Republicans

ATLANTA — It’s been six months since Joe Biden left the Oval Office. Republicans, including President Trump, can’t stop talking about him.

The House has launched investigations asserting that Biden’s closest advisers covered up a physical and mental decline during the 82-year-old Democrat’s presidency. The Senate has started a series of hearings focused on his mental fitness. And Trump’s White House has opened its own investigation into the Biden administration’s use of the presidential autopen, which Trump has called “one of the biggest scandals in the history of our country.”

It all fits with Trump’s practice of blaming his predecessors for the nation’s ills. Just last week, he tried to deflect criticism of his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case by casting blame on others, including Biden.

Turning the spotlight back on the former president carries risks for both parties heading into the 2026 midterms. The more Republicans or Democrats talk about Biden, the less they can make arguments about the impact of Trump’s presidency — positive or negative — especially his sweeping new tax cut and spending law that is reshaping the federal government.

“Most Americans consider Joe Biden to be yesterday’s news,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said.

Republicans want Biden’s autopen to become a flashpoint

Seeking to avenge his 2020 loss to Biden, Trump mocked his rival’s age and fitness incessantly in 2024, even after Biden dropped his reelection bid and yielded to then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

He and other Republicans seemed poised to spend the summer touting their new tax, spending and policy package. But Trump, now 79 and facing his own health challenges, has refused to let up on Biden, and his allies in the party have followed suit.

Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin called the Biden White House’s use of the autopen “a massive scandal,” while Republican Rep. Nick Lalota insists his New York constituents “are curious as to what was happening during President Biden’s days.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt recently confirmed the administration would pursue an investigation of the Biden administration’s use of the presidential autopen. Trump and other Republicans have questioned whether Biden was actually running the country and suggested aides abused a tool that has long been a routine part of signing presidentially approved actions.

“We deserve to get to the bottom of it,” Leavitt said.

Biden has responded to the criticism by issuing a statement saying he was, in fact, making the decisions during his presidency and that any suggestion otherwise “is ridiculous and false.”

Congressional committees investigate

On Capitol Hill, the House Oversight Committee has convened hearings on use of the autopen and Biden’s fitness for office. Van Orden cited the Constitution’s Article II vesting authority solely with the president.

“It doesn’t say chief of staff. It doesn’t say an autopen,” he said.

The House panel subpoenaed Biden’s physician and a top aide to former first lady Jill Biden. Both invoked Fifth Amendment protections that prevent people from being forced to testify against themselves in government proceedings.

“There was no there there,” said Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell of Missouri, a member of the committee who called the effort “an extraordinary waste of time.”

The committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, wants to hear from former White House chiefs of staff Ron Klain and Jeff Zients; former senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn; and other former top aides Bruce Reed, Steve Ricchetti and Annie Tomasini, among others. Republicans confirmed multiple dates for the sessions through late September, ensuring it will remain in the headlines.

Investigations could crowd out GOP efforts to define Trump positively

That GOP schedule comes as both parties work feverishly to define Trump’s start to his second term.

His so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” is a mix of tax cuts, border security measures and cuts to safety net programs such as Medicaid, a joint state-federal insurance program for lower-income Americans. Polls suggest some individual measures are popular while others are not and that the GOP faces headwinds on tilting the public in favor of the overall effort.

A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about two-thirds of U.S. adults view the bill as a win for the wealthy and another found that only about one-quarter of U.S. adults felt Trump’s policies have helped them. In the policy survey, he failed to earn majority support on any of the major issues, including the economy, immigration, government spending and health care. Immigration, especially, had been considered a major strength for Trump politically.

It is “rather tone deaf,” said Bell, for Republicans to go after Biden given those circumstances.

“Americans want us to deal with the issues that are plaguing our country now … the high cost of living, cost of food, the cost of housing, health care,” Bell said, as he blasted the GOP for a deliberate “distraction” from what challenges most U.S. households.

The effort also comes with Trump battling his own supporters over the Justice Department’s decision not to publicly release additional records related to the Epstein case.

“The Epstein saga is more important to his base than whatever happened to Joe Biden,” said Ayres, the GOP pollster.

Even Lalota, the New York congressman, acknowledged a balancing act with the Biden inquiries.

“My constituents care most about affordability and public safety,” Lalota said. “But this is an important issue nonetheless.”

Democrats don’t want to talk about Biden

With Republicans protecting a narrow House majority, every hotly contested issue could be seen as determinative in the 2026 midterm elections.

That puts added pressure on Republicans to retain Trump’s expanded 2024 coalition, when he increased support among Black and Hispanic voters, especially men, over the usual Republican levels. But that’s considerably harder without Trump himself on the ballot. That could explain Republican efforts to keep going after Biden given how unpopular he is with Trump’s core supporters.

Democrats, meanwhile, point to their success in the 2018 midterms during Trump’s first presidency, when they reclaimed the House majority on the strength of moderate voters, including disaffected Republicans. They seem confident that Republicans’ aggressiveness about Biden does not appeal to that swath of the electorate.

But even as they praise Biden’s accomplishments as president, Democrats quietly admit they don’t want to spend time talking about a figure who left office with lagging approval ratings and forced his party into a late, difficult change at the top of the ticket.

Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia said Biden was productive while acknowledging he “was not at the top of his game because of his age.” He said Democrats want to look forward, most immediately on trying to win control of the House and make gains in the Senate.

“And then who’s our standard bearer in 2028?” Beyer said. “And how do we minimize the Trump damage with what we have right now?”

Barrow and Brown write for the Associated Press. Brown reported from Washington.

AUSTIN, Texas — U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat who represents a slice of the Rio Grande Valley along the border with Mexico, won his last congressional election by just over 5,000 votes.

That makes him a tempting target for Republicans, who are poised to redraw the state’s congressional maps this week and devise five new winnable seats for the GOP that would help the party avoid losing House control in next year’s midterm elections. Adjusting the lines of Gonzalez’s district to bring in a few thousand more Republican voters, while shifting some Democratic ones out, could flip his seat.

Gonzalez said he is not worried. Those Democratic voters will have to end up in one of the Republican districts that flank Gonzalez’s current one, making those districts more competitive — possibly enough so it could flip the seats to Democrats.

“Get ready for some pickup opportunities,” Gonzalez said, adding that his party is already recruiting challengers to Republicans whose districts they expect to be destabilized by the process. “We’re talking to some veterans, we’re talking to some former law enforcement.”

Texas has 38 seats in the House. Republicans now hold 25 and Democrats 12, with one seat vacant after Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, died in March.

Gonzalez’s district — and what happens to the neighboring GOP-held ones — is at the crux of President Trump’s high-risk, high-reward push to get Texas Republicans to redraw their political map. Trump is seeking to avoid the traditional midterm letdown that most incumbent presidents endure and hold onto the House, which the GOP narrowly controls.

Trump’s push comes as there are numerous political danger signs for his presidency, both in the recent turmoil over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and in new polling. Surveys from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research show most U.S. adults think that his policies have not helped them and that his tax cut and spending bill will only help the wealthy.

‘Dummymander’

The fear of accidentally creating unsafe seats is one reason Texas Republicans drew their lines cautiously in 2021, when the constitutionally mandated redistricting process kicked off in all 50 states. Mapmakers — in most states, it’s the party that controls the Legislature — must adjust congressional and state legislative lines after every 10-year census to ensure that districts have about the same number of residents.

That is a golden opportunity for one party to rig the map against the other, a tactic known as gerrymandering. But there is a term, too, for so aggressively redrawing a map that it puts that party’s own seats at risk: a “dummymander.”

The Texas GOP knows the risk. In the 2010s, the Republican-controlled Legislature drew political lines that helped pad the GOP’s House majority. That lasted until 2018, when a backlash against Trump in his first term led Democrats to flip two seats in Texas that Republicans had thought safe.

In 2021, with Republicans still comfortably in charge of the Texas Legislature, the party was cautious, opting for a map that mainly shored up their incumbents rather than targeted Democrats.

Still, plenty of Republicans believe their Texas counterparts can safely go on offense.

“Smart map-drawing can yield pickup opportunities while not putting our incumbents in jeopardy,” said Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which helps coordinate mapmaking for the party nationally.

Democrats threaten walkout

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Legislature, which starts Monday, to comply with Trump’s request to redraw the congressional maps and to address the flooding in Texas Hill Country that killed at least 135 people this month.

Democratic state lawmakers are talking about staying away from the Capitol to deny the Legislature the minimum number needed to convene. Republican Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton posted that any Democrats who did that should be arrested.

Lawmakers can be fined up to $500 a day for breaking a quorum after the House changed its rules when Democrats initiated a walkout in 2021. Despite the new penalties, Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who led the walkout in 2021, left open the possibility of another.

“I don’t think anybody should underestimate the will of Texas Democrats,” he said.

Texas is not the only Republican state engaged in mid-decade redistricting. After staving off a ballot measure to expand the power of a mapmaking commission last election, Ohio Republicans hope to redraw their congressional map from a 10-5 one favoring the GOP to one as lopsided as 13 to 2, in a state Trump won last year with 55% of the vote.

GOP sees momentum

Some Democratic leaders have suggested that states where their party is in control should counter the expected redraw in Texas. “We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power,” former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke said Sunday on CNN.

But Democrats have fewer options. More of the states their party controls do not allow elected partisans to draw maps and entrust independent commissions to draw fair lines.

Among them is California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has floated the long-shot idea of working around the state’s commission.

The few Democratic-controlled states that do allow elected officials to draw the lines, such as Illinois, have already seen Democrats max out their advantages.

Trump and his allies have been rallying Texas Republicans to ignore whatever fears they may have and to go big.

On Tuesday, the president posted on his social media site a reminder of his record in the state in the November election: “Won by one and a half million Votes, and almost 14%. Also, won all of the Border Counties along Mexico, something which has never happened before. I keep hearing about Texas ‘going Blue,’ but it is just another Democrat LIE.”

Texas has long been eyed as a state trending Democratic because of its growing nonwhite population. But those communities swung right last year and helped Trump expand his margin to nearly 14 percentage points, a significant improvement on his 5½-point win in 2020.

Michael Li, a Texas native and longtime watcher of the state at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, said there’s no way to know whether that trend will continue in next year’s elections or whether the state will shift back toward Democrats.

“Anyone who can tell you what the politics of Texas looks like for the balance of the decade has a better crystal ball than I do,” Li said.

