The Senate’s Summer Crush

Today’s notice: Moving fast in a slow place. Clearing the field. Emergency power, literally.

Summer Legislatin’, Happened So Fast: Senators returned to Washington this week with a huge thing to accomplish (Republicans passing their version of the reconciliation bill) and a tiny amount of time to do it in. Tension appeared almost immediately, NOTUS’ Ursula Perano and Helen Huiskes report.

• The stated goal: “I think we’re on track, I hope at least, to be able to produce something that we can pass through the Senate, send back to the House, have them pass and put on the president’s desk by the Fourth of July,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters last night.

• The reality check: “We’ll get there eventually, probably by the end of July, would be my guess,” Sen. John Cornyn told reporters the same day.

The biggest policy problem is already obvious: There are enough Republican senators openly squeamish about the House version’s Medicaid cuts to blow the bill up in the Senate. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is due to appear at a Senate GOP lunch this week to discuss “how to fix the Medicaid program,” Sen. Rick Scott told NOTUS.

• Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the most vocal opponents of the House’s Medicaid cuts, posted Monday on X that he spoke to Donald Trump and was again told the president wants “NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS.”

• “There’s going to be a lot of trade-offs in this whole negotiation,” Cornyn told reporters last night. “How do we knit 51 senators together? Right now, it looks a little challenging.”

The curtain call will probably come down to Trump: The president squeaked the House version through in the *ta-da* nick of time. He will likely have to do it again in the Senate.

• The president is already making calls: Thune met with him Monday morning.

• But those who remember a singular image from Trump 1.0 warn that no matter how fast you want to go in the Senate, you can only go as fast as 50 senators will let you. “It’ll be a John McCain sort of moment for somebody, perhaps,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said. “And the question then becomes whether they go “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” And at that point, the last couple of holdouts will have leverage and Donald Trump will have a hand to play.”

Not Reading Is Fundamental: NOTUS reporters asked Republican senators about our blockbuster reporting revealing shoddiness in the “Make America Healthy Again” report and if it raises any concerns about how the Trump administration makes health decisions. In contrast to their Democratic colleagues, who had a lot to say, there were several different versions of “no comment” on offer from Republicans on the HELP committee.

• “I don’t know enough about the MAHA report citation issues, but let me look into it,” Hawley said.
• “I don’t think that they would lie about it. It could be proven very quickly, so. I’m sure they’re telling the truth,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville said. After being told that NOTUS found several of the studies cited in the report were nonexistent, Tuberville replied, “We all want everything to be correct. That’s all I can tell you.”
• “I can’t really give you a judgment on that,” Sen. Susan Collins said. “I read widely on health care matters and biomedical research because it’s both a professional and personal interest of mine, but I haven’t gotten to that one yet.”
• “Well, I haven’t seen the studies that don’t exist,” Sen. Rand Paul said. “Sorry.”

Don’t Do It!: That’s the message a cadre of powerful conservatives in Texas is loudly sending to Rep. Wesley Hunt as he considers a run in the GOP primary against Sen. John Cornyn. A MAGA Texas set is rallying around state AG Ken Paxton, and they really do not want Hunt to enter into the race for fear it would make a Paxton win less likely, NOTUS’ Casey Murray reports.

• Cornyn’s camp would like him to sit this one out, too. “Wesley Hunt already has a role to play advancing the President’s agenda and helping protect his Majority in the House,” NRSC spox Nick Puglia told Casey.

• Some see this as exactly the reason a guy like Hunt is needed: “One can’t win the primary, and the other one puts us at great jeopardy of losing the seat in 2026 and neither of those are good outcomes for the party,” a Texas strategist said of Cornyn and Paxton.

He’s Got the Power: Energy Sec. Chris Wright has used emergency powers twice in the last two weeks to delay the scheduled closing of fossil-fuel-driven power plants right before the deadline. Wright says the delays are needed to prevent electricity shortages during the summer peak, but NOTUS’ Anna Kramer found that industry experts were skeptical.

• “This is an attempt to set the norm for intervention to keep power plants running based on perceived shortages, rather than actual emergencies,” said Joel Eisen, a University of Richmond energy law expert.
  

Unintended consequences alert: The closure delays make good on a promise to prioritize the fossil fuel industry, but could have the politically dangerous effect of raising electricity prices.

Standing by Their Man: Endorsers of Sen. John Fetterman’s 2022 Senate campaign tell NOTUS’ Torrence Banks they aren’t worried about Fetterman’s ability to advocate for them in Congress, despite reports about his mental health challenges and erratic behavior since entering office.

• “I’d be more concerned about his health,” said Arthur Steinberg, president of American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania. “I don’t have anything to base alarm or concern about his job performance because I haven’t seen any evidence of that personally.”

Not Us

• Stephen Miller ‘eviscerated’ ICE officials in private meeting for low deportation numbers, by Anna Giaritelli for the Washington Examiner
• Critics warn of loyalty test in new White House hiring guidelines, by Emily Peck for Axios
• Support From Trump Lifts Candidate in Poland’s Knife-Edge Presidential Race, by Thomas Grove for the Wall Street Journal

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