House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is facing an explosion of internal anger among his members over the Senate's changes to President Trump's "big, beautiful bill."
Why it matters: The speaker has just days to pass the bill before Republicans' self-imposed July 4 deadline — which will require flipping dozens of "no" votes and overcoming numerous procedural hurdles.
"Our bill has been completely changed ... It's a non-starter," Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) bemoaned to reporters on Tuesday,
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) said in a post on social media that he will introduce an amendment to the Senate bill that would delete all its text and replace it with the version passed by the House in May.
One House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Axios there are "well over 20" GOP lawmakers threatening to vote against the bill.
State of play: The Senate voted 51-50 to pass their own version of the bill on Tuesday, with Vice President Vance serving as the tiebreaker.
The bill would extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts and allocate funding for the president's immigration crackdown while cutting spending on Medicaid, food stamps and green energy subsidies.
Zoom in: Right-wing House Republicans are upset that the Senate bill is projected to add more to the deficit than the House version would.
"They're backing away from the spending cuts, the spending restraint. They're backing away from the reforms that we think makes the math work," Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said in a post on X.
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) noted that Johnson previously committed not to hold a vote on a bill that increases the deficit over a certain threshold, adding that "members will have a decision to make."
Between the lines: Johnson told conservative lawmakers earlier this year that they could try to remove him as speaker if he couldn't deliver $1.5 trillion in spending cuts in the final package.
"I've never lied to any of my colleagues, and I was trying to emphasize the point," Johnson told Axios in an April interview.
The bottom line: Johnson vowed in a statement after the Senate vote that the House will "work quickly" to pass the legislation and get it to Trump's desk by July 4.
"Republicans were elected to do exactly what this bill achieves: secure the border, make tax cuts permanent, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength, cut wasteful spending, and return to a government that puts Americans first," he said.
Democrats are already vowing to make President Trump's "big, beautiful bill" a centerpiece of their strategy for taking back the House of Representatives in 2026.
Why it matters: House Democrats' campaign arm is projecting confidence that Republicans in key swing districts will take a significant political hit from voting for the legislation.
"These phony moderates all folded once – and their unwillingness to break from their D.C. Party Bosses will be the reason they lose next year," the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a memo obtained by Axios.
"From now until November 2026, the DCCC will continue to communicate the harm this bill will cause," the memo says. "Republicans will lose the majority in 2026 and the Big, Ugly Bill will be the reason why."
State of play: The Senate voted 51-50 to pass the sprawling tax, border and defense package Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance serving as the tie-breaking vote.
The vote came after a brutal, multi-day process that concluded with three Senate Republicans — Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Susan Collins (Maine) — voting with Democrats against the bill.
The bill extends the 2017 Trump tax cuts and allocates funds for border security and the military while cutting funding for Medicaid, food assistance and clean energy subsidies and tax credits.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the bill would add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, but Republicans have argued that analysis fails to take into account the impact of economic growth
It also notes that House Republicans already voted in May to pass the bill, but will now have to vote a second time on the Senate version.
Individual Democrats also hammered the bill in statements on the Senate vote, with Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) saying: "In all my time in Congress, this is one of the worst bills I've ever seen."
The other side: "The One Big, Beautiful Bill is a big, beautiful opportunity to show how Republicans are delivering results," said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella.
"Democrats are once again increasing taxes on hardworking Americans and putting politics over people. We won't let voters forget Democrats' betrayal next fall."
The bottom line: In a dear colleague letter to House Democrats on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem (D-N.Y.) wrote, "Thanks to your efforts, the country is learning the truth about the One Big Ugly Bill. The more people know about it, the worse it gets for Republicans."
"As we return to Washington, we must keep the pressure on the Republican extremists."
Anti-Trump organizers are hosting "Free America" rallies on Independence Day in the next round of mass protest across the country.
The big picture: This renewed batch of protests against the administration comes amid growingdiscontent with Trump's policies.
"Your freedom. Your people. Your rebellion," the Women's March website said.
The other side: "President Trump won nearly 80 million votes and received a historic mandate to Make America Great Again, and he's delivering in a big way," White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in a statement to Axios.
State of play: The Women's March encouraged protesters to plan rallies, marches, banner drops, street parades, art builds, BBQs, dance protests and block parties.
About 200 events were scheduled as of Tuesday afternoon, signaling less interest than the recent "No Kings" protests.
What they're saying: "They want us scared, divided, and alone," the Women's March said. "They don't want us to dream about freedom. But that's exactly what we have to do."
"This Fourth of July, we will be in the streets with songs of freedom and joy. The dream of American freedom belongs to all of us, and we will not stop in our pursuit of its promise, now or ever."
The protests are focused on freeing the U.S. from billionaires' power, poverty, unlawful orders, and the politics of fear, the website said.
Zoom in: Local groups are organizing a Thursday protest outside of Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, featuring a "Trump baby" balloon, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Flashback: Crowds of thousands to millions have protested the Trump administration during single-day protest events for months.
