Latest news with #DustyJohnson
Fox News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
From Washington: Epstein Case, Shutdown Fears Creating Drama This Summer Recess
There was some drama last week before House members began their August recess, as Congressional Democrats continued to try to attach legislation related to Jeffrey Epstein to unrelated bills. Republicans claimed it was a political move, while Democrats asked, 'What's there to hide?' FOX News Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram joins to explain how Congress is reacting to the growing questions surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein case. Additionally, Chad breaks down the upcoming fight over avoiding a government shutdown. Later, Congressman Dusty Johnson (R-SD) discusses how he is looking to the future and working to ensure the border remains secure after President Trump leaves office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Fox News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Evening Edition: The Importance Of Maintaining The Southern Border Wall
South Dakota Dusty Johnson (R) has introduced legislation that aims to ensure that future administrations are forced to maintain, repair and secure the southern border wall. The FASTER Act requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to conduct surveys once every two years of defenses at the southern border, relating details of the current state of the barriers and marking any stretch that maybe need rebuilding. FOX's Ryan Schmelz speaks with South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson (R), author of the FASTER Bill, who says a secure southern border was promised to Americans and he shares his thoughts on 'the Epstein files'. Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
State lawmaker files statement of candidacy to run for U.S. House
Sen. Casey Crabtree, R-Madison, speaks on the South Dakota Senate floor on March 3, 2025. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) A Republican state legislator from Madison filed his statement of candidacy Wednesday to run for the state's lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Casey Crabtree would be the second Republican candidate in the race, after Attorney General Marty Jackley. Current Republican U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson is running for governor next year. News from the campaigns for governor, U.S. House, attorney general, ballot questions and more. Crabtree, 42, who currently serves in the state Senate, submitted paperwork to the Federal Election Commission. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but did share his interest in a statement issued last week. 'I'm thankful for Dusty's work in Congress supporting South Dakota and Trump's America First agenda,' he said at the time. 'South Dakota has had giants like John Thune, Kristi Noem, and Dusty Johnson represent us in the U.S. House, and those are big shoes to fill. My family and I have received a lot of encouragement across the state to consider a bid for this open seat. I am strongly considering this opportunity and we will look at this as a family through prayer and serious conversations.' Jackley announced his campaign last month, the same day Johnson publicly scheduled his announcement for governor. Crabtree works as an economic development director for Heartland Energy in Madison, and served as state Senate majority leader during the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions. The Republican primary election is in June 2026, with the statewide general election to follow in November 2026 SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump shows his dominance over Congress in passing the 'big, beautiful bill'
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump wanted his domestic priorities bundled into 'one big, beautiful bill.' Republican lawmakers were skeptical about that approach, but complied. He insisted they pass it by the fourth of July. Republicans doubted they could meet the deadline, but they did. And so late Friday afternoon, a triumphant president will sign the mega-bill he muscled through a divided Congress, displaying a mastery over his party that many of his predecessors would have envied. Trump told reporters after the House narrowly passed the bill Thursday that he believes he has 'more power' now than in his first term. That was evident all week as the bill ping-ponged between the House and Senate. One by one, the holdouts in the GOP caucus swallowed their misgivings to give Trump a victory he is now savoring in his own fashion. 