Current Affairs Of Pakistan & World: Now comes the harder part for Trump’s ‘big, beautiful, bill’

Now comes the harder part for Trump’s ‘big, beautiful, bill’

Apr 10, 2025

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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) speak with reporters.

Republicans have a budget blueprint in place. Now, they have to write — and then whip support for — the behemoth package of tax cuts, military spending, energy policy, border security investments and more. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

THE CATCH-UP

HOUSE MOVES ON BUDGET: Speaker Mike Johnson finally got House Republicans in line behind the Senate-approved budget blueprint — albeit on a 216-214 vote this morning — that opens the path for congressional Republicans to move on President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” to enact his domestic policy agenda.

How they got it done: Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), who previously was one of the holdouts, told reporters before the vote that Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune were “very open that they’re going to make sure that we get at least $1.5 trillion in cuts.”

“We’re getting serious about the budget and the deficit for the first time in the last couple decades,” McCormick added. In the end, GOP Reps. Victoria Spartz of Indiana and Thomas Massie of Kentucky joined with Democrats to vote against the legislation.

But it’s only getting harder from here: Once lawmakers return from a two-week recess, Republicans can “begin the even-heavier lift of writing — and then whipping support for — the behemoth package of tax cuts, military spending, energy policy, border security investments and more,” POLITICO’s Katherine Tully-McManus, Jennifer Scholtes and Meredith Lee Hill write.

“That process will pit fiscal hawks against moderate Republicans as GOP leaders try to square their conflicting demands to protect safety-net programs like Medicaid while cutting trillions of dollars from that slice of the federal budget.”

TAKING THE TARIFF TEMP: NEC Director Kevin Hassett made clear this morning that Trump’s 10 percent baseline tariff isn’t going anywhere, despite attempts by foreign nations to dodge the levies.

Hassett also defended Trump’s tariff strategy in a CNBC interview today, insisting yesterday’s 90-day pause of the heftier levies was a “systematic, well-planned move” rather than a response to market turmoil, per POLITICO’s Amanda Friedman. “We had two deals almost closed as of last week,” Hassett said, noting that negotiations are developing quickly behind the scenes and proposals from nearly 20 countries are on the table.

You want to do what, now? Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick succinctly summarized the administration’s outlook this way: “The Golden Age is coming. We are committed to protecting our interests, engaging in global negotiations and exploding our economy,” he wrote in an X post. We have to wonder if “exploding” the economy is exactly the best verbiage to use right now.

The view from Beijing: The effective tariff rate on China is now 145 percent, the White House confirmed to CNBC’s Megan Cassella and Kevin Breuninger. China, in response, is now reaching out to other countries in “what appears to be an attempt to form a united front to compel Washington to retreat,” AP’s Christopher Bodeen reports. “Days into the effort, it’s meeting only partial success with many countries unwilling to ally with the main target” of Trump’s trade war.

The view from Wall Street: The news of the higher-than-previously-thought rate against China is not sitting well with the market. The latest from WSJ: “Stock Selloff Accelerates as China Trade War Sinks In”

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — 2028 WATCH: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a rumored Democratic 2028 presidential candidate, will reach across the political aisle this weekend to make his first appearance on Fox News programming. Pritzker will be talking Trump, tariffs, farms and other issues on “Fox News Sunday.”

Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. I’m starting to think my dream of getting to The Masters just isn’t going to work out for me. Drop me a line at gross@politico.com.

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8 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. COOLER HEADS: In an unexpected boon for Trump amid a topsy-turvy economic week, inflation fell in March. The details: “The Consumer Price Index rose at an annual rate of just 2.4 percent in March, softer than the consensus estimates and well below the 2.8 percent notched in February,” POLITICO’s Sam Sutton writes. “On a monthly basis, prices fell due to a sharp decline in the cost of gasoline. And core inflation — which excludes volatile food and energy prices — also came in below expectations at 2.8 percent.”

