Category: Politics

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s major tax cut and spending bill passed the House on Thursday, but not without some Republican opposition.

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania voted against the legislation alongside the entire House Democratic Caucus.

While Massie and Fitzpatrick were the only GOP members to vote no, several House GOP hardliners were angered by the changes made to the bill by the Senate and there was an overnight scramble by Speaker Mike Johnson to secure the necessary support to proceed. Some of the hardliners who ultimately voted yes say President Trump made promises to get their votes, including that he’d make the bill “better” in the future.

On Thursday, Massie said he did not vote for the bill because of its projected impact on the national debt. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill could add $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

“Although there were some conservative wins in the budget reconciliation bill (OBBBA), I voted No on final passage because it will significantly increase U.S. budget deficits in the near term, negatively impacting all Americans through sustained inflation and high interest rates,” Massie wrote on X. Massie also opposed the House version of the megabill that passed back in May.

Trump’s been a vocal critic of Massie, lambasting him last month in a lengthy social media post as not being “MAGA.”

“Actually, MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him,” Trump wrote at the time.

The president accused Massie of being a “grandstander” who routinely votes no on key Republican-led legislation. Trump suggested Massie should be challenged in the upcoming Republican primary, even before this latest vote.

“The good news is that we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary, and I’ll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard,” Trump wrote.

Rep. Fitzpatrick did vote for the House bill in May, but said on Thursday that the Senate changes to the bill (which resulted in deeper cuts to Medicaid) as the reason for his change in position.

As I’ve stated throughout these negotiations, with each iteration of legislative text that was placed on the House Floor, I’ve maintained a close and watchful eye on the specific details of these provisions, and determined the specific district impact, positive or negative, on our PA-1 community,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

“I voted to strengthen Medicaid protections, to permanently extend middle class tax cuts, for enhanced small business tax relief, and for historic investments in our border security and our military,” he added/ “However, it was the Senate’s amendments to Medicaid, in addition to several other Senate provisions, that altered the analysis for our PA-1 community. The original House language was written in a way that protected our community; the Senate amendments fell short of our standard.”

“I believe in, and will always fight for, policies that are thoughtful, compassionate, and good for our community. It is this standard that will always guide my legislative decisions,” Fitzpatrick said.

The Pennsylvania congressman, who also faces reelection in 2026, represents a swing district that went blue in 2024 for Kamala Harris.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The House has passed President Trump’s major tax cut and spending bill in a 218 to 214 vote.

The legislation will now go to President Trump’s desk for his signature.

The final vote came after an overnight scramble by Speaker Mike Johnson to secure the necessary GOP votes to proceed, and then a record-breaking speech from House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries that lasted for 8 hours and 44 minutes.

No changes were made by the House to the Senate version of the bill, despite some grumbling from House Republican hardliners over the Senate changes to Medicaid and the deficit. Some of those holdouts say President Trump made promises to get their votes, including saying he’d make the bill “better” in the future.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Four major law enforcement groups are sounding the alarm in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about potential cuts to the intelligence-gathering arm of her agency.

The Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies (ASCIA), Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), Major County Sheriffs of America (MCSA) and National Fusion Center Association (NFCA) warn that any potential changes to the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) current structure could have a negative ripple effect on state and local law enforcement.

“For state and local stakeholders, I&A is not just another federal component; it is an essential partner in the shared mission of protecting our communities. Its embedded personnel, analytic products, and communication platforms are vital tools for understanding and responding to threats in real time,” the letter sent by the associations date July 2, 2025, and obtained by ABC News.

“When changes occur without input from the field, that partnership risks being weakened — along with the systems that support timely and effective threat response,” the letter said.

Reports have suggested that DHS plans to cut the I&A workforce by close to 75%.

The top Democrats on the House and Senate Homeland Security committees, as well as on the Intelligence Committee, also warned against the cuts.

