Mike Johnson’s next big test: From the Politics Desk

1 week ago

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Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, we examine Speaker Mike Johnson’s latest effort to get House Republicans in line on a major bill. Plus, we dive into another day of economic uncertainty stemming from President Donald Trump’s tariff plans. And Steve Kornacki writes that last week’s election in Wisconsin highlighted the broad support that has emerged for voter ID policies.

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Mike Johnson’s next big test

Speaker Mike Johnson is once again trying to muscle a major piece of legislation through the narrowly divided House. And once again, he is leaning on President Donald Trump to get the job done.

At the White House on Tuesday afternoon, Trump met with Johnson and a group of House Republicans who are not on board with a Senate-approved budget resolution that would unlock Trump’s policy agenda on tax cuts, immigration enforcement and military spending.

Asked whether Trump was able to change any minds, Johnson responded, “I think he did.” He went on to say, “I think we’ll be moving forward this week.”

But it’s clear he still has his work cut out for him, as Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong, Melanie Zanona and Julie Tsirkin report.

A slew of House conservatives have blasted the Senate’s budget blueprint for requiring just $4 billion in spending cuts. A version the House adopted earlier this year, by contrast, called for $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in spending cuts while largely steering clear of specifics.

After having attended the meeting with Trump, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said, “Math still doesn’t math.”

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said earlier in the day: “Put it in writing. The Senate’s got to put the math in writing, like we did … and let us look at it. We’ve got a solid group that’s a no on this.” He estimated that he was among 15 to 20 Republicans vowing to vote down the budget plan.

With the House divided at 220-213, Johnson can afford only three GOP defections.

Johnson has already found himself in a similar position several times this year. Passing a separate budget resolution and a bill to keep the government funded required last-minute arm-twisting of lawmakers concerned about spending levels, efforts that included phone calls from Trump.

The question now is whether that same playbook will work a third time.

Markets endure another roller-coaster day with tariffs set to kick in

It was another roller-coaster day for the stock market with President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs set to go into effect at midnight tonight, including an additional 50% on goods from China.

The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about its willingness to negotiate the gigantic tariffs announced last week, and both Trump and China have escalated their rhetoric around what has become an all-out trade war, Rob Wile writes.

“Sometimes you have to mix it up a little bit,” Trump told reporters about his tariff plans at a White House event.

In the markets: Asian and European markets rallied overnight, with U.S. stocks initially maintaining that momentum. But it would end up being a wild day for Wall Street, with the major indexes declining throughout the day. The S&P 500 swung about 7% — initially starting out strongly positive but finishing the day down 1.6%.

The tech-focused Nasdaq went through a similar swing, closing 2.2% lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.8%.

Those major indexes are now sharply lower since Trump’s inauguration. The S&P 500 has lost 17% of its value, while the Nasdaq is down 22%.

On Capitol Hill: U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer testified before the Senate Finance Committee and faced pointed questions from lawmakers in both parties about Trump’s trade plans.

Greer said the tariffs are “both” a short-term negotiating tool and a long-term punitive measure. He also declined to call the tariff escalation a trade war, since “most countries have said they’re not going to retaliate.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican facing re-election next year in North Carolina who has expressed some skepticism over the tariff strategy, asked Greer: “Whose throat do I get to choke if this goes wrong?”

At the White House: The tariffs have also led to discord among Trump’s allies, with Elon Musk describing Trump’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, as a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”

That came in response to Navarro’s taking a shot at Musk in a CNBC interview, in which he said Musk, the CEO of Tesla, is “not a car manufacturer” but a “car assembler” who obtains cheap parts for Tesla vehicles from abroad.

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Wisconsin election underscores broad support for voter ID laws

By Steve Kornacki

For nearly two decades, Democrats have tried to sound the alarm over laws that require voters to produce government-issued identification to cast ballots. Last week offered yet another demonstration of just how little headway they’ve made with the public — including the rank and file of their own party.

