Category Archives: US Congress

Elon Musk’s proposed new political party could focus on a few pivotal congressional seats

Posted on by

Billionaire said his ‘America party’ would try to turn attainable House and Senate seats to decide major issues

The new US political party that Elon Musk has boasted about possibly bankrolling could initially focus on a handful of attainable House and Senate seats while striving to be the decisive vote on major issues amid the thin margins in Congress.

Tesla and SpaceX’s multibillionaire CEO mused about that approach on Friday in a post on X, the social media platform which he owns, as he continued feuding with Donald Trump over the spending bill that the president has signed into law.

Continue reading...

Trump’s big bill achieved what conservatives have been trying to do for decades

Posted on by

The Republican fantasy of lower taxes and hard-to-access social safety net programs will now be a reality

For decades, Republicans have argued that the US would be better off if taxes were low, and programs to help low-income Americans were harder to access. With Donald Trump’s marquee tax and spending bill now set to become law, the country will find out what it’s like to live under that sort of system.

The massive legislation that Trump plans to sign Friday will make his campaign promises a reality by extending tax cuts enacted during his first term, and creating new deductions aimed at the working-class voters who backed his re-election.

Continue reading...

Twisted arms and late-night deals: how Trump’s sweeping policy bill was passed

Posted on by

With narrow majorities and intra-party splits, Republicans faced a battle to give Trump his bill to sign – but they did it

Just a few months ago, analysts predicted that Republicans in Congress – with their narrow majorities and fractured internal dynamics – would not be able to pass Donald Trump’s landmark legislation.

On Thursday, the president’s commanding influence over his party was apparent once again: the bill passed just in time for Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.

Continue reading...

Planned Parenthood CEO warns budget bill could devastate group and slash abortion access in blue states

Posted on by

Alexis McGill Johnson says nearly 200 health centers could close if US House passes sweeping tax-and-spending bill

Planned Parenthood stands to lose roughly $700m in federal funding if the US House passes Republicans’ massive spending-and-tax bill, the organization’s CEO said on Wednesday, amounting to what abortion rights supporters and opponents alike have called a “backdoor abortion ban”.

“We are facing down the reality that nearly 200 health centers are at risk of closure. We’re facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas’s CEO, said in an interview Wednesday morning. “It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.”

Continue reading...

Trump makes case for ‘big, beautiful bill’ and cranks up pressure on Republicans

Posted on by

President calls for passage of signature tax bill but it’s not yet clear whether Senate Republicans have sufficient votes

Donald Trump convened congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday to make the case for passage of his marquee tax-and-spending bill, but it remains to be seen whether his pep talk will resolve a developing logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.

The president’s intervention comes as the Senate majority leader, John Thune, mulls an initial vote on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Friday, before a 4 July deadline Trump has imposed to have the legislation ready for his signature.

Continue reading...

Ro Khanna calls on Democrats to reclaim identity as ‘the anti-war party’

Posted on by

‘We should be the party of peace abroad, good jobs at home. Donald Trump took that from us,’ says congressman

In the days since Donald Trump authorized strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, and then forged a shaky ceasefire agreement, Congressman Ro Khanna has called on Democrats to reclaim a political identity he says they lost: being the party of peace.

“Now is the time for the Democratic party to be the anti-war party – the party against wars of choice,” Khanna said in an interview. “We should be the party of peace abroad, good jobs at home. Donald Trump took that from us in 2016 and 2024 and my leadership this past week has been trying to reclaim the anti-war mantle.”

Continue reading...

‘Not our war’: bipartisan US lawmakers back resolution to block involvement in Iran

Posted on by

Republican Thomas Massie joins with Democrats in effort to require Congress approval before Trump attacks Iran

As Donald Trump publicly threatens to join Israel in attacking Iran, an unlikely coalition of lawmakers has moved to prevent the president from involving US forces in the conflict without Congress’s approval.

