The NPR Politics Podcast - How Trump's agenda complicates midterm races for Republicans

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

House Republicans had a busy week before heading out for an August recess. We discuss what measures they passed, how those items fit into President Trump's agenda and how that agenda is making life difficult for some Republicans on the midterm campaign trail.This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, and White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram.This podcast was produced and edited by Bria Suggs.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Members of Congress are racing to get out the door to start campaigning for the midterms. President Trump is already out on the campaign trail, even as his policies are creating political problems for his party. It's time for our weekly roundup of political news, so let's go. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Claudia Dysolice. I cover Congress. And I'm Deepa Shiverum. I cover the White House. So, Claudia, the Republican-led House narrowly passed a few items this week. week before leaving for the August recess, and I want to walk through some of them. So let's start with this. On Wednesday, House Republicans passed a $95 billion budget resolution, which is the

first step in the reconciliation process, which of course means you now need to explain what reconciliation is for the third time. I forget. So totally, I need to remind myself, too. But basically, reconciliation is a way for the majority party to move a partisan bill without having to worry about getting 60 votes in the Senate. So that's overcoming what we know as the filibuster. There are a lot of caveats to that. These need to have impacts on the budget in terms of whatever these changes are. And so it's going to be a tricky process, even though the House was celebrating, they overcame a lot of hurdles, and they made a lot of legislative wins by doing that and keeping their conference together for the most part. And this is one of the biggest ones because Reconciliation 3.0

was very much in doubt for a very long time, especially after they had the first version last year, 1.0, which was known as the one big beautiful bill. They didn't think they could come back, but they did. And here we go. Okay, so reconciliation 3.0, what is actually in this thing? What are they trying to do? Well, this, and we should note, this is really an idea that's coming from House Republicans. It's got a long ways to go to see if the Senate will go along. I think it's also coming from the White House. Exactly. Well, that's what I was going to say. I mean, just to jump in here briefly, I mean, this is, like you said, the third time this process is happening. It happened with the big, beautiful bill, like you mentioned. It happened with funding for

DHS. This is like a larger process here of the president having a very specific agenda that he's trying to push with a lot of control over the Republican Party. And Republicans in the House, correct me if I'm wrong, Claudia, being like, this is the method we got to use. And if it worked once, if it worked twice, it might work three times. And we're just going to keep trying this. Yeah, we're going to keep pushing. And so unfortunately for House Republicans, they had the easy part. The kind of obstacles that reconciliation 3.0 could face in the Senate is, first, it needs to meet this threshold of having an impact on the budget that comes down to the Senate parliamentarian. Second, where are Senate Republicans on all of this in terms of how they support each of these provisions in this legislation? For example,

the SAVE Act, that's going to be a big question mark. Some are not in favor of this. And finally, Democrats could force a lot of votes through this process, as we know, a voterrama, and Republicans do not look forward to that in any way. So caveat. nodding all that. This is what is in the bill, essentially. There is $10 billion marked for admin funding, another $60 billion for military and other related spending, $12 billion for agriculture and $13 billion for intelligence-related concerns. So $95 billion in total is what that bill is. And essentially what House Speaker Mike Johnson has said and other Republicans is it basically encompasses an emergency supplemental request from the Trump administration, from the

Pentagon for about $70 billion to fund the Iran war. These are emergency costs that have come up that need to be addressed. So just to give a little history here, normally when there is a war, the White House will come to Congress and say the military needs more money. And Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, traditionally, will step up and say, yes, this war requires the support of the American people and it requires this funding and it passes as a bipartisan bill. The idea that this has to be passed through a partisan maneuver is really a. a break with norms and also a reflection, I think, of the lack of popularity of this war. This war did not get buy-in from the American people. It certainly didn't get buy-in from Democrats. And it doesn't even fully have buy-in from a lot of Republicans.

Exactly. And we heard that from the chair of Senate Appropriations Committee this week, Susan Collins of Maine, who, by the way, is in a very tough re-election fight, telling Pete Haguecette, the defense secretary who was testified. this week, that there still remains a lot of questions about the spending. And also, we heard concerns from other Republicans that this is not the path to approve appropriations for the military. Reconciliation is really a partisan vehicle to fulfill a party's hopes and dreams. For example, this vehicle also has elements of the Save America Act, which would ramp up requirements for Americans when they go to the voting booth. So that's... the focus that it should have in terms of policy impact. But when you talk about regular approves, military spending, this is not traditional in any way. Yeah, I mean, the Affordable Care Act

