Nears 1 million war casualties......

Russia nears 1 million war casualties in Ukraine, study finds

By Christian Edwards

Nearly 1 million Russian soldiers have been killed or injured in the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a new study, a grisly measure of the human cost of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked three-year assault on his neighbor.

Russia will likely hit the 1 million casualty mark this summer, said the study, published Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank in Washington, DC. It said the “stunning” milestone was a “sign of Putin’s blatant disregard for his soldiers.”

Of the estimated 950,000 Russian casualties so far, as many as 250,000 are dead, according to the study. “No Soviet or Russian war since World War II has even come close to Ukraine in terms of fatality rate,” it said. Ukraine has sustained nearly 400,000 casualties, it added, with between 60,000 and 100,000 deaths.

Although Kyiv does not disclose its own combat losses in any detail and Moscow is believed to drastically underestimate its own casualties, the CSIS figures are in line with British and United States intelligence assessments.

In March, the British defense ministry estimated that Russia had sustained around 900,000 casualties since 2022. For months, it has judged that Russia is losing about 1,000 soldiers each day, whether killed or wounded. Based on that trend, Russia would be expected to surpass the 1 million threshold in the coming weeks.

Rebutting claims from some Western lawmakers that Russia holds “all the cards” in the war in Ukraine, the CSIS study used Russian casualty figures – as well as estimates of its heavy equipment losses and sluggish territorial gains – as evidence that Moscow’s military “has performed relatively poorly on the battlefield” and failed to achieve its main war goals.

After Ukraine repelled Russia’s initial “blitzkrieg” assault in 2022, the war has since become attritional. While Kyiv dug in with trenches and mines, Moscow funneled more and more troops into what have become known as “meat grinder” assaults, throwing soldiers into campaigns for only marginal territorial gains, the study said.

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, Russian forces have advanced an average of only 50 meters per day, according to the study. That is slower than the British and French advance in the Battle of the Somme in the trench warfare of World War I.

The slow rate of advance has meant Russia has seized only 1% of Ukrainian territory since January 2024, which the authors called a “paltry” amount. Russia now occupies around 20% of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimean peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014.

But Russia’s dwindling territorial gains have not led to a change in strategy. To sustain Russia’s staggering rate of casualties, the Kremlin has enlisted convicts from its prisons and welcomed more than 10,000 troops from its ally North Korea, but it has left the children of Moscow and St. Petersburg elites largely untouched.

Instead, Moscow has recruited in the far north and far east of the country, where men have been lured by pay packages that are life-changing among poorer communities in those regions. “Putin likely considers these types of soldiers more expendable and less likely to undermine his domestic support base,” the study noted.

Whereas Ukraine, a democracy with a population less than a quarter the size of Russia’s, has faced some pushback in its attempts to mobilize more troops, Russia, where criticism of the war has been outlawed, has faced no significant dissent. But, with the war now well into its fourth year, the authors warned that the “blood cost” of its protracted campaign was a potential vulnerability for Putin.

Although Russia has had the “initiative” in the conflict since early 2024, the authors said the attritional nature of the war has left “few opportunities for decisive breakthroughs.”

Instead, Russia’s main hope to win “is for the United States to cut off aid to Ukraine” – as President Donald Trump briefly did earlier this year – and “walk away from the conflict” – as officials in his administration have threatened to do.

Doubled the tariffs on steel and aluminum

The Trump administration just doubled the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Here’s what that means

By Chris Isidore

US tariffs on steel and aluminum doubled to 50% as of 12:01 am ET on Wednesday, a move cheered by the beleaguered American steel industry but worrisome to sectors that heavily use the metals, from car makers to can manufacturers.

The jump in import taxes is the latest salvo in President Donald Trump’s trade war, part of a broad range of tariffs he’s levied since February. But the steel tariffs are especially significant to him and his political base, a symbol of once-iconic US manufacturing that has since fallen on hard times.

