Bully for You (And You, and You)

Today’s notice: The House is on the brink of passing this thing. Asking pardon world if Diddy will get on the list. Trump’s bullying is working, and winning new respect. A new investigation into abortion politics.

The Latest

Are We There Yet? The House appears poised to pass President Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill sometime this morning, after another very long all-nighter.

Just after 3:30 a.m., Republicans voted 219-213 to adopt the rule on the bill, with only Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick joining Democrats to vote against it. Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team left the vote open for more than four hours and spent time convincing holdouts to get on board, NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson and Reese Gorman report from an overnight in the Capitol.

Trump, Vice President JD Vance and others from the White House held a series of apparently very persuasive calls (even Rep. Thomas Massie, who has been the hardest of hard noes, voted for the rule). There was a lot of drama in the wee small hours of the morning, Riley tells us, including one moment where the holdouts held a prayer circle on the House floor.

The Big One

Is Trump’s bullying changing politics? The suits at Paramount who cut a deal with the administration over last year’s “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris were roundly excoriated yesterday. Even the “South Park” guys had a go at their corporate parent.

“Today is a sad day for press freedom,” the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University wrote in a statement.

Columbia already bent the knee to Donald Trump after the school was bullied. UPenn seems to be next. The student paper launched a breaking news blog to cover each new revelation of what leadership agreed to after Secretary of Education Linda McMahon triumphantly announced the school had been given an ultimatum and “signed on the dotted line.” That came just a few days after the president of UVA resigned essentially at the orders of the White House.

These are huge victories for the MAGA movement, and for a style of politics Trump has championed. “One of the things that distinguishes what’s going on now from earlier times is just how open and obvious it is. Think of the Nixon enemies list, right? It was considered to be a shameful thing that was dragged out,” said Bob Corn-Revere, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s chief counsel.

Secrecy is not a part of this now. “Most administrations are embarrassed about this coming out,” Corn-Revere said. “This one, it seems to be the opposite, where they have signing ceremonies for executive orders, celebrating it.”

What lessons are being learned here? “Where people see certain tactics being used, if they think it works, they will try and emulate it,” he went on. He sees Gov. Gavin Newsom’s defamation suit against Fox News as proof that politicians see something to be learned from Trump when it comes to bullying. “We’re seeing both sides testing the limits here, aren’t we?” he said.

The big question: Will the bullying work on the Hill? It certainly looks like it has and will. But conservatives were hell-bent on making things difficult for Speaker Johnson Wednesday.

Where the rubber meets the road. In at least one instance, Trump appeared out of the loop on what was in his signature legislative priority. The president told Republicans at a meeting that Congress shouldn’t touch Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

“But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one member responded to Trump, according to the three sources with direct knowledge of the comments.

Open Tabs: New Trump portrait hangs in Colorado Capitol after earlier one drew his ire (AP); Trump announces trade deal with Vietnam (The Hill); Iran Suspends Cooperation With U.N. Nuclear Watchdog (NYT); Fourth of July gas hasn’t been this cheap since 2021 (CNN)

From the White House

Oh no he Diddy? After the jury read out Sean Combs’ verdict in federal court, we wondered: Would a conviction only on Mann Act charges get him a pardon from Trump?

“Fifty-fifty,” one GOP source close to the pardon process told Jasmine. “But this [is] a lot trickier than even Larry Hoover. This isn’t slipping under the radar.”

Combs’ allies have inquired within Republican circles, two sources told Jasmine. According to one within Trump “pardon czar” Alice Marie Johnson’s orbit, those requests came before Combs’ indictment had even come down.

Trump said nobody had asked him as of May 30. “I think some people have been very close to asking,” the president told reporters before remarking how he read “nasty statements” Combs had said about him in the paper. “So, I don’t know. I would certainly look at the facts, if I think somebody was mistreated, whether they like me or don’t like me it wouldn’t have any impact.”

Too big a liability? One person who is a part of this world questioned the risks, especially with the video evidence of Combs beating up his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura or all the gruesome details of his “freak offs.” “You’re going to burn yourself,” they said of advocating for Diddy. “A lot of people are walking cautiously.”

It may just come down to sentencing: “Unless he gets some ridiculous time,” said a fourth source close to the pardon process, “I think Trump lets him eat it for speaking out against him.”

NOTUS Investigation

Leonard Leo’s abortion politics play. The conservative movement leader may be on the outs with Trump but his dark-money network is quietly bankrolling the anti-abortion movement into its next phase, according to previously unreported tax documents revealed by NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno and Oriana González.

In the two years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, The Concord Fund, which is almost entirely funded by another Leo-run nonprofit, has poured more than $37.3 million into anti-abortion groups and efforts (that’s more than twice what the fund gave groups in the preceding 10 years).

Leo is urging recipients of the new largesse to get aggressive. “He’s very serious about getting more return on investment,” a source familiar with the matter told NOTUS. Leo and The Concord Fund did not respond to requests for comment.

New on NOTUS

Trump’s next target: A traditionally nonpartisan Department of Homeland Security advisory board met yesterday, and NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports how a new politicized version quickly began discussing how DHS could, as one Trump appointee put it, “send a bigger message to the American public of the danger” posed by the nomination of Zohran Mamdani in New York City.

Ukraine aid cut: Capitol Hill was shocked when Pentagon spox Sean Parnell announced a halt to shipments of air-defense rounds promised to Ukraine. “There can be no half-measures in the defense of liberty,” Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick wrote on X, demanding further explanation from the White House.

A delightfully old-school problem: Sure, House GOP leaders need to convince their entire conference to essentially swallow the Senate reconciliation rewrite — a process that is ongoing. But before they do that, they need members to physically be in the building. NOTUS’ Helen Huiskes reports on a poorly timed storm that left lawmakers scrambling to get to Washington.

Homeland Security chair race underway: Rep. Carlos Gimenez is the first Republican to throw their hat in the ring after Rep. Mark Green, the committee’s current chair, announced he would be retiring to take an undisclosed job in the private sector.

More: Judge Blocks Trump’s Asylum Ban at the Southern Border; Wisconsin Supreme Court Strikes Down State’s Pre-Civil War Abortion Ban; Democrats Who Haven’t Endorsed Mamdani Are Jumping to His Defense After Trump Threats

NOT US

• Trump to cut protections for home health aides, migrant farmworkers, by Lauren Kaori Gurley for The Washington Post
• His USAID career over, one worker wonders if he can still serve his country, by Story Hinckley for The Christian Science Monitor
• Immigration crackdown ripples through economy, by Emily Peck for Axios

Be Social

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