was passed through this mechanism. Exactly. The one big, beautiful bill was passed through this mechanism. Funding a war through this mechanism? I mean, just to, yeah, like, thematically, it just kind of speaks to where our politics are at, right? Like, the margins are so close. The numbers are so tight. The reason that, you know, bill's, you know, have to pass this way is just looking at how specifically divided this Congress is. When you look at the agenda on Republicans and on Trump's side versus what Democrats are looking for, the bed diagram is a very small overlap in this Congress in particular. And so the reason that, you know, bills aren't passing in a quote unquote normal way is

because this isn't really a normal Congress. Yeah. And Deep, I just want to key in a little bit more on the Save America Act, which is something that President Trump has been pushing for. and now it is at least partially in this bill. It may not be able to stay in this bill in the Senate. But why is it that the president just keeps pushing this thing that the Senate, Republicans in the Senate, have made clear, cannot pass? I mean, look, this is a president who still believes that the 2020 election was stolen from him, which is not true. This is a president who he could be giving remarks about literally anything.

It could be housing. It could be an economic, you know, agenda that he has. And he will somehow circle back to voter fraud complaints about the election system being broken and wanting to fix it through this act. And Trump has even, you know, posted on social media saying that he would even, you know, stop signing other pieces of legislation until Congress moved on this state back. So all of that to say, there's a little bit of an obsession here with the president and passing this bill. Like Claudia said, I mean, this is not a small thing. that he's asking Congress to pass. This would be a major overhaul of the way we ask people to go vote in this country. It would require more documents. It would require providing U.S. citizenship proof, like a passport or a bird certificate when they register to vote. These are hard things for regular people to do something that we consider a very basic part of being an American citizen. So anyway, just to say that is the context in all of this as Trump is pushing and pushing and pushing for his party to move this legislation along. And you can understand on the Republican side of

it in the Senate who are hesitant to move this along, this is a big ask. This changes a lot of things. Exactly. And look at the clock. This law probably cannot take effect as President Trump would have probably have liked this year. Now, that's what I heard from Senate Republicans. Now that we're getting close to August, it's getting too late. People are voting. People are voting in primaries. Early ballots will start going out very soon, like in September, for the November election. So the election is here. Can we talk about one other dynamic, which is that, I mean, there was a thought that the House was going to have trouble passing some of these bills this week. Ultimately, they passed all of them. The way a bill becomes a law is it goes to the Senate. And in the Senate,

it's like a brick wall over there for some of these agenda items. Right. It's a brick wall. in both directions. The House and the Senate increasingly are going in very different directions. And you can see it directly with the relationships with the president and leaders in each of those chambers. You can see Mike Johnson working through his conference with Trump's help. As we've mentioned before, Trump is essentially the whip in the house. He gets those votes across the finish line time and time again. But when we look at Senate Majority Leader John Thune, his power comes from his Senate Republican conference, and he has to listen to them. And as the president takes aim at Republicans who have been forced out of their seats into lame duck periods of their terms because they were too moderate for the president or what have

you, now the president's frustration is clear with the Senate. He's taking aim at Thune increasingly. So when we talk about all of these legislative victories for the House, it's not clear that the Senate really can move very much of it. For example, reconciliation is very tough. Thune has been very skeptical about this. And again, he reflects what he hears from his conference. And then when we look at a continuing resolution that was passed, this is a stopgap funding measure to keep the government funded past the midterm elections to try and not worry about that. Thune says that's his focus. Perhaps he could use the reconciliation bill as a vehicle for that. And then finally, a national defense authorization bill was passed, which is usually a traditional annual bipartisan authorization for policy, for funding for the Pentagon. And the Senate's hopeful they could pass it, but there's still, again, a lot of challenges there. The House and the Senate, they're operating in very different ways. right now. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, President Trump hits the campaign trail. And we're back. And Deepa, the president this week attended the dignified transfer of four U.S. service members who were killed as part of the ongoing conflict with Iran. And then later that day, he went to Georgia and gave a campaign speech. What do you make of

that split screen? Yeah, I mean, keep in mind this week before the president went down to Georgia, Pete Hegseth, who's the Defense Secretary, said this week that the war has so far cost $37.5 billion. Pretty high price tag for a war that President Trump said was going to end months ago. And then President Trump goes down to Georgia and the Iran War comes up in his remarks and he's talking about high costs. And this is a president who for months now has been trying to mock the idea of affordability, saying that it's like this punchy term that Democrats came up with. And he's saying, you know, there are some high costs right now, but they came down, but they're going to go down lower.

And he's trying to sort of say, you know, it's not that big of a deal. Here's a bit of what he said. And oil will be coming. It's going to be tumbling down. It was three weeks ago. They thought we had a deal. I said, I don't like we have a deal with these guys. They break every deal they make.

