‘It’s a Disappointing Job Sometimes’

You Get What You Get And You Don’t Get Upset: Some GOP House members would really like to muck around with the Senate version of the reconciliation bill in response to the Senate’s mucking around with the House version. Speaker Mike Johnson on that idea: “Welcome to Congress, it’s a disappointing job sometimes.”

Yes, people are still talking about a July 4 deadline. People like Johnson, for example. But for final passage to happen by then, House Republicans are going to have to do something they have not been known for lately: quietly coming together and getting on with it.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before…

Conservatives don’t think the Senate bill cuts enough. “NOT GOOD !!” Rep. Ralph Norman texted NOTUS when asked about the prospects of the House quickly passing the Senate bill.

• On the list of things people like Norman don’t like: The Senate bill scales back House cuts to clean energy subsidies and eliminates a provision that would bar illegal immigrants from using Medicaid.

Moderates are worried the Senate bill cuts Medicaid too much. “There’s a lot of language out there and we’re trying to get through it as quickly as possible to see exactly how it impacts our districts. But there’s a lot of members who are really concerned, myself being one,” Rep. David Valadao told NOTUS’ Hill team.

• As for SALT, Rep. Nick LaLota was not a fan of the Senate’s alterations. But he took a noticeably different tone on X yesterday afternoon: “Early analysis: middle-class Long Island families could see a $6K+ fed’l tax cut next year—$5K from the higher $40K SALT deduction.” A sign the blue-state Republicans are coming around, perhaps?

Johnson is on record saying he doesn’t like this Senate bill. But he’s also still focused on hitting that July 4 deadline, which means there just isn’t much time for members to do much more than complain, even if Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she wants the House to send the bill back to the Senate.

First on NOTUS: Democrats are already campaigning on this. The Alaska Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee are set to host an “emergency virtual town hall” today targeting Republicans — Murkowski in particular — for greenlighting the reconciliation bill, NOTUS’ Nuha Dolby reports.

Open Tabs: Newsom pushes major housing reform through California Legislature (LAT); Trump makes up with DeSantis at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’: ‘You’ll always be my friend’ (Politico); The Inside Story of Thom Tillis’s Last Stand Against Trump (WSJ)

FROM THE HILL

How to buy a vote: The Senate bill passed thanks in part to some good, old-fashioned backroom dealing. Here’s a closer look at how Republicans convinced two of their own:

Sen. Ron Johnson posted on X that he flipped to “yes” after he felt heard on his desire to have a second big bill that deeply slashes government spending. Johnson was also among those conservatives Majority Leader John Thune won over with a promise to support Sen. Rick Scott’s proposal to cut Medicaid even more, The Hill reported. That plan never got a vote.

Murkowski: The ultimate dealer in this vote walked away with a rural hospital fund and a special carve out for Alaskan SNAP recipients. She also got an excise tax on wind and solar projects stripped out and, more esoterically Alaskan, won tax relief for whaling crews. There was an attempt to shield her state from Medicaid cuts, but that got knocked down by the Senate parliamentarian.

Murkowski was still not happy with the bill she deftly tweaked to her state’s interests. “My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet,” she told reporters right after her vote to advance the legislation.

THE BIG ONE

This is an immigration bill now? The final hours before the Senate vote were marked by two very similar social media posts from very senior White House officials. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller admonished skeptics late Monday not to stand in the way of a bill that would “fulfill the promise on which the fate of civilization itself depends.”

He was not talking about the tax code. An hour later, JD Vance also posted that the fight over Medicaid funding was “immaterial” compared to the bill’s “ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.”

After it passed the Senate with his help, Vance was still at it. “Massive tax cuts, especially no tax on tips and overtime,” he posted as a victory lap. “And most importantly, big money for border security.”

We wondered: Is this how the White House plans to turn this bill’s bad poll numbers around?

An administration official told Jasmine the Miller and Vance posts weren’t coordinated, at least not from a comms perspective. The administration views the immigration provisions in the bill as important as the rest of it — and “everyone’s aligned” on that. As always, the White House believes its stance on immigration is a net positive with voters, regardless of polling.

Vance’s late-night post drew a lot of attention — and anger — online. Which is kind of the point of a Vance tweet, administration sources said. Where Trump “sets the tone” on Truth Social, Vance is someone who can have the arguments online. “The message is always aligned but it’s different methods,” a source told us.

NEW ON NOTUS

The DOGE “monster”: Trump said DOGE is a “monster” that could “eat” its creator. “I think what is going to happen is DOGE is going to look at Musk, and if DOGE looks at Musk, we are going to save a fortune,” Trump told reporters on the tarmac in Florida. “I don’t think he should be playing that game with me,” Trump added — an apparent reference to Musk’s threat to help unseat Republicans who voted for Trump’s reconciliation bill.

Campaigning on abortion: Or rather, not. Republicans from states with some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country say the issue is in the past. “There probably are some wedge issues that are going to emerge, but I don’t see guns or pro-life votes or questions being among them,” Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming, who is running for Sen. Bill Cassidy’s seat in 2026, told NOTUS.

HHS layoff whiplash: “The executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress,” U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose wrote in a ruling Tuesday halting mass layoffs at Health and Human Services.

More: Federal Website Hosting U.S. Climate Reports Goes Dark; Lawmakers Are Celebrating the Senate Stripping an AI Moratorium from Reconciliation; Trump Threatens to Arrest Zohran Mamdani Over Sanctuary City Campaign Promises

NOT US

• Mystery surrounds the Jeffrey Epstein files after Bondi claims ‘tens of thousands’ of videos, by Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer for the Associated Press
• An Offhand Remark About Gold Bars, Secretly Recorded, Upended His Life, by Lisa Friedman for The New York Times
• DOGE now targeting SEC policy, eyes SPAC rules, sources say, by Douglas Gillison and Chris Prentice for Reuters

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