Democrats are in an uproar over Donald Trump reportedly calling Milwaukee, the host city for the GOP’s national convention, “a horrible city” during a meeting with House Republicans on Capitol Hill.

“Add it to the list of things Donald Trump is wrong about,” Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers wrote on X, in a post that included a clown emoji.

Evers was one of several Wisconsin Democrats who immediately pushed back on the former president’s comments, even as they have largely avoided public confrontations with Republicans preparing to take over the Wisconsin city for the presidential nominating convention in July.

Reporters posted about Trump’s remarks after he met with lawmakers behind closed doors in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Trump covered a range of topics, including abortion and tariffs. But it was his comment about his convention’s host city that seemed to spark the most furious response.

“Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city,” the former president said, according to Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman.

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), who represents the congressional district that contains Milwaukee, posted on X: “Once he’s settled in with his parole officer, I am certain he will discover that Milwaukee is a wonderful, vibrant and welcoming city full of diverse neighborhoods and a thriving business community.”

Moore was referring to Trump’s meeting with a parole officer on Monday related to his conviction for 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up money payments to a porn star. His sentencing date is July 11, just four days before the Republican convention is set to begin.

Some Republican lawmakers said Trump’s comments about the Wisconsin city were taken out of context. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) told reporters Trump was talking about “election integrity” in large urban centers, while Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said he was talking about the city’s crime rate, according to the Wisconsin Examiner.

A Trump campaign spokesperson called the Sherman post “wrong and “total bullshit.”

“He never said it like how it’s been falsely characterized as,” Steven Cheung replied on X. “He was talking about how terrible crime and voter fraud are.”

The Trump campaign also sent out an email calling the reporting “FAKE NEWS.”

And even Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who has embraced the Republican convention due to the economic boom it will bring to the city, pushed back on Trump’s reported remark.

“Donald Trump was talking about things that are horrible,” the Democratic mayor said when he addressed Trump’s remarks in an unrelated press conference Thursday. “All of us lived through his presidency. So right back at you, buddy.”

Donald Trump makes his first visit to Capitol Hill since leaving the presidency Thursday morning, meeting with Republican lawmakers in what is being billed as a resolutely forward-looking session focused on a potential 2025 legislative agenda.

In fact, Trump has bigger, more immediate legislative priorities.

He has been obsessed in recent weeks with harnessing the powers of Congress to fight on his own behalf and go to war against the Democrats he accuses of “weaponizing” the justice system against him.

It’s a campaign he orchestrated in the days after his May 31 conviction on 34 felony counts in New York, starting with a phone call to the man he wanted to lead it: Speaker Mike Johnson.

Trump was still angry when he made the call, according to those who have heard accounts of it from Johnson, dropping frequent F-bombs as he spoke with the soft-spoken and pious GOP leader.

“We have to overturn this,” Trump insisted.

Johnson sympathized with Trump’s frustration. He’d been among the first batch of Republican lawmakers to appear alongside Trump at the Manhattan trial. He’d been harping on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case and the alleged broader abuse of the justice system since before he took the gavel.

The speaker didn’t really need to be convinced, one person familiar with the conversation said: Johnson, a former attorney himself, already believed the House had a role to play in addressing Trump’s predicament. The two have since spoken on the subject multiple times.

But sympathy can only go so far. With a slim majority and skittish swing-district members, Johnson is already finding it difficult to deliver for Trump.

Republicans have all but abandoned their effort to impeach President Joe Biden, as Trump wants. Wednesday’s contempt vote against Attorney General Merrick Garland squeaked by only after an intense whipping effort. And now a series of proposals targeting what Republicans call “rogue prosecutors” (i.e., those investigating Trump) appear to have a wobbly future.

House GOP leaders, for instance, spent yesterday afternoon whipping a bill written by Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) that would allow presidents charged at the state level to move those cases to federal court — effectively nullifying the power of officials like Bragg and Fani Willis, Trump’s prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia. The bill was filed in April 2023 and reported by the Judiciary Committee in last September; only now is it being readied for possible floor action.

Johnson has also been in talks with Judiciary Committee chair and Trump ally Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) about using the appropriations process to target special counsel Jack Smith’s probe. It’s an apparent softening of his position: He said in a POLITICO interview last month that he found a similar idea by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) unworkable; now, he’s actually looking into it.

“That country certainly sees what’s going on, and they don’t want Fani Willis and Alvin Bragg and these kinds of folks to be able to continue to use grant dollars for targeting people in a political lawfare type of way,” Jordan told us.

The problem, of course, is that these proposals don’t yet have the votes to pass. One senior appropriator, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), said the idea of defunding Smith was “stupid.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea unless you can show that [the prosecutors] acted in bad faith or fraud or something like that,” he said. “They’re just doing their job — even though I disagree with what they did.”

