Which Republican senators voted against Trump’s agenda bill and why
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending bill came down to the wire as Senate Republican leaders scrambled to get all GOP members on board before the final vote Tuesday.
In the end, three long-serving GOP members, Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted against, forcing Vice President JD Vance to break a 50-50 tie.
Each of the three has explained their reasons for bucking the president.
Susan Collins
One of the mostly closely watched as the vote neared was Collins, who had been on the fence due to the bill’s proposed Medicaid cuts.
“Approximately 400,000 Mainers – nearly a third of the state’s population – depend on this program,” she said in a statement after voting no. “A dramatic reduction in future Medicaid funding, an estimated $5.9 billion in Maine over the next 10 years, could threaten not only Mainers’ access to health care, but also the very existence of several of our state’s rural hospitals.”
Collins added that the bill had “additional problems.”
“The tax credits that energy entrepreneurs have relied on should have been gradually phased out so as not to waste the work that has already been put into these innovative new projects and prevent them from being completed,” she said.
Thom Tillis
Tillis has been extremely vocal in his opposition sine the weekend, drawing attention for a passionate floor speech citing Medicaid provisions he claimed would hurt his North Carolina constituents.
During a closed-door GOP conference meeting two weeks ago, Tillis is reported to have made the point that Medicaid coverage for more than 600,000 North Carolinians would be at risk under the Senate’s proposal and asked his colleagues to consider how the policy would affect their own states — even providing state-specific data on a handout.
“I just encouraged other members to go to their states and just measure how … take a look at the proposed cuts and tell me whether or not you can absorb it in the normal course of business, and in many cases, you’re gonna find that you can’t,” Tillis told reporters at the Capitol last week.
Trump lashed out against Tillis on his social media platform and to the press and threatened to field primary challengers. Tillis announced on Saturday that he would not seek reelection.
Rand Paul
Paul, a staunch advocate for keeping spending and the debt ceiling in check, posted on X that he wanted the bill to include a 90% reduction in the ceiling.
“No earmarks. No handouts. Just real fiscal reform. I wasn’t looking for favors. I wasn’t horse-trading. I was fighting for the American people and against our out-of-control debt,” he said.
“Bottom line: I offered my vote for fiscal sanity. Congress chose to sell out taxpayers instead. Only once the bill is released, we will know what the true price was,” Paul added.
(NEW YORK) — New York City’s municipal races have brought disgraced politicians back into the limelight, as multiple candidates seeking a political comeback raised the question of whether voters will give them a second — or third — chance.
Among the slate is Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman whose downfall came after a slew of sexting scandals that culminated in a 21-month federal prison sentence, who is vying for one of Manhattan’s City Council seats.
But Weiner’s attempt at a third political comeback appears futile.
Though no candidate has reached the 50% threshold, as of the current vote count, needed to be declared the outright winner in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, election results from the New York City Board of Elections (BOE) show Weiner facing a fourth place finish in the five-person race as of Wednesday morning.
Assemblymember Harvey Epstein maintains a steady lead, while nonprofit leader Sarah Batchu and Manhattan Community Board Chair Andrea Gordillo battle for second place. Community advocate Allie Ryan trails behind Weiner.
Because of ranked-choice voting in New York City, more comprehensive results won’t be reported until a week later on July 1, when the NYC BOE runs ranked-choice tabulations. Results are expected to be certified on July 15.
Weiner’s scandalous past comes as New York City’s mayoral race faces its share of controversy as well, with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo continuing to deny the sexual harassment allegations that led to his resignation nearly four years ago.
Cuomo, however, conceded Tuesday night in the Democratic primary after Zohran Mamdani held a healthy lead, but his campaign added that he was “looking toward November,” indicating he was not ruling out an independent run.
And though the federal investigation into incumbent Mayor Eric Adams over fraud and bribery was dismissed earlier this year, he continues to take heat as the first sitting mayor to be indicted as he attempts to court voters running as an independent.
Yet Weiner, 60, attempted to differentiate himself from the other candidates with checkered pasts by emphasizing accountability for his wrongdoings.
“All of that happened, and I accept responsibility for it,” he told ABC’s “The View” in May. “You won’t hear me do what some other people in public life have done — Donald Trump or Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams: ‘I’m a victim, they persecuted me for no reason.’ I was dealing with very serious problems. I was dealing with what I now understand to be addiction.”
“I am saying ‘Yes, I did these things. I got into recovery. I tried to make my life better,'” he said. “And now I can be of service. And I’m a damn good politician.”
In 2011, Weiner resigned from his congressional seat after a sexually explicit photo was posted on his social media page — which he initially said was a hack, but later admitted was his own doing — in addition to revelations of more sexting content with various women online.
He attempted a comeback two years later in an unsuccessful New York City mayoral run. Despite his initial lead, his campaign was plagued by controversy as more sexually explicit messages and images became public, with Weiner operating under the alias “Carlos Danger.”
In 2016, new sexting allegations came to light which prompted his wife Huma Abedin to announce the couple’s split.
In 2017, Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison after one of his sexting scandals was found to involve a 15-year-old girl. Following his release, he was also designated a Level 1 registered sexual offender, classified as a low-risk to reoffend.
During his appearance on “The View,” Weiner emphasized that he was still in recovery for sex addiction.
He also recognized that he would receive blowback during his campaign, but he did not think his past should hold him back. He cited a need for change among Democratic candidates as his reason for getting back into politics.
“When I woke up in November of ’24 and saw the election results — but more than who won, I looked around New York City and saw how many fewer Democrats even turned out to vote. And I started to say to myself ‘something is seriously wrong here,'” he said. “We’re hardcore anti-Trump territory and Trump did better.”
Weiner presented a more moderate platform than some of his Democratic counterparts. According to his campaign website, some of his goals include increasing police presence, protecting undocumented immigrants but deporting violent criminals, taxing the rich, and eliminating waste.
(NEW YORK) — “We are especially mindful that we are in the middle of a war right now,” former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the front-runner in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary — told a crowd at a Juneteenth lunch event in the Bronx on Thursday.
Some people in the crowd started muttering — the war in the Middle East?
“We’re in the middle of a war — you don’t see it? Day in and day out, when you turn on the TV news and you see a president named Mr. Trump. Have you seen President Trump on TV?”
As some in the crowd booed, Cuomo added, “President Trump has declared war on Democratic states, Democratic cities. He’s declared war on working families, he’s declared war on immigrants, he’s declared war on minorities, and he’s declared war on New York City and New York State.” He later told reporters, “Good news is — we beat [the administration] once before, and we’re going to beat them again.”
In the final days of campaigning for Tuesday’s New York City ranked choice Democratic mayoral primary, which has 11 candidates on the ballot, Cuomo and others fanned out across the city to make their closing arguments, with one shared focus being how they’re framing themselves as the best choice to stand up to the White House.
Curtis Sliwa, who lost to Mayor Eric Adams in 2021, is the only Republican running for mayor.
Voters, meanwhile, told ABC News they’re looking at both national and local issues — particularly affordability — as they decide who to cast votes for.
And scorching high temperatures in New York City could impact turnout on Election Day, as voters brave the heat to trudge to their polling places on Tuesday, with the city’s election board preparing for dehydration, and even potential heat-related power outages.
The New York City Board of Elections said last week in a news release that it is making sure polling sites that don’t have air conditioning will have fans, a “steady supply of water.” The board said it is working with emergency management and utility providers to make sure polling places don’t lose power, too.
A spokesperson for the board told City & State NY that potential heat-induced blackouts might impact vote counting, since then ballots would need to be counted similarly to absentee or affidavit ballots that get scanned later.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, signed legislation over the weekend allowing voters to receive refreshments while in line to vote.
In an email sent to supporters on Tuesday to supporters, Cuomo asked voters to “vote as early as you can to avoid the hottest parts of the day.”
For Cuomo, the election could mark his political comeback. His governorship was derailed after several women accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct. He resigned as governor in 2021 but has consistently denied the allegations. One voter in downtown Manhattan told ABC News that she is voting for Cuomo despite misgivings over the allegations, mentioning that he had issued an apology in 2021.
Carmen S., a medical assistant who lives in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, told ABC News in an interview that immigration policy is one of the important issues in the race, becoming emotional speaking about the White House’s immigration policies. She declined to provide her full last name.
“I’m a child of immigrants,” she said. “Not every immigrant is a criminal.”
While she didn’t share who she ranked on her ballot, she praised Cuomo for his record and how he handled his job as governor.
Cuomo’s main opponent in the primary is state assembly member Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist whose progressive economic plans have galvanized many voters.
Mamdani, in an interview with ABC News on Thursday in Astoria, Queens, just hours after he voted early at a polling site in the Museum of the Moving Image, said his closing argument is that he is the one who can take on the “twin crises” facing the city: “Authoritarianism from the outside and an affordability crisis from the inside.”
“And what we need is a mayor who’s able to stand up to both of those and deliver a city that every New Yorker can afford and that every New Yorker understands that they belong to,” Mamdani told ABC News.
And as to why should people around the country care about this race, he said, “This is a referendum on where our party goes; it is a referendum on whether billionaires and corporations can buy yet another election, or if we opt for a new generation of leadership, one that isn’t funded by Trump donors, one that is actually able to stand up and fight for working class New Yorkers.”
That outlook has impressed some voters. Angela Pham, a 38-year-old content designer who lives in Greenwich Village, told ABC News in an interview after voting early that Mamdani “needs to win.”
“We’re supposed to be the most progressive city in America,” she said. “I feel like he’s the only candidate that makes sense for the things that we need to happen.”
Asked how she felt about Cuomo, Pham said, “He needs to get out of politics and retire to a farm.”
Mamdani has faced some pushback over his criticism of Israel, given New York’s large Jewish population. In response, he has emphasized policies to combat antisemitism and said that he wants to focus on city issues.
Cuomo has criticized Mamdani’s comments about Israel and made combatting antisemitism a key campaign focus. One voter in Greenwich Village told ABC News that concerns about antisemitism were a main driver for his decision to vote for Cuomo.
Fellow candidate New York City comptroller Brad Lander, who has “cross-endorsed” Mamdani, has received less momentum in polling but has gotten heightened attention since he was briefly detained last week by federal agents while escorting a defendant out of immigration court.
Lander, speaking with ABC News on Thursday on the Upper East Side near an early voting site at a school, said that the mayoral election in the city has national implications, because the administration has said it hopes to ““liberate” Democratic cities from their elected officials. That’s [a] code word for a federal government takeover, an erosion of democracy, a denial of due process,” Lander said.
“Democracy is on the line right now,” he added.
Officials from the White House and administration have said their actions towards cities such as Los Angeles are meant to restore order amidst protests and unrest.
Juan Peralta, a 31-year-old from Harlem who works in events, told ABC News that the only two candidates on the ballot he’s excited about are Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, pointing to Mamdani’s proposal for free child care.
“Growing up in New York, I did feel like this was a place for families,” Peralta told ABC News. “Now I feel like it’s a place for families of a certain income.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is urging the New York-based Court of International Trade to delay its order blocking President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, warning that enforcement of the ruling will cause a “foreign policy disaster scenario.”
In an opinion on Wednesday, the three-judge panel struck down Trump’s global tariffs as “contrary to law.”
The judges found that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — which Trump used to enact his tariffs — does not give him the “unlimited” power to levy tariffs like the president has in recent months.
“The President’s assertion of tariff-making authority in the instant case, unbounded as it is by any limitation in duration or scope, exceeds any tariff authority delegated to the President under IEEPA. The Worldwide and Retaliatory tariffs are thus ultra vires and contrary to law,” the judges wrote.
According to the judges, Congress, not the president, has the authority to impose tariffs under most circumstances, and Trump’s tariffs do not meet the limited condition of an “unusual and extraordinary threat” that would allow him to act alone.
The Department of Justice on Thursday requested a stay, saying it’s needed “to avoid immediate irreparable harm to United States foreign policy and national security.”
“It is critical, for the country’s national security and the President’s conduct of ongoing, delicate diplomatic efforts, that the Court stay its judgment. The harm to the conduct of foreign affairs from the relief ordered by the Court could not be greater,” lawyers with the Department of Justice argued.
According to the administration, the court order would strip the president of leverage in trade negotiations, imperil the trade deals already reached, and make the country vulnerable to countries that “feel a renewed boldness to take advantage of” the current situation.
Responding to the ruling, White House spokesman Kush Desai evoked the trade deficit and said, “It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” adding that that the administration is committed to using “every lever of executive power to address this crisis.”
The Trump administration had quickly filed a notice of appeal to challenge Wednesday’s decision.
The case now heads to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit where they could ask for a stay of the order.
The Court of International Trade issued the decision across two cases — one filed by a group of small businesses and another filed by 12 Democratic attorneys general.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford called the ruling “a win for the rule of law and for Nevadans’ pocketbooks.”
“I am extremely pleased with the court’s decision to strike down these tariffs; they were both unlawful and economically destructive,” he said. “The president had no legal authority to impose these tariffs, and his unlawful actions would have caused billions of dollars of damage to the American economy.”
Since Trump announced sweeping tariffs on more than 50 countries in April, his administration has faced half a dozen lawsuits challenging the president’s ability to impose tariffs without the approval of Congress.
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the decision a “major victory for our efforts to uphold the law and protect New Yorkers from illegal policies that threaten American jobs and economy.”
“The law is clear: no president has the power to single-handedly raise taxes whenever they like. These tariffs are a massive tax hike on working families and American businesses that would have led to more inflation, economic damage to businesses of all sizes, and job losses across the country if allowed to continue,” James’ statement continued.
Lawyers for the small businesses alleged that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — which Trump invoked to impose the tariffs — does not give the president the right to issue “across-the-board worldwide tariffs,” and that Trump’s justification for the tariffs was invalid.
“His claimed emergency is a figment of his own imagination,” the lawsuit said. “Trade deficits, which have persisted for decades without causing economic harm, are not an emergency.”
During a hearing earlier this month, a group of three judges — who were appointed by presidents Obama, Trump and Reagan — pushed a lawyer for the small businesses to provide a legal basis to override the tariffs. While a different court in the 1970s determined that the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 — the law that preceded the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — gave the president the right to impose tariffs, no court has weighed whether the president can impose tariffs unilaterally under the IEEPA.
During a May 13 hearing, Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer from the conservative Liberty Justice Center representing the plaintiffs, argued that Trump’s purported emergency to justify the tariffs is far short of what is required under the law.
“I’m asking this court to be an umpire and call a strike; you’re asking me, well, where’s the strike zone? Is it at the knees or slightly below the knees?” Schwab argued. “I’m saying it’s a wild pitch and it’s on the other side of the batter and hits the backstop, so we don’t need to debate that.”
The ruling marks the first time a federal court has issued a ruling on the legality of Trump’s tariffs. In May, a federal judge in Florida nominated by Trump suggested the president has the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs, but opted to transfer the case to the Court of International Trade.
-ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
