© The Associated Press | J. Scott Applewhite
Trump megabill survives cliffhanger for final vote
“President Trump is on the cusp of a major legislative win today as his “big, beautiful bill” heads to a final vote in the House.
Lawmakers teed up the bill to prepare to send it to Trump's desk this morning after dramatically surmounting an internal GOP revolt, with more than 18 hours of overnight arm twisting to clear a key procedural hurdle.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) defended his gamble to heed the president's Friday deadline to enact what could be the most significant piece of legislation of Trump’s second term.
‘We’re going to meet our July 4 deadline, which everybody made fun of me for saying,’ Johnson said early today.
The Hill: Trump begins the summer on a hot streak.
The Hill: Follow live coverage of the House vote.
The chamber after 3 a.m. voted 219-213 to adopt a procedural rule on the sweeping measure that was in jeopardy before midnight. Five Republicans who initially cast votes in opposition dwindled to just one, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who joined Democrats in opposing the procedural motion on the Senate’s version of the mammoth tax and spending bill.
The extended vote on advancing the bill followed Republicans keeping another procedural vote open for more than seven hours, making it the longest House vote in history and surpassing the previous record set in 2021.
Johnson, who could afford to lose only three votes, held the vote open and cajoled GOP holdouts with help from Trump. The president spent much of Wednesday and the early morning hours Thursday speaking to individual Republicans while trying to allay misgivings about cuts to Medicaid, the state of the national debt and the GOP’s prized tax reductions.
The Speaker had also spent most of the day Wednesday trying to win over members of the conservative Freedom Caucus, who threatened to tank the bill amid deficit concerns, along with other reticient members.
One of the crucial holdouts was Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has been at odds with Trump over the megabill for weeks. During the call with Trump around 1 a.m. Thursday, Massie suggested he was ready to drop his opposition and support the rule if the president stopped attacking him, The Hill's Mychael Schnell reported.
The president urged holdouts to deny Democrats ‘a win,’ which turned out to be a potent political entreaty. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), who in May voted against the House GOP’s initial version of the megabill, said he is a ‘yes’ on enacting Trump’s legislative agenda.
‘I gotta say, no one puts a deal together like President Trump, he’s a master. But I think one of the other persuasive things was just looking at the Democrats’ reaction to it,’ he said, referring to political pummeling from House and Senate Democrats.
Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), who is running for governor, said, ‘The president is the best closer in the business, and he got a lot of members to ‘yes.’
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) said Trump complained to fellow Republicans about the nation’s borrowing authority, which must be raised by mid-August. ‘The big message from the president, and I agree, is the debt ceiling,’ he told reporters.” [The Hill]
“Several fiscal forecasters predict that the big tax cut and spending bill will likely increase the federal debt by trillions of dollars over the next decade. They expect the bill to have minimal impact on boosting the economy. The plan would extend tax cuts from the first Trump administration and introduce additional tax breaks, reducing government revenues. Additionally, the measure increases government spending on defense and immigration enforcement.
The plan isn’t the direction the government should be going in, and ‘every fiscal warning sign is blinking red right now,’ Maya MacGuineas, who heads the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, tells NPR's Scott Horsley. Most of the individual tax cuts will benefit the wealthiest taxpayers, while families earning less than $55,000 a year will, on average, be worse off. Horsley says this is because any tax savings that these families receive will be overshadowed by cuts to programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.” [NPR]
Trump is on the brink of getting the One Big Beautiful Bill
Happy Thursday morning.
“It looks like Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump will make their July 4 deadline.
The House is on the cusp of passing the One Big Beautiful Bill after an unprecedented and exhausting marathon day in the Capitol. This will be a massive victory for Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
As of press time, the House was debating the package. Final passage is expected at some point early this morning.
But the path that led to this moment was unbelievably tortured and — at times — unbelievable.
The House held back-to-back votes open for a combined 14 hours, as Johnson, his leadership team, Trump and senior administration officials furiously whipped holdout GOP lawmakers to back the $3.3 trillion package.
The GOP bill will extend and expand the 2017 Trump cuts — including new tax cuts for tips, overtime and Social Security recipients, all presidential priorities – while also making huge cuts to Medicaid and SNAP funding. This will leave millions of Americans without health insurance. Republicans also included hundreds of billions of dollars in new defense and border security money.
Trump and GOP leaders assert the package is needed to boost the U.S. economy after years of Democratic mismanagement under former President Joe Biden. Democrats and budget experts counter that it will add trillions to the national debt. Democrats blasted the bill as ‘cruel,’ ‘disgusting’ and ‘a huge benefit to billionaires.’
The last chapter of this drama over the last 24 hours had more twists and turns than the final episode of White Lotus.
At around 3:20 a.m., after holding the vote open for nearly six hours while Johnson and Trump lobbied them furiously, several hardline conservative holdouts voted to move forward with the measure, ending a dramatic floor stalemate.
