Republican Holdouts Have to Talk to the Boss: BGOV Starting Line

Look Him in the Eye

It’s one thing to face down a congressional leader who lacks the votes to get his way. It’s another to tell your own party’s president, mano a mano, that his “big beautiful bill” is your hill to die on — even though he can turn you into a talk radio punching bag or a conservative-TV hero with a few social media keystrokes.

Clearly Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and President Donald Trump have done that math. Trump’s scheduled to join a private House Republican Conference meeting today, Ken Tran and Jack Fitzpatrick report.

Our team will be watching for any promises, handshakes, severed alliances, or new timetables. As it stands, the Republicans whose constituents took it on the chin when the 2017 Trump tax law capped federal deductions are still trying to negotiate a giant lift in the SALT limit.

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) said one of the offers made was for a temporary $40,000 deduction for single filers and $80,000 for married couples, and “that sunset to $10,000 in just a couple of years was a poison pill that none of us could support.”

And ultra conservatives are still insisting on more fiscal belt-tightening. “I’m a hard no,” said House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Andy Harris, who predicted that this week will end with a delay rather than with House passage of the mega tax-spending cut-debt limit reconciliation package. BGOV subscribers can get the latest in Budget Brief.

Maeve Sheehey reports that Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) appears to have the opposite expectation, saying presidential pressure may be persuasive for GOP moderates. “Every single time they have previously been asked to stand up and defend health care, defend veterans or defend nutritional assistance to children and older Americans, they’ve caved to Donald Trump’s pressure,” Jeffries said. “We’ll see what happens this week.”

The next procedural step for the package is a House Rules Committee meeting at 1 a.m. And no, that’s not a typo.

IRS Nominee Faces Skeptical Senators

Former Rep. Billy Long, who once supported defunding the IRS when he was in the House, should expect questions about qualifications to run the federal tax-collection agency during today’s nomination hearing.

He also should be ready for skeptical queries about his work promoting tax credits that the Treasury Department says don’t exist, Erin Schilling and Chris Cioffi report.

Another topic Democrats are itching to pursue: people associated with the tax-credit endeavor helped Long pay off old campaign debts, which a letter by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other senators described as a “brazen attempt to curry favor” that’s “not only unethical—it may also be illegal.” Read More

Subscribers can track keep up with Hill action with Congress Tracker.

Eye on the Economy

Four of the Federal Reserve decision-makers who help decide changes in the benchmark interest rate have speeches scheduled today, so there’ll be a lot of professional tea-leaf-readers hanging on every word.

The separate remarks are planned by these Federal Open Market Committee members: Adriana D. Kugler, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic, and Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President and Chief Executive Officer Mary Daly. Those public appearances come on the heels of comments by two other Federal Reserve officials who suggested policymakers may not be ready to lower interest rates before September as they confront a murky economic outlook.

“It’s not going to be that in June we’re going to understand what’s happening here, or in July,” New York Fed chief John Williams said yesterday at a conference organized by the Mortgage Bankers Association. “It’s going to be a process of collecting data, getting a better picture, and watching things as they develop.”

The Fed’s next three meetings are in June, July and September. Read More

Opposite Of a Trade War

China is giving European business leaders its warmest welcome in years, in an effort to strengthen ties as Beijing seeks to counter Trump’s tariff pressure and stabilize its slowing economy.

The leader of a delegation to Beijing said that he was invited to lunch by Xia Baolong, China’s top official for Hong Kong and Macau affairs. Presented with 10 requests, Xia “said yes to everything,” said Inaki Amate, chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. “He said, ‘whatever you need you just ask us and we will make it work.’”

No, Amate didn’t reveal that 10-item wish list. China has a growing trade surplus with the EU. Read More

Could Almost Hold a Mini Cabinet Meeting

Congressional committees are crowding as much work as they can into this week since they’re away next week for the Memorial Day recess. So don’t be surprised if you turn a corner in a corridor today and bump into the entourage for a member of Trump’s cabinet.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and separately appear before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee;
• HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is due to answer questions from another Senate Appropriations subcommittee
• DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee;
• Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is due at an appropriations hearing on the House side, as is SEC Chair Paul Atkins;
• EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will testify to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

A dynamic to watch is whether lawmakers have questions for Zeldin and Kennedy about the active chemical in the weed-killer sold as Roundup. Bayer, which inherited Roundup in its $63 billion acquisition of Monsanto in 2018, is dealing with thousands of legal claims from plaintiffs who allege Roundup caused their cancer.

Zeldin backs a plan to immunize glyphosate manufacturers from lawsuits, Bridge Michigan reports, while Kennedy considers the chemical “poison.”

Vaccine Policy

An off-the-hill event to watch this afternoon will be on the FDA’s YouTube channel.

The Trump administration will lay out its new approach to Covid vaccinations at an event featuring Commissioner Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad, an outspoken critic of the drug industry who was recently appointed to lead the FDA division that oversees vaccines.

The industry has been waiting for details after HHS said all new vaccines will have to be tested against a placebo before they can win FDA approval, raising some ethical concerns since placebo studies involve withholding proven protection and potentially exposing people to preventable illness. Read More

Before You Go

Perhaps a History Lesson’s In Order: “I don’t know why people consider it as bribery or Qatar trying to buy influence with this administration,” said Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani as he discussed the jumbo jet gift during a panel at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. “Many nations have gifted things to the US,” he said, invoking the Statue of Liberty, which was presented to the US government by France in the 19th century — after an act of Congress specifically allowed it, in keeping with the foreign emuluments clause of the Constitution. Read More

Upping the Ante: Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) is facing charges after a federal prosecutor concluded the New Jersey Democrat “assaulted, impeded, and interfered with law enforcement” at an immigration detention center, Ellen M. Gilmer reports.

McIver maintains she was conducting congressional oversight alongside two other House Democrats when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials initially refused to let them inspect the facility — which members of Congress are allowed to do with no advance notice. Administration officials say the lawmakers “stormed” the New Jersey facility. Read More

Windmills OK Again: the Trump administration lifted an order that halted construction on a $5 billion wind energy project off the coast of New York. The move ends a weeks-long saga that had thrown not just the project into question, but also placed serious doubts over the future of offshore wind in the US. Read More

Trump administration actions hit mileposts in at least four lawsuits, with the Supreme Court handing down a Trump victory and other courts siding with challengers. Get up to speed:

• Supreme Court Lets Trump End Some Venezuelan Migrant Protections
• US Court Orders Return of Another Deportee From El Salvador
• Trump Can’t Fire Institute of Peace Leaders, Judge Rules
• Trump Administration Ordered to Restore Cities’ Green Grants

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