News

(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republican Leader John Thune reiterated that “failure is not an option” as he works to get GOP holdouts on the megabill advancing President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda in line — especially amid Elon Musk’s efforts to tank the bill.

“This is a team effort, and everybody is going to be rowing in the same direction to get this across the finish line. Failure is not an option, and we intend to deliver, along with the president for the American people on the things that he committed to do and that we committed to do in terms of the agenda,” Thune told reporters after he left a meeting with Trump at the White House on Thursday.

As things currently stand, Thune can afford to lose only three of his GOP members to pass the package, and right now, he has more members than that expressing serious doubts about the bill.

The House-passed legislation extends the Trump 2017 tax cuts, boosts spending for the military and border security — while making some cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other assistance programs. It could also add $3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, according to an analysis out Wednesday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

As the Senate weighs possible changes to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap as part of the tax portion of the bill, House Republicans from blue states are already threatening to derail the bill’s prospects.

Thune signaled changes could be coming to the SALT deal that was struck in the House, but the details are still unclear.

“It would be very, very hard to get the Senate to vote for what the House did,” Thune told reporters. “We’ve just got some people that feel really strongly on this.”

Speaker Mike Johnson said he spoke to the SALT caucus on the floor during House votes Wednesday and plans to “communicate” their red line with Senate leaders.

The SALT deal is “a very delicate thing and we have to maintain the equilibrium point that we reached in the House, and it took us almost a year… so I don’t think we can toss that,” Johnson said.

Musk’s effect on negotiations

Not helping Thune’s endeavor to sway the defectors are frequent posts from Musk targeting the bill — and on Thursday targeting the president.

Musk on Thursday quoted a 2013 post from Trump criticizing Republicans for extending the debt ceiling, with Musk writing, “Wise words.”

Earlier, Musk slammed the bill, calling it a “disgusting abomination” and later urged all members of Congress to “kill the bill.”

Trump touted the bill from the White House on Thursday — brushing off the scathing criticism from Musk.

“I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner-workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem,” Trump said.

Johnson said he plans to speak directly to Musk on Thursday, a day after the speaker said the billionaire was “flat wrong” in his criticism of the bill. Multiple administration officials have attempted to reach out to Musk and his representatives personally, but their calls and texts have not been returned, several sources tell ABC News.

Before speaking out publicly against the bill, Musk personally pushed some lawmakers, including Johnson, to keep the tax credits for electric vehicles in the bill, according to two people familiar with conversations.

Still, Johnson said Musk “seems pretty dug in right now. and I can’t quite understand the motivation behind it.”

“But I would tell you that what we’re delivering in this bill is not only historic tax cuts, but historic savings as well. He seems to miss that,” Johnson added.

Thune said Wednesday that although he can’t speak to Musk’s motivations for his opposition, he will continue to push for the bill’s success in the Senate.

Musk’s public bashing of the bill came up in senators’ meeting with Trump on Thursday, said Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, describing it as a “laughing conversation for 30 seconds.”

“It was very much in jest and laughing, and I think he said something positive about Elon appreciating what he did for the country,” Marshall said.

ABC News’ Will Steakin, Rachel Scott Mary Bruce, Molly Nagle and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — A large part of funding for President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda would come from cuts to safety net programs like Medicaid, the health care program for lower-income Americans and those with disabilities, and SNAP, which helps millions of lower-income Americans buy groceries every month.

The bill passed by the House makes around $600 billion in cuts to Medicaid. About 10.9 million people could lose their coverage over the next 10 years, according to Wednesday’s estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

The SNAP cuts total an estimated $230 billion over 10 years.

Republicans say their goal is reducing “waste, fraud, and abuse” in these programs to save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade and to pay for Trump’s tax cuts and increased funding for the border and defense.

Here’s a breakdown of those cuts in the current form of the bill:

Medicaid cuts

Work requirements: The bill imposes new 80-hours per month work requirements on able-bodied Medicaid recipients aged 19 to 64 who don’t have dependents. These requirements include working or other approved activities such as volunteering.

Under the bill’s current text, these work requirements won’t kick in until 2026.

Increased eligibility checks: The bill also requires states to conduct eligibility redeterminations at least every six months for all recipients instead of the current 12 months.