The holdouts included Reps. Josh Brecheen (Okla.), Eric Burlison (Mo.)., Keith Self (Texas), Scott Perry (Pa.), Bob Onder (Mo.), Andy Harris (Md.) and Chip Roy (Texas).
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), a moderate, was the only no vote.
What makes this so remarkable is that Harris, Roy and Self spent a huge chunk of this week dumping all over the bill, only to vote for it with absolutely no changes a day later. Roy went as far as to say that he wouldn’t vote for a rule at all and indicated he wanted to revise the package and send it back to the Senate. That’s not going to happen now.
‘We made some progress on some fiscal issues,’ Self told us early this morning.
The House Freedom Caucus caved once again.
They will lose a tremendous amount of sway in the wake of this episode.
Much of the conversation overnight centered around the implementation of the bill, the nation’s fiscal trajectory and what kinds of executive orders the Trump administration might issue to assuage the concerns of conservatives.
Johnson said the Senate made more changes ‘than I anticipated.’ Johnson added that rank-and-file House Republicans needed to ‘process that, ask questions about it, make sure they fully understood it and all the implications and some of that was still going on tonight.’
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was a one-man rollercoaster for the GOP leadership. Massie railed against the bill all week. He initially voted for the rule. But then at 11:30 p.m., Massie entered a mostly empty House chamber and switched his vote from yes to no.
However, Massie – who Trump has personally targeted for defeat in 2026 – switched again back to yes when all the hardliners flipped. The GOP leadership hopes that Massie will vote for final passage later this morning. And he has made clear that he would like Trump to stop attacking him.
Surprising yes votes on the procedural rule vote included Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), who represents a district chock full of Medicaid recipients. Valadao voted for the motion at 11:20 p.m. as most of the members were already gone. Valadao lost his seat in 2018, only to regain it in 2020.
The implications. The giant GOP bill’s passage gives some firm definition to the 119th Congress and an early peek at the political stakes of the 2026 midterm elections.
Johnson, Trump and Thune have gambled that the reconciliation bill is a large enough grab bag that it has something for every Republican to like and tout at home. The GOP leadership is hoping that House Republicans will talk about extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts and the new tax breaks for overtime pay and tips.
The massive gamble is that voters won’t be turned off by Republicans cutting $1 trillion from Medicaid and SNAP.
On Wednesday, GOP lawmakers threw their caution to the wind to advance the OBBB over these reservations. For example, Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.), a physician in his fourth term, told reporters he was worried about the bill’s steep funding cuts to rural hospitals. Murphy eventually voted for the bill.
On Johnson. Today is Johnson’s 617th day as speaker, a job he won in 2023 despite his lack of leadership experience. Johnson’s best trait was that no one disliked him.
Now, six months into full GOP control of Washington, it’s best to think of Johnson’s speakership as a joint venture with Trump.
The 53-year-old Louisiana Republican has a power-sharing agreement, of sorts, with Trump and can’t get anything done without the ever-powerful president. This is both a strength and a weakness. About 90% of the GOP conference quickly falls in line with Johnson, his tactics and his agenda. The last 10% needs direct cajoling, convincing and constant care from Trump.
On the reconciliation bill, one can argue that Johnson put himself in this position. He set an arbitrary July 4 deadline. He told Republicans that the Senate would not change the House’s reconciliation package. And when the Senate did overhaul the legislation significantly, Johnson insisted on barrelling through, pushing the bill through the House over an exhausting 48-hour period instead of pausing and waiting a few days.
All of these decisions could be viewed as unforced errors. But Johnson has a patience, steadiness and calm that is unusual in congressional leadership. He chooses a path and sticks to it, despite bumps or curves in the road.
So Johnson deserves a good deal of credit here. He pushed for one bill instead of two. He developed the framework that served as the skeleton for this package. And he got it through in 164 days.” [Punchbowl]
– Jake Sherman, Laura Weiss, Samantha Handler, Brendan Pedersen, Ally Mutnick and John Bresnahan
Medicaid data
“Twenty states are suing the Trump administration for allegedly violating federal privacy laws by turning over Medicaid data on millions of enrollees to deportation officials. Some of the private health files revealed names, addresses, Social Security numbers, immigration status and claims for enrollees. The information, which was sent to the Department of Homeland Security, included people who live in California, Illinois, Washington state and Washington, DC, which allow non-US citizens to enroll in Medicaid programs that pay for their expenses using only state taxpayer dollars. Experts said such information could be used to locate migrants for President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.” [CNN]
Judge blocks ‘sweeping’ asylum crackdown after Trump declared ‘invasion’ at southern border
“President Donald Trump’s effort to crack down on asylum claims by immigrants crossing the southern border vastly exceeded his legal authority and must be halted, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss said Trump’s Jan. 20 proclamation declaring an ‘invasion’ of southern border-crossers cannot be used to justify the ‘sweeping’ unilateral restrictions he sought to impose, including severe limits to asylum applications and the ability to seek protection from torture.
Under Trump’s proclamation, people who crossed the southern border between ‘ports of entry’ are barred from seeking asylum or invoking other legal protections that would allow them to temporarily remain in the U.S. while their claims are processed.”
