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More Than 20 House Republicans Now Opposing Trump Budget Bill

President Donald Trump was hoping that the House of Representatives would pass the U.S. Senate's version of H.R. 1 — his "Big Beautiful Bill" — as-is. But that looks to be increasingly unlikely.

That's according to a Tuesday article in Axios, which reported that a growing number of House Republicans are threatening to revolt over the changes the Republican-controlled Senate made to the legislation the House previously passed by a one-vote margin. According to one of Axios' unnamed Republican sources in the House, there are now "well over 20" House Republicans who are now against Trump's signature domestic policy package.

"Our bill has been completely changed," said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), who is a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. "It's a non-starter."

One of those Republicans is likely Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) who is another stridently conservative Freedom Caucus member. Ogles announced on his official X account that he filed an amendment that would delete the Senate bill's full text and replace it with the House's previously passed version.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who chaired the Freedom Caucus between 2019 and 2022, told Punchbowl News on Tuesday: "I’m talking to colleagues and I don’t know anyone who’s happy." Also on Tuesday, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) dismissed claims that the Senate bill was fiscally responsible as "garbage." The pushback from House Republicans comes despite Trump threatening GOP members of the House that they could "suffer the consequences" if they don't pass the legislation expeditiously.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) acknowledged the revolt within the House Republican Conference, but insisted he was focused on passing the Senate bill verbatim, so it could advance directly to President Trump's desk without having to go back to the Senate. He added he would "do everything possible" to pass the Senate version ahead of Republicans' self-imposed July 4 deadline.

"I'm not happy with what the Senate did to our product, but we understand this is the process. It goes back and forth. And we will be working to get all our members to yes," Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Johnson Privately Confirms Deep Medicaid Cuts He Denied On Fox News

Twenty-four hours after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) used Fox News’ platform to claim Democrats are lying when they say that the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill cuts Medicaid, Politico reported that he is privately warning House Republicans will lose their majority if the Senate version’s Medicaid cuts are enacted.

Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked Johnson during a Tuesday interview to explain the differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation on “Medicaid and the SALT deductions and other areas,” and to respond to Democrats “that are pushing this narrative that's not true that Republicans are cutting Medicare and Medicaid.”

Johnson responded that the Democratic claims are “nonsense” because “we are not cutting Medicaid” but instead “strengthening the program for the people that desperately need it and deserve it” by instituting work requirements. He said Democratic ads saying otherwise had been “taken down.” He did not address the part of the question about how the House and Senate Medicaid provisions differ — though he did go on to warn Senate Republicans they would be “playing with fire” if they touch the House bill’s boost to the cap of the State And Local Tax deduction.

But when Johnson talks to Republican power players instead of Fox viewers, he is saying something very different, Politico reported on Wednesday:

Speaker Mike Johnson is warning in private that Senate Republicans could cost House Republicans their majority next year if they try to push through the deep Medicaid cuts in the current Senate version, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the matter.

That comes as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) cautions GOP senators that those same cutbacks could become a political albatross for Republicans just as the Affordable Care Act was for Democrats.

“[Barack] Obama said … ‘if you like your health care you can keep it, if you like your doctor we can keep it,’ and yet we had several million people lose their health care,” the in-cycle senator told reporters Tuesday. “Here we’re saying [with] Medicaid, we’re going to hold people harmless, but we’re estimating” millions of people could lose coverage.

While the Senate’s proposed cuts are even steeper, the House bill, contrary to what Earhardt and Johnson suggested to Fox’s audience, also includes devastating Medicaid cuts. It would drive nearly 8 million people off the Medicaid rolls over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office found. Analysts say those cuts, along with other health cuts in the bill, would result in more than 11,000 medically preventable deaths annually and could force rural hospitals to close.

These Medicaid cuts are hideously unpopular, but Fox figures are helping Johnson keep his speakership by downplaying their impact to viewers — when they talk about them at all. Indeed, Fox & Friends did not address the Medicaid cuts on Wednesday, including after Politico’s report contradicted Johnson’s claims to their viewers.

Meanwhile, though Johnson told Earnhardt that Democratic claims about the GOP’s Medicaid cuts were so obviously false that ads on them have been taken down, an ad denouncing Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) for having “voted for the biggest Medicaid cut in history” has run more than 100 times on TV stations in his district this week, according to a Media Matters review of the Kinetiq database.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Congressional Republicans Veer Between Musk And Trump Over Budget Bill

President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk are locked in an ugly breakup—and Republicans are having a hard time choosing sides.

