It's not exactly front-and-center in the news, but Republicans have entered a budgetary crunch time in a big way. The outcome is going to be extremely significant to hundreds of millions of Americans, but reporting on it is time-consuming and detail-oriented, so it's a lot easier to just chase whatever shiny object Donald Trump trots out for the press instead.

But perhaps we're being too harsh. After all, the process itself is a maddening one for all concerned. Threats of "No" votes are issued, backroom deals are made, things get ruled out of bounds, hasty rewriting takes place, more threats are issued, more arm-twisting happens behind closed doors, and eventually something gets cobbled together that no one person has the time to read all the way through before it is voted on. The bill is dragged over the finish line and then the whole process happens all over again in the other house of Congress, until everyone is exhausted and just votes for whatever the heck is currently in the bill and they send it along to the president. It's only after the dust settles that anyone bothers to really dig in to the text and report on what it will all mean to America. This process happens pretty much the same way no matter which party is in control, it is worth pointing out.

This time around, Republicans are operating under two entirely self-imposed restrictions. The first is the deadline of July 4th. In actuality, there is no deadline at all. If July 5th dawns and the bill hasn't been signed into law, precisely nothing will change. There will be no government shutdown, there is no fiscal cliff to head over, and life will go on exactly as it has been. Trump picked the date off the calendar a while back and told Congress he wanted them to be done by then (quite obviously, so he could have something to brag about on Independence Day). The second restriction stems from another off-the-cuff Trump decision. Earlier in the year, some Republicans in Congress suggested doing the easy stuff -- the things they could all easily agree on -- and send it along to Trump right away. Then they'd tackle the much harder budgetary stuff and pass that later in the year. But Trump sided with the "let's do everything at once" faction and demanded "one big, beautiful bill." Republicans followed Trump's lead and even named the legislation the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (which is almost as redundant as saying "A.T.M. machine," we would amusingly point out).

As things stand, the bill has passed the House and is being rewritten so it can pass the Senate. But they're getting jammed up, which likely means the bill won't make it to Trump's desk by the 4th of July (which is one week from today). They've run into basically three problems. The first is "No" vote threats from GOP senators. The second is the Senate parliamentarian. And the third is pushback from the House GOP, which didn't want their bill to be rewritten at all.

Republican senators have different priorities than the GOP House. Some don't want such Draconian cuts to programs that help the poorest and neediest Americans, while some want such cuts to be even more Draconian. There are no GOP senators from blue states, so a tax change that is incredibly important to some GOP House members (because they live in swing districts in blue states, and are thus in danger of being voted out next year) has been scrapped. This is all the normal give-and-take of budget negotiations. One faction will win and the other faction will get some face-saving measure tossed towards it and they'll all vote for it in the end (that's the way these things normally work out, at any rate).

The parliamentarian problem is a bigger one. Since Republicans are passing the bill under "reconciliation" rules (which mean they can avoid a filibuster), only certain things are allowed in it. This provision is known as the "Byrd rule" for the senator who instituted them, and the whole procedure of the parliamentarian weeding things out is known as the "Byrd bath." And so far, it's been a rather brutal one for this bill:

The list of provisions that have been deemed out of bounds by the parliamentarian is long. [Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth] MacDonough has said no to the GOP's prized initiatives slashing Medicaid and Medicare coverage for unauthorized immigrants, limiting state provider taxes, banning transgender care from all federal healthcare programs and cutting food stamp benefits. She has given a thumbs down to defunding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and plans that would have forced the sale of massive tracts of pristine public land to private developers and interfered with the judiciary's ability to function. In all, she has rejected more than two dozen provisions.

The New York Times has a running tally of what got washed out in the Byrd bath, if you'd like to see a full list.

The cuts Republicans are trying to get passed will be brutal. For all of R.F.K. Junior's talk of making American healthy again, these cuts will drastically slash programs that have been doing just that. The cuts to Medicaid will likely cause dozens (if not hundreds) of rural hospitals to close their doors (which will hit millions of Trump voters hard, it is worth pointing out).

Cutting food aid and healthcare for the poorest Americans to pay for huge tax breaks for the wealthiest is already not popular. Polling on the bill has been as bad as 2-to-1 against, and that's before most of the public even learns what is in it. Decisions and backroom deals made in the next week could adversely affect millions upon millions of Americans. But as usual, the details of all these changes will be fluid right up until the vote is held -- guaranteeing that most (if not all) of the senators voting will have no concrete idea of what they are voting on.

