The Congressional Budget Office estimates an increase of 10.9 million people without health insurance under President Donald Trump’s big bill, including 1.4 million who are in the country without legal status in state-funded programs. The package would reduce federal outlays, or spending, by $1.3 trillion over that period, the budget office said.
Meanwhile, Trump has promised to hike nearly all of his tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum to a punishing 50% on Wednesday, a move that would hammer businesses from automakers to home builders, and likely push up prices for consumers.
Here’s the latest:
Just days before she was set to give opening remarks at World Pride’s human rights conference in Washington, Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, the co-founder of UK Black Pride widely known as Lady Phyll, said she was denied entry to the U.S. after her visa was revoked due to her travels to Cuba earlier this year.
Many LGBTQ+ travelers have expressed concerns or decided to skip the gathering due to anxieties about safety, border policies and a hostile political environment. Several countries, including Denmark, Finland and Germany, issued cautions for LGBTQ+ travelers visiting the U.S. for World Pride.
Speaking over a livestream, Opoku-Gyimah said she applied immediately for a non-immigrant visa, but the earliest date she was given was in September.
“I’ve called. I’ve written. I’ve pleaded,” she said. “And the answer was a cold, bureaucratic ‘No.’”
That would include 1.4 million who are in the country without legal status in state-funded programs. The package would reduce federal outlays, or spending, by $1.3 trillion over that period, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said.
The analysis comes at a crucial moment in the legislative process as Trump is pushing Congress to have the final product on his desk to sign into law by Fourth of July.
The analysis comes at a crucial moment as President Trump is pushing to have the final product on his desk by Fourth of July.
The White House and GOP leaders have been sowing doubt on the Congressional Budget Office’s work. But its findings as the official scorekeeper of legislation will be weighed by lawmakers and others seeking to understand the budgetary effects of the sprawling 1,000-page plus package.
▶ Read more about Trump’s bill in Congress
Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced the special election to fill the Congressional seat representing the state’s most populous county would be set for Sept. 9. Both parties must choose their nominees by July 11.
Connolly, a fixture of Democratic politics in a deep blue district, died weeks after announcing he wouldn’t seek reelection. Before his death, he endorsed his former chief of staff and Fairfax County Board Supervisor James Walkinshaw, largely seen as a frontrunner among a crowded field of Democrats vying for the party’s nomination.
State Sen. Stella Pekarsky, state Del. Irene Shin and six other local Democrats have also filed to run. Three local Republicans and an independent have additionally launched their campaigns.
The special election takes place amid a busy year for Virginia voters in which candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and all 100 House of Delegates seats will be up for election in November.
U.S. stocks are drifting in tentative trading following a potentially discouraging signal on the job market and economy.
The S&P 500 edged up 0.2% Wednesday and lost some some momentum after a big rally drove it back within 3% of its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 53 points, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.3%.
The action was stronger in the bond market, where Treasury yields fell after a report suggested employers outside the government hired far fewer workers than expected last month. That could bode ill for Friday’s more comprehensive jobs report coming from the Labor Department.
Scheduled for 7 p.m. ET on the South Lawn, the event is billed as a way for Trump to thank and celebrate the work of hundreds of political appointees in his administration.
People in those jobs are chosen by the president and range from his staff at the White House to Cabinet secretaries and agency heads.
2 p.m. — Trump will receive his intelligence briefing
3 p.m. — Trump will sign proclamations
7 p.m. — Trump will participate in the “Summer Soirée” at the White House
The president, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee that oversees tax policy are meeting at the White House this afternoon to discuss Trump’s “one big beautiful” tax cut and spending bill.
That’s according to a person familiar with the schedule who was granted anonymity to confirm a private meeting.
The Republican-controlled House recently passed the bill by one vote, but it’s now facing resistance from a handful of Senate Republicans who want even deeper spending cuts.
Trump adviser Elon Musk has also blasted the bill as a “disgusting abomination.”
The centerpiece of Trump’s legislative agenda, the bill would extend $4.5 trillion in expiring tax cuts, spend more money on immigration and border enforcement and find savings by cutting Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments.
— Seung Min Kim and Darlene Superville
Futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq all rose 0.2% in light trading before the bell Wednesday morning.