“Radically reducing I&A’s workforce at headquarters or in the field would create dangerous and unnecessary security gaps and could again leave us in the dark about the threats that lie ahead,” Rep. Jim Himes, Rep. Bennie Thompson and Sen. Gary Peters said in a letter to Noem.

The groups said that they “fully recognize” the need for the intelligence apparatus to adapt to meet its current needs — which they said they are support.

“At the same time, we believe that changes of this magnitude must be shaped through dialogue with those who rely on I&A every day — especially given its unique role in connecting the federal intelligence community with frontline public safety agencies.”

In response to the letter, a DHS spokesperson said the agency is focusing on returning to its core mission.

“DHS component leads have identified redundant positions and non-critical programs within the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. The Department is actively working to identify other wasteful positions and programs that do not align with DHS’s mission to prioritize American safety and enforce our laws,” the spokesperson said.

On Wednesday, Noem met with the newly formed Homeland Security Advisory Council a panel selected by her and President Donald Trump to offer advice on matters pertaining to the department, she stressed how critical DHS is to national security.

“This is a national security agency, and the decisions that we make and the things that we’ll talk about are highly classified at times, and all of you are entrusted to be my advisers,” she said. “To be the ones who give me advice not just on the border and immigration, citizenship, visa waiver programs, work programs, but also on FEMA, how we respond to disasters, how we contract, how we get good people that work for us and how to fire people who don’t like us.”

Noem said she receives an intelligence briefing every day and said the country has “vulnerabilities,” something the law enforcement groups warn about in their letter.

“At a time when the threat environment is escalating — ranging from terrorism and transnational crime to cyberattacks on critical infrastructure — the need for strong, two-way coordination has never been more urgent,” the letter said. “Decisions that affect I&A’s operational capacity must be approached with transparency and collaboration, or we risk creating avoidable gaps in information sharing and coordination necessary for effective threat prevention.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is making a marathon last stand against President Donald Trump’s major tax cut and spending bill.

Jeffries took to the House floor around 5 a.m. on Thursday and shortly after noon had been speaking for more than seven hours, delaying a final vote in the chamber on the domestic policy bill at the heart of Trump’s second-term agenda.

Jeffries has stacks of binders next to him at the podium as he picks apart the bill and some of the Republicans who voted for it.

“Donald Trump’s deadline may be Independence Day. That ain’t my deadline,” Jeffries said. “You know why, Mr. Speaker, we don’t work for Donald Trump, we work for the American people. That’s why we’re here right now on the floor of the House of Representatives, standing up for the American people.”

The “magic minute” speech is a procedure that grants members of House leadership unlimited time to speak after debate on a bill has concluded. For context, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, spoke for more than eight hours in 2021 when the House passed President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act.

Jeffries is getting close to that mark, and appears to be aiming for a new record.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to speak for about 10 minutes once Jeffries has wrapped up. After that, a final vote will take place on the bill.

Johnson, who has said he has the votes to pass the bill, told reporters he expected a signing ceremony for the bill will be held on Friday.

“Potentially before the B-2s fly,” Johnson said, referencing the White House celebration set to mark the Fourth of July.

Jeffries has focused much of his speech on the bill’s projected impact on Medicaid, the federal program that primarily serves seniors and people with disabilities, sharing personal stories from people he says will struggle as a result of the megabill.

“People will die. Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the healthcare of the American people,” Jeffries said. “I’m sad. I never thought I would be on the House floor saying this is a crime scene.”

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Medicaid cuts and changes passed by the Senate could cause 11.8 million Americans to lose their health insurance over the next decade.

Jeffries is excoriating the Trump-backed megabill’s “assault on healthcare.”

“Every single house Democrat is fighting hard to protect your Medicaid,” Jeffries said. “We value you and we’re working hard to defend you.”

Republicans have defended the changes as reforms to entitlement programs they claim are riddled with “waste, fraud and abuse.” The Trump administration has also pushed back on the nonpartisan budget office itself and its analysis, claiming bias.

