Politics
Here’s What to Know About Congressional Republicans’ Budget Plans
The Senate on Tuesday evening voted on party lines to adopt a budget outline designed to clear the way for a major piece of President Trump’s domestic agenda, putting forth a measure that calls for increasing spending on immigration enforcement and defense while cutting other federal programs.
Republicans in Congress have been consumed for weeks with advancing a budget blueprint to power their push to enact Mr. Trump’s sweeping tax and immigration agenda. Approval of such a plan is a crucial first step if Republicans want to avail themselves of a process called budget reconciliation, which allows legislation that affects government revenues to pass the Senate on a simple majority vote.
For decades, both parties have used that maneuver to push major domestic policy legislation through Congress — including tax cuts, health care policy changes and economic relief packages — over the opposition of the minority party. The stakes are exceedingly high, and the process is tremendously difficult.
The House and Senate, both controlled by Republicans, have been working on separate budget plans and are at odds on how to move forward. With the House G.O.P. divided and delayed in considering their outline, the Senate is moving ahead.
Here’s what you need to know about the budget.
What is a budget resolution?
In theory, Congress is supposed to adopt a budget resolution each year setting a top-line number for federal funding and providing general contours for how that money should be spent. After the plan is approved, it falls to lawmakers on the Appropriations Committees to allocate federal dollars, following the blueprint.
Lawmakers in recent years have not produced such a plan or put it to a vote, sidestepping tough decisions about what programs to spend on and what programs to cut. Instead, congressional leaders, in collaboration with senior appropriators, have agreed on the overall numbers and simply passed spending legislation each year.
But in order to use the reconciliation process, the House and the Senate must each adopt a budget resolution that lays out broad areas of agreement on where to increase and decrease spending.
The budget resolution is just a blueprint. Unlike a spending bill, it does not carry the force of law, and it does not fund the government. Its consideration is entirely separate from another task that Republicans in Congress have in the weeks ahead: agreeing to and passing legislation to keep federal funding flowing past a March 14 deadline.
The budget measure being considered this week does not even lay out what specific legislative changes to take in order to meet the spending targets it contains. Those changes must be detailed in separate legislation — one or multiple bills — that is subject to restrictive rules for what can be included and which must pass both the House and Senate to become law.
What’s the difference between the House and Senate blueprints?
The Senate blueprint is far more bare-bones than the House plan. It calls for increasing military spending by $150 billion. Funding for border security measures, including additional detention beds and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, would increase by $175 billion. It does not lay out specific spending cuts to pay for those increases, but Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who chairs the Budget Committee, has indicated that the legislation would be fully paid for, in part through new revenues from domestic drilling.
Mr. Graham has said the blueprint represents just the opening salvo in the Senate’s legislative drive, and that it would be followed by a second bill that would extend the 2017 tax cuts.
The House plan is both more expansive and more granular, in an effort to meet the demands of conservative hard-liners who have demanded that House G.O.P. leaders guarantee deep spending cuts.
That blueprint calls for legislation that would add roughly $3 trillion to the deficit over a decade, while imposing deep cuts in spending on health care and food programs for low-income people. That would help pay for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. It also calls for raising the debt limit by $4 trillion.
Why are the House and the Senate advancing different plans?
House and Senate leaders have remained divided over the best way to enact Mr. Trump’s fiscal promises into law. In the Senate, Republicans have argued that lawmakers should deliver the president an early political victory and quickly pass legislation increasing funding for immigration enforcement, arguing that the Homeland Security Department desperately needs more money to carry out the White House’s ambitious deportation agenda.
But G.O.P. leaders in the House have argued that lumping Mr. Trump’s entire domestic policy agenda into one big bill will make it easier to pass in a chamber where Republicans have a razor-thin majority and will need to muster near-unanimity in order to pass the blueprint.
Senate leaders initially deferred to the House, but after internal divisions slowed their efforts to put together a budget plan, Mr. Graham went ahead and advanced his own plan.
What programs are on the chopping block?
Because the budget resolution only lays out broad spending targets by committee, Republicans have not yet had to choose which federal programs they will cut — or by how much.
But the House blueprint hints at where Republicans plan to find the money to finance their tax cuts. For example, the plan instructs the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, to come up with at least $880 billion in cuts. That accounts for more than half of the reductions laid out in the budget outline.
Those choices will be among the toughest Republican leaders will have to make, especially in the House. They will need to balance the demands of hard-right conservatives who want to gut Medicaid and food stamps against the entreaties of politically vulnerable moderates whose constituents rely on those programs.
At the same time, they will have to decide which tax cuts championed by Mr. Trump are essential, and which they can jettison. Just extending the 2017 tax cuts alone would cost roughly $4 trillion over the next 10 years.
Andrew Duehren contributed reporting.
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Gilad Thaler, Jon Miller, Stephanie Swart, Rafaela Balster, Whitney Shefte and Nikolay Nikolov
May 29, 2026
Politics
Federal judge orders Trump’s name removed from Kennedy Center, says only Congress can rename it
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A federal judge on Friday ordered that President Donald Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, said the iconic venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress, ruling that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees overstepped its “statutory bounds by unilaterally renaming” the building.
