| | | |  | | By Ali Bianco | | Presented by |  | | | |  | THE CATCH-UP | | BULLETIN: “An 82-year-old woman who was injured in a firebomb attack in Boulder, Colorado, has died,” AP: “Karen Diamond died as a result of ‘the severe injuries that she suffered in the attack,’ Boulder County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.”
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) walks to the Senate chamber for a series of votes on the budget reconciliation bill on June 30, 2025. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | THE LONG STRETCH: The Senate’s rare daytime vote-a-rama on the mammoth reconciliation bill is well underway — with still a while to go. The procession of aye-and-nay votes on amendments and behind-the-scenes whipping to get President Donald Trump’s marquee legislation back to the House is expected to stretch into tonight at the very least. A Celsius, anyone? The night ahead: The final vote on passage could come in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, with Democrats offering a series of messaging votes. Just have a look at the words of Majority Leader John Thune, who seems to be hinting at how long a day this might be: “I’m optimistic, but I’m also a realist. We got a long ways to go,” Thune told Punchbowl’s Max Cohen earlier today. The view from 1600 Penn: Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson met with Trump at the White House this morning, press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters in the briefing room this afternoon. Still on the fence: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who’s been itching for deeper cuts, said this morning he’s still not committed to voting yes, per NYT’s Catie Edmondson. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have already voiced their strong intent to vote no, as our colleagues on Inside Congress noted this morning. Oh, to be a fly on the floor: Tillis was spotted chatting with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), another Republican with nothing to lose next year, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a sometimes GOP wild card, per WaPo’s Theodoric Meyer. Notable quotable: Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), speaking on Tillis’ decision to forgo reelection next year: “I would retire, too, if I voted against this bill,” he said this morning, per Fox News’ Chad Pergram. Opening shot: The first vote today was on the GOP’s controversial use of the current policy baseline, which zeroes out the $3.8 trillion cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Democrats put up a fight on this, starting four different inquiries with the Senate parliamentarian to ax this “nuclear option,” POLITICO’s Ben Guggenheim writes. It passed 53-47 on party lines. Over the next several hours: Expect a flood of amendments on a series of sticking points, including Medicaid funding, the stabilization fund for rural hospitals and cuts to wind and solar energy. Here’s the latest … Wind and solar: GOP fiscal hawks and White House officials are trying to kill off a series of amendments that would ease the phase-out of clean-energy tax credits — “arguing the move would strip out hundreds of billions of dollars in budget savings and potentially risk GOP support for the overall bill,” POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill reports. Murkowski and other senators are forging ahead with plans to offer a series of amendments doing just that as hawks on both sides of the Capitol warn they’ll oppose the bill if the phase-outs of Inflation Reduction Act provisions are watered down. Medicaid: Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) has some concerns on Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) amendments on deeper cuts scaling down Medicaid payments after 2030, POLITICO’s Cassandra Dumay reports. If the Scott amendment passes, Justice said he would “have a hard time” voting for the bill. Rural hospitals: A Democratic attempt to shelter rural hospitals from Medicaid cuts failed, but it got support from Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), which NYT’s Carl Hulse notes was the first big defection of the day along a major fault line. LOOKING AHEAD: House Rules Committee members were told to prepare for a meeting at noon tomorrow to advance the “big, beautiful bill,” Fox’s Liz Elkind reports — though depending on how long this night goes, that meeting time might not hold. MOOD MUSIC: “Oh my God, I just want to go home. I’ve already, I’ve missed our entire trip to the beach,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) told CBS’ Alan He. “I don’t think it’s really helpful to put people here until some ungodly hour.” Good Monday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Get in touch at abianco@politico.com.
