Growing number of House Republicans sign on to effort to force vote on ACA subsidies — defying Speaker Johnson
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks at a Hanukkah reception at the U.S. Capitol Building on December 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. T. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — As House Speaker Mike Johnson eyes a vote next week on a to-be-announced health care package, a growing number of House Republicans are revolting against leadership by trying to force a vote on extending the expiring Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies.
Nearly a dozen Republicans — many from swing districts — have signed onto dueling bipartisan discharge petitions to extend and reform the subsidies in the hopes of bypassing leadership and triggering a vote on the House floor.
This move comes as the subsidies are set to expire at the end of the month, which will prompt health premiums for more than 20 million Americans to soar.
While Johnson has not yet unveiled the specifics of his plan, an extension of the ACA subsidies is currently not expected to be included in the package. Johnson said the bill will “probably” be unveiled over the weekend ahead of next week’s anticipated vote.
The speaker and GOP leaders, during a closed door meeting this week, provided Republicans a list of several options to address health care costs, according to multiple sources. Some of those options, sources said, include Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), cost-sharing reductions and making changes to pharmacy benefit managers.
Lawmakers told ABC News they left that meeting with no clear consensus on how to address health care.
“You’re going to see a package come together that will be on the floor next week that will actually reduce premiums for 100% of Americans who are on health insurance,” Johnson said at his weekly news conference. “The overall system is broken, and we’re the ones that are going to fix it.”
A group of mainly moderate Republicans, though, want to see the subsidies addressed by Congress before the expiration date.
The discharge petitions would need 218 signatures for a vote to occur in the House, and it’s unclear if enough Democrats will provide their support to reach that threshold.
Most House Democrats have signed onto another petition led by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to extend the subsidies for three years.
Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania filed a discharge petition that would extend the subsidies for two years, establish income caps for enrollees and regulate pharmacy benefit managers.
New Jersey Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer filed a separate but similar bipartisan discharge petition to extend the subsidies with reforms.
As of Thursday, 11 Republicans had signed on to both discharge petitions.
Johnson threw cold water on the efforts by vulnerable Republicans hoping to hold a vote on the subsidies.
“We’re working on a package of legislation that will reduce premiums for all Americans, not just 7% of them,” he said.
Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who supports both discharge petitions, warned about the impacts not extending the subsidies will have on the midterm election for Republicans.
“I think it will be used like a sledgehammer a year from now. The reality will be bad,” he said.
Bacon said if Congress fails to act, “all our constituents are going to be paying a lot more for their premiums and that’s unacceptable.”
In the Senate, meanwhile, two competing health care proposals aimed at addressing the expected premium spikes — one championed by Democrats and the other by Republicans — failed to advance on Thursday, leaving the Senate back at square one.
Farmer Scott Thomsen, pictured here with ABC’s Matt Rivers, is preparing for the fall soybean harvest in eastern Nebraska. Ben Siegel & Matt Rivers/ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s $20 billion bailout of Argentina’s economy has raised red flags in the U.S., especially among American farmers desperate for help dealing with a crop crisis triggered by his trade war with China.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei met with Trump and top U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Tuesday at the White House.
The meeting came nearly a week after Bessent announced a $20 billion financial lifeline that included a currency swap framework with Argentina’s central bank aimed at propping up the Argentine peso.
“We just want to see Argentina do well,” Trump told reporters during the meeting.
Details still unclear
In an X post last week, Bessent said the U.S. finalized a $20 billion swap line, or a loan, with Argentina’s central bank, where the U.S. Treasury will exchange dollars for pesos.
The expectation, Bessent has said, is that those dollars will eventually be paid back.
Bessent also said last week the U.S. directly purchased pesos, without specifying how much.
The Treasury Department had not published any details about the terms of the swap agreement as of Tuesday and ultimately the dollars it’s offering to Argentina’s central bank are U.S. taxpayer dollars.
“You can call it a bailout, you can call it a rescue, it is a credit line to a country that otherwise would be out of reserves,” Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Treasury official, told ABC News.
Bessent has repeatedly denied that the deal is a bailout, saying the U.S. is supporting the economic reforms of a key South American ally and advancing U.S. strategic interests in the region.
The Treasury Department has not responded to ABC News requests for more information on the deal.
Farmers, leaders on both sides sound off
The bailout has sparked controversy with farmers, Democrats and some Republicans questioning why the U.S. would commit billions to boost the economy of a foreign country, especially when thousands of American soybean farmers are suffering and in need of help.
China stopped purchasing American soybeans amid the trade war with the United States. According to the American Soybean Association, China is the largest buyer of American soybeans, purchasing more than 50 percent of U.S. exports in 2023 and 2024.
While some American farmers have said they are afraid of bankruptcies and foreclosures because of their losses, Argentina and Brazil’s farmers are increasingly supplying Chinese markets — with soybeans.