Read the latest at POLITICO
Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Wisconsin Supreme Court Strikes Down 1849 Abortion Ban
“Republican prosecutors in the state had said they intended to enforce the long-dormant law after the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022.”
Read more at New York Times
Man pleads guilty to murdering four University of Idaho students in 2022, as part of deal to avoid death penalty
Ted S. Warren/Associated Press
“Bryan Kohberger will face consecutive life sentences. The mysterious killings at an off-campus house disrupted a quiet Idaho college town and drew national attention as authorities searched for weeks for the killer before arresting Kohberger.”
Read more at Washington Post
MAGA Profits From Alligator Alcatraz With Baby Merch
“MAGA Republicans and others have sought to capitalize on the notorious new “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center by selling merchandise such as baby onesies, T-shirts, and caps. As President Donald Trump toured the controversial Florida Everglades facility on Tuesday, the state’s GOP website and other online stores hawked a new line of fashion, enraging critics who view the centre as inhumane. One website was selling an “Alligator Alcatraz” retro baby onesie with a picture of a large alligator in a swamp for $26.89.
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The Florida GOP’s website was also filled with merch, including T-shirts for $30, black mesh trucker hats for $27, and a pair of koozies for $15. ‘Every shirt, hat, or koozie you grab funds our push to keep Florida tough on crime, and tougher on borders,’ the Florida GOP wrote in a fundraising email ahead of Trump’s visit. Alligator Alcatraz is a new state-run migrant detention center being built on an airfield site, in Ochopee, west of Miami. But the center, which will cater for up to 5,000 people, has already sparked daily protests from immigration advocates and environmentalists. Asked on Tuesday if the concept behind the facility was to have alligators or snakes eat illegal immigrants who try to escape, Trump replied: ‘I guess that’s the concept. This is not a nice business.’” [Daily Beast]
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INTERNATIONAL
U.S. and Vietnam have reached loose framework for further trade talks
“The U.S. has notched a preliminary trade deal with Vietnam, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday morning.
According to the draft copy of a U.S.-Vietnam joint statement obtained by POLITICO, the countries have reached a loose framework for further trade talks. The U.S. will continue to pause the 46 percent tariff on Vietnam's imports that President Donald Trump announced in April while the two sides negotiate a more detailed trade agreement.
In exchange, Vietnam has committed to opening up its market to a variety of U.S. imports that Hanoi has traditionally blocked. And it will take steps to reduce the flow of Chinese goods exported through Vietnam to the U.S., which has exploded since Trump levied tariffs on China in his first term, although the details remain vague.
The latter is a key Trump priority: White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has called the country a ‘colony of China’ for allegedly re-labelling Chinese goods for export to the U.S., thereby allowing China to avoid much steeper tariffs on its exports.
‘I just made a Trade Deal with Vietnam,’ Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday morning. ‘Details to follow!’
A White House official confirmed that Trump spoke with Vietnam’s top leader To Lam on Wednesday morning.”
Read the latest at POLITICO
Russia
“The U.S. has imposed no new sanctions against Russia related to its war in Ukraine since Trump took office. This has allowed Russia to get money and military equipment.” [New York Times]
“Denmark began drafting women. It is expanding its armed forces to face threats from Russia and to meet American expectations of NATO members.” [New York Times]
“Taiwan is again turning its silicon chips into geopolitical bargaining chips.
In June, the world’s leading semiconductor-manufacturing hub blacklisted Chinese tech companies Huawei and SMIC, barring Taiwanese firms from doing business with them without government approval.
It marked the first time Taiwan imposed chip restrictions on major Chinese firms, and followed President Lai Ching-te’s pledge to close export-control loopholes as part of broader concessions to the US in tariff negotiations.
While it remains unclear how the curbs will affect the companies concerned, and how Beijing might retaliate, the move highlights Lai’s intention to further diversify Taiwan’s economic ties away from China — and his willingness to confront Beijing despite the risks.
Lai in Taipei in October. Photographer: An Rong Xu/Bloomberg
There are other signs of a hardening stance.
Lai is on a national tour delivering speeches urging the archipelago’s 23 million residents to unite against growing pressure from China, which considers Taiwan its territory.
On Sunday, he said that Beijing ‘does not own Taiwan’ after asserting it ‘is of course an independent country.’ Yesterday, he said China’s goal is to dominate the western Pacific.
Although not the first time a Taiwanese leader has made similar declarations, China is likely to view these statements as testing a red line and may use them as a pretext for further pressure.
Taiwan has additionally become more transparent about its military exchanges with the US and key security partners. In a rare disclosure last month, Taipei revealed a meeting between its defense minister and a visiting delegation of US lawmakers.
Beijing responded the next day by dispatching the largest number of military aircraft near Taiwan’s main island in over eight months.
What remains to be seen is how far China is willing to escalate in asserting its rights to the democratic territory.
