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The last time a Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump moved to slash Medicaid spending, in 2017, a key political force stood in their way: GOP governors.

Now, as Congress steamrolls toward passing historic Medicaid cuts of about $1 trillion over 10 years through Trump’s tax and spending legislation, red-state governors are saying little publicly about what it does to health care — even as they face reductions that will punch multibillion-dollar holes in their states’ budgets.

Medicaid, a program jointly run by states and the federal government, covers more than 70 million low-income or disabled people, including nearly half of the nation’s children. Republicans say the $900 billion-a-year program was allowed to grow too large under Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden by adding nondisabled adults they say don’t deserve government assistance, and they have long sought to scale it back.

Some of the biggest health cuts in the legislation Trump calls the “One Big Beautiful Bill” are achieved through new policies that would reduce enrollment by imposing more paperwork demands on enrollees, including a requirement that many prove they’re working. Those policies would affect only states that expanded Medicaid to more low-income people under the Affordable Care Act.

Nineteen of those states are led by Republican governors. Their silence on the bill’s health measures is giving political cover to GOP lawmakers from their states as they seek to cut Medicaid coverage for millions of people who gained it within the last decade.

KFF Health News contacted all 19 governors for comment on the legislation’s Medicaid cuts. Only six responded. Most said they backed imposing a work requirement on adult Medicaid enrollees.

“Implementing work requirements for able-bodied adults is a good and necessary reform so that Medicaid is being used for temporary assistance and not a permanent entitlement,” said Drew Galang, a spokesperson for Gov. Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia.

“Governor Rhoden supports workforce participation as a requirement of Medicaid expansion eligibility,” said Josie Harms, a spokesperson for South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden, adding that congressional lawmakers have the governor’s support: “South Dakota has an excellent federal delegation, and Governor Rhoden trusts them to fight for South Dakota’s priorities while delivering on President Trump’s promises.”

In a sign of how the political winds have changed, none of the governors said anything about another of the legislation’s significant cuts, to provider taxes — a tool that nearly all of their states use to help pay their share of Medicaid and gain additional funds from the federal government. That change is expected to cost states billions.

No Longer a Bipartisan Issue

In contrast to the radio silence from GOP governors, Democratic governors have campaigned against the megabill for weeks.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro posted on the social platform X that Trump and congressional Republicans were misleading Americans by saying they were cutting only waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid.

“They’re rushing to kick hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians off their healthcare — and lying about it,” he posted. “The damage this will do here in Pennsylvania and across America is staggering and will be felt for years to come.”

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul on July 1 charged that Trump’s legislation would devastate hospitals and could lead to more than 34,000 job cuts in her state.

“The collective impact of the GOP reconciliation bill in Washington, D.C., could force hospitals to curtail critically needed services such as maternity care and psychiatric treatment, not to mention to downsize operations, and even close entirely,” she said in a statement.

In 2017, the chorus was bipartisan, as Republican governors in Ohio, Nevada, and Massachusetts spoke out against cutting Medicaid. Trump’s bill to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act and roll back its Medicaid expansion narrowly failed in the Senate.

“It’s been surprising that red-state governors, particularly those in Medicaid expansion states, haven’t spoken out against Medicaid cuts,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News. “Republican governors were a potent political force in the failed 2017 effort to repeal and replace the ACA, including Medicaid expansion.”

What’s changed since 2017, policy experts say, is that there are fewer moderate Republican governors, and GOP state executives who advocated for Medicaid expansion over a decade ago are no longer in office.

Additionally, seven of the then-red states that expanded Medicaid did so via ballot initiative, mostly over opposition from their governors.

In fact, the Medicaid work requirement is backed by many Republican governors, even if it means less federal Medicaid money and leads to fewer people covered.

Several states, including Arkansas and Ohio, have already passed state laws to implement a requirement that adults enrolled under the ACA’s Medicaid expansion work, volunteer, go to school, or participate in job training. Most states have yet to bring work requirement programs to fruition because they are waiting for federal government approval.

Charles “Chip” Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, a trade group of investor-owned hospitals, said that while fewer governors have engaged publicly in trying to block Medicaid cuts under the bill, federal lawmakers are hearing from legislators in their states.

A political dilemma for Republican governors is that, unlike in 2017, the bill before Congress is not legislation aimed expressly at repealing Obamacare. With a scope broader than health care, it would extend many of Trump’s tax cuts and direct billions in new spending toward border security, immigration enforcement, and the military, while also cutting health care spending.

“It’s like playing multidimensional chess rather than focusing on one issue,” Kahn said.