Most recently, "No Kings" protests on June 14 attracted millions nationwide, organizers said.
What's next: On July 17,"Good Trouble Lives On" demonstrations are planned with a focus on civil rights, in honor of the late Rep. John Lewis.
On the anniversary of his passing, "we're taking action across the country to defend our democracy and carry forward his legacy of Good Trouble," organizers wrote.
Iranian state-backed hackers are borrowing from the Russian cyber playbook and sharing tools with ideologically aligned hacktivist groups in the wake of a series of military strikes, experts tell Axios.
Why it matters: Leaning on these hackers allows Iran to amplify its reach while maintaining plausible deniability and staying below the threshold of what's considered war.
Driving the news: Iran-linked hackers threatened last night to publish emails purportedly stolen from Trump allies, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, lawyer Lindsey Halligan and adviser Roger Stone.
CISA and the FBI released an advisory yesterday warning U.S. critical infrastructure, and particularly defense contractors, are at increased risk for potential Iran-linked cyberattacks.
The intrigue: Experts at cybersecurity firm Armis say they've observed Iranian nation-state actors providing tools and resources to pro-Iran hacktivist groups since Israel launched military strikes on June 13.
Michael Freeman, head of threat intelligence at Armis, told Axios that pro-Iran hacktivists have received "a lot of help," including access to nondescript cyber weapons and hacking techniques that could help them target Western organizations.
"Those [weapons and techniques] were being used to target more critical infrastructures within nation-states," Freeman told Axios.
These attackers appear focused on strategic cyber campaigns, including ransomware, linked to the broader regional conflict.
"They're definitely using these tools, gaining more access, being more careful — without getting caught," Freeman added.
The big picture: Iran increasingly mirrors Russia's model of relying on cyber proxies and psychological operations to project power.
"This is very Russian in nature," Alexander Leslie, a threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, told Axios. "Using proxies for plausible deniability is essentially the essence of how they can scale these operations and remain resilient to any kind of disruption."
Leslie added that Iran frequently leans on "pseudo-hacktivist groups" to stay just below the threshold of conventional cyber warfare.
Zoom in: A hacker tied to a well-known Russian nation-state hacking team has been sharing tools and advice in a pro-Iran hacktivist group, Freeman said.
Between the lines: Some of the most serious attacks have likely been stopped before they became public, thanks to early detection and Five Eyes intelligence-sharing, Nadir Izrael, chief technology officer at Armis, told Axios.
"The silence isn't an indication of nothing happening," Izrael said. "It's an indication of defenses holding — and a lot of people doing a lot of work to make that happen."
State of play: Activity from pro-Iran hacktivist groups has dipped since a ceasefire was announced last week, but many of the most opportunistic actors had already pivoted to targeting last week's NATO summit.
More than 100 hacktivists groups, 90 of which are linked to pro-Iranian positions, have been targeting organizations in Israel and throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Western Europe and North America since Israel's strikes last month, Leslie said.
Many of those groups resurfaced during this conflict after a long hiatus, Leslie added.
Despite broad claims of successful attacks, most of the groups' reported DDoS campaigns are unverified. "The point is to overwhelm and shape perception," Leslie said.
Threat level: Freeman warned U.S. critical infrastructure operators to take inventory of their systems and patch overlooked vulnerabilities — especially in "systems that operate systems."
"The companies who've had to deal with the Iranian groups, that really had a good understanding of their environment, were able to detect them quickly, within a few hours," he said.
What to watch: Law enforcement and private sector partners are actively working to identify and harden vulnerable industrial systems that Iranian threat actors may be targeting.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune expressed optimism that his House Republican counterparts will be able to muster the votes needed to send the "one, big, beautiful bill" to President Trump for his signature.
Why it matters: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will need more than Thune's vote of confidence to convince House moderates and conservatives to pass the Senate version of the budget bill before their self-imposed July 4 deadline.
But he'll have help from Trump, who said Tuesday the bill has "something for everyone" and predicted an easier time getting it passed in the House.
"The House — I appreciate the narrow margins they have over there and the challenges for the speaker — but I think we gave them a really strong product," Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters Tuesday.
"I think we took what they sent us and strengthened and improved upon it," he added.
The big picture: House Rules is set to meet Tuesday afternoon, with Johnson eyeing a Wednesday floor vote.
Changes the Senate made are deeply unpopular with both ideological ends of Johnson's caucus, with conservatives decrying how much it would add to the deficit and moderates worried about its deeper cuts to Medicaid.
Given his razor-thin majority, Johnson faces a challenge getting the measure over the finish line.
The speaker said in a statement after the vote that the House would "work quickly" to clear the measure, adding, "House Republicans are ready to finish the job and put the One Big Beautiful Bill on President Trump's desk in time for Independence Day."
The other side: Democrats immediately criticized the bill and predicted GOP lawmakers would face a backlash from voters.
"Today, Senate Republicans betrayed the American people and covered the Senate in utter shame," Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a press conference after the vote.
"This vote will haunt Republicans for years to come."