'There could be no better birthday present for America than the phenomenal victory we achieved just hours ago when Congress passed the 'one big, beautiful bill' to make America great again,' Trump said at a 'Salute to America' event Thursday night in Iowa. The nearly-900 page bill includes a tax-cut and spending package that is projected to increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion over a decade. Not so long ago, fiscal conservatism was a core Republican tenet. Since Trump's takeover of the party, that bit of GOP orthodoxy has been set aside. Speaking of conservative lawmakers who changed their minds and voted for the bill, Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said simply: 'They heard from President Trump over and over again how much good was in this bill.' One member of Congress said he asked a White House official what the holdouts got in return for supporting the bill, and said the response was, 'f---ing nothing.' Another obstacle to passage was the world's richest man: Elon Musk. Once head of Trump's effort to shrink the government workforce, Musk left the White House and swiftly denounced the bill. On Monday, he said he would work to oust lawmakers who campaigned on reducing the debt and yet voted for the bill. He wrote on his social media site, X, that 'they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.' The final vote suggested that GOP lawmakers may be more fearful of Trump's ire than Musk's money -- or the new party Musk vowed to start one day after the 'insane' bill passed. Whether Trump and his party capitalize on the legislative achievement may hinge on what the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' does in the real world. It wouldn't have passed but for Trump. The bill's title is an ode to Trump's marketing instincts; he now owns it. Will it unleash the economic growth that Trump predicts? Or will the steep cuts in the social safety net alienate some of the same blue-collar voters that Trump wrested from the Democratic coalition? The midterm elections next year will test whether Trump's gambit paid off. Trump's demands throughout the saga did not always match reality. In a meeting Wednesday with moderate Republican lawmakers in the White House, Trump told them, 'Don't touch Medicaid.' Someone in the room responded that the bill does in fact touch Medicaid, a GOP lawmaker told NBC News. To pay for the tax breaks, the bill makes steep cuts to Medicaid, food aid programs and clean energy funding. Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster, said that Republicans 'are going to have to build a powerful case for it.' 'They are going to have to figure out a way to explain, if indeed the Medicaid cuts throw people off of Medicaid, why this bill did that when Donald Trump said he wasn't going to touch Medicaid,' he continued. A Republican senator, speaking on condition of anonymity before the bill passed, said: 'The Democrats are beating us on the messaging. It's just that simple. We don't have anyone out messaging [on the bill] because we're too busy fighting among ourselves. At some point, you've got to go sell this.' Trump pulled off his most consequential legislative victory of either term through a mix of intimidation and wheedling. He has proven again and again that he can gin up a successful primary challenge to Republican lawmakers who defy his wishes. The latest example is Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. One day after Tillis angered Trump for opposing the bill, the senator announced he won't run for reelection. But Trump, in tandem with Vice President JD Vance, also presided over a more traditional strategy for coaxing members to vote yes. Trump threw himself into the effort, aides and lawmakers said. Aides cleared Trump's schedule of public events Wednesday so he could spend more time wooing lawmakers. At 1 a.m. on Thursday, he was on a phone call with a group of congressional holdouts, trying to persuade them to come around. One person familiar with the phone call said that Trump and other White House officials pledged to aggressively implement key provisions in the bill including the phase-out of clean energy tax credits. The discussion also involved future actions to fulfill conservative priorities. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., remarked that it would be nice if Trump stopped attacking him. (Massie and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., were the only two Republicans to vote against the bill on Thursday). Vance was pressed into service last weekend, as worries grew about the bill's prospects in the Senate. The vice president, who had spent most of the week at his Cincinnati home with family, flew back from Ohio on Saturday to huddle with Republican senators. After arriving at the Capitol, Vance met with key Republicans like Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, who chairs the Finance Committee. He also focused on potential GOP holdouts, including Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Rick Scott of Florida, according to two people familiar with his involvement. Vance returned to the Capitol early Tuesday morning ahead of the final vote, with Republican senators creating something of a revolving door between the Senate floor and the vice president's ceremonial office nearby. Vance also remained in talks with House members through Thursday's vote. 'GOP Congressman just texted me,' the vice president posted Thursday morning on X as House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York was speaking against the bill. ''I was undecided on the bill but then I watched Hakeem Jeffries performance and now I'm a firm yes.'' In passing a bill that encapsulates much of his domestic agenda, Trump succeeded where some other Republican presidents failed. George W. Bush won reelection in 2004 and, armed with what he called newfound 'political capital,' tried mightily to get Congress to overhaul the Social Security system. The effort collapsed. Trump will have at least a brief period to relish the achievement before the bill takes effect and voters see for themselves if there's a gap between what he promised and what he delivers. He'll do it in style from the White House, watching a fireworks display in the evening and a flyover of the military's most sophisticated aircraft. 'The golden age is here!!!' senior White House adviser Stephen Miller posted on X, referring back to Trump's inaugural speech. This article was originally published on