Jeffries didn’t stop at health care and is criticizing other portions of the bill, including its impact on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and its immigration provisions.

“You see, budgets are moral documents. And in our view, Mr. Speaker, budgets should be designed to lift people up,” he said. “This reckless Republican budget that we are debating right now on the floor of the House of Representatives tears people down.”

“This reckless Republican budget is an immoral document,” Jeffries continued. “And everybody should vote no against it because of how it attacks children, seniors, and everyday Americans, and people with disabilities. 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.”

Those comments prompted House Democrats gathered near Jeffries to stand in applause.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — While there were no changes made to the legislative text of President Donald Trump’s megabill after it came back from the Senate, some House Republican holdouts said Trump made promises in order to get their votes.

After meeting with House Republicans at the White House on Wednesday and working the phones through the night and into the early morning Thursday, the president addressed members’ unease in real-time, Speaker Mike Johnson observed, “making sure that everyone’s concerns are addressed and their questions are answered.”

South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman said Trump provided holdouts “assurances” that changes would be made to “getting permits” related to wind and solar tax credits.

“Wind and solar needs to be — we would have cut those out Day 1. We couldn’t do that,” Norman said on CNBC Thursday.

“And, you know, up until late in the night, we were negotiating, you know, things that could change with, you know, the tax credits, which all were put in by Joe Biden, which needed to be extinguished,” Norman said.

Norman also signaled that Trump could use executive power to “make the bill better.”

But during negotiations this week, the lawmakers were unable to extract any changes to the bill.

Nevertheless, Texas Rep. Chip Roy, an outspoken conservative firebrand who led the public pushback against the bill, argued that the Freedom Caucus “has successfully delivered substantive wins” — before adding, “There may be a few more yet.”

“The real story of the OBBB is reforming Medicaid to require work & to return spending to pre-COVID levels, saving over $1 Trillion,” Roy posted on X. “A modest but important reform that would not have happened if the @freedomcaucus had not fought for it.”

Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde said he “fought” to improve the megabill — hoping to include an amendment to remove taxes on firearms — that the Senate ultimately stripped out.

“I also had the opportunity to discuss this critical matter directly with President Trump at the White House. I look forward to working with him and his Administration to further restore our 2A rights. Stay tuned,” Clyde said.

While the firearms tax remains in the bill, Clyde said he ultimately planned to vote in favor of the package “because I support fulfilling President Trump’s America First agenda and the promises we made to the country.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to take up a dispute over a Montana law that would have required notarized parental consent for a minor to receive an abortion.

State lawmakers have argued that parents have a constitutional right to make decisions concerning the care, custody and control of their children.

Planned Parenthood of Montana, in challenging the law, argued that minors have a constitutional right to privacy that cannot be infringed.

The Montana Supreme Court struck down the law on state constitutional grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court now leaves that decision in place.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they agreed with the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case, saying it “provides a poor vehicle” for addressing the constitutional question about the rights of parents, which they suggested they are open to resolving in a future case.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court said Thursday that it would hear appeals from two states seeking to uphold laws excluding transgender student athletes from participation in girls’ and women’s sports teams.

The cases from West Virginia and Idaho — which will be scheduled for argument during the court’s next term — will decide whether the Constitution and Civil Rights Act prohibit the bans based on an athlete’s sex assigned at birth.

Lower courts in each of the cases sided with the student athletes in finding the state laws violated either the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause or Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.

The decision to hear the cases follows a decision by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority last month upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the laws did not violate the 14th Amendment or discriminate on the basis of sex, even though the same medical treatments are widely available to cisgender minors.

The outcome of the case, U.S. v. Skrmetti, was one of the most significant LGBTQ rulings to come from the nation’s high court and marked the first time the justices weighed in on an anti-trans state law.