Legal risks

One region of the state where Republican gains have been steady is the Rio Grande Valley, which runs from the Gulf of Mexico along much of the state’s southern border. The heavily Latino region, where many Border Patrol officers live, has rallied around Trump’s anti-immigration message and policies.

As a result, Gonzalez and the area’s other Democratic congressman, Henry Cuellar, have seen their reelection campaigns get steadily tighter. They are widely speculated to be the two top targets of the new map.

The GOP is expected to look to the state’s three biggest cities to find its other Democratic targets. If mapmakers scatter Democratic voters from districts in the Houston, Dallas and Austin areas, they could get to five additional seats.

But in doing so, Republicans face a legal risk on top of their electoral one: that they break up districts required by the Voting Rights Act to have a critical amount of certain minority groups. The goal of the federal law is to enable those communities to elect representatives of their choosing.

The Texas GOP already is facing a lawsuit from civil rights groups alleging its initial 2021 map did this. If this year’s redistricting is too aggressive, it could trigger a second complaint.

“It’s politically and legally risky,” Li said of the redistricting strategy. “It’s throwing caution to the winds.”

Riccardi and Lathan write for the Associated Press and reported from Denver and Austin, respectively.

Ken Burns has made more than 30 documentaries and won multiple Emmys.

But without funding from public television, his educational programming such as “The Civil War” and “Baseball” might never have existed, he told “PBS News Hour” in an interview Thursday.

Even today, the acclaimed filmmaker whose works — including his upcoming project “The American Revolution” — are broadcast on PBS, said his films get around 20% of their budgets from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, the body Congress recently voted to defund.

Projects that receive a higher percentage of their funding through public media “just won’t be able to be made,” Burns said. “And so there’ll be less representation by all the different kinds of filmmakers. People coming up will have an impossible time getting started.”

The U.S. Senate this week passed the Trump administration’s proposal to cancel $9 billion in federal funding previously allocated for foreign aid and public broadcasting, and the House of Representatives approved the package after midnight Friday, sending it to President Trump’s desk.

The Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which administers the funds for NPR radio stations and PBS TV affiliates, is on track to lose $1.1 billion that had previously been budgeted for the next two years.

The impact of those cuts will be deeply felt across both NPR and PBS, leaders of both organizations told The Times. Layoffs and reduced programming are expected, and the blows will disproportionately strike smaller markets that rely more heavily on federal funding.

“This is going to hit hardest in the places that need it the most,” said Gabriel Kahn, a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Stations in smaller markets are staffed significantly less than stations in larger cities, often because of the disparity in funding. The Corp. for Public Broadcasting acted as “the great equalizer,” Kahn said, padding the budgets of smaller stations so they could continue operating.

“It’s just going to be increasingly lonely out there as these voices, who were of the community and generally very well trusted, are going to disappear,” Kahn said. “Because within a year, you’re not going to be able to hear these things on the radio anymore in a lot of places.”

The cuts fulfill a longtime dream of conservatives and libertarians, who bristle at the notion of public funds supporting media organizations, especially ones they view as left-leaning. Republicans have for decades called for cuts to public broadcasting because of their perceived liberal slant of its programming.

Trump has called NPR and PBS government-funded “left-wing propaganda.”

But several prominent voices in media and politics were quick to call attention to the harm the cuts will have, especially on communities where the local stations rely heavily on federal funding.

“A PBS station is really like the public library. It’s one of those important institutions that may be the only place where people have access to local news,” Burns said. “There’s a kind of sense of local accountability, and as news becomes nationalized and even internationalized, there’s a loss there.”

PBS President Paula Kerger expressed similar concerns.

“Many of our stations which provide access to free unique local programming and emergency alerts will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” Kerger said in a statement Thursday.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of two Senate Republicans to vote against the package, said she strongly opposes the cuts to public media in a statement after the vote. She referenced a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in Alaska this week that triggered a tsunami warning as an example of the public service stations provide.

“My colleagues are targeting NPR but will wind up hurting — and, over time, closing down — local radio stations that provide essential news, alerts and educational programming in Alaska and across the country.”

A devastating blow to SoCal stations

Public media outlets in Southern California’s urban areas, which can turn to wealthy locals for donations, are less dependent on federal funding than stations in smaller markets. But they will still feel an immediate loss.

Washington, D.C.-based NPR has two major affiliates serving the Los Angeles area: LAist, or KPCC-FM (89.3), and KCRW-FM (89.9).

LAist, based in Pasadena, was set to receive $1.7 million, about 4% of its annual budget. Alejandra Santamaria, president and chief executive of LAist, said the money is equivalent to 13 journalist positions at the local news operation. KCRW in Santa Monica was expecting $264,000 from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting.

PBS SoCal, which operates member stations KOCE and KCET in Orange and Los Angeles counties, respectively, is facing a loss of $4.3 million in federal funding, according to Andy Russell, president and chief executive of the stations.

Connie Leyva, executive director of KVCR Public Media in San Bernardino, which operates PBS and NPR affiliates, said earlier this week that the Senate action will mean losing $540,000, about 6% of its operating budget. Thus, she has to consider cutting five positions on an already lean staff.

Kahn, the USC professor who is also the publisher and editor of Crosstown L.A., a nonprofit newsroom focused on local reporting and data journalism, said the cuts could have unintended consequences for Trump’s own voters.

“The irony, of course, is that these are areas that generally support Trump with high margins, and they’re are also areas that have the greatest allegiance to their local public radio station,” he said.

Florida’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the state’s congressional redistricting map, rejecting a challenge over the elimination of a majority-Black district in north Florida that was pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The court, dominated by DeSantis appointees, ruled that restoration of the district that previously united Black communities from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee, or across 200 miles, would amount to impermissible racial gerrymandering. That, the majority ruled, violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.

“The record leaves no doubt that such a district would be race-predominant. The record also gives us no reasonable basis to think that further litigation would uncover a potentially viable remedy,” said Chief Justice Carlos Muniz in the court’s majority opinion.

The decision means Florida’s current congressional districts that give Republicans a 20-8 advantage over Democrats will remain in place for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. The former north Florida district was most recently represented by a Black Democrat, former Rep. Al Lawson. The new districts divide that area among three Republicans.

A panel of three federal judges previously upheld the current congressional districts.

“This was always the constitutionally correct map — and now both the federal courts and the FL Supreme Court have upheld it,” DeSantis said on X.

One of the plaintiffs, the National Redistricting Foundation, called the new ruling “alarming” because it “diminishes the voting power of Black Floridians” by upholding the GOP-drawn map.

“The court is abandoning the most basic role of the judiciary: to provide justice for the people,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the foundation.

Earlier redistricting efforts by the state Legislature included versions of the north Florida district that preserved Black voting power. But after a veto by DeSantis, the governor pushed through the current map that eliminated it.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said one problem for the plaintiffs was they did not propose a viable alternative map but only pointed out potential problems with the current one.

“It is not enough in the redistricting context for challengers to identify a flaw in an enacted districting plan and demand that the court send the Legislature back to the drawing board,” the decision said.

Justice Jorge Labarga was the lone dissenter, contending the lawsuit should be sent back to a lower court for further proceedings to allow the challengers a chance to produce different districts.

“By foreclosing further litigation, the majority’s decision now allows to remain in place a congressional redistricting plan that is unconstitutional under the Florida Constitution,” Labarga wrote.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Debate over President Trump’s sweeping budget-and-policy package is over on Capitol Hill. Now the argument goes national.

From the Central Valley of California to Midwestern battlegrounds and suburban districts of the northeast, the new law already is shaping the 2026 midterm battle for control of the House of Representatives. The outcome will set the tone for Trump’s final two years in the Oval Office.

Democrats need a net gain of three House seats to break the GOP’s chokehold on Washington and reestablish a power center to counter Trump. There’s added pressure to flip the House because midterm Senate contests are concentrated in Republican-leaning states, making it harder for Democrats to reclaim that chamber.

As Republicans see it, they’ve now delivered broad tax cuts, an unprecedented investment in immigration enforcement and new restraints on social safety net programs. Democrats see a law that rolls back health insurance access and raises costs for middle-class Americans while cutting taxes mostly for the rich, curtailing green energy initiatives and restricting some workers’ organizing rights.

“It represents the broken promise they made to the American people,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, a Washington Democrat who chairs the party’s House campaign arm. “We’re going to continue to hold Republicans accountable for this vote.”

Parties gear up for a fight

Whether voters see it that way will be determined on a district-by-district level, but the battle will be more intense in some places than others. Among the 435 House districts, only 69 contests were decided by less than 10 percentage points in the 2024 general election.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified 26 Democratic-held seats it must defend vigorously, along with 35 GOP-held seats it believes could be ripe to flip. Republicans’ campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, has listed 18 GOP incumbents as priorities, plus two districts opened by retirements.

There are a historically low number of so-called crossover districts: Only 13 Democrats represent districts that Trump carried in 2024, while just three Republicans serve districts that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried.

Both committees are busy recruiting challengers and open-seat candidates, and more retirements could come, so the competitive map will evolve. Still, there are clusters of districts guaranteed to influence the national result.

California, despite its clear lean to Democrats statewide, has at least nine House districts expected to be up for grabs: three in the Central Valley and six in Southern California. Six are held by Democrats, three by the GOP.

Pennsylvania features four districts that have been among the closest U.S. House races for several consecutive cycles. They include a suburban Philadelphia seat represented by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, one of just two House Republicans to vote against Trump’s bill and one of the three GOP lawmakers from a district Harris won. Fitzpatrick cited the Medicaid cuts.

Vice President JD Vance plans on Wednesday to be in Republican Rep. Robert Bresnahan’s northwest Pennsylvania district to tout the GOP package. Bresnahan’s seat is a top Democratic target.

Iowa and Wisconsin, meanwhile, feature four contiguous GOP-held districts in farm-heavy regions where voters could be swayed by fallout from Trump’s tariffs.

Democrats fight to define the GOP

Beyond bumper-sticker labels — Trump’s preferred “Big Beautiful Bill” versus Democrats’ “Big Ugly Bill” retort — the 900-page law is, in fact, an array of policies with varying effects.

Democrats hammer Medicaid and food assistance cuts, some timed to take full effect only after the 2026 midterms, along with Republicans’ refusal to extend tax credits to some people who obtained health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law; 3 million more would not qualify for food stamps, also known as SNAP benefits.

