Just two days ago,Donald Trumptold Republican members of Congress to cancel their vacation plans until his “big beautiful bill” is sewn up and ready for his signature on 4 July.
But in his final pitch to congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday, he made no mention of deadlines, as his marquee tax-and-spending bill develops a logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.
Trump stood before an assembly composed of police and fire officers, working parents and the mother and father of a woman he said died at the hands of an undocumented immigrant to argue that Americans like them would benefit from the bill, whichincludesnew tax cuts and the extension of lower rates enacted during his first term, as well as an infusion of funds for immigration enforcement.
“There are hundreds of things here. It’s so good,” he said.
The bill is highly divisive and deeply unpopular with segments of the country. Democrats have dubbed the bill the “big, ugly betrayal”, and railed against what would bethe biggest funding cutto Medicaid since it was created in 1965, and cost an estimated 16 million people their insurance. It would also slash funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps Americans afford food.
Republicans intended to circumvent the filibuster in the Senate by using the budget reconciliation procedure, under which they can pass legislation with just a majority vote, provided it only affects spending, revenue and the debt limit. But on Thursday, the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, ruled that a change to taxes that states use to pay for Medicaid was not allowed under the rules.
Democrats took credit for MacDonough’s ruling, with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer saying the party “successfully fought a noxious provision that would’ve decimated America’s healthcare system and hurt millions of Americans. This win saves hundreds of billions of dollars for Americans to get healthcare, rather than funding tax cuts to billionaires.”
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TheUS supreme courthas paved the way for South Carolina to kickPlanned Parenthoodout of itsMedicaidprogram over its status as an abortion provider, a decision that could embolden red states across the country to effectively “defund” the reproductive healthcare organization.
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The US secretary of defense,Pete Hegseth, defended the US strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities and said that Trump had “decimated … obliterated” the country’s nuclear program despite initial intelligence assessments that last week’s strikes hadfailed to destroy key enrichment facilitiesand they could resume operations within just months.
But he and the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, largely based that assessment on AI modeling, showing test videos of the bunker buster bombs used in the strikes and referred questions on a battle damage assessment of Fordow to the intelligence community.
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The US state department has been advised to terminate grants to nearly all remaining programs awarded under the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which would effectively end the department’s role in funding pro-democracy programming in some of the world’s most hostile totalitarian nations.
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A critical federal vaccine panel has recommended against seasonalinfluenzavaccines containing a specific preservative – a change likely to send shock through the global medical and scientific community and possibly impact future vaccine availability.
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Health secretaryRobert F Kennedy Jr’s reconstituted vaccine advisory panel recommended a new treatment to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants. The treatment, a new monoclonal antibody called clesrovimab, was recommended by the powerful committee after being approved by the Food and Drug Administration roughly two weeks ago.
The tortured vote took place a day late and after rounds of questions from the panel’s seven new members – all ideological allies of Kennedy, who views “overmedicalization” as one of the greatest threats to American children.
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A US army veteran who lived in the country for nearly 50 years – and earned a prestigious military citation for being wounded in combat – has left for South Korea after he says past struggles with drug addiction left him targeted by theTrump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“I can’t believe this is happening in America,” Sae Joon Park, who held legal permanent residency, told National Public Radio in an interview before his departure Monday from Hawaii. “That blows me away – like [it is] a country that I fought for.”
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The dollar has fallen to a three-year lowfollowing a report that Trump is considering soon announcing his choiceto succeed the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell.
The US justice department sued the Maryland federal judiciaryover an order that bars deporting undocumented immigrantsfor at least one day after filing a challenge.
Clothing prices are starting to rise in the USas Trump’s tariffs on imported goods start to have an effect,according to the CEO of H&M.
Catching up?Here’s what happened on25 June 2025.