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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate’s rule enforcer dealt a major blow to Senate Republicans Thursday morning by ruling a key Medicaid provision in the megabill that advances President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda is out of order.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough found that a provision that cracks down on states’ use of health care provider taxes to help collect additional Medicaid funding is not in keeping with the rules governing a package like the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which senators are making changes to as Republicans work to meet Trump’s Fourth of July deadline for passage.

MacDonough’s ruling means that Senate Republicans will need to retool the provision or scrap it entirely if they want to move forward with attempting to pass the bill using only GOP votes.

The ruling is a major setback for Republican leadership, who are under pressure to expeditiously move it to the Senate floor to meet the July deadline. This ruling will require potentially major reworks of the bill with relatively little time to accomplish them. And no matter how they change it, leaders are likely to frustrate some faction of the Republican conference, which could imperil the bill’s passage.

The provider tax credit provisions had been emerging as a thorn in leadership’s side even before MacDonough’s ruling.

For days, a small but critical faction of the Senate GOP conference has been raising major flags about the way this cut to states’ Medicaid revenue might kneecap rural hospitals in their states. A number of Republicans in the Senate were threatening to withhold their votes for the package because of these changes to the provider tax, so for that group, MacDonough’s ruling is likely a welcome one.

But changes to the provider tax rate was one of the major ways that Republicans planned to reform Medicaid and cut costs. Getting rid of this provision will either raise the cost of the package and risk rankling a number of conservative Republicans, or force Senate Republicans back to the drawing board to find another way to cut costs.

If changes are made, all eyes will be on a handful of Senate Republicans. Some changes could be deal breakers for those whose vote is critical to moving the bill over the finish line.

Last weekend, MacDonough carefully scrutinized the House-passed bill for possible violations of the Senate’s rules. She has already issued a number of decisions that Democrats are touting as major victories.

This review, called the Byrd Bath — named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd, who helped institute the rules governing budget reconciliation packages, is still underway in the Senate.

Any provision that MacDonough rules out of order with the Senate’s rules will have to be stripped or else the legislation will be subject to the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. Republicans need to avoid this, or they won’t be able to pass the bill.

There are already cries from some Republicans for Majority Leader John Thune to lead the Senate in a vote to overrule the parliamentarian. The Senate technically can overrule MacDonough with a simple majority of votes. But Thune has long said he won’t overrule her because he has vowed not to touch the Senate’s filibuster rules.

It’s not yet clear whether this ruling will force a further delay in efforts by leadership to get the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to the Senate floor late this week or over the weekend.

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(NEW YORK) — Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, told ABC News in a wide-ranging interview aired Wednesday that he plans to win over moderate voters — even as a self-identified Democratic socialist — as he runs in the general election.

He said he also believes the Democratic Party needs to refocus on what working-class Americans are going through.

“I think that the Democratic Party must always remember what made so many proud to be Democrats, which is a focus on the struggles of working class Americans across this country,” Mamdani told ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott.

“And I think that there is a need for a new generation of leadership,” he added.

The 33-year-old State Assembly member, who campaigned on a progressive economic platform, declared victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo as results in Tuesday’s closely watched primary rolled in.

Asked how he’d respond to voters who are nervous about his age and relative inexperience, Mamdani pointed to his campaign fundraising and sheer number of volunteers, as well as meetings he said he’s had with deputy mayors and commissioners from many mayoral administrations, “all as part of my commitment to building a team that is united, not by ideology, not by past relationship or knowledge, but frankly, by excellence.”

Mamdani also spoke with Scott about addressing concerns from Democrats about the “Democratic socialist” label, when he would be open to collaborating with President Donald Trump and reaching out to Jewish New Yorkers.

Embracing the Democratic socialist label – and winning over moderates

Mamdani has proudly identified as a Democratic socialist — a label that some Democrats have expressed concerns about, especially as some Republicans have seized on the label to claim that all Democrats are socialists or far-left.

“What do you say to those Democrats who have concerns about that term, Democratic socialist, that you so proudly claim you are?” Scott asked.

“I would say that I hear them, because there’s room to have disagreement and tension in any one party. And for too long, we’ve thought of politics as an act of purity, where you only work with those that you agree with on every issue… And there are going to be many Democrats, both here in this city and across the country, who have a different lens of what it is that they see us needing in this moment,” Mamdani said.

“But ultimately, we agree on the importance of addressing affordability, and that’s at the core of our campaign.”

How would he win back voters who may think the policies Mamdani ran on are too far to the left of where they think the Democratic Party should be?

“I would tell them to look at the results of last night,” he said, referring to the primary on Tuesday. He called the results a “clear reflection of a mandate to make this city affordable” and one that showed Democrats united in support of his economic proposals.

“And it shows that for a long time, what we’ve heard in terms of the analysis of this city and its politics is actually out of step with where people are.”

He added later that he hopes to win the support of people who would otherwise vote for incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who he criticized as “the original architect of this affordability crisis over the last few years.”