Telegraph
02-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Trump's 24-hour House GOP blitz to save his ‘big, beautiful bill'
Republican members of Congress trooped into the White House on Wednesday as Donald Trump tried to keep his domestic policy agenda on track and his 'big, beautiful, bill' moving through the House. First came the moderates, including members of the 'Main Street' caucus, who worry that cuts to the nation's social safety net will make it harder for them to hold on to their seats in next year's midterm elections. They were spotted by White House reporters arriving during the late morning. Dusty Johnson, chairman of the Main Street Caucus, said the president had been persuasive. 'Donald Trump is the best closer in the business, and we're going to get it done,' Mr Johnson told Politico. 'In the meetings that I was in, the president, I think, closed out just about everybody.' They were joined by JD Vance, the vice-president, and Dr Oz, the TV doctor who now serves as administrator for the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Mr Trump has set a July 4 deadline for the bill to reach his desk and be signed into law. But he and the party whips face a delicate balancing act in the House of Representatives to get it over the line. With a majority of 120 to 112 they can afford to lose only three votes while trying to hold together a wing that thinks the bill goes too far and a wing that thinks it does not go far enough. So although Mr Trump had nothing on his public schedule for the day, in reality he spent Wednesday working the phones between two two-hour meetings trying to nudge and cajole two very different groups of people. A more truculent crowd arrived next, the fiscal hawks and the hardline conservatives of the House Freedom Caucus. Their beef is that a bill packed with tax cuts, and which ring-fences key spending pledges, will add trillions of dollars to the national debt. On his way in, Rep Tim Burchett joked that he did not know if he was 'going in the White House or behind the woodshed'. Two hours later, he filmed a video as he was leaving the building. 'The president answered all our questions,' he said. 'Was very informative.' No sweeteners offered A source familiar with the meetings said Mr Trump, who revels in the role of dealmaker, had not offered any sweeteners. Instead, he had talked up the importance of getting the bill passed in the face of Democratic opposition and of advancing pledges he made to the electorate last year. 'The president is doing everything he can to make sure this bill gets passed,' said a senior White House official. His choice of the Independence Day national holiday deadline highlights the importance of legislation that encapsulates his entire domestic policy. It would extend his 2017 tax cuts, fund his immigration crackdown and strip out green-energy subsidies, while slashing the federal safety net. But its passage has been precarious. An earlier version passed the House by a single vote in May and Mr Vance had to use his casting vote to get an altered text through the deadlocked Senate on Tuesday. The latest version would a dd $3.4 trillion to the national debt during the next decade, according to non-partisan analysts, much to the horror of fiscal hawks. 'The Senate bill moved way far away from the House bill,' Andy Harris, the Republican Congressman who chairs the Right-wing Freedom Caucus, told CNBC. 'We should take the time to get this right.' The president used social media to keep up pressure. 'Nobody wants to talk about GROWTH, which will be the primary reason that the Big, Beautiful Bill will be one of the most successful pieces of legislation ever passed,' Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. 'Our Country will make a fortune this year, more than any of our competitors, but only if the Big, Beautiful Bill is PASSED!' Conservatives circulated a memo setting out their opposition throughout the day. It spelt out concerns about the increase to the deficit, the way it 'watered down' cuts to green-energy subsidies and 'excessive pork' given to Alaska and Hawaii in order to smooth its passage through the Senate. After the White House meetings, Republicans huddled in closed door meetings on Capitol Hill as they plotted their next moves. Party leaders held open a series of procedural votes that left progress towards final approval stalled through the afternoon. Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, said he was trying to convince the holdouts to back the bill. 'We are working through everybody's issues and making sure that we can secure this vote. I feel very positive about the progress,' he told reporters.