“We accuse Democrats of weaponizing the Justice system,” said another skeptical senior Republican who was granted anonymity to speak with fear of MAGA blowback. “That’s exactly what we’d be doing.”

Johnson’s leadership team isn’t giving up just yet. Off the House floor yesterday, Fry — who said he’s not spoken to Trump about his proposal — said there’s an education effort underway inside the House GOP.

His argument: Federal lawmakers, executive officials and judges currently have the ability to try to move their local cases to federal court. Why shouldn’t the leader of the free world? (One difference, of course, is that unlike those federal officials, Trump isn’t currently in office.)

“In my experience so far, the more [House members] have heard about it, the more comfortable they are with it,” he said. “It’s not a unique concept.”

What to expect Thursday

The plan for Trump’s meetings — 9:30 a.m. meeting with House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club and a 12:30 p.m. lunch with GOP senators at NRSC headquarters — doesn’t explicitly include discussions of Trump’s legal matters and how they might be addressed. (That, of course, is no guarantee that Trump won’t bring them up.)

Instead, the visit is being cast as a chance for Hill Republicans to unite behind their party leader heading into a contentious election season and to also talk about what comes next should Republicans manage to win a governing trifecta in November.

A person close with Trump said the former president will: (1) express his desire to “protect seniors” by not allowing cuts to Social Security or Medicare; (2) reiterate his intention to crack down on the border; (3) lay out a broad vision for economic policy, including cutting taxes and bringing down prices, and (4) preview a U-turn on Biden’s foreign policy priorities.

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House Republicans landed a big political punch against President Joe Biden on Wednesday, just hours before they’re set to welcome Donald Trump to the Hill. They almost certainly can’t do more before November.

Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday kept his fractured conference in line long enough to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for defying GOP demands for audio of Biden’s interview with former special counsel Robert Hur. It was a move long sought by Trump and his many Hill allies — yet it’ll be a short-lived victory for Johnson’s House GOP.

Republicans are now staring down a grueling five-week slog that will test Johnson’s ability to manage his unruly factions, not to mention Trump’s outsized expectations. The GOP still has to push through scores of divisive amendments that Republicans had to greenlight in order to satisfy their right flank or risk derailing debate on the annual defense policy bill, which was once a bipartisan affair. And Trump boosters want to go much further than the Garland contempt finding, including trying to defund the former president’s prosecutors.

GOP leaders’ thin margin of control in the House, however, means they’re unlikely to hit Biden’s Department of Justice in any major way during the current government funding debate. Conservatives who believe the White House is within their reach want to pack their pro-Trump priorities into this summer’s lineup of spending bills — such as yanking money from DOJ special counsel Jack Smith or blocking new funding for an FBI headquarters.

But even some of the House GOP’s staunchest pro-Trump hardliners are openly acknowledging that in order to further rein in the DOJ, their colleagues would have to be willing to shut down the government over it. And that support among Republicans simply isn’t there. It’s not even clear they’ll be able to get an initial DOJ funding bill through the House after it ran aground due to GOP divisions last year.

“As a practical matter, I think it’s over,” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) said about the chance of blocking money for a new FBI headquarters. “To me, you need a new batch of Republicans who are willing to actually do something. … I haven’t seen a hotbed of Republicans ready to fight for significant change.”

Instead, most Republicans acknowledge it’s time to turn ahead to a potential agenda for 2025 if they can win full control of Washington this fall. Johnson has already begun coordinating with Senate Republicans, crossing the Capitol earlier Wednesday to discuss goals such as another round of GOP tax cuts. The speaker also told reporters he expects preparation for next year to be on the agenda for Trump’s Thursday visit.

“We’ve got to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda” in the event of a GOP takeover in November, Johnson said. “So in light of that we are having discussions with [him] and his team and amongst ourselves to plan accordingly.”

Even this fall’s looming spending fight will focus on who controls the White House in 2025. Bishop described his biggest priority for funding season as “helping President Trump in his second term,” which means avoiding a mammoth end-of-year bill that would jam the presumptive GOP nominee by locking in funding until October 2025.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), another member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, added that he “wanted everything punted until the new Congress, and the new president hopefully comes in.” That demand is already getting private pushback from Republicans who are responsible for crafting the government funding bills, as well as some members of leadership.

As for the rest of the right flank’s wish list, GOP leaders will continue to have a difficult time getting anything passed. For instance, Johnson is getting an earful from moderates who are uneasy with their party’s growing willingness to use its small majority to try to target the DOJ or Trump’s prosecutors.

During a closed-door meeting on Tuesday night, South Carolina Rep. Russell Fry walked fellow Republicans through a pro-Trump bill that would let a former president move state charges to federal court — a plan that leadership had hoped to bring to the floor as soon as Thursday, timed to their meeting with Trump.

Party leaders, including staunch Trump ally and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), touted the bill again during Wednesday’s closed-door conference meeting.

“We need to pass it. We passed it out of committee a year ago,” Jordan said, adding that GOP leadership has begun whipping support for the bill.

But Fry’s bill is drawing skepticism from multiple corners of the conference. POLITICO reported late last week that moderate and centrist members were reaching out to leadership to air their opposition. And Fry got tough questions from Republicans during their closed-door meeting on Tuesday, according to one attendee.

Republicans from the conference’s governing wing are worried about making a sweeping change to the American justice system simply because they are fired up after Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts in New York. Asked about the bill, Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) said in a brief interview that the U.S. legal structure has been in place for centuries, and “for us to mess with it just because we don’t like one set of circumstances doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

It’s not just moderates. One rank-and-file conservative member, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO that they had reached out to Johnson for a meeting to raise concerns about the legislation.

The conservative member described themselves as “one of” the Republicans who have issues with the bill, saying it’s unclear “how it comes to pass” the House at all.

Even if GOP leaders can’t do much on the floor, they can — and will — still make Trump a focus of their committee work. The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Thursday, the same day of Trump’s visit to the Hill, focused on the Manhattan district attorney’s “unprecedented politicized indictment” of the former president.

Jordan put it this way: “We’re having experts come in and talk about how ridiculous the trial was.”

Republicans are picking a fight over gas prices and climate policies in a competitive California House race that could play a key role in determining the congressional majority this November.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is attacking Democratic candidate Rudy Salas over his vote to reauthorize and extend California’s programs to curb greenhouse gas emissions as a state lawmaker in 2017.

“Even after Central Valley voters threw self-serving Sacramento politician Rudy Salas out of office, Salas is still hurting them with his zombie gas tax hike,” NRCC spokesperson Ben Petersen said in a statement. “When Sacramento Newsom bureaucrats force Valley drivers to pay 47 cents per gallon more, it will be Salas’ vote to blame.”

Salas’ campaign declined to comment on the vote, which came on a bill with bipartisan support that reauthorized California’s emissions trading system for large polluters and, debatably, its trading program for emissions from transportation fuels. His campaign manager highlighted Salas’ 2017 vote against increasing California’s gasoline tax.

“As the only Assembly Democrat to vote no on the gas tax, Rudy has shown he isn’t afraid to stand up to his own party,” Kyle Buda said in an email. “And in Congress Rudy will continue to stand up for domestic energy production right here in the Valley.”

The NRCC is backing incumbent Republican Rep. David Valadao, who also touted his support for “increasing domestic energy production” and “suspending the gas tax increase,” as well as his opposition to both California climate programs.

“Hardworking Central Valley families are struggling with the highest gas prices in the country, and our gas prices are about to go up even more thanks to Governor Newsom and Rudy Salas,” Valadao said in an email.

State regulators are planning to amend the low-carbon fuel standard in November. Experts say the program, whose proceeds subsidize electrification and biofuels, currently adds about 10 cents per gallon as fossil fuel producers pass on the costs of having to buy credits to cover their emissions. An initial report on potential changes to the program estimated an increase as high as 47 cents per gallon by 2025, though a later staff report said those estimates were incomplete and difficult to predict. The California Air Resources Board will vote on the changes Nov. 8.

It’s not the first time congressional campaign committees have seized on energy politics in this Democratic-leaning Central Valley district that Valadao first won in 2012 and defended in 2022 against Salas.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attacked Valadao last year over his vote against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The DCCC contends that Valadao’s no vote stood in the way of saving a California nuclear facility — which Valadao has praised for lowering energy costs. That’s because the bill included funding for nuclear power that was later allocated to keep that facility open.

Valadao has said he supports an “all of the above approach” to energy production, including nuclear, and he cosponsored unsuccessful federal legislation in 2021 to keep the plant open.

Buda again invoked Valadao’s 2021 vote against the infrastructure law. “While Rudy’s record of standing up for domestic energy production is clear, Mr. Valadao has yet to explain why he voted to increase utility rates on Valley families by opposing funding to keep Diablo Canyon power plant operational,” he said in an email.

Valadao campaign spokesperson Faith Mabry defended his support for the nuclear plant.

“Did Rudy’s team forget it was Governor Newsom and State Democrats who led the push for the closure of Diablo Canyon?” she said in an email. “Rep. Valadao has a clear record of supporting the Diablo Canyon facility and nuclear energy in Congress — any claims otherwise are ridiculous.”