Today’s notice: Reconciling. An investigation into what DOGE has been up to. SALT shakin’. Stock tradin’. And, some bubbling GOP frustration over White House immigration moves.
When Bills Stop Being Polite and Start Getting Real
The frying pan is the overnight slog of House Republicans marking up different sections of their reconciliation bill. The fire is what comes next: actual text that must be defended.
“It doesn’t really change the core message, but it does give us specific policies we can point to to say, ‘Here’s how they’re doing it,’” said Michael Linden, the campaign director for Families Over Billionaires. The group is one of several already running paid ads on tax cuts and Medicaid in swingy Republican districts.
Those ads will continue to run, but now they are about a real bill.
House members got a taste of this during the early hours of the markup process. There were loud protests that disrupted proceedings and got press coverage. Some were serious and included arrests, while some were sillier.
“My day is going great! And if it goes even better I might buy myself another yacht,” a protestor dressed as the Monopoly Man told NOTUS.
That’s just the organized opposition. House Republicans also have the very real challenge of convincing their Senate colleagues to buy into this text.
Republicans say heat from liberal groups and Democrats is nothing new. NOTUS’ Hill team reported that some even welcomed it, arguing it puts them at an advantage by “hearing the rhetorical ambushes that Democrats plan to use” in campaign ads to come.
“I mean, this is effectively the beta testing of their messaging for ’26,” Republican Rep. Kat Cammack told NOTUS. “So really what they’re doing is they’re just giving us their playbook.”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries stopped by one of the raucous markups and essentially laughed off that take. “Many of the members who are going to vote for the largest Medicaid cut in American history will not be back after the 2026 election,” he said.
Read more from Evan McMorris-Santoro and Samuel Larreal. | Read the Hill team’s story.
DOGE Report: Real Estate, Fake Numbers
How many real estate leases has DOGE terminated? How much money has that saved? NOTUS’ Mark Alfred investigated and found it’s less than DOGE and its allies have claimed.
The group “has revised down its real estate savings in every update to its public accounting over the past 10 weeks,” Mark writes. “$660 million became $500 million, then $400 million, then $311 million.” Now it’s listed as about $262 million.
NOTUS has a deep dive into it all, with charts!
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- After Promising Universal Health Care, California Governor Must Reconsider Immigrant Coverage, by Angela Hart and Christine Mai-Duc for KFF Health News
- A Crucial River Treaty Is Tangled in Trump’s Feud With Canada, by Karen Weise for The New York Times
- These Ukrainian women banded together after fleeing war. The U.S. may send them back. By Eden Turner for The 19th
The Beauty of SALT
The Joint Committee on Taxation’s reconciliation price tag came in a smidge lower than expected Tuesday, which had blue state Republicans asking: So now can we get a bigger state and local tax deduction?
NOTUS’ Shifra Dayak tracked the progress of SALT negotiations all day. By the evening, Speaker Mike Johnson said they would reach a number by today, with few other details. “We’ll get there,” he said. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is — so much so that one reporter told Johnson: “You’ve been getting closer for a while now.”
“Isn’t that beautiful?” Johnson replied. Indeed.
Making Money, Making Laws
Rep. Jefferson Shreve had a great week after “Liberation Day,” Dave Levinthal reports for NOTUS. The Indiana freshman “traded between $3.44 million and $9.45 million worth of stocks” in the days of peak tariff chaos, reaping millions in profit from sales and purchases of shares “in several companies that land squarely” in the purview of one of his committee assignments: transportation.
Shreve’s office told Dave that the congressman “relies on a financial advisor to conduct trades” and is careful to stay compliant with all reporting requirements. Supporters of rules limiting stock trades by members call Shreve’s lucrative first four months in office “a case study” for why those rules are needed.
Fraying Immigration Consensus?
Rapid shifts in immigration policy by the White House have generally found broad support in the GOP-controlled Congress. But we have two stories of potential areas of friction.
- The administration’s “gold card” visa is in a pilot phase now, according to Elon Musk. The idea is to allow anyone willing to pay $5 million and pass a vetting process to obtain legal U.S. residency. NOTUS’ Emily Kennard writes that some Republican senators were not pleased to learn that this may already be happening without a new law. “I just don’t know how they would do it statutorily,” Sen. Thom Tillis told her.
- About 9,000 Afghans in the U.S. under temporary protected status — some of whom assisted in U.S. efforts during the war there — could be subject to deportation, per a new order from Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem. Some Republican veterans in Congress are outraged, NOTUS’ Casey Murray reports. “There needs to be exceptions made for documented Afghans that have proof that they served alongside us and whose lives are at risk,” said Sen. Tim Sheehy.
Read Emily’s story. | Read Casey’s story.
Bath Time
The IRS free tax-filing tool is officially on the chopping block in budget reconciliation. House Republicans’ sweeping tax proposal would terminate IRS Direct File within 30 days of passage, which would be a major win for tax-prep giants like Intuit and H&R Block that have been lobbying to kill the two-year-old program.
But the provision has a negibile revenue effect, according to a Joint Committee on Taxation analysis, which experts say could get it booted in the Senate under the Byrd rule.
—Taylor Giorno
Front Page
- Trump’s Protectionist Trade Agenda Keeps Getting Less Protectionist: Trump’s trade war with China isn’t looking like it’ll prompt an industrial renaissance at home.
- Trump Administration Lawyers Made Their Careers at the Firms Trump Is Now Punishing: The president has fixated on a set of law firms that have given him trouble in the past. He’s also hired many lawyers who’ve benefited from working for them.
- As Contracts Lapse Across HHS, the NIH Awards Millions for Help Becoming MAHA: The National Institutes of Health is bringing on a consulting firm tasked with helping carry out President Donald Trump’s MAHA order.
Be Social
The beard primary heats up.
https://x.com/igorbobic/status/1922386771062456590
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