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John:
Hello from Capitol Hill.
This week we pick up from where we left off after last week’s newsletter: the Israeli conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran has escalated to include the United States. On Thursday, President Trump appeared to punt his decision to support Israel’s efforts, saying he would take about two weeks to decide. Two days later, seven B-2 Stealth Bombers dropped over a dozen 15-ton bunker buster bombs on three different Iranian nuclear sites without any shots fired from the Islamic Republic, likely obliterating Iran’s nuclear program. This was a rapid escalation from the United States’ initial aloof stance last week to Israel’s systematic destruction of Iranian air defenses. By all accounts, the Trump administration had tried to negotiate a deal with Iranian leadership to ensure that Iran would not develop a nuclear weapon – something that would make it extraordinarily difficult for western powers to intervene against Iran in the future (à la North Korea) and endanger American positions and allies in the Middle East. Negotiations failed, Trump annihilated Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Iran conducted a milquetoast response, and then Trump brokered a tentative ceasefire. While Israel and Iran have violated the agreement, drawing Trump’s ire, analysts remain unsure if the war will continue or sputter out.
Preceding Trump’s decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, a raucous conversation coursed throughout MAGA-world, perhaps best encapsulated by Tucker Carlson’s debate with Senator Ted Cruz. Carlson, representing the perspective of the dissident- and anti-war right, stridently advocated for non-intervention, while Senator Cruz defended the Trump administration’s posturing and a then-prospective first strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. While Trump’s foreign policy has been characterized as the newest iteration of Roosevelt’s Big Stick philosophy, he has consistently said for over a decade that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon – a sentiment with which around 80 percent of Americans concur. Many Americans feared that President Trump’s actions could have led to a repeat of the Iraq War – but the best-case scenario seems to be the outcome. Amidst a backdrop of Americans reevaluating their nation’s relationship with the State of Israel and a global rising tide of antisemitism and religious tumult, it would seem no other issue of 2025 has so quickly divided the country.
And somehow, there is still more legacy-defining action in store this week for The Donald. The Senate has begun the sausage-making of President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, proceeding through the first round of so-called Byrd Baths over the weekend and on Monday. A Byrd Bath refers to the Senate Parliamentarian’s scrutiny of a budget bill with respect to the Senate’s Byrd rule, which holds that such legislation must solely concern budgetary adjustments and nothing extraneous (political legislating). Despite Senate and House Republicans’ arguments and hopes, the Parliamentarian ruled that the below provisions (amongst others) are not Byrd-compliant:
- Limitations on the kinds of nationwide injunctions that have handicapped many of President Trump’s executive orders;
- A zeroing-out of the budget for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau;
- Making illegal immigrants unable to get food stamps;
- and more.
Perhaps the biggest issue emerging from the Byrd Bath is that several provisions which generated savings in the budgetary analysis of the bill have been invalidated – throwing the package fiscally off balance and creating cost concerns for fiscal hawks. This is on top of three particular Senators (Ron Johnson, Rick Scott, and Mike Lee) saying that they’ll work as a bloc to create greater savings in the bill. With a Republican conference and further Byrd review of the Big Beautiful Bill’s Finance Committee portion still to come, the vehicle for President’s legislative agenda is likely to change in a major way this week. And – Majority Leader Thune is still trying to get a vote on this bill by the Fourth of July next week (a scheduled recess for both chambers).
Latest From Around the Conservative Movement
One More Thing
Sincerely,
Jake Chebowski
Government Relations
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