On Tuesday, Republican congressman Thomas Massie, whose libertarian-tinged politics have often put him at odds with Trump, joined with several progressive Democrats to introduce in the House of Representatives a war powers resolution that would require a vote by Congress before Trump could attack Iran. Democrat Tim Kaine has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

Continue reading...

Ex-senator Bob Menendez arrives at prison to begin serving 11-year sentence

Posted on by

The New Jersey Democrat will be held in Pennsylvania facility after his conviction on bribery charges

Bob Menendez arrived at a federal prison on Tuesday to begin serving an 11-year sentence for accepting bribes of gold and cash and acting as an agent of Egypt. The New Jersey Democrat and former US senator has been mocked for the crimes as “Gold Bar Bob”, according to his own lawyer.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that Menendez was in custody at the Schuylkill federal correctional institution in Minersville, Pennsylvania. The facility has a medium-security prison and a minimum-security prison camp. Given the white-collar nature of his crimes, it is likely he will end up in the camp.

Continue reading...

Eyes on Senate Republicans as Trump and Musk feud over tax and spend bill

Posted on by

Lawmakers still weighing whether to pass ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ at root of rift between US president and tech boss

As the simmering tensions between Donald Trump and his once top adviser, the billionaire Elon Musk, erupted into public view on Thursday, eyes turned to the Republican lawmakers still weighing whether to pass the president’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill”.

It was approved by just a single vote in the House of Representatives with no Democratic support last month, and nonpartisan analysts have found the sweeping legislation could add a whopping $2.4tn-$5tn to the $36.2tn US national debt and make deep cuts to Medicaid and food-assistance programs. Seen as an outline of Trump’s “America first” agenda, the bill would also extend tax cuts, fund beefed-up immigration enforcement and impose new work requirements for enrollees of federal safety net programs.

Continue reading...

Vought says Trump may not need Congress’s approval to cut federal workforce

Posted on by

Amid bipartisan opposition, director of management and budget office says Trump prefers to use ‘executive tools’

Russell Vought, the director of the office of management and budget (OMB), on Sunday cast doubt on the constitutional obligation of the White House to ask Congress to sign off on Donald Trump’s massive cuts to the federal workforce spearheaded by Elon Musk.

Vought indicated the White House preferred to rely on “executive tools” for all but a “necessary” fraction of the cuts instead of submitting the whole package of jobs and agency slashing that took place via the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), to the congressional branch for its official approval.

Continue reading...

Top Republicans threaten to block Trump’s spending bill if national debt is not reduced

Posted on by

Prominent US senators warn Trump to ‘get serious’ about addressing budget deficit or they will block ‘beautiful bill’

Donald Trump has been warned by fiscal hawks within his own party in the US Senate that he must “get serious” about cutting government spending and reducing the national debt or else they will block the passage of his signature tax-cutting legislation known as the “big, beautiful bill”.

Ron Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin who rose to prominence as a fiscal hardliner with the Tea Party movement, issued the warning to the president on Sunday. Asked by CNN’s State of the Union whether his faction had the numbers to halt the bill, he replied: “I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”

Continue reading...

House passes Trump’s sweeping tax-cut bill, sends it to Senate

Posted on by

Measure would tighten eligibility for health and food programs for the poor and could add $3.8tn to US debt

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives narrowly passed a sweeping tax and spending bill that would enact much of President Donald Trump’s policy agenda on Thursday and saddle the country with trillions of dollars in debt.

The bill would fulfill many of Trump’s populist campaign pledges, delivering new tax breaks on tips and car loans and boosting spending on the military and border enforcement. It will add about $3.8tn to the federal government’s $36.2tn in debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Continue reading...

RFK Jr tells Congress ‘people shouldn’t take medical advice from me’

Posted on by

Health secretary demurs on questions about vaccine stance and defends Republican plans to cut healthcare

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, refused to say whether he would vaccinate his children if he had to choose today, and defended Republicans’ proposal to cut healthcare to fund tax cut extensions.

