Breitbart Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle hosts Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins for a policy discussion on Tuesday, May 20.
Rollins will discuss the achievements of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) under her direction in the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, such as her recent visit to the United Kingdom to negotiate a new trade deal with the USA’s longtime ally to help American farmers.
The discussion with Rollins is the second in an exciting new series of events with Trump White House officials following an exclusive interview with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in March.
Billionaire Elon Musk said Tuesday he’s committed to being CEO of Tesla in five years’ time as the automaker faced intense consumer and stockprice pressure over his work with President Donald Trump’s government.
The question came as Musk made a video appearance at the Qatar Economic Forum hosted by Bloomberg after Musk recently traveled to Doha as part of Mr. Trump’s Mideast trip last week.
A moderator asked: “Do you see yourself and are you committed to still being the chief executive of Tesla in five years’ time?”
Musk responded: “Yes.”
The moderator pushed further: “No doubt about that at all?”
Musk added, chuckling: “I can’t be still here if I’m dead.”
Tesla has faced intense pressure as Musk worked with Mr. Trump as part of its self-described Department of Government Efficiency effort, or DOGE, particularly amid its campaign of staff cuts across the U.S. federal government.
The interview with Musk comes three weeks after a report in the Wall Street Journal on May 1 said that Tesla board members had reached out to several hiring firms about finding a new Tesla CEO.
Calling the report “absolutely false,” Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm on May 1 said the electric vehicle maker’s board has not contacted recruitment firms to start a search for a new CEO to replace Elon Musk.
Here in Bothaville, where thousands of farmers gathered for a lively agricultural fair with everything from grains to guns on display, even some conservative white Afrikaner groups debunked the Trump administration’s “genocide” and land seizure claims that led it to cut all financial aid to South Africa.
The bustling scene was business as usual, with milkshakes and burgers and tow-headed children pulled in wagons.
The late President Nelson Mandela — South Africa’s first Black leader — stood in Bothaville over a quarter-century ago and acknowledged the increasing violent attacks on farmers in the first years following the decades-long racial system of apartheid. “But the complex problem of crime on our farms, as elsewhere, demand long-term solutions,” he said.
Some at the agricultural fair said fleeing the country isn’t one of them.
Visitors at the Nampo agricultural fair, one of the largest in the southern hemisphere, ride past the wall of remembrance, a tribute to farmers killed since 1961, near Bothaville, South Africa, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
“I really hope that during the upcoming visit to Washington, (President Cyril Ramaphosa) is going to be able to put the facts before his counterpart and to demonstrate that there is no mass expropriation of land taking place in South Africa, and there is no genocide taking place,” John Steenhuisen, minister of agriculture, told The Associated Press. He will be part of the delegation for Wednesday’s meeting.
The minority white Afrikaner community is in the spotlight after the U.S. granted refugee status to at least 49 of them claiming to flee racial and violent persecution and widespread seizures of white-owned land — despite evidence that such claims are untrue.
While many at the agricultural fair raised serious concerns about the safety of farmers and farm workers, others were quick to point out that crime targeted both Black and white farmers and farm workers, as shown by South Africa’s crime statistics.
Thobani Ntonga, a Black farmer from Eastern Cape province, told the AP he had been attacked on his farm by criminals and almost kidnapped but a Black neighbor intervened.
“Crime affects both Black and white. … It’s an issue of vulnerability,” he said. “Farmers are separated from your general public. We’re not near towns, we are in the rural areas. And I think it’s exactly that. So, perpetrators, they thrive on that, on the fact that farms are isolated.”
Other farmers echoed his thoughts and called for more resources and policing.
Visitors at the Nampo agricultural fair, one of the largest in the southern hemisphere, walk past the wall of remembrance, a tribute to farmers killed since 1961, near Bothaville, South Africa, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
“Crime especially hits small-scale farmers worse because they don’t have resources for private security,” said Afrikaner farmer Willem de Chavonnes Vrugt. He and other farmers wondered why they would leave the land where they have been rooted for decades.
