Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) believes he has a commitment from the White House and Senate GOP leadership to get another chance to repeal an expansion of Medicaid offerings — a controversial proposal that failed to make it the final version of President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package.

“I think I pretty well have a commitment. They’re going to do that,” Johnson told reporters of the prospects that Republicans will reconsider a provision that would end the federal government’s 90 percent cost share of funding for new enrollees in states that expanded Medicaid under the Democrats’ 2010 health care law.

Johnson added that he ended up voting for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” largely because he was given assurances of the proposed cuts, despite his significant concerns about the deficit projections under the bill.

“Another reason why I definitely had to vote ‘yes,’ I would have just dealt myself out of being involved in that process. And I wanted to be highly involved in that process,” said Johnson of the potential to include the Medicaid expansion cost-sharing cuts in a second party-line bill later this year. “That’s where I gained a fair amount of confidence from the White House, the President, our leadership, that we will have a second bite of the apple.”

The proposal to roll back the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion was floated by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) as an amendment to the GOP megabill. That amendment, which was co-sponsored by Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), would have ended the 90 percent federal cost-share at the end of 2030. Afterwards, new enrollees would have seen their medical costs reimbursed by the federal government at rates as low as 50 percent.

Johnson, Crapo, Scott and other proponents of the amendment argued that states have gamed the system by leveraging artificial increases in Medicaid spending to draw in more federal funding. And according to estimates, the policy change would have cut spending by $313 billion — putting a major dent in the package’s overall price tag over which fiscal hawks fretted. The amendment never received a vote, however, amid fierce opposition from several moderates.

Despite Johnson’s insistence he has a promise on pursuing this proposal in the coming months, nothing is set in stone. Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the White House, meanwhile, continue to deny they made any side deals as a condition of winning over holdouts.

Scott said also in a brief interview Tuesday he had not been given any commitment from the White House to include his proposal in a second or third budget reconciliation package, adding that those conversations are “just starting.”

A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

A bill targeting Russia with substantial new sanctions is gaining momentum in the Senate, with a key GOP senator signaling Tuesday that President Donald Trump is now on board.

“We’re moving,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the bill’s author, adding that Trump “told me it’s time to move so we’re going to move.”

Graham joined Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republican senators in signaling a scheduling announcement later this week. That could set up the long-stalled bill to come to the floor later this month.

The burst of momentum comes after Trump publicly suggested Tuesday he was seriously looking at the sanctions bill as he aired sharp frustrations with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to enter peace negotiations with Ukraine.

Behind the scenes, Graham and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) tweaked the bill to provide expanded presidential waiver authority. That, they believe, addresses the White House’s push for more flexibility for Trump.

While the existing bill would let Trump waive sanctions on nations purchasing Russian oil or uranium for 180 days, the revised bill provides for a second 180-day waiver, Graham said. Invoking the second waiver would prompt a congressional vote, though he did not detail what the vote would entail.

“I’m confident the president is ready for us to act,” Graham said.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment on Graham’s statement and instead pointed to Trump’s public comments earlier Tuesday.

The sanctions will not be on the floor this week, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose private scheduling.

But Thune told reporters he’s coordinating closely with the White House and House on timing.

“We’ll have more to say about that later this week,” Thune told reporters, adding that there’s a “lot of interest” in moving the bill.

Jake Traylor contributed to this report.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote July 17 on the nominations for Emil Bove — President Donald Trump’s controversial judicial nominee for the Third Circuit — and Jeanine Pirro — the former Fox News host who Trump tapped to be U.S. attorney for D.C. — according to a committee aide granted anonymity to share not-yet-public schedule information.

Bove, who is principal associate deputy attorney general and served as Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney, has become the latest Trump nominee to face a mounting opposition campaign from Democrats, after a former Justice Department employee alleged that he suggested flouting court orders to allow the administration to pursue its aggressive deportation agenda.

Bove’s role in carrying out some other DOJ initiatives has also garnered scrutiny, including the dismissal of corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the firing of some DOJ staffers who worked on cases around the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Trump nominated Pirro to be the U.S. attorney after he failed to rally enough support among the Senate GOP around his previous nominee, Ed Martin. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Judiciary panel who has since announced he won’t seek reelection, said he would not support Martin because of his comments about the attacks on the Capitol and his defense of some rioters.

Pirro is currently serving as U.S. attorney for D.C. in an interim capacity.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday that he hopes to have an announcement soon on the fate of a long-stalled bill to impose new sanctions targeting Russia.

“We’ll have more to say about that later this week,” Thune told reporters, adding that there’s a “lot of interest” in moving the bill authored by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Thune has been looking for a clear signal from President Donald Trump that he would support the legislation, which has more than 80 supporters. Trump opened the door to the legislation earlier Tuesday, saying that he’s “looking at it very strongly” as he aired fresh frustrations with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing military campaign in Ukraine.

The sanctions legislation is not expected to be on the floor this week but could be brought to the floor before the scheduled August recess.