Senate Republicans passed President Trump's "big, beautiful bill" Tuesday, with help from Vice President Vance as a tie-breaker.
Why it matters: It's a colossal achievement for Senate leadership and the White House. But the taxes, border and defense package still has to clear the House — where discontent has been building for days.
The bill passed 51-50 after a grueling, multi-day process that kicked off Saturday evening and ended with a 24-hour vote-a-rama.
GOP Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted with Democrats against the bill, requiring a tie-breaking vote from Vance.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) ended up voting for the legislation after multiple rounds of overnight negotiations. Murkowski strolled out of Senate Majority Leader John Thune's (R-S.D.) office shortly before 4am on Tuesday, without giving any indication of how she'd gotten to aye.
Zoom in: At the last moment, Senate GOP leaders doubled the size of a new fund aimed at improving rural health care access to $50 billion — a move aimed at securing Collins' support.
Collins earlier offered an amendment to increase the funding to $50 billion, but it was rejected 78 to 22, with most Democrats voting against it.
An amendment to remove the 10-year moratorium on state regulation of AI passed 99-1, with only Tillis voting against it.
Democrats forced votes on dozens of amendments on everything from bolstering Medicaid to gutting tax cuts for wealthy earners, all of which failed on the floor.
What to watch: House lawmakers have been raising alarms about the Senate's changes, with conservatives decrying how much it would add to the deficit and moderates worried about its deeper cuts to Medicaid.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is calling House Republicans back from recess and targeting a Wednesday vote to try to meet Trump's July 4 deadline.
Johnson said in a statement after the vote that the House would "work quickly" to clear the measure, adding, "House Republicans are ready to finish the job and put the One Big Beautiful Bill on President Trump's desk in time for Independence Day."
The president and Vance have been closely involved in whipping support for the bill in the Senate — and their influence will be critical to winning over concerned House members, too.
Between the lines: The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would add roughly $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.
The White House disputes the analysis, arguing it would instead decrease the deficit by over $5 trillion when combined with other growth efforts.
CBO also estimates the changes to Medicaid would result in nearly 12 million fewer people with health insurance over the next decade.
"Today, Senate Republicans betrayed the American people and covered the Senate in utter shame," Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters after the vote. "This vote will haunt Republicans for years to come."
The details: The bill makes permanent Trump 2017 tax cuts and adds additional tax benefits — no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on social security.
It makes significant changes to the Medicaid program, including imposing work requirements and eventually lowering provider taxes from 6% to 3.5%.
It raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, and provides $175 billion for border security as well as $150 billion for defense.
It temporarily raises the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions to $40,000 before reverting to the current $10,000 cap after 5 years.
The bottom line: Even if the House manages to put the legislation on Trump's desk this week — Republicans have a highly skeptical public to convince.
Recent polls have shown only 23-38% of American adults and voters support the legislation.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
Senate Republicans passed President Trump's signature "big, beautiful bill" with Vice President Vance's tie-breaking vote after the chamber deadlocked at 50-50 due to three GOP defections.
Why it matters: The razor's edge vote reflects the deep intra-party divides created by the bill, which resulted in a dramatic breakup between Trump and Elon Musk, and which could play a defining role in the outcome of the 2026 midterms.
Who voted against the bill
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) opposed the legislation due to the bill's inclusion of an increase to the debt ceiling.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) objected to Medicaid cuts, saying that Trump is breaking his promise of not pushing people off the program.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted against the bill despite the last-minute doubling to $50 billion of a fund to support rural hospitals.
All 47 Democrats or independents that caucus with Democrats opposed the bill.
Political consequences
The renegadeRepublican senators have faced — or can expect to face — fierce backlash for their positions.
Tillis announced he wouldn't seek reelection next year after voting against a procedural step for the bill on Saturday and triggering a primary support threat from Trump.
Paul was attacked by Trump for his opposition to the bill: "Rand will be playing right into the hands of the Democrats, and the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him!" Paul is not up for reelection until 2028.
Collins, who has won her seat five times as a moderate in blue-leaning Maine, could be in for a tough 2026 reelection battle with attacks coming from the left and right. Recent polling shows she has a 14% favorable rating with Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, a potential opponent, at 51%.
President Trump said Tuesday that DOGE could investigate Elon Musk, the latest indicator that his patience with the Tesla CEO is running thin.
The big picture: The two men have engaged in a war of words in the past 24 hours, with Musk taking to X to vent his objections to the president's "big, beautiful bill" and the estimated trillions of dollars it would add to the national debt.
Trump posted to Truth Social overnight that DOGE may need to take a "good, hard look" at Musk's companies, and he doubled down on the notion when he spoke to reporters Tuesday.
"We might have to put DOGE on Elon. You know what DOGE is? DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon," he said before boarding Marine One.
Zoom out: When asked if he would consider deporting Musk, Trump said he didn't know.
"We'll have to take a look," he said.
Worth noting: Musk is a naturalized U.S. citizen. While the Justice Department has recently directed attorneys to prioritize denaturalization in cases where naturalized citizens commit crimes, Trump did not suggest that Musk had committed any crime.