As to why voters should support him over Adams, he said, “I’m someone who will make the city more affordable, and because what we’ve seen is that this present has been delivered to us by the policies and the politics and even the politicians of the past. It’s time for a new generation of leadership. It’s time for a politics of the future.”

Adams, speaking on Fox News on Wednesday, criticized Mamdani as a “snake oil salesman,” saying, “I delivered for the city and we’re not going backwards.”

Working with, or opposing, Trump

When asked about comments from President Donald Trump on social media calling him a “Communist Lunatic,” Mamdani shrugged off the epithet, saying he’d encourage Trump to learn about his policies, and that he’d work with Trump on affordability but would resist the president’s deportation plans.

“The next mayor of New York City will have to work with the Trump administration. Are you willing to do that? Will you do that?” Scott asked.

“I will work with the Trump administration when it is to the benefit of New Yorkers,” Mamdani said. “My approach will never be reflexive, whether in agreement or opposition, but if it comes at the expense of the New Yorkers that I’m running to serve, then, no, I will not be working with the administration on harming the people that I look to represent.”

Asked by Scott how he’d manage that relationship, Mamdani reiterated wanting to collaborate with Trump on lowering the price of groceries – pointing to his campaign plan to open “a network of municipal-owned stores” – but also reiterated not wanting to assist the president with immigrant detentions.

Outreach to the Jewish community

Mamdani has faced some pushback, given New York’s large Jewish population, over his history of comments and activism opposing Israel, including his criticism of Israel over the war in Gaza. In response, he has emphasized policies to combat antisemitism and said that he wants to focus on city issues.

“How do you gain the trust of Jewish voters in New York City?” Scott asked.

Mamdani brought up his campaign plan to increase funding for anti-hate crime programming, but acknowledged a divide between his views on Israel and those of many in the Jewish community.

“Ultimately, my comments have been on critiques of the Israeli government’s policies, and I know that there are many New Yorkers who may disagree with me on those same critiques,” Mamdani said. “And yet that disagreement is still rooted in the shared sense of humanity.”

As for his strategy to reach out to Jewish voters, Mamdani said he was ready to “to introduce myself again and again” to every New Yorker, including Jewish New Yorkers, given the low name recognition he started out with in the race.

ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday both continued to counter a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment that the attack on three Iranian nuclear facilities did limited damage by saying it was incomplete and claiming news accounts were demeaned the B-2 pilots who dropped the bombs.

Speaking at a news conference as he was set to leave the NATO summit in the Netherlands, Trump claimed the pilots are “devastated” by the suggestion the strikes were not a complete success.

He was asked several times on Wednesday about the Defense Intelligence Agency’s initial assessment that the bombings of the Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo facilities likely set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months. He acknowledged the receipt of the report but noted it was incomplete.

He snapped back at reporters raising questions about it, repeating his claim Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated,” and shifted the focus to the pilots who carried out the strike.

“You should be praising those people instead of trying to find out by getting me by trying to go and get me. You’re hurting those people,” Trump told reporters.

Later Wednesday, in a Truth Social post, he said Hegseth would hold a news conference Thursday morning “in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots.”

“They felt terribly! Fortunately for them and, as usual, solely for the purpose of demeaning PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP,” he said in part. “The News Conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable.”

During that news conference Thursday, Hegseth angrily slammed reporters for “undermining” the success of the pilots.

“There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did and, because of the hatred of this press corps, are undermined because your people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn’t successful. It’s irresponsible,” he said.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also explained he operation and said he was not pressured by the president.

“I’ve never been pressured by the president or the secretary to do anything other than tell him exactly what I’m thinking, and that’s exactly what I’ve done in the highway. There’s nothing that I’ve seen that suggests that we didn’t get exactly what we wanted to hit in those locations,” he said.

Trump later said in a Truth Social post that the news conference was “the greatest, most professional, and most ‘confirming.'”

Hegseth’s comments amplified his and Trump’s vocal opposition to the press the day before.

The president claimed in his Netherlands news conference that he had received a call from Missouri, where the pilots are based, about the intelligence report and the news accounts about it, saying he had been told they were “devastated, because they were trying to minimize the attack.”

“I spoke to one of them. He said, ‘Sir, we hit the site. It was perfect. It was dead on,’ because they don’t understand fake news,” Trump said.

The Pentagon referred questions from ABC News to the White House.

Trump added about the pilots that “they were devastated. They put their lives on the line.”

Since Saturday’s attack, Trump and his officials have repeatedly praised the B-2 pilots for the mission but stepped up referencing them as part of the pushback on Wednesday. Hegseth, standing next to Trump, came to the microphone to argue news reporters and outlets “don’t care what the troops think.”

“These pilots, these refuelers, these fighters, these air defenders, the skill and the courage it took to go into enemy territory flying 36 hours on behalf of the American people in the world to take out a nuclear program is beyond what anyone in this audience can fathom,” Hegseth said.

At the same time, Hegseth and Trump downplayed the report’s initial findings about the damage.

“The report said what it said and it was fine. It was severe, they think, but they had no idea. They shouldn’t have issued a report until they did, but we’ve got the information,” Trump said.

