Senate Republicans are planning to take an initial vote at noon on Saturday to take up the megabill.

Leadership laid out the timeline during a closed-door lunch on Friday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said after the lunch. A person granted anonymity to discuss internal scheduling confirmed the noon timeline but cautioned Republicans haven’t locked in the schedule yet.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune did not tell senators at the lunch that he currently has the votes to take up the bill. Several senators are not currently ready to vote “yes” over concerns about Medicaid language or the deficit. “We’ll find out tomorrow,” Thune told reporters, when asked if has 50 votes.

During the meeting, House Speaker Mike Johnson pitched Senate Republicans on the tentative SALT deal, according to three people in the room. He said the deal was as good as Republican can get, according to the people.

Johnson noted he still has “one holdout” — an apparent reference to New York Republican Nick LaLota, who said in a brief interview Friday that if there was a deal, he was not part of it.

Leaving the meeting, Johnson was asked by reporters whether he thought Senate Republicans would accept the SALT deal. “I believe they will,” he replied. “They’re going to digest the final calculations, but I think we’re very, very close to closing that issue.”

In the meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Johnson laid out details of the fragile agreement, telling Senate Republicans the House SALT deal would be cut in half, to total roughly $192 billion. They restated it would raise the SALT cap to $40,000 for five years under the current House-negotiated SALT deal, and snap back to the current $10,000 cap after that.

In related matters, Kennedy and Hoeven also said the Senate will keep its provider tax proposal but delay its implementation, which Republicans believe will help it comply with budget rules. and Johnson also told Senate Republicans that he wants to do another reconciliation bill — which senators took to mean they would get another opportunity to secure spending cuts or provisions passed that have been squeezed out of the megabill.

President Donald Trump on Friday backed off the July 4 deadline he set for Congress to pass his megabill, acknowledging the timing could slip as Republicans work through a series of political and logistical hurdles.

“It’s not the end-all,” Trump said of the self-imposed Independence Day goal. “It can go longer, but we’d like to get it done by that time if possible.”

The remarks represented a clear softening of the White House’s position from just a day earlier, when Trump administration officials insisted the GOP lawmakers pass the domestic policy package within a week despite a series of fresh obstacles.

Senate Republican leaders are still struggling to lock down the necessary 51 votes for the bill, amid objections from competing factions over the depth of the legislation’s Medicaid cuts.

The effort has also been hamstrung by a flurry of adverse rulings by the Senate parliamentarian that are now forcing lawmakers to rewrite significant portions of the bill.

The president indicated he has little interest as of now in trying to directly overrule or even fire the parliamentarian — a step that some close allies in Congress had called for after she disqualified several of the bill’s provisions.

“The parliamentarian’s been a little difficult,” Trump said. “I disagree with the parliamentarian on some things, and on other ways she’s been fine.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed those issues on Thursday, saying Trump still expected Republicans to coalesce in the coming days and put the bill on his desk by July 4.

But asked directly on Friday, Trump took a more ambivalent stance.

“We have a lot of committed people and they feel strongly about a subject, subjects that you’re not even thinking about that are important to Republicans,” he said, appearing to reference the policy divisions within the Senate GOP conference.

Trump also singled out Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) for praise despite his resistance to the bill, complaining instead about the lack of Democratic votes.

“The problem we have is it’s a great bill, it’s a popular bill,” Trump said. “But we’ll get no Democrats.”

If all Republicans vote for the bill, it would not need Democrats’ support to pass.

All four Muslim Democratic House members are denouncing “racist smears” against Zohran Mamdani from lawmakers in both parties since his New York City mayoral primary win, according to a statement provided first to POLITICO.

“The vile, anti-Muslim and racist smears from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle attacking Zohran Mamdani cannot be met with silence. These hateful, Islamophobic, and racist tropes have become so entrenched and normalized in our politics,” said Reps. Andre Carson of Indiana, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Lateefah Simon of California in a statement.

The lawmakers said that “at a time when we are facing increased violence against elected officials, we cannot allow the attacks on Zohran Mamdani to continue” and asked for elected leaders to speak out on them.

Mamdani, who would become New York’s first Muslim mayor, has faced attacks from GOP lawmakers after his primary win this week. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) tied him to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) called for him to be deported, among others. The left was also concerned about since-clarified comments from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) about Mamdani’s rhetoric about Israel.

Critics of the democratic socialist have called some of his comments about Israel, including his defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” antisemitic, which he’s denied.

The Muslim lawmakers have sought a more forceful pushback from their leaders to the GOP attacks and have privately approached Democratic leadership about doing so. Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t answer a question from a reporter Friday asking him to respond to the remarks from Mace, Ogles and others.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a video posted to social media Thursday called Ogles a “fraud” and a “complete and total embarrassment.”

Speaker Mike Johnson opened the door Friday to a possible megabill delay past the GOP’s self-imposed July 4 deadline.