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said some Republican governors may have expressed concerns privately to their states’ GOP senators but are not speaking out publicly for fear of drawing Trump’s wrath.

“Why are they being cagey? Trump and not wanting to be ‘Liz Cheney’d,’” Jacobs said, referring to the Republican former Wyoming lawmaker whom Trump helped oust after she served as vice chair of an inquiry into his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Walking Political Tightropes

The political peril Republican lawmakers face in publicly challenging Trump remains explicit. On June 29, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced he would not run for reelection after he voiced concerns about the bill and the president threatened to back a primary challenger. Tillis was one of three GOP senators to vote against it on July 1, though it still narrowly passed.

In addition to the work requirement, the biggest Medicaid cuts in the bill stem from its restrictions on provider taxes — levies that states impose on hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care institutions to help increase their federal reimbursement. Much of the additional money is then returned to the health care providers in the form of higher payments for their Medicaid patients.

The practice, which has been adopted in every state but Alaska, has been criticized by some Beltway Republicans as “money laundering” — even though the taxes are approved by state lawmakers and the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and have been allowed under federal law for decades.

The Senate bill would limit the money states could raise — a move that would mean billions in funding cuts to states and their hospitals.

The states with Republican governors that expanded Medicaid are Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Utah.

One of the governors who expressed concerns about repealing the Obamacare Medicaid expansion in 2017 was Jim Justice of West Virginia, a Democrat at the time.

In a June 2017 letter to West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, Justice wrote: “Since so many of our people count on Medicaid, any cut to Medicaid would destroy families in West Virginia.” He added that “the consequences would be beyond catastrophic.”

On July 1, Justice — elected to the Senate as a Republican last year — voted for Trump’s megabill, including its Medicaid cuts.

“The Senator believes this bill strikes a good balance between protecting the most vulnerable and those who rely on the program while rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse to ensure the program is run efficiently for those deserving,” William O’Grady, a Justice spokesperson, said in an email July 2.

KFF Health News correspondent Arielle Zionts contributed to this report.

Update: Just before 3 p.m. on Thursday, the House of Representatives voted, 218 to 214, to pass the latest version of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax cut bill. According to Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, Trump will sign the bill into law on Friday at 5 p.m.

When the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of President Donald Trump’s megabill back in May, legislators included a loophole that would allow large farms to maximize the total amount of federal dollars they can collect. When the bill moved on to the Senate, legislators there first sought to expand that loophole and make it easier for industrial farms to cash in on subsidies.  

Then, leading up to Tuesday’s vote, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who has previously advocated for reining in America’s factory farms, proposed an amendment that took aim at the loophole — a measure that would make sure that farm safety nets reach small and medium-size family farms, too, according to a one-pager on the amendment released by Grassley’s staff and obtained by Grist. 

Other Republicans from farm country balked at the move, and in the end, Senate agricultural committee chair John Boozman convinced Grassley to drop the amendment. The Senate voted to pass the bill, a huge legislative victory for Trump. It now moves back to the House for a final high-stakes vote before heading to the president’s desk. 

The exclusion of Grassley’s provision is congruent with the Trump administration’s two evident priorities when it comes to agricultural policy: slash federal food and farm funding, leaving small farmers struggling to stay afloat, and shower commodity farmers with multibillion-dollar bailouts. 

The result, said Austin Frerick, an agricultural and antitrust expert, is akin to “throwing gasoline on the inequality in America and in the food system.”

In the end, the main agricultural policy elements of the Senate bill were virtually the same as what was in the House’s version. Funding for rural development programs, farm loans, programs that invest in local and regional supply chains, and farmer-led sustainable research remain conspicuously absent.

What both versions do contain is a slick budgeting maneuver that takes unobligated climate-targeted funds from President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, and reinvests them into programs under the current farm bill. In doing so, the budget bill would erase the requirements that the money must fund climate-specific projects. The Senate bill also retains the House’s proposal to increase subsidies to commodity farms — typically larger farms that grow crops like corn, cotton, and soybeans — by about $50 billion. 

“To me, it’s sending the message that there’s only one way to support farmers, and it’s through increased commodity subsidies for a select few farmers,” said Mike Lavender, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “And the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.”

One prominent aspect where the Senate bill deviates from the House bill has to do with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The House proposed that the federal government shift the financial onus of SNAP costs onto states, for the first time ever — increasing the administrative costs states have to cover up to 75 percent, as well as mandating that states pay for a portion of the benefit costs. The Senate bill does that, too, but to a lesser degree: It would require states with specific payment error rates to pay anywhere between 5 percent and as much as 15 percent of the benefit costs, with some final-hour exemptions made by Senate Republicans for Alaska and Hawai‘i in order to get Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski to vote in favor of the bill. 

