House Republicans have seemingly dropped plans for a new millionaire’s tax hike to pay for other priorities in President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

The Ways & Means Committee, the House’s tax-writing panel, released nearly 400 pages of legislation on Monday, setting the stage for permanently extending Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), as well as a host of other new Trump tax priorities.

That includes no taxes on tipped and overtime wages, both of which are accomplished via new tax deductions.

For Trump’s promise to cut taxes on seniors’ Social Security, the legislation temporarily increases the standard tax deduction that seniors are allowed to take, affecting the end of last year through the beginning of 2029.

It would also raise the debt limit by $4 trillion – something Trump specifically asked Republican lawmakers to deal with before the U.S. runs out of cash to pay its debts sometime this summer, risking a national credit default.

Notably absent from the sweeping piece of legislation is a proposal floated last week that would have established a new tax bracket for people making $2.5 million per year or more, taxing them at 39.6% – which was the top tax rate before TCJA lowered it to 37%. 

Conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Heritage Foundation fiercely fought any notion of a tax increase on the wealthy.

It was also publicly opposed by a number of leading Republican figures like former Speaker Newt Gingrich and ex-Vice President Mike Pence, along with Pence’s interest group, Advancing American Freedom.

Several House GOP lawmakers told Fox News Digital last week they could not support a millionaire’s tax hike. 

Two people familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital on Monday that they did not expect it to be included before the bill advanced through committee on Tuesday.

But Republicans find other cost-savings in the legislation, including stripping tax-exempt status from ‘terrorist-supporting organizations’ and using artificial intelligence (AI) software to identify and root out improper Medicare payments.

The bill would also dramatically reduce tax breaks for professional sports team owners, a measure known as amortization, which allows those owners to write off a portion of their purchase price.

Republicans also target large private colleges and universities, including Ivy Leagues, with higher excise taxes, which are federal duties paid on net earnings of the schools’ investments.

That rate is currently 1.4%. But the legislation would bring it to as high as 21% for the largest schools, like Harvard University and Yale University – as Trump continues to battle Ivy League over their funding.

The Ways & Means Committee is expected to advance its portion of the legislation on Tuesday afternoon.

It’s just one portion of Trump’s so-called ‘one big, beautiful bill,’ which Republicans are working to pass via the budget reconciliation process.

By lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, it allows the party controlling Congress and the White House to entirely skirt the minority and pass sweeping pieces of legislation – provided they deal with the national debt, tax, or spending.

Trump wants Republicans to use it to pass his agenda on taxes, the border, immigration, energy, and defense.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is currently more than $36 trillion dollars in debt.

House Republicans have pledged to find between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in cost savings in other areas to offset the cost of Trump’s new priorities and put the U.S. on a better fiscal path.

The tax legislation also increases the maximum allowed child tax credit (CTC) from $2,000 to $2,500, and includes added tax relief for small business owners who file their company under individual income tax brackets.

It also includes a modest victory for blue state Republicans in increasing the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap from $10,000 to $30,000 for both single filers and married couples. Married taxpayers filing separately get a cap of $15,000.

That maximum amount gets phased out if a person’s income exceeds $400,000, back down to $10,000 once a person’s income hits $500,000.

SALT deductions are primarily aimed at helping people in high-cost-of-living areas, particularly people in the suburbs of Democratic strongholds like New York and Los Angeles.

Republicans representing those areas have said increasing the $10,000 SALT deduction cap is critical to them remaining in office – and therefore to the GOP keeping the House majority.

Several SALT Caucus Republicans balked at a $30,000 cap last week, blasting it as insufficient. It’s not clear if they will hold up the final bill over it, however, with at least one member of their group, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital she could agree to the new threshold.

The Monday release comes after Republicans unveiled a portion of their tax plan over the weekend. Other details like SALT deduction caps and potential new tax brackets were still being worked out, however.

The identity of a Trump administration official who was allegedly targeted by the Biden administration’s State Department in a ‘disinformation’ dossier remains a mystery nearly two weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed details on the file.

Rubio revealed at the most recent Trump administration Cabinet meeting April 30 that an unidentified Trump administration official who was present had been the subject of a State Department dossier detailing alleged promotion of social media ‘disinformation.’ 

Rubio, the State Department and the White House have not yet identified which official the Biden administration targeted. Fox News Digital has reached out repeatedly to the White House regarding the identity of the official, including on Monday, but did not receive replies. 

When asked for an update on the identity of the Trump official, the State Department directed Fox News Digital to Rubio’s April 30 remark, detailing that, ‘We are going to be turning over these dossiers to the individuals, and they’ll decide whether they want to disclose it or not.’