Undocumented migrants: The legislation seeks to prohibit states from using their funds to cover undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid, but 14 states and the District of Columbia have opted to use their own funds to cover those individuals. This bill would penalize them by reducing Medicaid funding. The White House estimates approximately 1.4 million undocumented migrants would lose coverage.

Increased copays: The bill increases copays for Medicaid recipients who make more than the federal poverty level of just over $15,500 for single beneficiaries. They would be required to pay an extra $35 dollar copay in some visits.

Income and residency verification: Required Medicaid paperwork for income and residency verification will increase as lawmakers look to crack down on people who are “double-dipping” in multiple jurisdictions. The additional steps are expected to especially impact seniors and others who can’t promptly respond.

Prohibits funds for abortion providers and gender transition care: The legislation would ban Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood as long as the organization provides abortions and abortion services.

The legislation also prohibits Medicaid funds from going to gender transition care, including puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgery. In the initial text of the bill, this language applied only to children, but it was expanded to include adults shortly before the House vote.

Obamacare enrollment: The bill ends open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act a month earlier. Most states hold open enrollment from Nov. 1 to Jan. 15. The House bill requires open enrollment to end on Dec. 15. An analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation found in 2025 that roughly 40% of enrollees, or about 10 million people, selected plans after Dec. 15.

The legislation also eliminates a Biden-era policy that allows year-round ACA enrollment for the poorest Americans — those who make up to 150% of the poverty level, or around $22,600 a year. Americans will still be able to enroll year-round if they’ve had a “change in circumstances or the occurrence of a specific event.”

These changes would codify a rule proposed in March by the Trump administration’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

SNAP cuts

The bill tightens eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which used to be called the “food stamp” program, which helped roughly 42 million low-income people buy groceries per month in 2024.

Work requirements: The bill raises the age for work requirements from 54 to 64. A similar bill introduced in the House in 2023 would have reduced rolls by between 3 million and 3.5 million people, according to the CBO. It would also require parents with children older than 6 to meet the work requirement. There is currently no work requirement for SNAP beneficiaries with dependent children at home.

Shifting costs to states: SNAP is currently 100% federally funded. The bill requires states to share in at least 5% of SNAP benefit costs starting in 2028.

Indirect effects: The changes could have an impact on school lunch programs, requiring some previously eligible families to apply for access and on federal reimbursement payments for some school districts.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Former President Bill Clinton, on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday, said he didn’t have concerns about former President Joe Biden’s mental sharpness amid a slate of reports that allege a decline in Biden’s acuity during the 2024 campaign and at the end of his presidency.

“Well, I think you have to pay attention to them,” Clinton said when asked about the accounts. “But all I can say is whenever I was around him, his mind was clear, his judgment was good and he was on top of his brief.”

Clinton went on to question decisions made by the White House in the lead-up to the CNN debate in June 2024 between Biden and Donald Trump, including Biden’s overseas travel in the days prior to his standoff with Trump on stage.

“He was 80 years old. What the heck is he doing that for?” Clinton said. “Why was that allowed to happen?”

“There’s a lot of questions. I don’t know,” Clinton continued. “All I know is I think we should think less about that, more about the future.”

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

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday in favor of U.S. gun manufacturers and blocked a liability lawsuit brought by the government of Mexico, which sought to hold the companies accountable for the trafficking of their weapons south of the border to fuel violence by the cartels.

The government argued in its historic lawsuit that American firearms manufacturers including Smith & Wesson, Glock, Beretta and Colt, were “aiding and abetting” the illicit flow of weapons across the border.

Mexico sought $10 billion in damages, court-mandated safety mechanisms and sales restrictions for U.S.-made guns.

The high court had not taken up the issue of the sweeping gunmaker immunity found in a 2005 federal law aimed at protecting the industry.

In her opinion, Justice Elena Kagan ruled that the Mexican government’s complaint “sets a high bar.”

“The complaint does not pinpoint, as most aiding-and-abetting claims do, any specific criminal transactions that the defendants (allegedly) assisted. It does not say, for example, that a given manufacturer aided a given firearms dealer, at a particular time and place, in selling guns to a given Mexican trafficker not legally permitted to buy them under a specified statute,” she wrote.

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

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.