Ramaphosa, himself a cattle farmer, also visited the agricultural fair for the first time in about 20 years — to buy equipment but also do outreach as many in South Africa puzzle over the Trump administration’s focus on their country.
“We must not run away from our problems,” the president said during his visit. “When you run away, you’re a coward.”
Applying to be a refugee
The fast-tracking of the Afrikaners’ refugee applications has raised questions about a system where many seeking asylum in the U.S. can languish for years, waiting.
The State Department has not made details of the process public, but one person who has applied to be resettled told the AP the online application process was “rigorous.”
Katia Beeden, a member of an advocacy group established to assist white South Africans seeking resettlement, said applicants have to go through at least three online interviews and answer questions about their health and criminal background.
They are also required to submit information or proof of being persecuted in South Africa, she said. She said she has been robbed in her house, with robbers locking her in her bedroom.
“They’ve already warned that you can’t lie or hide anything from them. So it’s quite a thorough process and not everyone is guaranteed,” she said.
By the numbers
Violent crime is rife in South Africa, but experts say the vast majority of victims are Black and poor. Police statistics show that up to 75 people are killed daily across the country.
Afrikaner agriculture union TLU SA says it believes farmers are more susceptible to such attacks because of their isolation.
Twelve murders occurred on farms in 2024, police statistics show. One of those killed was a farmer. The rest were farm workers, people staying on farms and a security guard. The data don’t reflect the victims’ race.
Overall across South Africa last year, 6,953 people were killed.
Government data also show that white farmers own the vast majority of South Africa’s farmland — 80% of it, according to the 2017 census of commercial agriculture, which recorded over 40,000 white farmers.
That data, however, only reflects farmers who have revenue of $55,396 a year, which excludes many small-scale farmers, the majority of them Black.
Overall, the white minority — just 7% of the population is white — still owns the vast majority of the land in South Africa, which the World Bank has called “the most unequal country in the world.”
According to the 2017 government land audit, white South Africans hold about 72% of individually owned land — while Black South Africans own 15%.
Associated Press writer Michelle Gumede in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
The Trump administration will reportedly pay $5 million to settle the wrongful death suit brought by the family of January 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt.
Babbitt was shot and killed by U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd when trying to storm a barricade into the House Speaker’s lobby during the Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021. Her supporters, including President Trump, have claimed she was dealt with excessive force while the police officer maintains that he did his duty to protect then-sitting members of the U.S. Congress. Per the Washington Post:
Babbitt’s family filed the wrongful-death lawsuit in early 2024, seeking $30 million. Lawyers for both sides told a judge this month that they had reached a settlement in principle, reversing the Justice Department’s earlier opposition in the case, which had been set for trial in July 2026.
No final deal had been signed and terms had not been disclosed at the May 2 hearing. Judge Ana C. Reyes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia directed both sides to update the court this Thursday.
Two people briefed on the matter said the Justice Department has agreed in principleto pay just under $5 million to Babbitt’s family. The two people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a pending court matter.
Prior to the settlement, the Justice Department determined that they lacked sufficient evidence to prove Babbitt’s civil rights were violated, and the Capitol Police determined during an investigation that the officer acted with lawful intent and may have “potentially saved members and staff from serious injury and possible death from a large crowd of rioters who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol and to the House Chamber where members and staff were steps away.”
Babbitt’s family, however, claimed that she was unarmed and “posed no threat to the safety of anyone.”
“Ashli posed no threat to the safety of anyone,” the lawsuit said, adding that the former Air Force veteran was not “part of a group or for any unlawful or nefarious purpose.”
Mark E. Schamel, attorney for Michael Byrd, said Monday, “Consistent with the most recent ruling by the Supreme Court on the use of force by officers, Lieutenant Byrd did exactly what he was supposed to have done that day to protect the elected officials he was sworn to protect.”