For Lai, the question is whether his government can navigate the fallout of drawing closer to Washington while preventing regional tensions from boiling over.” — Yian Lee [Bloomberg]
Dancers perform during Taiwan’s National Day celebration in Taipei in October. Photographer: An Rong Xu/Bloomberg
“Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin agreed to coordinate their approach on Iran in the first phone call between the French and Russian presidents since 2022, marking a rare overture from a European leader to the Kremlin. The call came as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the US, China, Britain, France and Russia — seek a common Iran stance. Israel, meanwhile, urged China to use its economic and political sway to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.” [Bloomberg]
“Japan’s effort to maintain a friendly approach to trade negotiations is being tested as Trump ramps up pressure for a deal ahead of a July 9 deadline, raising the risk that Tokyo could become an easy target in his push for quick wins. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell repeated that the US central bank probably would have trimmed interest rates further this year absent the barrage of tariffs.” [Bloomberg]
“Keir Starmer dramatically abandoned his flagship welfare reforms to avoid a historic defeat, leaving the UK prime minister’s authority badly damaged and his government facing a widening fiscal hole.” [Bloomberg]
“Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva picked a fight with lawmakers over taxation of the rich, offering an early glimpse of political and economic debates that are set to rage through next year’s election.” [Bloomberg]
Won’t Concede
Israeli troops deploy to the border with Gaza on July 1.Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
“Israel agreed to a U.S.-proposed Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal with Hamas on Wednesday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump called on both sides to accept a truce. ‘We are serious in our will to reach a hostage deal and a cease-fire,’ Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Wednesday. ‘Our goal is to begin proximity talks as soon as possible.’
Under the U.S. proposal, Israel and Hamas would adhere to a 60-day cease-fire, during which Israeli troops would partially withdraw from Gaza and a surge of humanitarian aid would be allowed into the territory. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks while trying to access food at aid distribution sites, including those controlled by the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
It is unclear how many hostages would be exchanged as part of the deal; Israeli forces believe that 50 people remain in Hamas’s captivity, of whom less than half are believed to still be alive. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to suggest that Israel may prioritize rescuing the hostages over defeating Hamas, a shift in his previous portrayal of the country’s goals.
Still, several conditions of the agreement remain in contention, and neither Israel nor Hamas appear willing to make concessions. Trump has suggested that the deal would work toward establishing a permanent end to the war; however, Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday that he will not accept any peace deal unless Hamas is defeated. ‘[T]here will be no Hamas’ in postwar Gaza, Netanyahu said, adding that Israel will only agree to halt all fighting if Hamas surrenders, disarms, and exiles itself.
Hamas, meanwhile, has said that it’s willing to free the remaining hostages if Israel agrees to a complete withdrawal from Gaza. The group is ‘ready to accept any initiative that clearly leads to the complete end to the war,’ Hamas official Taher al-Nunu said. Israel rejects both of these conditions.
International pressure is growing to clinch a deal, as Gaza’s Health Ministry announced on Wednesday that the death toll for Palestinians has surpassed 57,000 people. ‘I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better—IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,’ Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday.
A Hamas delegation reportedly flew to Cairo on Wednesday to meet with Egyptian and Qatari mediators about potential truce proposals, and Netanyahu is expected to visit the White House next Monday to further discuss the conflict. His visit will come just days after Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer met with top U.S. officials in Washington. Trump himself has suggested that a cease-fire deal could come together as soon as next week.” [Foreign Policy]
“The next Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama confirmed on Wednesday that, upon his death, he will be reincarnated as the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. With just days remaining before he turns 90, the Dalai Lama spelled out the succession process, ending speculation that he would be the last reincarnated version of the religion’s spiritual leader.
The current Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule and now lives in exile in India. Since his exile began, he has advocated for nonviolence and support of Tibetan independence, earning him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
China maintains that only Beijing can approve the Dalai Lama’s successor. However, the Dalai Lama affirmed on Wednesday that the next reincarnation will be born outside of China, urging his followers to reject whoever Beijing claims is the next spiritual guide.
‘For China, controlling this succession offers the ultimate prize: legitimizing decades of occupation by transforming Tibet’s greatest symbol of resistance into an instrument of state authority,’ Kelsang Aukatsang argues in Foreign Policy.” [Foreign Policy]
“Bolstering trade. The Latin American Mercosur trade bloc concluded talks on Wednesday with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) to cement a new free trade deal. With all five full and active Mercosur members (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) as well as all four EFTA nations (Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland) signing off, the agreement will create a free trade area of almost 300 million people and a combined GDP of more than $4.3 trillion, according to a joint statement issued by the two blocs.
‘Both sides will benefit from improved market access for more than 97% of their exports, which will increase bilateral trade and translate into benefits for businesses and individuals,’ the statement said.
The agreement still requires parliamentary approval and legal review from both blocs’ individual members, but the Norwegian delegation said it expects that process to be finished in early 2026. The deal will enter into force three months after all the signatory countries have ratified it.