The trans-athlete cases will be argued in the fall and decided in 2026.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the cases involved are from only West Virginia and Idaho, not Arizona.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is making a marathon last stand against President Donald Trump’s major tax cut and spending bill.

Jeffries took to the House floor just after 5 a.m. on Thursday and has now been speaking for more than four hours, delaying a final vote in the chamber on the domestic policy bill at the heart of Trump’s second term agenda.

Jeffries has stacks of binders next to him at the podium. It does not appear he is wrapping any time soon.

“I’ve been given 15 minutes each on a bill of such significant magnitude as it relates to the health, the safety and the well being of the American people and because that debate was so limited, I feel the obligation, Mr. Speaker, to stand on this house floor and take my sweet time to tell the stories and that’s exactly what I intend to do,” Jeffries said.

The “magic minute” speech is a procedure that grants members of House leadership unlimited time to speak after debate on a bill has concluded. For context, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, spoke for more than eight hours in 2021 when the House passed President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act.

Jeffries has focused much of his speech on the bill’s projected impact on Medicaid, the federal program that primarily serves seniors and people with disabilities, sharing personal stories from people he says will struggle as a result of the megabill.

“People will die. Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the healthcare of the American people,” Jeffries said. “I’m sad. I never thought I would be on the House floor saying this is a crime scene.”

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Medicaid cuts and changes passed by the Senate could cause 11.8 million Americans to lose their health insurance over the next decade.

Jeffries is excoriating the Trump-backed megabill’s “assault on healthcare.”

“Every single house Democrat is fighting hard to protect your Medicaid,” Jeffries said. “We value you and we’re working hard to defend you.”

Republicans have defended the changes as reforms to entitlement programs they claim are riddled with “waste, fraud and abuse.” The Trump administration has also pushed back on the nonpartisan budget office itself and its analysis, claiming bias.

Jeffries didn’t stop at health care and is criticizing other portions of the bill, including its impact on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and its immigration provisions.

“You see, budgets are moral documents. And in our view, Mr. Speaker, budgets should be designed to lift people up,” he said. “This reckless Republican budget that we are debating right now on the floor of the House of Representatives tears people down.”

“This reckless Republican budget is an immoral document,” Jeffries continued. “And everybody should vote no against it because of how it attacks children, seniors, and everyday Americans, and people with disabilities. 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.”

Those comments prompted House Democrats gathered near Jeffries to stand in applause.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — More than 175 Democratic members of Congress are filing an amicus brief on Thursday opposing the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Education.

“The law couldn’t be clearer: the president does not have the authority to unilaterally abolish the Department of Education,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote in a statement first obtained by ABC News, adding, “Donald Trump is not a king, and he cannot single-handedly cut off access to education for students across this country.”

Warren and Reps. Jamie Raskin, Bobby Scott and Rosa DeLauro — the ranking members of the House’s Education and Judiciary committees — are leading the 15-page legal document. They’re joined by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, more than 20 Senate Democrats, and more than 150 other members of the House Democratic caucus.

The lawmakers’ brief attempting to block the administration from abolishing the Department of Education is in support of the NAACP’s suit against the government this past spring. In March, that case argued that downsizing the department through a workforce reduction that slashed nearly half the agency’s staff — among other measures like terminating statutory grant programs — violates the separation of powers and lacks constitutional authority.

The NAACP, the National Education Association (NEA), and a coalition of groups filed a preliminary injunction with the U.S. District Court in the District of Maryland this week, arguing the judge’s consideration of this case is needed after the administration’s recent decision to pause more than $6 billion in congressionally appropriated education programs ahead of the school year.

“The motion seeks a remedy for the serious harm that the Trump Administration has inflicted on students, educators, schools, and colleges and universities, and asks the Court to direct the Department to fulfill its statutory obligations to students nationwide,” according to a statement released by the NEA, which represents more than 3 million educators.

Raskin condemned the administration’s efforts to curb public education, contending President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon can’t abolish the agency without congressional approval.