The European Union’s top trade negotiator, Maroš Šefčovič, met Wednesday with his American counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Šefčovič said talks were “advancing in the right direction at pace.”
There’s been no official update on the status of the steel and aluminum tariffs as of early Wednesday morning. Those tariffs are expected to hit a broad range of businesses hard and likely push up prices for consumers.
▶ Read more about the financial markets
Trump was active on his social media site in the 2 a.m. ET hour.
“I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL,” he said in one post.
The Republican president said last week that he’ll stop being “Mr. NICE GUY” with China on trade after he accused the country of breaking an agreement with the U.S.
Trump and Xi are expected to speak by telephone this week.
In another overnight post, Trump criticized the use of an automatic pen by by his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, calling it a “scandal.”
Senior officials from nearly 50 nations gathered Wednesday, with the Pentagon’s chief absent for the first time since the group organizing the military aid was set up three years ago.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at NATO headquarters is going to be chaired by the United Kingdom and Germany. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would only arrive in Brussels after it’s over. He’ll participate in a meeting of NATO defense ministers Thursday.
His absence is the latest in a series of steps Washington has taken to distance itself from Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.
Before Wednesday’s meeting, the U.K. said that it plans a tenfold increase in drone production to help Ukraine. Drones have become a decisive factor in the war, now in its fourth year.
▶ Read more about efforts to support Ukraine
The European Union’s top trade negotiator, Maroš Šefčovič, met Wednesday with his American counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“We’re advancing in the right direction at pace,” Šefčovič said at a news conference. He said ongoing technical meetings between EU and U.S. negotiators in Washington would be soon followed by a video conference between himself and Greer to then “assess the progress and charter the way forward.”
Brussels and Washington are unlikely to reach a substantive trade agreement in Paris. The issues dividing them are too difficult to resolve quickly.
President Trump regularly fumes about America’s persistent trade deficit with the European Union, which was a record $161 billion last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
▶ Read more about tariff negotiations between the U.S. and Europe
Top Trump administration officials — fresh off touring one of the country’s largest oil fields in the Alaska Arctic — headlined an energy conference led by the state’s Republican governor on Tuesday that environmentalists criticized as promoting new oil and gas drilling and turning away from the climate crisis.
Several dozen protesters were outside Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s annual Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference in Anchorage, where U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin were featured speakers. The federal officials were continuing a multiday trip aimed at highlighting Trump’s push to expand oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in the state.
Calls for additional drilling — including Trump’s renewed focus on getting a massive liquefied natural gas project built — are “false solutions” to energy needs and climate concerns, protester Sarah Furman said outside the Anchorage convention hall, as people carried signs with slogans such as “Alaska is Not for Sale” and “Protect our Public Lands.”
▶ Read more about environmentalists’ reactions
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would revoke guidance to the nation’s hospitals that directed them to provide emergency abortions for women when they are necessary to stabilize their medical condition.
That guidance was issued to hospitals in 2022, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upended national abortion rights in the U.S. It was an effort by the Biden administration to preserve abortion access for extreme cases in which women were experiencing medical emergencies and needed an abortion to prevent organ loss or severe hemorrhaging, among other serious complications.
Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, emergency rooms that receive Medicare dollars to provide an exam and stabilizing treatment for all patients. Nearly all emergency rooms in the U.S. rely on Medicare funds.
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would no longer enforce that policy.
The move prompted concerns from some doctors and abortion rights advocates that women will not get emergency abortions in states with strict bans.
▶ Read more about the administration revoking guidance on emergency abortions
The White House on Tuesday officially asked Congress to claw back $9.4 billion in already approved spending, taking funding away from programs targeted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
It’s a process known as “rescission,” which requires Trump to get approval from Congress to return money that had previously been appropriated. Trump’s aides say the funding cuts target programs that promote liberal ideologies.
The request, if it passes the House and Senate, would formally enshrine many of the spending cuts and freezes sought by DOGE. It comes at a time when Musk is extremely unhappy with the tax cut and spending plan making its way through Congress, calling it on Tuesday a “disgusting abomination” for increasing the federal deficit.
White House budget director Russ Vought said more rescission packages and other efforts to cut spending could follow if the current effort succeeds.
“We are certainly willing and able to send up additional packages if the congressional will is there,” Vought told reporters.
▶ Read more about Trump’s request to Congress