Today’s notice: Where rescissions stand. How Republicans are navigating Epstein. “That’s a question for the lawyers.” Mike Duggan’s campaign tells us his Elon plans.
The Latest
Vought, then vote. Senators may vote on the House-passed, Donald Trump-supported rescissions bill as early as this afternoon. But not until they share their concerns about it with OMB Director Russ Vought, set to appear at the Senate GOP’s closed-door lunch today. NOTUS’ Ursula Perano reports some Republican senators are still looking for answers on what is in this bill.
Those senators met Monday night and did not leave sounding satisfied. “There are programs to prevent malaria, polio, tuberculosis, the GAVI programs. There’s maternal and child health programs, there are nutrition programs. We still are lacking the level of detail that is needed to make the right decisions,” Sen. Susan Collins said, exiting the meeting.
Unlike with reconciliation, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is not expressing confidence this bill has the votes it needs to pass. “It’s always, again, what the traffic will bear,” he told reporters.
The timing is really tight on this. If the bill isn’t signed into law by the end of July 18, the appropriated government funding the White House is seeking to rescind has to be spent.
Jeffrey who? The NOTUS Hill team asked Republicans for their take on the MAGA-on-MAGA war over Attorney General Pam Bondi around the Jeffrey Epstein case. A clear pattern emerged.
There’s Sen. Mike Lee, who seems perfectly happy with keeping the conversation going on Epstein. Then there are the more than a dozen Republican lawmakers who told NOTUS they weren’t following the drama. “I understand there’s a big hullabaloo about that among people who are not engaged so much with the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill,’ so they’re engaged with the Epstein thing,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis told NOTUS. “I was just the opposite, I’m looking prospectively, not retroactively.”
OTOH, Democrats are happy to discuss everything about this in great detail. They’re filing stunt bills about Epstein files, they’re urging Republicans to call top DOJ officials, including Bondi, to testify. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries Monday: “The American people deserve to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as it relates to this whole sordid Jeffrey Epstein matter.”
Open Tabs: Defense Department to begin using Grok (WaPo); Bondi fires her personal ethics chief (Bloomberg); Bongino still in limbo, JD Vance seeks to play mediator (CNN); States sue Trump administration over frozen after-school and summer program funding (AP); Bitcoin hits new high during ‘Crypto Week’ (CNBC)
From the White House
Department of Ed’s end within reach? Trump has gone farther than other Republican presidents in realizing the longstanding conservative dream of eliminating the Department of Education. After Monday’s Supreme Court ruling allowing mass layoffs at the department, senior White House aides were feeling the overall goal getting closer, with one telling Jasmine they were optimistic SCOTUS “handed us a victory to make it real.”
But exactly what the ruling means in the short term will take some time to sort out. In the hours after the text was released, a senior administration official was not ready to say Trump can effectively shut this agency down without going through a messy effort in Congress. “That’s a question for the lawyers,” the official said.
The Big One
That’s a big N-O for Elon: Yesterday, we reported on the bumper crop of independent candidates running this cycle and what they’re thinking about Elon Musk’s America Party promise. Michigan gubernatorial candidate and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who tweeted at the billionaire back in June when Musk was feuding with Trump, didn’t respond to our request for comment (prompting some front-page local coverage and catching the attention of national and Michigan Democrats). Duggan’s team got back to us after publication Monday. His interest in courting Musk’s attention was short-lived, it seems.
“Mayor Duggan believes Michigan has suffered badly from the toxic fighting between Republicans and Democrats in Lansing. The Mayor’s solution is to run as an Independent who doesn’t belong to any party, because he believes that’s the best hope to forge a unified agenda for Michigan,” his spokesperson said in a statement.
Musk’s “approach is the opposite – it is to create a third party,” the statement went on. “Mayor Duggan believes that, for Michigan, the injection of a third party would add to the chaos and division in the State Legislature and make things worse. It is not an approach Mayor Duggan will be pursuing.”
New on NOTUS
Democrats target Brian Fitzpatrick: The Pennsylvania House Republican voted “no” on the final reconciliation bill, specifically saying its Medicaid cuts went too far. NOTUS’ Riley Rogerson reports that while he took flak from national MAGA figures, power GOP players in his district are not making noises about a serious primary challenge. But Democrats intend to use the law’s passage as a cudgel against him regardless of his vote.
In-N-Out the White House press release: The White House, touting the reach of its MAHA campaign in a press release, linked to an April Fools’ X post from an In-N-Out fan account. The joke post said the burger chain was using beef tallow to make its fries (it doesn’t). The White House removed the link after NOTUS’ Nuha Dolby asked them about it.
Sinema’s zombie campaign spends: Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema quit running for office more than a year ago, but she’s still using campaign committee funds to pay her private security detail. Dave Levinthal digs into the committee’s FEC filings for NOTUS, finding thousands of dollars spent on things like “security detail ski tickets” in Aspen and “donor appreciation supplies” at a Total Wine in Bethesda. She “may be testing the limit” of what’s legal, one campaign finance expert said.
Cuomo sticks around: After some speculation, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he will continue actively running for mayor of New York City, this time as a third-party candidate. Many of Cuomo’s endorsers in the Democratic primary have endorsed the winner of that contest, Zohran Mamdani. “We will be responsive to those who want to support my candidacy, but who would like an alternate way to do it,” Cuomo said in a video Monday.
More: More Than 20 States Are Suing the Trump Administration Over $6 Billion in Education Funding; DHS Denies Reports of Poor Conditions at ICE Facilities; Trump to Putin: End the War in 50 Days or Face ‘Severe Tariffs’
NOT US
- Tucker Carlson leads MAGA’s worried warriors in questioning Trump by Allan Smith for NBC News
- A tough week for Susan Collins by Calen Razor for Politico
- The CIA reveals more of its connections to Lee Harvey Oswald by Tom Jackman for The Washington Post
- Facing Painful Cuts, the V.A. Reported Dubious Savings to DOGE by David A. Fahrenthold, Nicholas Nehamas and Jeremy Singer-Vine for The New York Times
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