Rubio said during the April 30 Cabinet meeting that a little-known, now-defunct office within the State Department called the Global Engagement Center (GEC) had compiled disinformation dossiers on Americans across the country as part of an effort to ‘censor’ free speech, including an individual who has since joined the Trump administration. 

‘We had an office in the Department of State whose job it was to censor Americans,’ Rubio said during the meeting. ‘And, by the way, I’m not going to say who it is. I’ll leave it up to them. There’s at least one person at this table today who had a dossier in that building of social media posts to identify them as purveyors of disinformation. We have these dossiers. We are going to be turning those over to these individuals.’ 

Vice President JD Vance interjected, asking, ‘Was it me or Elon (Musk)? We can follow up when the media is gone,’ which drew laughter from the Cabinet. 

‘But just think about that. The Department of State of the United States had set up an office to monitor the social media posts and commentary of American citizens, to identify them as vectors of disinformation,’ Rubio continued. ‘When we know that the best way to combat disinformation is freedom of speech and transparency.’

Though Rubio did not identify which Trump official the Biden administration kept a dossier on, Elon Musk has previously railed against the Global Engagement Center. 

‘The worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation is an obscure agency called GEC,’ Musk posted to X in January 2023. That was more than a year before Musk endorsed Trump in the 2024 presidential race and became a fixture of the administration in his temporary role with the Department of Government Efficiency. 

‘They are a threat to our democracy,’ Musk added.

Former President Barack Obama established the Global Engagement Center in 2016 through an executive order aimed at coordinating counterterrorism messaging to foreign nations before it expanded its scope to also include countering foreign propaganda and disinformation, State Department documents show.

Conservatives have slammed the office as a political weapon to silence free speech, including Rubio in an April op-ed when he cited a 2020 GEC report claiming that a ‘Russian disinformation apparatus’ was behind public speculation that the coronavirus was an ‘engineered bioweapon’ or was created by ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute.’ 

In the years following the pandemic, the Department of Energy under the Biden administration and former FBI Director Christopher Wray said evidence indicated that COVID-19 was the result of a lab leak, while the Trump administration’s CIA reported earlier in 2025 that a lab leak was the likely origin of the virus.

In 2024, lawmakers did not approve new funding for the office in the National Defense Authorization Act, and it was scheduled to terminate on Dec. 23, 2024. The Biden administration, however, shuffled staffers and rebranded the office. 

It became the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub just days before Trump’s inauguration, the New York Post reported in January. 

Rubio announced in April that the office would officially shutter. 

‘I am announcing the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC),’ Rubio said in an April 16 statement announcing the office’s closure. 

‘Under the previous administration, this office, which cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year, spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving,’ he wrote. ‘This is antithetical to the very principles we should be upholding and inconceivable it was taking place in America. That ends today.’ 

Rubio has railed against the office in previous interviews and op-eds, including authoring an opinion piece for the Federalist in April touting that he was dismantling the ‘censorship-industrial complex’ that had gripped agencies such as the State Department. 

‘Over the past half-decade, bodies like GEC, crafted by our own governing ruling class, nearly destroyed America’s long free speech history,’ he wrote in the op-ed. ‘The enemies of speech had new lingo to justify their authoritarian impulse. It was ‘disinformation,’ allegedly pushed by nefarious foreign governments, that was the No. 1 threat to ‘our democracy.’ To protect ‘our democracy,’ this ‘disinformation’ had to be identified and stamped out.’ 

The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is accusing Democrats of lying about President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital on Monday he believed Democrats had been waging a ‘fear campaign to scare Americans’ ever since Republicans began discussions about the budget reconciliation process.

‘Now, Democrats are pedaling incorrect reports that include policies that aren’t even in the bill,’ Guthrie said. 

‘This bill refocuses Medicaid on mothers, children, people with disabilities, and the elderly – not illegal immigrants and capable adults who choose not to work.’

The Kentucky Republican was specifically referring to his panel’s portion of Trump’s bill, the text of which was released late on Sunday night.

The Energy and Commerce Committee, which has broad jurisdiction, including over federal health programs, telecommunications and energy, was tasked with finding at least $880 billion in spending cuts to pay for other priorities in the bill.

It’s the largest share of any of the 11 committees involved in the reconciliation process – some of which have been given additional funding to enact Trump’s priorities on tax cuts, defense, immigration and the border.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), however, said on Monday the legislation would likely achieve even more savings than its $880 billion benchmark.

Guthrie himself told Republicans on a lawmaker-only call on Sunday night that the committee found ‘north of $900 billion’ in savings, a source told Fox News Digital.