On Monday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “The Record,” White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran stated that “over time, Walmart will be able to get its Chinese suppliers and other suppliers to eat the tariffs” and “that’ll happen over time. In the short run, can there be some volatility in prices the way there was volatility in financial markets? Yeah. But, over time, we have all the leverage. We have all the cards. And that means, just like last time, China will eat the tariffs.”
Host Greta Van Susteren asked, “How do we reconcile the fact that, while getting manufacturing up, you’ve got like the CEO from Walmart saying that Walmart can’t keep up with the increased costs, which, of course, means the consumer, an everyday American who goes into a big store like Walmart. So, how do we address that?”
Miran answered, “I think it’s pretty obvious from the first term that there was no evidence, at all, of macroeconomic inflation as a result of the president’s policies. In fact, it was pretty clear that China paid for the tariffs in the first term and that inflation stayed low, inflation stayed very moderate in President Trump’s first term and it really took off during President Biden’s administration because of their reckless fiscal policies. But that’s besides the point. Now, in the last three months, we’ve now got three months in a row of below-expectation inflation coming out, core inflation, on an annual basis, in the last month, in April, was the lowest level since March of 2021. So, there’s no evidence so far in the historical record or in the recent data of an acceleration in inflation. Now, over time, Walmart will be able to get its Chinese suppliers and other suppliers to eat the tariffs by threatening to move elsewhere. That happens because United States importers are flexible about where we get stuff. We can either make stuff at home or we can import from other countries that treat us better. That leverage means that we can make others absorb the costs. Now, that’ll happen over time. In the short run, can there be some volatility in prices the way there was volatility in financial markets? Yeah. But, over time, we have all the leverage. We have all the cards. And that means, just like last time, China will eat the tariffs.”
The Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) amnesty for more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.
In an 8-1 ruling on Monday, the majority justices granted an emergency application filed by the Trump administration that requested the Court lift an order from California-based U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen that prevented the administration from revoking TPS protections for thousands of Venezuelan migrants, NBC News reported.
WATCH — ICE Agent: Biden Administration Immigration Policies Put the Public at Risk:
“The application for stay presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is granted,” the brief order said. “The March 31, 2025 order entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, case No. 3:25-cv-1766, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought.”
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
In a press release, the Immigration Reform Law Institute Executive Director and general counsel Dale L. Wilcox noted that the Supreme Court “has repeatedly” recognized President Donald Trump’s “inherent authority to exclude aliens.”
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized the President’s inherent authority to exclude aliens, and ‘inherent’ clearly means he may exercise it even when he is not guided by a specific statute,” Wilcox said in a statement.
Litigation regarding the matter will “continue in lower courts,” the outlet reported.
Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the attorneys who is representing the migrants, described the decision as being the “largest single action stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status in modern U.S. history.”
As Breitbart News reported, at the beginning of May the Trump administration filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, requesting that Chen’s order be lifted. In the emergency appeal, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer described Chen’s order as being “untenable.”
WATCH — “Illegal Immigration Is Not a Victimless Crime”: Homan Details the Horrors He’s Seen of Open Borders:
The emergency appeal from the Trump administration came after Chen issued a ruling that barred the administration from revoking TPS amnesty for thousands of Venezuelan migrants. In his decision, Chen “cited the migrants’ economic activity as if that entitled them to legal status regardless” of the laws in the United States:
[They] have higher educational attainment than most U.S. citizens (40-54% have bachelors degrees), have high labor participation rates (80-96%) [because they are younger, on average] … and annually contribute billions of dollars to the U.S. economy and pay hundreds of millions, if not billions, in Social Security taxes.
In February, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem “revoked one of two” TPS designations for Venezuelan migrants, CBS News reported.
Per the outlet:
The move by the Trump administration will mean that an estimated 350,000 Venezuelans covered under a 2023 TPS designation will lose their work permits and deportation protections two months after Noem’s decision is officially published. Venezuelans enrolled in TPS under an earlier 2021 designation will continue to have that status through September, though those protections could also be phased out.