Mercosur has targeted European markets before. Last December, the bloc struck a free trade deal with the European Union in an effort to increase bilateral investments and promote sustainable development, including efforts to fight climate change. That agreement still needs to be translated and ratified by all 27 EU states, though it has faced pushback from some countries, such as France.” [Foreign Policy]
“Leaving the IAEA. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian announced on Wednesday that Tehran has suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The announcement came after Iran’s parliament approved a bill last week to suspend the country’s cooperation with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.
Under the legislation, ‘IAEA inspectors will not be permitted to enter Iran unless the security of the country’s nuclear facilities and that of peaceful nuclear activities is guaranteed,’ Iranian media reported.
Pezeshkian has claimed that the IAEA is a biased organization and that it gave information about Tehran’s nuclear facilities to Israel. However, experts suggest that the suspension could also be a tactic to gain leverage in future nuclear negotiations with the United States.
Trump has suggested that such talks will begin soon, but Tehran appears less optimistic. ‘I don’t think negotiations will restart as quickly as that,’ Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said this week, though he added that ‘the doors of diplomacy will never slam shut.’
Iran maintains that its uranium enrichment facilities are for civilian purposes, but Israeli and U.S. intelligence have suggested that Tehran was close to developing a nuclear weapon before the start of the 12-day Israel-Iran conflict, which targeted Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure. Last month, the IAEA accused Iran of failing to comply with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations—a day before Israel launched its first strike.” [Foreign Policy]
“North Korea is embracing summer with a new beach resort. The Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist zone, which opened on Tuesday, can accommodate nearly 20,000 people with its hotels, restaurants, and slew of water activities, according to North Korean state media. The resort is part of leader Kim Jong Un’s latest efforts to improve the country’s economy by boosting tourism. But with most foreign visitors still banned from entering the country, it is unclear just how successful the venture will be.” [Foreign Policy]
BUSINESS AND ECONOMY
Tesla’s Global Vehicle Deliveries Plunged in Second Quarter
“Tesla's global vehicle sales fell 13.5% in the second quarter from a year ago, continuing a steep slide in automotive sales as the company tries to pivot to autonomous vehicles.”
Read More at Wall Street Journal
The U.S. labor market is expected to have slowed again last month.
“What’s happening? The government will release its June jobs report this morning — expected to show a drop from May. The unemployment rate is expected to rise.
Zooming out: The Trump administration’s policies haven’t had a huge effect on the data yet, but experts warn of continued slowing.
Worth watching: The monthly jobs numbers keep getting revised after their release. And economists are losing confidence in government economic data.”
Read this story at Washington Post
Del Monte Foods filed for bankruptcy.
“It’s a grocery aisle staple: The California-based company, founded in 1886, sells canned vegetables and fruits. It has other brands, such as Contadina, in its portfolio.
What happened? The company, which employs about 2,780 people, owes more than $1.23 billion. It noted challenges brought by the coronavirus pandemic and higher interest rates.”
Read this story at Washington Post
Trump’s plan to replace clean energy with fossil fuels has some major problems
Getty Images
Umair Irfan is a correspondent at Vox.
“The first solar cell ever made was built in the United States. Tesla, based in the US, was once the largest EV manufacturer in the world. The lithium-ion battery was co-developed in the US.
But today China, not the US, is the largest manufacturer of solar cells and batteries. China’s BYD, not Tesla, is the largest EV manufacturer in the world. And China is starting to outrun the US on research and development investment.
Now, President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which just passed the Senate, would push the US further to the margins of a global clean energy revolution that it could have dominated.
For years now, clean power has been the largest source of new electricity in the US. Solar, batteries, and wind are on track to make up more than 90 percent of new electricity capacity on the US power grid this year. Wind and solar now produce more electricity on the US power grid than coal. Almost twice as many Americans work in clean energy compared to fossil fuels, and the sector is still growing.
But thanks to the bill, that may not be the case for much longer. The latest version rolls back many of the investments from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the single-largest US investment to address climate change by giving the energy transition a boost. It calls for more rapid phaseouts of tax credits for wind and solar power and eliminates a $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of a new electric vehicle. It even creates a new tax credit for coal.
These provisions are in line with Trump's longstanding antipathy toward renewable energy and disbelief in climate change. However, they stand to hobble the US economy more broadly.
The US is facing significant load growth on the power grid for the first time in decades as the tech industry scrounges for electrons to power its electricity-devouring data centers. While renewables are cut, the alternatives are not likely to make up the gap in time. The US is currently the largest oil and gas producer in the world, but it can take years to site, permit, and acquire the materials to build power plants that burn these fuels.
Right now, oil prices are at four-year lows and natural gas prices are falling, and when prices are low, it’s much harder to make the business case for more mining, drilling, and power plants, even with incentives. Trump can, for example, open up more federally managed lands for energy production, but many of those leases sit unused because energy companies don’t want to create a supply glut. Meanwhile, employment in the oil and gas industry remains volatile, while coal jobs are continuing their decades-long decline.