Assuming the Senate does pass the bill (either before the deadline or not -- they were planning on holding votes this weekend, but the parliamentarian's changes were so sweeping that they are already talking about postponing it), it will then head back to the House. There the big question is whether the GOP House members who hate certain provisions will knuckle under to the pressure from Trump (which will be enormous) or whether they will demand negotiations with the Senate over certain parts of it. As things stand, the House is planning on being on vacation all next week, although that could change. Trump himself even backed off on the deadline today (although he later contradicted himself on social media).

So while there are plenty of other things going on in the political world, what is happening right now in Congress is probably going to wind up being much more important to most Americans in the end. Which is why we felt the need to make it the lead story this week, even if we couldn't add much clarity to the process.

Since it is the last full week in June, it is the time for monumental Supreme Court rulings. Today was a big day, as decisions were handed down in several prominent cases. Parents will be able to opt out of their children learning about books with L.G.B.T.Q. characters in them, states will be allowed to require age verification to access pornographic websites, and Obamacare's preventative medicine features were upheld. The Supreme Court essentially punted on a case involving congressional redistricting in Louisiana as well (it will re-hear the case next year). But the big headline was that the Supreme Court reined in the ability of lower-court judges to issue nationwide injunctions.

The ruling is not a clear-cut one by any means. The underlying cases were from states suing to block the Trump administration from redefining what "birthright citizenship" means, but the high court did not rule on the constitutional merits, meaning the essential question of what precisely the 14th Amendment means will still be an open one. And the Supreme Court didn't entirely forbid nationwide injunctions, and sent the cases back to their original judges for review. The block on Trump changing the interpretation of the 14th Amendment will still be in force for another 30 days while this review happens. But what happens afterwards is unclear. We could wind up with a patchwork map where if your baby is born in certain states, it will automatically be considered a citizen while in other states that won't be true. Further legal analysis of the ruling and what the individual judges do next will determine what the outcome is.

Other than today's court rulings, the biggest news of the week was Trump giving the green light to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. The jury's still out on how successful this will turn out to be, but at the very least Trump's gamble that Iran wouldn't retaliate in any meaningful way against U.S. forces seems to have paid off. Also, the world's oil markets largely shrugged off the attack, so there won't be any worst-case scenarios, at least for the time being.

The attack was notable for how quickly it happened and then was over. Iran and Israel agreed to a ceasefire almost immediately, which still seems to be holding. There are big questions about how effective the strike (with bunker-buster bombs) was, although because Trump decreed that the sites were "obliterated" that is now the only thing any Trump administration official will say about it -- even after an intelligence report was leaked that said Iran's nuclear program was only set back by a few months.

This has led to much petulance from Trump himself, of course. By week's end, he had apparently threatened to sue the New York Times for reporting on the intelligence report leak, demanding they "retract and apologize" for their "false" and "unpatriotic" article. A lawyer for the paper responded thusly: "No retraction is needed. No apology will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so."

The funniest thing was when the White House's press secretary showed that, once again, she simply does not understand the concept of irony. When asked about the success of the attack, Karoline Leavitt responded: "Look, we saw the Ayatollah's video, and when you have a totalitarian regime, you have to save face. I think any commonsense, open-minded person knows the truth about the precision strikes on Saturday night. They were wildly successful." Hoo boy -- talk about saving face!

Plenty of other things happened this week but as usual, they were all overshadowed in one way or another, so we apologize for not going into detail about any of them. Instead, we are going to end by pointing out another amusing episode in the series of mysterious anti-Trump artwork that have been appearing on the National Mall. This time, it's a statue of a gold-spray-painted television set, which shows a loop of Donald Trump doing what he calls "dancing" -- including one of Trump busting out his wavy-armed "moves" standing next to Jeffrey Epstein. There's a plaque at the base of the statue which has a choice quote on it, just for extra snark: "In the United States of America you have the freedom to display your so-called 'art,' no matter how ugly it is. -- The Trump White House, June 2025."

For those who are in D.C., the statue is "near Third Street NW in direct view of the U.S. Capitol," so head on down to see it before it is replaced with some other anti-Trump installation. Can't wait to see what the mystery artists come up with next!