Noem’s revocation of TPS amnesty for thousands of Venezuelan migrants came after former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas extended TPS amnesty for 850,000 “illegal and quasi-legal economic migrants until 2026,” Breitbart News reported.
Washington — President Trump on Monday signed a bipartisan bill into law that makes it a federal crime to post real and fake sexually explicit imagery online of people without their consent.
The bill, known as the “Take It Down Act,” was backed by first lady Melania Trump, who made a rare public appearance in March at the U.S. Capitol to advocate for the bill’s passage in the House. The bill cleared the lower chamber last month after the Senate passed the measure in February.
“This will be the first-ever federal law to combat the distribution of explicit, imagery posted without subjects’ consent,” Mr. Trump said during a bill signing event at the White House. “We will not tolerate online sexual exploitation.”
The law requires social media companies and other websites to remove images and videos, including deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence, within 48 hours after a victim’s request. Those convicted of intentionally distributing explicit images without a subject’s consent face prison time.
“It’s heartbreaking to witness young teens, especially girls, grappling with the overwhelming challenges posed by malicious online content like deep fakes,” the first lady said in March. “This toxic environment can be severely damaging.”
The first lady attended Monday’s bill signing, calling the law a “national victory that will help parents and families protect children from online exploitation.” She thanked the bipartisan group of lawmakers who worked on the legislation “for coming together to prioritize people over politics.”
“Artificial intelligence and social media are the digital candy for the next generation — sweet, addictive and engineered to have an impact on the cognitive development of our children,” she said, adding that “these new technologies can be weaponized, shape beliefs and, sadly, affect emotions and even be deadly.”
After Mr. Trump signed the bill into law, he handed it to his wife to also sign.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, as well as TikTok and Snapchat have all said they support the legislation.
Digital rights groups, however, have warned that the legislation as written could lead to the suppression of lawful speech, including legitimate pornography, and does not contain protections against bad-faith takedown requests.
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at CBSNews.com, based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.
Washington — House Republicans plan to move ahead with a vote this week on the legislation containing President Trump’s second term agenda. But fractures in the GOP conference appeared to persist over the weekend, despite the legislation’s movement out of committee, throwing its passage into question.
“There’s a lot more work to do,” House Speaker Mike Johson told reporters late Sunday. “But I’m looking forward to very thoughtful discussions, very productive discussions, over the next few days — and I’m absolutely convinced we’re going to get this in final form and pass it.”
After the final three committees advanced their portions of the massive legislative package last week, a handful of conservative hardliners on the House Budget Committee blocked the package from moving forward Friday. The setback prompted work through the weekend to negotiate with the holdouts, who ultimately allowed the legislation to advance late Sunday.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington called it a “critical step,” while acknowledging that deliberations are continuing, with disagreements remaining on a cap on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, and on when Medicaid work requirements would take effect. But Arrington said the vote to advance the legislation Sunday “is a sign that people are confident that these things will be resolved.”
Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, two of the conservative holdouts, celebrated a change made Sunday that would remove delays from the Medicaid work requirements, since conservatives opposed the original plan, which would have delayed until 2029 work requirements for childless Medicaid recipients without disabilities. But Roy noted in a post on social media that “the bill does not yet meet the moment,” pointing to remaining sticking points on cutting clean energy subsidies implemented under the Biden administration and cuts to the federal share of payments for Medicaid.
Johnson suggested that he and the conservatives had agreed to “minor modifications” over the weekend. The speaker is walking a tightrope between the hardliners demanding more cuts and moderates who are reluctant to slash Medicaid, while a number of Republicans who represent blue states have also threatened to withhold their votes unless their demands are met on SALT, among other divisions.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, at the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, May 15, 2025.
Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The legislation is set to go before the House Rules Committee on Wednesday at 1 a.m., where any changes to the legislation would be made. But Roy and Norman also sit on the Rules Committee and could raise a final hurdle there ahead of the full House vote. Should the package advance out of the Rules Committee, it would tee up a vote on the package on Thursday, before lawmakers are set to leave town for the Memorial Day recess.
As Republican leadership irons out the remaining issues, President Trump is expected to continue to pressure Republicans to get the bill passed this week, as he did on Friday on social media. But whether the White House intervenes more forcefully by meeting with key holdouts or making calls to individual members remains to be seen.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing Monday morning that it’s “absolutely essential that Republicans unite behind the one big, beautiful bill, and deliver on President Trump’s agenda,” adding, “there is no time to waste.”
Meanwhile, the legislation is expected to face some resistance in the Senate, where a number of Republicans have warned that should the House pass the bill, the upper chamber will try to make changes.
Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, told reporters late last week that the House bill “would not pass in the Senate, and I think there’s plenty of us that would vote against it.” And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, told reporters that “we’ve assumed all along that the Senate would have its input on this.”
Johnson said on Fox News Sunday that “the package that we send over there will be one that was very carefully negotiated and delicately balanced, and we hope that they don’t make many modifications to it because that will ensure its passage quickly.”
Beyond the self-imposed deadlines, the inclusion of a debt limit increase in the package has added urgency to getting the legislation to the president’s desk. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged Congress earlier this month to address the debt limit by mid July, warning that the U.S. could be unable to pay its bills as soon as August without action. And top administration and congressional leaders have circled July 4 as the deadline to get the package to the president desk.
“We’ve got to get this done and get it to the president’s desk by that big celebration on Independence Day,” Johnson said. “I’m convinced that we can.”
WASHINGTON — Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer told Breitbart News exclusively in her office last week President Donald Trump’s entire focus during his “whole career” has been about protecting and advancing working class Americans’ interests and the “fruits of his labor are now paying off.”
“I think his whole life, his whole career he’s put this together,” Chavez-DeRemer told Breitbart News. “The fruits of his labor are now paying off.”
Trump’s Labor Secretary sat with Breitbart News for an exclusive interview in her office at the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday evening, a conversation that focused in large part on the working class coalition that Trump assembled in 2016 and expanded in his 2024 comeback victory. Chavez-DeRemer, a Hispanic businesswoman and former U.S. House member who has deep ties to unions given that her father was a Teamster, is at the cutting edge of this new political realignment in the U.S. given her position in Trump’s Cabinet as the sort of link between business and labor and workers.
“If you really kind of look at his [Trump’s] whole career, it really was about that coalition,” Chavez-DeRemer said. “In the first administration, he moved forward on it. But this one, he’s all in on it because of a couple of things. One, I think everybody’s voice wants to be heard. He really gets that on the American citizen, so if you’re talking about the American workforce, if you want to be heard as an American worker, then you want somebody who understands what maybe everybody’s been going through. Yes, I grew up the daughter of a Teamster. My dad worked for 30 plus years around the clock in order to provide for his three children and the family. My mom was a working parent too—we were kind of latchkey kids. Then building a business with my husband. So understanding the business side of it and how you have to negotiate the business side of it and then now how he’s applied that to the election. He won because of that. He said ‘I hear you. I understand what you’re going through. I’ve been through it. I understand how important it is to grow this economy and keep you having these American jobs, protect the American worker, grow American jobs, and grow the American economy.’ Now, he’s delivering on it. What are we 115 days? I knew in the first 100 days I was kind of the newbie, I’m the one who’s kind of like the new kid on the block, and it went like gangbusters. The next 100 is going to be even more fast-paced because of all the things he’s doing not only for the workforce but you see the tariff talks, you see the trade talks. He’s leveling the playing field so the American worker capitalizes on exactly what he’s doing. That’s key for someone like me to go out and do the job right behind him and say, ‘you see what he’s doing? Now let me grow that workforce.’”
