A Republican senator drew President Donald Trump’s ire by voting against the motion to proceed on the One Big Beautiful Bill late Saturday night, prompting the president to vow to back a primary challenger to unseat him.

On Saturday night, Trump rebuked North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis on Truth Social.

'Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the Primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis.'

Tillis cited a crackdown on states dodging the 50-50 state-federal Medicaid reimbursement for his no vote, claiming the proposed provider-tax rules “would be devastating to North Carolina.”

Sen. Thom Tillis. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

“It would result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina, including our hospitals and rural communities,” Tillis stated. “This will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population, and even reducing critical services for those in the traditional Medicaid population.”

The senator noted that there were “a lot” of other aspects about the bill that his constituents would “love,” including the Trump tax cuts, increases to the child tax credit, “historic funding for border security,” and termination of “wasteful spending.”

Trump responded to the senator’s criticisms of the One Big Beautiful Bill by saying he would support one of Tillis’ challengers in next year’s election.

“Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the Primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis," Trump wrote. "I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks, looking for someone who will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina and, so importantly, the United States of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Senator Thom Tillis and U.S. President Donald Trump. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In a separate post, he accused Tillis of failing to “understand the importance of a Debt Extension.”

Trump continued, “I can’t believe that the Great People of North Carolina, a State that I love and won all three times, and a State that I just brought back with money, blood, sweat, and tears, from the recent tragic floods, when Sleepy Joe Biden let them DROWN, right up until the end of that Administration, without doing anything — I was given an A+ Rating for the job we did in bringing it back, and Tillis, despite being a Republican, was MISSING IN ACTION — North Carolina will not allow one of their Senators to GRANDSTAND in order to get some publicity for himself, for a possible, but very difficult Re-Election.”

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Exclusive: Republican senator introduces bill slashing funds to anti-American governments

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is leading the effort to make sure our taxpayer dollars are actually working for the American people.

Blackburn introduced the United Nations Voting Accountability Act on Thursday, which would prohibit taxpayer funding or aid from going toward "foreign countries that oppose the position of the United States in the United Nations," Blaze News has exclusively learned.

'It is unacceptable for US aid recipients to use international platforms to undermine America and protect adversaries like Iran.'

Notably, America spends tens of billions of dollars on foreign aid, contributing more to the United Nations than any other country. Blackburn and many other Americans are insisting that we should not owe money to countries that oppose our interests.

"No more should American taxpayers have to question the value of foreign assistance to countries that oppose our values and interests," Blackburn told Blaze News. "The United States must be a good steward of taxpayer dollars, ensuring every dollar that we send to foreign nations drives global stability and advances American interests."

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

"The United Nations Voting Accountability Act would ensure that taxpayers are not forced to fund countries that undermine and vote against the U.S. in the United Nations," Blackburn added.

The bill does allow the secretary of state, in this case Marco Rubio, to exempt countries if they make a "fundamental change" to the leadership and policies to the extent that they no longer oppose the position of the United States in the U.N.

Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Following American airstrikes in Iran, adversarial countries like Russia, China, and Pakistan began circulating a resolution in the U.N. calling for a ceasefire, which "ignores Iran's support for terrorism" and "shields the Iranian regime from accountability," according to a press release from Blackburn's office obtained by Blaze News.

"While the resolution does not name the U.S. or Israel, its intent is obvious," the press release reads. "It is unacceptable for U.S. aid recipients to use international platforms to undermine America and protect adversaries like Iran."

This bill is also being sponsored in the House by Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, who introduced the legislation in February.

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The parliamentarian isn’t more powerful than the people

First we were told that unelected federal judges could dictate all policy, law, and appropriations. Now the excuse for inaction is the Senate parliamentarian.

Left-wing protesters chant “no kings,” but nearly every major Trump-era domestic policy was blocked by a court. Nearly 200 actions on immigration, personnel, spending, and transgender issues were halted or overturned by the judiciary. Today, the good provisions in an otherwise lackluster reconciliation bill are being gutted — not by Congress, not by voters, but by a Senate staffer.

Republicans now hide behind the parliamentarian to justify a bill that hikes the deficit, preserves green energy handouts, and leaves the welfare state untouched.

If Republicans refuse to overrule the courts, the parliamentarian, or anyone else standing in the way, what’s the plan? What’s the point of winning elections if Democrats, judges, and bureaucrats still call the shots? Do they really expect to get 60 Senate votes?