The leap in tariffs likely won’t hit American pocketbooks immediately – but experts say that higher prices on construction projects, car lots, appliances and elsewhere are all but inevitable from the higher duties. And while the tariffs could protect steel manufacturing jobs, they could hurt employment in much larger industries.

But the administration said the tariffs are crucial to national security and the economy.

“Domestic steel and aluminum production is imperative for our defense-industrial base,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to CNN. “The Trump administration is committed to reshoring manufacturing that’s critical for our national and economic security while unleashing a full suite of supply-side reforms – including rapid deregulation, tax cuts, and unleashing American energy – to continue delivering economic relief for the American people.”

The American Iron and Steel Institute, an industry trade group, said that protecting the steel industry is crucial.

“We still consume more steel than we produce in America,” said Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of Cleveland Cliffs, one of the major US steelmakers, and the chairman of AISI.

He said that raising the tariffs to 50% will only increase the cost of building a car by $300, which he characterized as minor in terms of the overall cost of a car.

“The average cost of a car is $48,000, with an added $300, it’s $48,300. That’s not going to be the decision-making factor for a person to buy or not buy a car,” he said at a press conference Tuesday.

But the Aluminum Association, the trade group for that industry, said it worried that the broad universal tariff could hurt it more than it helps as it cuts off the supply of raw aluminum from Canada many finishing mills in the United States depend upon. Those mills account for most of the jobs in the US aluminum industry.

Industries that use steel and aluminum also expressed concern. Can manufacturers warned that price hikes could even reach grocery store shelves.

The Can Manufacturers Institute, a trade group for the industry, said domestic can makers import almost 80% of tin mill steel due to the cut in domestic production of that type of steel. It said the increase in tariffs will “further increase the cost of canned goods,” such as food and drinks.

But it is not clear when or if that increase of a few cents per can will be passed onto consumers.

Experts also warn there are more jobs at risk at manufacturers that use steel and aluminum than would be protected by the tariffs.

“I think that’s a really quintessentially damaging policy, there are (at least) 50 times more workers…in industries that use steel, like cars, than there are in the steel industry,” Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council during the Obama administration, told CNN Monday. “And so the net effect of this is going to be to destroy manufacturing jobs. The net effect of this is going to be to push up consumer prices.”

‘They’re not bashful’ about price increases

Trump announced a 25% tariff on steel imports in February, part of a broader effort by the White House to revive America’s Rust Belt and boost manufacturing jobs.

He announced the doubling of the tariffs on Friday during a trip to a US Steel mill outside of Pittsburgh.

“If you don’t have steel, you don’t have a country,” he told a crowd filled with cheering steelworkers. “You can’t make a military. What are we going to do? Say, ‘Let’s go to China to get our steel for the army tanks and for the boats and ships.’ A strong steel industry is not just a matter of dignity or prosperity and pride. It’s above all, a matter of national security.”

Spot steel prices have increased 20% or more, depending on the product, since the original 25% tariffs went into effect in March, said Philip Gibbs, steel analyst for KeyBank. He said that aluminum prices have also increased, but not by as much. Overall steel prices increased 6% just between March and April, according to the government’s Producer Price Index, while aluminum prices increased 2%.

“They’re not bashful about asking for price increases,” Gibbs said. “If they feel like if they have a window to ask, they will.”

The two industries have been benefiting from the previous 25% tariffs. But they’ve had other protections.

Trump in 2018, during his previous administration, also announced 25% tariffs on steel and 10% tariffs on aluminum, although the following year he lifted them on Mexico and Canada.

While the US is not the manufacturing-focused economy it once was, it still consumes tens of millions of tons of steel and aluminum a year. Studies of those 2018 tariffs found that for every steel job that was saved, there were 75 jobs lost elsewhere in manufacturing due to higher input costs. (The American Iron and Steel Institute challenges those studies.)

Automakers mostly source their steel used at North American plants from domestic mills, and they have long-term purchase contracts that have, so far, protected them from price increases in the spot market. But the previous round of tariffs in 2018 and the price increases that followed eventually cost the companies billions of dollars, the automakers reported at that time.