Democrats immediately seized on the legislation as what they saw as a smoking gun of Republican plans to cut Medicaid.

But the details released on Sunday night appear to show House GOP leaders veered away from the much more severe cuts to the low-income healthcare program that some conservative lawmakers were pushing.

The legislation would put a new 80-hour-per-month work requirement on certain able-bodied adults receiving Medicaid, aged 19 through 64.

It would also put guardrails on states spending funds on their expanded Medicaid populations. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed states to expand Medicaid coverage to adults who make up to 138% of the poverty level.

More specifically, states that provide Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants could see their federal Medicaid reimbursement dollars diminished, putting more of that cost on the state itself.

The bill would also require states with expanded Medicaid populations to perform eligibility checks every six months to ensure the system is not being abused.

State Medicaid plans would be affected by a moratorium on any new state provider taxes, while freezing current rates where they are. State provider taxes are state-imposed fees on healthcare providers that help those states get more federal funding for Medicaid.

New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the committee, released a CBO projection requested by his own party that said at least 13.7 million people would lose health insurance based on a draft of Republicans’ Medicaid proposals.

‘Let’s be clear, Republican leadership released this bill under cover of night because they don’t want people to know their true intentions,’ Pallone said.

‘This is not trimming fat from around the edges, it’s cutting to the bone. The overwhelming majority of the savings in this bill will come from taking healthcare away from millions of Americans. Nowhere in the bill are they cutting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ – they’re cutting people’s healthcare and using that money to give tax breaks to billionaires.’

Guthrie dismissed the calculations in the Democrats’ press release.

‘It is reckless that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claimed an artificially high number in alleged coverage loss just so they can fearmonger and score political points,’ he told Fox News Digital.

‘This reconciliation is a win for Americans in every part of the country, and it’s a shame Democrats are intentionally reflexively opposing commonsense policies to strengthen the program.’

Republicans are expected to advance the Energy and Commerce portion of the bill on Tuesday afternoon. If it passes through committee, it will be added to the final bill, which Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., hopes to pass the House by Memorial Day.

China has agreed to ‘open itself up to American business’ following trade negotiations between Washington, D.C., and Beijing on Saturday, according to President Donald Trump.

The arrangement was arguably the most significant development stemming from the trade negotiations, Trump told reporters Monday at the White House. Plans have yet to be finalized and ‘papered,’ but Trump said that China is on board with the agreement. 

‘The biggest thing to me is the opening up,’ Trump told reporters Monday during an announcement regarding an executive order on drug prices in the U.S. ‘It would be, I think it would be fantastic for our businesses if we could go in and compete and compete with China. It would be a lot of jobs for China.’

‘I think it’s maybe the most important thing to happen, because if you think about it, we opened up our country to China,’ Trump said. ‘They come. We don’t. I mean, they have very few restrictions. and they didn’t open their country to us, never made sense to them. It’s not fair. And they’ve agreed to open China fully open…and I think it’s going to be fantastic.’ 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched trade negotiations with China in Geneva on Saturday, resulting in a deal that would temporarily ease up on tariffs for 90 days.  

Specifically, the trade deal stipulates that the U.S. will cut down its tariffs against Chinese imports from 145% to 30%. Likewise, China will reduce its tariffs against U.S. imports from 125% to 10%. 

However, tariffs against some Chinese imports will not lighten up, according to Trump. Existing tariffs against cars, steel and aluminum will still remain in place, he said. 

Meanwhile, Bessent signaled that more talks with China would occur in the near future and that both Washington and Beijing would like to continue advancing negotiations. 

‘I would imagine that in the next few weeks, we will be meeting again to get rolling on a more fulsome agreement,’ Bessent said in an interview Monday morning with CNBC. 

Bessent previously warned that the tariffs could cost China up to 10 million jobs, and said that it was up to Beijing whether it would loosen up the tariffs or not.  

‘I think that over time we will see that the Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China,’ Bessent told reporters at the White House on April 29. ‘I’ve seen some very large numbers over the past few days that show if these numbers stay on, Chinese could lose 10 million jobs very quickly. And even if there is a drop in the tariffs that they could lose five million jobs.’

The deal with China comes days after the U.S. and the U.K. inked a trade deal of their own, which kept existing 10% tariffs in place against U.K. goods but removed some import taxes on items like steel and cars. 

‘With this deal, the U.K. joins the United States in affirming that reciprocity and fairness is an essential and vital principle of international trade,’ Trump said Thursday. ‘The deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access for American exports, especially in agriculture, dramatically increasing access for American beef, ethanol and virtually all of the products produced by our great farmers.’ 