The other side: Musk swiftly responded Tuesday morning, writing that while it is "[s]o tempting to escalate this," he would "refrain for now."
Zoom in: Upon his arrival in Florida, Trump doubled down, saying that DOGE is "going to look at Musk."
"If DOGE looks at Musk, we're going to save a fortune," Trump added.
On Musk's criticism for the GOP megabill, Trump told reporters, "I don't think he should be playing that game."
Friction point: The relationship between Trump and his former chainsaw-wielding DOGE head publicly unraveled last month, as Musk aired an avalanche of grievances over the president's signature tax and spending bill.
In the following weeks, he's continued to lash out against the legislation.
"It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!" Musk wrote on X Monday, floating the idea of a new political party.
He later doubled down, saying lawmakers who backed the bill "should hang their head in shame," adding, "they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth."
Why it matters: Critics say President Trump's megabill amounts to an abject surrender in the battle for the future of energy. The consequences for U.S. jobs, electricity prices and the AI arms race could reverberate for decades.
The "One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act," which would gut key Biden-era clean energy subsidies and potentially impose new taxes on solar and wind projects, could reach Trump's desk as soon as this week.
"A massive strategic error is being made right now to damage solar/battery that will leave America extremely vulnerable in the future," Musk tweeted Sunday, after the Senate unveiled new changes to the bill.
Threat level: Jason Bordoff, who leads Columbia University's energy think tank, said the bill could hinder the U.S. in the AI race with China.
"Winning that race is going to require that we increase electricity generation capacity in the U.S. really fast — and by a lot," he told Axios.
That soaring demand is creating tailwinds for natural gas and nuclear, but even those "great" sources can't ramp up fast enough to meet the urgent near-term needs of data centers and AI infrastructure, Bordoff said.
"We need all the tools in the toolkit to meet rapidly rising electricity demand very quickly to win a competitive race with China for leadership in AI, and this bill makes that harder by throwing sand in the gear to renewable energy," he argued.
The big picture: Trump has made "unleashing American energy" a pillar of his second-term agenda, casting it as central to both fighting inflation and powering the AI revolution's insatiable power demands.
But his signature bill threatens to undercut that mission by targeting renewable energy sectors capable of delivering fast, scalable and affordable power.
Between the lines: Trump has long favored fossil fuels, and he made clear on the campaign trail that he would reverse as much of President Biden's climate legacy as possible.
But Trump's hostility toward clean energy is also rooted in misinformation about the reliability of wind and solar — not to mention aesthetics.
What they're saying: In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Trump called solar panels "ugly as hell," dismissed wind turbines as destructive, and praised coal as "clean, beautiful" and "very powerful."
Many Republicans say the government should prioritize energy sources that can run around the clock — like nuclear and gas — instead of intermittently, like wind and solar.
They also say the Inflation Reduction Act and other Biden-era energy policies showered wasteful subsidies on politically favored industries, distorting the market and overreaching on climate.
What to watch: Critics and clean-energy analysts warn the policies in the GOP bill could ripple across industries, supply chains and geopolitical fault lines.
Growth in solar, wind, electric vehicle sales, and clean tech manufacturing will likely decelerate, as investment stalls and incentives disappear.
Tech companies will face fresh challenges meeting AI's voracious energy needs, especially as supply chains for gas-fired turbines remain backlogged into the 2030s.
Power prices may rise, with new projects delayed just as U.S. electricity demand climbs for the first time in 15 years. Wind, solar and batteries make up roughly 95% of the projects proposed to connect to the grid.
China could widen its lead in low-carbon energy sectors that are becoming increasingly central to global power and competitiveness, even as the U.S. retreats on climate change.
Friction point: Several GOP senators led by Sen. Joni Ernst and Lisa Murkowski are negotiating to soften the bill slightly, especially by stripping out new taxes on wind and solar projects. But their amendment has not yet received a vote.
Zoom in: Analysts who support low-carbon energy warn of dire economic consequences if either the Senate or House versions of the GOP budget bill become law.
New analysis from the think tank Energy Innovation projects that wholesale power prices would rise 19% by 2030 and 61% by 2035 under the Senate plan.
Gas-fired power can't meet the explosive growth in electricity demand driven by AI and data centers, the group warns. Job losses could soar into the hundreds of thousands if clean energy investments collapse.
State of play: As it stands, the Senate bill would quickly remove $7,500 consumer tax credits for buying electric cars, as well as credits for large wind and solar projects that aren't connected to the power grid by 2028.
Other provisions in the Senate bill include:
A near-immediate end to credits for residential efficiency and renewables projects.
A quicker sunset of credits for producing low-emissions hydrogen, with projects now facing a Jan. 1, 2028, deadline to start construction.
New restrictions barring access to various clean energy credits for projects with corporate or supply chain ties to China.
The House GOP version similarly pares back subsidies in the Democrats' 2022 climate law and beyond, though the measures are not identical.