Trump earlier cited an Israeli intelligence report that he insisted assessed the “strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility totally inoperable.”

Military officials have said there is no doubt the sites sustained significant damage, but that a “battle damage assessment” would take time to complete, as no Western officials have been able to personally inspect the sites as of Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement posted on X late Wednesday that “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed,” and also slamming the news media. A source with knowledge of Gabbard’s assessment told ABC News her description came from new U.S. intelligence.

“The propaganda media has deployed their usual tactic: selectively release portions of illegally leaked classified intelligence assessments (intentionally leaving out the fact that the assessment was written with “low confidence”) to try to undermine President Trump’s decisive leadership and the brave servicemen and women who flawlessly executed a truly historic mission to keep the American people safe and secure,” she posted in part.

Hegseth contended that the preliminary reports and images spoke for themselves.

“So, if you want to make an assessment of what happened at Fordo, you better get a big shovel and go really deep because Iran’s nuclear program is obliterated and somebody somewhere is trying to leak something to say, ‘Oh, with low confidence we think maybe it’s moderate,” he claimed.

-ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson, Kelsey Walsh and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
 

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(WASHINGTON) — Trump added about the pilots that “they were devastated. They put their lives on the line.”

Since Saturday’s attack, Trump and his officials have repeatedly praised the B-2 pilots for the mission but stepped up referencing them as part of the pushback on Wednesday. Hegseth, standing next to Trump, came to the microphone to argue news reporters and outlets “don’t care what the troops think.”

“These pilots, these refuelers, these fighters, these air defenders, the skill and the courage it took to go into enemy territory flying 36 hours on behalf of the American people in the world to take out a nuclear program is beyond what anyone in this audience can fathom,” Hegseth said.

At the same time, Hegseth and Trump downplayed the report’s initial findings about the damage.

“The report said what it said and it was fine. It was severe, they think, but they had no idea. They shouldn’t have issued a report until they did, but we’ve got the information,” Trump said.

Trump earlier cited an Israeli intelligence report that he insisted assessed the “strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility totally inoperable.”

Military officials have said there is no doubt the sites sustained significant damage, but that a “battle damage assessment” would take time to complete, as no Western officials have been able to personally inspect the sites as of Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement posted on X late Wednesday that “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed,” and also slamming the news media. A source with knowledge of Gabbard’s assessment told ABC News her description came from new U.S. intelligence.

“The propaganda media has deployed their usual tactic: selectively release portions of illegally leaked classified intelligence assessments (intentionally leaving out the fact that the assessment was written with “low confidence”) to try to undermine President Trump’s decisive leadership and the brave servicemen and women who flawlessly executed a truly historic mission to keep the American people safe and secure,” she posted in part.

Hegseth contended that the preliminary reports and images spoke for themselves.

“So, if you want to make an assessment of what happened at Fordo, you better get a big shovel and go really deep because Iran’s nuclear program is obliterated and somebody somewhere is trying to leak something to say, ‘Oh, with low confidence we think maybe it’s moderate,” he claimed.

-ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson, Kelsey Walsh and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called President Donald Trump “Daddy” on Tuesday, reacting to the president’s recent use of expletives when he accused Iran and Israel of violating a ceasefire agreement.

Early Wednesday morning during a bilateral meeting between Trump and Rutte during the NATO Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, Trump likened the countries of Israel and Iran to “two kids in a schoolyard” that had a “big fight.”

“You know, they fight like hell. You can’t stop them. Let them fight for about two-three minutes, then it’s easy to stop them,” he continued.

Rutte raised eyebrows when he interjected, “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language to get them to stop.”

“You have to use strong language,” Trump agreed. “Every so often you have to use a certain word.”

One day earlier, Trump became visibly frustrated about the Israel-Iran conflict, blurting an expletive before departing the White House en route to the summit.

Trump was receptive to Rutte’s nickname, saying during a press conference later Wednesday that the secretary-general meant it in an affectionate manner.

Asked if Trump views his NATO allies as his “children,” the president responded, “No, [Rutte] likes me. I think he likes me. If he doesn’t, I’ll let you know. I’ll come back and I’ll hit him hard, OK? He did it very affectionately, ‘Daddy, you’re my Daddy.'”

Rutte later defended his use of the word and continued to pile praise on Trump, describing him as a “good friend.” He also said his language is a matter of taste.

On Trump’s decision to strike Iran and the ceasefire, Rutte said “I think he deserves all the praise.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was briefly hospitalized Wednesday morning after he got lightheaded at the gym, his spokesperson told ABC News.

He was treated for dehydration and released Wednesday, the spokesperson said, after going to the hospital “out of an abundance of caution.”

By Wednesday afternoon, the New York Democrat was back at work at the Capitol, the spokesperson said.

“He wants to remind everyone to drink some water and stay out of the heat,” the spokesperson added.

An oppressive heat wave is blanketing the East Coast — with highs close to 100 degrees.

Excessive heat warnings are in effect for a number of cities, including Washington, D.C.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

 

 

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