President Donald Trump defended the U.S. preparing to accept a jumbo jet gift from Qatar’s royal family to serve as a temporary Air Force One as Boeing failed to roll out a new Air Force One fleet in a timely manner. 

‘We’re very disappointed that it’s taking Boeing so long to build a new Air Force One,’ Trump said during a press conference on drug prices Monday morning. ‘You know, we have an Air Force One that’s 40 years old. And if you take a look at that, compared to the new plane of the equivalent, you know, stature at the time, it’s not even the same ballgame.’ 

‘When I first came in, I signed an order to get (the new Air Force One fleet) built,’ he continued. ‘I took it over from the Obama administration, they had originally agreed. I got the price down much lower. And then, when the election didn’t exactly work out the way that it should have, a lot of work was not done on the plane because a lot of people didn’t know they made change orders. That was so stupid, so ridiculous. And it ended up being a total mess, a real mess.’ 

Reports spread Sunday morning that the Trump administration was expected to accept a $400 million Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar’s royal family. ABC News reported that Trump would use the jet until the end of his term, when it would be given to his presidential library. 

Trump confirmed Sunday evening on Truth Social that the Department of Defense would receive the 747 as a gift, while railing against Democrats as ‘world class losers’ for criticizing the gift.  

‘So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,’ Trump wrote. ‘Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA.’

He continued in the press conference Monday that when he returned to office in January, his administration informed him construction on two new Air Force Ones was ‘way behind’ on the schedule for completion. 

‘If we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they’re building the other ones. I think that was a very nice gesture. Now, I could be a stupid person to say, ‘Oh, no, we don’t want a free plane.’ We give free things, we’ll take one, two, and it helps us out. Because again, we’re talking about we have a 40-year-old aircraft. The money we spend, the maintenance we spend on those planes to keep them tippy-top is astronomical,’ he added, calling the gift a ‘great gesture from Qatar.’ 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also brushed off concern over the Qatari royal family donating a Boeing jumbo jet to the U.S. Department of Defense, arguing on Monday there will be no quid pro quo arrangement and that the donation is under legal review to ensure full compliance with the law. 

‘The Qatari Government has graciously offered to donate a plane to the Department of Defense,’ Leavitt said on ‘Fox & Friends’ Monday morning. ‘The legal details of that are still being worked out. But, of course, any donation to this government is always done in full compliance with the law, and we commit ourselves to the utmost transparency, and we will continue to do that.’

When asked if the administration was worried that accepting the gift could lead to a quid pro quo situation where Qatar expects something in return, Leavitt shot down such a narrative. 

‘Absolutely not because they know President Trump, and they know he only works with the interests of the American public in mind,’ Leavitt responded. 

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., wrote to the Government Accountability Office on Sunday, calling for an ethics investigation into the gift, claiming it would be the single most expensive gift ever received by a U.S. president. 

‘I am writing to express alarm over reports that President Donald Trump is poised to accept a luxury aircraft — a Boeing 747-8 — from the government of Qatar,’ Torres wrote. ‘The plane, so opulent it has been described as a ‘palace in the sky,’ is set to be made available to President Trump for official use as Air Force One and then for private use once he leaves office.’ 

‘This ‘flying grift’ is merely the latest chapter in a tawdry tale of presidential profiteering unprecedented in American history,’ Torres added.

Presidents have for decades circumvented the Emoluments Clause — which prohibits federal elected officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments or monarchs — by classifying gifts they receive while in office as gifts to the office of the president. Those gifts are then cataloged and stored as part of their presidential libraries after leaving office. 

While presidents maintain some level of access to the items in their libraries, they do not own them directly and must purchase them from the federal government in order to secure private ownership.

Leavitt said in a comment to Fox Digital Monday morning that all gifts received by a foreign government would be above board and in compliance with the law. 

‘Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws,’ Leavitt said. ‘President Trump’s Administration is committed to full transparency.’ 

Trump is headed to the Middle East and is expected to meet with leaders in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. A Trump administration official confirmed to Fox News Digital that the plane will not be presented to the president nor accepted by Trump during his trip abroad. 

The current Air Force One fleet includes two aging planes, both of which are more than 30 years old and have been eyed for replacement since at least the Obama administration. 

Trump railed against a government deal with Boeing to build a new fleet of Air Force Ones ahead of his first administration, posting on social media in December 2016 that the ‘costs are out of control, more than $4 billion’ to build the two aircraft.

Trump in 2018 awarded Boeing a $3.9 billion fixed-price agreement to manufacture two new jets. The construction of the jets, however, is not expected to be completed until 2029. 

