The Latest: Trump goes to Capitol Hill to rally divided Republicans around his ‘big beautiful bill’
President Donald Trump is heading to Capitol Hill early Tuesday to seal the deal on his “big, beautiful bill,” using the power of political persuasion to unify divided House Republicans on the multitrillion-dollar package that is at risk of collapsing ahead of planned votes this week.
Trump hosted the Kennedy Center ’s leadership at the White House on Monday night, reinforcing his efforts to overhaul the social and ideological dynamics of the national arts scene.
And Secretary of State Marco Rubio is defending the nearly 50% cuts to his department’s budget. He’ll tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that focusing on core priorities will strengthen the U.S. position on the global stage.
Here’s the latest:
Trump is heading to Capitol Hill to persuade divided GOP to unify around his ‘big, beautiful’ bill
Trump is heading to Capitol Hill early Tuesday to seal the deal on his “big, beautiful bill,” using the power of political persuasion to unify divided House Republicans.
Trump has implored GOP holdouts to “STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE.” But negotiations are slogging along and it’s not at all clear that the president’s top domestic priority of extending the tax breaks while pumping in money for border security and deportations and imposing new limits on Medicaid has the support needed from the House’s slim Republican majority.
Conservatives are insisting on quicker, steeper cuts to federal programs to offset the costs of the trillions of dollars in lost tax revenue. At the same time, a core group of lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states want bigger tax breaks for their voters back home. Worries about piling onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt are stark.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is determined to push the bill forward and needs Trump to provide the momentum, either by encouragement or political warnings or a combination of both.
A key committee hearing is set for the middle of the night Tuesday in hopes of a House floor vote by Wednesday afternoon.
Read more about Trump’s visit to Capitol Hill
Things are getting nasty between Springsteen and Trump
They have some similarities, Bruce Springsteen and Donald Trump — guys in their 70s with homes in New Jersey and big constituencies among white American men middle-aged and older. And both, in very different respects, are the boss.
That’s about where it ends.
The veteran rock star, long a political opponent of the president, stood up as one of Trump’s most prominent cultural critics last week with a verbal takedown from a British stage.
As is his nature, Trump is fighting back — hard. He calls Springsteen a “dried out prune of a rocker” and is even bringing Beyoncé into the fray.
On Monday, the president suggested Springsteen and Beyoncé should be investigated to see if appearances they made on behalf of his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, last fall represented an illegal campaign donation.
Opening a tour in Manchester, England, Springsteen told his audience last Thursday that “the America I love, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”
Read more about the spat between Trump and Springsteen
Trump vows to turn the Kennedy Center around as he seeks to remake arts and culture in America
Trump hosted the Kennedy Center ’s leadership at the White House on Monday night, reinforcing his efforts to overhaul the social and ideological dynamics of the national arts scene.
The meeting of the center’s board in the State Dining Room followed Trump firing its previous members and announcing in February that he’d serve as the board’s chair. The new board, which unanimously approved Trump as its chair, is stocked with loyalists.
Trump has called the center’s past programming “woke” and “terrible,” while more broadly seeking to slash federal funding for the arts — complaining that too much programming promotes leftist ideology and political correctness. In his view, molding the Kennedy Center to his own liking can go a long way toward creating a new arts and social culture nationwide.
Read more about Trump’s plans for the Kennedy Center
Developer to resume NY offshore wind project after Trump administration lifts pause
The Trump administration is allowing work on a major offshore wind project for New York to resume.
The developer, the Norwegian energy company Equinor, said Monday it was told by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that a stop-work order has been lifted for the Empire Wind project, allowing construction to resume.
Work has been paused since Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last month directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction and review the permits. Burgum said at the time that it appeared former President Joe Biden’s administration had “rushed through” the approvals. Equinor spent seven years obtaining permits and has spent more than $2.5 billion so far on a project that is one-third complete.
Equinor President and CEO Anders Opedal thanked President Donald Trump for allowing the project to move forward, saving about 1,500 construction jobs and investments in U.S. energy infrastructure.
Read more about the project
Trump signs a bill to make posting ‘revenge porn’ a federal crime. He had the first lady sign, too
Trump on Monday signed into law the Take It Down Act, a measure that imposes penalties for online sexual exploitation that first lady Melania Trump helped usher through Congress, and he had her sign it, too, despite what sounded like a mild objection on her part.
“C’mon, sign it anyway,” the president told his wife. “She deserves to sign it,” he said.
After she added her signature, the president held up the document to show both of their names to the audience at the ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. Melania Trump’s signature is merely symbolic since first ladies are not elected and they play no role in the enactment of legislation.
In March, Melania Trump used her first public appearance since resuming the role of first lady to travel to Capitol Hill to lobby House members to pass the bill following its approval by the Senate.
At a signing ceremony, she called the new law a “national victory” that will help protect children from online exploitation, including through the use of artificial intelligence to make fake images.
Read more about the “Take it Down” Act