The bills take a selective approach to low-carbon energy, leaving support for nuclear, carbon capture, geothermal and some other tech largely intact.
The bottom line: Bordoff, an Obama-era White House energy and climate aide, warned the "pendulum will swing back" on climate change — and the U.S. risks falling behind when it does.
Daniel Moore and Katie Fehrenbacher contributed reporting.
Florida Rep. Byron Donalds has raised $22 million for his gubernatorial bid since entering the race, a sum that dwarfs any of the two dozen rivals in the race, according to his campaign.
Why it matters: The fundraising helps cement Donalds' status as the odds-on favorite to win the GOP primary in which he has a priceless asset: President Trump's endorsement.
People are already saying, "Hey, governor," to Donalds, his wife told Politico Florida Playbook in Monday's edition.
The intrigue: Donalds on Tuesday will stand side-by-side at a Florida press conference with Trump and termed-out Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has wanted his wife, Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, to run for his office.
DeSantis became embittered with Donalds in 2023 when the congressman didn't endorse him in his failed bid for president and instead backed Trump in his successful reelection campaign.
DeSantis has dissed Donalds publicly for being a no-show in state culture war issues.
Donalds has refrained from clapping back and publicly praises the governor.
Zoom in: Donalds raised $12 million immediately after he announced his bid Feb. 26 and then pulled in an additional $10 million in the just-ended second quarter, his campaign said.
Contributors to his political and campaign committees include a number of big name former donors to DeSantis, including billionaires Thomas Peterffy, Dick Uihlein and Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts.
Other notable contributors include Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, entrepreneurs known for their Facebook battle against Mark Zuckerberg.
Zoom out: Florida is such a red state now that whoever wins its primaries for statewide office is the heavy favorite to carry the state in the general election.
Active registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats by about 1.3 million in the state.
Republicans control every statewide seat now.
Democrats' biggest name in the race used to be a Republican: former Rep. David Jolly, who recently announced his campaign and is touring the state talking about insurance reform and affordability.
Congress has gotten so miserable that the traditional "I'm sad to leave" has now become "not a hard choice" to retire.
Why it matters: Exhausted lawmakers are choosing retirement over bipartisan dealmaking that their own parties clearly don't want.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced his retirement on Sunday. "I haven't exactly been excited about running for another term," Tillis said in a statement. "It's not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking re-election."
Tillis capped off his retirement day by savaging the "big, beautiful bill" for its cuts to Medicaid and renewable energy tax credits.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Monday he won't run again. Bacon is one of just three House Republicans who won in congressional districts won by Vice President Harris in 2024.
In his retirement announcement, Bacon bragged about his record on bills that became law.
Zoom out: The trend line is scary for fans of working across the aisle.
Sens. Mitt Romney, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema chose to retire in 2024, citing the difficulty of getting bipartisan deals done in Congress.
Before they left, a bipartisan deal on immigration collapsed in 2024 after then-former President Trump urged Republicans to kill the bill, and Democrats with competitive races also voted it down.
In this term, a bipartisan deal on groundbreaking crypto regulation nearly collapsed after Democrats demanded it include language targeted at the Trump family's crypto empire.
What to watch: Sen. Susan Collins' (R-Maine) re-election race is currently rated "lean Republican" by The Cook Political Report.
In Alaska, fellow moderate GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski isn't up for re-election and is ruthlessly focused on helping her state. That even includes entertaining the longshot possibility of caucusing with Democrats if they create a 50-50 tie after the midterms.
In Texas, Republicans are freaked out by the prospect of Sen. John Cornyn losing his primary. He's facing firebrand Texas AG Ken Paxton, who would have a much tougher time in a general election.
What's next: Republicans are carefully watching the Louisiana Senate race. Sen. Bill Cassidy is expected to face numerous GOP primary challengers.
Cassidy is one of just three GOP senators (along with Collins and Murkowski) still serving who voted to convict Trump in an impeachment trial.
The "big, beautiful bill" slashes food and health benefits for the poorest Americans, while giving tax cuts to higher earners — blowing a hole in the nation's safety net, according to healthcare experts and advocates for lower-income people.
Why it matters: Experts say the cuts could unleash a tidal wave of pain — overcrowded emergency rooms, an increase in chronic health care issues, more medical debt, and more folks going hungry.
If the $4 trillion bill passes into law, it would be the biggest cut to the social safety net in decades, as the Washington Post noted.
State of play: It's hard to know exactly where the bill will land, but it's on track to cut 20% of spending on food stamps, or SNAP, with more than 2 million losing benefits, per an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office provided to Senate Democrats.
Cuts to Medicaid could lead to nearly 12 million people losing health insurance, per the CBO.
Changes to the Affordable Care Act could lead to losses for millions more; others would face higher healthcare costs.
There's massive overlap here — nearly 30 million of the 38.3 million people receiving SNAP in 2022 were also enrolled in Medicaid, notes KFF.
It's a double-whammy: these folks would need more for healthcare, while being further stretched on groceries.