Ben Steffen, a Nebraska soybean and corn farmer, who spoke to ABC News from his tractor Tuesday, said the U.S. is “bailing out our competitor in the soybean production business.”
“Clearly, people are not happy about the markets, and my neighbors are not happy about bailing out Argentina,” he said.
Minnesota farmer Darin Johnson said China’s purchase of soybeans from Argentina has cost the U.S. leverage in trade talks, by satisfying China’s demand for the crop.
But he added that many farmers still support Trump, despite any frustrations with some of the administration’s policies.
“We’re going to put it to good faith in this administration that we are going to get a trade deal, but we are running out of time,” Johnson said. “Without a little help from this administration, which we don’t know what is going on yet, there is still a fair amount of uncertainty.”
Ryan Marquardt, an Iowa farmer, told ABC News on Tuesday that the bailout for Argentina seems to run counter to Trump’s “America First” vision.
“It does feel like you are propping up your competition. It does seem counterintuitive to the America First ideology,” he said. “I don’t see any place where we come out ahead from that transaction.”
Democrats have accused the White House of neglecting farmers and other Americans at a time of economic turmoil and uncertainty.
“The truth is clear: Trump put America second, bailing out another country while abandoning American farmers,” the Democratic National Committee said in a press release Monday.
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley also criticized the priorities of the administration in an X post last month when word of the Argentine deal was making the rounds.
“Why would USA help bail out Argentina while they take American soybean producers’ biggest market, he said. “We shld use leverage at every turn to help hurting farm economy Family farmers shld be top of mind in negotiations by representatives of USA.”
The American Soybean Association’s president, Kentucky farmer Caleb Ragland, said in a statement in September that “frustration” with the Trump administration was “overwhelming.”
“U.S. soybean prices are falling, harvest is underway, and farmers read headlines not about securing a trade agreement with China, but that the U.S. government is extending $20 billion in economic support to Argentina while that country drops its soybean export taxes to sell 20 shiploads of Argentine soybeans to China in just two days,” Ragland said.
“The farm economy is suffering while our competitors supplant the United States in the biggest soybean import market in the world,” he added.
Trump has promised to help the soybean farmers, at one point claiming that money from tariffs would be used to assist them financially, but no such proposal had been formalized as of Tuesday.
The administration has blamed the current federal government shutdown for delaying the rollout of an assistance package.
The president has also called on China to purchase U.S. soybeans — to no avail.
“President Trump pledged to put American farmers first, and every historic trade agreement that his Administration has struck with the EU, Japan, and others includes unprecedented provisions to expand American agricultural exports,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to ABC News.
“The Administration continues to fight for American farmers in trade negotiations, and also remains committed to using tariff revenue to support farmers who have been left in the lurch due to unfair foreign trade practices,” he added.
Trump says deal helps South American conservative ally before election
The Argentine bailout comes at a politically crucial time for its controversial president.
Milei has made headlines for his libertarian beliefs and has frequently been seen with conservative leaders and figures, including Elon Musk, who he joined at this year’s CPAC and gave him a what became a famous mock chainsaw, praising Musk’s DOGE cuts.
Trump has frequently praised Milei and backed his leadership, praising his right-wing, cost-cutting agenda in Argentina.
“They have a great leader,” Trump told reporters just before his meeting with Milei on Tuesday.
However, the 55-year-old is facing serious competition in Argentina’s Oct. 26 election as he has been hit with rising disapproval ratings over the last few months, according to Reuters.
The U.S. deal seeks to stabilize the peso just as Argentine voters head to the polls.
“We’re helping a great philosophy take over a great country … we want him to succeed,” Trump said Tuesday, adding that if Milei is successful, other countries in South America could follow its lead politically.
Trump later said the currency swap is dependent on Milei’s success during the country’s upcoming elections.
“If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” Trump said. “If he doesn’t win, we’re gone,” he said.
Trump said “no” when asked how the currency swap was an “America First” policy — if it was just to help Milei in the upcoming election.
Bessent echoed the president’s sentiment Tuesday, claiming that the U.S. is using its economic strength to create peace in South America.
“It’s hope for the future,” Bessent said. “I think that with the bridge the U.S. is giving them and with the strong policies, that Argentina can be great again.”
Bessent’s finance colleagues come under scrutiny
Bessent has also been on the hot seat over Argentina’s ties to some of his former colleagues in the finance world.
Rob Citrone, a billionaire who once worked with Bessent, has sizable investments in Latin America and Argentina, according to SEC filings.
A spokesperson for Citrone and Discovery Capital Management, his hedge fund, declined to comment to ABC News.
Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller — a longtime friend of Bessent — has publicly said he invested in Argentina after Milei’s election. Druckenmiller did not immediately return messages to ABC News for comment.
The Treasury Department did not respond to a message seeking comment about reports that Bessent had discussed Argentina with Citrone, or additional requests for comment on the deal.
