July 2 2025
House GOP Threatens Megabill; GOP Subpoenas Ivies; Paramount Settles Trump 'FAKE NEWS' Lawsuit; China's AI Gains on US; US Halts Some Ukraine Weapons
House GOP Revolt Threatens Trump's Signature 'Megabill'
House Subpoenas Ivy League Presidents in Price-Fixing Probe
Paramount to Pay $16 Million to Settle Trump's '60 Minutes' Lawsuit
Global AI Arms Race Heats Up as Chinese Firms Gain Ground
US Halts Key Weapons Deliveries to Ukraine to Restock Own Arsenals
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1. House GOP Revolt Threatens Trump's Signature 'Megabill'
A. House Republicans are already lining up to oppose President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” with conservatives and centrists blasting the legislation just hours after Vice President JD Vance cast his tiebreaking vote on the Senate version. At the moment, the number of House Republicans vowing to oppose the Senate version is enough to block the bill’s passage, unless there is again a last-minute scramble to negotiate with holdouts along with a successful pressure campaign by the president. Only three House Republicans need to oppose the bill to sink it. A crescendo of complaints began building across the disparate wings of the House Republican conference days before the Senate passed the bill, following an exhaustive 27-hour marathon of amendment votes. The legislation would broadly fund Trump’s biggest priorities including the extension of his 2017 tax cuts; no tax on tips and overtime; and a large funding boost to the president’s immigration and border policies.
B. To understand why Republicans have struggled to unite behind their domestic-policy bill that cuts taxes and Medicaid, look at how much progress the party has made on one of its other primary goals: winning support from working-class Americans. About 15 years ago, in 2009, Republicans represented 26 of the 100 lowest-income House districts, according to Census data. By 2023, they represented 56—more than half. At the same time, Democrats came to dominate the wealthiest House districts, representing 69 of the 100 where incomes are highest. In other words, America’s two political parties have traded places economically. Where Americans once referred to upper-income “country club Republicans” and blue-collar “lunchpail Democrats,” they now see a working-class GOP and, in many ways, a professional-class Democratic Party.
Editors note: the bill will pass, only question is when and in what form; my guess is by July 4th but some House Republicans, understanding their power, will extract concessions for their districts
WSJ
2. House Subpoenas Ivy League Presidents in Price-Fixing Probe
Republican lawmakers have escalated their confrontation with elite US universities by issuing subpoenas to the presidents of two Ivy League schools they allege have colluded on tuition fees. The judiciary committee in the House of Representatives issued subpoenas on Tuesday to the heads of Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, demanding they surrender documents by July 22. The committee opened a probe into collusion earlier this year and requested documents in April, but described the universities’ responses to be “inadequate”. The lawmakers also issued a subpoena to Harvard last month and have sought information from Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Princeton and Yale, all Ivy League institutions. The congressional inquiry adds a new layer of pressure on the universities, which are embroiled in a deepening stand-off with President Donald Trump’s administration.
FT
3. Paramount to Pay $16 Million to Settle Trump's '60 Minutes' Lawsuit
A. Paramount Global said it has agreed in principle to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit with President Trump over a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, the company said Tuesday. The settlement, which doesn’t include an apology, comprises payments made to the president’s future presidential library and legal fees. Paramount also agreed that “60 Minutes” will release transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates in the future after they have aired, according to the company. The announcement caps a monthslong legal saga and extended negotiations between Paramount, which owns CBS News, and Trump’s lawyers that included mediation. The company said the terms of the settlement were proposed by the mediator. A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said the settlement was “another win for the American people as he, once again, holds the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit.” He said CBS and Paramount “realized the strength of this historic case.” Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News alleged the network deceitfully edited a “60 Minutes” interview with the Democratic presidential candidate to make her sound better. The lawsuit sought $20 billion in damages. CBS has said the broadcast was “not doctored or deceitful.” The settlement is the latest in a string of legal agreements between media and tech companies and Trump.
B. May 19 - The president of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, was forced out of her post on Monday, the latest shock wave to hit the news division amid an ongoing showdown involving President Trump, “60 Minutes” and CBS’s parent company, Paramount.
WSJ / NYT
4. Global AI Arms Race Heats Up as Chinese Firms Gain Ground
Chinese artificial-intelligence companies are loosening the U.S.’s global stranglehold on AI, challenging American superiority and setting the stage for a global arms race in the technology. In Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, users ranging from multinational banks to public universities are turning to large language models from Chinese companies such as startup DeepSeek and e-commerce giant Alibaba as alternatives to American offerings such as ChatGPT. HSBC and Standard Chartered have begun testing DeepSeek’s models internally, according to people familiar with the matter. Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, recently installed DeepSeek in its main data center. Even major American cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google offer DeepSeek to customers, despite the White House banning use of the company’s app on some government devices over data-security concerns. OpenAI’s ChatGPT remains the world’s predominant AI consumer chatbot, with 910 million global downloads compared with DeepSeek’s 125 million, figures from researcher Sensor Tower show. American AI is widely seen as the industry’s gold standard, thanks to advantages in computing semiconductors, cutting-edge research and access to financial capital. But as in many other industries, Chinese companies have started to snatch customers by offering performance that is nearly as good at vastly lower prices. A study of global competitiveness in critical technologies released in early June by researchers at Harvard University found China has advantages in two key building blocks of AI, data and human capital, that are helping it keep pace.
WSJ
5. US Halts Key Weapons Deliveries to Ukraine to Restock Own Arsenals
WASHINGTON—The U.S. has stopped the delivery of air-defense interceptors and other weapons intended for Ukraine and is using them instead to beef up Pentagon stocks, a Trump administration official and two congressional aides said Tuesday. The U.S. move to withhold arms deliveries earmarked for Ukraine reflects the Trump administration’s slackening commitment to aiding Kyiv in its defense against Russia. Administration officials have stressed the need to focus more on the longer-term threats from China and, more immediately, military needs in the Middle East. Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said, “This decision was made to put America’s interests first” following a Pentagon review of U.S. military assistance. The shipments were in Poland when they were being halted and included Patriot air-defense interceptors, air-to-air missiles, Hellfire air-to-ground missiles and surface-to-surface rockets, artillery rounds, and Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon, didn’t address the decision to halt weapons shipments to Ukraine, but said the Defense Department would provide President Trump with options to continue military aid to Ukraine that are “consistent with his goal of bringing this tragic war to an end.” “The department is rigorously examining and adapting its approach to achieving this objective while also preserving U.S. forces’ readiness for administration defense priorities,” he said.
WSJ
July 2, 2021: U.S. withdraws from Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan
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Sources
- https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/house-republicans-threaten-to-sink-trumps-megabill-66cd241d?mod=hp_lead_pos3
- https://www.wsj.com/politics/the-problematic-politics-of-trumps-bill-more-lower-income-americans-are-voting-gop-0b6288d0?mod=hp_lead_pos4
- https://www.ft.com/content/d960acf7-0316-4f21-a4b7-3359761abd16
- https://www.wsj.com/business/media/paramount-to-pay-16-million-to-settle-trump-lawsuit-over-60-minutes-interview-fd8dd21c?mod=hp_lead_pos2
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/business/media/cbs-60-minutes-trump-wendy-mcmahon.html
- https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/artificial-intelligence-us-vs-china-03372176?mod=hp_lead_pos1
- https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-halts-key-weapons-for-ukraine-in-new-sign-of-weakening-support-for-kyiv-35d78cfc?mod=hp_lead_pos8
Contact: greg@loql.ai
