Republicans knew they’d have to overcome fierce internal divisions, thorny policy trade-offs and rock-solid Democratic resistance to pass their massive domestic policy bill.

They didn’t count on a Wall Street backlash, too.

A softening Treasury bond market and surprise downgrade Friday of U.S. creditworthiness are the latest forces weighing on the GOP megabill — an unmistakable nudge to lawmakers that investors are growing increasingly concerned about legislation that could pile trillions of dollars more onto an already staggering national debt.

That message is being seen as vindication by some Republicans who have long warned about the nation’s unsustainable fiscal trajectory and who have vowed to seek massive spending cuts as part of the pending legislation.

“If we don’t have a wake-up call now — all of us, Democrat, Republicans — I don’t know what it’s going to take,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), one of a handful of conservative hard-liners who delayed a key House Budget Committee vote this weekend over spending concerns.

But many other Republicans appear fully prepared to brush off the warnings — including the downgrade of U.S. debt from Moody’s Ratings, which directly referenced the pending legislation: “We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration.”

Trump’s National Economic Council director, Kevin Hassett, said in a Fox Business appearance Monday that the downgrade reflected former President Joe Biden’s fiscal policies and argued that the tax cuts in the megabill would position the U.S. for further growth. He also cited increasing tariff revenue that “should affect the credit rating in the end if you’ve got all this extra tax revenue coming in.”

Later Monday, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) told reporters that the ratings agency “has done this every time we run up against a debt limit or we run up against a spending bill” and would “bounce it right back as soon as we pass a bill.”

In fact, this is Moody’s first-ever downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt; two other ratings agencies, S&P and Fitch, previously downgraded Treasury offerings citing similar concerns about out-of-control borrowing costs and have not restored the tip-top ratings they previously enjoyed.

But market watchers say it’s the pricing of Treasury debt that lawmakers should be paying close attention to as they put together President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that is set to extend 2017 tax cuts and pile on more goodies for individuals and corporations without fully offsetting their cost.

“I hope the Republican majority in Congress realize that the bond market is watching,” said economist Ed Yardeni, who coined the term “bond vigilantes” in the 1980s to describe how investors can exert fierce pressure on economic policymakers.

For now, bond investors haven’t really revolted over the latest credit downgrade or the budget bill, Yardeni said, but if Republicans deliver “excessive” fiscal policy, they “could react adversely and try to force the Republicans to come up with a better program.”

The Moody’s downgrade sent a shiver across Wall Street on Monday morning. Yields on longer-dated Treasury securities climbed, with the 30-year Treasury briefly jumping above 5 percent, while rates on 10-year notes — which are used to price everything from home mortgages to credit card loans — at one point rose above 4.5 percent, up about a half point on the month.

While Treasury securities pared back some of those losses over the course of Monday’s trading session, Wall Street economists and market analysts said that the abrupt spike reflected a renewed focus on the U.S.’ gloomy fiscal outlook — and raised fears of a spiral of rising borrowing costs fueling more debt.

Prominent business leaders with close ties to Republicans, like Citadel’s Ken Griffin and Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, have dialed up warnings of the deep risks posed by excessive deficit spending. This echoes the longstanding concerns of traditional conservatives who have long called for significantly lower levels of government spending.

“If we get to the point where people are no longer willing to buy Treasuries, then we’re in real trouble with a sovereign debt crisis,” said Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.), who voted to advance the bill Sunday in the Budget Committee.

But Trump’s agenda has not prioritized fiscal rectitude, and the president’s appetite for deep tax cuts combined with thin congressional majorities that are reluctant to cut too deeply into the American social safety net are adding up to another deficit-busting bill.

The GOP megabill hasn’t been fully scored by the Congressional Budget Office, but preliminary estimates produced by the Yale Budget Lab and the Penn Wharton Budget Model project that it would add $3.4 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade. Republicans who say the bill won’t add to the national debt are including economic growth projections that most economists consider to be unrealistic.

“Nothing that the administration is doing presently is in the direction of trying to right the fiscal house,” said Yale Budget Lab President Natasha Sarin, a former top adviser to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Meanwhile, the cadre of congressional fiscal hawks who have insisted on deep spending cuts appear to be in retreat. When the Moody’s downgrade hit Friday, House GOP hard-liners felt they had maximum pressure to force major changes in the bill — including dramatically restructuring the design of the spending cuts, which are backloaded toward the end of the bill’s 10-year lifespan.

But all signs are that the Republican Party’s Trump-centric politics are set to outweigh any push for fiscal purity. The president and White House officials were enraged after the handful of Budget Committee holdouts tanked the key vote Friday, and as a weekend of tense talks wore on, it became increasingly clear that the Moody’s downgrade actually ramped up pressure for the budget hawks to fall in line, according to three Republicans granted anonymity to describe the talks.

