Raw Story

Democrats are already plotting to go on the offense over House Republicans' vote to pass President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."

According to Punchbowl News' Max Cohen, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already circulated a memo stating that the GOP's vote “will cost them their majority next year,” and that “No matter what happens in the Senate with respect to budget reconciliation, House Republicans have already sealed their political fate.”

This aligns with exclusive Raw Story reporting that Democrats are already strategizing on how to make Republicans pay for their vote.

The GOP's counterparts at the National Republican Congressional Committee, meanwhile, are doing their best to flip the script, attacking Democrats who opposed the legislation as voting for “tax hikes, handouts to illegal immigrants, and open border chaos.”

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

The Republican bill, which came together haphazardly after weeks of impasse and faction-fighting, cuts hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, food assistance, and green energy programs, along with a number of other items like ending the IRS' free tax filing service, prohibiting states from enforcing artificial intelligence regulations for a decade, and sharply limiting the ability of federal courts to civilly sanction Trump administration officials for contempt.

Ultimately, a number of House Republicans who held out over various issues, like Medicaid cuts being either too harsh or not harsh enough, or for a more generous state and local tax deduction, either accepted various compromises or relented.

It now goes to the Senate, where, although the GOP is eager to pass it, it is all but certain to face major revisions from Senate Republicans and intense opposition from Democrats who could use procedural hurdles to strip a number of its provisions out.

MAGA world melted down Thursday over the University of Florida's newest hire — and one close Trump ally even demanded Gov. Ron DeSantis intervene.

Santa Ono was the sole finalist for the presidency of the university and is poised to be hired for the gig. His official appointment is pending confirmation by the Florida Board of Governors, but the university's Board of Trustees has unanimously recommended him for the position.

But Ono's selection was not without resistance from both sides of the aisle.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

The left has is criticized Ono for shutting down the University of Michigan’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and for his handling of pro-Palestinian protests, Florida Politics noted Thursday.

On the right, he's angered prominent MAGA die-hards, including Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, both close Trump allies.

“UF needs to go back and figure out somebody else,” Donalds said, according to the outlet, blasting Ono over a speech he made two years ago praising DEI.

"Under no circumstances should this lunatic be allowed to be the President of the University of Florida. Governor DeSantis, who has been great on education, must intervene immediately," Kirk wrote on X on Thursday afternoon.

"Santa Ono, finalist for the University of Florida presidency, promised students that he would 'strive to make sharing [his] pronouns part of regular introductory greetings' and start 'centering the voices' of 'Two-Spirit, transgender, and non-binary people.' Full woke," chided Christopher Rufo, a writer and activist who's self-described mission is to "overthrow the left-wing ideological regime that has dominated American life for a generation."

Libs of TikTok wrote on X, "He says it makes him very happy that students have become political activists to fight systemic racism and campus should be a place for creating cultural change to behaviors and laws to fight racism. He wants to turn students into BLM activists. How is this happening"

Resistance to Ono forced the university to respond on Thursday, with Mori Hosseini, chair of the Board of Trustees, and Trustee Vice Chair Rahul Patel telling the university community in an email that a "handful of external voices have sought to question Dr. Ono’s alignment with Florida’s vision for higher education."

"Dr. Ono is not shifting his views to fit Florida. He has been evolving his perspective over time — before UF ever approached him about this role,” the email said. “He brings a decisive break from the progressive orthodoxy that has gripped too many elite campuses — one that UF has resisted and risen above. He recognized the toll that ideological excess was taking — on campus culture, academic standards, and institutional trust — and made a clear and courageous choice: enough is enough.”

Hosseini and Patel called Ono the "right person to accelerate UF’s upward trajectory and help make it the undisputed leader among America’s public universities."

In response to the email, Rufo called the defense of Ono "absurd—he has a decade of statements in support of BLM, DEI, trans, and climate radicalism."

The Supreme Court's right-wing majority handed Trump a sudden "shadow docket" win on Thursday, granting him, at least temporarily, the power to fire independent agency heads at the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The ruling, the majority emphasized, does not overturn the landmark 1935 Humphrey's Executor v. United States ruling that allowed Congress to bar the president from firing the heads of independent, multi-member agencies without cause — but, wrote The Economist's Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie, the liberal dissent angrily pointed out that in practice, that's exactly what they're doing.

"The dissent is biting," wrote Mazie, analyzing the minority opinion of Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. "Lambastes the majority for all but overruling a 90 year-old precedent on the emergency docket. Calls the move extraordinary. And says the majority’s reasoning is 'unedifying' and favors the 'President over our precedent'."

The ruling also quoted Alexander Hamilton in cautioning the courts to set out a consistent precedent, which the majority is not doing.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

"Our Humphrey’s decision remains good law, and it forecloses both the President’s firings and the Court’s decision to award emergency relief," wrote Kagan. "Our emergency docket, while fit for some things, should not be used to overrule or revise existing law. We consider emergency applications 'on a short fuse without benefit of full briefing and oral argument'; and we resolve them with out fully (or at all) stating our reasons" — directly quoting Justice Amy Coney Barrett criticizing the shadow docket in a separate case.

"The court has been sitting on this application for weeks," Mazie wrote. "The extremely unsatisfying reasoning, which justice Kagan expertly exposes, shows how stymied they were, allowing Trump to take the law into his own hands without formally acknowledging the change."

"If this disingenuous, mealy mouthed order doesn’t convert everyone to being a legal realist, I don’t know what will," Mazie concluded.

FBI director Kash Patel has closed an internal watchdog office tasked with ensuring compliance with surveillance rules.