‘Boeing is proud to build the next generation of Air Force One, providing American Presidents with a flying White House at outstanding value to taxpayers,’ Boeing said in 2018 after ironing out a deal with Trump for the creation of the new fleet. ‘President Trump negotiated a good deal on behalf of the American people.’ 

‘The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense, but the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made,’ Qatari embassy official Ali Al-Ansari told ABC News Sunday. 

When not in office as president, Trump has traveled in his private Boeing 757 jet, dubbed Trump Force One. That jet is famously emblazoned with Trump’s last name and was frequently seen in the backdrop of campaign rallies.

President Donald Trump declared Monday that the U.S. ‘will no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from Big Pharma’ as he signed an executive order implementing what his administration is calling ‘most favored nations drug pricing.’ 

‘The principle is simple – whatever the lowest price paid for a drug in other developed countries, that is the price that Americans will pay,’ Trump said at the White House. ‘Some prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices will be reduced almost immediately by 50 to 80 to 90%.’ 

Trump said that ‘starting today, the United States will no longer subsidize the healthcare of foreign countries, which is what we were doing. We’re subsidizing others’ healthcare, the countries where they paid a small fraction of what for the same drug that what we pay many, many times more for and will no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from Big Pharma.’ 

‘Even though the United States is home to only 4% of the world’s population, pharmaceutical companies make more than two thirds of their profits in America. So think of that with 4% of the population, the pharmaceutical companies make most of their money. Most of their profits from America. That’s not a good thing,’ Trump continued.  

‘I think, by the way, pharmaceutical – I have great respect for these companies and for the people that run them. I really do, and I think they did one of the greatest jobs in history for their company, convincing people for many years that this was a fair system. Nobody really understood why, but I figured it out. For years, pharmaceutical and drug companies have said that research and development costs were what they are, and for no reason whatsoever, they had to be borne by America alone,’ Trump said. ‘Not anymore, they don’t.’ 

The White House said that the executive order ‘directs the U.S. Trade Representative and Secretary of Commerce to take action to ensure foreign countries are not engaged in practices that purposefully and unfairly undercut market prices and drive price hikes in the United States.

‘The Order instructs the Administration to communicate price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers to establish that America, the largest purchaser and funder of prescription drugs in the world, gets the best deal,’ the White House said.

‘The Secretary of Health and Human Services will establish a mechanism through which American patients can buy their drugs directly from manufacturers who sell to Americans at a ‘Most-Favored-Nation’ price, bypassing middlemen,’ the White House added. ‘If drug manufacturers fail to offer most-favored-nation pricing, the Order directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to: (1) propose rules that impose most-favored-nation pricing; and (2) take other aggressive measures to significantly reduce the cost of prescription drugs to the American consumer and end anticompetitive practices.’

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said alongside Trump, ‘I never thought that this would happen in my lifetime.’

‘I have a couple of kids who are Democrats, are big Bernie Sanders fans. And when I told them that this was going to happen, they had tears in their eyes. Because they thought, this is never going to happen,’ he said. ‘And we finally have a president who is willing to stand up for the American people.’ 

Trump said earlier this morning that drug prices would be ‘cut by 59%.’ 

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America trade group opposes the order, saying, ‘This Foreign First Pricing scheme is a bad deal for American patients.’ 

‘Importing foreign prices will cut billions of dollars from Medicare with no guarantee that it helps patients or improves their access to medicines,’ the group’s president, Stephen Ubl, said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. ‘It will jeopardize the hundreds of billions our member companies are planning to invest in America, making us more reliant on China for innovative medicines.’ 

‘To lower costs for Americans, we need to address the real reasons U.S. patients are paying more for their medicines. We are the only country in the world that lets PBMs, insurers and hospitals take 50% of every dollar spent on medicines,’ Ubl also said. ‘In fact, hospital markups in 340B and the rebates and fees paid to middlemen in the U.S. often exceed the total cost of medicines oversees. Giving more of this money to patients will lower their medicine costs and reduce the gap with European prices.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.  

House and Senate Republicans have been working for months on a sweeping piece of legislation addressing a litany of President Donald Trump’s agenda items.

Such a bill is possible via the budget reconciliation process, which allows the party controlling Congress and the White House to pass broad policy overhauls while totally sidelining the minority. It lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, lining it up with the House’s simple majority rules.

However, one of the caveats is that the measures tucked into the bill must deal with taxes, spending or the national debt. One key person gets the final say over what is relevant to that sphere – the Senate parliamentarian. 

The parliamentarian, who heads the Senate’s parliamentarian office, is a nonpartisan, unelected role appointed by the Senate majority leader. It does not have a fixed term.