Over the past week, Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that a long list of provisions violate the Byrd Rule and can’t be included in the reconciliation bill. Among them:

Financial Cuts:

Require states with high food stamp overpayments to share in the cost (reduced from $128 billion to just $41 billion).
Cut $6.4 billion from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Cut $1.4 billion in Federal Reserve staff wages.
Cut $293 million from the Office of Financial Research.
Eliminate the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board ($771 million).
Cut Pentagon funding if the department misses spending deadlines.
Ban food stamps for illegal aliens.

Policy Measures:

Repeal green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Overturn EPA tailpipe emission rules.
Vacate certain court injunctions when plaintiffs don’t post bond.
Bar funding for sanctuary cities.
Allow states to arrest illegal aliens.
Require congressional approval of major federal regulations (modified REINS Act).

Republicans now hide behind MacDonough to justify a bill that hikes the deficit, preserves green energy handouts, and leaves the welfare state untouched.

The Byrd Rule has become an excuse to flush the conservative priorities and pass a mess. And let’s not kid ourselves — the parliamentarian had no objection to provisions that punish states for regulating AI. Under the Senate version of the bill, states can still regulate AI and data centers, but if they do, they lose access to BEAD broadband funding.

The good stuff in this bill may have been bait — added just to lure conservatives into voting yes, knowing full well the parliamentarian would knock it out. That’s why conservatives must pressure President Trump to do what Senate Republicans won’t: overrule MacDonough.

Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

Let’s get something straight: The Senate parliamentarian does not make the rules. The presiding officer does — and the majority party controls the chair. The office of parliamentarian didn’t even exist until 1935. The parliamentarian sits below the presiding officer on the rostrum, not above him. Her advice is just that — advice.

The Congressional Research Service puts it plainly: "As a staff official, neither parliamentarian is empowered to make decisions that are binding on the House or Senate. The parliamentarians and their deputies/assistants only offer advice that the presiding Representative or Senator may accept or reject."

JD Vance, as president of the Senate, can overrule MacDonough at any time. Here’s how: When Democrats raise a point of order against a GOP-backed provision, MacDonough may say it violates the Byrd Rule and must be stripped. But the presiding officer — Vance or his designee — can simply say no. That provision stays in the bill. The Senate then proceeds under the reconciliation process and passes the whole thing with a simple majority.

Trump can make this happen. He can threaten to send Vance to the chair if Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) refuses to play ball. Thune can demand MacDonough’s firing — just as Trent Lott did in 2001 when the parliamentarian ruled against Republican priorities.

Trump is right to be frustrated. On Tuesday, he demanded that Congress cancel the July 4 recess and finish the job. But he also needs to make it clear that he won’t accept a watered-down deal. He must draw red lines around immigration and the Green New Deal. The American people didn’t elect Elizabeth MacDonough. They elected Trump.

And no unelected staffer has the right to overturn the will of 77 million voters.

Senate Republicans Lobbying For Green Energy Tax Credits Raked In Donations From Industry

'Targeted, pragmatic approach'

Oversight Project over target: Dems seethe as facade of autopen presidency comes crashing down

Democratic lawmakers walked out of a Senate hearing Wednesday on former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline, its cover-up, and its alleged exploitation behind the scenes.

The Republican lawmakers who remained at their posts were rewarded with troubling insights into the fallout of both the cover-up and America's apparent governance in recent years by an unelected cabal of ideologues.

One of the more troubling revelations to come out of the hearing was that in addition to the executive orders, commutations, and pardons issued with Biden's name affixed in recent years, many of the laws passed by Congress may similarly be illegitimate.

The Oversight Project, a government watchdog, revealed in early March that Biden's signature on numerous pardons, commutations, executive orders, and other documents of national consequence was machine-generated.

Biden was not the first president to employ the autopen; however, there is cause to suspect that unelected individuals in Biden's orbit abused the autopen throughout his presidency, particularly toward the end, to advance their radical agendas.

In effect, there appears to have been a shadow presidency — what President Donald Trump suggested to Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck in October was a "committee" of unnamed bureaucrats — whose impact has yet to fully be understood.

Photo by Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images

Multiple investigations have been launched into the alleged autopen abuse in the wake of the Oversight Project's damning discoveries and amid mounting evidence of staffers, family members, and other "gatekeepers" having made decisions on Biden's behalf.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on "how the Biden cover-up endangered America and undermined the Constitution," seeking greater clarity both on how Democrats and the media did their best to conceal Biden's cognitive decline from the public and on how his decline was exploited behind the scenes.

Democratic lawmakers on the committee, some of whom helped gaslight the nation about Biden's mental acuity in recent years, refused to hear testimony from former deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and former Idaho Solicitor General Theodore Wold, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, and University of Virginia law professor John Harrison — and boycotted the hearing.

'They lied to us for four years, and we know they lied. They know they lied.'

Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Peter Welch (Vt.) did, however, show up at the outset to protest their colleagues' closer look into the apparent conspiracy to keep Biden in office and his autopen signature viable.

Before leaving the room, Welch complained that Congress could instead be discussing climate change, health care, the possible war with Iran, and America's debt. He stressed, "What we're doing right now won't help."

Durbin noted on X, "This partisan farce of a hearing is a waste of our time and resources."

Photo by ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Contrary to the Democrats' suggestion that the hearing was a useless exercise, Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, suggested to Blaze News that it is critically important now, even though Biden is no longer president, to seek accountability and answers.

"The autopen administration brought great shame on the United States and was an international embarrassment," said Howell. "The United States must live by the most basic contours of its own Constitution if it is to project power and credibility. If we, as a nation, can't tell the world who was running the White House for four years, then we have more than a 'threat to democracy.'"

After highlighting Democratic denial of Biden's decline over the course of his presidency, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley (R) pointed to Democratic senators' empty seats and asked, "Where are they now? They don't want to answer for any of those quotes now. They lied to us for four years, and we know they lied. They know they lied. It's why they're not here."

Wold, a board member of the Oversight Project, noted in his testimony that the "U.S. Constitution vests the executive power in a single person: the president" and underscored that despite the overgrowth of the executive branch since the nation's founding, the president remains "the single source of democratic legitimacy."

'Over half — 32 in total — were signed with an autopen.'

"The president takes positive actions and authenticates those actions through his signature. His signature is required for the most significant actions he may undertake: to sign an executive order, to take any action vested in him by the Constitution, as in granting a pardon, and to take the most important action of all: to sign a bill into law," said Wold. "In all these cases, the president's signature is itself the protection of democratic principles. When the president signs, he communicates his assent and endorsement of the action he takes."

Wold suggested that the risk of divorcing the president's signature from his legitimate assent and endorsement was realized during the Biden years, particularly when clemency warrants and executive orders were signed during his physical and apparent mental absences.

"In June 2022, the Biden White House began deploying the autopen to sign clemency warrants, and executive orders in July of 2022. Autopen use skyrocketed from there," said Wold. "We found that of the 51 clemency warrants issued during the Biden presidency, over half — 32 in total — were signed with an autopen."

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

The former Idaho solicitor general noted that among the more controversial acts of possibly illegitimate clemency were the pardons for members of the Biden family, Anthony Fauci, and General Mark Milley.

'We need to get those documents.'

Wold later emphasized that the "president actually has to make the decision — that cannot be delegated to a staffer or an adviser," but there was no indication "that anyone other than staff were making these decisions."

— (@)

While much has been made of the questionable legitimacy of Biden's more controversial pardons, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) cut deeper, asking Wold whether legislation that passed both chambers of Congress but then was signed by a presidential staffer without the president's authorization is law.

"No," said Wold.

— (@)

Hawley noted, "For every time that Biden authorized the autopen, there should be a record of that."

Wold confirmed that "in the policy paper flow to the Oval Office, there should be a record of what documents are presented to the president, when, and when he gave his assent to the actions that are listed in those documents, whether it's a judicial nomination or it's a statutory response to Congress."

"We need to get those documents," responded Hawley.

'Those who received autopen pardons should be charged for the crimes they were pardoned for.'

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) — who concluded Biden's was the "autopen presidency, a government run by committee rather than a leader chosen by the American people" — indicated that he will be "pursuing a Special Access Request to obtain Biden's staff secretary's autopen memo and records tracking Biden's authorization of several autopenned documents."

Howell told Blaze News that the Oversight Project has "produced lists of which documents were signed by the autopen. As to 'who' is behind them, we have been communicating our findings to the governmental investigative bodies."

When asked about the Oversight Project's next steps where the autopen saga is concerned, Howell told Blaze News, "We have no steps planned. We have gallops planned. Stay tuned."

In terms of what accountability looks like at this stage — especially after President Donald Trump declared last month on Truth Social that those who exploited Biden's cognitive impairment and allegedly "took over the Autopen" were guilty of "TREASON at the Highest Level" — Wold told Blaze News, "Those who received autopen pardons should be charged for the crimes they were pardoned for. Those who operated the autopen without the direction of the president should be charged with potential crimes ranging from impersonation of an official to forgery."

Wold noted further that when congressional lawmakers meet later this month to discuss the matter further, they should consider "whether the 25th Amendment needs to be updated given the unexpected event of those responsible for invoking it deciding that they preferred an incapacitated president."

Blaze News reached out to the White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Mike Howell is a contributor to Blaze News.