The caveat: While the March report could assuage some overall fears about consumer prices, “economists and Wall Street analysts are cautioning that it won’t be long before higher import levies — including new tariffs on China that took effect in March — become visible in inflation data.”

The not-so-eggcellent news: “Egg prices rose 5.9 percent over the month,” NYT’s Madeleine Ngo notes. “They climbed at a slower rate, though, after rising 10.4 percent in February and 15.2 percent in January. Compared with a year earlier, egg prices are up 60.4 percent.”

2. RETURNING FROM RUSSIA: The U.S. and Russia completed another prisoner swap this morning, the second such exchange since Trump took office. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in an X post that Russian-American Ksenia Karelina was “on a plane back home.” She was arrested in Russia in 2024 and “convicted of treason on charges stemming from a donation of about $52 to a charity aiding Ukraine,” AP’s Jon Gambrell and Dasha Litvinova write. In return, the U.S. sent back to Russia Arthur Petrov, who was “arrested in Cyprus in August 2023 at the request of the U.S. on charges of smuggling sensitive microelectronics to Russia and extradited to the U.S. a year later.”

3. WATCH THIS SPACE: “Insurers and providers are teaming up to fight Medicaid cuts,” by POLITICO’s Kelly Hooper and Daniel Payne: “Lobbyists for both industries, faced with the prospect of losing billions of dollars in fees, are scrambling to convince lawmakers that tens of millions of low-income Americans who rely on the program will suffer. The cuts proposed in a House Republican budget blueprint could run as high as $880 billion over 10 years, more than 10 percent of federal Medicaid spending. … The industry groups are leaning into the argument that it’s voters, even more than their businesses, that are going to revolt.”

4. COMING TO A TOWN HALL NEAR YOU: Democrats sense a moment to strike against embattled Republicans as another recess period begins. Dems are “plotting a fresh round of town halls in GOP-held districts to hammer Republicans for scaling back open forums amid backlash to the Trump administration’s cuts,” POLITICO’s Lisa Kashkinsky reports.

Where they’re headed: “Top of their town-hall target list over the upcoming recess, according to information shared first with POLITICO: the North Carolina district of NRCC Chair Richard Hudson, who told GOP representatives last month to stop holding in-person town halls.” That’s one of five “People’s Town Halls” that the DNC, DCCC and Association of State Democratic Committees are organizing in vulnerable Republicans’ districts over the two-week recess.

5. MAHA MULLS MUTINY: When the recent measles outbreak cropped up, medical professionals were quick to criticize HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for not endorsing the vaccine quick enough. Now, after twice boosting the inoculation, RFK Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement is turning on him, “revealing fractures in his fervent base,” WSJ’s Sara Ashley O’Brien and Eliza Collins write. “American Values, the super PAC that supported Kennedy’s presidential campaign, told supporters to ‘take a deep breath.’ … ‘We’ll disagree sometimes – and that’s okay,’ one American Values post read.”

And yet: The Atlantic’s Tom Bartlett reports that when Kennedy met with the family of an 8-year-old girl who died from measles this week, he was casting doubt on the safety of vaccines: “He said, ‘You don’t know what’s in the vaccine anymore,’” Peter Hildebrand, whose daughter Daisy died, said of his conversation with RFK Jr.

6. JUMPING IN: Tim Greimel, the Democratic mayor of Pontiac, Michigan, announced today that he’ll run for the seat currently held by Republican Rep. John James, who is running for governor in the state, the Detroit Free Press’ Todd Spangler reports. Though the district has leaned Republican in recent years, it is expected to be a competitive race to replace James. “Earlier this week, before James even announced his intention to run for governor, Christina Hines, a career prosecutor who earlier lost a bid for Macomb County prosecutor, announced she would enter the race for the seat. Alex Hawkins, an Army veteran from Rochester, entered the race as a Democrat a couple of months ago as well.” No Republicans have launched a bid yet.