Since leaving the Trump administration in late May, Musk has gone rogue, openly attacking the House GOP’s "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" for its deficit-busting tax cuts. He called the legislation—which cuts Medicaid and food stamps but still would add trillions to the deficit thanks to its tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefit the rich—a "disgusting abomination." Ouch.

That has angered Trump, who told reporters on Thursday that his friendship with Musk may be over, and that Musk is against the legislation only because it ends electric vehicle subsidies.

Some Republicans, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, are taking Trump's side, saying that Musk is wrong and that Republicans need to pass the legislation.

“I think he’s flat wrong … and I’ve told him as much,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday, insisting that he's not worried that the legislation will negatively impact Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune also downplayed Musk's criticism and its potential impact on how Senate Republicans will handle the bill.

“I can’t speak to his reasons other than what he stated, and I think that what he stated was that he thought it was something that would add to the deficit. And we believe the opposite,” Thune said, rejecting the nonpartisan independent analysis that shows the legislation will add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

Other Republicans say Musk's concerns about the fact that the bill lifts the debt ceiling and increases the national deficit are valid.

"He has real-world experience. [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon has real-world experience. When they throw up red flags about the deficit, we ought to pay attention," Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland told reporters. Harris cowardly voted “present” on the bill to allow it to pass the House despite his reservations with the legislation.

"So @elonmusk is right to call out House Leadership. I wish I had a nickel for every time the @freedomcaucus sounded the alarm and nobody listened, only to find out the hard way we were right all along," Rep. Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, wrote in a post on X, even though Perry voted for the legislation he now says is bad.

"It’s insincere for @SpeakerJohnson to insinuate @elonmusk is against the Big Beautiful Bill because it doesn’t benefit his companies specifically," Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, one of two House Republicans who voted against the bill, wrote on X.

"Musk is a true America First entrepreneur who could have had a much more comfortable existence and a higher net worth by sitting on the sidelines of politics. But he cares about this country, so he got involved. He knows if America collapses financially, we aren’t making it to Mars. He’s right,” Massie added.

Other Republicans want nothing to do with the fighting at all, like little kids who stick their fingers in their ears when their parents are arguing.

“I ain't got any thoughts on that. We got a lot of work to do. He doesn’t get to vote," said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama.

It's an ugly war that could end badly for the GOP no matter which side they choose.

Republican lawmakers can face Trump’s MAGA mob if they vote against the legislation, or they might go up against a Musk-funded primary opponent if they vote for the bill.

Republicans made a deal with two devils—Trump and Musk—and they’re finding out the hard way that their actions have consequences.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Why House Republicans May Still Tank Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'

As the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate mulls changes to President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," one House Republican is warning his Senate counterparts against tweaking one particular section.

During a Sunday interview with CNN congressional correspondent Manu Raju, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) cautioned Senate Republicans against making any changes to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction he and others negotiated with House Republican leadership. The SALT deduction cap is currently at $10,000, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA.) agreed to raise the cap to $40,000 in order to convince House's SALT caucus to support the legislation.

"This is an issue that not just impacts blue states, it impacts nearly every state in the country," Lawler said. "29 states blew through the $10,000 cap over the last seven years. And so lifting the cap on SALT is critically important. It provides middle-class tax relief. And that's exactly what we did here."

"I've been very clear with leadership all this past week that if the Senate changes the SALT deduction in any way, I will be a no," he continued. "And I'm not going to buckle on that. And I've spoken to my other colleagues, they will be a no as well."

Lawler's remarks come as Senate Republicans have spoken openly about slashing the SALT deduction, which they say is overwhelmingly beneficial to Americans in blue states (which typically have higher state and local tax rates). Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said last week that senators are likely to nix the SALT deal in the package they intend to send back to the House of Representatives.

"There’s not a single [Republican] senator from New York or New Jersey or California, and so there’s not a strong mood in the Senate Republican caucus right now to do $353 billion for states that basically the other states subsidize," Crapo said on Wednesday.

The House only narrowly passed the massive 1,037-page budget bill by a 215-214 margin in May, and only did so with the help of the SALT caucus, which includes representatives like Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Young Kim (R-CA) and Nick LaLota (R-NY, as well as Lawler. Should they withhold their support from a final bill that cuts the SALT deduction, the legislation would likely fail to pass.

— (@)

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

More Than 20 House Republicans Now Opposing Trump Budget Bill

Johnson Privately Confirms Deep Medicaid Cuts He Denied On Fox News

Congressional Republicans Veer Between Musk And Trump Over Budget Bill

Why House Republicans May Still Tank Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'

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