“It’s possible … but I don’t want to even accept that as an option right now,” he told reporters as Republicans scramble to cut a series of deals with holdout members. Johnson said he had spoken with his Senate counterpart, Majority Leader John Thune, in the “last 20 minutes.”

Already time is running tight for Republicans. With the Senate not expected to start debating the bill until Saturday at the earliest, the House might not get the bill until Sunday. Johnson confirmed he plans to observe a House rule giving members at least 72 hours to review the bill before floor consideration begins.

“The House will not be jammed by anything,” he added.

The White House is close to clinching an agreement on the state and local tax deduction after a last-ditch flurry of negotiations with blue-state House GOP holdouts and Senate Republicans, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the talks.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is brokering the politically complex deal that is key to unlocking the GOP megabill, will attend Senate Republicans lunch later today, according to a another person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Friday morning that there was “a lot of progress yesterday” at an evening meeting of SALT Republicans and Treasury officials and that he expected the issue to get “resolved in a manner that everybody can live with.”

“No one will be delighted about it, but that’s kind of the way this works around here,” he said. “But the other issues [with the megabill], I think, will be resolved, hopefully today, and we can move forward.”

However, one hard-line SALT holdout, New York Rep. Nick LaLota, said: “If there was a deal, I’m not a part of it.”

LaLota said he has been told the prospective deal would maintain the House-passed cap of $40,000 for five years before reverting to the current $10,000 cap.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” is in tatters. President Donald Trump still wants it on his desk by July 4. Here’s everything that will have to go right to make that happen:

GOP senators and staff now believe Saturday is the earliest voting will start on the bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged Thursday that parliamentarian rulings forcing Republicans to rewrite key provisions of the bill are throwing his timeline into chaos.

A Saturday vote would assume no more major procedural issues, but that is not assured: Republicans could run into trouble with their use of current policy baseline, the accounting tactic they want to use to zero out the cost of tax-cut extensions. Other adverse recommendations from Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough could force additional redrafts of Republicans’ tax plans.

Even if Republicans resolve every outstanding issue with the parliamentarian in the next 24 hours, Thune needs to firm up his whip count. The cap on state provider taxes remains among the thorniest issues, with senators threatening to block debate on the megabill until the Medicaid financing issue is resolved.

If the Senate does vote Saturday to proceed, expect Democrats to use the bulk of their 10 hours of debate time, while Republicans forfeit most of theirs. Then comes the main event — vote-a-rama — which would set up likely final passage for sometime Sunday.

That starts the timer for the House. GOP leaders there have pledged to give members 48 hours’ notice of a vote — and they have already advised the earliest that voting could happen is Monday evening. Republicans will have to adopt a rule before moving to debate and final passage.

But the House’s timeline depends wholly on what condition the megabill is in when it arrives from the Senate. Groups of House Republicans are already drawing red lines on matters ranging from SALT to clean-energy tax credits to public land sales. The hope is that the Senate will take care of those concerns in one final “wraparound” amendment at the end of vote-a-rama.

If they don’t, House GOP leaders are adamant that there will need to be changes — likely pushing the timeline deep into July, or perhaps beyond. For one, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Thursday the Senate’s slower phase-out of clean-energy tax credits “will need to be reversed,” or else.

“If there are major modifications that we cannot accept, then we would go back to the drawing board, fix some of that and send it back over,” Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday. “So we should avoid that process, if possible.”

What else we’re watching:

— Senate war powers vote: Senators are expected to take an initial vote at 6 p.m. on Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) resolution that would bar the president from taking further military action in Iran without congressional approval. Kaine believes Republicans will support the measure but won’t say who or how many.

— House Iran briefing: House members will receive a briefing on the Iran conflict from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the CVC auditorium at 9 a.m. This comes as some House lawmakers are mulling two competing war powers resolutions, which Johnson could attempt to quash in advance using a rule.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday the Senate would not move to overrule its parliamentarian after she advised that including key provisions in the GOP’s domestic-policy megabill would expose it to a fatal Democratic filibuster.

After the decisions were publicized Thursday, multiple conservative Republicans called on the Senate to sideline MacDonough. But when asked by POLITICO about overruling her, Thune said, “No, that would not be a good option for getting a bill done.”

The rulings from Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough affected several major pieces of the GOP plan, including a provision that would crack down on provider taxes that states used to fund their Medicaid programs as well as measures meant to exclude undocumented residents from public benefits. Republicans are expected to try to rewrite the provisions in hopes of winning MacDonough’s blessing.

“How is it that an unelected swamp bureaucrat, who was appointed by Harry Reid over a decade ago, gets to decide what can and cannot go in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill?” wrote Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) on X.

“The WOKE Senate Parliamentarian, who was appointed by Harry Reid and advised Al Gore, just STRUCK DOWN a provision BANNING illegals from stealing Medicaid from American citizens,” added Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), also on X. “This is a perfect example of why Americans hate THE SWAMP.”

