Cozen Currents: Trump the Uniter

“The GOP is divided over key policy issues, such as Medicaid cuts, support for green energy, and changes to food assistance programs. But the consistent unifying force for both the party and the MAGA movement is President Trump.” — Howard Schweitzer, CEO, Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies

The Cozen Lens

• Senate GOP lawmakers are racing to reach an agreement on modifications to the House-passed reconciliation bill in an effort to send the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act to President Trump’s desk by July 4th.
• President Trump has integrated Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement into his own MAGA coalition, expanding his base by appealing to a new voter demographic.
• The future of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office — and its $400 billion in loan authority — hangs in the air as Republicans balance between cutting the parts they don’t like and expanding the parts they do.

Senate Takes Its Turn on Reconciliation Bill

A Familiar Fight. The Senate’s version of the reconciliation bill is expected to closely resemble that of the House, but negotiations between fiscal hawks and moderate GOP senators will determine whether key changes to the bill’s Medicaid and green energy tax credit provisions materialize in the upper chamber’s legislation.

• Close coordination between House and Senate committee leaders throughout the House’s drafting of the reconciliation bill has limited the need for a complete overhaul in the Senate. House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) recently told the Washington Examiner that he expects about 95 percent of the House’s provisions to remain in the Senate’s version of the bill. Still, the five or so percent of the bill that will change is the subject of a fierce debate between moderate holdouts seeking changes to the House’s proposed cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and green energy tax credits, and fiscal hawks seeking even greater savings than the roughly $1.6 trillion included in the House-passed bill.
• A group of five to seven moderate GOP senators, most prominent among which is Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), have voiced their concern with provisions related to state Medicaid financing mechanisms and implementing a new cost-sharing requirement for certain adults in Medicaid’s expansion population. A separate but overlapping group of moderate senators is seeking slower phaseouts of the Inflation Reduction Act’s green energy tax credits, particularly for the tech-neutral clean electricity production and investment credits. And a yet different group of senators is negotiating changes to the bill’s new cost-sharing requirement for state allotments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
• To secure moderating changes to the bill, those senators will have to contend with the opposing concerns of a group of four deficit hawks led by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI). Johnson has been adamant that he wants to return federal spending to pre-pandemic levels, a multi-trillion dollar cut in real terms, although he’s acknowledged that not all of those savings can be achieved in one bill. Johnson is reportedly open to backing a bill that maintains only roughly the $1.6 trillion in cuts included in the House-passed bill if the White House promises to pursue further spending cuts in legislation later this year.

The Senate’s Procedural Hurdles. Beyond any ideologically-motivated changes to the bill, a handful of House-passed provisions are expected to be struck in an effort to comply with the Senate’s reconciliation rules.

• Reconciliation bills in the Senate need to comply with a strict set of guidelines, under the Byrd Rule, that don’t exist in the House. The Byrd Rule places a number of limitations on the provisions that can be included in a reconciliation bill, chief among which is a requirement that any given provisions has a budgetary impact that’s more than “merely incidental.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) noted last week that Democrats plan to challenge a wide array of the reconciliation bill’s policy changes on the basis that they aren’t compliant with the Byrd Rule, something that will ultimately be determined by the Senate parliamentarian.
• Among the measures most at risk of being struck for procedural reasons are the House’s 10-year moratorium on AI regulation, which the Senate Commerce Committee recently tied to a new pot of $500 million in AI funding, the Senate Banking Committee’s measure to zero out funding to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a measure limiting courts’ ability to enforce contempt decisions, a provision banning future federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and a number of Farm Bill-related provisions, among other things.

An Ambitious Timeline. While both procedural and political issues in the Senate remain unresolved, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is forging ahead with an ambitious goal of passing the bill out of the Senate by the end of the month.

• Thune and his leadership team are under pressure from President Trump and the White House who want the bill on the president’s desk by July 4th. Since the House will need time to vote again on the bill once it gets out of the Senate, Thune is targeting a Senate vote the week of June 22nd. In an effort to meet Thune’s deadline, four of the ten Senate committees with reconciliation instructions have released updated legislative text with the remaining committees, including the all-important Senate Finance Committee, aiming to release their text this week.
• Although Thune is rushing to get the bill out of the upper chamber this month, the real deadline for the bill to get to Trump’s desk is the end of July, giving senators some additional breathing room. The decision to include a debt ceiling hike in the reconciliation bill means that the legislation must pass ahead of the X-date, or the date by which the US won’t be able to meet its financial obligations, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent projects could come as soon as August.