“Folks will die here in Louisiana and in other parts of the country,” House Minority Leader Jeffries warned last week during a town hall in Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s home state of Louisiana.

Jeffries singled out vulnerable Republicans such as California Rep. David Valadao of Hanford, who represents a heavily agricultural Central Valley district where more than half of the population is eligible for the joint state-federal insurance program. California allows immigrants with legal status and those who are undocumented to qualify for Medicaid, so not all Medicaid recipients are voters. But the program helps finance the overall healthcare system, including nursing homes and hospitals.

Republicans highlight the law’s tightened work requirements for Medicaid enrollees. They argue that it’s a popular provision that will strengthen the program.

“I voted for this bill because it does preserve the Medicaid program for its intended recipients — children, pregnant women, the disabled, and elderly,” Valadao said. “I know how important the program is for my constituents.”

Republicans hope voters see lower taxes

The law includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. It makes permanent existing rates and brackets approved during Trump’s first term. Republicans and their allies have hammered vulnerable Democrats for “raising costs” on American households by opposing the bill.

GOP campaign aides point to the popularity of individual provisions: boosting the $2,000 child tax credit to $2,200 (some families at lower income levels would not get the full credit), new deductions on tip and overtime income and auto loans; and a new deduction for older adults earning less than $75,000 a year.

“Everyone will have more take-home pay. They’ll have more jobs and opportunity,” Johnson said in a Fox News Sunday interview. “The economy will be doing better and we’ll be able to point to that as the obvious result of what we did.”

Democrats note that the biggest beneficiaries of Trump’s tax code are wealthy Americans and corporations. Pairing that with safety net cuts, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz concluded, “The cruelty is the point.”

Immigration, meanwhile, was Trump’s strongest issue in 2024. NRCC aides say that will continue with the new law’s investments in immigration enforcement. Democrats believe that the Trump administration has overplayed its hand with its push for mass deportation.

Playing the Trump card

The president is a titanic variable.

Democrats point to 2018, when they notched a 40-seat net gain in House seats to take control away from the GOP. This year, Democrats have enjoyed a double-digit swing in special elections around the country when compared with 2024 presidential results. Similar trends emerged in 2017 after Trump’s 2016 victory. Democrats say that reflects voter discontent with Trump once he’s actually in charge.

Republicans answer that Trump’s job approval remains higher at this point than in 2017. But the GOP’s effort is further complicated by ongoing realignments: Since Trump’s emergence, Democrats have gained affluent white voters — like those in suburban swing districts — while Trump has drawn more working-class voters across racial and ethnic groups. But Republicans face a stiffer challenge of replicating Trump’s coalition in a midterm election without him on the ballot.

Democrats, meanwhile, must corral voters who are not a threat to vote for Republicans but could stay home.

Jeffries said he’s determined not to let that happen: “We’re going to do everything we can until we end this national nightmare.”

Barrow, Cooper and Brook write for the Associated Press. Cooper reported from Phoenix and Brook reported from New Orleans. AP reporters Michael Blood in Los Angeles and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Just months after President Trump returned to office amid a wave of anti-immigration sentiment, the share of U.S. adults saying immigration is a “good thing” for the country has jumped substantially — including among Republicans, according to new Gallup polling.

About 8 in 10 Americans, 79%, say immigration is “a good thing” for the country today, an increase from 64% a year ago and a high point in the nearly 25-year trend. Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults say immigration is a bad thing right now, down from 32% last year.

During Democratic President Joe Biden’s term in office, negative views of immigration had increased markedly, reaching a high point in the months before Trump, a Republican, took office. The new Gallup data suggests U.S. adults are returning to more pro-immigrant views that could complicate Trump’s push for sweeping deportations and other anti-immigration policies. The poll shows decreasing support for the type of mass deportations Trump has championed since before he was elected.

Since taking office, Trump has called on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to do all in its power to deliver “the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.” His administration has also pushed to limit access to federal benefits for immigrants who lack legal status, sought to revoke the citizenship of immigrants who commit crimes and is working to end birthright citizenship for children born to those without legal status or who are in the country temporarily.

In general, Americans’ views of immigration policies have shifted dramatically in the last year, the Gallup polling shows — including among Republicans, who have become much more content with immigration levels since Trump took office but who have also grown more supportive of pathways to citizenship for people in the country illegally.

The broader trend also shows that public opinion is generally much more favorable to immigrants than it was decades ago.

The vast majority of U.S. adults say immigration is good

Americans’ more positive view on immigration is driven primarily by a shift among Republicans and independents.

About two-thirds of Republicans now say immigrants are “a good thing” for the country, up from 39% last year. And independents moved from about two-thirds last year to 80% this year.

Democrats have maintained their overwhelmingly positive view of immigration in the last few years.

The share of Americans who want immigration decreased has dropped significantly

In the time since Trump took office, Republicans have become more satisfied with the level of immigration in the country.

The share of Americans who want immigration “decreased” in the United States dropped from 55% to 30%. While fewer Americans now want to decrease the number of people who come to the U.S. from other countries, more want immigration levels kept the same than want higher immigration levels. About 4 in 10 say immigration should be kept at its current level, and only 26% say immigration should be increased.

The poll suggests Republicans’ sharp anti-immigrant views highlighted before November’s election — which helped return Trump to the White House — have largely faded. The share of Republicans saying immigration should be decreased dropped from a high of 88% to 48% in the last year. Close to 4 in 10 Republicans now say immigration levels should remain the same, and only about 1 in 10 would like an increase.

Much of that Republican movement probably comes from support for the Trump administration’s stringent immigration enforcement, but there are also signs in the Gallup polling that Republicans have become more supportive of pathways to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally and more likely to see benefits from immigration that could be at odds with the Trump administration’s priorities.

More Americans back a pathway to citizenship

Most Americans favor allowing immigrants living in the U.S. illegally the chance to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements over a period of time, the poll shows.

Almost 9 in 10 U.S. adults, 85%, favor a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, and nearly as many say they favor a path to citizenship for all immigrants in the country illegally as long as they meet certain requirements.

That increased support for pathways to citizenship largely comes from Republicans, about 6 in 10 of whom now support that, up from 46% last year. Support was already very high among independents and Democrats.

Support for deporting immigrants in the country illegally has also decreased across the board, but less significantly. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults now favor deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally, down from about half a year ago.

Sanders writes for the Associated Press.

DENVER — Roger Hutson was never a huge fan of Donald Trump.

In 2016, he supported Marco Rubio for president, helping raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for his Republican primary bid.

In 2024, Hutson worked with “No Labels,” a group of Democrats, Republicans and independents, to forge a bipartisan ticket with the express purpose of keeping either Trump or Joe Biden from winning the White House.

Is this “really the best we can do in a country of 330 million people?” Hutson asked in a Denver Post opinion piece after the effort collapsed and another Trump-Biden matchup seemed inevitable. The failure, he suggested, was “a sad commentary on the status of leadership in America.”

But something unexpected happened over the last six months. Trump won Hutson over.

He’s not gone full-fledged MAGA. “No, no, no!” he insisted, scoffing at the notion of driving down the street, Trump flag waving. And he’s not about to jump on JD Vance’s political bandwagon, the likeliest vehicle for extending Trumpism in 2028 and beyond.

“I’m acknowledging the accomplishments of the man in the office,” Hutson said, with emphasis on the White House’s current occupant, whom he supported over Kamala Harris. “I’m very impressed.”

Views of the 47th president, from the ground up

It’s not, as one might suppose, because the Denver oil and gas executive is enamored of Trump’s exhortations to “Drill, baby, drill! (“No, baby, no!” is more like it, as Hutson believes oversupply would drive prices down.)

Rather, Hutson credits Trump with achieving a good deal of what he promised during the 2024 campaign.

Securing America’s borders. Forcing U.S. allies to cough up more for defense. Bringing Iran’s nuclear program to heel. Taking on the country’s unfair trade partners.

He still doesn’t much care for Trump’s abrasive personality, the name-calling and denigrating of people.

But Hutson’s conversion shows that in a country deeply dug into oppositional camps, where political views appear cement-hardened into place, there are still those open to persuasion and even willing to change their minds.

As confounding as that might seem.

::

Hutson, 65, was a Republican his whole life, until leaving the party sometime in the 2010s. Or, more precisely, he felt “the party left me.”

A growing stridency around abortion and same-sex marriage was particularly off-putting to Hutson, who describes himself as a conservative on fiscal issues and a live-and-let-live type on social matters. “If you’re lucky enough in life to find somebody you love,” he said, “God bless.”

Hutson has long been active in civic and political affairs, serving on various boards and commissions under Democrats and Republicans alike. He recalled attending a meeting some years ago when GOP leaders gathered to discuss Colorado’s increasingly blue coloration.

“If winning means nominating an African American lesbian with antennae coming out of her head,” then Republicans should do so, Hutson suggested.

That didn’t go over well.

But it fit Hutson’s approach to politics.

He grew up an Army brat, moving around the world until his father completed his military career and settled in Golden, Colo., to take a job at a family lumber business. For all the impermanence — packing up and relocating just about every two years — Hutson said his upbringing was in many ways ideal, shaping his outlook to this day.

The military, he said, reflects the best of America: unity, shared purpose, teamwork. “I think it teaches you a lot of tolerance,” he said. “I think it teaches you a lot of acceptance.”

His GOP pedigree came from his father, the Army colonel. But it wasn’t the scorched-earth version of today’s Republican Party, in which Democrats and their philosophy are regarded as the root of all evil.

Long ago, as leader of the Jefferson County Republican Men’s Club, Hutson invited Colorado’s governor, Democrat Roy Romer, to speak.

“I was catching such hell from people. ‘How dare you invite a Democrat to speak to this group?’ ” Hutson remembered being chastised. “And I said, ‘Well, he’s our governor, isn’t he? I think it’d be an honor.’ ”

After some initial puzzlement from the governor’s office — are you sure? — Romer came and spoke, holding just the kind of cross-party conversation that Hutson wishes occurred more often among politicians in worlds-apart Washington.

“I’d love for Trump to have a weekly meeting with [Democratic House leader] Hakeem Jeffries,” Hutson said as he sat high above downtown Denver, his office decor — dark leather, rugged mountain landscape, a display of amber liquids — suggesting a Western cigar bar theme.

“I would love for Trump to sit down weekly with [Chuck] Schumer” — the Democratic Senate leader — or bring Schumer and the GOP Senate leader, John Thune, together and say, “ ‘How do we work our way through this?’ ”

Could you imagine that, Hutson asked, before answering his own question.