We have two awards to hand out this week, with a similar theme to both. The first is an Honorable Mention to Robert Garcia, who won an intraparty election to become the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. This is the latest development in a generational power struggle within the House Democrats and the Democratic Party at large.

The reason this election is happening now is because the man who held it (Gerry Connolly) recently died. Connolly was 75 years old. He won the election last year for this committee seat by beating out Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (who is 35 years old), and then announced his cancer had returned and subsequently died. Garcia, who is 47 years old, beat out a 70-year-old Democrat this week to win the seat. The Democratic Party as a whole needs to help its younger members advance, and this was a big step in the right direction.

Which brings us to our main award. The Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week was New York state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist, who is the expected winner of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary (the final votes in the ranked-choice election won't be tallied until next week). Mamdani beat 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo in an upset (as of now, Mamdani is 7 points ahead).

This was a real changing-of-the-guard moment, as the Democratic Party establishment held its nose to back Cuomo's attempt at a political comeback after being accused by more than 10 women of sexual harassment and leaving the governor's office in disgrace. But even with millions of dollars and big-name endorsements (Bill Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, and James Clyburn), Cuomo fell short.

Mamdani is young and a fresh face to Democrats. But his victory was not universally celebrated by everyone in the party. His politics are ideologically far left, and he ran a campaign centered on economic issues. During his victory speech, he summed up what he wanted the Democratic Party to stand for: "A party where we fight for working people with no apology. A life of dignity should not be reserved for a fortunate few. It should be one that city government guarantees for each and every New Yorker."

When asked which of all the competing narratives (progressivism, focus on affordability, age, messaging tactics) was the most important in the race, Senator Bernie Sanders first decided to have some fun with the interviewer:

I think it's his hair, myself. The consultants haven't figured that out. That's why I make the big bucks. I think it's the hairstyle myself. I don't think there's much else to be said about it. Good guy. Photogenic. The hair.

Then Bernie got serious:

Look, he ran a brilliant campaign. And it wasn't just him. What he understood and understands -- [the] campaign's not over -- is that to run a brilliant campaign, you have to run a grassroots campaign. So instead of taking money from billionaires and putting stupid ads on television, which the people increasingly do not pay attention to, you mobilize thousands and thousands of people around the progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working-class people and you go out and you knock on doors. And if somebody like a Kamala Harris had not listened to her consultants and done that, she would be president of the United States today.

Bernie's take on things wasn't shared by all. In fact, several Democrats went absolutely ballistic, but we'll get to all of that in a moment.

One group who did celebrate Mamdani's win were the women who made the accusations against Cuomo. The idea of him rehabilitating his political reputation was horrifying, to them, and understandably so.

The real question is why it wasn't also horrifying to the rest of the Democratic Party. Bloomberg could have poured millions into the race to back some other candidate, but he didn't. If the party had spoken as one in condemnation of Cuomo, he probably would have lost by an even bigger margin, and possibly to a different candidate.

Republicans were delighted by the development, since they have already begun attacking Mamdani. They are hoping to use him to paint the entire Democratic Party as being "communists" (as Donald Trump raged) and radicals. Some of these attacks have been Islamophobic, and some have been completely racist.

How Democrats -- especially those who hail from New York -- act going forward will be interesting to watch. Some (such as Jerrold Nadler) have thrown their support behind Mamdani already, but others are so angry they're swearing to do everything they can to make sure Mamdani doesn't win the general election. Cuomo could run as an independent in November, and the current (and scandal-plagued) mayor will also be on the ballot. In such a wide race (there will also be a Republican candidate), anyone could win (even though winning the Democratic primary is usually a guarantee of a win in the general election).

But for now, Zohran Mamdani's win should be recognized for the political earthquake it truly was. He beat the Democratic Party's old guard, and it was a triumph of youth over seniority. His stunning upset easily made him the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Congratulate New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani on his official contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

As mentioned, not every Democrat welcomed Mamdani's victory. Some flew off the handle, in fact. Andrew Cuomo, to his credit, conceded the race early and did so in a respectful fashion. Others weren't so polite, however.