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A tax hike is coming — and it’s not just for the rich

Academy Award-winner Elizabeth Taylor, married eight times to seven men, likely entered each union with the hope it would last. Good things, after all, should be permanent.

Yet in Washington, permanence is too often treated as a liability. Nowhere is this more apparent than in tax policy. Thanks to arcane rules surrounding budget reconciliation, Congress routinely enacts pro-growth reforms with an expiration date baked in.

A permanent extension of the reconciliation bill’s pro-growth elements would produce more ‘bang for the buck’ than a temporary extension.

Consider the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Though the measure would extend and build upon President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it fails to permanently extend several of the law’s most pro-growth elements.

That’s a mistake. Again, good things should be permanent.

Pro-growth policies need permanence

Earlier this month, Unleash Prosperity Now — a nonprofit aligned with President Trump — organized a letter signed by more than 300 economists, myself included, urging Congress to “extend President Trump's tax cuts permanently to prevent a tax increase on January 1, 2026.”

Why do we insist upon permanence? Permanent pro-growth public policies result in better economic outcomes. In contrast, temporary policies create troublesome uncertainty, which, in turn, sows confusion for consumers and businesses, making financial planning and investment needlessly difficult.

A permanent extension of the reconciliation bill’s pro-growth elements would produce more economic “bang for the buck” than a temporary extension. It’s that simple.

According to the Tax Foundation, “Permanence for the [bill’s] four cost recovery provisions would more than double the long-run economic effect.” These provisions would include 100% bonus depreciation, expensing of research and development investment, and a more generous interest deduction limit, among others.

The Tax Foundation concludes:

The current package produces meager effects on GDP and a smaller U.S. capital stock over the long run because the cost recovery provisions sunset. As lawmakers continue to debate the tax package, they should not compromise on permanence for the most pro-growth provisions.

This view aligns with the prevailing economic literature. For example, a 2019 study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve concluded, “A rise in uncertainty is widely believed to have detrimental effects on macroeconomic, microeconomic, and financial market outcomes.”

If that warning were plastered on the side of a pack of cigarettes, it would read, “Congressionally induced policy uncertainty is hazardous to the country’s economic health.”

Jobs under threat

Fortunately, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) is determined to extend the reconciliation bill’s most pro-growth elements permanently. Bravo, Mr. Chairman!

Permanence aside, why did more than 300 economists call for preventing the tax increase scheduled under current law?

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

If taxes increase as planned, the economic fallout could be steep. Wells Fargo warns that average monthly job creation could plummet from 133,000 in the first quarter to just 25,000 next quarter — and then turn negative, with an estimated loss of 17,000 jobs per month in the fourth quarter.

If Congress fails to “spike the hike,” Wells Fargo estimates economic growth will slow to a tepid 1.1% this year and next.

A warning to deficit hawks

For those worried about the deficit, here's the paradox: Letting the economy slow — or worse, slip into recession — is the surest way to worsen the nation’s fiscal health.

To further underscore the situation, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who directed the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005, cautions: “Given the weak state of the economy, it [the scheduled tax increase] would likely trigger a recession, and the budget outlook never gets better in a recession.”

Yes, it’s that simple.

Elizabeth Taylor once quipped, “If you hear of me getting married [again], slap me!” At least, she had the right intentions. Congress, on the other hand, routinely resorts to temporary policies to game the reconciliation process. That needs to stop.

To guard against recession, Congress should reconsider the tax increase scheduled for next year. But to boost economic growth, Congress should follow Crapo’s lead and extend permanently the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act pro-growth provisions.

GOP senator in Trump’s crosshairs: President vows to back challenger over bill betrayal

Exclusive: Republican senator introduces bill slashing funds to anti-American governments

GOP Senators Present Evidence China Bankrolls Environmentalist Lawsuits To Cripple U.S. Power

The parliamentarian isn’t more powerful than the people

Oversight Project over target: Dems seethe as facade of autopen presidency comes crashing down

A tax hike is coming — and it’s not just for the rich

Pro-growth policies need permanence

Jobs under threat

A warning to deficit hawks

Build back better? Then stop outsourcing our agricultural soul

Israel and Ukraine Used Smuggled Drones To Wreak Havoc on Their Enemies. Could China Do the Same?

Duke Law Journal Sent a Secret Memo to Minority Applicants Telling Them They’d Get Extra Points for Writing About Their Race

Pastor crucified in bed as anti-Christian hate turns deadly

Sick of me yet? Pompous pest Pascal in desperate race to make America hate him

Pro-growth policies need permanence

Jobs under threat

A warning to deficit hawks

We’ll keep you informed with top stories for conservatives who want to become informed decision makers.