On a day when the Democratic-backed candidate romped to a 10-point victory in an unusually high-profile state Supreme Court election, Wisconsin voters last Tuesday also approved an amendment to enshrine an existing voter ID law into the state constitution.

The amendment prevailed 63%-37%, a result made all the more striking given that Democrats appeared to turn out in disproportionately high numbers. In other words, support among Democratic for the voter ID ballot measure was not insignificant.

Just consider the two bluest counties in Wisconsin — the only two of the state’s 72 counties to vote against the amendment. In Milwaukee County, which Kamala Harris won by nearly 40 points last year and liberal Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford won by 50 last Tuesday, the voter ID amendment lost by only 2 points, 51%-49%. And in Madison-based Dane County, chock full of highly educated and politically liberal professionals, the voter ID measure lost by 28 points — a far cry from the 64-point drubbing GOP-aligned Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel suffered in the county.

That has become a familiar story over time. Requiring voter ID became a hot-button topic in the late aughts, with Republicans pushing for it at the state level and Democrats claiming it was a solution in search of a problem that amounted to an attempt to disenfranchise nonwhite voters. But all of the dire warnings from Democratic activists and leaders over the years have done little to dent the appeal of verifying identity before issuing ballots.

Here’s how national polling of adults has looked over the years:

Given this history, last week’s result in Wisconsin was hardly a shock. The court contest overshadowed the campaign over the amendment. That the amendment wouldn’t change the status quo (instead, it gives the status quo constitutional protection) probably took some wind out of the sails, too.

In the bigger picture, though, the result might prove to be an endpoint of sorts. Back when voter ID emerged as a contested issue, the self-interest for each party was easily apparent. Democrats in those days relied more heavily on politically disengaged voters, many of them nonwhite, who were more likely not to have the required ID (and not as likely to be motivated to acquire it simply for voting purposes). And it was Republicans then who drew much more heavily from highly engaged voters, many of them educated professionals, who reliably participated in elections.

But the party coalitions are shifting. Under Donald Trump, Republicans are insurgent among the nonwhite voters Democrats have long depended on, just as Democrats are making steady inroads into the GOP’s former white-collar base. The partisan self-interest on voter ID is now much less clear, which raises the question of whether either side will have much appetite for this fight.

🗞️ Today’s other top stories

📝 New EOs: Trump signed executive orders to bolster the country’s declining coal industry, relaxing restrictions on coal mining, leasing and exports, in what the White House said was an effort to meet the energy-intensive needs of artificial intelligence data centers. Read more →
⚖️ SCOTUS watch: The Supreme Court halted a federal judge’s ruling requiring several federal agencies to reinstate around 16,000 workers the Trump administration had sought to fire. Read more →
➡️ Across the border: The Trump administration is considering launching drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico as part of an ambitious effort to combat criminal gangs trafficking narcotics into the United States. Read more →
ℹ️ Info sharing: The Department of Homeland Security said in a court document that the IRS has agreed to share certain tax information filed by undocumented taxpayers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Read more →
⬇️ Potential troop drawdown: Senior Defense Department officials are considering a proposal to withdraw as many as 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe, sparking concerns on both continents that it would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin. Read more →
🗣️ Tightening security: The FBI has issued a call for agents to voluntarily serve as bodyguards for Deputy Director Dan Bongino, marking a break from past practice as the first time the bureau has given its No. 2 official a security detail. Read more →
🚫 Breaking ranks: Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the sole Republican to vote against Elbridge Colby, Trump’s nominee to be the undersecretary of defense for policy. The move drew a sharp rebuke from Vice President JD Vance: “Mitch’s vote today — like so much of the last few years of his career — is one of the great acts of political pettiness I’ve ever seen.” Read more →
🗳️ 2026 watch: House Democrats are setting their sights on some districts Trump won handily in November as they lay out their top targets and look to take control of the chamber in next year’s elections. Read more →
🗳️ 2026 watch, cont.: Former Gov. Chris Sununu announced he will not run for New Hampshire’s open Senate seat, despite encouragement from Trump. Read more →