The G.O.P. Scramble Over Trump’s Policy Bill, and Tracking Major Supreme Court Rulings

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From the New York Times, it's the headlines.

I'm Will Jarvis.

Today's Friday, June 27th.

Here's what we're covering.

Thank you all for being here to support one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of our country.

President Trump is trying to rally support for his sprawling domestic policy agenda, even as Republicans on Capitol Hill are scrambling to salvage some of its key provisions.

It's so important.

So if you can, call your senators, call your congressmen.

We have to get the vote.

I want to go.

As drafted, the so-called big, beautiful bill would extend tax cuts from President Trump's first term and make deep reductions to public services like food benefits and health care, among many other policy changes.

The House signed off on its version of the legislation last month.

Now it's in the Senate's hands, and the President has given GOP lawmakers a July 4th deadline to pass it.

We are in potentially the messiest possible place that this bill could be in right now in the Senate.

Most of the major elements of this legislation, the cuts to food assistance programs, the cuts to Medicaid, they're still up in the air right now.

My colleague Katie Edmondson covers Congress.

She says that the bill has hit major roadblocks, in part because of the wonky process the GOP is using to avoid a Democratic filibuster and get it to the President's desk.

It means that before the Senate can pass the bill, the parliamentarian who enforces the chamber's rules has to confirm that the policies in it meet certain budget requirements.

She's already found that a number of them don't.

The Senate parliamentarian, in fact, has told Republicans that they need to either revise several major elements of the legislation or that they need to discard them from the bill entirely.

That includes some of the cuts to Medicaid.

And so right now, Senate Republicans are looking to try to make edits to some of those provisions to be able to include them in this legislation.

At the same time, a trend that we've been seeing play out across the nation, really, is that a number of these Republican senators have been hearing from constituents who are deeply concerned about the impact that some of these cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, like SNAP, or Food Stamps might have.

And they have a very short amount of time to figure it out in.

But I do think the bottom line here is that they are feeling enormous pressure to deliver, to deliver the tax cuts that President Trump has promised.

The prevailing wisdom here on the Hill is that they are going to be able to pass something and soon.

Katie says that party leaders hope to vote on the bill as soon as this weekend.

The Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there were what he called speed bumps along the way, but that, quote, we're moving forward.

Now, three more updates on the Trump administration.

So we have five yes votes, one no vote, and one abstain.

Yesterday, a federal vaccine advisory panel appointed by Health Secretary Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.

voted to walk back its long-standing recommendation for a flu vaccine that contains an ingredient the anti-vax movement has falsely linked to autism.

Dozens of studies have shown the chemical, thimerosol, which is used in only a small subset of vaccines, to be harmless, but the group voted against recommending it.

The vote signaled a significant shift in how the government approaches vaccines as it starts to act on Kennedy's skepticism about their safety.

He had previously fired all 17 members of the panel and named eight new ones, half of whom have publicly questioned vaccines.

Also, the Times has learned about a new front in the Trump administration's crackdown on American universities.

The Justice Department has privately demanded that the University of Virginia oust its president over his handling of the school's diversity, equity, and inclusion inclusion programs.

It's accused the president, James E.

Ryan, of failing to dismantle the DEI programs, which President Trump has aggressively targeted.

And DOJ officials have told the university that it could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding if Ryan is not removed.

Legal experts told the Times that this kind of pressure on a state university is extremely rare.

One said it's a tactic you'd normally expect to see when the government is playing hardball in a case with, quote, pervasive criminal activity.

And the State Department says it has approved $30 million in funding for a contentious aid group in Gaza.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is run mostly by American contractors and is backed by Israel, with Israeli troops guarding its aid distribution sites.

But the aid plan has come under heavy criticism for putting Gazans in danger, with a spokesman for the United Nations calling the sites death traps.

In the past month, hundreds of people have been killed while they gathered to collect food, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and witnesses have reported Israeli troops opening fire near the sites.

The Israeli military has said it's fired, quote, warning shots.

There's still widespread hunger in Gaza.

According to the UN, most families survive on just one meal a day.

At the Supreme Court, the justices have been handing down their final decisions of the term.

Yesterday, they ruled that Planned Parenthood and one of its patients cannot sue South Carolina over its push to cut funding for the organization.

That could potentially make it easier for other states to also deny funding to Planned Parenthood.

And today, the court is expected to release a number of other decisions on hot-button issues.

It will weigh in on President Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary foreign residents.

It'll also rule on whether Texas can limit kids' access to online pornography pornography by requiring age verification.

And it'll issue a ruling on how race was used in drawing Louisiana's voting map in a case that could eventually determine which party controls the House of Representatives.