Some of the negative reactions, such as a piece co-written by James Carville, were nothing more than sour (and pretty stale) grapes. Some were aghast that Democrats would vote for someone with the "Democratic Socialist" label. The Washington Post, which is owned by one of the richest men alive, had a little hissy fit in an editorial:

Zohran Mamdani, the charismatic 33-year-old who is now the front-runner to be the next mayor of New York, might seem like a breath of fresh air for a Democratic Party struggling to move past its aging establishment. In fact, New Yorkers should be worried that he would lead Gotham back to the bad old days of civic dysfunction, and Democrats should fear that he will discredit their next generation of party leaders, almost all of whom are better than this democratic socialist.

. . .

Now, a man who believes that capitalism is "theft" is in line to lead the country's biggest city and the world's financial capital. His signature ideas are "city-owned grocery stores," no bus fares, freezing rent on 1 million regulated apartments and increasing the minimum wage to $30 an hour. No doubt these might strike some voters as tempting ideas. But, as with so many proposals from America's far left, the trade-offs would hurt the people they are supposed to help.

It then goes on to condescendingly explain how any of these programs would immediately lead to an economic hellscape. Because providing free child care would be so horrendous for so many (insert eye-rolling emoji here). Mamdani, according to this view, is the reincarnation of Karl Marx.

This is all pretty overblown. New York City is not the rest of the country, but they still get to elect whomever they like. The mayor of the Big Apple is not going to set foreign policy for the nation, but some are acting like this is somehow a big threat. In actual fact, Mamdani will be constrained by both his city council and by the legislature in Albany -- both of which will be a lot more moderate than he is.

Before we get to the main award, we've got to hand out (Dis-)Honorable Mention awards to the big-name Democrats who backed Cuomo, even though they knew full well how flawed a human being he truly is. Bill Clinton in particular should have realized that backing someone accused of sexual harassment wouldn't be the best idea. Michael Bloomberg and James Clyburn also should hang their heads in shame for putting an attempt to defeat a progressive ahead of supporting women's rights.

But it was Cuomo's own brother Chris who gets this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award. The Democratic Party still hasn't accepted that millions of its own voters have deep problems with what Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu is doing right now. As far as they are concerned, support for Israel must be absolute and automatic from all Democrats.

Here is how Chris Cuomo reacted to his brother's loss to a youthful Muslim:

In the same way MAGA played with the prejudices of white nationalism, you're seeing an identical dynamic on the Left with prejudices, like tacitly supporting extreme Islamism or targeting Jews. For the Right, it's migrants. And for the Left, it's Jews. It's fundamentalist Christians dominating the Right, and fundamentalist Islamists making headway on the Left. I know that doesn't sound like Democrats, but the party is dead. What it will be reborn as we will see.

The party is dead? Um... no. What is dead is your brother's chances of ever accomplishing any sort of political comeback. Which, in our humble opinion, is actually a good thing.

[You could try to directly contact Chris Cuomo by dialing in to his NewsNation show, if you'd like to let him know what you think of his actions.]

Volume 802 (6/27/25)

First a quick program note: there will be no Friday Talking Points column next week, as we will be celebrating the holiday instead.

It's been another mixed-bag of a week. We kind of get stuck on one particular metaphor, but other than that there's no overarching theme this week.

   Slashing Medicaid to reward billionaires

These first two put some attention on what the Republicans are planning to do with their budget.

"Republicans are falling all over themselves to slash Medicaid funding by hundreds of billions of dollars. They're going to cut food stamps, too. Why are they doing this? So they can hand all that money to the wealthiest Americans in the form of tax cuts they do not need. Those are their priorities, folks. The rich will get richer, and the poor will pay the price. They don't care how many of their own people this will hurt. They don't care how many Trump voters this will hurt. Their answer to everything is to give billionaires more money. To all those red-state or rural voters out there, this is what you voted for. All of Trump's promises that he wouldn't touch Medicaid were nothing short of lies."

   Closed hospitals

Continuing in the same vein....

"And for all those red-state rural voters -- when the hospital near you closes down because it can't make ends meet with all the deep cuts to Medicaid, you will know who to blame. When it takes you over an hour just to travel to an emergency room instead of there being one in your hometown, the Republican budget is why. The Republicans lie about how they're just cutting 'waste, fraud, and abuse' from Medicaid, but what they are actually doing is cutting the funding your local hospital needs to survive. When it closes down, you will just be out of luck. Because to the Republicans, making sure that Elon Musk gets a big tax cut is far more important than whether you can get to an emergency room in time or not. Because that's what the Republican Party is all about, folks."