By the numbers: The bottom 20% of earners would see a nearly 3% decline in income, about $700, under the Senate version of the bill. That's per a new analysis from the Yale Budget Lab, which takes into the social safety net changes into account.
The top 1 percent would see a nearly 2% increase, or $30,000.
The intrigue: Many of the losses in Medicaid and SNAP coverage are the result of new work requirements that opponents say are actually red tape thickets that typically lead people to lose benefits — even those who are working.
Proponents argue that work requirements for able-bodied adults help "reduce unnecessary enrollments in welfare," as this Heritage Foundation report explains.
The other side: The White House and Congressional Republicans say work requirements are just a common-sense way to reduce waste, fraud and abuse.
"By slashing waste, fraud, and abuse in these programs and implementing commonsense work requirements, The One, Big, Beautiful Bill will preserve these vital lifelines for generations of Americans to come," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
"The bill's pro-growth provisions and working class tax cuts will turbocharge America's economic resurgence."
The White House also argues that the Congressional Budget Office's assumptions about Obamacare changes are overblown.
💭 Emily's thought bubble: Beginning in 2020, when Trump was in office, the federal government unleashed a torrent of money in social safety net spending that continued into the Biden era. It drastically reduced poverty rates in the U.S.
Why it matters: When the dealmaking music stops, someone's going to be left out.
Driving the news: Apple is talking with both Anthropic and OpenAI about using their foundation models to power Siri, after in-house efforts to upgrade Apple's voice assistant have faltered, Bloomberg reported Monday.
Once cutting edge, Siri is now a glaring anachronism in a world enthralled by the verbal and vocal agility of LLMs — and an irritating reminder to everyone at Apple of how far they've lagged behind in the voice-assistant competition.
The big picture: Every big player in tech is working on their own foundation models — the biggest and most ambitious large language models that fuel ChatGPT and all the other services at the heart of the generative AI revolution.
OpenAI, Anthropic and Google seized the high ground early and have stayed ahead of the pack, both in scale, innovative advances and subtle refinements.
Important runners-up range from Elon Musk's xAI to France's Mistral and China's DeepSeek.
Most of tech's five trillion-dollar giants already have a match in the foundation-model game, but there's constant movement, and the music is still playing.
Google is the only one of the giants that has built its own top-tier model.
Its researchers made the breakthroughs that power LLMs today, but it was slow to share advances with the public, opening the door for OpenAI to stun the world with ChatGPT in November 2022.
Since then Google has poured enormous resources into Gemini — once known as Bard — and begun rebuilding most of its products, including its dominant search engine, around the model.
Microsoft tied its future to OpenAI early in the game with a gigantic investment and a commitment to deploying OpenAI models to the vast installed base of Microsoft users.
But the alliance has frayed, and the two companies are locked in high-stakes negotiations for an amicable breakup.
Meta got a later start and bet heavily on an open-source strategy with its Llama model family.
But disappointment in the progress made by the most recent Llama flagship model has forced a rethink, per the New York Times.
The Times reported last week that Meta execs had discussed "de-investing" in Llama, though the company denies that.
Meanwhile, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has poached a number of OpenAI researchers and added ScaleAI founder Alexandr Wang and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman to his roster.
Zuckerberg announced Monday these new hires would lead a unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs that will bring together all of Meta's foundation model work.
Amazon has invested in its own families of models to offer its cloud customers, chiefly Nova and Titan.
But for its effort to improve the popular but aging Alexa voice assistant, Amazon found that Nova alone couldn't handle the job and pulled Anthropic's Claude in as well.
Apple wouldn't turn to Google — not only because both companies are defending giant antitrust lawsuits that might make a deal perilous, but also for historical-cultural reasons.
Apple never forgave Google for building Android, though it still takes Google's billions for making Google search the iPhone default.
That leaves OpenAI and Anthropic — both of which Apple has explored partnering with, per Bloomberg.
Siri already lets users route questions to OpenAI's ChatGPT.
But a team tasked with evaluating Apple's external options found that Anthropic's Claude was the best candidate for the broader Siri upgrade, Bloomberg reported.
Yes, but: Apple could still decide to redouble its internal efforts instead.
The company has a long history of avoiding shipping half-baked products and letting projects take as long as they need to become what Apple thinks of as "great."
But the pace of AI change is putting that strategy to its toughest test yet.
Zoom out: Driving and shaping all these firms' deals and choices is the war for AI talent, with both giants and startups desperately throwing money at a relatively small number of researchers.
Each company hopes that its team will be able to deliver on the astronomical promises executives have made about AI's transformative benefits and ultimate profits.
But not everyone can win — and each of the tech industry's previous waves has had only one or two victors.
Elon Musk again blasted President Trump's signature spending bill Monday as the Senate worked through a marathon amendment session to send the measure to the Oval Office by July 4.
The latest: Hours after Musk threatened to form a new political party if the "big, beautiful bill" passed, Trump claimed early Tuesday the Tesla CEO "may get more subsidy than any human being in history" and suggested he may have DOGE, which the Tesla CEO once spearheaded, take a "good, hard, look" at the businesses the billionaire has government contracts with.