The person’s role is to advise the Senate and its staff on the chamber’s rules and precedent. The normally low-profile role has been thrust into the spotlight several times in congressional history, however, particularly surrounding reconciliation.

‘At the end of the day, it really is a judgment call. And sometimes you’re making a judgment call where you’re relying on similar situations or maybe analogous situations where we dealt with reconciliation in the past, maybe other times you’re dealing with a completely novel issue, and you’re having to figure it out,’ one former senior Senate aide described to Fox News Digital.

‘Or maybe, and this happens a lot, people are trying get things through, debating or citing past provisions of previous reconciliation bills…saying ‘Hey, this provision is very similar, and this got through.’’

The Senate parliamentarian leads the ‘Byrd bath,’ a key part of the reconciliation process where the legislation is carefully examined, and any measures found not relevant to the contours of reconciliation are stripped out.

Notably, progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called for the firing of the Senate parliamentarian in 2021 when she forced Senate Democrats to scuttle their $15 per hour minimum wage effort from their reconciliation bill at the time.

That same parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who was appointed by the late former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is still serving today and has largely garnered bipartisan respect for her handling of the role.

MacDonough, appointed in 2012, is the first woman in the job. She was a part of the parliamentarian’s office before that and briefly served as an attorney in the Department of Justice, according to NPR.

‘I would say that this particular parliamentarian sees herself more as, almost an administrative law judge, and I think that she has generally viewed some of the things that the Senate has been allowed to get away with in reconciliation as a departure from precedent,’ said Paul Winfree, president of the Economic Policy Innovation Center and a former Senate Budget Committee staffer himself, told Fox News Digital.

‘I think that she has more of a ‘small-c’ conservative approach to what is allowable. At the same time, a lot of what is considered to be allowable under reconciliation is dependent on estimates that are produced by the Congressional Budget Office or the joint tax committee.’

When asked if any of the current public reconciliation plans could face issues with the parliamentarian, both people who spoke with Fox News Digital floated an accounting maneuver that would largely obscure the cost of permanently extending Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

That scoring method, known as current policy baseline, would zero out the cost of extending the 2017 tax cuts by measuring it as an extension of the current economic conditions, rather than factoring in how much less the government is taking in via tax revenues with the cuts in effect.

Senate Republicans have signaled they believe they have the legal basis for moving forward with that calculation, however, without the parliamentarian’s say.

‘We think the law is very clear, and ultimately the budget committee chairman makes that determination,’ Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters last month.

The Senate GOP aide who spoke with Fox News Digital said, ‘If that were to have fallen out or just, you didn’t know what was going to happen, that would just affect so many provisions in the bill.’

‘Because all of a sudden, you know, all these things start scoring [as an increase to the deficit]…and things become more problematic with your instructions,’ the former aide said.

Winfree, however, said Republicans have appeared to be mindful overall with how they have written the text so far.

‘They’ve actually been pretty conservative in how they’ve approached the language,’ he said.

He said it was ‘possible some of the immigration provisions could get a second look,’ but that even then, he believed it would ‘ultimately be okay.’

Republican leaders have said they hope to have a bill on Trump’s desk by Fourth of July.

Fox News Digital reached out to the current Senate Majority Leader’s office for comment.

House Republicans released a sweeping plan late on Sunday to curb who gets Medicaid coverage and roll back former President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate, among other measures.

The Energy & Commerce Committee, which has broad jurisdiction, including over federal health programs, telecommunications and energy, was tasked with finding at least $880 billion in spending cuts to pay for other priorities in President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told House Republicans on a lawmaker-only call on Sunday night that the panel had found ‘north of $900 billion’ in savings, however – a significant victory for House GOP leaders who weathered attacks from Democrats about significant cuts to welfare programs like Medicaid.

However, Republicans largely avoided the deep cuts to Medicaid that were sought by some fiscal hawks in the House GOP Conference, a win for moderate Republicans who were more politically vulnerable to Democratic attacks over the issue.

The legislation would put a new 80-hour-per-month work requirement on certain able-bodied adults receiving Medicaid, aged 19 through 64.

It would also put guardrails on states spending funds on their expanded Medicaid populations. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed states to expand Medicaid coverage to adults who make up to 138% of the poverty level.

More specifically, states that provide Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants could see their federal Medicaid reimbursement dollars diminished, putting more of that cost on the state itself.

The bill would also require states with expanded Medicaid populations to perform eligibility checks every six months to ensure the system is not being abused.

Guthrie told House Republicans on a Sunday night call that the legislation was ‘ending’ the former Biden administration’s EV mandate. He said $105 billion in savings could be found in ending the mandate to have EVs account for two-thirds of all new car sales by 2032.