Kennedy’s back-to-back testimonies before House and Senate committees were his first appearances before lawmakers since his confirmation in February. The secretary was called to discuss Donald Trump’s proposed budget, which would impose disproportionately large cuts to scientific enterprises at the health department.

Continue reading...

‘Just wildly illegal’: top Democrats push to censure Trump’s plan to accept Qatar jet

Posted on by

Four senators, including Cory Booker, say they will press for vote against president’s plan to take $400m gift from Qatar

Top Democrats in the US Senate are pushing for a vote on the floor of the chamber censuring Donald Trump’s reported plan to accept a $400m luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar for use as Air Force One and later as a fixture in the Trump’s personal presidential library.

Four Democratic members of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Monday that they would press for a vote later this week. They said that elected officials, including the president, were not allowed to accept large gifts from foreign governments unless authorized to do so by Congress.

Continue reading...

House panel on campus antisemitism likened to cold-war ‘un-American’ committee

Posted on by

Georgetown professor called to testify says Republican-led proceedings ‘an attempt to chill protected speech’

A congressional panel investigating antisemitism on US college campuses on Wednesday was accused of trying to chill constitutionally protected free speech and likened to a cold-war era committee notorious for wrecking the lives of people suspected of communist sympathies.

The comparison was made by David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University law centre, who told the House education and workforce committee that its proceedings resembled those staged by the House un-American Activities Committee (Huac) during and after the second world war.

Continue reading...

Democrats in Congress warn cuts at top US labor watchdog will be ‘catastrophic’

Posted on by

Musk’s Doge targets National Labor Relations Board with cuts and terminated leases as union speaks out

Democrats have warned that cuts to the US’s top labor watchdog threaten to render the organization “basically ineffectual” and will be “catastrophic” for workers’ rights.

The so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has targeted the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for cuts and ended its leases in several states.

Continue reading...

Hakeem Jeffries and Cory Booker livestream sit-in against GOP funding plan

Posted on by

Democratic House leader and New Jersey senator protest on steps of US Capitol over proposed Republican budget

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and New Jersey senator Cory Booker were holding a sit-in protest and discussion on Sunday on the steps of the US Capitol in opposition to Republicans’ proposed budget plan.

Billed as an “Urgent Conversation with the American People”, the livestreamed discussion comes before Congress’s return to session on Monday, where Democrats hope to stall Republicans’ economic legislative agenda. Throughout the day, they were joined by other Democratic lawmakers, including the senator Raphael Warnock, who spoke as the sit-in passed the 10-hour mark.

Continue reading...

‘National disgrace’: US lawmakers decry student detentions on visit to Ice jails

Posted on by

Delegation visits jails where Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk are being held and denounce ‘authoritarian’ Trump

Congressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.

“We stand firm with them in support of free speech,” the Louisiana congressman Troy Carter, who led the delegation, said during a press conference after the visits on Tuesday. “They are frightened, they’re concerned, they want to go home.”

Continue reading...

Maryland senator meets Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador amid battle over US return

Posted on by

Chris Van Hollen posts photo on X but does not provide update on status of man wrongly deported from US

The Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen met in El Salvador with Kilmar Ábrego García, a man who was sent there by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.

Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on X, saying he also called Ábrego García’s wife “to pass along his message of love”.

Continue reading...

Democratic senator heads to El Salvador to try to visit Kilmar Ábrego García

Posted on by

Chris Van Hollen warns of ‘constitutional crisis’ and says he hopes to report back to family on Maryland man’s condition

Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland will travel to El Salvador on Wednesday and attempt to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, a constituent whose deportation and incarceration in the Central American country, he warns, has tipped the United States into a constitutional crisis.

In an interview with the Guardian on Tuesday, Van Hollen said he hopes to learn of Ábrego García’s condition and convey it to his family, who also live in the state he represents.

Continue reading...