TV News LIES

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will transform taxes and other federal policies, is indeed big: 1,116 pages in the House version and 887 pages in the Senate. How attractive it is to you depends on largely on how big your paycheck will be in 2026.

The two bills are billions of dollars apart, but the general themes remain the same: Americans won't face bigger tax bills next year, and a portion of the deficit spending will be offset with cuts in health and food assistance programs, affecting the finances of lower-income Americans.

The U.S. Senate narrowly passed its bill with 50 votes on July 1—with Vice President JD Vance casting the deciding vote—after intense Republican negotiations for changes. It now heads back to the House to reconcile the differences with on another tight deadline so it can be on Trump's desk for signature into law by July 4.

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Senate Democrats failed on Friday to get a war-powers resolution passed to limit Donald Trump’s ability to single-handedly escalate the war with Iran. The resolution, “to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran”, was voted down 53-47.

The vote on the resolution, introduced by the Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, split along mainly partisan lines. One Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted for it; one Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted against it.

“Congress declares war,” Kaine said in a speech on the Senate floor. He stressed that the framers of the US constitution in 1787 were so wary of giving the power to start wars to one person that they did not even entrust it to George Washington, the first commander-in-chief.

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A group of Democratic senators and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller are hosting a Pride celebration at the Kennedy Center Monday evening. But the Kennedy Center has nothing to do with programming it.

Senators John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin have rented the Justice Forum, a small theater at the REACH, an expansion to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that opened in 2019.

While the group of senators booked the space a few weeks ago, the Pride event, called Love Is Love, was only announced on Monday. A statement from Sen. Hickenlooper's office says the event is "about standing up for the arts and the progress the LGBTQ community has made. The performance reminds us that our fight for equality — and for democracy — isn't over. It's happening right now." Directed by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, the show will include songs celebrating gay culture.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at a rally in Oklahoma blasted President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran and enter the U.S. into Israel’s war with Tehran.

Sanders broke the news to the crowd in Tulsa, which began chants of “no more war.”

“I agree,” Sanders told the crowd. “Not only is this news that I’ve just heard alarming . . . but it is so grossly unconstitutional. All of you know, that the only entity that can take this country to war is the U.S. Congress. The president does not have the right.”

Only Congress has the power to declare war under the U.S. Constitution, though presidents in both parties have carried out military strikes on adversaries without prior approval from the legislative body.

Lawmakers in both parties have been unnerved in recent days by the saber-rattling over the possible U.S. entry to Israel’s bombing of Iran. Trump just days ago said he would be making a decision in the next two weeks about bombing Iran.

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Bridget Brink, who stepped down as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine this year in protest of what she said was President Donald Trump's unfair treatment of the the war-torn country, announced Wednesday that she's running for Congress in one of Michigan's most competitive districts.

The longtime diplomat, who previously held high-ranking State Department roles in other former Soviet and Eastern European countries, is casting herself as a public servant as she runs in next year's midterm elections, when her Democrats hope to win control of the House.

“My next mission: to fight for what’s right here at home,” she said.

Trump picked Brink to be the country's ambassador to Slovakia in 2019 and Biden tapped her to be ambassador to Ukraine shortly after Russia invaded the country in 2022. She resigned in April, saying in an op-ed published in the Detroit Free Press that Trump continues to pressure Ukraine and not Russia.

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