   Nose/face [1]

We're going to go a little overboard on one particular metaphor, just to warn everyone.

"You know the saying 'he cut off his nose to spite his face'? That seems to be what Trump and the Republicans have taken for their party's motto. After bombing Iran this week, Americans feared possible retaliation in the form of cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure. But guess what? Trump has slashed funding and fired specialists who were in charge of cybersecurity and infrastructure security. Some were reassigned to assist ICE in rounding up immigrants. Trump also purged specialists from the F.B.I. and an office that is in charge of detecting chemical, biological, and nuclear attacks against America. The former head of the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction office condemned these senseless policies by saying: 'We are less safe now than we were on Jan. 20 because of the indiscriminate cuts by DOGE, that shift in priority to focus exclusively on immigration and not on counterterrorism or other national security threats, and the loss of institutional knowledge about those national security threats. We are less safe now and the risks are higher now.' Slashing funding and firing people who are in charge of national security so that you can round up more immigrants seems like a good example of cutting off your nose to spite your face, don't you think?"

   Nose/face [2]

This one is just disgusting.

"Trump is on a vendetta against a guy he mistakenly deported to a hellhole of a prison in El Salvador. They've charged him with human trafficking, but the judge in the case pointed out how different what the administration lawyers say in court is to the rhetoric Trump uses about this man. The charges are, according to the judge, based on testimony and scenarios that 'defy common sense.' This testimony is 'double hearsay' or that 'the level of hearsay cannot even be determined,' some of which comes from 'at least three if not four or more levels of hearsay,' which does not back up the charges against him. In fact, one of their witnesses is a 'two-time previously deported felon and acknowledged ringleader of a human smuggling operation.' Sounds like the kind of guy Trump would want to deport, right? Except that in exchange for his testimony, he will get an early release from prison, be protected from deportation, and get work authorization. Yes, you heard that right -- as long as he is willing to say whatever Trump wants him to say on a witness stand, this human-smuggling kingpin is going to go scot-free. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face! This is both disgusting and dangerous, folks."

   Sheer idiocy

This could also fit within the metaphor.

"If the Republican budget passes, the Post Office might be forced to sell off a bunch of brand-new trucks for pennies on the dollar -- for no reason other than that Donald Trump hates electric vehicles. After buying over 7,000 new electric mail trucks and spending half a billion dollars at its facilities to accommodate them, they're just going to turn around and try to sell them. From a story on this idiocy: 'there is almost no private-sector interest in the mail trucks, and used EV charging equipment -- built specifically for the Postal Service and already installed in postal facilities -- generally cannot be resold.' Most of this equipment is 'literally buried under parking lots.' If they try to sell all of this off, nobody will be interested in buying any of it. This is unbelievably short-sighted and a ridiculous waste of taxpayer dollars -- buying brand-new trucks and then turning around and trying to get pennies on the dollar for them is like lighting a huge pile of cash on fire. But Trump and the Republicans don't care."

   Who will work in those factories?

Going back to the 1950s might not be possible, it turns out.

"Donald Trump swore to revitalize American manufacturing and bring all those factory jobs back home. But there's a big problem with this scheme, which is apparent even before his tariff war began. There are about 400,000 factory jobs that are unfilled right now in America. One air-conditioner manufacturer summed up the industry's problem: 'For every 20 job postings that we have, there is one qualified applicant right now.' Got that? One worker for every 20 job openings. So how is bringing a bunch of factories home to America going to work out if there is nobody qualified to work in them? I mean, I guess you could hire some immigrants to do so, except that -- whoops! -- we're deporting all of them. Trump's goal of building lots of American factories isn't going to work if there aren't any workers to build stuff!"

   Almost time to punt

Another deadline is fast arriving.

"Trump's 90-day pause on all his steep tariffs for the rest of the world is almost over. In a week and a half, Trump will either slap all the sky-high tariffs back on everyone or he will have to punt the deadline to cut trade deals even further out -- I hear they're talking about Labor Day, maybe. So far, Trump has nothing to show for his trade war except one 'framework' for a future deal with the United Kingdom. That's it. At the start of this period they were promising '90 deals in 90 days' but we're almost there and they have a cobbled-together framework of one single deal. Sounds like this isn't working out the way they planned -- no wonder they're about to punt their own deadline again."

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground