Trump’s massive domestic policy bill put to stress test in the House
CNN
The influence of President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson will once again be put to the test Wednesday, as GOP leaders look to deliver the president his first legislative win by the July Fourth holiday.
The influence of President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson will once again be put to the test Wednesday, as GOP leaders look to deliver the president his first legislative win by the July Fourth holiday. The challenge: The newly Senate-approved legislation has to move through the deeply divided House untouched to meet the self-imposed deadline. The Senate’s passage of the bill Tuesday was a hard-fought victory for Trump, who spent days wrangling fellow Republicans behind the multi-trillion-dollar bill, which includes tax cuts and funding boosts for the Pentagon and border security. It also includes more contentious spending cuts to pay for the rest of the bill, including the biggest downsizing of the federal safety net in decades. Across the Capitol, House GOP leaders are confident the latest version can pass the House, according to multiple sources. But it will likely take significant political muscle, with dozens of House members still grumbling about the Senate’s significant changes to the bill, including as recently as Tuesday morning, minutes before passage. As in the Senate, House Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose three votes. And Johnson is grappling with his own high-stakes battle between centrists and right-wing hardliners. It all amounts to a pivotal week that could define Trump’ second term: So far, the push to pass his agenda in Congress has been marred by weeks of tense GOP infighting that has even some Republicans worried about how the bill could play in the 2026 midterms.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.