iran war

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders are placing an early emphasis on healthcare as they discuss their immediate priorities upon the swearing-in of the new Congress on Jan. 3.

Early votes in the House next year are expected to focus on boosting Medicaid and restoring an enhanced tax subsidy that is designed to lower the cost of Affordable Care Act health plans for millions of enrollees.

Democrats are also promising swift action on legislation to stop the war with Iran and to reverse some of President Trump’s tariffs.

“We’re going to get out of the gate fast,” said New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader who is in line to become the next House speaker.

The legislative flurry carries enormous stakes for Democrats as they seek to translate their sweeping victories in the midterms — their numbers will exceed 250 in the 435-member House — into achievements that deliver on their promises to lower the cost of living.

Obstacles for the Democratic agenda

Passing those bills should not be a problem with such a large Democratic House majority. Getting them signed into law most certainly could be.

A 60-vote threshold in the Senate looms for the legislation, as does a potential presidential veto. Trump on election night posted a photo on his social media site of a red hat with a simple message on it: “Veto.”

Following those early votes, Jeffries said five working groups are developing plans to put forward bills that would lower costs in areas such as housing, energy, groceries and caregiving.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said Democrats will at some point take up legislation dealing with artificial intelligence and data centers. He is part of a group of lawmakers working on a document that will lay out some of the priorities for Jeffries to consider.

“House Republicans last year made a conscious decision to let the AI industry run wild, and that was a bad decision politically and a bad decision on policy,” Lieu said. “Two things will change next term. We will hold public hearings on AI. We will pass legislation, reasonable guardrails on AI, and specifically data centers.”

A return to past political fights

Democrats are trying to reverse Medicaid changes that are expected to cut more than $900 billion from the program over a decade. The Republican-approved cuts helped offset some of the costs of Trump’s big tax and spending cut bill that was signed into law last year. The Medicaid changes in the bill imposed new administrative requirements and added conditions for eligibility, including work requirements.

Some of the most substantial changes have yet to take effect. Still, enrollment in Medicaid has dropped by about 5 million, or about 7%, since July 2025, when the bill was signed into law, according to KFF, a health policy research and news organization.

Reversing those cuts would probably require Trump and the Republicans to abandon the hard-fought changes they made to cut entitlement spending in their signature tax bill. It’s an unlikely proposition.

The effort to extend enhanced tax subsidies for certain enrollees in ACA plans has also been debated and voted on in the current Congress. The measure passed the House with some Republican support but stalled in the Senate.

There also have been numerous war powers votes regarding Iran — 14 in the Senate and six in the House.

Gridlock may be on the horizon

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said going into the election that a Democratic majority in the next Congress would amount to “two years of paralysis.”

“I don’t think that’s good for anybody,” Thune said.

But Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York is insisting that his party will push its agenda with or without the Republican president’s help.

“If he vetoes it, it will show the divisions. As much as we didn’t want to shut down, when we shut down the government for a month over healthcare, people knew we were on their side,” Schumer said in an interview with the New York Times’ podcast “The Daily.”

Schumer said he believes Democrats can gain some Republican votes on restoring the enhanced subsidies for ACA plans. When asked if he was hearing from Republicans expressing a willingness to work with him on legislation, he replied: “They’re never so definitive but, yes, I am getting initial signs that way on certain issues, not on every issue.”

While the prospects for getting any of the early priority bills over the finish line are uncertain, the votes in Congress will help frame the choices voters will face during a presidential election in 2028.

Tensions within the new majority

Progressive groups call the agenda outlined by Jeffries a good early start, but they have much greater expectations for Democrats this Congress.

“It’s perfectly fine if the Senate and the House are unified and Donald Trump is standing in the way because that sets up another tidal wave election in 2028,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a Democratic-aligned group that backs progressive candidates and policies.

At the same time, he said Schumer cannot be content to let bills die in the Senate because of the 60-vote threshold.

“It will require the Democrats to get rid of the filibuster,” Green said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

He said there’s a disparity because Republicans’ top priorities — tax cuts and Supreme Court justices — can get through with simple majorities. But the Democratic Party’s top priorities require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

“The only question is will the American public trust Democrats enough to keep giving us more power or will this week’s gains whittle away because we do nothing? That’s why the filibuster is a threshold question,” Green said last week.

Schumer, in an interview with the Associated Press last week, would not say whether he would try to eliminate the filibuster.