But I said, you know, but people thought the geniuses on Wall Street, they came down, really down, and goes back up a little bit. But it's going to come down maybe lower than when we even started, but just give me a little time. So he's saying maybe lower. And this is an argument for Americans who have paid a lot of money with high prices, high gas prices, inflation is high. This war has kept on a lot longer than they were told it was going to. And the president is saying, I need a little bit more time. It's just a really interesting setup when we know now how much this war has cost for this to be his message to voters.

A little more time for a war that. he was calling an excursion, right? That he was saying was over months ago. Yeah, I thought it was interesting because he does keep making this parallel. I'm sure you've noticed this as well where he talks about Venezuela and how successful U.S. operations in Venezuela were. That was when U.S. forces went in and captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. And now, you know, the White House argues that the U.S. has benefited economically from this.

There's not a lot of public information to back that up at this point. But that's the argument the administration is trying to make. And so in Georgia, one thing Trump said was, you know, that the operation in Venezuela essentially paid for itself over and over and over again. And you can see him trying to sort of reach at that argument with Iran and saying, like, it's a lot of money now and prices are really high. But like, this is going to be really worth it. The problem is, do Americans think that?

Polling doesn't really seem to indicate that. No. Polling and just talking to voters indicates that people don't have a lot of patience for this. I think certainly within his base. Some patients. Some patients. But waning patients. But every time you go fill up and gas is over $4 a gallon on the national average and climbing with oil prices back up again, it's like, okay, what did we sign up for? Claudia, the House earlier this week passed a war powers resolution for the second time. This is a resolution that calls for removing U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. It was symbolic, as these votes have been. But what does that say about how members of Congress are feeling about the current situation?

Well, it's clear there's increasing concerns about the direction of this war. And as we know, this war began in late February. The president said it was over weeks ago. And he says there's a new clock that started now with a new war. Democrats would argue that is a violation of the War Powers Act. And so this is part of what is fueling concerns for Democrats and even some Republicans. And Republicans as well are increasingly worried about the impact, about the headwinds. It's creating for them, especially on the campaign trail. It's hard for them to explain that away in terms of what they're seeing at the pump. And especially as Deepa was saying, the president said prices could very well go. up again, that is yet another headache. And when you talk to Republicans who are worried about the campaign trail, they say that is one of the last things. That is a thorn in their side and they're worried about losing majorities in both chambers over this fight. So that's really what it

symbolizes. It is symbolic because it's a concurrent resolution. So it doesn't have legal binding. It doesn't go to the president. And the House has approved one of these resolutions before. We saw the Senate follow up and approve it as well. But really, in the end, it's a message to the president. And they're hoping to ramp up the pressure to bring this conflict to an end. You know, President Trump has said several times. And maybe this was a message mostly for the audience in Iran and not the audience in America. But he has said multiple times that the midterms are not weighing on how he handles the war with Iran.

That he's not worried about the cost of things when he's. He's deciding how to execute this war. He also, just this week, announced a whole new round of tariffs, which are another thing that raise prices and have proven to be pretty unpopular with voters. I mean, like, what is he doing to his Republican Party? Oh, my gosh. He's not on the ballot. They are. Yeah. I mean, I'll just briefly mention that there's a lot of tariffs going on, but one specific thing that happened to the White House. this week as the president said he wanted to put tariffs on Canada again because of the wildfire smoke that has been, you know, trailing into the U.S. And the White House did ultimately announce tariffs against Canada this week, but they cited a different reason. And that was interesting because pretty much immediately, you know, you mentioned Susan Collins earlier, Claudia, obviously in a very tight Senate race. She basically immediately was like, ooh, I'm going to put myself a little bit of a distance away from that comment. Like just putting all of these Republicans who once again to emphasize.

very close midterm elections going on who are like, what, 100 days away from facing the end of voting. And, you know, the president is making these remarks that, you know, once again and over and over again, Republicans and these races have to be like, oh, but I don't agree with that. And it just sets up like, you know, for all of the, for all of the attempts, I think, for Republicans in Congress to try and stand with Trump and Trump to try to like consolidate all of this Republican support, you see it just fraying in so many ways when he needs. makes decisions like this and comments like that that literally force his party to break. Exactly. It's just taking up so much oxygen for Republicans. This is definitely not something they would like to be talking about right now. For example, they want to talk about their efforts to address affordability. They want to talk about provisions from the so-called one big, beautiful bill. And the administration did pass this landmark by partisan housing bill that could have