The Senate bill does extend tax credits and loan programs for nuclear energy and geothermal power. However, the cuts in the bill would also slow efforts to build up the domestic energy supply chain needed to bolster other zero-emissions technologies, from raw materials like lithium and rare earth minerals to battery factories. It would do little to relax the bottlenecks for connecting new power plants to the grid that are adding years to project timelines. The US is also dismantling research and development that could yield the next energy breakthrough. On top of all this, Trump's tariffs are raising operating costs not just for renewables, but for the fossil fuels he loves so much.
The net result is a policy suite that will not only hamper clean electricity, but energy overall, making it more expensive for everyone across the country. According to Energy Innovation, the Senate bill would increase household electricity prices on average by $130 per year, eroding almost a trillion dollars in economic productivity, and costing 760,000 jobs by 2030.
While the US is putting clean energy in reverse, other countries are racing ahead. Clean energy technology investment is poised to increase to $2.2 trillion this year around the world. Renewables are on track to overtake coal as the biggest power source in the world this year. Wind, solar, and batteries are still getting cheaper. Effectively, the US is ceding one of the biggest growth industries in the world to China, particularly as developing countries industrialize and other wealthy countries look to decarbonize their economies.
The case for more clean energy – lower costs, faster deployment, fewer greenhouse gas emissions – remains robust. Even with all the deliberate obstacles the Trump administration is placing ahead, there are some wind, solar, and battery projects still poised to come online in the US as they work their way through the pipeline, albeit at a much slower pace than before.
But without continued investment, the US will lose ground to the rest of the world and condemn itself to dirtier, more expensive energy.” [Vox]
TECH
1 big thing: Zuck's AI moonshot
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
“Mark Zuckerberg — in an unprecedented, multibillion-dollar talent raid — has dramatically reset the market for blue-chip AI builders, and further complicated the government's ability to stack its own technology bench, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.
Why it matters: The Meta CEO is trying to lure talent from OpenAI and other tech companies with offers that can top $100 million in total compensation for the first year alone — beyond most star athletes' pay.
Top-tier pay packages being offered by Meta for AI researchers can reach up to $300 million over four years, WIRED reports.
A tech-news feed on X used a baseball card motif to portray an OpenAI researcher being "TRADED" to Meta.
The talent derby has sent compensation soaring across AI, as rivals scramble to keep top talent and entice others not to flirt with Meta and other suitors.
It's partly a continuation of an ongoing recruiting war — OpenAI built its lab with the help of some massive comp packages.
Zuckerberg unveiled his dream team this week as Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), after meeting personally with potential recruits at his homes in Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe.
The big picture: America has witnessed staggering valuations for startups. But never before have we seen company-valuation-sized salaries for people, rather than ideas or enterprises.
That's injecting a new layer of drama and next-level economics for the biggest companies — many the size of nation-states — racing to win the AI wars.
Collateral damage: The U.S. government is already struggling to recruit top researchers and scientists. A remotely talented AI specialist can now assume that riches in the tens of millions are attainable. So why sacrifice to serve in government?
China, by contrast, can command top talent to work on government projects. A front-page Wall Street Journal story yesterday, "China Is Quickly Eroding America's Lead in the Global AI Race," said AI models from Chinese companies, including DeepSeek and Alibaba, are becoming popular in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Zoom in: Zuckerberg's biggest single bet was investing $14 billion in Scale AI, and bringing co-founder Alex Wang to Meta as chief AI officer. Former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman will lead Meta's work on AI products and applied research.
Eleven other new AI star hires were listed in Zuckerberg's internal memo announcing Meta Superintelligence Labs.
Altman hit back at Zuckerberg's spree this week, telling OpenAI researchers in a Slack message that Meta ‘has gotten a few great people for sure, but on the whole, it is hard to overstate how much they didn't get their top people and had to go quite far down their list,’ WIRED reports.
‘I am proud of how mission-oriented our industry is as a whole; of course there will always be some mercenaries,’ Altman added. ‘Missionaries will beat mercenaries.’ [Axios]
Part 2: What Zuck sees
Mark Zuckerberg wears augmented reality glasses during a Meta event in California last year. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“Tech investors tell us that until very recently, the revenue outlook for AI models was unclear, and there was a debate about the return on capital spending. Now it's apparent that leading AI companies will do hundreds of billions in revenue per year, Jim and Mike continue.
OpenAI is enjoying rampaging growth: The company said last month that it has $10 billion in annual recurring revenue, just 2½ years after the launch of ChatGPT — up from $5.5 billion last year. OpenAI has projected for investors that, fueled by AI agents and other new products, sales could total as much as $125 billion in 2029 and $174 billion in 2030, according to documents seen by The Information.
Anthropic — a rival AI company led by Dario Amodei, an OpenAI alumnus — has hit a pace of $4 billion in revenue annually, up almost four times from January, The Information reported this week.
At those rates of growth, you can see what Zuckerberg is seeing — and why he's suddenly pouring massive spending into making sure Meta remains a dominant AI player.