7. FOR YOUR RADAR: “Trump Team Divided Over Future of U.S. Counterterrorism Operations in Somalia,” by NYT’s Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt: “Recent battlefield gains by an Islamist insurgency in Somalia have prompted some State Department officials to propose closing the U.S. embassy in Mogadishu and withdrawing most American personnel as a security precaution, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations.”

The other side of the coin: “But other Trump administration officials, centered in the National Security Council, are worried that shutting the embassy could diminish confidence in Somalia’s central government and inadvertently incite a rapid collapse. Instead, they want to double down on U.S. operations in the war-torn country as it seeks to counter the militant group, Al Shabab, the officials said.”

8. BACKSTORY: “How Hamas and the U.S. Tried to Strike a Hostage Deal,” by NYT’s Adam Rasgon and Ronen Bergman: “Even though the United States has backed Israel in its campaign in Gaza against Hamas, which launched the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel, Trump administration officials met with senior Hamas officials in Qatar three times, the four people said. The meetings were a break with longstanding U.S. policy against contact with the armed group, which the United States considers a terrorist organization.”

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TALK OF THE TOWN

Michelle Obama addressed divorce rumors amid her recent public absences on a podcast with Sophia Bush. People “couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself, that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing,” she said.

The culinary diplomacy of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton will be featured on the official White House Christmas ornament this year.

OUT AND ABOUT — The Qatar Embassy with Qatari Ambassador Meshal Bin Hamad Al-Thani sponsored the annual Autism Gala to benefit the fight against autism at The Anthem last night, where Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Andrew Priest and Hayley Leach were honored. SPOTTED: Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas), Richard Grenell, Jordanian Ambassador Dina Kawar, Jasem Mohamed AlBudaiwi, Ann Ganzer, Jim Holtsnider, Daniel Tamburello, Sohan Dasgupta, Thomas Brandt, Richard Ponzio, Findlay, Ohio Mayor Christina Muryn, Greta C. Holtz, Alex Marquardt, Catherine Merrill, Steve Clemons and Chris Banks.

— The Fiber Broadband Association hosted over 200 industry stakeholders, members of Congress and staff, and association members at its annual Fiber Day on the Hill yesterday. SPOTTED: Reps. John Joyce (R-Pa.), Bob Latta (R-Ohio) and Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), Gary Bolton, Marissa Mitrovich, Ariane Schaffer, Melissa Mann, David Bartlett, Evann Freeman, Bob Whitman, Kristi Moody, Ash Brown, Josh Motzer and Jessica Koch.

— SPOTTED at the Consumer Technology Association’s annual “CES on the Hill” event last night at CTA’s Innovation House: Sens. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Reps. Rick Allen (R-Ga.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.), Sean Casten (D-Ill.), Ben Cline (R-Va.), Lou Correa (D-Calif.), Bill Foster (D-Ill.), Vicente Gonzalez Jr. (D-Texas), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Timothy Kennedy (D-N.Y.), Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Mich.), Rob Menendez (D-N.J.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), Johnny Olszewski (D-Md.), Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.), Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.), Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), Kinsey Fabrizio, Gary Shapiro, Tiffany Moore, Michael Petricone, J. David Grossman, Jennifer Drogus, John Mitchell, Barbara Hampton, Lee Gordon, Jessica Nigro, Deena Ghazarian, Steve Downer and Erica McCann.

— Zuleyma Bebell screened her new mini-documentary, “Equity & Ownership: Napoleon Wallace and the Reconstruction of Black Wealth,” at the Aspen Institute on Tuesday. SPOTTED: Jacqueline and Donald Conerly, Harold Pettigrew and Andrea Levere.

TRANSITIONS — Former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is joining DGA Group as senior counselor, advising multinational corporations, investors and energy and infrastructure firms. … Charlotte Robertson is now deputy director of social and brand at COURIER. She previously was digital director on Josh Stein’s North Carolina gubernatorial campaign and is an Alex Padilla, Maggie Hassan, Evan McMullin and Abby Finkenaur alum. … Shannon Fleck will be executive director for Faithful America. She previously led the Oklahoma Faith Network, formerly the Oklahoma Conference of Churches.

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