“Congress created the Department of Education to ensure that every student in America could obtain a high-quality, free public school education,” Raskin wrote in a statement. “This is the right of every citizen and an essential democratic safeguard against political tyranny,” he said.

“No president has the authority to dismantle a federal agency created by law. We’re going to court to defend not only congressional power but the department’s national educational mission, itself a pillar of American democracy,” Raskin added.

The power to reorganize the executive branch belongs to Congress and is underscored by the fact that when presidents have reorganized the executive branch, they have done so “through legislation and subject to appropriate restraints,” according to the brief by the lawmakers.

Their brief argues that only Congress has the authority to create, restructure, and abolish federal agencies, it has to be done through legislation, and the Department of Education can’t be unilaterally abolished because it’s statutorily mandated.

Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colorado, told ABC News closing the department would strip “vital support” from tens of millions of students and teachers.

“I’m proud to stand with my colleagues in the House and Senate to uphold Congress’ responsibility to ensure every student has access to a quality education and to defend the essential work of the Department of Education,” Neguse said.

Efforts to dismantle the department have been blocked by lower courts this spring. The Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on a Massachusetts case that could decide whether the firing of nearly 2,000 employees at the agency stands. McMahon has stressed the critical functions of the department remain and that services like students with disabilities, for example, could ultimately be moved to other agencies.

The brief is part of Warren’s larger Save Our Schools campaign that she started after Trump signed an executive order to diminish the Department of Education.

“The federal government has invested in our public schools,” Warren told ABC News in April. “Taking that away from our kids so that a handful of billionaires can be even richer is just plain ugly, and I will fight it with everything I’ve got.”

The senator has previously requested the agency’s Office of Inspector General review the Department of Government Efficiency’s alleged “infiltration” of the agency’s internal federal student loan database. Prior to the Save Our Schools campaign, she investigated the firing of federal student aid employees and how a reduction in staff at the agency could have “dire consequences” for borrowers.

The brief also comes after Raskin and several other House Democrats met with McMahon about the future of the agency. That meeting appeared to leave many with unanswered questions, like Rep. Frederica Wilson, a senior member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, who also signed on to the amicus brief.

“For the Department of Education to be dismantled, it is going to bring a shock to this nation,” said Wilson, a former principal and lifelong educator. “Schools are the bedrock of this nation. When schools are working, our country is, too.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — There is the potential for more news out of the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday when the justices release a list of orders and dispositions from the “cleanup conference,” the last in-person gathering before summer recess.

The timing of the release is somewhat unusual — the conference was held last week, and typically the results of that session are released the day after the final opinion comes down, which would have been Monday.

Veteran court watchers suspect that there could be a lot of writing from the justices, such as dissents or concurrences, on matters that they will address without oral argument.

There are five outstanding emergency petitions involving President Donald Trump.

Mass federal layoffs: Trump v. American Federation of Government Employees. Whether the Court should stay a nationwide injunction barring the executive branch from developing plans to initiate large-scale reductions of the federal workforce

Dismantling the Department of Education: McMahon v. NY. Whether the court should stay a district court order requiring the government to reinstate Department of Education employees fired as part of a reduction in force.

Florida immigration law: Uthmeier v Florida Immigrant Coalition. Whether the court should stay a preliminary injunction preventing Florida from enforcing SB4c, a law that criminalizes entry into and presence within Florida of those who have illegally entered the U.S.

Jan. 6 police officers: Doe v Seattle Police Department. Whether to stay Washington state court mandates requiring four anonymous former and current Seattle police officers who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally at the Capitol to refile their lawsuit regarding public record requests under their true names.

Deportation: Gomez v U.S. Whether the court should stay a lower court mandate certifying petitioner’s extradition to Ecuador to stand trial for a charge of sexual abuse.

The court also address other cases implicated by the ruling in the birthright citizenship case, the transgender health care case and others.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.