Patel helped spur the creation of the Office of Internal Auditing he's now closing when he attacked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, applications seeking court permission to wiretap a former Donald Trump campaign adviser during he Russia investigation, and his latest move comes as Congress considers whether to reauthorize a high-profile warrantless wiretapping law, reported the New York Times.

"The move is significant because it could give skeptics of the program new ammunition to argue that Congress should sharply curtail the law or even let it expire given that a guardrail has been discarded," the Times reported. "It also poses a crucial test for Mr. Patel, who rose in pro-Trump circles by attacking the F.B.I. over its abuses of the surveillance law but said during his confirmation hearing that he saw the program as a vital tool for gathering foreign intelligence and protecting national security."

Many of the claims Patel made as a congressional staffer in 2018 about FISA proved to be false or misleading, but an inspector general found different problems in the FBI's application process during the Russia probe in a follow-up audit in 2019, and the following year then-attorney general William Barr and then-FBI director Christopher Wray established the stand-alone Office of Internal Auditing.

"The F.B.I. did not comment," the Times reported. "But the closure was part of a larger reorganization, according to people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. The functions of the office, along with another, the Office of Integrity and Compliance, which helps ensure that employees comply with laws, regulations and policies in general, have been absorbed by the inspection division."

FISA was enacted in 1978 and requires the FBI to obtain warrants from a special court to conduct surveillance against suspected spies or terrorists on U.S. soil, and Congress added the Section 702 exception in 2008 allowing the government to collect communications of foreigners abroad without court orders, even when those targets are communicating with Americans.

Patel harshly criticized the bureau's use of the 702 exception during Wray's tenure, although the Times noted that some of his evidence was inaccurate, but he expressed general support for Section 702 during his confirmation hearings in January and said he would go further to ensure public trust as director.

“702 is a critical tool, and I’m proud of the reforms that have been implemented and I’m proud to work with Congress moving forward to implement more reforms,” he said at the time.

Rockstar Neil Young joined the list of celebrities attacking President Donald Trump publicly.

The Hollywood Reporter wrote Tuesday that the singer-songwriter came to the defense of Bruce Springsteen, who bashed Trump at two concerts in the UK over the past week.

“Bruce and thousands of musicians think you are ruining America," Young said in a message to Trump on his website late Monday. "You worry about that instead of the dyin’ kids in Gaza? That’s your problem. I am not scared of you. Neither are the rest of us. You shut down FEMA when we needed it most. That’s your problem Trump? STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT ROCKERS ARE SAYING. Think about saving America from the mess you made."

Springsteen attacked the Trump administration last Friday, saying that the United States is "currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration."

ALSO READ: ‘I'm a no’: Rebel House Republicans unswayed by Trump coercion

In response, Trump took to Truth Social, calling "The Boss" a “dried out prune of a rocker." He then told Springsteen that he “ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare’. Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”

"Remember what the White House is? 86/47???" Young asked, a reference to former FBI Director James Comey, who posted a photo of shells on the beach spelling out 86 47 — considered by many Trump allies to be a threat.

"That’s what you think about. You are forgetting your real job. You work for us. Wake up Republicans!" Young continued, according to the report. "This guy is out of control. We need a real president!”

Springsteen isn't the only musician Trump attacked, however. In another Truth Social post, Trump commented that Taylor Swift was no longer "HOT."

Young continued, “Taylor Swift is right. So is Bruce. You know how I feel. You are more worried about yourself than AMERICA. Wake up Trump!! Remember what the White House is?”

The report said that Young also posted a different comment, thanking Springsteen and sharing the video.

“As a Canadian-American dual citizen, I stand with the great majority, thanking you for speaking so eloquently and truthfully on behalf of the American people,” Young said. “We are with you my old friend. Your great songs of America ring true as you sing them to Europe and the world!”

Read the report here.

CNN anchor Brianna Keilar pressed Rep. Jimmy Patronis (R-FL) over the issue of a proposed a Medicaid work requirement as Republican lawmakers consider making cuts to pay for President Donald Trump's mega spending bill.

Trump met with Republicans on Capitol Hill Tuesday to motivate them to iron out their differences over the bill since he can only afford to lose three GOP votes in order to pass it.

Keilar noted that almost 140,000 of Patronis's constituents received Medicaid, which worked out to "roughly one out of every six people."

She asked if any of them would "lose Medicaid coverage" if the new work requirement for "able-bodied" people went into effect before 2029, as the congressman preferred. And she asked for clarification on who constituted an "able-bodied" person.

"For example, should a young adult male in your district who is in the throes of addiction be expected to meet those requirements while in rehab?" Keilar asked.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade

"Right now, a young adult male in the state of Florida is not eligible for Medicaid unless he's disabled or has some other type of disability that's given that pathway," Patronis answered.

"Well, I'm asking if he should be eligible, facing a medical issue like that," Keilar said.

"So, that individual does not have access to expanded guaranteed Medicaid health benefits if he's an able-bodied male, because it's not part of Florida's acceptance into that program," Patronis answered.

Keilar then asked about the nation as a whole, not just Florida.

Patronis said, "When you've got able-bodied males that have the ability to go out and seek employment in order to maybe secure health insurance to the private sector, that frees up dollars for disabled, for elderly, for women. So again —"

Keilar interrupted, "Is that person abled-bodied, though? Sir, that's my question! But, congressman, that's my question. Is that an able-bodied person, someone who is in rehab dealing with addiction?"

After a lengthy debate, Patronis concluded, "I definitely want to make sure that the elderly or seniors are women or children — that they always have a robust safety net that always takes care of them. That is the purpose of Medicaid."

Watch the clip below via CNN.