Nope. Never gonna happen.

::

Nothing, and no individual, is perfect. But Hutson looks to the bottom line, and he’s willing to accept trade-offs.

Trump is loud and uncouth. But he’s respected on the world stage, Hutson said, in a way the shuffling Biden was not.

Trump may be toying with tariffs — up, down, all around. But at least he’s addressing the country’s one-sided trade relationships in a way, Hutson said, no president has before.

He may be off base calling for a drastic ramp-up of domestic oil production. But in general, Hutson said, Trump’s welcoming message to business is, “What can we do to be more helpful?”

It’s unfortunate that innocents are being swept up in mass immigration raids. But maybe that wouldn’t have happened, Hutson said, if local officials had been more cooperative and criminal elements weren’t allowed to insinuate themselves so deeply into their communities in the first place.

Besides, he said, haven’t Democrats and Republicans both said a secure border and tougher enforcement is needed before comprehensively overhauling the nation’s fouled-up immigration system?

“We need to bring in the workers we need,” Hutson said. “I mean, if somebody’s coming here to work and be a meaningful part of society, God bless, man.”

Not perfect. But, all in all, a better and stronger presidential performance, Hutson suggested, than many with their blind hatred of Trump can see, or are willing to acknowledge.

“I’ve got to look at the results,” Hutson said, “and despite his caustic attitude and behavior, I think he’s done a really, really good job.”

When Barack Obama was elected president, Hutson recalled, one of his Democratic friends, a Black man, said to him, “ ‘Roger, you’ve got a Black president.’ And I said, ‘You know, Kevin, you’re right. And he’s my president, just like he’s your president.

“ ‘We don’t have to agree on everything but, by God, he’s the president of the United States and we respect that office.’ ”

Hutson paused. His eyes narrowed, disapprovingly. “We’ve lost that,” he said.

SACRAMENTO — An overwhelming number of California voters think American democracy is being threatened or, at the very least, tested, according to a new poll released Thursday by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.

The poll, conducted for the nonprofit Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, found that concerns cut across the partisan spectrum. They are shared regardless of income or education level, race or ethnicity. Californians living in big cities and rural countrysides, young and old, expressed similar unease.

“I do think that it’s at a pretty dangerous point right now. The concerns are justified,” said political scientist Eric Schickler, co-director of the Berkeley institute. “Our democracy is not healthy when you have a president that’s acting to unilaterally stop money from being spent that’s been appropriated, or going to war with colleges and universities or sending troops to L.A.”

In the survey, 64% of California voters said they thought American democracy was under attack, and 26% felt our system of government was being tested but was not under attack. The poll did not investigate what voters blamed for putting democracy in peril.

Democrats, who dominate the California electorate, were the most fearful, with 81% saying it was under attack and 16% who described democracy as being tested. Among voters registered as “no party preference” or with other political parties, 61% felt democracy was under assault, and 32% said it was being tested.

Republicans expressed more faith — nearly a quarter of those polled said they felt democracy was in no danger. But 38% said it was under attack and 39% said it was being tested but not under attack.

Concerns among Democrats may have been expected in California, given the state’s liberal tilt and the widespread and relentless government upheaval since President Trump took office in January. But the opinions shared by Republicans indicates just how pervasive the concerns are about the future of a country seen as a worldwide beacon of freedom and democracy.

Emily Ekins, director of polling for the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said those findings are evidence of an unsettling new development in American politics.

“A couple years ago, Republicans felt that democracy was at risk and now Democrats feel that democracy is at risk. I think that this is pretty worrisome, because people are starting to view the stakes of each election as being higher and higher,” said Ekins, who had no involvement with the Berkeley poll. “They may feel like they could lose their rights and freedoms. They may not feel like the rules apply to them anymore because they feel like so much is on the line.”

Schickler said the political perceptions among Republicans have been recently fed, in part, by Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. Continuous allegations that the U.S. Department. of Justice, including the FBI, and a “deep state” federal government bureaucracy were weaponized against him since his first term in office also contributed to the fear.

Those claims were magnified by conservative news outlets, including Fox News, as well as Trump loyalists on social media, popular podcasts and talk shows.

Even some Republicans who support the president or are agnostic about his tenure are likely concerned about the discord in American politics in recent months, Schickler said, especially after the Trump administration sent U.S. Marines and the California National Guard to the streets of Los Angeles as a protective force during widespread federal immigration raids and subsequent protests.

Recent decisions by media companies to settle Trump’s lawsuits over complaints about stories and coverage also are concerning, he said, despite the merits of those allegations being suspect.

This month, Paramount Global decided to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris; the president claimed it was done to help her presidential campaign against him. Paramount’s leaders hope the settlement will help clear a path for Trump-appointed regulators to bless the company’s $8-billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

“That’s not how a democracy is supposed to work,” Schickler said. “I think the voters’ concerns are rooted in a reality, one that’s been building up for a while. It’s not something that’s just started in 2025 but it’s been kind of gradually getting more serious over the last 20 or 30 years.”

The survey also found that 75% of California voters believe strongly or somewhat that special interest money has too much influence in state politics, a sentiment especially strong among Republicans.

Slim majorities of California voters had little or no trust that Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature act in the best interest of the public. According to the poll, 42% of voters said they have a lot or some trust in Newsom to act in the public’s interest; 53% said they trust his actions just a little or not at all.

Those surveyed had similar sentiments about the legislature.

The courts received the most favorable marks, with 57% of voters saying they trusted the judicial system to act in the best interest of the public.

Technology companies and their leaders were labeled completely untrustworthy by 58% of those surveyed.

Russia Chavis Cardenas, deputy director of the nonpartisan government accountability organization group California Common Cause, which has received grants from the poll-sponsoring Haas Fund, said the findings show just how much special interest influence in Sacramento, and Washington, erodes public trust in government, which may provide insight into their concerns about the health of the American democracy.

“I want to see folks from every political party, every race and every walk of life to be able to be engaged in their democracy, to be able to have a say, to be able to have representation,” Chavis Cardinas said.

“So these numbers are concerning, but they also don’t lie,” she said. “They’re letting us know that folks here in California recognize the influence that big money has, and that the tech companies have too much power over elected officials.”

The poll surveyed 6,474 registered voters throughout California from June 2-6.

SACRAMENTO — The federal safety-net healthcare system for low-income and disabled Americans, Medicaid, won’t be the only medical coverage devastated by the package of spending cuts and tax breaks signed into law by President Trump on the Fourth of July.

Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimates that as many as 660,000 of the roughly 2 million people in the program will either be stripped of coverage or drop out due to increased cost and the onerous new mandates to stay enrolled. Those who do stay could be hit with an average monthly premium increase of up to 66%.

This is Phil Willon, the L.A. Times California politics editor, filling in for columnist George Skelton this week.

To find out more about how the millions of Californians who rely on Covered California for health insurance will be affected by Trump’s megabill, I spoke with Jessica Altman, the organization’s executive director.

We spoke on Thursday, while the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives was voting to approve the reconciliation legislation. According to estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the package will lead to 11.8 million more people going without health insurance nationwide over the next decade.

Price increase imminent

Covered California serves as a marketplace exchange for state residents seeking healthcare insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, allowing them to select from name-brand insurance providers and choose from a variety of coverage plans.

“A quarter of the people we cover are sole proprietors. That’s everything from mom-and-pop Etsy shops to a consultant, a highly educated tech worker in San Francisco doing contract work. We really have that full spectrum,” Altman said.

Covered California also serves as a health insurance sanctuary for residents whose income rises enough for them to lose eligiblity for Medi-Cal, as Medicaid is known in California, or those who work for companies that don’t provide benefits.

The current cost for basic coverage ranges from $0 a month for individuals earning around $21,000 — just above the income eligibility for Medi-Cal — to 8.5% of the income of people making $75,000 or more, Altman said.

The vast majority of Californians receive federal subsidies to lower their premiums, including many middle-income families who had become eligible when Congress expanded the financial assistance in 2021.

Those subsidies were not renewed in the Trump megabill. In theory, the Republican-led Congress could remedy that before the end of the year but, given that Trump spent most of his first term in office trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the odds of that appear slim.

“We have many, many people paying less than $10 a month for their health insurance. We’re going to lose that price for sure,” Altman said. “We also have people, that person making $75,000 a year … they’re going to lose all of their tax credits and potentially pay hundreds more a month.”

And that price increase will start to hit home in four months, when Covered California’s open enrollment signup period begins for 2026.

Thousands of Californians will drop their coverage because they can no longer afford the expense, Altman predicts.

“This is a moment where Americans and Californians are so financially strained: Their rent, their food, their gas, their child care, all of their transportation, all of these things,” Altman said. “They are not in a position today where they feel like any of those costs can rise by 66%.”

Altman said the governor and California Legislature budgeted an additional $190 million for Covered California, which hopefully will help reduce the number of residents who will lose their healthcare coverage. But, she said, it’s nowhere near enough to make up for the federal cuts.

Targeting legal immigrants and ‘Dreamers’

Approximately 112,000 lawful immigrants in California also will be stripped of premium tax credits and cost-sharing support, essentially pushing health coverage out of financial reach, she said. That includes immigrant groups that have been eligible for assistance for years, including those with work and student visas, refugees, asylees and victims of human trafficking.

“They are limiting it so only green card holders and a couple of very nuanced categories of certain Cuban immigrants and certain immigrants from Pacific Island nations can get financial assistance,” Altman said.

Immigrants who grew up in the United States after being brought here illegally as children, a group known as “Dreamers,” will be stripped of their eligibility, Altman said.

Thousands more Californians likely will drop coverage because of new burdensome verification requirements, including increased tax filings, and bureaucratic hurdles that must be overcome to maintain eligibility.

Big picture

California Gov. Gavin Newsom already has warned that the cuts to Medicaid in what Trump calls the “Big Beautiful Bill,” a cornerstone of his second-term agenda, will lead to hospital and clinic closures, especially in the state’s underserved rural areas.

Altman said that impact will be exacerbated by the tens of thousands of Californians expected to lose their medical insurance they secured through Covered California. Medical facilities received higher compensation to care for patients who secured health insurance through Covered California than they do for patients on Medi-Cal. And hospitals and clinics will now take an even greater financial hit for caring for Californians with no health insurance, raising healthcare costs for everyone else.