It also did little to increase steel production then, and it’s not clear it will this time. For example, American producers have largely exited the market for the tin mill steel used for cans. That includes Cleveland Cliffs, but Goncalves said the company is not considering restarting that production even with the 50% tariffs. He also wouldn’t comment on his company’s pricing plans.

And the tariffs could actually hurt some manufacturers they we designed to protect. The earlier 25% tariff on all imported aluminum could cost 100,000 American jobs, William Oplinger, the CEO of Alcoa, one of the largest US aluminum makers, warned in February. Asked if it had any new estimates given the doubling of the tariffs, Alcoa told CNN in a statement that it is “evaluating the announcement.”

Some of those jobs could be because of lost business. Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said in February the company is preparing to package more of its products in plastic and glass as opposed to aluminum to avoid the higher input costs, and that was considering only the 25% tariff rate.

But US aluminum mills in the United States get much of the aluminum they process from Canada, where the cost of energy needed to make the raw material is cheaper. The Aluminum Association is seeking a carve out for Canadian imports.

“We urge the administration to take a tailored approach that reserves high tariffs for bad actors—such as China—that flood the market and includes carve outs for proven partners—such as Canada,” said the trade group’s statement. “Doing so will ensure the US economy has the access to the aluminum it needs to grow, while we work with the administration to increase domestic production.”

Playing legislative arsonist

Musk joins Trump in playing legislative arsonist

Analysis by Aaron Blake

For years, congressional Republicans have dealt with a president in Donald Trump who isn’t terribly engaged in (or often seemingly aware of) the day-to-day legislative battles – right up until the point he decides to make a splash.

Sometimes, they’ll gently suggest he might get involved in the process a little earlier. Often, he waits and then just blows up the whole thing, forcing lawmakers to scramble to address his whims. As far back as 2018, I compared Trump to a legislative “arsonist.”

It’s a tough enough situation for GOP lawmakers as it is.

But now they apparently have two billionaire legislative arsonists leading their movement.

Elon Musk on Tuesday afternoon lit into what Trump’s calling his “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which is largely devoted to extending his tax cuts. The bill has tested the tolerance of both fiscal conservatives who are worried about it ballooning the national debt and Republicans who want to protect Medicaid, which the House GOP’s version targets for significant cuts.

And Musk wasn’t content to just express his opposition. He went so far as to call it a “disgusting abomination” that explodes the debt – contrary to GOP leaders’ and the White House’s claims. He accused Republicans who support it of knowing better. And he even suggested those who run afoul of him could find themselves targeted in the 2026 election.

“It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt,” Musk posted on his social media platform X. He also wrote: “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

While Musk has gently expressed his concerns about Trump’s tariffs, broken with some Trump allies on visas for highly skilled workers, and even said he was “disappointed” by the “Big, Beautiful Bill” before, this is something else entirely. It’s Musk taking his chainsaw to what is likely to be the GOP’s most significant legislative effort of the current Congress – and Trump’s agenda – out of nowhere.

Musk, who left his role as a special government employee just days ago, has a lot at stake as a businessman — something House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested could be behind the Tesla CEO’s outburst.

“I know that the [electric vehicle] mandate – very important to him. That is going away, because the government should not be subsidizing these things as part of the Green New Deal. And I know that has an effect on his business. And I lament that,” he said.

This is the second time Musk has done something like this.

After Trump’s election in November, Musk played perhaps the biggest role in abruptly torpedoing a bipartisan bill to prevent a government shutdown.

The billionaire did this even as Trump had been keeping his powder dry up until that point. It led plenty to wonder who was really in charge. The Trump team claimed it was aligned with Musk, but why had Musk suddenly taken the lead on this?

Musk’s missive back then was remarkable for how quickly it marshalled conservative opposition and caused Republican officeholders to respond – often pleadingly. It called to mind the many instances in which Trump suddenly inserted himself into legislative battles at the 11th hour and shook them up.

(Indeed, even on that specific bill, Trump decided very late in the process to demand the package include a debt-ceiling increase – a request that came out of left field and left Republicans wondering why he didn’t speak up earlier.)