| | | | A message from bp: bp supports ~300,000 US jobs. Jobs that serve you across our US family of brands – like bp, Amoco, ampm, Thorntons and TravelCenters of America. And jobs that produce, refine and transport the energy that you get here. See how else bp is investing in America. | | | | | | 9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW | | 1. IMMIGRATION FILES: The Trump administration is suing the city of Los Angeles over its sanctuary city policies, claiming that the city is obstructing immigration enforcement, NBC’s Ryan Reilly reports. Mayor Karen Bass, the LA City Council and the Council’s President Marqueece Harris-Dawson are named as defendants. The impacts: Despite Trump’s calls to crack down on employers of undocumented migrants, DHS has been focused more on arrests while employers have largely gone unscathed, WaPo’s Marianne LeVine and colleagues report. Immigrants are living in anxiety in Rust Belt cities like Cincinnati, with a major impact on local businesses in the communities, WSJ’s Konrad Putzier writes. On the West Coast, Latinos in LA are living in fear over ICE raids and limiting their time in public places, NYT’s Jesus Jiménez and colleagues report. Meanwhile on California’s farmland, migrant workers have stopped showing up for work out of fear, per Reuters’ Tim Reid and colleagues. 2. NEXT ON THE DOCKET: After wrapping up its official business last week, the Supreme Court today announced it will hear arguments this fall on a Trump administration-backed effort to scale back campaign finance restrictions for how much a party committee can spend on individual candidates, AP’s Mark Sherman reports. This marks the latest attempt to roll back campaign finance caps going back to the 70s, NBC’s Lawrence Hurley writes, and for Republicans to win, the court would have to overturn its own ruling from 2001 that upheld this same restriction. In another order handed down this morning, the high court tossed back to the lower courts a series of rulings that “sided with transgender Americans, requiring that judges in those cases revisit their decisions in the wake of a blockbuster ruling this month that upheld a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth,” CNN’s John Fritze and Devan Cole report. 3. TRADING PLACES: Trump’s trade team is pushing ahead with the European Union to get some sort of trade deal done ahead of a self-imposed July 9 deadline, but a fully fleshed out agreement appears unlikely to materialize by then, NYT’s Jeanna Smialek reports. The EU — which Trump has said is trying to “screw” over the U.S. — is pushing back on its nonnegotiables: no changes to its taxation system, and no changes to its digital services laws cracking down on Big Tech, per Reuters’ Foo Yun Chee and Bart Meijer. T-minus 10 days: India’s trade team is staying put in the U.S., extending the delegation’s trip from the weekend to get a deal hammered out, Reuters’ Manoj Kumar and Sarita Chaganti Singh write. And Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is speaking Trump’s language: “Yes, I'd love to have an agreement, a big, good, beautiful one; why not?” she said. 4. SEEING CRIMSON: The Trump administration’s investigation into Harvard found that the university violated civil rights law “by acting with deliberate indifference towards harassment of Jewish and Israeli students” after Oct. 7, according to a press release from HHS. In a letter sent to Harvard’s president, scooped today by WSJ’s Natalie Andrews and Douglas Belkin, the administration threatened to revoke federal funding and federal student aid unless changes are made. The “notice of violation” could be followed by a lawsuit from the Justice Department, WSJ notes, and it’s a similar notice to one Columbia University received in May. Read the letter to Harvard
| | | | At the Aspen Ideas Festival, the world’s most influential minds — across business, technology, finance, media, science, and public policy — gather for bold conversation and uncommon access. 2025 sold out. Registration now open for June 25-July 1, 2026. An unmissable gathering. Learn more and buy a pass. | | | | | 5. 2026 WATCH: Don’t hold your breath waiting for an announcement from former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on the Senate seat that Thom Tillis said he’ll vacate: Cooper’s team said a decision might not come for a couple weeks, WRAL’s Will Doran reports. As it stands, former Rep. Wiley Nickel is the most-prominent Dem challenger in the race at this point, and he’s ready for a fight: “I’ve flipped a tough seat before and we’re going to do it again,” Wiley told POLITICO’s Nick Wu. Trail mix: Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.) announced today he will not run for reelection next year, “capping the end of a 45-year career in elected office and setting up a potentially heated primary to represent the Philadelphia seat in Congress,” per the Philly Inquirer’s Julia Terruso. … Former Texas Democratic Rep. Colin Allred will launch a Senate campaign in the Lone Star State in early July, WaPo’s Matthew Choi reports this morning. … Also close to a Senate campaign launch is Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), who’s been meeting with the White House about a potential bid to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), per Punchbowl’s Mica Soellner and Max Cohen. 