House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington says Republicans shouldn’t give up on advancing certain priorities that were cut out of their “big, beautiful bill” for not complying with Senate rules, telling reporters Tuesday that lawmakers will try again in follow-up budget reconciliation packages.

“There may be a longer list of things that were kicked out by the Senate parliamentarian as non-compliant with the Byrd rule — I think we should make another run at that and look for ways to structure the provisions so that it’s more fundamentally budgetary in impact and policy,” the Texas Republican said during the press call Tuesday afternoon. “I suspect that’s why they were kicked out.”

The so-called Byrd rule limits what provisions can be included in a bill moving through Congress through the reconciliation process, which allows lawmakers to skirt the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate. Arrington specifically pointed to one provision stripped in the Senate from the House-passed megabill that would have prohibited Medicaid coverage for gender affirming surgeries, and another that would have banned noncitizens from tapping into Medicaid resources.

“I think those — we need to spend more time” crafting the provisions to pass muster with the parliamentarian, Arrington said. “I don’t think we spent enough time to look for a pathway to success on them, and that’s sort of the landscape, as I see it, of the opportunities in another reconciliation bill.”

Echoing Speaker Mike Johnson‘s recent comments, Arrington said he suspects GOP leaders will attempt to do two more party-line packages in the 119th Congress, with the next one slated for the fall.

Arrington added members would likely demand that those additional measures be drafted under circumstances where both chambers adhere to the same budget framework, avoiding a repeat of the most recent scenario where House and Senate Republicans each gave their committees different deficit reduction targets.

He lamented the fact that the Senate did not comply with the House’s aggressive instructions for writing iits version of the megabill, but credited fiscal hawks for helping secure $1.5 trillion in savings in a final product, and noted that it was not “feasible” to expect the full magnitude of cost savings would be acheived in a single reconciliation bill — “politically, at least.”

As it currently stands, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law over the weekend, is “front loaded with costs and back-end loaded with savings,” which Arrington said should compel Republicans to make sure the administration follows through in “mak[ing] sure the savings actually happen.”

“That was a concern among conservative budget hawks,” Arrington said. “When I think about the Budget Committee’s role going forward, one of the things that we need to do … is keep the pressure on the Senate, on the House and the administration to be diligent in implementation and enforcement.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell praised President Donald Trump for walking back a pause on weapons shipments to Ukraine while chastising “isolationists and restrainers” in his orbit for moves that he said undermine U.S. credibility abroad.

The latest broadside from the former Senate GOP leader, who has emerged as a foil to Trump on Ukraine and other defense issues, came after Trump said Monday that aid would again flow to Kyiv after the Pentagon paused some weapons shipments. The Kentucky Republican dinged both the administration’s restrictions on aid and a military budget he has called insufficient.

“Today, the strategic incoherence of underfunding our military and restricting lethal assistance to partners like Ukraine is measured in the avoidable erosion of American credibility with allies and the mounting deaths of innocents,” McConnell said in a statement.

While Trump told reporters Monday that more aid would be coming, he didn’t provide specifics: “They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now. … We have to send more weapons, defensive weapons, primarily.”

McConnell avoided criticizing Trump, crediting the president with delivering weapons to Ukraine during his first term. But he argued Trump must brush off advisers who want to cut off U.S. involvement in its conflict with Russia.

That, he said, means going beyond supplying “defensive weapons” to the Ukrainian and sidelining “those at DoD who invoke munitions shortages to block aid while refusing to invest seriously in expanding munitions production.”

POLITICO first reported the Pentagon had opted to halt some weapons shipments to Ukraine, a move driven by defense policy chief Elbridge Colby over concerns that certain U.S. stockpiles were running low.

McConnell was the only Republican to oppose Colby’s confirmation, citing the vocal China hawk’s longtime advocacy for focusing U.S. military resources on the Pacific at the expense of other conflicts, including Ukraine’s. Though he didn’t name Colby, McConnell’s statement alluded to resistance to the AUKUS submarine pact between the U.S., U.K. and Australia, which Colby is now reviewing. Both the AUKUS review and the Ukraine pause blindsided some lawmakers and officials elsewhere in the administration.

“The self-indulgent policymaking of restrainers — from Ukraine to AUKUS — has so often required the President to clean up his staff’s messes,” McConnell said.

Another top Republican, House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers of Alabama, argued Trump’s decision to resume military aid will make clear Russian President Vladimir Putin “must come to the negotiating table” to end the war with Ukraine.

“President Trump is right that now is not the time to pause U.S. military aid to support Ukraine’s defense,” he said in a statement.

Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump are pushing to jam the House again. This time, it’s all about crypto.

The brewing clash — not unlike the megabill saga — is over how big and how quickly Hill Republicans should deliver on one of Trump’s most notable campaign pledges. In this case, it’s about Trump’s promise to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the world.”

