‘Not in favor’: GOP chairs slam brakes on major cut in Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’
Two top Republican lawmakers are throwing a wrench into their own party’s budget strategy as they made clear they would reject proposed cuts to food assistance programs that were expected to help fund what President Donald Trump has dubbed the “big, beautiful bill” on taxes, immigration and defense.”
That’s according to the Washington Post, which reported Thursday that the chairs of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees – Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) and Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) – said they won’t support reductions to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Thompson told the Post he would not support a redesign of the benefit formula that the Trump administration claims would result in billions of dollars in savings, while Boozman said that he is “not in favor of reducing benefits.”
ALSO READ: Trump's top spy chief blasted as Raw Story exposes 'crazy' cash grab
“Those declarations could scramble Republicans’ bid to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts while slashing trillions of dollars in spending from the federal budget,” the Post noted Thursday. “The GOP is working to pass the legislation through a process called ‘reconciliation’ to allow the Senate to bypass a Democratic filibuster.”
Thompson added in his comments to the publication that his House committee can’t realistically meet the $230 billion in cuts called for in the GOP budget framework passed last month.
“I think it may have to be less than that,” Thompson reportedly said. However, Thompson said his committee is on the verge of capping the president’s ability to broaden food assistance benefits without congressional approval.
“That proposal would save $30 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, lawmakers’ nonpartisan bookkeeper,” the Post reported.
‘Lies!’ GOP senator lashes out after stinging ad hits airwaves in Trump’s backyard
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is firing back after his 2026 primary opponent slammed his record in a new TV ad that aired not in the Lone Star State, but in President Donald Trump’s backyard.
The ad, funded by Preserving Texas, a group supporting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attacks Cornyn over his role in crafting a bipartisan safety bill in 2022, Axios reported Thursday. The group spent $60,000 to air the TV spot over the weekend on the Trump-approved Fox News, Newsmax and the Golf Channel in Palm Beach, home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort, the publication added.
“As usual, President Trump was right,” the narrator says in the ad, which also references Trump’s past criticism of Cornyn as a “RINO,” another name for Republican in Name Only.
But Cornyn isn’t taking the hit lying down in an early preview of what is expected to be one of the nation’s most expensive and hotly contested Senate races of the 2026 midterms.
ALSO READ: Trump's top spy chief blasted as Raw Story exposes 'crazy' cash grab
“Corrupt Ken Paxton ordered up another mediocre campaign video that predictably lies about Senator Cornyn's long career of strongly supporting Second Amendment Rights," a Cornyn spokesperson, according to Axios. "As an avid hunter himself, Senator Cornyn supports the constitutional right to carry and always has."
The ad strategy highlights that the aggressive jockeying for Trump’s coveted MAGA endorsement has already begun, Axios pointed out Thursday. The approach has been tested before.
“Trump is a cable news junkie, and Republican candidates and interest groups are known to run ads in South Florida with an eye toward influencing him,” Axios reported. “In 2020, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie aired a commercial in Palm Beach in which he called his primary opponent a "Trump hater."
‘Designed to intimidate’: Supreme Court justice rips Trump over ‘threats and harassment’
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke out Thursday against what she saw as President Donald Trump's efforts to bully and threaten the federal judiciary into submission, Politico reported.
The remarks from Jackson, the most junior member of the Supreme Court, came as she addressed a judge's conference in Puerto Rico.
“The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate,” she said. “The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”
ALSO READ: Trump's top spy chief blasted as Raw Story exposes 'crazy' cash grab
President Donald Trump has escalated his verbal abuse of judges amid a series of rulings that block him from carrying out mass deportations and implementing various executive orders to reshape the civil service. Some of the judges to rule against him are judges Trump himself appointed. In other cases, like the dispute over returning wrongly deported Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a Salvadoran megaprison, observers have accused Trump of ignoring court orders outright.
As this standoff has continued, some of Trump's allies have advocated for stripping judges of power to prevent Trump from being challenged.
Jackson and the liberal wing of the Supreme Court do not stand alone in these criticisms. Chief Justice John Roberts has also spoken out, expressing worry that politicians on all sides are losing confidence in the judiciary, and particularly condemned Trump's call to impeach judges who rule against him.