“The focus has got to be on getting things done,” Schumer said. “That’s all I am saying.”

In a memo to fellow members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) said Democrats also need to target what he called “powerful forces outside of government.” Examples he cited were corporations using Americans’ private data to adjust their pricing based on a consumer’s personal data and AI companies that he says are putting jobs and lives at risk.

“By focusing not just on the Trump administration but also on big corporations and billionaires, we will show the American people we are not just anti-Trump but also pro-worker and pro-consumer,” Casar said.

Freking writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — President Trump says he wants voters to pretend that he’s on the ballot in this year’s midterm elections.

His rivals are doing their best to help his case.

Democratic candidates and their allies have spent more than $163 million since Sept. 1 on television advertising that mentions the Republican president, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from AdImpact, which charts media spending.

That includes airing ads that reference Trump on broadcast, cable and streaming nearly 180,000 times, the data shows. Republicans, meanwhile, have run ads that talk about the president just 16,000 times, at an estimated cost of $11 million, over the same period.

It’s a noticeable silence about the party’s dominant yet unpopular leader.

Many of the Democrats’ ads accuse Republican opponents of siding with the president over voters, particularly on issues like tariffs and the Iran war, which they blame for jacking up costs.

The ads include one from the campaign of Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is running for reelection and has spent nearly $3 million on a Trump-focused ad attacking his rival, Rep. Mike Collins, for his close relationship with the president.

“Mike Collins voted for Trump’s war in Iran, sending gas prices through the roof. He voted for Trump’s tariffs, sending grocery prices soaring. And Mike Collins voted with Trump to double health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians,” it says. “Mike Collins sides with Donald Trump and makes you pay more.”

Republican National Committee spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said Democratic messaging reflected the party’s hollowness instead of its strength.

“Democrats are lighting money on fire talking about President Trump because they have no agenda other than investigation, obstruction and impeachment,” she said. “Trump Derangement Syndrome isn’t a policy platform, it’s a $160 million way of saying you have nothing to offer to the American people.”

Democrats link Trump and his allies to economic woes

Another ad from the House Majority PAC, a super PAC dedicated to electing Democrats to the House, opens with a middle-aged woman standing over her kitchen stove and talking about how her family is “barely getting by” before she expresses her disappointment in Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who is one of Republicans’ vulnerable incumbents.

“He used to be independent. But now it seems like he’s in lockstep with Donald Trump. It really bothers me,” she says, adding, “Congressman Fitzpatrick is not for us anymore.”

Indeed, all the Democratic ads that have aired in Pennsylvania’s tightly contested 1st Congressional District since Sept. 1 have mentioned Trump, even though Fitzpatrick voted against Trump’s tariffs and his power to wage war against Iran without congressional approval.

All four of the ads talking about Trump have aired a combined 2,000 times in that period, the AdImpact data shows. Fitzpatrick is being challenged by Democrat Bob Harvie, a county commissioner who is a former social studies teacher.

Democratic strategists say the messaging reflects the sentiment of voters.

“Every single poll and every single focus group shows affordability to be voters’ number one issue, and they specifically point to corrupt politicians as being responsible for driving up prices,” said House Majority PAC spokesperson Katarina Flicker.

Republican ads back away from the president

Out of dozens of issue categories tracked by AdImpact, the analysis found that Trump was the fourth most common issue mentioned by Democrats in House and Senate races’ final stretch. It was topped only by healthcare, taxes and accusations about opponents being beholden to special interests.

For Republicans in the same races, Trump-themed ads clocked in at number 33, by comparison. The top issues in their ads were taxes and crime.

Idaho Republican Senator Jim Risch tells viewers he “fought alongside President Trump to pass the biggest tax cuts for working families in American history.”

Overall in the race’s final stretch since Sept. 1, Democrats have spent or plan to spend $1.8 billion in ads across all federal, state and local elections. Republicans have spent or reserved $2.2 billion nationwide.

Republican strategist Alex Conant said Democrats are banking on Trump motivating their base to vote, an approach they’ve routinely used over the last decade.

“Democrats want this election to be a referendum on Trump. They want to equate a vote for a Republican candidate to a vote for Trump,” he said.

For Conant’s party, it’s a different calculus.

“We have a ton of money and we’re throwing every kind of message on the wall to see what sticks,” he said. “There’s not a cookie-cutter Republican ad this year. Whereas the Democratic ads are pretty obvious.”

Colvin and Kessler write for the Associated Press.