As part of his ruling, the Trump administration will be required to take down all physical signage bearing Trump’s name and eliminate any references to a “Trump-Kennedy Center” from official materials.
TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER’S BOARD VOTES UNANIMOUSLY TO APPROVE $257M RENOVATIONS AND TWO-YEAR CLOSURE
A sign is displayed on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts building. (Getty Images)
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Roma Daravi, the Trump Kennedy Center vice president of public relations, said the board plans to appeal the decision.
“We will review the decision carefully though the reality remains — the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration – a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges,” Daravi said. “With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”
The ruling was part of a lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
BOARD VOTES KENNEDY CENTER TO BE RENAMED ‘TRUMP-KENNEDY CENTER,’ LEAVITT SAYS
President Donald Trump stands in the presidential box during a tour of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 2025. On Friday, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s name must be removed from he iconic venue. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
Cooper previously denied a request for a preliminary injunction filed by a preservation group to block the planned two-year closure of the Kennedy Center for a rehabilitation project.
Trump secured $257 million from Congress as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to address disrepair and deferred maintenance of the Kennedy Center, which critics say has been neglected and mismanaged before Trump intervened.
The funds appropriated by Congress are spent on maintenance, repairs, security, and capital projects related to the building and site.
Beatty, who serves as an ex officio member of the board, praised Friday’s ruling.
“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”
Workers install Donald J. Trump signage above the existing Kennedy Center sign in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 19, 2025. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
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Trump’s name was added to the venue last December following a unanimous decision by the board. In February 2025, Trump was elected chairman of the Kennedy Center board after removing 18 trustees appointed by former President Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON — A framework agreement to end the U.S. war with Iran is all but settled, pending sign-off from the presidents of the two warring sides, President Trump said Friday, projecting optimism that a deal could finally be at hand.
Yet doubt cast a shadow over the diplomatic process entering the weekend as Trump faced a politically fraught decision to enter an agreement that would invariably require significant concessions to Tehran.
The negotiations have faced severe headwinds in recent days, with both sides accusing the other of violating a fragile ceasefire that has largely stopped the fighting since April.
On his Truth Social site, Trump said he had summoned his top aides to the White House Situation Room to decide on the deal.
The agreement would see an end to the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports and the removal of Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway through which 20% of the world’s energy supply passes each day. The strait, Trump wrote, will reopen with “no tolls” for “unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions.”
And “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb,” Trump wrote, noting that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient for nuclear weapons, “will be unearthed by the United States (which, it is agreed, is the only Country, along with China, with the mechanical capability of doing so!), in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and DESTROYED.”
“No money will be exchanged, until further notice,” he added.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said the deal would require Iran to disavow the continuation of its domestic nuclear program — a diplomatic feat never before achieved throughout a quarter-century of international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear work.
It is unclear whether Tehran would go that far. And Iran’s negotiators expressed defiance on Friday, stating that there was “no trust in guarantees or words” from the American side.
“No step will be taken before the other side acts first,” said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament. “We do not gain concessions through dialogue, but through missiles.”
It remains unclear when the Trump administration would ease sanctions on Iran, how extensive that relief would be, or what form it would take — questions that fueled Republican criticism of the Obama-era nuclear deal more than a decade ago.
The working diplomatic document would formally extend the existing ceasefire for 60 days, allowing for a more detailed negotiation to take place over Iran’s nuclear program. But the truce as it currently stands is on perilous ground. Iran launched a ballistic missile on Thursday at Kuwait, a close U.S. ally, after American forces took “defensive” actions against Iranian missile launchers and mine-laying boats it had launched in the strait.
The war has proved historically unpopular with the American public, and has seen oil prices soar since the U.S. military, in partnership with Israel, launched its first strikes against Iran in February.
Bessent said he is hopeful that oil prices would drop quickly once an agreement is signed. But industry analysts say the effects of the war on the oil market could last for months, if not years, with the stability of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz now in question for commercial shippers.
While oil has dropped to under $100 a barrel, markets appeared skittish on Friday over the prospects for a deal, with mixed messages appearing to emerge out of the region.
It is also unclear whether a U.S. agreement with Iran would in any way bind Israel’s hands in its military operations, either in Iran or in Lebanon, where an Iranian proxy militia, Hezbollah, has vowed to keep up the fight.
Israel has ramped up strikes against Hezbollah targets in recent days, jeopardizing a delicate ceasefire negotiated with the Lebanese government, a deal encouraged by the Trump administration in order to grease the wheels for its talks with Tehran.
Trump has been uncharacteristically silent on the prospects of an agreement in recent days, expressing cautious optimism in limited exchanges with reporters.
“It’s hard to say exactly when or if the president’s going to sign,” Vice President JD Vance, who has led the U.S. diplomatic team, told reporters, noting that “the nuclear stuff” is still subject to negotiation. “We’re going back and forth on a couple of language points.”
“I do think that we’ve made a lot of progress here,” Vance added. “Hopefully we’ll continue to make progress, and the president will be in a position where he can endorse the agreement. But obviously, that’s still TBD.”
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