"It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!" Musk wrote on his social media site X.
"Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people," the world's richest man added.
What they're saying: In a separate post, Musk doubled down on his rhetoric, saying every member of Congress who votes to pass the bill should "hang their head in shame."
"[T]hey will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth," Musk said.
In a post later Monday, Musk said, "If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day."
He added that the country needs "an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE."
Of note: The White House initially responded to Musk's comments by pointing to Trump's remarks to Fox News over the weekend saying that the world's richest person was upset the bill would end subsidies for EVs.
"I think Elon is a wonderful guy, and I know he's going to do well, always. He's a smart guy," Trump said in the interview.
An Iran-linked cyberattack group that hacked President Trump's 2024 campaign is threatening to release another trove of emails it has stolen from his associates, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Roger Stone.
The big picture: Reuters first reported the threat on Monday that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on X called a "calculated smear campaign" — which came the same day as the Trump administration released a report warning that "Iranian Cyber Actors" may target U.S. firms and "operators of critical infrastructure."
We published a joint fact sheet with FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation, DC3, and NSA - National Security Agency...
And it came three days after Trump announced he was halting plans to potentially ease sanctions on Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities didn't cause major damage.
Driving the news: Hackers who gave themselves the pseudonym "Robert" told Reuters in online conversations on Sunday and Monday they had around 100 gigabytes of emails involving Wiles, Stone, Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan and adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and others.
They spoke of potentially selling the emails, but did not disclose details of the material.
The Justice Department alleged in an indictment last September against three Iranians in the 2024 Trump cyberattack case that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps oversaw the "Robert" hacking drive.
What they're saying: CISA spokesperson Marci McCarthy said in a statement posted to X in response to Reuters' report that a "hostile foreign adversary" was "threatening to illegally exploit purportedly stolen and unverified material in an effort to distract, discredit and divide."
McCarthy said the "so-called cyber 'attack' is nothing more than digital propaganda and the targets are no coincidence" and that it's designed to "damage President Trump and discredit honorable public servants" who serve the U.S. with distinction.
"These criminals will be found and will be brought to justice," McCarthy added.
Two Idaho firefighters killed in a shooting near Coeur d'Alene were identified by authorities Monday.
The big picture: The two veteran firefighters, along with a third who was critically injured, were ambushed by a lone gunman who started a wildfire in the state's north Sunday, investigators said.
Details: Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Frank Harwood, 42, and Coeur d'Alene Fire Department Battalion Chief John Morrison, 52, were identified as the fallen firefighters during a Monday evening briefing.
Harwood, a member of the county fire department for 17 years, was a husband and a father of two children. He was also a former Army National Guard combat engineer, said Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Christopher Way.
Morrison served the city for more than 28 years, working his way up to battalion chief, Coeur d'Alene Fire Chief Tom Greif said during the briefing.
Morrison and Harward will be honored with a procession of emergency vehicles on Tuesday morning, per a Coeur d'Alene Fire Department Facebook post.
Situation report: Coeur d'Alene Fire Department engineer David Tysdal, 47, sustained gunshot wounds and was in critical condition in a local hospital.
Tysdal, who has been with the fire department for 23 years, had two successful surgeries as of noon Monday, officials said at the briefing.
North Carolina Democrats are getting closer to the gift they've have been asking for all year, with former Gov. Roy Cooper (D) leaning toward a Senate run in the state President Trump has won three times.
Why it matters: The field is essentially frozen until Cooper and Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, decide if they want to be their party's nominees.
In their own way, they both have the "right of first refusal" in their party's primaries.
What they're saying: "Governor Cooper continues to strongly consider a run for the Senate and will decide in the coming weeks," said Morgan Jackson, Cooper's top political adviser told Axios.
"I'm considering it," Lara Trump told Fox News Radio on Monday.
"This is all kind of fresh within the past 24 hours for me," she said.
"North Carolina is my home state. It's where I was born and raised. It made me the person I am today."
Driving the news: In a surprise Sunday move, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced in the middle of Senate negotiations over the one "big, beautiful bill," that he would not be seeking a third term.
"In Washington over the last few years, it's become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species," Tillis said.
One longtime Senate Democratic donor told Axios that they expect Cooper to hop in the race after Tillis' retirement.
Zoom out: Even before his announcement, Democrats viewed North Carolina as their best opportunity to chip away at the GOP's 3-seat Senate majority in the 2026 midterms.
Tillis had shown a willingness, on a few issues, to buck the president, feeding suspicions in the MAGA base that wasn't on team Trump.
Zoom in: Lara Trump, a former RNC vice chair, could rely on the president to clear the field and avoid the messy GOP infighting from some of North Carolina's recent open statewide primaries.
National and state Democrats would likely make it clear to any other potential candidates that if Cooper runs, they should exit the race.
Former Rep. Wiley Nickel, who served for one term before Republicans redrew his seat before the 2024 election, announced a Senate bid in April.