Amid rising Treasury rates, a weakening dollar, and ongoing fallout from Trump’s global tariff regime — including an announcement last week from Walmart that it would need to raise prices — the downgrade added another concern for the health of the U.S. economy. The White House circulated a report over the weekend underscoring the need to pass the bill in order to keep businesses and households from being swamped by tax hikes.

Four key hard-liners, including Norman, voted “present” in a Budget Committee revote Sunday night, allowing the bill to advance. They are now pushing for changes to Medicaid provisions and clean-energy tax credits that could reap significant savings, though at least some of that could be used to offset additional tax cuts, leaving the bill’s overall fiscal footprint largely unchanged.

One hard-right proposal that is likely to be incorporated is to implement work requirements for Medicaid as soon as 2027 — two years sooner than in the initial draft of the House bill.

Paul Winfree, a veteran conservative policy analyst, said the hard-liners were smart to push for the cuts to bite sooner. The markets, he said, “may be sending a signal that they’re skeptical that the savings in the future will materialize. That’s why it’s so important to make sure that the spending reductions start much sooner than 2028 or 2029.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

The Justice Department announced an assault charge Monday against Rep. LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat who was involved in a chaotic confrontation with officials outside a federal immigration facility earlier this month.

The criminal charge follows a May 9 visit by McIver, along with her colleagues Reps. Rob Menendez and Bonnie Watson Coleman, to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark that unfolded in a tussle and resulted in the arrest of the city’s Democratic mayor.

New Jersey interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced the charge against McIver on X, escalating a confrontation between the political branches, while also agreeing to drop the pending trespass charge against Mayor Ras Baraka.

“I have persistently made efforts to address these issues without bringing criminal charges and have given Representative McIver every opportunity to come to a resolution, but she has unfortunately declined,” Habba said in a statement.

The charge is an extraordinary stress-test for the separation of powers at a time in which President Donald Trump is seeking to maximize executive branch dominance. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries last week warned against federal law enforcement targeting the Democratic members and called arrests a “red line.”

The formal charging documents were not immediately made public, but Habba cited a provision of federal law that makes it a crime to engage in an assault on a federal officer. It’s a felony when the assault involves “physical contact with the victim.” McIver is being charged “for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement,” according to Habba.

The three lawmakers last Friday attempted to inspect Delaney Hall — the Trump administration’s newest immigrant detention facility — for oversight, as members of Congress are allowed to do by law. Charges have not been announced for Menendez nor Watson Coleman.

“The charges against me are purely political — they mischaracterize and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight,” McIver said in a statement. “This administration will never stop me from working for the people in our district and standing up for what is right. I am thankful for the outpouring of support I have received and I look forward to the truth being laid out clearly in court.”

Paul Fishman, a lawyer for McIver who served as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, called the decision to charge McIver “spectacularly inappropriate.”

“As a member of Congress, she has the right and responsibility to see how ICE is treating detainees. Rather than facilitating that inspection, ICE agents chose to escalate what should have been a peaceful situation into chaos,” he said in a statement. “This prosecution is an attempt to shift the blame for ICE’s behavior to Congresswoman McIver. In the courtroom, facts — not headlines — will matter.”

Democrats have asserted that Delaney Hall does not have the proper permits to open, which Department of Homeland Security officials have refuted. Federal law allows members of Congress conducting oversight to access “any facility operated by or for the DHS used to detain or otherwise house aliens.”

In addition, lawmakers are protected by the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause from criminal process for actions taken in the course of their official duties, a provision intended to protect legislators from intimidation by the executive branch. Courts for years have interpreted that protection broadly to include any conduct “integral” to the legislative process, including to conduct oversight.

As it has in previous criminal cases against lawmakers, the Justice Department is sure to argue that their alleged actions against immigration officials exceeded the bounds of their conduct as lawmakers. Prosecutors are making a similar case against a Wisconsin judge, who is now facing charges for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant escape arrest by helping him flee her courtroom.

Authorities set off a scrum on May 9 at Delaney Hall when they moved to arrest Baraka, the head of New Jersey’s largest city and a Democratic candidate for governor. Watson Coleman and McIver moved to shield him. The tussle that followed prompted the members to accuse the authorities of roughing them up, while the Trump administration suggested it was the other way around.

The day after the incident, Fox News posted a video it said had been provided by DHS to show McIver was “shoving/elbowing her way past a DHS agent.” Around the same time, a federal law enforcement officer shoved McIver as she was trying to reenter the facility, according to both McIver, Menendez and video taken at the time by NJ Spotlight News.

A DHS spokesperson alleged one of the members had “body slammed” an ICE officer, something that a POLITICO reporter on the scene did not witness. And during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last week, chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) chastised the “congresswoman who threw a punch at a police officer.”

Baraka was charged with misdemeanor trespassing. He appeared in federal court last week, though Habba on Monday said that his charge was dropped “for the sake of moving forward.” Habba also said that she invited Baraka to tour Delaney Hall — and would personally accompany him — because “the government has nothing to hide at this facility.”

A spokesperson for Baraka did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the aftermath of the incident, DHS said that more arrests were “on the table.” Republicans have raised the possibility of removing the three Democrats from their committees or censuring them, though Speaker Mike Johnson last week acknowledged that expulsion is unlikely given the slim margins in Congress.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said last week on Fox News that the three committed “felonies” and “don’t deserve to be in the House.”

Menendez and Watson Coleman did not immediately respond to a request for comment but have previously said they did nothing wrong. The day of the incident, Menendez said that “all of us were touched” by federal authorities and said McIver had been shoved in what he called an “assault.”

The House Judiciary Committee’s oversight subcommittee is planning to “launch a full investigation into these dangerous attacks on ICE” with a hearing on Tuesday, according to Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), who is chair of the subcommittee.

Members of Congress who have faced criminal charges in recent years have typically been accused of white-collar crimes. Menendez’s father, former Sen. Bob Menendez, was sentenced earlier this year for bribery and acting as an agent of a foreign government. Former Rep. George Santos was recently sentenced for identity theft and fraud. Former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) faced charges — ultimately dismissed by the new Trump administration — of lying to the FBI. Other lawmakers have faced charges for campaign finance crimes or insider trading.

Monday’s charge comes in the middle of an intensifying clash between congressional Democrats and the administration over Trump’s aggressive mass deportation policies, many of which have faced legal challenges.

For example, Democrats traveled to El Salvador earlier this year to push back against the administration’s summary deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in violation of a court order. They’ve also raised alarm over the administration’s targeting of pro-Palestine student activists and efforts to invoke war powers to speed deportations of alleged gang members.

But Republicans have used these efforts — including the recent Delaney Hall visit — to accuse the Democrats of supporting “violent criminals.”

“I hope that those members of Congress will so passionately protest on behalf of the American victims that they were elected to represent, and not just violent criminals who are in this country illegally,” Noem said during a recent Homeland Security Committee hearing.

Sen. Rand Paul attacked the economic logic of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy on Sunday — and agreed that the policies raise constitutional concerns.

The Kentucky Republican said Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign trading partners are based on “an economic fallacy” about trade deficits and objected to the president’s move to pursue them without congressional approval during an interview on ABC’s “The Week.”

“Well, tariffs are taxes, and when you put a tax on a business, it’s always passed through as a cost. So, there will be higher prices,” Paul said, arguing, as he has in the past, that unfettered global trade is enormously beneficial. “The only trade that means anything is the individual who buys something. That’s the only real trade. And that by very definition, if it’s voluntary, is mutually beneficial, or the trade doesn’t occur.”

When asked about the legality of Trump’s tariffs, Paul seemingly sided with a constitutional provision citing Congress’s authority over taxation.

“In the past, the court has allowed these things, but I think it’ll be an interesting thing because most tariffs in our history have been passed by Congress,” he said. “We’ve never had widespread tariffs that have been done by fiat by a president, and I object to that.”

Paul is one of a few Republicans who hesitated to rally around Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on foreign trading partners, which the administration rolled out in early April. But Trump ended up backtracking on the high-stakes levies, issuing a 90-day pause on the tariffs for every affected country except China in April.

However, after a series of back-and-forth retaliatory measures, China and the U.S. came to a preliminary deal to significantly lower the levies on each other earlier this month.

There are several legal challenges brewing against Trump’s tariffs. A recent lawsuit led by New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James and the top prosecutor of 11 other states asserts that the policies have “upended the constitutional order and brought chaos to the American economy.”

Other plaintiffs include members of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana, the New Civil Liberties Alliance in Florida, the Liberty Justice Center in the U.S. Court of International Trade and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Courts have previously upheld the legality of tariffs when they’re based on congressional authority. However, Trump’s decision to impose tariffs by himself has raised legal questions about whether he is exceeding his delegated power.

“Now, we do have a long history, though, of both parties abdicating their responsibility on tariffs and granting power to Congress, which brings up another constitutional question, can Congress delegate powers given to it under the Constitution to the president?” Paul said.