The backstory: Zuckerberg is repeating a winning playbook. By 2012, he realized Facebook was behind on the mobile web. He famously redirected the entire company toward catching up.
Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion and later WhatsApp for $16 billion — racing ahead in areas where others had innovated. But this time he's betting on individuals, rather than successful enterprises.
Reality check: Meta has spent a fortune on Llama, its large-language model (LLM), in an effort to develop a frontier model that can compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini. In a splashy story about "The List" of AI geniuses Zuckerberg is courting, The Wall Street Journal said Meta's "laggard history in generative AI has made some recruits hesitant."
Bubbles can burst. AI salaries and data-center costs won't be sustainable without the ultimate payoff being unimaginably huge. And the more these companies spend, the bigger that payoff needs to be. As uncovered by a survey Axios reported last month, many small businesses using AI aren't even paying for it.
The other side: Altman, noting that OpenAI has built ‘a culture that is good at repeatable innovation,’ said last month on a podcast hosted by Jack Altman, his younger brother, that Meta was making ‘giant offers to a lot of people on our team — like $100 million signing bonuses’ and more than that in annual compensation.
‘We're set up such that if we succeed ... then everybody will do great financially,’ Sam Altman said. ‘[I]t's incentive-aligned with mission-first, and then economic rewards and everything else flowing from that.’” [Axios]
SCIENCE
Scientists sequenced a complete DNA set from an ancient Egyptian man.
“What they found: 20% of his ancestry showed relations to people in Mesopotamia — an area around modern-day Iraq. It’s evidence that the two complex societies intermingled.
It’s a breakthrough: This is the oldest studied Egyptian DNA sequence, dating to when the pyramids were built. And it’s a chance to learn about non-royalty — he was probably a pottery worker.”
Read this story at Washington Post
HEALTH AND MEDICINE
The Megabill’s Major Health Cuts
“The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed yesterday by the U.S. Senate includes massive rollbacks to health programs that could lead to lost coverage for ~17 million Americans over the next decade, reports The Washington Post (gift link).
The cuts also threaten the viability of hospitals, nursing homes, and community health centers, as they face the prospect of absorbing more care costs and receiving less federal support, reports NPR Shots.
On the line:
Cuts to Medicaid, and work requirements: Medicaid faces the largest cuts in the program’s history, reports The Hill, largely stemming from a work requirement that could end coverage for millions who do not meet new standards and that involves filing regular paperwork proving 80 hours of work a month.
Medicaid enrollees could also face new out-of-pocket copays up to $35.
Stricter ACA enrollment: Automatic reenrollment will end for people with ACA marketplace coverage; instead, they will be required to update information annually within a shorter enrollment period.
Blows to providers—and rural care: The bill ends a decades-long practice of state provider taxes, which health facilities pay to increase matching federal payments for state Medicaid plans, reports CNBC.
Loss of this funding could push 300+ hospitals toward service reductions or closure, per KFF Health News.
Abortion providers cut out: The legislation eliminates Medicaid funding entirely for any health service providers who offer abortion care, reports TIME.
What’s next: The bill now returns to the House, which passed an earlier version; some Republicans have raised objections to the Senate’s changes to that version of the bill.
Related: Mayors, doctor groups sue over Trump’s efforts to restrict Obamacare enrollment – AP [Global Health Now]
“The World Health Organization is pushing countries to raise the prices of sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco by 50% over the next 10 years through taxation, its strongest backing yet for taxes to help tackle chronic public health problems.” [Reuters]
LEGAL
“The Supreme Court's latest term was bursting with fodder for America's culture wars, few more so than three cases touching on transgender rights. The court, powered by its 6-3 conservative majority, in each case ruled against transgender plaintiffs or their interests more broadly.” [Reuters]
By Ankush Khardori
This artist sketch depicts the nine Supreme Court justices as they announce opinions. | Dana Verkouteren/AP
“A PRESENT FOR THE PRESIDENT — One year ago today, the Supreme Court gave Donald Trump the legal victory of a lifetime.
In a 6-3 decision whose consequences continue to reverberate today, the six Republican appointees on the court ruled that Trump was entitled to criminal immunity in connection with the Justice Department’s prosecution of the then-former president over his effort to overturn the 2020 election. The decision dealt a practical death blow to the Justice Department’s hopes of putting Trump on trial before the 2024 election.
That is all decidedly in the past now, but the decision continues to reverberate.
Arguably, it made him president again. In a close election, every big issue matters, so seen one way, the decision may plausibly have tipped the election in Trump’s favor given (i) his narrow margin of victory over Kamala Harris; (ii) polling data that consistently showed both that Americans wanted Trump to stand trial before the election and that he was likely to incur a meaningful drop in support upon a conviction; and (iii) the fact that Trump was probably going to be convicted if he had actually stood trial.
But beyond the politics, we’ve seen how the Court’s decision changed the way Trump has governed and thought about his office since he reassumed the presidency in January. The decision has clearly emboldened Trump — both in his approach to his official responsibilities and his unofficial responsibilities as a self-aggrandizing entrepreneur.