Those decisions and others are set to be announced at 10 a.m.

Eastern.

And finally, two scientific studies published this week are adding to a growing body of evidence that human activity is driving the evolution of some wild animals.

Take, for example, the eastern Baltic cod.

If you were a fisherman in the Baltic Sea just a few decades ago, you would have been used to catching cod that could be the size of a human toddler.

But today, a typical fish is so much smaller it would fit in your cupped hands, according to a new study published in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers found that intense fishing in the region seems to have contributed to the change in cod size, not because all the big cod were caught, but because the smaller ones had a survival advantage.

They could slip out of fishing nets, and over time, the genes of the fish actually shifted to help the species stay alive.

Meanwhile, at the Field Museum in Chicago, scientists found another case of human-driven adaptation in rodents.

Researchers looked at about a century's worth of chipmunk specimens and discovered that as the city grew, the animal's teeth got shorter.

All that human food and trash in the city might have meant there was less need for robust teeth to pierce into nuts and seeds.

And that changing diet could also explain why the chipmunks' skulls grew larger and larger, potentially because they could pack on weight year-round.

Together, the studies showed just how fast human activity could be driving changes in animals.

As one of the Chicago scientists told The Times,

There is evolution happening everywhere all the time.

You just have to know where to look for it.

Those are the headlines, but stick around, we've got the Friday news quiz for you after the credits.

Today on the daily, an inside look at the trial of Sean Combs as the jury prepares to consider the charges against him.

That's next in the New York Times audio app, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

This show is made by Jessica Metzger, Jan Stewart, Tracy Mumford, and me, Will Jarvis.

Original theme by Dan Powell.

Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Jake Lucas, Zoe Murphy, Adam Nogurney, Katie O'Brien, and Paula Schumann.

Now for the quiz.

We've got questions about three stories the Times has covered this week.

Can you answer them all?

First up, we assess that the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities has set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons for many years to come.

President Trump faced questions this week over how much damage the U.S.

has inflicted on Iran's nuclear program.

Trump has repeatedly claimed it was very high, using one particular word over and over again to describe the destruction.

Take a listen.

That word is going to be bleeped out.

You tell us what it is.

The original word that I use, I guess it got us in trouble because it's a strong word.

It was.

And you'll see that.

And it's going to come out.

Israel.

The word is.

He's doing a report on it now.

Obliteration.

And I was told that they said it was total obliteration.

So far, U.S.

intelligence assessments have confirmed substantial damage to the nuclear sites, but have not used language that strong.

Okay, next up.

Florida's been leading on immigration enforcement, supporting the Trump administration and ICE's health.

State officials in Florida announced this week that they started work on an unusual new detention facility for migrants.

This 30-square-mile area is completely surrounded by the Everglades.

When the site opens as soon as next month, people will be housed in large tents on an old airstrip surrounded by swampland, and officials have given it an ominous nickname.

What is it?

Here's a hint: it's inspired by the notorious prison in San Francisco Bay.

The answer?

Alligator Alcatraz.

Florida's Attorney General said that the alligators and pythons in the Everglades surrounding the facility will stop people from escaping.

Notably, President Trump once talked about trying to deter migrants from even entering the U.S.

by building a moat along the U.S.-Mexico border and filling it with alligators or snakes.

Okay, last question.

We told you earlier this week about the Times list of the hundred best films of the 21st century.

Today, the top 20 came out.

We're gonna play a clip from the top three movies on that list.

You have to identify each film.

Let's start

at number three:

Maestro

reaches

a cruiser

and starts to drink your milkshake.

I drink your

milkshake.

That's Daniel Day-Lewis starring in.

I drink it up!

There will be blood from 2007 with that unforgettable final scene.

Next up, the number two film on the times list.

This one's a bit tougher.

I can see him through the wall.

I can see his face.

I hope that I never see that face ever outside of a dream.

If you need a hint, the director was David Lynch.

Okay.

And the movie is Mulholland Drive from 2001.

6980 Mulholland Drive.

Lynch originally wrote and filmed part of it as a pilot for a TV show.

When ABC turned it down, he made it into a feature film instead.

Now, for the best film of the last 25 years, at least according to the directors, actors, and other Hollywood insiders, the Times polled.

A hint on this one in 2020 became the first movie not in English to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

The answer?

Parasite by South Korean director Bong Joon-ho.

Another one of his films, Memories of Murder, was also on the list.

You can see the full ranking at nytimes.com.

All right, that is it for the news quiz.

The headlines will be back on Monday with Tracy Mumford.