But this is different than in December. This time, Republicans have pursued their own bill focused on Trump’s tax cuts (rather than a must-pass bill to keep the government open) that is aimed at winning the president’s approval. And Trump has praised their efforts. Earlier on Tuesday, he saw fit to go hard after one of the bill’s chief GOP critics, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, whose concerns align with Musk’s.

Trump’s push for the bill has created a situation in which there is a much more in-your-face tension between his and Musk’s positions than ever before – with no obvious way forward for the MAGA movement.

There is plenty to play out with the bill, and virtually nobody thought the House-passed package that Musk was criticizing Tuesday would be the final result. But his fiery rhetoric suggests modest changes around the edges won’t be enough for him.

Musk’s opposition comes at a particularly inopportune time, after House Republicans mustered the votes and Senate Republicans were just starting to take up the issue in earnest. And it makes it a whole lot harder for the GOP to argue this is somehow fiscally responsible.

Musk’s opposition is also a big deal because it provides a high-profile face to the existing conservative concerns about the cost of the package. A handful of Republicans like Paul, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and House Freedom Caucus members have been making that case, but none of them come close to Musk’s heft. It’s not difficult to see this awakening some of what remains of the GOP’s recent tea party past. Similar to the December showdown, on Tuesday we saw all kinds of Republicans suddenly feel compelled to reckon with Musk’s attack. A few critics and skeptics of the bill doubled down.

It remains to be seen how much pull Musk’s efforts have with individual senators, given his and DOGE’s unpopularity and the fact that he’s no longer officially part of the administration. He’s also a relative newcomer to conservative politics, and his effort to go at Trump could alienate some of his newfound allies. But polling also shows he retains significant pull within the GOP base; a late-April New York Times/Siena College poll showed 77% of Republicans had a favorable opinion of him, and 44% were “very favorable.” He has also proven willing to unleash many tens of millions of dollars on political campaigns.

It certainly throws a wrench in the GOP’s attempts to unify behind Trump’s legislative agenda. Republicans already have narrow majorities, especially in the House. But they seemed to be moving past the gridlock that dogged their side during the Biden administration (see: ousting then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy), thanks to the common causes that are loyalty to Trump and their fear of running afoul of him.

Now, though, they have two rather unwieldy and unpredictable billionaires with relatively little legislative know-how, huge followings and unsteady whims to worry about.

(A case in point: Musk called the package a “pork-filled Congressional spending bill,” but the reason the bill is expensive isn’t earmarks or “pork,” but rather the tax-cut extension.)

And those two figures’ goals increasingly appear to be at cross purposes.

It was always a somewhat uneasy marriage between Trump and Musk. Musk’s whole thing is cutting spending and reining in the federal government; he’s basically fashioned himself a throwback to the tea party conservatives of the 2010 era. But that’s never been much of a priority for Trump, who talks about cutting spending but rarely makes it a priority. (Even while saying goodbye to Musk last week, Trump decided to talk about abolishing the debt ceiling.)

The two seemed to meet in the middle because Musk’s efforts to wreck shop with his DOGE cuts overlapped with Trump’s efforts to transform the federal government into a more Trump-loyal institution. But DOGE quickly became a liability, and now the two men’s relationship is being tested.

Musk hasn’t been terribly subtle about the fact that he disagrees with much of what Trump is doing. In a CBS News interview that aired Sunday, he suggested he was holding back on saying too much.

“I’m a little stuck in a bind, where I’m like, well, I don’t want to, you know, speak up against the administration,” Musk said, “but I also don’t want to take responsibility for everything this administration’s doing.”

In the course of a few days, Musk decided not just to speak up, but to severely complicate the GOP’s legislative prospects. And to the extent he plans to keep wielding his influence like this, the party now needs contend with two huge variables that can suddenly change the calculation at any given time.

And it was hard enough with just one.

Didn't the orange turd say he made already 200 great deals??? Where the fuck are they?