MAHA as a Political Asset

MAGA Goes MAHA. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement has become an integral part of the MAGA movement.

• Starting out as President Trump’s rival in last year’s presidential election, Kennedy later endorsed him and has become one of the highest-profile members of his Cabinet. Since taking office, Kennedy has moved aggressively to leave his stamp on HHS, including reorganizing the department.
• Kennedy’s MAHA movement cuts across traditional partisan lines. For example, Governor Jared Polis (D-CO) applauded his nomination last November. Polis said in a post on X that he was “excited by the news” and highlighted “taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health.” Integrating MAHA into his coalition allows Trump to appeal to new demographics who may not have previously considered themselves Republicans. By empowering Kennedy, Trump has tapped into a deep well of mistrust with the pharmaceutical and food industries, such as that of the “MAHA moms.”
• Trump’s recent selection of Dr. Casey Means, a MAHA-aligned wellness influencer, as surgeon general underlines Kennedy’s influence in the administration. “Bobby really thought she was great. I don’t know her. I listened to the recommendation of Bobby,” Trump told The Hill.

The MAHA Report. The MAHA Commission, chaired by Kennedy, released a report on chronic disease in children that outlines the movement’s vision for public health.

• The report is highly critical of ultra-processed food, which it blames for children’s health problems. The authors call for more consumption of “whole foods” in children’s diets. The Trump administration can pursue MAHA priorities via changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has approved waivers to allow three states to ban purchases of soda with SNAP benefits.
• The report describes the federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans as “compromised” and faults them for not addressing ultra-processed foods. Federal law requires HHS and the US Department of Agriculture to finish work on the standards by year end. Trump appointees can leverage the guidelines to reshape consumers’ diets. While the report came down hard on ultra-processed foods, pesticides were raised briefly.
• The report’s authors also criticize what they call the “overmedicalization” of children, specifically highlighting the prescription of psychiatric drugs and antidepressants. They also advance skepticism of childhood vaccines, a major interest of Kennedy’s for years. The report flags youth screen time and social media use, an indicator of the MAHA movement’s broad focus.

Remaking Green Loans Program in GOP's Image

The State of the LPO. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) was established in 2005 as a vehicle to finance large energy projects that the private sector would not.

• The Inflation Reduction Act expanded the loan authority of the LPO to a staggering $412 billion. The final days of the Biden White House saw the LPO approving billions in conditional commitments; $15 billion worth of these are currently under a review planned to be finished by summer. Some funds have been disbursed since being held up. Projects that have finalized contracts with the office are also likely in the clear from a legal perspective — though that doesn’t mean that the Trump administration won’t try to rescind these obligations.
• During President Trump’s first term, the strategy was to sideline the LPO and attempt to kill it. The LPO made absolutely zero loans to new projects during his first four years in office. He proposed completely eliminating its funding in proposed budgets and the office earned the unlucky distinction of being the only program targeted by both of his official rescission requests to Congress. Although unilaterally eliminating the LPO via executive order is off the table, the simpler option is just not to approve any more loans, as was done the first time around.

The Fate of the LPO. The GOP, now in control, are wondering what to do with the LPO and its billions in loan authority.

• The House-passed reconciliation bill goes after the LPO’s capital funds, rescinding all amounts not yet obligated except for one project. At the moment, the tide seems to be shifting in favor of a new tactic: retooling it to support the energy projects the GOP favors. Before a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright implored lawmakers, “making a plea” to keep the LPO operational: “We do need to make sure we have funding available in the Loan Programs Office because, used judiciously, it’s a way to leverage private capital to make things happen fast.”
• Some bills from Republican lawmakers would have accomplished just that. One would have expanded the LPO’s purview to include funding advanced nuclear projects; another from Senator James Risch (R-ID) suggested moving to mostly supporting only advanced nuclear, with a backstop guaranteeing the federal government would cover the expenses of a project’s cost overrun over a certain amount. One in a series of four recent executive orders boosting nuclear power instructs the LPO to make loans and the DOE’s budget request includes $750 million in credit subsidy for the agency to assist advanced reactors. At the same time, there are concerns that other parts of the White House are rowing in the opposite direction; DOGE cut 60 percent of the LPO’s staff.