real impacts in various cities around the country in the years to come to create more affordability access. That's something that Republicans would love to be talking about, especially in these swing districts and these swing states where Americans are struggling. And for example, we've heard stats in terms of the gas prices, how much of a toll it is taken on American families. We saw that quoted this week during Hague Set's appearance before members. And it's in the tens of billions of dollars is what it's costing. And this is a study by Brown University that is tracking these costs. It comes down to about $550 per household that it is costing so far. So just imagine that amount is just going to continue to rise and impact all of these other issues, grocery prices,

fertilizer costs for farmers. All of that is getting impacted. It will continue. And the closer we get to the election, the more Americans are going to remember that when they go to the ballot box. Well, Tam, I mean, when you think about this, when you're thinking about the president waiting into these competitive races traveling to these states, right, where these races are happening, Georgia, he's going to Michigan next week. He's focusing on all these things like you mentioned that are so unpopular with voters, Iran, for example, the cost of goods, for example. Why is he doing this right ahead of the midterms? Well, the theory of the case, and I did a story about this this week, the theory of the case that the president's team and Republicans have this year. is that President Trump is a turnout machine, that President Trump gets voters to show up who are typically disengaged to otherwise wouldn't vote. And he had a winning coalition in 2024 and they are trying to recreate that winning coalition in 26 a year that his name is not on the ballot.

Now, I don't know that swing district Republicans have decided this, but President Trump, the RNC, all of these other big forces in Republican politics have decided to make the, this midterm about Trump. Put him on the ballot sort of metaphorically. And that means he's actually, I looked at the list of trips that he's made. He has campaigned with more than a dozen candidates in true toss-up races. There are not that many true toss-ups in this country. And he has been campaigning with those people, including Mike Lawler in New York, who is considered one of the most endangered Republicans in the House, and yet there was Trump rallying with him. You know, it's a very interesting theory. And I guess we won't know the answer until later. But it is a total break with the norm, which is that when you have an unpopular president whose policies are underwater, whose approval

rating is underwater, typically presidents are like, yep, I'm going to stay away because I want you to win. And President Trump is instead, hey, buddy, let's hug. He's like bringing them close. And, you know, I think that the big question here is, if you were to get everyone who voted in 2024 to vote again in 26, would they vote for Republicans? Would the same people who voted for Donald Trump vote for Republicans right now after the last year and a half of the Trump administration? Democrats are betting no. Yeah. Yeah, Republicans continue to tie their political fortunes to the president, even as you say, he's not even on the ballot. And so we've seen him have control over primaries all across the country in terms of getting his endorsed candidates across the

finish line. And the real test, however, I traveled to Texas, and that's what I heard from Senator John Cornyn, who was not endorsed and lost that race, is that it's a real test. It's a It's not clear that Ken Paxton, the candidate he endorsed there, is going to win the general election. I imagine Texas estate that's been read for decades is considered a potential for a flip in the Senate seat and has energized Democrats. So that's just one example of many of the president getting into a race that has potentially a lot of swing voters and betting that his political fortunes will get everyone across the finish line. But that remains to be seen. Yeah, he's sort of a high water raises all boats. I don't, what is that?

Oh, rising tide lifts all boats. Yes. Yes. Yes. He thinks he's the rising tide. He does. He really does. That is the theory of the case.

Yeah. All right, it's time for one more quick break. And then we're going to do Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, the part of the pod where we talk about the things from the week that we just cannot stop thinking about. politics or otherwise, Claudia, you go first. Well, I am dealing with a post-world cup hangover depression. I feel so lost what to do with myself.

I got so caught up. I'm not that much of a big soccer slash football fan, but I did get caught up in all of the excitement, especially at the end, like those last few games, when I walked into the house, my family was watching. I was like, I don't care, I don't care. And I stood there for a second, one of the third to last matches for Argentina. And my family asked you, who are you rooting for? I said, Adhintina. And so I'm standing in this position in the living room. And that's when they finally scored for the first time in the game. And I realized, oh, my God, I'm helping Adhantina right now. I need to carry them all the way through. I have to stand in this spot every time.

Because for me, I'm such a massive fan of the goat, of Messi, and it's just, I don't want him to go away. It's just an amazing, you know, player and a legend. And so that's where I got caught up. And it happened again and again. And again, I kid you not, guys. I was getting them to the World Cup. I'm sure of it. And then the World Cup came, and I just, I had to leave the living room for a little while.

Well, and that was it. I mean, nothing happened in that game. That was good for Messy or Ruff. And then at the end of the game, they misbehaved. And I was like, okay, go Spain. You deserved it. Oh, I was rooting hardcore for Spain. I wasn't rooting for Spain, actually. I was rooting for a number of different teams. And then finally, then it was Spain. And I was just like, well, I've always been a fan. I've famously always been a fan of Spain. My favorite team. So I think it turns into all delusional fans of just like, you know, some degree or the other. Fair weather fans. I love it. I love it.