Trump calls dealmaking with China’s Xi ‘extremely hard’ as frictions rise

By Simone McCarthy

US President Donald Trump says Chinese leader Xi Jinping is “extremely hard to make a deal with” in a comment that comes as frictions rise between the two countries, weeks after they reached an agreement to de-escalate trade tensions.

“I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!” Trump wrote in a post on his platform Truth Social in the early hours of Wednesday morning Washington time.

Tensions have ratcheted up between the United States and China as expected trade talks between the two sides appeared to stall just weeks into a 90-day tariff truce agreed to last month in Geneva.

That truce hit pause on a damaging tit-for-tat escalation of tariffs sparked by Washington’s raising of duties on Chinese imports into the US. Trump has since accused China of “violating” the agreement – a charge Beijing has denied, while it accuses the US of taking measures that “seriously undermine” their consensus.

Trump’s latest remarks come as a long-awaited call between the US president and Xi has yet to materialize, despite repeated suggestions from the White House that such talks, which Washington sees as key to jump-starting progress, were imminent.

Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Monday said the two leaders would likely speak “this week,” while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in an interview with CBS’ Face the Nation that aired Sunday said he believed that issues between the two sides would be “ironed out” in a leader-level call “very soon.” China’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said it had “no information to share” when asked about the potential call at a regular media briefing. The two leaders are not known to have had a call since days before Trump’s inauguration in January.

The president’s latest comments, expressing that he “likes” Xi, however, appear more conciliatory than a missive posted on social media Friday where he wrote that China “TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US.” Then, Trump said that he made a “fast deal” with China to “save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation.” He added: “So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”

Trump had in recent months repeatedly raised tariffs on Chinese goods, part of his broader efforts aimed at reshaping the US role in global trade and reversing the offshoring of American jobs and decline of US manufacturing. US tariffs on steel and aluminum doubled to 50% as of 12:01 am ET on Wednesday, while the White House also negotiates with a host of countries on tariffs.

The president’s Wednesday message about Xi echoes some of his past friendly and even admiring language toward the Chinese leader – one of a handful of strongmen that Trump has praised or lauded close relations with throughout his political career.

It also follows a meeting on Tuesday in Beijing between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and newly arrived US ambassador to China David Perdue, where Wang urged the US to work with China to “return relations to the right track.”

When asked about Trump’s Wednesday comments during a regular briefing in Beijing Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that “China’s principles and position of developing China-US relations are consistent.”

Frictions have emerged in the wake of the Geneva agreement over Beijing’s export controls on rare earth minerals and associated products and US moves targeting China’s tech industry and its international students.

Following the Geneva talks, US officials had expected China to ease export restrictions of those minerals, which were imposed in retaliation against Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on Chinese goods. The minerals are an essential part of everything from iPhones and electric vehicles to big-ticket weapons like F-35 fighter jets and missile systems.

But the restrictions haven’t been lifted, causing intense displeasure inside the Trump administration and prompting a recent series of measures imposed on China, three administration officials told CNN last week.

Beijing, meanwhile, has bristled as Washington warned to companies against using AI chips made by China’s national tech champion Huawei, moved to limit critical technology sales to China and announced that the US would “aggressively revoke visas” for Chinese students in the US with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.

Increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion

House GOP ‘big, beautiful bill’ would increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion, CBO says

By Tami Luhby

House Republicans’ sweeping tax and spending cuts package would increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the bill that GOP lawmakers narrowly approved last month.

The highly anticipated score, which was released Wednesday, could complicate Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s task of crafting a version of the legislation that his divided conference would approve. Several GOP senators have already expressed concern about the House package’s potential impact to the deficit and want to make deeper spending cuts, while others are wary of the major reductions to the nation’s safety net – particularly Medicaid – in the House bill.

The analysis also adds ammunition to billionaire Elon Musk’s attacks on the package, which he wrote on X Tuesday would bankrupt America. The posts follow an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, in which Musk said will increase the deficit and undermine the work of his Department of Government Efficiency.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” Musk, who recently stepped back from his role with the federal government, posted on X, later adding, “Congress is making America bankrupt.”

Senators began working on the legislation this week, but whatever changes they make would have to pass muster in the House. Thune is hoping to send it to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4.

The CBO analysis also adds fuel to Democrats’ and budget watchdogs’ claims that the package, which aims to fulfill Trump’s agenda, would worsen the nation’s fiscal outlook while providing big tax cuts for the wealthy.

Trump and House GOP leaders have already sought to undercut the CBO’s projections, arguing that nonpartisan agency has missed the mark in the past and that its analyses don’t properly account for the economic growth that would result from the tax breaks. They have made similar claims about estimates from independent groups that also project a big hit to the deficit.

Some Senate leaders are looking to dodge the question of the package’s deficit impact by arguing that extending the 2017 tax cuts should be considered a continuation of current policy, and, therefore, would not contribute to an increase in the deficit. The CBO analysis is based on the standard approach of current law, in which the tax cuts expire at the end of the year, so their extension would entail a cost.

The House package calls for making permanent essentially all of the individual income tax cuts contained in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a landmark achievement of Trump’s first term. The bill would also temporarily provide tax relief to certain senior citizens and workers who earn tips and overtime, which Trump promised on the campaign trail last year. And it would temporarily restore two TCJA tax breaks for businesses, including allowing them to immediately deduct the cost of research and development and equipment.

To help offset the cost of the tax relief, the House bill would enact historic cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, two of the nation’s key safety net programs. The package would institute work requirements in Medicaid, which provides health insurance to low-income Americans, and would expand the work mandate in the food stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. These provisions would result in millions of people losing their access to health coverage and nutrition assistance, according to preliminary CBO projections released earlier.

The bill would also boost spending on defense, border security and immigration enforcement, which are among Trump’s top priorities.

House Oversight bid

Jasmine Crockett makes House Oversight bid official

The Texan is the fourth Democrat seeking to replace Rep. Gerry Connolly as a potential future chair.

By Nicholas Wu and Hailey Fuchs

Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett officially kicked off a bid to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, making her the fourth contestant in a crowded race to succeed the late Rep. Gerry Connolly.

“Our country is in an existential crisis driven by an out-of-control Executive with a flagrant disregard for our Constitution, our way of governance, and our very way of life as citizens of a democratic republic,” she said in a letter to Democratic colleagues obtained by POLITICO. “We must pull back the curtain on the unmitigated chaos under Trump 2.0 and translate our findings to the American people in a way they can digest.”

The vacancy opened by Connolly’s death has kicked off a hotly contested race to lead a panel likely to take a bulldog approach to President Donald Trump and his administration if Democrats take the House majority in next year’s midterms. Three other Democrats have declared bids: Reps. Robert Garcia of California, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts and Kweisi Mfume of Maryland.

The contest has set up a generational clash among Democrats amid a broader reckoning with seniority and age in the caucus. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), opted against a bid, leading many Democrats to see the secret-ballot caucus election scheduled for June 24 as wide open.

Crockett told her Democratic colleagues she saw the committee leadership position as one to respond to Trump and make the case for a Democratic majority.

“From the pulpit of the Oversight Committee, the Ranking Member must lay out our case against Trump 2.0 and his accomplices, the Republicans in the House, and discharge this message across the nation,” she wrote, adding that “our work cannot be solely reactive.”

Crockett, who is 44 and serving her second term, is seen as a rising star among House Democrats. She’s earned plaudits from other Democrats for her tough questioning and viral moments on the committee — and criticism from Republicans for recent verbal missteps. She challenged Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan to lead the caucus’ messaging arm and came up short in a previous leadership bid.

Connolly designated Lynch, 70, to serve as an interim ranking member. Garcia, 47, has been running on his record as mayor of Long Beach, California, and his caucus leadership position. And Mfume, 76, has touted his experience leading an Oversight subpanel overseeing government operations.

In her letter to colleagues, Crockett cited her experience as vice ranking member of the committee — a largely ceremonial title — and her background as the child of a federal worker from St. Louis, Missouri. She also praised former President Joe Biden, saying he “saved the world economy,” at a time when the former president and his inner circle have come under fire for failing to disclose concerns around the octogenarian politician’s fitness for office.

Hard-liners hard-on.......

‘Big Beautiful Tweet': Hard-liners rejoice at Musk’s megabill bashing

Hard-liners opposed to the GOP megabill were happy to see Elon Musk’s support on Tuesday.

Mia McCarthy

Elon Musk’s bashing of President Donald Trump’s megabill sparked some conflict with congressional Republicans. But some deficit hawks were thrilled.

Several hard-liners rejoiced at Musk’s comments on X on Tuesday — calling the House-passed GOP megabill a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill” and a “disgusting abomination.”

“These numbers are nothing short of stunning,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) responded. “Congress has hollowed out America’s middle class through reckless deficit spending and the inflation it causes.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has reiterated his opposition to the bill, said to reporters on Tuesday that Musk “has some of the same skepticism” as him that the bill is “just not conservative.”

Musk’s comments came less than two weeks after Speaker Mike Johnson carefully threaded the GOP megabill through his razor-thin majority. He managed to garner enough support from conservative hard-liners concerned over the bill’s multi-trillion-dollar deficit impact. But Musk’s comments reignited the conversation as the bill heads to the Senate.

The two hard-right House Republicans who voted against the bill quickly praised Musk for speaking out. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) called Musk’s post “The Big Beautiful Tweet,” while Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) responded, “He’s right.”

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the Freedom Caucus chair who voted “present” on the bill, told reporters he didn’t know if Musk’s blowtorch approach would change any minds in the congressional GOP. But he said “we ought to pay attention” when people with “real world experience” throw up red flags about growing deficits.

Most Republican senators — even very conservative ones — didn’t appear to share Musk’s assessment that the bill was hopeless. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he believed it would be salvageable with some adjustments.

“I think the Senate should make the bill substantially better, and I hope and believe we’ll do that,” Cruz said.

Any opponents will have to face Trump, who has already publicly bashed Paul and Massie on Truth Social for their prior comments. The president is pushing for the bill to pass with components, such as raising the debt ceiling and border wall spending, that the members have criticized.

“Sure, it helps bolster the case,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a key Senate deficit hawk, said about Musk’s post. “But again, the president wants to balance the budget as well.”

New crypto bill

Senators get ready to roll out a new crypto bill

Senate GOP leaders are still working on getting a separate stablecoin bill passed in the coming days.

Jasper Goodman

Pro-cryptocurrency senators expect to introduce landmark legislation that would divvy up oversight of digital assets between market regulators this month, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said Tuesday, signaling that the upper chamber will soon ramp up the next phase of its push to pass industry-friendly crypto measures.

House Republicans have already introduced a so-called market structure bill, which will be the focus of two separate hearings on Wednesday in the lower chamber’s Financial Services and Agriculture committees. The panels share jurisdiction over the legislation because it would divide crypto oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission, overseen by House Financial Services and Senate Banking, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, overseen by Congress’ Agriculture committees.

Lummis said Tuesday the Senate’s product is “going to look very much like the House bill.”

“We want to be bipartisan and bicameral,” she said in an interview. “We’ll probably tweak it a smidge and run it by Sen. [Kirsten] Gillibrand and see if we can introduce it on a bipartisan basis over here.”

Senate Banking’s crypto subcommittee is expected to hold a hearing focused on market structure later this month, Lummis said.

The ramp-up on market structure comes as the Senate is trying to pass a separate, more narrow crypto bill that would create new rules for digital assets known as stablecoins that are pegged to the dollar.

Senate GOP leaders are still searching for an agreement on amendments that would allow the chamber to move ahead with a vote on final passage in the coming days.

Sliding

Agriculture portion of megabill sliding to next week

The Agriculture Committee is still working through controversial farm bill provisions and food aid spending cuts in its portion of the bill.

By Meredith Lee Hill and Samuel Benson

The agriculture portion of the GOP megabill in the Senate likely won’t be finalized until next week as Republicans debate where they’d need to find other spending cuts if they can’t match the House-passed measure’s deep reductions in food aid spending, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the plans.

Key Republican senators have made no secret of their opposition to the House plan to force states to significantly increase their share of the cost of the nation’s biggest nutrition assistance program. But House Republicans are relying on those provisions to pay for a $60 billion farm bill package in the legislation. GOP senators are now debating scaling down the cost-share plan to penalize only states with the highest payment error rates, or more likely, simply scaling-down the percentage of benefits all states have to pay to around 5 percent. That would still mean states would face billions of dollars in new costs or decide to cut aid to low-income families.

Republican senators and committee staff are now debating a range of other options for cuts that Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman and Majority Leader John Thune discussed in a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning. They are also discussing scaling down the farm bill provisions included in the House version of the tax and spending package, according to the three Republicans.

GOP senators have warned some farm bill pieces might not pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian, who will decide which policies comply with the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process. But the larger fear behind the scenes is most Republican senators have less of an appetite to completely blow up the traditionally bipartisan farm bill, which would be the effect of jamming provisions of that legislation into a purely partisan vehicle.

Senate Agriculture GOP Committee staffers were scheduled to meet with the parliamentarian Tuesday night to discuss the House’s farm bill provisions as senators consider options, according to two other Republicans granted anonymity to share details of private conversations.

Committee aides already met with the parliamentarian last week to discuss the nutrition portion of the panel’s contribution to the megabill, with Boozman acknowledging Tuesday it would be “ambitious” to expect to see draft bill text by the end of this week.

“I think that we’re getting the concepts together as we speak,” Boozman said. “But again, from a concept standpoint, we’d like to get this done in the next couple days.”

Senate GOP leadership is pushing panels to release text quickly to meet the goal of passing the bill by the July 4 recess.

“I think that the timeline is such that leadership would like [the text] yesterday,” Boozman quipped. “It’s just a matter of smoothing out some things, visiting with our members, getting input. … Those things take time.”

Boozman has supported including risk management farm bill titles in the reconciliation bill, like crop insurance provisions and reference price increases. But House Republicans pushed a larger array of farm bill funding into the package, and are pressuring the Senate to keep everything intact.

“They better keep it all,” one House Republican warned.

Tax cut on tips

Tillis wants major changes to Trump’s tax cut on tips

The senator is pushing for a different approach that would treat people with similar earnings more equally.

Brian Faler

Sen. Thom Tillis indicated Tuesday that he wants significant changes to Republicans’ plans to cut taxes on tips, one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities in the megabill now before lawmakers.

The House-approved draft of the tip proposal is unfair to people who work in industries where tipping isn’t customary, the North Carolina Republican told POLITICO. He complained that a waiter would qualify for the break but a warehouse worker would not, even if they had similar incomes.

Tillis, a tax writer, said he wants a different approach that would treat people with similar earnings more equally.

He also raised the possibility of dropping the $40 billion tip proposal from the legislation altogether, noting the idea has bipartisan support and expressing doubt that Democrats would stop Republicans from passing it separately later.

“Maybe there’s a different way to achieve what they’re setting out to do,” he said.

Tillis’ comments come as Senate Republican leaders say they intend to make changes to the sprawling tax, energy and immigration package approved last month by the House and still get it to Trump’s desk by their July 4 recess. That could be difficult if individual senators, who have lots of leverage given Republicans’ thin majority in the chamber, demand major changes.

Trump campaigned on making tips tax-free, and the House draft would create a new tip deduction for people in industries where tipping is customary so long as they don’t make more than $160,000.

One alternative, Tillis said, would be to create “some other benefit” available to a wider swathe of workers but, to keep the budgetary cost down, limit it to people with lower incomes.

Tillis also said he doubted Democrats would oppose the plan if Republicans tried to move it separately later, noting the chamber late last month unanimously approved a different bill by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to nix taxes on tips.

“I’m at a loss for what Democrats would vote against it,” said Tillis. “They’ve already evidenced that they’re worried about voting ‘no’.”