Other savings are found in rescinding unspent funds in a variety of Biden green energy tax programs established via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

It is not a full repeal of the IRA, however, as some conservatives had been pushing Republicans to do.

That had been another point of contention ahead of the bill’s release, with GOP lawmakers who have businesses in their districts that have benefited from the green energy subsidies pushing back on significant cuts.

On the other end of the energy divide, the bill would also boost Trump’s non-green energy goals by establishing a fast-tracked natural gas permitting route. The permit applicant would be required to pay $10 million or 1% of the project’s cost to be on the expedited track.

There is also a victory for social conservatives in a measure that would make certain large abortion providers ineligible for Medicaid funding. That measure was pushed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., himself, and was backed by anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. 

However, it could run into opposition from moderate Republicans – Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., called the provision ‘problematic’ and warned colleagues they were ‘running into a hornet’s nest’ on the matter in the Sunday night call.

The legislation does provide exceptions for places that provide abortions in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake. It’s not necessarily clear, however, if providing voluntary abortions would disqualify those locations.

The Energy & Commerce Committee’s legislation accounts for the bulk of Republicans’ $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion spending cuts they are hoping to find in the budget reconciliation process.

House Republicans currently have a razor-thin three-vote margin, meaning they can afford to have little dissent and still pass anything without Democratic support. They are hoping to do just that, with virtually no Democrats currently on board with Trump’s massive Republican policy overhaul.

The budget-reconciliation process lowers the Senate’s passage threshold from 60 votes to 51, lining up the House’s own simple majority threshold.

Reconciliation allows the party in power to effectively skirt the minority and pass broad pieces of legislation – provided they address taxes, spending or the national debt.

Trump wants Republicans to use the maneuver to tackle his priorities on the border, immigration, taxes, defense, energy and raising the debt ceiling.

To do that, several committees of jurisdiction are working on their specific portions of the bill, which will then be put together in a massive vehicle to pass the House and Senate.

GOP leaders hope to have that final bill on Trump’s desk by Fourth of July.

Global stock markets are soaring in the wake of the trade truce between the U.S. and China.

The agreement, announced early Monday, implements a 90-day cooling-off period between the world’s two largest economic superpowers, bringing a temporary end to their tariff war that last month triggered a massive financial market sell-off. 

U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, which were jacked to 145% last month as President Donald Trump hiked tariffs on countries around the world, will be scaled down to 30%, with Beijing lowering its tariffs from a retaliatory 125% to just 10%.

‘We both have an interest in balanced trade, the U.S. will continue moving towards that,’ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said after talks with Chinese officials in Switzerland.

While the initial agreement brought instant relief to the stock markets, for a president aiming to pass a sweeping agenda through Congress and hold onto his congressional majorities in next year’s midterm elections, it is the potential political payoff that may be of upmost importance.

The truce with China follows days after an initial trade deal with the United Kingdom – which is the first since Trump implemented tariffs last month. The president touted that the agreement with London would be ‘the first of many.’

‘It’s a positive first step,’ veteran Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams told Fox News.

Trump’s approval ratings have been sliding since he returned to power in the White House nearly four months ago and are now underwater in most national polling.

Most, but not all, of the most recent national public opinion surveys indicate Trump’s approval ratings in negative territory, which is a deterioration from the president’s poll position when he started his second tour of duty in the White House in late January.

Fueling the drop in Trump’s poll numbers are increased concerns by Americans over the economy and inflation, which were pressing issues that kept former President Joe Biden‘s approval ratings well below water for most of his presidency.  

Trump stood at 44% approval and 55% disapproval in the most recent Fox News national poll, which was conducted April 18-21.

Additionally, getting past the top lines, the president’s approval registered at 38% on the economy and just 33% on inflation and tariffs.

Front and center is Trump’s blockbuster tariff announcement in early April, which sparked a trade war with some of the nation’s top trading partners and triggered a massive sell-off in the financial markets and increased concerns about a recession.

In discussing his tariffs soon after he announced them on what he called ‘Liberation Day,’ the president touted that ‘these countries are calling us up, kissing my a–.’

‘They are dying to make a deal. ‘Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir!’’ Trump claimed.

A month later, Trump finally has a chance to show tangible results.

The president touted, ‘NO INFLATION!!! LOVE, DJT’ in a social media post Monday morning.

‘President Trump has argued that his agenda requires time for an adjustment and deal making. He’ll be given a period of time to execute deals to prove that his plans are working and the first major trade deal with a nation like the UK is at least a sign that some of the work has been going on behind the scenes thus and is starting to bear fruit,’ Williams said last week, following the announcement of the deal with the United Kingdom.