The parliamentarian rulings are crucial because Senate Republicans are seeking to use special budget reconciliation rules to avoid a Democratic filibuster and pass the bill on party lines; those rules limit such bills to strictly fiscal-related matters.

While the parliamentarian serves only as an adviser to the Senate’s presiding officer and can be overruled — or fired — members generally heed her guidance out of a bipartisan desire to preserve the filibuster for most legislation and to otherwise observe the Senate’s norms. Recently, Thune took pains to arrange a Senate vote overruling an EPA decision on California emissions standards in such a way that MacDonough would not be directly overruled.

MacDonough, who has spent more than 25 years as a Senate staffer and served as parliamentarian since 2012, has been the subject of controversy virtually any time senators have sought to use the party-line reconciliation process. Multiple Democratic lawmakers, for instance, called on the Senate to overrule her in 2021 after she advised that a minimum wage increase could not be included in their then-pending domestic policy bill.

Senate Republicans are facing major new issues with their domestic policy megabill after the chamber’s parliamentarian advised senators that several provisions they are counting on to reap hundreds of billions of dollars in budget savings won’t be able to pass along party lines.

Those include major pieces of Medicaid policy, including a politically explosive plan to hold down Medicaid costs by cracking down on a state provider tax — a provision that is expected to have a nine-figure impact on the bill. Republicans now will have to try to rewrite major sections of their Finance bill or potentially leave out key policies.

The decisions were detailed in a Thursday morning memo from Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee. Other provisions now at risk include several GOP proposals to exclude undocumented residents from Medicaid, including by withholding federal funds from states that make them eligible for benefits.

The rulings come at a critical time for Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other GOP leaders, who are already facing a revolt inside their conference from members wary of the practical and political impacts of the Medicaid changes. They have proposed reverting to a less drastic House plan, which would merely freeze the existing provider taxes, though it’s unclear if that provision could also pass muster under Senate rules.

Republicans will try to rework the provider tax language to get it back into the Senate bill, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy. The revised language will still have to be blessed by the parliamentarian as complying with the chamber’s rules.

“We’ll continue our work and find a solution to achieve the desired results,” one of the people said.

Some House Republicans are calling for Senate leadership to overrule the parliamentarian, an unprecedented step.

“The Senate Parliamentarian is not elected. She is not accountable to the American people,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) posted on X. “Yet she holds veto power over legislation supported by millions of voters.”

Democrats took a victory lap after the ruling, noting the rulings blew a $250 billion hole in the megabill’s savings.

“Democrats fought and won, striking healthcare cuts from this bill that would hurt Americans walking on an economic tightrope,” said Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (R-Ore.) in a statement.

The parliamentarian also ruled early Thursday against a Republican proposal to prohibit plans from not getting certain Obamacare payments if they cover abortion. There are 12 states that currently require such coverage and insurers have worried they don’t have enough time to implement the payment change before the start of open enrollment.

There remain some outstanding policies, such as Republicans’ effort to defund Planned Parenthood and removal of a nursing home staffing rule.

Republicans still aren’t closing the door to taking a first vote on Friday. One person granted anonymity to discuss the schedule insisted that the parliamentarian’s decision is “not as fatal as Dems are portraying it to be” and that “Friday still not off the table.”

It’s getting late early for John Cornyn.

Yet another poll shows the four-term incumbent lagging well behind his hard-right challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in next year’s primary.

The poll, conducted on behalf of a Paxton-allied super PAC, shows the Texas attorney general with a commanding 19-point lead over the incumbent — 57 to 38 percent — in a head-to-head matchup of Texas Republican primary voters.

It’s the latest data pointfor national Republicans who see Cornyn flailing with primary voters but worry about the general election prospects for Paxton, who has faced both indictment and impeachment.

The race has increasingly become a topic of worry in Republican circles as operatives dread the prospect of an ugly, expensive primary that could potentially provide an opening for Democrats in the Lone Star State.

Perhaps most remarkable, the poll shows Paxton with higher name ID than Cornyn, who has long been a national figure on Capitol Hill. Eighty-nine percent of primary voters have an opinion of Paxton and 84 percent of Cornyn. Both are viewed positively by the electorate, but Paxton is far more well-liked. His net favorable-unfavorable ratio is 70 to 18 percent, while Cornyn’s is 53 to 30 percent.

The poll continues a trend of Paxton being beloved by voters who identify as Trump Republicans. He has a 44-point lead with that demographic, while Paxton lags Cornyn by 15 points among those who identify as Reagan Republicans.

The entrance of Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) into the race — he is considering a run — would make little difference, according to the poll. The two-term congressmember from Houston draws equally from both candidates and would finish a distant third.

The poll was conducted by Pulse Research from June 17-22 among 806 Republican primary voters. Texas’ primary will be held on March 3, 2026.