“We know people will get less healthcare. They will not get their preventive care, they will not get their primary care at the rates that they do when they’re covered,” Altman said. “But when they really need care, they’re going to go get it. They’re going to get it at the emergency room, and our system is going to pay for it anyway.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Valadao votes for a Trump megabill expected to disrupt healthcare for many in the Central Valley
The TK: Gov. Newsom will visit South Carolina, a pivotal presidential primary state
The L.A. Times Special: Kidnappers or ICE agents? LAPD grapples with surge in calls from concerned citizens

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WASHINGTON — After an overnight session and hours of floor debate, the House voted Thursday to approve the “Big Beautiful Bill” — clearing its final hurdle in a landmark achievement for President Trump, who wrangled Republican lawmakers to pass the most expensive legislation in history by the Fourth of July.

The 218 to 214 vote, which saw two Republican members side with the Democrats in opposition, was delayed by a record-breaking speech on the House floor by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that lasted eight hours and 44 minutes. “I’m going to take my time,” Jeffries said before launching into a marathon excoriation of the legislation, its Medicaid cuts and its Republican backers. “Shame on this institution if this bill passes.”

The bill encompasses Trump’s domestic agenda, extending tax breaks to millions of American households and businesses that are projected to add trillions to the national debt. The legislation also introduces new tax relief for senior citizens, tip and overtime workers, and new parents.

To offset a fraction of those costs, Republicans approved new barriers to access for Medicaid and cut funding streams under the Affordable Care Act, placing the healthcare of nearly 12 million in jeopardy over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food stamps, was also cut.

It has been a controversial bill within the Republican Party ever since it was conceived at the beginning of Trump’s second term, with fiscal hawks decrying its record contributions to annual deficits, and moderate Republicans fearing its cuts to healthcare would come back to haunt them in future elections.

Speaking with reporters after the vote, senior White House officials said Trump was the “omnipresent force behind the legislation,” crediting his personal relationships with lawmakers on the Hill for its ultimate success.

“I’ve lost count of the number of meetings the president has had,” one White House official said, adding that the bill “satisfies virtually every campaign promise the president made.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that Republicans defied the “doubters and the panicans” to secure passage of legislation that would “add funding for at least 1 million deportations per year.”

Beyond tax relief and healthcare cuts, the bill increases defense spending and adds a historic $150 billion to fund border security and mass deportations, exponentially increasing the budget of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — a fund larger than many national armies.

The president, Leavitt said, would host a “big, beautiful signing ceremony” Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern, marked by fireworks on the National Mall celebrating Independence Day — a deadline he imposed on the Republican caucus to secure passage of the legislation.

It also includes a host of parochial provisions. The bill provides $1 billion for security, planning and other costs for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and $30 million for the construction of a sculpture-laden “American Garden of Heroes” to be built at an undetermined location.

In total, the Congressional Budget Office projects the bill could add up to $3.3 trillion to the debt by 2034. Republicans dispute the figure as inflated, arguing the CBO assumes status economic growth, while still other groups say the projection is conservative.

In a statement after the vote, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which has advocated fiscal responsibility for decades, warned the bill “would add more than $4 trillion to the debt, accelerate the insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, and leave us even more vulnerable to the whims of the Treasury markets.”

“In a massive fiscal capitulation, Congress has passed the single most expensive, dishonest, and reckless budget reconciliation bill ever — and, it comes amidst an already alarming fiscal situation,” the group said. “Never before has a piece of legislation been jammed through with such disregard for our fiscal outlook, the budget process, and the impact it will have on the well-being of the country and future generations.”

And yet, despite issuing scathing criticisms of the Senate language for its historic contributions to the debt, opposition from the House Freedom Caucus, also founded to advocate for fiscal responsibility, all but melted away in the early hours of Thursday under intense pressure from the White House.

Several of the Medicaid provisions kick in only after the 2026 midterms, buying Republicans time to sell the bill without facing its real-world consequences before the next election. But Democrats are already campaigning against the legislation as the greatest attack on healthcare since Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017, which prompted a Democratic wave in midterms the following year.

The legislation introduces a work requirement for Medicaid enrollment that will require extensive new paperwork for applicants, and restricts state taxes on healthcare providers, known as the “provider tax,” an essential tool for many states in their efforts to supplement Medicaid funding.

Several Republican lawmakers fear that provision could have devastating effects on rural hospitals. The Senate added a rural hospital fund to the bill to help mitigate some of the impacts of the funding cuts.

The bill also rolls back green energy tax credits that have fueled an entire manufacturing workforce in wind and solar energy in states across the country.

The bill passed through the Senate despite bipartisan opposition, with three Republicans joining Democrats to vote against it. House approval of the Senate text Thursday morning occurred barely 24 hours after the upper chamber’s vote.

On Wednesday night, a number of House Republican lawmakers had said openly they would not support a rushed process to approve the bill. But a floor vote on debate rules kept open by House Speaker Mike Johnson throughout the night kept conversations active, and ultimately swayed the holdouts.

Two Republican House members, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voted against the final bill, citing its effects to the healthcare system and to the national debt, respectively.

“What a great night it was,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform before the final vote. “One of the most consequential Bills ever. The USA is the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, by far!!!”

In the call with reporters, one White House official also credited Vice President JD Vance for his efforts to secure a victory on the legislation, noting his huddle hours before a final Senate vote on Tuesday with Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a lawmaker who secured exceptional carve-outs for her state in the bill and yet still expressed disappointment with its harshest provisions after voting to approve it.

Democrats will welcome the vice president receiving credit. Several expressed hope to The Times they can tie any successor of Trump’s to unpopular healthcare cuts in 2028.

WASHINGTON — There’s no filibuster in the House, but Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries essentially conducted one anyway.

Jeffries held the House floor for more than eight hours Thursday, taking his “sweet time” with a marathon floor speech that delayed passage of Republicans’ massive tax and spending cuts legislation and gave his minority party a lengthy spotlight to excoriate what he called an “immoral” bill.

As Democratic leader, Jeffries can speak for as long as he wants during debate on legislation — hence its nickname on Capitol Hill, the “magic minute,” that lasts as long as leaders are speaking.

He began the speech at 4:53 a.m. EDT and finished at 1:37 p.m. EDT, 8 hours, 44 minutes later, breaking the record set by then-Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) in 2021, when he was the GOP leader. McCarthy spoke for 8 hours, 32 minutes when he angrily criticized Democrats’ “Build Back Better” legislation, breaking a record set by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), when she spoke about immigration for 8 hours, 7 minutes in 2018.

“I feel an obligation, Mr. Speaker, to stand on this House floor and take my sweet time,” Jeffries said as he opened.

The speech pushed a final vote on Republican President Trump’s tax bill, initially expected in the early morning, into the daylight hours. The New York Democrat used the time to criticize the bill’s healthcare and food aid cuts, tax breaks for the wealthy and rollbacks to renewable energy programs, among other parts of the bill that Democrats decry.

He also killed time by riffing on hip-hop, King George III and his own life story, among other diversions. He called out Republicans who have voiced concerns about the bill, read stories from people concerned about their health care from those GOP lawmakers’ districts and praised his own members, some of whom sat behind him and cheered, clapped, laughed and joined hands.

“This reckless Republican budget is an immoral document, and that is why I stand here on the floor of the House of Representatives with my colleagues in the House Democratic caucus to stand up and push back against it with everything we have,” Jeffries said.

He ended the speech in the cadence of a Sunday sermon, with most of the Democratic caucus in a tight huddle around him. One colleague called out, “Bring it home, Hakeem!”

“We don’t work for President Donald Trump,” Jeffries said, as a handful of Republicans across the aisle sat silent and occasionally snickered at the leader as he kept talking.

He invoked the late John Lewis, a civil rights activist in the 1960s and longtime Democratic congressman from Georgia. “Get into good trouble, necessary trouble,” Jeffries said. “We’re going to press on until victory is won.”

Jeffries sneaked small bites of food and drank liquids to boost his energy, but did not leave the chamber or his podium. The speech would be over if he did.

Democrats were powerless to stop the huge bill, which Republicans are passing by using an obscure budget procedure that bypasses the Senate filibuster. So they were using the powers they do have, mostly to delay. In the Senate, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York forced Senate clerks to read the bill for almost 16 hours over the weekend.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) similarly gained attention in April when he spoke for more than 25 hours on the Senate floor about the first months of Trump’s presidency and broke the record for the longest continuous Senate floor speech in the chamber’s history. Booker was assisted by fellow Democrats who gave him a break from speaking by asking him questions on the Senate floor, but Jeffries’ “magic minute” did not allow for any interaction with other members.

Republicans who were sitting on the floor when Jeffries started trickled out, leaving half the chamber empty. When the speech was over, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) called it “a bunch of hogwash.”

The speech “will not change the outcome that you will see very shortly,” Smith said.

After the bill passed, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said that Democrats “wanted to speak for hours and hours and break records because they wanted to stand in the way of history.”

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. A.P. writers Matt Brown, Kevin Freking, Lisa Mascaro and Leah Askrinam contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Republicans muscled President Trump’s tax and spending cut bill through the House on Thursday, the final step necessary to get the bill to his desk by the GOP’s self-imposed deadline of July 4th.

At nearly 900 pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations.

Democrats united against the legislation, but were powerless to stop it as long as Republicans stayed united. The Senate passed the bill, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaking vote. The House passed an earlier iteration of the bill in May with just one vote to spare. It passed the final version 218-214.

Here’s what’s in the bill:

Tax cuts are the priority

Republicans say the bill is crucial because there would be a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump’s first term expire. The legislation contains about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.

The existing tax rates and brackets would become permanent under the bill, solidifying the tax cuts approved in Trump’s first term.

It temporarily would add new tax deductions on tip, overtime and auto loans. There’s also a $6,000 deduction for older adults who earn no more than $75,000 a year, a nod to his pledge to end taxes on Social Security benefits.

It would boost the $2,000 child tax credit to $2,200. Millions of families at lower income levels would not get the full credit.

A cap on state and local deductions, called SALT, would quadruple to $40,000 for five years. It’s a provision important to New York and other high tax states, though the House wanted it to last for 10 years.

There are scores of business-related tax cuts, including allowing businesses to immediately write off 100% of the cost of equipment and research. Proponents say this will boost economic growth.

The wealthiest households would see a $12,000 increase from the legislation, and the bill would cost the poorest people $1,600 a year, mainly due to reductions in Medicaid and food aid, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House’s version.

Money for deportations, a border wall and the Golden Dome

The bill would provide some $350 billion for Trump’s border and national security agenda, including for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds, as he aims to fulfill his promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.

Money would go for hiring 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, with $10,000 signing bonuses and a surge of Border Patrol officers, as well. The goal is to deport some 1 million people per year.

To help pay for it, immigrants would face various new fees, including when seeking asylum protections.

For the Pentagon, the bill would provide billions for ship building, munitions systems, and quality of life measures for servicemen and women, as well as $25 billion for the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. The Defense Department would have $1 billion for border security.

How to pay for it? Cuts to Medicaid and other programs

To help partly offset the lost tax revenue and new spending, Republicans aim to cut back on Medicaid and food assistance for people below the poverty line .

Republicans argue they are trying to right-size the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse.

The package includes new 80-hour-a-month work requirements for many adults receiving Medicaid and food stamps, including older people up to age 65. Parents of children 14 and older would have to meet the program’s work requirements.

There’s also a proposed new $35 co-payment that can be charged to patients using Medicaid services.

More than 71 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and 40 million use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Most already work, according to analysts.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law and 3 million more would not qualify for food stamps, also known as SNAP benefits.

Republicans are looking to have states pick up some of the cost for SNAP benefits. Currently, the federal government funds all benefit costs. Under the bill, states beginning in 2028 will be required to contribute a set percentage of those costs if their payment error rate exceeds 6%. Payment errors include both underpayments and overpayments.

But the Senate bill temporarily delays the start date of that cost-sharing for states with the highest SNAP error rates. Alaska has the highest error rate in the nation at nearly 25%, according to Department of Agriculture data. Sen. Lisa Murkowsk (R-Alaska) had fought for the exception. She was a decisive vote in getting the bill through the Senate.

A ‘death sentence’ for clean energy?

Republicans are proposing to dramatically roll back tax breaks designed to boost clean energy projects fueled by renewable sources such as energy and wind. The tax breaks were a central component of President Biden’s 2022 landmark bill focused on addressing climate change and lowering health care costs.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) went so far as to call the GOP provisions a “death sentence for America’s wind and solar industries and an inevitable hike in utility bills.”

A tax break for people who buy new or used electric vehicles would expire on Sept. 30 of this year, instead of at the end of 2032 under current law.

Meanwhile, a tax credit for the production of critical materials will be expanded to include metallurgical coal used in steelmaking.

Trump savings accounts and so, so much more

A number of extra provisions reflect other GOP priorities.

The bill creates a new children’s savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury.

The Senate provided $40 million to establish Trump’s long-sought “National Garden of American Heroes.”

There’s a new excise tax on university endowments and a new tax on remittances, or transfers of money that people in the U.S. send abroad. The tax is equal to 1% of the transfer.

A $200 tax on gun silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns was eliminated.

One provision bars for one year Medicaid payments to family planning providers that provide abortions, namely Planned Parenthood.

Another section expands the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a hard-fought provision from GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, for those impacted by nuclear development and testing.

Billions would go for the Artemis moon mission and for the exploration of Mars, while $88 million is earmarked for a pandemic response accountability committee.

Additionally, a provision would increase the nation’s debt limit, by $5 trillion, to allow continued borrowing to pay already accrued bills.

Last-minute changes

The Senate overwhelmingly revolted against a proposal meant to deter states from regulating artificial intelligence. Republican governors across the country asked for the moratorium to be removed and the Senate voted to do so with a resounding 99-1 vote.

A provision was thrown in at the final hours that will provide $10 billion annually to rural hospitals for five years, or $50 billion in total. The Senate bill had originally provided $25 billion for the program, but that number was upped to win over holdout GOP senators and a coalition of House Republicans warning that reduced Medicaid provider taxes would hurt rural hospitals.

The amended bill also stripped out a new tax on wind and solar projects that use a certain percentage of components from China.

What’s the final cost?

Altogether, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill would increase federal deficits over the next 10 years by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034.

Or not, depending on how one does the math.

Senate Republicans are proposing a unique strategy of not counting the existing tax breaks as a new cost because those breaks are already “current policy.” Republican senators say the Senate Budget Committee chairman has the authority to set the baseline for the preferred approach.

Under the alternative Senate GOP view, the bill would reduce deficits by almost half a trillion dollars over the coming decade, the CBO said.

Democrats say this is “magic math” that obscures the true costs of the tax breaks. Some nonpartisan groups worried about the country’s fiscal trajectory are siding with Democrats in that regard. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Senate Republicans were employing an “accounting gimmick that would make Enron executives blush.”

Freking and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.

Efforts to win over holdout House Republicans extend into early hours as Trump’s tax and spending bill hits hurdles.

Republicans in the United States House of Representatives have been locked in a dramatic impasse over President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending package, as a rebel group of lawmakers failed to support the bill that all Democratic representatives oppose.

Debate is currently under way at the House after the bill passed its last procedural hurdle in the early hours of Thursday, local Washington, DC, time. The final vote is expected in a few hours.

The standoff over the Trump administration’s flagship domestic policy package, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill, stretched into the early hours of Thursday, as the Republican leadership worked furiously to try to persuade holdouts to send the bill to Trump’s desk by a Friday, July 4 deadline, US Independence Day, while Trump railed against the rebels on social media.

“For Republicans, this should be an easy yes vote. Ridiculous!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

“Largest Tax Cuts in History and a Booming Economy vs. Biggest Tax Increase in History, and a Failed Economy. What are the Republicans waiting for?” he added, threatening that “MAGA is not happy, and it’s costing you votes.”

Earlier, Five Republicans voted “no” in the procedural vote to advance the legislation, while eight had yet to cast a vote.

Assuming all Democratic members cast a vote against the bill, Trump can afford to lose only three Republican votes if it is to advance to a final vote.

Centrepiece legislation

The hefty 800-page bill, the centrepiece of the president’s domestic agenda, combines sweeping tax cuts, spending hikes on defence and border security, and cuts to social safety nets into one giant package.

But it faces opposition within Trump’s Republican Party, with moderate critics expressing concern about its cuts to social safety-net programmes like Medicaid, and conservatives baulking at the trillions it is likely to add to the national debt.

Five Republicans voted against the bill: representatives Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Keith Self of Texas, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had summoned lawmakers to Washington for a roll call vote, in a bid to capitalise on the momentum of the bill’s passage a day earlier in the Senate and win House approval ahead of the July 4 national holiday.

Lawmakers had passed the bill by a 51 to 50 vote in the Republican-controlled chamber on Tuesday, after Vice President JD Vance broke the tie.

But the risky gambit to hold the roll call vote swiftly hit hurdles, with some Republican lawmakers resisting the request to rubber stamp the Senate version of the bill so soon after it passed.

‘Bad bill to enrich those who are already rich’

Johnson said he would keep voting open “as long as it takes”, as senior Republicans attempted to persuade holdouts to support the bill.

He said he believed that the Republican holdouts were “going to come on board”, and expected to proceed to a final vote on the legislation in the early hours of Thursday morning, The New York Times reported.

As Republicans remain deadlocked, Democrats ramped up their criticisms of the policy package. In a video message posted on social media, Representative Chuy Garcia described the legislation as a “bad bill to enrich those who are already rich”.

It’s past midnight in DC and Republicans are still trying to rip healthcare and food from working families to give tax breaks to billionaires. Call your Republican representative and tell them to vote HELL NO pic.twitter.com/IfyXFdSaqs

— Congressman Chuy García (@RepChuyGarcia) July 3, 2025

So far, 217 House Representatives have voted against advancing the legislation, including five Republicans, while 207 are in favour.

Members can change their vote until voting closes, and eight Republicans have yet to vote. The bill needs 218 votes to advance.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s megabill encompassing his domestic agenda on Monday inched closer to becoming law as Republican senators sifted through familiar procedural hurdles toward a final vote on legislation that would dramatically transform the tax code and Medicaid.

Throughout a day of marathon voting, senators offered amendments to the bill that could ultimately decide whether it secures passage through Congress. If the Senate approves the legislation — as it is expected to do by a slim, simple majority and with bipartisan opposition — then the House will have to vote for a second time on the final text before it goes to the president’s desk for his signature.

Anticipating Senate passage, the House Rules Committee has already scheduled a hearing on reconciling the two bills for Tuesday. The White House previously set July 4 as a goal to get the package, called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed by both chambers.

But several Republicans are still criticizing the bill, including Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who announced he will not seek reelection in 2026 over the weekend before ripping into the legislation as a “betrayal” to voters.

Although the legislation has hundreds of provisions, its most sweeping would make tax breaks passed in 2017 during Trump’s first term permanent — an expensive proposition — before they are set to expire at the end of this year, while attempting to offset some of those costs with historic cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, social welfare programs that for decades had been seen as a political third rail.

Polling shows that Americans broadly support extending the 2017 tax cuts. Other expensive programs in the bill — including additional funding for border security and defense — also enjoy public support. But polls indicate that the public disapproves of the bill overall by a double-digit margin due to its cuts to core government programs.

“What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore?” Tillis said in a speech from the Senate floor. “The people in the White House advising the president are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise.”

Both Paul and Tillis voted against advancing the bill to a floor vote and have indicated they will vote “no” on its final passage.

“Republicans are about to make a mistake on healthcare, and betraying a promise,” Tillis continued. “It is inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office, or in the Cabinet room, when I was there with Finance [Committee members] where he said, ‘We can go after waste, fraud and abuse on any programs.’”

Tillis and a handful of his colleagues, including Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, have expressed concern with elements of the bill that restrict state taxes on healthcare providers, known as the “provider tax,” an essential tool for many states in their efforts to supplement Medicaid funding.

The Senate parliamentarian has already determined that the provision, among others, fails to follow the rules of the chamber and must be removed or modified. Another passage crucial to the bill, which introduces a structure for work requirements for Medicaid, was halted by the parliamentarian.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks to reporters outside the chamber on June 30, 2025.

(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)

Republicans efforts to prohibit the use of Medicaid funds on gender transition care, to cancel regulations that require a minimum staffing ratio at nursing homes and to limit Medicaid access to immigrants were also cut by the parliamentarian, who continued to review amendments to the bill as they were introduced Monday.

The parliamentarian’s moves eat into the stated cost savings of a bill that is already slated to add trillions of dollars to the debt over the next decade — a problem for fiscal hawks in both chambers whose votes will be crucial for passage.

They also gutted key provisions that were top priorities for Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the focus of an intense lobbying campaign by Senate Republican leadership after expressing skepticism over several provisions of the legislation. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who is up for reelection next cycle, has also expressed concern over its cuts to Medicaid.

“This is an ongoing process — the president continues to be very much engaged with the leadership in both the Senate and the House,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters in a briefing Monday. “He understands that legislators want to protect jobs in the communities and their districts.”

Democrats in the Senate have been united in their opposition to the bill, with Mark Kelly, of Arizona, warning Republicans of electoral repercussions.

“If they lose their health insurance,” he told MSNBC in an interview, “sure, they’re going to remember.”

But the potential political windfall for Democrats isn’t stopping the party from attempting to improve the legislation, he said, noting a number of amendments proposed by Democratic senators Monday that would roll back cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

If the bill does ultimately clear the Senate, Republicans will have only a handful of votes in the House to spare in a final vote. And several are already suggesting they will vote against it, including Rep. David Valadao of California, whose constituents rely heavily on Medicaid.

“I’m not a ‘yes’ necessarily,” said Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska who has announced his retirement. Bacon added that he believes the Senate version has gone too far in gutting healthcare programs. “I think we’ll have a hard time passing.”

An intraparty fight has also broken out among Republicans over the fate of green energy tax credits, which several GOP senators — including Murkowski, as well as Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst of Iowa — sought to preserve for several more years. A group of House Republicans had successfully lobbied in their version of the bill to speed up the termination of those credits.

Elon Musk, a co-founder of Tesla, and Trump’s close advisor and benefactor before the two men fell out this month, renewed his attacks on the legislation Monday, calling it “utterly insane and destructive” for its price tag.

“It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country — the PORKY PIG PARTY!!” Musk wrote.

“Time for a new political party,” he added, “that actually cares about the people.”

WASHINGTON — The changes made to President Trump’s big tax bill in the Senate would pile trillions onto the nation’s debt load while resulting in even steeper losses in healthcare coverage, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new analysis, adding to the challenges for Republicans as they try to muscle the bill to passage.

The CBO estimates that the Senate bill would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034, a nearly $1-trillion increase from the House-passed bill, which the CBO has projected would add $2.4 to the debt over a decade.

The analysis also found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law, an increase over the estimate for the House-passed version of the bill, which predicts that 10.9 million more people would be without health coverage.

The stark numbers are yet another obstacle for Republican leaders as they labor to pass Trump’s bill by his declared July 4 deadline.

Even before the CBO’s estimate, Republicans were at odds over the contours of the legislation, with some resisting the cost-saving proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid and food aid programs even as other Republicans say those proposals don’t go far enough. Republicans are slashing the programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8 trillion in Trump tax breaks put in place during his first term.

The push-pull was on vivid display Saturday night as a routine procedural vote to take up the legislation in the Senate was held open for hours as Vice President JD Vance and Republican leaders met with several holdouts. The bill ultimately advanced in a 51-49 vote, but the path ahead is fraught, with voting on amendments still to come.

Still, many Republicans are disputing the CBO estimates and the reliability of the office’s work. To hoist the bill to passage, they are using a different budget baseline that assumes the Trump tax cuts expiring in December already have been extended, essentially making them cost-free in the budget.

The CBO on Saturday released a separate analysis of the GOP’s preferred approach that found the Senate bill would reduce deficits by about $500 billion.

Democrats and economists decry the GOP’s approach as “magic math” that obscures the true costs of the GOP tax breaks.

In addition, Democrats note that under the traditional estimation system, the Republican bill would violate the Senate’s “Byrd Rule” that forbids the legislation from increasing deficits after 10 years.

In a Sunday letter to Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, CBO Director Phillip Swagel said the office estimates that the Finance Committee’s portion of the bill, also known as Title VII, “increases the deficits in years after 2034” under traditional scoring.

Hussein writes for the Associated Press.

The Republican-controlled Senate of the United States has voted to take President Donald Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” into the next phase of discussion, making it more likely to pass in the coming days.

The measure, which is Trump’s top legislative goal, passed its first procedural hurdle in a 51 to 49 vote on Saturday, with two Republican senators joining all Democrats in voting against it.

The result came after several hours of negotiation as Republican leaders and Vice President JD Vance sought to persuade last-minute holdouts in a series of closed-door negotiations.

Trump has pushed his party to get the bill passed and on his desk for him to sign into law by July 4, the US’s Independence Day.

He was monitoring the vote from the Oval Office late into the night, according to a senior White House official.

One Big Beautiful Bill Act

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said the 940-page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” was released shortly before midnight on Friday, and senators are still attempting to understand exactly what it means.

“One of the clear things in the bill is that it provides a $150bn boost to military spending. It also adds funding for mass deportations and building that border wall. Now, in order to get this money, what has happened is that there are cuts to Medicare, as well as to the Clean Energy funding programme,” he said.

“The other issue is that there are 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats in the Senate. Now all the Democrats are opposed to the bill. That means every single Republican vote will count,” Hanna added.

The procedural vote on Saturday, which would start a debate on the megabill, began after hours of delay.

It then remained open for more than three hours of standstill as three Republican senators – Thom Tillis, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul – joined Democrats to oppose the legislation.

Three others – Senators Rick Scott, Mike Lee and Cynthia Lummis – negotiated with Republican leaders into the night in hopes of securing bigger spending cuts.

In the end, Wisconsin Senator Johnson flipped his no vote to yes, leaving only Paul and Tillis opposed among Republicans.

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 is in it.

He immediately forced a full reading of the text in the Senate, which would take an estimated 15 hours.

“Future generations will be saddled with trillions in debt. Debt is abstract, but what does it mean for the average American? Raising your costs, raising your costs to buy a home, raising your costs to buy a car, raising your costs on credit card bills. And why are they doing all this?” he asked.

“Why are they doing the biggest Medicaid cuts in history? Now it’s getting close to a trillion dollars, just in Medicaid alone, all to cut taxes for the ultra-rich and special interests.”

Elon Musk renews criticism

If passed in the Senate, the bill would go back to the House of Representatives for approval, where Republicans can only afford to lose a handful of votes – and are facing stiff opposition from within their own ranks.

Republicans are split on the Medicaid cuts, which will threaten scores of rural hospitals and lead to an estimated 8.6 million Americans being deprived of healthcare.

The spending plan would also roll back many of the tax incentives for renewable energy that were put in place under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.

Nonpartisan analysts estimate that a version of Trump’s tax cut and spending bill would add trillions to the $36.2 trillion US government debt. They also say that the bill would pave the way for a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 percent of Americans to the richest.

The bill is unpopular across multiple demographic, age and income groups, according to extensive recent polling.

On Saturday, billionaire Elon Musk, with whom Trump had a public falling out this month over his criticism of the bill, again doubled down on his criticism of the draft legislation.

The Tesla and Space X CEO called the package “utterly insane and destructive”.

“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country,” he wrote on X. “It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”

He later posted that the bill would be “political suicide for the Republican Party.”

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans voting in a dramatic late Saturday session narrowly cleared a key procedural step as they race to advance President Trump’s package of tax breaks, spending cuts and bolstered deportation funds by his Fourth of July deadline.

The 51-49 vote came after a tumultuous session with Vice President JD Vance on hand if needed to break a tie. Tense scenes played out in the chamber as voting came to a standstill, dragging on for hours as holdout senators huddled for negotiations. In the end, two Republicans opposed the motion to proceed to debate, joining all Democrats and independents.

It’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.

Ahead of the expected roll call, the White House released a statement of administrative policy saying it “strongly supports passage” of the bill that “implements critical aspects” of the president’s agenda. Trump was at his golf course in Virginia on Saturday with GOP senators posting about it on social media.

“It’s time to get this legislation across the finish line,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

But as the day wore on, billionaire Elon Musk, a key Trump advisor for the first months of the administration, lashed out against the package — as he has in the past — calling it “utterly insane and destructive.”

“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” he said in a post on X.

The 940-page bill was released shortly before midnight Friday, and senators are expected to grind through the hours of 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 narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate, leaders need almost every lawmaker on board in the face of essentially unified opposition from Democrats. GOP Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Republicans unveiled the bill “in the dead of night” and are rushing to finish the vote before the public fully knows what’s in it. He was expected to call for a full reading of the text in the Senate overnight, which would take hours.

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. The president 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 healthcare through Medicaid. Meanwhile, conservatives, worried about the nation’s debt, are pushing for steeper cuts.

Tillis, who said he spoke with Trump late Friday explaining his concerns, announced Saturday he cannot support the package as is, largely because he said the healthcare changes would force his state to “make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands.”

The release of that draft had been delayed as the Senate parliamentarian reviewed the bill to ensure it complied with the chamber’s strict “Byrd rule,” named for the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.). 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 Republican 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 few 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. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who had opposed the cuts, vowed “to do everything I can” to make sure the reductions never go into effect.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said that under the House-passed version of the bill, some 10.9 million people would lose their healthcare coverage and at least 3 million fewer would qualify for food aid. The CBO has not yet publicly assessed 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 an additional $1,600, the CBO said.

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 California, New York and other high-tax states, but the issue remains unsettled.

The current SALT cap is $10,000 a year, and a few Republicans wanted to boost it to $40,000 a year. The final draft includes a $40,000 cap but limits it to five years.

Many Republican senators say that is still too generous. At least one House GOP holdout, Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, has said that would be insufficient.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sent his colleagues home for the weekend with plans to be on call to return to Washington. But as the Senate draft was revealed, House GOP support was uncertain. One Republican, Rep. David Valadao of Hanford, said he was opposed.

Mascaro, Freking and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press. AP writers Ali Swenson and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Just over a quarter of Republicans accept President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, according to a new survey that underscores the instability of American democracy and the growing partisan divide over the legitimacy of elections.

“There was a hope there would see growing acceptance of Biden’s victory over time, as people moved away from the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement after Jan. 6. Instead, we saw the numbers stay in place,” said Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist and one of the founders of Bright Line Watch, an organization that monitors the health of U.S. democracy.

Sinking confidence in election outcomes appears to have been fueled by former President Trump’s “Big Lie” — his continued claims of voter fraud in key states, even though such allegations were repeatedly discredited in numerous lawsuits and audits. The fallout of such lies was especially evident on Jan. 6, when thousands of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in a brazen attempt to halt lawmakers’ certification of Biden’s victory.