Three freshman congressmen, Reps. Pat Harrigan, Tim Moore and Brad Knott, could jump into the race on the Republican side if Lara Trump passed.
More information surfaced Monday about Wess Roley, the 20-year-old suspected shooter in an incident that left two Idaho firefighters dead and another wounded over the weekend, as his family spoke to multiple outlets about the suspect's life and career.
The big picture: Though police have yet to determine what the suspect's intensions or motives were, Wess Roley's family has told multiple outlets that they were shocked over the allegations since he himself sought to be a firefighter.
Here's what we know so far about Wess Roley, based on interviews from his family, information from police and other reports.
The basics
Police said Monday that Roley had previously lived in California, Arizona, and Idaho.
He did not have a criminal history with the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office, officials said.
The suspect previously had five "minor" interactions with the sheriffs office, police said.
Parents and home life
Roley's family were arborists and they climbed trees, police said at a press conference late Monday. He had a loving family, and recently vacationed in Hawaii, his grandfather, Dale Roley, told CNN.
Court documents obtained by NBC News show that in 2015, his mother, Heather Lynn Cuchiara, asked for protection against Roley's father and her then-husband, Jason Roley, for alleged acts of assault and damage.
Wess Roley's father told a CNN reporter that he wasn't close with his son.
A running website identified Wess Roley as a track runner at a local high school and a member of the class of 2024.His grandfather told 4 News Now that Wess liked to hike often.
"It wasn't like he was a loner," Dale Roley told CNN. "We had no reason to suspect that he would be involved in something like this."
Wess Roley moved to Idaho in 2024, where he had his own apartment, his grandfather told the New York Times.
"He was just trying to figure his life out," he said. "He seemed to be a little bit optimistic."
Career
Wess wanted to be a firefighter, Dave Roley told multiple outlets.
"He wanted to be a fireman – he was doing tree work and he wanted to be a fireman in the forest," Dale Roley told CNN. "As far as I know, he was actually pursuing it."
"He loved firefighters," he told NBC News. "It didn't make sense that he was shooting firefighters. Maybe he got rejected or something."
Was Wess Roley a gunowner?
Wess Roley allegedly owned a shotgun and long rifle, his grandfather told CNN. However, law enforcement officials did not say if those weapons were used in the Idaho shooting.
President Trump sent a letter to Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell urging the central bank to lower interest rates "by a lot," the White House said on Monday.
Why it matters: The administration has stepped up public pressure on the Fed, with top officials floating the possibility of announcing Powell's replacement months before his term expires.
What they're saying: "Jerome 'Too Late' Powell, and his entire Board, should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen to the United States," Trump posted on Truth Social.
The intrigue: Trump's post included what appeared to be the letter, which White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump sent to the Fed on Monday.
"You have cost the U.S.A. a fortune — and continue to do so," the letter, which was written on a document that lists foreign nations' interest rate levels, says. "You should lower the rate by a lot!"
Trump again said that the Fed should be lowering rates to help save the government money on interest payments, a suggestion that is at odds with the Fed's mandates.
What to watch: The Fed browbeating of Trump's first term looks mild relative to that of recent months.
The threat of a "shadow Fed chair" might become reality, with reports that the Trump administration is considering naming Powell's successor as soon as this summer — a move that risks undermining Powell, whose term does not expire for another 11 months.
A spot on the Federal Reserve Board opens in January, "so we've given thought to the idea that perhaps that person would go on to become the chair when Jay Powell leaves in May," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg on Monday.
On Friday, Trump made the clearest suggestion yet that he wants the next Fed chair to do his bidding, saying he was going to nominate somebody who "wants to cut rates."
Reality check: Powell told lawmakers last week that the Fed would have likely kept cutting rates, if not for the economic threats posed by Trump's trade policy.
Inflation is at a four-year low, but projections suggest that tariffs will stoke higher prices. "If you just look at the basic data and don't look at the forecast, you would say that we would've continued cutting," Powell said at a congressional hearing.
Two Trump-nominated Fed governors, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, support cuts as soon as July — though that stance does not appear to be widely shared among other officials on the Fed's rate-setting committee.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with recent background.
Kilmar Ábrego García will remain in jail for now over concerns from his legal team that he could be deported if released while awaiting trail, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The big picture: It comes after the White House last week called a report that quotes prosecutors saying Ábrego García would be sent to an unnamed third country "fake news."
Zoom in: Ábrego García's lawyers asked a judge to delay his release Friday as he awaits trial on human smuggling charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
The lawyers said they were concerned that the U.S. Marshals Service could release him from Tennessee on Friday and then Immigration and Customs Enforcement would remove him over the weekend.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ruled in an order Monday that he will remain in federal custody until a court appearance in mid-July.
Context: Ábrego García who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, was returned to the U.S. earlier this month, and the Justice Department was ordered to release him from prison in Tennessee while he awaited trial.
A federal judge said last week that Ábrego García is likely to eventually be deported to El Salvador, where he's originally from.
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