By taking resources away from the federal government’s first line of defense against rising rates of hunger, the risk of food insecurity for millions of Americans is poised to deepen. The bill also puts forward new SNAP work requirements, mandating that parents of children ages 14 and older, veterans, those who are unhoused, former foster youth, and a subset of older people all work to maintain their benefits. If finalized, fewer immigrants, including refugees, people approved for asylum, certain domestic violence victims, and survivors of trafficking, would be eligible for the monthly grocery stipend. 

These changes are emblematic of what Parker Gilkesson Davis of the Center for Law and Social Policy called “the decline of public benefit programs.” The changes to SNAP, Gilkesson Davis continued, will “take away from the people, who have just not been able to catch a break, the ability to put food on their table.” Congressional Budget Office estimates suggest the Senate proposal would reduce federal spending on SNAP by roughly $287 billion over a decade. It is also expected to cause a little over 22 million families to lose some or all of their monthly food benefits, according to a new report by the Urban Institute.   

Another of Trump’s priorities will have grave implications for farmworkers and the business of producing food. As it is written now, the bill will increase the $10 billion annual budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, by more than $100 billion through 2029 for detention facilities, border wall operations, and deportations, and make it more expensive for immigrants to apply for asylum, work authorization, humanitarian parole, and temporary protected status. About 40 percent of crop farmworkers are immigrants without legal status.  

“When we see ourselves targeting communities who are working to put food on our tables, and you are removing them from meat-processing plants, you’re removing them from the fields where they would have otherwise been processing or harvesting food, then we have less folks to put food on our tables,” said Nichelle Harriott, the policy director of HEAL Food Alliance. “What does that mean in terms of our broader food economy and food chain? So I don’t think this is a bill that has been thought through in terms of what will be the ripple effects on the economy, on people’s budgets, on people’s wallets.”

Senator Grassley was successful in advocating for another provision in the bill related to agriculture: an extension and increase for a federal credit for small producers of biofuels, a derivative of food crops such as corn. The bill also maintains the transferability rules that allow producers using the credits to avoid large tax liabilities. Biofuels, and the devotion of land to producing bioenergy crops, have long been regarded as a misguided climate solution. 

“The significant investment in biofuel developments is going to be detrimental to building a food system that is centered on farmers and consumers. Under these provisions, we’re literally turning our farmers into miners, where instead of growing food, they’ll be growing feedstocks for energy production,” said Jim Walsh, policy director at the nonprofit Food & Water Watch. That will not only “push up food costs on consumers,” he said, “but undermine our ability to actually build true clean energy projects.” 

For 20-year-old Cale Johnson, what’s at stake with the budget bill moving through Congress isn’t just about the national and global implications — it’s deeply personal. Growing up in Kearney, Nebraska, his family relied on SNAP dollars to be able to afford groceries for most of his life. Even with those benefits, he and his mother still had to go to food pantries and Salvation Army food drives every month to avoid going hungry.

The steep cuts to SNAP in the bill, Johnson said, is a reflection of how congressional policymakers misconstrue the purpose of the program, and who relies on it. “Especially in Nebraska, there are so many Trump voters and Republican voters, lifelong conservatives who are on [SNAP]” he said. “I don’t think they understand that this is going to hurt millions out of their own voter base, and that they’re going to be betraying the very people that have been loyal to them for decades.”

Frida Garza contributed reporting to this story. 

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Federal prosecutors traced and seized $40,000 in crypto from scammers posing as Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee officials.

US federal prosecutors seized $40,300 in cryptocurrency recovered from an email scam that impersonated the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, according to a complaint filed by US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.

The scheme tricked a donor into sending $250,300 worth of USDt (USDT) stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain to scammers posing as committee officials, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in a Wednesday news release.

The scammers sent an email on Dec. 24, 2024, that appeared to come from Steve Witkoff, co-chair of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. The fake email used the domain @t47lnaugural.com, swapping a lowercase “l” for an “i” to deceive the receiver.

Believing the request was legitimate, the victim transferred the funds two days later into a crypto wallet controlled by the scammers. The stolen funds were quickly laundered through multiple cryptocurrency wallets.

Related: DOJ files to confiscate alleged North Korea IT worker crypto

FBI recovers $40,000 of stolen funds

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was able to trace and recover $40,300 of the stolen USDT through blockchain analysis. Prosecutors are now seeking to return these assets to the victim through a civil forfeiture action.

