00:00A breakthrough momentum, really, for Speaker Johnson to potentially get this bill, not just the Rules Committee this morning, but onto the House floor, Jonathan, today or tomorrow.
00:10So that would meet his self-imposed deadline of Memorial Day.
00:13We should know Congress really does start to act when they have a holiday on the horizon.
00:17But the speaker there, quickly caught by CNN on his way back into the Capitol, talking about the fact that this is the agreement in place.
00:24So they would be raising the $10,000 salt and state local tax deduction, the cap, to $40,000.
00:32That seems at the moment, potentially, that that will get the salt caucus on board.
00:37Representative Lawler was speaking to NPR earlier this morning, and he talked about the fact that they're still working through some of the finer points.
00:44We should note, though, for Speaker Johnson, while this is, yes, huge momentum forward, this might be the easiest week he has when it comes to the one big, beautiful bill.
00:52Because then it's going to go to the Senate.
00:54And Majority Leader Thune recently told Punchbowl News that he thought $40,000 was very generous.
01:00What is the impetus for any of these senators, especially given the fact that, look at the Republican senators in the, they're not, the Republican, excuse me, the New York senators are Democrats.
01:11So you're not going to have that same kind of push in the Senate to keep maybe this $40,000 cap.
01:18I think, as Terry Haynes has talked about, this is really the high watermark when it comes to salt.
01:22Tyler, let's just build on that.
01:24Let's talk about the process.
01:25This is just the end of the beginning.
01:27How much harder does it get from here?
01:29Right, exactly, John.
01:30I mean, it is going to be an uphill battle once it does head over to the Senate.
01:34House Speaker Mike Johnson made his way over to the upper chamber in a pretty unusual move yesterday to try to start to talk to these lawmakers about not really changing what is happening on the House side.
01:44But we do know that many of them already have some proposed changes, including when it comes to anything touching Medicaid.
01:49Now, we are expecting House Speaker Mike Johnson to also give a call here to the White House later this morning, because keep in mind, any of these changes do also have to get the stamp from President Trump, who made his way over to the Hill yesterday and really downplayed the idea that they were going to lift the salt cap.
02:06The senior administration official tells us that the message inside the room to these Republicans from high tax states was pass the bill now as it is, except that $30,000 cap that had been on the table.
02:16And then you could potentially amend that tax rate going forward.
02:21But it is clear that these Republicans really did dig in and really saw this as a political opportunity that might not come around so often, considering it's been a priority really since 2017 when that cap went into place.
Be the first to comment