The next big fight on Capitol Hill is brewing: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, our Capitol Hill team previews the next showdown in Congress with the “big, beautiful bill” in the rearview mirror. Julie Tsirkin and Kyle Stewart talk to GOP Sen. Josh Hawley in Missouri about the problems he (still) has with the new law, even after he voted for it. And Andrea Mitchell asks if President Donald Trump has reached his boiling point with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

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— Adam Wollner

The next big fight on Capitol Hill is brewing

With President Donald Trump’s megabill now signed into law, members of Congress are turning their attention to their next big government funding showdown.

After lawmakers passed a short-term extension in March, the federal government is again set to run out of money on Sept. 30. In the Senate, Republican leaders will need at least some support from Democrats to clear the 60-vote threshold on any funding bill to avert a shutdown.

But Trump’s push to claw back $9.4 billion in previously approved funding, which the Senate will take up next week and can be passed with a simple majority, is already complicating the prospect of a bipartisan deal.

Sahil Kapur, Frank Thorp V and Brennan Leach report that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is laying down a marker by warning that Democrats won’t sign off on an agreement if the GOP follows through with Trump’s request to rescind funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting.

“If Republicans cave to Donald Trump and gut these investments agreed to by both parties, that would be an affront — a huge affront — to the bipartisan appropriations process,” Schumer said. “It is absurd to expect Democrats to play along with funding the government if Republicans are just going to renege on a bipartisan agreement by concocting rescissions packages behind closed doors that can pass with only their votes, not the customary 60 votes required in the appropriation process.”

Schumer’s warning represents a bold gambit that heightens tensions ahead of another government funding showdown — just months after a group of Senate Democrats backed down from a previous showdown and drew heavy backlash from their base.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he was “disappointed” to see Schumer “implicitly threaten to shut down the government.”

“But I’m hopeful that that is not the position of the Democrat Party, the Democrat conference here in the Senate, and that we can work together in the coming weeks to pass bipartisan appropriations bills,” the majority leader said.

Congress has a deadline of July 18 to send the rescissions package to Trump’s desk, or let it dissolve.

Read more →

After voting for Trump’s megabill, GOP Sen. Josh Hawley wants to prevent a key Medicaid cut from taking effect

HAZELWOOD, Mo. — Four days after President Donald Trump signed his “big, beautiful bill” into law, one of the Republicans who voted for it wasn’t interested in touting the measure’s high-profile tax, immigration or health care provisions.

Instead, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., held an event centered on a less-noticed part of the nearly 1,000-page bill: an expanded fund for victims of nuclear waste, a bipartisan issue he worked for years to get across the finish line.

And when asked about the steep Medicaid cuts in the bill, Hawley continued to criticize them. Hawley said his “goal” is to ensure the provider tax changes, which will limit state reimbursement for Medicaid, don’t go into effect in Missouri in 2030 — even as he helped to pass a piece of legislation that will do just that.

This illustrates the challenges Republicans face as they turn their attention to selling to the public the massive bill they’ve been working on for months, ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

“I think that if Republicans don’t come out strong and say we’re going to protect rural hospitals, then, yeah, I think voters aren’t going to like that,” Hawley told NBC News in an interview at St. Cin Park. “The truth of the matter is, we shouldn’t be cutting rural hospitals. I’m completely opposed to cutting rural hospitals period. I haven’t changed my view on that one iota.”

Ultimately, Hawley — who is seen as a potential future presidential candidate — chose to stay in Trump’s good graces and vote for the bill despite his reservations, while managing to score victories for his constituents.

“Gotta take the wins that you can,” Hawley told NBC News when asked about voting for a bill he admitted he didn’t like.

Read more →

Related: Rural hospitals brace for painful choices after Trump’s Medicaid and Obamacare cuts, by Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

Is the Trump-Putin bromance on the rocks?

Analysis by Andrea Mitchell

In his strongest comments yet about Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump sent a profanity-laced public message that his patience with the Russian leader’s refusal to accept a ceasefire in Ukraine is finally wearing thin.

Is this a real storm, or just another diplomatic squall?

At his stream-of-consciousness Cabinet meeting yesterday, Trump said, “I’m not happy with Putin … because he’s killing a lot of people … and it’s now up to 7,000 a week.” He added, “We get a lot of bull— thrown at us by Putin,” noting, “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

If Trump isn’t happy with Putin, perhaps he should look next to him at the Cabinet table at Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Putin could only have been encouraged in launching the heaviest drone strikes against Ukraine of the war in recent days by the Pentagon’s announcement it was halting congressionally approved arms shipments to Ukraine because they were needed by the U.S. — a claim disputed by other Pentagon officials.

The delivery was to include dozens of Patriot interceptors to defend against Russian missiles, plus Stinger surface-to-air missiles and other munitions. NBC News was told by multiple officials that the pause was ordered by Hegseth and his team. When reporters asked who ordered the pause, Trump said: “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

It is only the latest misstep by the embattled Pentagon chief, who survived a tough confirmation battle thanks to a huge pressure campaign from the White House and its MAGA enforcers. He has also proved his ability to survive the Signal chat leak and other controversies with bravura, Trump-pleasing performances attacking the Pentagon press corps and lecturing NATO allies.

It isn’t as though Trump hasn’t asserted his authority over his Cabinet on issues large and small. At that same meeting yesterday, he teasingly recounted how he’d commandeered a beautiful antique grandfather clock for the White House he’d seen in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s office. Trump said with a laugh, “As president, you have the power. If I go into the State Department or Department of Commerce or Treasury, if I see anything that I like, I’m allowed to take it.” He added, jokingly, “I said, Marco, read it in the rules and regulations. …I have the right to do it.”

The president also has the right to overrule his secretary of defense — which he did — and send those weapons to Ukraine. The next step, say a bipartisan group of senators, should be passing tough sanctions to prove to Putin that Trump means business.

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Dylan Ebs.

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