6. THE FUTURE IS NOW: A group of Democratic thinkers are putting together a framework for a potential path to the White House, taking a page out of Republicans’ playbook and naming it … “Project 2029,” NYT’s Shane Goldmacher reports. “The fact that Democrats turned Project 2025 into a cudgel against Mr. Trump during the campaign has not deterred [organizer Andrei] Cherny and the other Democrats … They plan to roll out an agenda over the next two years, in quarterly installments, through Mr. Cherny’s publication, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas … The goal is to turn it into a book … and to rally leading Democratic presidential candidates behind those ideas during the 2028 primary season.” 7. A COMING CRACKDOWN: “Trump Administration Weighs Eliminating Funds for Hospitals Offering Gender Care to Minors,” by WSJ’s Liz Essley Whyte: “The potential for increased federal scrutiny on gender-related healthcare comes after a 30-day deadline passed Saturday for nine children’s hospitals to respond to letters from [CMS Administrator] Mehmet Oz … Though Oz’s letter didn’t threaten specific actions against the hospitals, CMS officials said they believe they have authority to stop funds for gender treatments for children and teenagers through Medicaid and Marketplace insurance plans … The agency is reviewing its authority to kick hospitals out of Medicaid altogether if they don’t cease providing the surgeries.” 8. MIDDLE EAST LATEST: Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer is traveling to Washington to meet with the Trump administration on Tuesday on Iran and Gaza, per Reuters’ Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell. Meanwhile, on the ground in Gaza, roughly 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes today, with more evacuation orders sent out this morning. And multiple nonprofits are calling for the release of their health workers who were detained by Israel, including Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya who ran MedGlobal’s operation in Gaza, NBC’s Chantal Da Silva writes. 9. PROMISES KEPT?: “Trump Vowed to Dismantle MS-13. His Deal With Bukele Threatens That Effort,” by NYT’s Alan Feuer and colleagues: “U.S. prosecutors have amassed substantial evidence of a corrupt pact between the Salvadoran government and some high-ranking MS-13 leaders, who they say agreed to drive down violence and bolster [El Salvador President Nayib] Bukele politically in exchange for cash and perks in jail … The deal with El Salvador heralded by Mr. Trump as a crackdown on crime is actually undermining a longstanding U.S. inquiry into the gang … Two major ongoing cases against some of the gang’s highest-ranking leaders could be badly damaged, and other defendants could be less likely to cooperate or testify in court.”
| | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dined at Le Diplomate last night. Ruben Gallego took his newborn son Cooper onto the Senate floor. You can never start them too early with vote-a-rama drama. NEWS YOU CAN USE — A bunch of new laws are taking effect across the DMV as of tomorrow. In Virginia, “adults will have to buckle up in the back seat, students give up cellphones in school and large restaurants must quit packing takeout in polystyrene containers … The District will boost its minimum wage and Maryland will hike an array of taxes and fees, launch a teacher-recruitment program and a suicide hotline, and help unemployed parents who owe child support find jobs. WaPo’s Laura Vozzella and colleagues have a full rundown MEDIA MOVES — POLITICO is announcing the newest class of summer editorial interns: Pavan Acharya on transportation, Nicole Markus on breaking news, Amira McKee on the NY team, Jacqueline Munis on the magazine, Rachel Shin on agriculture and labor, Avril Silva on E&E, Juliann (Annie) Ventura on the California team, Kylie Williams on E&E and Jacob Wendler on breaking news. Read their bios … Gabby Birenbaum is now a D.C. correspondent for the Texas Tribune. She was previously a D.C. correspondent for the Nevada Independent. TRANSITIONS — Jerry Hendrix is now deputy to the associate director for defense at the Office of Management and Budget. He previously was senior counselor at the Office of Shipbuilding on the National Security Council. … Mayur Patel is now a partner in the international trade and investment practice at Hogan Lovells. He was previously chief international trade counsel for the Senate Finance Committee. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Derek Lyons, partner at M1 Strategies and former staff secretary and counselor to Trump, and Liz Lyons, director of public affairs at the CIA, welcomed Declan Arthur Lyons on June 23. He came in at 6 lbs. 13 oz. and 20.5 inches, and joins big sister Brigid. Pic Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editor Zack Stanton, deputy editor Garrett Ross and Playbook Podcast producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
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