“Impersonation scams take many forms and cost Americans billions in losses each year,” said Assistant Director in Charge Steven Jensen of the FBI Washington Field Office. He urged the public to scrutinize the addresses of email senders and never send crypto to unknown contacts, adding:

“Scammers often use subtle differences to deceive you and gain your trust. Never send money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or other assets to people you do not know personally or have only interacted with online or over the phone.”

In May 2024, Donald Trump announced that his presidential campaign would accept cryptocurrency donations through Coinbase Commerce. He launched an official fundraising page that supported Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), XRP (XRP), USDC (USDC), Solana (SOL) and other cryptocurrencies.

Related: 5 ‘insidious’ crypto scams to watch out for this year

DOJ credits Tether for its help

The DOJ credited Tether for its role in helping seize the stolen funds. The company assisted law enforcement in freezing and transferring the frozen assets.

In June, the federal agency also acknowledged Tether for helping seize about $225 million in USDT tied to a massive “pig butchering” scam that defrauded victims across several countries.

In an incident in May, the DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize over $24 million in crypto from Russian national Rustam Gallyamov, who was accused of developing the Qakbot malware.

Magazine: Bitcoin vs stablecoins showdown looms as GENIUS Act nears

Efforts to win over holdout House Republicans extend into early hours as Trump’s tax and spending bill hits hurdles.

Republicans in the United States House of Representatives have been locked in a dramatic impasse over President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending package, as a rebel group of lawmakers failed to support the bill that all Democratic representatives oppose.

Debate is currently under way at the House after the bill passed its last procedural hurdle in the early hours of Thursday, local Washington, DC, time. The final vote is expected in a few hours.

The standoff over the Trump administration’s flagship domestic policy package, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill, stretched into the early hours of Thursday, as the Republican leadership worked furiously to try to persuade holdouts to send the bill to Trump’s desk by a Friday, July 4 deadline, US Independence Day, while Trump railed against the rebels on social media.

“For Republicans, this should be an easy yes vote. Ridiculous!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

“Largest Tax Cuts in History and a Booming Economy vs. Biggest Tax Increase in History, and a Failed Economy. What are the Republicans waiting for?” he added, threatening that “MAGA is not happy, and it’s costing you votes.”

Earlier, Five Republicans voted “no” in the procedural vote to advance the legislation, while eight had yet to cast a vote.

Assuming all Democratic members cast a vote against the bill, Trump can afford to lose only three Republican votes if it is to advance to a final vote.

Centrepiece legislation

The hefty 800-page bill, the centrepiece of the president’s domestic agenda, combines sweeping tax cuts, spending hikes on defence and border security, and cuts to social safety nets into one giant package.

But it faces opposition within Trump’s Republican Party, with moderate critics expressing concern about its cuts to social safety-net programmes like Medicaid, and conservatives baulking at the trillions it is likely to add to the national debt.

Five Republicans voted against the bill: representatives Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Keith Self of Texas, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had summoned lawmakers to Washington for a roll call vote, in a bid to capitalise on the momentum of the bill’s passage a day earlier in the Senate and win House approval ahead of the July 4 national holiday.

Lawmakers had passed the bill by a 51 to 50 vote in the Republican-controlled chamber on Tuesday, after Vice President JD Vance broke the tie.

But the risky gambit to hold the roll call vote swiftly hit hurdles, with some Republican lawmakers resisting the request to rubber stamp the Senate version of the bill so soon after it passed.

‘Bad bill to enrich those who are already rich’

Johnson said he would keep voting open “as long as it takes”, as senior Republicans attempted to persuade holdouts to support the bill.

He said he believed that the Republican holdouts were “going to come on board”, and expected to proceed to a final vote on the legislation in the early hours of Thursday morning, The New York Times reported.

As Republicans remain deadlocked, Democrats ramped up their criticisms of the policy package. In a video message posted on social media, Representative Chuy Garcia described the legislation as a “bad bill to enrich those who are already rich”.

It’s past midnight in DC and Republicans are still trying to rip healthcare and food from working families to give tax breaks to billionaires. Call your Republican representative and tell them to vote HELL NO pic.twitter.com/IfyXFdSaqs

— Congressman Chuy García (@RepChuyGarcia) July 3, 2025

So far, 217 House Representatives have voted against advancing the legislation, including five Republicans, while 207 are in favour.

Members can change their vote until voting closes, and eight Republicans have yet to vote. The bill needs 218 votes to advance.

Source:

Al Jazeera and news agencies