U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer testifies before the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies in the Rayburn House Office Building on May 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Chavez-DeRemer said a huge focus of the president and this administration is on getting wages up for American workers. Directly talking about wages like this is a deviation in a positive way for Republicans, who often previously talked only about the meta-level economic system but never got down to brass tacks on what it means for the actual workers. That’s clearly changing with Trump back in the White House and Chavez-DeRemer leading the Department of Labor.
“Real life wages to the blue collar worker is hourly wages,” Chavez-DeRemer told Breitbart News. “They know we want that to grow and it has grown. Hourly wages have grown. We want the worker to be skilled—whatever skills they desire, we want to be able to provide for that in this country so they can choose where they want to earn their dollars and then they can keep those hard-earned dollars in their pockets. That’s why he’s doubling down on the no tax on tips—those kinds of things, when the American worker says ‘this is what I want to do, here’s how I want to keep my money,’ and he says ‘you know what? You should have the freedom to grow and live the American dream the way you choose.’ The Department of Labor as part of that equation is grow the apprenticeship program, grow the young talented workers we have in this country, and then let’s get them the jobs they want to do and not focus necessarily always on the four-year higher ed—it’s the skilled trades we need to build back the manufacturing losses we’ve seen over the last four years.”
Chavez-DeRemer has a huge picture of Trump hanging in her office, which she told Breitbart News she has up so everyone who comes in to meet with her knows where her priorities are. “I’m honored to work for the president of the United States—I can’t say that enough,” Chavez-DeRemer said. “You can probably tell by the photo I have of him on my wall. When people walk in here, that is who I’m working for and it couldn’t be clearer. I’m honored to do it.”
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer met with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle for an exclusive interview in her office at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Each month since Trump’s return to the White House, jobs numbers have defied expectations and Chavez-DeRemer said that is because the president’s broad vision for the U.S. economy is working. She said the president’s focus is primarily on workers and families—and pointed to the president’s trip to the Middle East last week as well as the recently-announced United Kingdom trade deal and the talks with China that commenced earlier this month.
“We’ve seen the numbers grow 228,000 the first month, 177,000 the next month—we’re seeing it in the manufacturing sector and construction,” Chavez-DeRemer said. “We’ve even seen healthcare jobs go up. That plays right into the president, and what he’s done in terms of lowering drug prices. Everything he does is for the American worker and family as well. He sees the future. He’s got kids and grandkids. I have my first grandkid being born as well. You start to think about how can we not only level the playing field so that everybody can choose where they want to be in the workforce and grow this economy. He’s a master negotiator. I don’t think I have to tell anybody that anymore because I think we’ll see it on TV. We’ve seen it in the Middle East, we’ve seen it with the U.K., and we’ve seen every country and now I’m going to guess that China is going to be next and they’re going to want to have those talks as well. But leveling the playing field for not only American workers—it matters what he’s doing overseas. Oftentimes when you’re having these tariff talks, does that benefit the blue collar worker? Absolutely it does. It’s going to benefit the businesses who are on-shoring or re-investing $8 trillion. We see company after company coming in saying $50 billion, $100 billion—that means they’re investing here in America and they’re going to need the workforce behind it. So eventually, you’re going to see that everybody is going to be able to grow their own family economy, right there in their home, and a have a mortgage-paying job which is what most people strive for.”
Chavez-DeRemer also told Breitbart News she expects more nations to join the United Kingdom very soon in finalizing and announcing trade deals with the United States.
“It’s historic—what he’s done is historic,” Chavez-DeRemer said. “Everybody also was watching, and they should be watching, as he’s building these relationships with other countries and this capital. He’s had these relationships for a lot of years. The diplomacy he is exercising I think is key for the United States. But we were talking about specific trade deals, and expectations—well, if you’re built on what’s happened in the past and historical data, it worked in Trump 1 and he’s exercising it in Trump 2. We’re realizing it very quickly, so based on what I’m seeing, is my expectation that more deals will come to the table? Of course.”
More from Chavez-DeRemer’s exclusive interview with Breitbart News is forthcoming soon.
By KEVIN FREKING, LISA MASCARO and LEAH ASKARINAM, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans narrowly advanced President Donald Trump’s big tax cuts package out of a key committee during a rare Sunday night vote, but just barely, as conservative holdouts are demanding quicker cuts to Medicaid and green energy programs before giving their full support.
Speaker Mike Johnson met with Republican lawmakers shortly before the meeting and acknowledged to reporters that there are still details to “iron out.” He said some changes were being made, but declined to provide details.
It’s all setting up a difficult week ahead for the GOP leadership racing toward a Memorial Day deadline, a week away, to pass the package from the House. The Budget Committee, which just days ago failed to advance the package when four conservative Republicans objected, was able to do so Sunday on a vote of 17-16, with the four hold-outs voting “present” to allow it to move ahead, as talks continue.
“The bill does not yet meet the moment,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a leader of the House Freedom Caucus, in a social media post immediately after the late-night session. “We can and must do better before we pass the final product.”
The path ahead for Johnson is unclear as he tries to hold his narrow House majority together to pass the president’s top domestic priority of extending the tax breaks while pumping in money for border security and deportations — all while cutting spending.
FILE – Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump dances at a campaign event at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Oct. 15, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)
Republicans criticizing the measure argued that the bill’s new spending and the tax cuts are front-loaded in the bill, while the measures to offset the cost are back-loaded. In particular, they are looking to speed up the new work requirements that Republicans want to enact for able-bodied participants in Medicaid.
Johnson indicated he wants to impose the the work requirements “as soon as possible” but acknowledged it may take states longer to change their systems. Those requirements would not kick in until 2029 under the current bill.
“There will be more details to iron out and several more to take care of,” Johnson, R-La., said outside the hearing room.
“But I’m looking forward to very thoughtful discussions, very productive discussions over the next few days, and I’m absolutely convinced we’re going to get this in final form and pass it.”
More talks are ahead, but Johnson is looking to put the bill on the House floor before the end of the week.
“This spending bill is terrible, and I think the American people know that,” Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., told CNN’s “State of the Union″ on Sunday. “There is nothing wrong with us bringing the government in balance. But there is a problem when that balance comes on the back of working men and women. And that’s what is happening here.”
The first time that Republicans tried advancing the bill out of the House Budget Committee last week, the deficit hawks joined with Democratic lawmakers in voting against reporting the measure to the full House.
Those same four Republicans — Roy and Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia — cast their “present” votes Sunday.
“We’ve got a lot more work to do,” Norman said. “We’re excited about what we did. We want to move the bill forward.”
At its core, the sprawling legislative package permanently extends the existing income tax cuts that were approved during Trump’s first term in 2017 and adds temporary new ones that the president campaigned on in 2024, including no taxes on tips, overtime pay and auto loan interest payments. The measure also proposes big spending increases for border security and defense.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, estimates that the House bill is shaping up to add roughly $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next decade.
Johnson is not just having to address the concerns of the deficit hawks in his party. He’s also facing pressure from centrists who will be warily eyeing the proposed changes to Medicaid, food assistance programs and the rolling back of clean energy tax credits. Republican lawmakers from New York and elsewhere are also demanding a much larger state and local tax deduction.
As it stands, the bill proposes tripling what’s currently a $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction, increasing it to $30,000 for joint filers with incomes up to $400,000 a year.
Rep. Nick LaLota, one of the New York lawmakers leading the effort to lift the cap, said they have proposed a deduction of $62,000 for single filers and $124,000 for joint filers.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said the bill remained under negotiation.
“Deliberations continue at this very moment,” Arrington said. “They will continue on into the week, and I suspect right up until the time we put this big, beautiful bill on the floor of the House.”
If the bill passes the House this week, it would then move to the Senate, where Republican lawmakers are also eyeing changes that could make final passage in the House more difficult.