The Senate last month passed a bipartisan bill to boost a specific slice of the crypto universe — so-called stablecoins — but the House GOP is now wrestling with a desire to go bigger. It’s gearing up for a full-blown “crypto week” to make the case when House members return next Monday.

House Republicans, who spent years incubating crypto legislation that Senate Democrats were unwilling to touch, plan to vote on the Senate stablecoin bill and a wider-ranging “market structure” plan to overhaul securities and commodities rules impacting crypto trading.

The big hurdle for House Republicans is that Trump and Senate Republicans aren’t on board with tweaking the stablecoin bill or using it as a vehicle to take a bigger swing on crypto policy. Trump says he wants a “clean” version of the bill “lightning fast” and key GOP senators say they won’t take up a market structure overhaul until September.

Senate Republicans say it would be near impossible to muster Democrats to pass a revised stablecoin bill.

“For me to get eight or nine Democrats to vote for something here is extraordinarily difficult to do,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), the lead sponsor of the Senate stablecoin bill, known as the GENIUS Act.

House GOP leaders signaled last week they won’t seek to combine that legislation with their broader revamp, but they haven’t yet said whether they will make changes to the measure.

House Financial Services Chair French Hill’s sweeping market structure bill, which is the crown jewel of the House GOP’s crypto push, is also the subject of eleventh-hour negotiating among House lawmakers ahead of next week’s floor vote.

The Arkansas Republican is working to secure wide bipartisan backing that would signal its political viability to the Senate. But some Democrats who have been on board in the past are withholding support unless the bill imposes restrictions on the Trump family’s entanglements in the crypto industry.

“For me, and I suspect for some other Democrats, if we can satisfy this question of conflict of interest — meaning there’s a prohibition on the president being an issuer — a lot of us can get to ‘yes,’” said Rep. Jim Himes, a senior Connecticut Democrat on House Financial Services. “They’re working in good faith to try to get us to ‘yes.’”

What else we’re watching:

— Netanyahu on the Hill: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and meet with Speaker Mike Johnson at 11:45 a.m. Netanyahu will then have a bipartisan Senate meeting with leaders John Thune and Chuck Schumer at 4 p.m., per two people granted anonymity to discuss the plans. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries didn’t comment when we asked whether he plans to meet with Netanyahu.

— NDAA markups begin: Senate Armed Services will begin subcommittee markups of the National Defense Authorization Act at 4:30 p.m. The full panel will debate and vote on the whole package starting Wednesday at 9:45 a.m. (reminder: this could take several days).

— Rescissions updates: Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) is gearing up to offer amendments to Trump’s request to claw back $9.4 billion in already-approved funds ahead of the Senate’s July 18 deadline, and the contours of her desired tweaks are starting to take shape. Collins has already said she is strongly against the White House’s proposed cuts to foreign aid and told Maine Public Radio that she would like to prevent drastic funding reductions to public media, too.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

A bipartisan group of senators will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday as part of his multi-day swing through Washington.

The Senate meeting, first reported by POLITICO, will include Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as a host of other Republican and Democratic senators, according to two people granted anonymity to disclose the private gathering.

Netanyahu is set to make the rounds elsewhere on Capitol Hill Tuesday. He’s also scheduled to meet with Speaker Mike Johnson in the morning. A spokesperson for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries didn’t respond to questions about whether the New York Democrat will also meet with Netanyahu while he’s at the Capitol.

His visit with members of Congress comes as the Trump administration faces criticism from Democrats, and a small number of Republicans, for not seeking authorization from Congress last month over its strikes against Iran. Netanyahu heavily lobbied Trump to target Iran’s nuclear program following Israel’s own strikes on Iran.

The White House is also pushing for a ceasefire for the fighting in Gaza. Netanyahu met Monday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and is also meeting with President Donald Trump Monday evening.

Nicholas Wu contributed to this report. 

Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is quietly exploring a comeback in Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District after more than a decade out of office — including a two-year prison term.

Jackson — the son of civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and the brother of Rep. Jonathan Jackson — was a Democratic rising star who served in Congress 17 years before stepping down in 2012 due to health reasons. A federal conviction for campaign finance violations and prison time followed for him and his then-wife, Sandi, a former Chicago alderman.

After working as a Chicago radio commentator, Jackson is now talking to residents and community leaders about another run, motivated by what allies describe as concern about the ripple effect of President Donald Trump’s megabill that was signed into law July 4.

He has caught the attention of some key Democrats, including retired Rep. Bobby Rush, who said Jackson would give voice to “the marginalized and the forgotten American citizens of the Second Congressional District,” according to a statement he sent to Playbook. The district stretches through Chicago’s South Side, once a stronghold for Jackson, and into the suburbs.

The seat opened up when Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly, who has held the seat since 2013, announced she’s running for Senate earlier this year. Several notable names have said they’re entering the March Democratic primary, including state Sen. Robert Peters, management consultant Eric France and policy expert Adal Regis. Democratic Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller is also weighing a bid.

But Jackson, Rush said, would be “the most qualified and ready-made of all the candidates.”