‘Stop Proposing This Populist S---’

Today’s notice: Congress steps aside on foreign policy. How the booze lobby won. Tech Force is here. The ACA discharge petition is not going away. And: Trump blindsides congressional Republicans.

THE LATEST

The president’s free foreign policy hand stays free: The brief drama around a war powers vote in the Senate effectively ended with an affirmation that Donald Trump’s powers will remain unchecked for the time being. A procedural motion and a tiebreaker cast by JD Vance allowed the Republicans who crossed Trump last week — namely Sens. Josh Hawley and Todd Young — the chance to avoid a public reversal while also not crossing him again, NOTUS’ Hamed Ahmadi reports.

Trump put a lot of public and private pressure on the holdouts, and he won. Not that it would have mattered if he lost, as the bill would require his signature to become law. So: Republicans found a way to express some concerns with White House foreign policy, but also do what the president wants.

America now waits to see what Trump does next. He is expected to host Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado (Nobel Peace Prize in hand) at the White House today, but has given no indication that he’s changed his mind when it comes to her leading the country.

Trump told reporters yesterday that he spoke on the phone with the country’s current leader, Delcy Rodríguez, “and I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”

The next phase of the Gaza peace plan is also moving forward, according to U.S. officials who briefed reporters yesterday. That’s despite skepticism from both Israel and the Trump administration that Hamas will cooperate with disarmament — and, of course, no input from Congress.

On Iran, Trump seemed to dial back the idea there’d be any immediate U.S. military intervention there, but said the option was still available. “We’re going to watch and see what the process is,” he told reporters yesterday.

What do we know about how Trump makes these decisions? A senior White House official told Jasmine that some of the people outside his administration he’s talking to the most about Iran are Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. But in a break from his first term — when he would call anyone and everyone for their advice on what to do — “the internal team are the ones leading the way on this.”

Those concerned Republicans remain on the sidelines. If anyone’s asking, they’d really like the whole Greenland thing to go away, NOTUS’ Tyler Spence, Torrie Herrington and Jasmine report.

Open tabs: Inside Trump’s $11 billion health plan to replace “neo-colonial” USAID (Axios); Federal Judges Uphold California’s New Congressional Districts (NOTUS); Fine Arts Panel Postpones Review of Trump’s Ballroom (NYT); Trump Admin Cancels Billions in Grants for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment (NOTUS)

From the Hill

Declined: House Republicans aren’t buying Trump’s proposed 10% cap on credit-card interest rates, which would require congressional approval. Members said Trump’s announcement blindsided them.

“Classic example of administration shooting from the hip,” one House Republican, who sits on the Financial Services Committee, told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman and Jade Lozada.

“I understand what the president is trying to do,” Rep. Troy Downing, another member of the committee, told NOTUS. But: “I think we need to explore this more and find ways of dealing with that without putting government-mandated caps.”

Mike Johnson warned Tuesday that such caps could have “negative secondary side effects.” Other House Republicans said they thought the cap would make it harder for people to access credit, and took a thanks-but-no-thanks approach to Trump’s proposal.

One senior House Republican offered harsher words about the president’s attempts to address concerns about rising costs, which congressional Republicans have struggled to find their own cohesive response to.

“Stop proposing this populist shit,” they said.

From K Street

Guess who’s toasting the new nutrition guidelines? At least 15 alcohol companies and trade associations reported that during Q3 of last year they actively lobbied on dietary guidelines, NOTUS’ Dave Levinthal and Taylor Giorno report.

The government is no longer giving suggested number limits on drinks. “Consume less alcohol for better overall health” is the new advice.

The lobbyists’ pitch to Trumpworld, according to two of them who spoke on the condition of anonymity: more generalized alcohol recommendations would align with the individual-choice ethos of “Make America Healthy Again.”

The White House’s comment: “Any notion that the Trump administration’s MAHA Agenda, which is a key presidential priority, is influenced by anything other than gold standard science and the wellbeing of the American people is either ignorant or intentionally misleading,” spox Kush Desai said.

From Silicon Valley

Tech Force is assembling. Now what? Just about every major tech player you can think of has agreed to participate in the White House’s AI jobs initiative, but no one really knows what it entails yet, NOTUS’ Margaret Manto and Samuel Larreal report. “We are in early days and look forward to providing further detail as our plans take shape,” a spox for the software firm ServiceNow said.

The outside view: “It’s a ‘tit for tat, you rub my back, I’ll rub your back’ in some sort of future issue. And for the tech companies, it’s relatively low cost,” Will Rinehart, a senior fellow and AI policy researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, told NOTUS.

THE BIG ONE

Did the most important House vote of 2026 already happen? The House’s passage of a bill to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies — which the Senate already spiked — has opened up a portal to hell for Republicans. Democrats are counting on it widening.

It tore apart the Republican conference. A senior House GOP aide told Reese that the 17 defecting Republicans were proof that another Republican-led reconciliation package would be impossible. And Rep. Tim Burchett isn’t hiding his frustration with his colleagues, who he said prioritized their reelection campaigns over “principle.”

“They’re still in with the fair-haired members close to leadership,” Burchett told Emily about his colleagues. “And they’re not punished. And they wear me out all the time about votes.”

One of those Republicans that they’re complaining about, Rep. Rob Bresnahan, said he knew going in that the bill was unlikely to become law. But he voted for it “to keep the conversations alive with some sensible reforms like we had been working on.”

Democrats are focused on the Republicans who didn’t vote for the extension. The DCCC counts 18 of them from districts it’s targeting in the fall. The organization has called Republicans who didn’t take the free vote on health care “the dumb dumbs.”

It’s already come up in one ad from Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar, which touts her support for the discharge petition and the extension as part of her “commitment to affordable health care.”

Over in the Senate, NOTUS’ Avani Kalra and Ursula Perano report that negotiators are sounding the alarm: Time is running out and there’s still no deal.

NEW ON NOTUS

Booker’s new bill: New legislation sponsored by Sen. Cory Booker would rein in immigration officers’ use of force, require all federal agents to use body cameras in immigration operations and increase training standards, NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos reports. The bill comes after Republicans in the House delayed an appropriations bill for DHS after backlash from Democrats.

More: SCOTUS Says Candidates Can Challenge Voting Laws. Republicans Are Ready to Take Advantage. By Oriana González

Democrats Say DOJ Is Probing Their Involvement in ‘Illegal Orders’ Video, by Amelia Benavides-Colón

NOT US

• Can the ICE Agent Who Shot Renee Good Be Prosecuted? By Shaila Dewan and Jonah E. Bromwich for The New York Times
  
• I’d smash you in the face: MAGA’s Debt to William F. Buckley, by Thomas Meaney for the London Review of Books
  
• Trump’s judicial blitz loses steam, by Hassan Ali Kanu and Alex Gangitano for Politico

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