Bessent denied the deal had any connection to his finance colleagues in a CNBC interview last week where he said the “trope that we’re helping out wealthy Americans with interest down there couldn’t be more false.”
“What we’re doing is maintaining a U.S. strategic interest in the Western Hemisphere,” he added.
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray and Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — After weeks of declining to weigh in on the New York City mayor’s race, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Friday he was backing Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.
Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn, said in a statement that while he and Mamdani had “areas of principled disagreement,” he acknowledged the state assemblyman’s win in the June primary and called for unity.
“Zohran Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy,” the congressman said in his statement.
“The stakes are existential. Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have unleashed an unprecedented assault on the economy, ripped healthcare away from my constituents, weaponized the Department of Justice against our state’s Attorney General and ordered masked agents to callously target law-abiding immigrant families,” Jeffries added.
Mamdani thanked Jeffries in a statement.
“I welcome Leader Jeffries’ support and look forward to delivering a city government and building a Democratic Party relentlessly committed to our affordability agenda — and to fighting Trump’s authoritarianism,” he said. “Our movement to turn the page on the politics of big money and small ideas grows stronger by the day.”
The New York Times first reported Jeffries’ endorsement.
As recently as Friday morning, Jeffries punted on endorsing Mamdani.
“I have not refused to endorse. I refused to articulate my position, and I will momentarily, at some point in advance of early voting,” Jeffries said Friday morning.
Early voting for the election begins Saturday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The shooting of two National Guard personnel allegedly by an Afghan refugee in a bustling downtown neighborhood in Washington, D.C., has reopened a debate over a Biden-era program that rushed to resettle thousands of Afghans who had worked with the U.S. government during its 20-year war in Afghanistan.
The Biden administration brought some 76,000 Afghan refugees to the U.S. in 2021, according to a report at the time by the Department of Homeland Security. It’s likely that the suspect officials have identified, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was one of only 3,300 of those refugees that year who were granted a “special immigrant visa,” a document that would have expedited his entry because of his employment with the Central Intelligence Agency and other U.S. agencies.
Officials say Lakanwal came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2021 during the Biden administration and applied for asylum in 2024. According to three law enforcement sources, Lakanwal was granted asylum in April 2025 under President Donald Trump.
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a news conference Thursday morning that the Biden administration did “absolutely zero vetting” of the refugees.
That isn’t accurate, though some questions remain around how thorough the vetting process would have been for Lakanwal in 2021 and again this year when the Trump administration granted him asylum.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the suspect had worked with the CIA during the war — an arrangement that would have almost certain required him to be vetted by the agency at the time.
It’s also likely he was vetted before being granted asylum this year. According to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, there have been 8,000 such individuals since Trump took office. Noem and Patel have both suggested in recent congressional testimony that the administration had carefully scrutinized all of them.
“During my tenure, we are going through the databases to make sure that no known or suspected terrorists enter this country to harm our nation,” Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.
In 2021, Alejandro Mayorkas, then President Joe Biden’s Homeland Security secretary, insisted in a document to Congress that all Afghans were vetted before entering the U.S.
“Prior to entering the United States, Afghan evacuees must successfully complete a rigorous and multi-layered screening and vetting process that includes biometric and biographic screenings conducted by intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism professionals from multiple federal agencies,” he wrote in a 2021 briefing on the program.
The question is how comprehensive that vetting was, considering the rush to settle Afghans who were hastily airlifted to Doha, Qatar, and Europe in the wake of the chaotic U.S. troop withdrawal. Shortly after U.S. troops left Afghanistan, the government in Kabul collapsed and the Taliban took control.
FBI and other U.S. officials have warned for years that vetting refugees from certain war-town countries can be difficult when the U.S. has limited capabilities to gather intelligence in those countries.
According to a New York Times report, the process of resettling Afghan refugees spurred a humanitarian crisis in Doha as refugees packed into airport hangars and tents at a military base there. Flight manifests were at times incomplete or missing, visa or citizenship status was unknown, and there was a lack of demographic data, the Times reported.
Biden administration officials defended the program at the time as a moral imperative, providing protection to Afghans who would have otherwise been killed by the Taliban for cooperating with Americans during the war.
Anti-immigrant conservatives seized on the idea of resettling tens of thousands of desperate Afghans in a matter of months as dangerous.
“Just because an Afghan works with us, and is friends with us, does not actually mean they are safe to bring here,” Sean Parnell, now the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in 2021.
Advocacy groups say there’s no evidence that the vetting process failed.
AfghanEvac, which works to resettle Afghan refugees who helped the U.S. government during the war, said the immigrants undergo some of the most extensive security vetting of any population in the U.S.
“This individual’s isolated and violent act should not be used as an excuse to define or diminish an entire community,” AfghanEvac President Shawn VanDiver said in a statement.