Williams added that the president will ‘have to back it up with more, but it is a positive first step for him in securing other deals.’

JERUSALEM — With President Donald Trump set to leave for the Middle East on Monday, talks between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran concluded a fourth round of negotiations in Oman on Sunday over Tehran’s illicit nuclear weapons program. 

A day before the start of talks, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei welcomed chants of ‘Death to America’ in Tehran. ‘Your judgment is right,’ Khamenei told a crowd of supporters who called for the destruction of the U.S.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said the nuclear talks were ‘difficult but useful.’ A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations, offered a little bit more, describing them as being both indirect and direct, The Associated Press reported.

An ‘agreement was reached to move forward with the talks to continue working through technical elements,’ the U.S. official said. ‘We are encouraged by today’s outcome and look forward to our next meeting, which will happen in the near future.’

President Trump announced a 60-day time frame to reach an agreement with Iran over its illegal atomic weapons program. The first U.S. negotiating session with Iran commenced on April 12. 

Mardo Soghom, an Iran analyst and journalist, noted prior to the start of talks several months ago that Iran’s regime will go to great lengths to preserve its right to enrich uranium—the material required for a nuclear weapon. The Trump administration vehemently opposes a uranium enrichment program on Iranian soil.

‘Iran is trying to save its enrichment operation at a lower level and also not accepting any pressure to halt its anti-Israel stance. Khamenei’s speech [Saturday] highlighted that second point. But at this point, the main issue is dismantling Iran’s uranium enrichment,’ Soghom told Fox News Digital.

Khamenei also lashed out at Israel during his Saturday speech in Tehran, declaring about Israel’s war campaign to root out Iran-backed Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip that ‘The people of Gaza are not facing Israel alone—they are facing America and Britain.’

Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, told Fox News Digital that ‘The Iranians, like last round, sound more downcast than the U.S. side, describing talks as difficult.’

In 2018, President Trump withdrew from former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), because the accord failed to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapons device, according to the first Trump administration.

President Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff recently stressed that Iran cannot have an enrichment program during an interview with Breitbart News prior to Sunday’s bargaining session. 

Witkoff said ‘First of all, we’re never doing a JCPOA deal where sanctions come off and there’s no sunsetting of their obligations. That doesn’t make sense. That was a mismatched procedure in JCPOA. We believe that they cannot have enrichment, they cannot have centrifuges, they cannot have anything that allows them to build a weapon. We believe in all of that. That was not JCPOA. JCPOA had sunset provisions that burned off the obligations and burned off the sanctions relief at inappropriate times. It’s never going to happen in this deal.’

Brodsky said that ‘All in all, both sides want to keep the process moving. The Iranians will usually say and do enough to earn another meeting as they stand to lose more by this process breaking down than the U.S. government. The negotiating process is as important to the Iranians as the agreement itself as the process offers insulation from the impact of sanctions—with the rial strengthening since talks started—and protection from a military strike.

‘This is why Iran will want these negotiations to continue for as long as possible. They will try to wear out and exhaust U.S. negotiators into concessions, which the Trump administration should reject. As President Trump said in a different context, Tehran does not have the cards here.’

The hot-button issue of uranium enrichment has plagued talks with Iran over the last few decades. The Europeans faced intense criticism when they agreed—independent of the U.S.—to allow the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium during the nascent phase of atomic talks during the early years of this century.

Brodsky said ‘The original sin of U.S. decision-making on Iran’s nuclear program was when the Obama administration changed the U.S. position from zero enrichment to tolerating enrichment at 3.67%. That laid the groundwork for Iran to retain the capability to continue to use its nuclear program to extort the United States and ultimately build a nuclear weapon.’

The nuclear expert noted, ‘That should end today, and recent comments from President Trump, Special Envoy Witkoff, and Secretary Rubio hopefully signal that this era is over. House and Senate Republicans were also very clear on this point over the last week. The Iranians say they want a durable deal. But a JCPOA 2.0—tolerating enrichment at 3.67% and no dismantlement of nuclear facilities—would not be one.

‘The Iranians are engaged in all kinds of gimmicks to dress up a variation of the same concessions they offered to President Obama. That should be unacceptable to American negotiators.’

The anti-American news outlet, Kayhan, that serves as the mouthpiece for Khamenei, published a full-page screed against Trump where it stated, ‘He is a framework based on narcissism, superiority delusions, and threat-based tactics.’

The talks on Sunday ran for some three hours in Muscat, the capital of Oman. Iran’s regime spokesperson, Baghaei, said that a decision on the next round of talks is under discussion.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.