Iran Still 'Shell-Shocked' After US Strike, Says Wright
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright says Iran is still "shell-shocked" after US airstrikes targeted their nuclear facilities and sanctions are still in place. He speaks on "Bloomberg Surveillance." (Source: Bloomberg)
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CNN
29 minutes ago
- CNN
Republican plans to overhaul Medicaid are already shaking up the 2026 midterms
Senate Republicans have yet to finalize their version of President Donald Trump's sweeping domestic policy proposal, but GOP lawmakers up for reelection in 2026 are bracing for the political impact of the bill's Medicaid cuts. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is pushing for a provider relief fund. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina has warned GOP leaders about how many in his state could lose care. And Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa has picked up a crop of Democratic challengers campaigning off her 'Well, we all are going to die' response to a town hall protester. Tens of thousands of people could lose coverage in each of those three senators' states, according to a KFF analysis on the version of the bill passed by the Republican-led House last month. Beleaguered Democrats, meanwhile, hope that laser-focusing on health care will help them chip away at the Republicans' 53-seat Senate majority and take back the House. A key part of Democratic messaging has been to tie the Medicaid cuts, which would largely affect low-income Americans, to tax breaks for the wealthy. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the changes would reduce federal Medicaid spending by roughly $800 billion over 10 years, largely by instituting work requirements for certain adults eligible for Medicaid and postponing a Biden administration rule intended to simplify enrolling and renewing coverage. 'It is crazy politics for them to do this,' said Brad Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic operative and executive director of Protect Our Care, a health care advocacy group that launched a $10 million campaign this year to oppose Medicaid cuts. 'Everyone is going to be unhappy with this bill, unless you're a very high net worth individual: a millionaire, a multi-millionaire, a billionaire, or a large corporation.' Many Republicans have argued that the cuts to Medicaid are meant to sustain the program for those who need it most. They're also betting that the rest of the bill will be more popular. Paul Shumaker, a longtime North Carolina GOP strategist who advises Tillis and other Republican leaders in the state, said he was 'bullish' on the midterm elections because he believes voters will support Republican arguments about rooting waste, fraud and abuse out of Medicaid. He also thinks voters will back other policies in the legislative package like cutting taxes on tips and overtime pay and raising the child tax credit. 'Democrats are basically staking themselves out on issues that resonate with one-third of the voters, whereas Republicans have staked themselves out on issues that resonate with two-thirds of the voters,' Shumaker said. 'They have put themselves into a box.' Democrats are betting that a narrow focus on the bill's health care provisions will have the most impact, even in states like Iowa, where Democrats are hoping to oust Ernst, contest an open governor's seat and two US House seats. Ernst, who is seeking a third term next year, picked up a Democratic challenger earlier this month after she told a town hall protester 'well, we all are going to die' in response to comments about cuts to Medicaid. Ernst doubled down on the remarks in a video filmed in a cemetery. An Ernst spokesperson pointed to Ernst's full comments, in which she said she wants to leave Medicaid funding for the 'most vulnerable' and 'those that are eligible.' 'While Democrats fearmonger against strengthening the integrity of Medicaid, Senator Ernst is focused on protecting Medicaid for the most vulnerable,' reads a statement from the senator's office. 'She will continue to stand up for Iowa's rural hospitals, clinics, and community health centers that serve our state.' Iowa state Rep. J.D. Scholten announced his campaign soon after Ernst's town hall, becoming the second candidate in the race after Democrat Nathan Sage, who announced in April. Some election forecasters shifted the race slightly – from solid to likely Republican — after he launched his campaign. 'We're seeing people, just everyday people calling Ernst 'Joni Hearse,'' Scholten told CNN. 'You just get that sense, politically, that if we can tap into that … this is where our foot's in the door to a lot of voters who have not been voting Democrat.' It's also motivating Democratic voters in the state. Melinda Magdalene Wings, a 65-year-old retired hospice nurse from Iowa City, Iowa, told CNN she's worried cuts to Medicaid funding would impact the assisted living home where her 86-year-old parents, including her mother who has advanced dementia, reside. In February, she started writing her representatives about the bill. 'As Iowa's elected officials, I expect them to vote for what's best for Iowa — for the people of Iowa — and not for this administration,' she said. 'Money going to millionaires doesn't make any sense.' A handful of Senate Republicans, including Tillis and Collins, have raised concerns about the impact the reconciliation bill could have on their states, particularly a Senate proposal that would limit how much states can raise provider taxes, a key source of revenue. The provider tax provision is among a handful that Senate Republicans are revising after the chamber's parliamentarian ruled they didn't meet the strict budget rules that allow the legislation to pass with a simple 51-vote majority. 'I've been very concerned about the cuts in Medicaid and the impact on my state, but other states as well,' Collins told CNN's Manu Raju on Tuesday. 'I've also been concerned about the health of rural hospitals, nursing homes, health centers and have been working on a provider relief fund. But that doesn't offset the problem with the Medicaid cuts.' Tillis said Tuesday that while the bill's Medicaid cuts are 'directionally right,' Republicans 'have to do it at a pace that states can absorb, or we're gonna have bad outcomes, political and policy.' Tensions within the Senate GOP caucus have also spilled out into the open. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell told colleagues with concerns about the bill during a private GOP conference meeting that 'failure is not an option' and people in their states raising concerns about the bill's Medicaid provisions would 'get over it,' according to a report from Punchbowl News. Democrats quickly latched onto the comments. 'I hope Republicans can 'get over it' when they lose their seats in the midterms,' DNC communications director Rosemary Boeglin said in a statement. A spokesperson for McConnell said the senator was referring to people who are 'abusing' Medicaid and 'should be working,' and the need to 'withstand Democrats' scare tactics' on the issue. 'Senator McConnell was urging his fellow members to highlight that message to our constituents and remind them that we should all be against waste, fraud, and abuse while working to protect our rural hospitals and have safety nets in place for people that need it,' the statement read. Nearly 8 million more people would be uninsured in 2034 because of the Medicaid provisions in a version of the bill passed by the House last month, according to an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office. Most of those cuts come from the legislation's work requirement, which calls for able-bodied adults without dependent children to work or volunteer at least 80 hours a month. A proposal unveiled by the Senate this month would expand that requirement to adults with children over the age of 14, which would likely result in even more people losing coverage. Republicans have argued they are reforming Medicaid to sustain the program for people who need it the most. They've focused their messaging on work requirements, which are popular with voters, and policies that would penalize states for covering undocumented immigrants with their own funds. 'President Trump and Senate Republicans are working to protect Medicaid for Americans who truly need it,' Nick Puglia, a National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson, said in a statement to CNN. 'Voters will reject Democrats' lies, fearmongering, and attempts to use taxpayer benefits to subsidize illegal aliens and their open border policies.' Republicans are also framing a vote against the reconciliation bill, which extends the individual income tax cuts in the 2017 GOP tax policy overhaul that are set to expire at the end of the year, as a vote for tax increases. 'I think in the end, this bill will play out on the Republicans saying, 'We got it done. We passed it, the economy's good. We spared you from having to pay more taxes,'' David McIntosh, the president of Club for Growth, told reporters recently. 'And then pivot to say, 'but if my Democrat opponent gets elected, they want to undo it … vote for us so that we can stop them from raising your taxes.'' A Washington Post-Ipsos poll released June 17, before the Senate released its framework, found overwhelming support for some provisions in the bill. Seventy-two percent of Americans support raising the child tax credit, 71% support extending tax cuts for individuals making less than $100,000 and 65% support eliminating taxes on tips. But, as whole, 42% of Americans oppose the bill, while 23% support it and 34% said they had no opinion. A KFF poll released the same day found that 64% of adults had an unfavorable view of the House's version of the bill. The poll found that 68% of adults – including 51% of Democrats, 66% of independents and 88% of Republicans – support work requirements, but that support for work requirements dropped to 35% when adults heard the argument that 'most people on Medicaid are already working' or unable to work. Democrats have described the work requirements as an intentional bureaucratic hurdle. Health policy experts and Democratic campaigns have also focused on the ripple effects cuts to Medicaid funding could have on the system as a whole, including rural hospitals and nursing home care. 'A lot of Medicaid patients seek care from the same providers or same types of providers,' said Adrianna McIntyre, an assistant professor of health policy and politics at Harvard University. 'So when you're pulling dollars out of the system and away from those providers, it doesn't just hurt the patients who no longer have insurance through Medicaid.' CNN's Manu Raju, Alison Main and Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Even as markets rally, Trump's policymaking causes market angst
By Suzanne McGee (Reuters) -As Wall Street puts April's tariff shakeout in the rearview mirror and indexes set record highs, investors remain wary of U.S. President Donald Trump's rapid-fire, sometimes chaotic policymaking process and see the rally as fragile. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite index advanced past their previous highs into uncharted territory on Friday. Yet traders and investors remain wary of what may lie ahead. Trump's April 2 reciprocal tariffs on major trading partners roiled global financial markets and put the S&P 500 on the threshold of a bear market designation when it ended down 19% from its February 19 record-high close. This week's leg up came after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Iran brought an end to a 12-day air battle that had sparked a jump in crude prices and raised worries of higher inflation. But a relief rally started after Trump responded to the initial tariff panic that gripped financial markets by backing away from his most draconian plans. JP Morgan Chase, in the midyear outlook published on Wednesday by its global research team, said the environment was characterized by "extreme policy uncertainty." "Nobody wants to end a week with a risk-on tilt to their portfolios," said Art Hogan, market strategist at B. Riley Wealth. "Everyone is aware that just as the market feels more certain and confident, a single wildcard policy announcement could change everything," even if it does not ignite a firestorm of the kind seen in April. Part of this wariness from institutional investors may be due to the magnitude of the 6% S&P 500 rally that followed Trump's re-election last November and culminated in the last new high posted by the index in February, said Joseph Quinlan, market strategist at Bank of America. "We were out ahead of our skis," Quinlan said. A focus on deregulation, tax cuts and corporate deals brought out the "animal spirits," he said. Then came the tariff battles. Quinlan remains upbeat on the outlook for U.S. stocks and optimistic that a new global trade system could lead to U.S. companies opening new markets and posting higher revenues and profits. But he said he is still cautious. "There will still be spikes of volatility around policy unknowns." Overall, measures of market volatility are now well below where they stood at the height of the tariff turmoil in April, with the CBOE VIX index now at 16.3, down from a 52.3 peak on April 8. UNSTABLE MARKETS "Our clients seem to have become somewhat desensitized to the headlines, but it's still an unhealthy market, with everyone aware that trading could happen based on the whims behind a bunch of" social media posts, said Jeff O'Connor, head of market structure, Americas, at Liquidnet, an institutional trading platform. Trading in the options market shows little sign of the kind of euphoria that characterized stock market rallies of the recent past. "On the institutional front, we do see a lot of hesitation in chasing the market rally," Stefano Pascale, head of U.S. equity derivatives research at Barclays, said. Unlike past episodes of sharp market selloffs, institutional investors have largely stayed away from employing bullish call options to chase the market higher, Pascale said, referring to plain options that confer the right to buy at a specified future price and date. Bid/ask spreads on many stocks are well above levels O'Connor witnessed in late 2024, while market depth - a measure of the size and number of potential orders - remains at the lowest levels he can recall in the last 20 years. "The best way to describe the markets in the last couple of months, even as they have recovered, is to say they are unstable," said Liz Ann Sonders, market strategist at Charles Schwab. She said she is concerned that the market may be reaching "another point of complacency" akin to that seen in March. "There's a possibility that we'll be primed for another downside move," Sonders addded. Mark Spindel, chief investment officer at Potomac River Capital in Washington, said he came up with the term "Snapchat presidency" to describe the whiplash effect on markets of the president's constantly changing policies on markets. "He feels more like a day trader than a long-term institutional investor," Spindel said, alluding to Trump's policy flip-flops. "One minute he's not going to negotiate, and the next he negotiates." To be sure, traders seem to view those rapid shifts in course as a positive in the current rally, signaling Trump's willingness to heed market signals. "For now, at least, stocks are willing to overlook the risks that go along with this style and lack of consistent policies, and give the administration a break as being 'market friendly'," said Steve Sosnick, market strategist at Interactive Brokers. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Associated Press
38 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Biden pays respects as former Minnesota House Speaker Hortman, killed in shooting, lies in state
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Former President Joe Biden joined thousands of mourners Friday as former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman lay in state in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda while the man charged with killing her and her husband, and wounding a state senator and his wife, made a brief court appearance in a suicide prevention suit. Hortman, a Democrat, is the first woman and one of fewer than 20 Minnesotans accorded the honor. She lay in state with her husband, Mark, and their golden retriever, Gilbert. Her husband was also killed in the June 14 attack, and Gilbert was seriously wounded and had to be euthanized. It was the first time a couple has lain in state at the Capitol, and the first time for a dog. The scene at the Capitol The Hortmans' caskets and the dog's urn were arranged in the center of the rotunda, under the Capitol dome, with law enforcement officers keeping watch on either side as thousands of people who lined up filed by. Many fought back tears as they left. Among the first to pay their respects were Gov. Tim Walz, who has called Hortman his closest political ally, and his wife, Gwen. Biden, a Catholic, visited later in the afternoon, walking up to the velvet rope in front of the caskets, making the sign of the cross, and spending a few moments by himself in silence. He then took a knee briefly, got up, made the sign of the cross again, and walked off to greet people waiting in the wings of the rotunda. Biden will attend the funeral, a spokesperson said. So will former Vice President Kamala Harris, though neither is expected to speak. Harris expressed her condolences earlier this week to Hortman's adult children, and spoke with Walz, her running mate on the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket, who extended an invitation on behalf of the Hortman family, her office said. Lisa Greene, who lives in Brooklyn Park like Hortman did, but in a different House district, said she came to the Capitol because she had so much respect for the former speaker. 'She was just amazing. Amazing woman. 'And I was just so proud that she represented the city that I lived in,' Greene said in a voice choked with emotion. 'She was such a leader. She could bring people together. She was so accessible. I mean, she was friendly, you could talk to her.' But, she went on to say admiringly, Hortman was also 'a boss. She just knew what she was doing and she could just make things happen.' A hearing takes a twist The man accused of killing the Hortmans and wounding another Democratic lawmaker and his wife made a short court appearance Friday to face charges for what the chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota has called 'a political assassination.' Vance Boelter, 57, of Green Isle, surrendered near his home the night of June 15 after what authorities have called the largest search in Minnesota history. An unshaven Boelter was brought in wearing just a green padded suicide prevention suit and orange slippers. Federal defender Manny Atwal asked Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko to continue the hearing until Thursday. She said Boelter has been sleep deprived while on suicide watch in the Sherburne County Jail, and that it has been difficult to communicate with him as a result. 'Your honor, I haven't really slept in about 12 to 14 days,' Boelter told the judge. And he denied being suicidal. 'I've never been suicidal and I am not suicidal now.' Atwal told the court that Boelter had been in what's known as a 'Gumby suit,' without undergarments, ever since his transfer to the jail after his first court appearance on June 16. She said the lights are on in his area 24 hours a day, doors slam frequently, the inmate in the next cell spreads feces on the walls, and the smell drifts to Boelter's cell. The attorney said transferring him to segregation instead, and giving him a normal jail uniform, would let him get some sleep, restore some dignity, and let him communicate better. The judge agreed. Prosecutors did not object to the delay and said they also had concerns about the jail conditions. The acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joseph Thompson, told reporters afterward that he did not think Boelter had attempted to kill himself. The case continues Boelter did not enter a plea. Prosecutors need to secure a grand jury indictment first, before his arraignment, which is when a plea is normally entered. According to the federal complaint, police video shows Boelter outside the Hortmans' home and captures the sound of gunfire. And it says security video shows Boelter approaching the front doors of two other lawmakers' homes dressed as a police officer. His lawyers have declined to comment on the charges, which could carry the federal death penalty. Thompson said last week that no decision has been made. Minnesota abolished its death penalty in 1911. The Death Penalty Information Center says a federal death penalty case hasn't been prosecuted in Minnesota in the modern era, as best as it can tell. Boelter also faces separate murder and attempted murder charges in state court that could carry life without parole, assuming that county prosecutors get their own indictment for first-degree murder. But federal authorities intend to use their power to try Boelter first. Other victims and alleged targets Authorities say Boelter shot and wounded Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin before shooting and killing the Hortmans in their home in the northern Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, a few miles away.
