilbert writes. Lean on me. In everyday life, many people are reluctant to ask for and offer help. But milestones such as weddings lower the barriers to relying on other people, Julie Beck writes. Play our daily crossword. Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter. When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. Article originally published at The Atlantic
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If Zohran Mamdani is the future of the Democrats, they're doomed
It would be easy to call San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie the 'anti-Zohran Mamandi,' but that would fail to do the first-term leader justice. Sworn into office this past January, Lurie – like Mamdani – hails from a storied family, in this case the founders of the Levi Strauss denim dynasty. But that is where the similarities end. Lurie was elected to City Hall last November following nearly a decade of decay across San Francisco. Fuelled by the soft-on-crime policies of former district attorney Chesa Boudin, San Francisco – an urban jewel of technology and wealth – was close to becoming a failed state. Violent crime, open-air drug camps, hundreds of annual drug overdose deaths, a declining population base and desolate downtown plagued the city where I was born and raised. San Francisco's ills were akin to many large American urban centres: Philadelphia with its gruesome 'Tranq' crisis; the epidemic of deadly violent crime devastating Chicago. And, of course, Los Angeles – similarly battling an inhospitable mix of homelessness, drugs and criminality. But sized a mere 49 square miles (one-tenth that of Los Angeles), San Francisco's blight has felt uniquely acute and everywhere – all at the same time. Back in 2022, fed up voters ousted district attorney Boudin, whose laissez-faire prosecutorial approach directly led to the city's spiralling quality of life. Former San Francisco mayor London Breed attempted, honourably, to steer San Francisco back to sanity. But with a record 806 drug-related deaths in 2023 alone – and San Francisco's abandoned business core dubbed a 'ghost town' by major media – Breed lost to Lurie last November. Despite a lack of formal political experience, Lurie is hardly new to politics. His career has been shaped by public service, mostly leading large non-profits focused on tackling urban ills – often in association with scions of other local family dynasties. Lurie's flagship $500 million Tipping Point Community organisation, for instance, was established alongside the daughter of Financial Services billionaire Charles Schwab. The reliance on – rather than rejection of – the private sector for public good has been a key Lurie manoeuvre and stands in sharp contrast to Mamdani's platform. Indeed, much like former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg a decade ago, Lurie has tapped major corporations and philanthropists to fund ambitious city programs hit hard by San Francisco's $800 million budget deficit. Earlier this month, for instance, he set up an entire department, the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation, to steer private funding to city projects. Lurie has also heavily leaned into San Francisco's abundance of visionary innovators, most notably – and understandably – in the tech world. OpenAI head Sam Altman helped lead Lurie's transition team after his election last year. Such schemes – and there are many – stand in sharp contrast to the economic expansion plan touted by Mamdani, which mostly relies on added taxes levied on New York's wealthiest residents and corporations. And not just any wealthy residents and corporations: Mamdani's own website describes his strategy as shifting 'the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighbourhoods.' Such taxes would then be used to pay for low cost basic services including housing, transport and child care, even groceries. In other words – DEI meets Socialism. If this is the future of the Democrats, they are doomed. The problem with Mamdani's plans is that they rarely benefit – or are even desired – by those for whom they are designed. How else to explain the mostly white, mostly affluent New Yorkers who voted for Mamdani this week. Poor people don't need cheap housing – they need quality housing. They don't want free subway services, but reliable – and never more so – safe public transport. This requires funding, which taxes would supply, but also know-how, supply chains, available workforces and long-term commitments. And these are best delivered by partnering with the private sector. Earlier this month, for instance, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen gave $9.4 million to fund a Real Time Investigation Centre for the SFPD. Investment in law enforcement is another key area where Mamdani could learn from Lurie. Last month the mayor announced that the SFPD would be spared the 15 per cent budget cut he's implementing across city departments. Lurie has also signed an executive order to add 500 police officers to the department by, among other strategies, re-hiring recently retired officers. Lurie's law-and-order focus appears to be working: this week the SFPD made 97 arrests in a single day in San Francisco drug dens – 'the largest one-day fugitive-focused enforcement in recent history,' according to the city. While Lurie boosts officer numbers in San Francisco, Mandani has pledged to slash them. In their place, he will create a Department of Community Safety that relies on social-service schemes – 'evidence-based strategies that prevent violence and crime before they occur,' as he has described it – to maintain public order. This is a city that has finally seen a decrease in spiralling violent crime numbers – precisely because of an increase in police patrols. In 2023, for instance, New York City experienced a 20 per cent rise in arrests, a five-year record according to NYPD Chief John Chell. San Francisco may be far smaller than New York City, but its challenges – rising costs, a decreasing tax base, middle- and upper-class population declines – are eerily similar. Five years after Covid decimated both cities' business bases, mayor Lurie appears to understand that fixing San Francisco requires, above all else, public safety and a robust private-sector. Zohran Mandani should pay attention. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