Since then, many Republican officeholders and some of the biggest voices in conservative media have clung to the notion that the election was stolen from Trump.

Bright Line Watch’s November survey, released Thursday morning, shows that only 27% of Republicans accept Biden as the rightful winner — the exact same figure as in the group’s February poll — compared with 94% of Democrats who do.

The survey also shows that the 2020 election and its aftermath have hardened partisan attitudes about future elections, leaving Republicans less confident that their votes will be counted accurately in 2022.

Even amid Trump’s constant rhetoric during the 2020 campaign about a potentially rigged outcome, Democrats and Republicans had roughly equal confidence in October 2020 that the coming election would be decided fairly, with 59% of Democrats and 58% of Republicans believing that would be the case.

But the new survey reveals that a partisan gap has opened up in response to that question. Now, 80% of Democrats believe next year’s midterm election will be fair, with just 42% of Republicans saying the same.

“That’s a really scary fact for our democracy right now, that so many Republican voters don’t have confidence in the election,” said Susan Stokes, another founder of Bright Line Watch and a political scientist at the University of Chicago.

As Trump and so many Republicans have sowed mistrust in last year’s election results, they have used their misinformation campaign to justify new laws in several GOP-controlled states to restrict ballot access and, in some cases, allow partisan lawmakers to overrule election officials in determining outcomes.

That could lead to a scenario in which Democratic voters, even those who understand their party is facing stiff political headwinds next year, lose confidence in the legitimacy of the 2022 electoral results.

“This is an asymmetric moment. Republicans are leading the assault on our democracy,” Nyhan said. “At same time, you can imagine a world where an election is decided because of genuinely dubious election administration practices, and Democrats would become quite distrustful of such an election in the aftermath, and rightfully so.

“You can see a situation where neither side trusts the election results,” he continued. “The potential for a spiral of illegitimacy is real, and that’s not sustainable for our democracy in the long term.”

At the federal level, Democrats have been unable to agree on a legislative response that would protect voting rights, largely because they have the most slender of Senate majorities. Two centrists in the caucus, Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), oppose changing Senate rules to enable Democrats to pass a voting rights law with just 50 votes. And they continue to call for a bipartisan agreement even though few Republicans have been willing to compromise in what has become a zero-sum policy battleground.

The November survey, which questioned 2,750 individuals, also found that partisans tend to overestimate the antidemocratic leanings of the other side, like a reflection of the increasingly partisan nature of cable news and the proliferation of incendiary politically oriented posts and memes across social media platforms.

Compared to past Bright Line Watch surveys, fewer respondents expressed support for political violence. Only 9% condoned making threats, 8% were OK with verbal harassment, and just 4% said they accepted the kind of mob violence that occurred on Jan. 6.

But researchers worry those numbers may not reflect how many partisans might be led to take or support extreme actions that they claim to oppose, with the justification that they need to overcome alleged extremism by the opposing side.

“It’s still millions of Americans condoning violence, and that makes for a very explosive environment and is quite dangerous,” Stokes said. “What people are saying to themselves is: ‘Whatever my side is doing, it’s worth it, because the other side is so terrible.’

“It’s not at all hard to imagine a lot of people in the public going along with a real stealing of the election next time because they have come to believe the other side stole it — or even if they don’t, it’s so important to keep the other side out, it doesn’t matter how you do it.”

WASHINGTON — Democratic efforts in the Senate to prevent President Trump from escalating his military confrontation with Iran fell short Friday, with Republicans blocking a resolution that marked Congress’ first attempt to reassert its war powers after U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

The resolution, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, aimed to affirm that Trump should seek authorization from Congress before launching more military action against Iran. Asked Friday whether he would bomb Iranian nuclear sites again if he deemed necessary, Trump said, “Sure, without question.”

The measure was defeated in a 53-47 vote in the Republican-held Senate. One Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, joined Republicans in opposition, while Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote in favor.

Most Republicans have said Iran posed an imminent threat that required decisive action from Trump, and they backed his decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites last weekend without seeking congressional approval.

“Of course, we can debate the scope and strategy of our military engagements,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.). “But we must not shackle our president in the middle of a crisis when lives are on the line.”

Democrats cast doubt on that justification, arguing that the president should have come to Congress first. They also said the president did not update them adequately, with Congress’ first briefings taking place Thursday.

“The idea is this: We shouldn’t send our sons and daughters into war unless there’s a political consensus that this is a good idea, this is a national interest,” Kaine said in a Thursday interview with the Associated Press. The resolution, Kaine said, wasn’t aimed at restricting the president’s ability to defend against a threat, but that “if it’s offense, let’s really make sure we’re making the right decision.”

In a statement after Friday’s vote, Kaine said he was “disappointed that many of my colleagues are not willing to stand up and say Congress” should be a part of a decision to go to war.

Democrats’ argument for backing the resolution centered on the War Powers Resolution, passed in the early 1970s, which requires the president “in every possible instance” to “consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces.”

Speaking on the Senate floor ahead of Friday’s vote, Paul said he would back the resolution, saying that “despite the tactical success of our strikes, they may end up proving to be a strategic failure.”

“It is unclear if this intervention will fully curtail Iran’s nuclear aspirations,” said Paul.

Trump is just the latest in a line of presidents to test the limits of the resolution — though he’s done so at a time when he’s often bristling at the nation’s checks and balances.

Trump on Monday sent a letter to Congress — as required by the War Powers Resolution — that said strikes on Iran over the weekend were “limited in scope and purpose” and “designed to minimize casualties, deter future attacks and limit the risk of escalation.”

But after classified briefings with top White House officials this week, some lawmakers remain skeptical about how imminent the threat was.

“There was no imminent threat to the United States,” said Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, after Friday’s classified briefing.

“There’s always an Iranian threat to the world. But, I have not seen anything to suggest that the threat from the Iranians was radically different last Saturday than it was two Saturdays ago,” Himes said.

Meanwhile, nearly all Republicans applauded Trump’s decision to strike Iran. And for GOP senators, supporting the resolution would have meant rebuking the president at the same time they’re working to pass his major legislative package.

Kaine proposed a similar resolution in 2020 aimed at limiting Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran. Among the eight Republicans who joined Democrats in approving that resolution was Indiana Sen. Todd Young.

After Thursday’s classified briefing for the Senate, Young said he was “confident that Iran was prepared to pose a significant threat” and that, given Trump’s stated goal of no further escalation, “I do not believe this resolution is necessary at this time.”

“Should the Administration’s posture change or events dictate the consideration of additional American military action, Congress should be consulted so we can best support those efforts and weigh in on behalf of our constituents,” Young said in a statement.

Trump has said that a ceasefire between Israel and Iran is now in place. But he and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have verbally sparred in recent days, with the Iranian leader warning the U.S. not to launch future strikes on Iran.

White House officials have said they expect to restart talks soon with Iran, though nothing has been scheduled.

Cappelletti writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Leah Askarinam contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s bombardment of three sites in Iran quickly sparked debate in Congress over his authority to launch the strikes, with Republicans praising Trump for decisive action as many Democrats warned he should have sought congressional approval.

“Well done, President Trump,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) posted on X. Another Republican, Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, called the bombings “strong and surgical.” The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), said Trump “has made a deliberate — and correct — decision to eliminate the existential threat posed by the Iranian regime.”

The divisions in Congress reflected an already swirling debate over the president’s ability to conduct such a consequential action without authorization from the House and Senate on the use of military force. Though Trump is hardly the first U.S. president to carry out acts of war without congressional approval, his expansive use of presidential power raised immediate questions about what comes next, and whether he is exceeding the limits of his authority.

“This was a massive gamble by President Trump, and nobody knows yet whether it will pay off,” said Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Democrats, and a few Republicans, said the strikes were unconstitutional, and demanded more information in a classified setting. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said that he received only a “perfunctory notification” without any details, according to a spokesperson.

“No president should be allowed to unilaterally march this nation into something as consequential as war with erratic threats and no strategy,” Schumer said in a statement. “Confronting Iran’s ruthless campaign of terror, nuclear ambitions, and regional aggression demands strength, resolve, and strategic clarity.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said that Trump “misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East.”

The quick GOP endorsements of stepped-up U.S. involvement in Iran came after Trump publicly considered the strikes for days and many congressional Republicans had cautiously said they thought he would make the right decision. The party’s schism over Iran could complicate the GOP’s efforts to boost Pentagon spending as part of a $350-billion national security package in Trump’s massive tax and spending bill, which he planned to push toward speedy votes this week.

“We now have very serious choices ahead to provide security for our citizens and our allies,” Wicker posted on X.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) both were briefed ahead of the strikes Saturday, according to people familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it. Thune said Saturday evening that “as we take action tonight to ensure a nuclear weapon remains out of reach for Iran, I stand with President Trump and pray for the American troops and personnel in harm’s way.”

Johnson said in a statement that the military operations “should serve as a clear reminder to our adversaries and allies that President Trump means what he says.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) said he had also been in touch with the White House and that “I am grateful to the U.S. servicemembers who carried out these precise and successful strikes.”

Breaking from many of his Democratic colleagues, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a staunch supporter of Israel’s military actions in the Middle East, also praised the U.S. attacks on Iran. “As I’ve long maintained, this was the correct move by @POTUS,” he posted. “Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and cannot have nuclear capabilities.”

Both parties have seen splits in recent days over the prospect of striking Iran, including among some of Trump’s most ardent supporters who share his criticism of America’s “forever wars.” Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio posted that “while President Trump’s decision may prove just, it’s hard to conceive a rationale that’s Constitutional.”

Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, a longtime opponent of U.S. involvement in foreign wars, posted on X: “This is not Constitutional.”

“This is not our fight,” said Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, one of Trump’s most loyal congressional allies.

Most Democrats have maintained that Congress should have a say, even as presidents in both parties have ignored the legislative branch’s constitutional authority. The Senate was scheduled to vote soon on a resolution from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) that would require congressional approval before the U.S. declares war on Iran or takes specific military action.

Kaine said the bombings were an act of “horrible judgment.”

“I will push for all senators to vote on whether they are for this third idiotic Middle East war,” Kaine said.

Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, also called on Congress to immediately pass a war powers resolution. He said politicians had always promised that “new wars in the Middle East would be quick and easy.”

“Then they sent other people’s children to fight and die endlessly,” Casar said. “Enough.”

Jalonick and Mascaro write for the Associated Press.