Since coming into office, Trump has pursued an aggressive and wide-ranging effort to expand the power of the executive branch and to arrogate power from Congress and the courts.
That project has involved moves that would have been practically unthinkable in prior administrations — among other things, unilaterally shuttering congressionally created agencies, empowering the world’s richest man to make slashing cuts throughout the federal government and announcing that he will ignore federal laws that he does not like.
These are not exactly federal crimes, but it is hard to imagine all of these things occurring without Trump and his advisors believing that they are practically immune from any serious legal consequences in the future for anything that they are doing now.
Then there are things that might actually implicate federal criminal law.
Trump’s deals with large law firms — which yielded nearly $1 billion in pro bono commitments to causes supported by the Trump administration — appear on their face to implicate federal bribery and extortion laws. But as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision last year, Trump does not need to worry about a subsequent administration prosecuting him. (The immunity, for what it’s worth, does not extend to the law firms on the other sides of those exchanges.)
The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling last year is also a potent reminder of the fundamental doctrinal instability that prevails under the conservative super-majority.
Indeed, since just this past Friday, plenty of legal observers have been grappling with the fallout from the court’s ruling on nationwide injunctions and the fate of Trump’s executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship. But the exercise looks very different depending on how much weight you place on the claims that the justices themselves make about how they do their jobs.
After all, the court’s conservative super-majority claims to adhere to originalism and textualism, but there was nothing originalist or textualist about the immunity ruling. The ruling has no credible basis in the text of the Constitution or the framers’ expectations when they wrote it, and it employs the sort of legally unmoored, policy-driven reasoning that the conservative legal movement typically claims to oppose.
There is a broad consensus among legal observers that Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship is unconstitutional on its face — every court that has considered the issue has reached that conclusion, and pretty much every credible scholar has come down the same way — but there was a curious omission in the court’s opinion on nationwide injunctions last week, at least if you were inclined to read aggressively through the lines.
In particular, the conservative justices’ majority opinion provides no meaningful indication of what the conservatives think about the actual constitutionality of Trump’s executive order.
This is despite the fact that Trump’s order was the vehicle for their ruling; despite the fact that many Americans oppose Trump’s order and that it could have extraordinary consequences if it is enforced; and despite the fact that the constitutionality of Trump’s order may very well return to them soon. If all six of the conservative justices believe that Trump’s order is unconstitutional, it could have been a straightforward matter to put a nod to that conclusion somewhere in the text.
One possibility, among others, is that they wanted to issue a narrow ruling tailored to the result that they reached concerning the scope of injunctive relief that federal courts can grant. Another possibility, however, is that one (or more) of the conservative justices is actually inclined to rule in favor of Trump’s order.
You can make of that what you will. One year after the court’s immunity ruling, it’s helpful to keep an open mind.” [POLITICO]
MEDIA
Media's death by a thousand cuts
Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios
“Press freedom advocates are sounding the alarm following Paramount's $16 million settlement with President Trump, arguing the deal sets a dangerous new precedent — particularly for smaller outlets with fewer legal resources.
Why it matters: A steady decline in media trust, coupled with enormous financial challenges, has made the press more vulnerable to political pressure campaigns than ever before, Axios' Sara Fischer writes.
Between the lines: The deal has drawn outrage from critics who believe Paramount, which owns CBS, could have won what they believe is a frivolous lawsuit.
The size of the agreement is nearly identical to ABC's settlement with Trump last year. But Paramount is under fire because its deal comes as the company seeks regulatory approval for its $8 billion merger with Skydance Media.
A Wall Street Journal editorial said yesterday that this moment feels like a turning point for press freedom: ‘The President is using government to intimidate news outlets that publish stories he doesn't like. It's a low move in a free country with a free press.’” [Axios]
HIGHER EDUCATION
Justice Dept. grew increasingly frustrated with University of Virginia’s DEI efforts before its president resigned, letters show
“Over two months this spring, Justice Department officials sent seven letters to the University of Virginia, alleging possible racial discrimination in admissions and hiring, inaction to address antisemitism on campus, and a failure to remove diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Officials warned that a failure to take ‘immediate corrective action’ could lead to punitive steps, including possible termination of federal funding.”
Read more at Washington Post
SPORTS
“Longtime Los Angeles Dodgers' left-hander Clayton Kershaw is the 20th pitcher in baseball history to strike out 3,000 batters. Kershaw, 37, reached the milestone when he struck out Vinny Capra of the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday, July 2, at Dodger Stadium. Watch the moment.” [USA Today]
Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw (22) acknowledges his 3000th career strike in the fifth inning at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday in Los Angeles, California.
Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin
Sean “Diddy” Combs was partially acquitted after an eight-week trial.
“What happened: The jury in Manhattan federal court found him guilty of two prostitution-related charges but acquitted him of sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.
Where things stand: Combs, his family and fans celebrated, but industry insiders are skeptical about his future. The judge denied release; sentencing is set for October.”
Read this story at Washington Post