I equally love the World Cup. It's the best. I'm a huge fan of soccer. I played soccer as a kid. You did? Yeah, just like to be abundantly clear, like baby rec soccer. Like, there was nothing grand happening about my skills. But it was such as a great sport.

And I'm hoping, fingers crossed you guys, maybe trying to make it to Brazil for the Women's World Cup next year. Fingers cry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to manifest this. Yeah. I like you manifested for. your team, Argentina, you must manifest

this for me. We will. It's done. Manifest your vacation. I'll just hope to have time to watch it on TV. Okay, I'm going to go next, and my can't let it go is that I have started taking bass lessons, bass guitar. I played in middle school and high school, and I was in

several bands. Very cool. And I have forgotten literally everything. I, I, the skills I thought I had are gone. But my son has been playing guitar and taking guitar lessons and now I have scheduled a bass lesson at the same time as his guitar lesson. Oh my gosh. And I had my second lesson last night and I'm, I have a lot of work to do. That is really cool. I love it.

Could you form a family band? We could form. We could form a family band. See, you're on your way. Yeah, this is smart. Because my young son has big. Oh, there we go. Frontman energy.

I was going to say, I'm manifesting, in addition to making it to Brazil, obviously. I'm manifesting, like, Tam's second career being, like, should we change the music of the politics podcast and make it? Tam's family band? Well, first, first, I should figure out what notes are what strings. Because I am like, I am in a, like, I haven't done something really hard that I'm really bad at in a really long time. What a great process for your brain. Yes. I mean, at one point I was like, it feels like I'm trying to tap my head and rub my tummy because my left hand and my right hand are supposed to be doing different things at the same time. That's awful.

I'm like, this could be good for brain health. What a cool thing though. I played clarinet growing up and I feel like I remember how to put it together and I remember how to hold it. After that, I don't know if I would remember what to do. So it's really cool to like kind of bring back like, I don't know, kind of the riding the bike energy. Maybe you never forget something sort of a thing. No, no. Muscle memory again.

I have forgotten. But I'm going to learn. I am going to do it. Lesson number three is coming, Tam. You got this. Exactly. And I'm dying for the family band name. So please.

Oh, yeah. Keep us posted. Come back. It's going to be good. One of my bands in high school was called spamicide. So hopefully we'll come up with something better for the family band. I love that. I love that.

I love that. All right. Depot, what can't you let go of? Okay. So caveat here. I have not seen the Odyssey. So no spoilers. No spoilers.

No spoilers. Nope. To be abundantly clear. I have not seen this movie. I want to see it in IMAX. So at this point, I'm not going to see it until November because everything is so booked up. Tam and I were talking about this yesterday. I've been trying to book tickets.

And it's like, well, unless you want to sit in the front row, like, I keep going weeks and weeks and weeks out. Apparently, I was not on my game and trying to book these tickets. So anyway, it's going to be a minute before I see the movie. But obviously the press store has been popping off. And one clip that I saw that I'm really obsessed with is that Matt Damon. was talking about how one of his stunt doubles in the movie in this really critical scene is a woman. Oh.

And I am so obsessed with this. I looked her up. Her name is Devin Dalton. She's a Canadian actor, a stunt performer. She, like, has done a lot of movies before. And she's got these freaking awesome arms. And speaking of second careers, potentially for you, Tam. I don't know.

I mean, I've been hitting the gym a little bit lately. I've never hit the gym before in my life. But we're working on it. And my arms, they have muscles where there weren't muscles before. I have like a little tricep definition. And I'm just saying. After years of trying to get just a tiny bit of tricep definition. No, we're like, we're trying.

Women should be lifting weights. I'm not going to be. I'm not going to be. And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We can go on and on. However, I'm just thinking if Christopher Nolan is looking out, if Matt Damon is looking for like maybe a future stunt double, I could, I could keep working at it. And I want to get to Devin Dalton's level.

That's right. I want Odyssey level arms. That's what we want. It's going to happen. I think that we should set our goals more realistically. No, we can manifest this. No. You can learn bass guitar and I'm going to be a stunt double.

That's right. May we do one of those things. A girl can dream. Girl can dream. All right, that's a wrap for today. Our executive producer is Mathani Maturi. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Our producers are Casey Morel and Brea Sucks.

special thanks to Ben Swayze and Dana Farrington. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Claudia Rizales. I cover Congress. And I'm Deepa Chivaram. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.