Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
President Donald Trump is pushing hard to get his $9.4 billion rescissions request — $8.3 billion in cuts to foreign aid and $1.1 billion from public broadcasting — over the finish line.
As we have seen over and over again, Trump threatened to withhold endorsements from GOP senators who don’t support the Trump administration’s attempt to force Congress to give some legitimacy to the Department of Government Efficiency’s rampage through the federal government. It’s a constitutionally backward maneuver that further erodes the separation of powers, as Republicans in the 119th Congress continuously hand their authority to appropriate federal spending over to the executive branch.
House Republicans rubber-stamped the package without batting an eye.
“It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN & MSDNC put together,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement.”
The Senate is expected to vote on a rescissions package next week ahead of the July 18 deadline — but the bill may get watered down as a handful of senators suggested they may push for amending the bill to eliminate certain cuts. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has said she has concerns over the cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) — a President George W. Bush-era global HIV and AIDS prevention program. And Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) have indicated they want to protect some rural public radio stations, specifically those serving remote parts of the country.
— Emine Yücel
Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:
- An unbound, unbent, unbroken Thom Tillis, no longer running for reelection, cautiously (barely) speaks his truth.
- Fox News makes its union with the House Republican conference official. Mazel Tov to the happy couple!
Thom Tillis Seeks His Truth
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has officially given notice that he will not run in what will likely be a very tight 2026 race for the Senate seat he currently holds. Thus released, he is now attempting to live his truth.
Living one’s truth involves, for Tillis, recasting oneself as the consummate political moderate, one in the tradition of such departed greats as Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who Tillis has alluded to repeatedly in recent weeks. It involves making some eyebrow-raising statements, such as the admission that he now regrets his vote for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — or, he doesn’t quite regret it. He would not say “regret.” No regrets when living one’s truth. Rather, he made the right decision when he voted for Hegseth, and he’d make a different decision today. “If all I had was the information on the day of the vote, I’d certainly vote for him again,” he told Jake Tapper this week. “But now I have the information of him being a manager. And I don’t think that his probationary period’s been very positive.” (Notably, now-Secretary Hegseth is not subject to a probationary period. He is confirmed. The purportedly right-at-the-time vote Tillis took four days into Trump’s second presidency is the only vote Tillis will get on this. No regrets.) Tillis similarly wasn’t so sure about how RFK Jr. was working out as head of Health and Human Services, but said he had decided to defer to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a doctor, who thought “we should, uh, see how it plays out.” (Not well, as Cassidy has himself acknowledged.)
Other truths that can now be spoken include the fact that it would be a bad idea to run the erstwhile North Carolina gubernatorial candidate — who posted on a porn forum that he was a “NAZI!” — for Tillis’ seat in the Senate, and the fact that President Trump is advised by “amateurs” who “act like the president when he’s out of the room.” Do you mean Stephen Miller? Tapper asked Tillis. Alas, the answer to that question is a truth that it is not time to speak.
In today’s MAGA era, a Republican senator who has decided it is time to live his truth must still, to some extent, be constrained by greater truths. Specifically, those on Truth Social. It is, in other words, still important to not create circumstances which might inspire a certain Truth Social power user and owner to Truth at you.
Thus, the newly less-constrained Tillis must still explain that he has no beef with Trump. “I don’t have a problem with President Trump,” he told Tapper. “I very seldom believe I’ve ever disagreed with him,” he said at another point. “But I have disagreed with bad advice that some of his advisors are giving him, whether it’s on a nominee or whether it’s on policy.” Advice, for instance, that might give voters the impression that Trump was lying when he said he would not cut Medicaid.
Given that Trump has surrounded himself with “amateurs” who give “bad” advice on such things as nominees, will Tillis now see his way to opposing a lifetime judgeship for Trump’s personal lawyer-turned-primary DOJ goon, whose nomination is up for a Judiciary Committee vote next week?
“I’m probably going to go with the staff recommendation,” Tillis said Wednesday, per Politico.
The staff recommendation, he added, is that he vote to confirm.
— John Light
Mazel Tov to Fox News and Their Loved Ones in Congress!
Last month, Fox News and the House Republicans made their union official.
On June 22, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) proposed to Brooke Singman, a Fox News Digital political correspondent and reporter. News of the happy couple’s engagement broke in Friday’s edition of Politico Playbook. The writeup had some incredible details.
Reschenthaler, who has repeatedly characterized New York City as a deadly, lawless hellscape on his social media, proposed to his fiancée during a picnic in Manhattan’s Central Park. According to Politico, afterwards, they celebrated at Singman’s “favorite restaurant” in SoHo, the upscale French bistro Balthazar. Their magical evening was capped with a night at the five star Plaza Hotel. Somehow, they seem to have avoided the bullets and roving gangs. The Playbook item also noted that the pair first met at one of President Trump’s campaign events before they “reconnected” at a bistro in D.C. where Singman brought her laptop “thinking it could become an interview opportunity.” A totally lovely situation that has none of the makings of a borderline HR violation!
Those two crazy kids aren’t the only ones in the right wing cable empire and the GOP congressional delegation who have ended up in love. The Independent’s Justin Baragona pointed out that their news came on the heels of a similar announcement from Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich.
According to a lavish spread in People, Fitzpatrick and Heinrich were engaged on June 29 after a proposal that included a drone and human photographer in a lavender field in France. Fitzpatrick’s decision to pop the question in France was apparently inspired by an earlier interview Heinrich gave where she declared that it was her dream to go to the French Riviera “to eat the baguettes, see the lavender fields, drink the wine and eat the butter.” Following their proposal and photoshoot, the pair decamped to St. Tropez and Cannes.
One might think that it would be awkward for a media outlet to have two of its reporters literally married to sitting politicians. In our weird new political era, the French might actually have the best answer: c’est la vie.
TPM would like to wish all of these couples a fair and balanced future together!
— Hunter Walker