aacj

June 30 2025

GOP Bill Advances; Tillis Retires; Stocks at Record Highs; Court Limits Injunctions; Buyer Found for TikTok?; Canada Cancels Tech Tax

Greg Loving

30 Jun 2025 • 7 min read

Me, after covering President Trump for 5mo - REUTERS

GOP Bill Advances Narrowly; Trump Pressure Pushes Senator Tillis to Retire

U.S. Stocks End Volatile Quarter at Record Highs

Supreme Court Limits Nationwide Injunctions

Trump Says Buyer Found for TikTok's U.S. Branch

Under U.S. Pressure, Canada Cancels Tech Tax, Handing Trump a Victory

BREAKING…2 firefighters killed Sunday by sniper who set brush fire to ambush them in ID…shooter found dead…

1. GOP Bill Advances Narrowly; Trump Pressure Pushes Senator Tillis to Retire

A, WASHINGTON—The Senate geared up for an unpredictable battle Monday over final passage of the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill,” after Republicans narrowly advanced the measure in a 51-49 weekend vote. The 940-page legislation is driving a wedge between the GOP’s two wings, just as the party is racing to pass the measure this week. Centrists have raised concerns about cutting benefit programs and straining state budgets, while fiscal conservatives are pushing for even more cuts to rein in federal budget deficits. Proponents maintain that the opportunity to pass President Trump’s core agenda items—and pressure from Trump on holdouts—would propel the package over the finish line in the Senate, where the GOP has a 53-47 majority. A Senate vote-a-rama on the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” was scheduled to begin Monday morning in which lawmakers can propose unlimited amendments, leading to hours of expected votes. Broadly, the megabill would extend tax cuts and boost defense and border funding while cutting spending on Medicaid and food aid. It would add nearly $3.3 trillion to deficits compared with current law and letting tax cuts expire as scheduled, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If the Senate manages to pass the bill, getting the measure to Trump by Republicans’ self-imposed July 4 deadline would require another vote from the House. That might be challenging in that chamber as well, where Republicans have a narrow 220-212 majority and their initial version of the bill passed by just one vote last month. Democrats are united against the measure, saying it cuts the social safety net to fund tax relief for the wealthy.

B. Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, announced on Sunday that he would not seek re-election next year, a day after President Trump threatened to back a primary challenger against him because Mr. Tillis had said he opposed the bill carrying Mr. Trump’s domestic agenda.

WSJ, NYT

2. U.S. Stocks End Volatile Quarter at Record Highs

A historic and tumultuous quarter is wrapping up with U.S. stocks at records and many investors betting the ride isn’t over yet. The April swoon that carried the S&P 500 to the brink of a bear market has been erased and then some. The broad index has now added more than 8% since President Trump announced sweeping tariffs that sparked havoc in markets. Now, investors have more reasons to feel upbeat. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index hit fresh all-time highs on Friday. Robust corporate earnings and solid economic data suggest that the growth remains resilient. Inflation is trending near the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

WSJ

3. Supreme Court Limits Nationwide Injunctions

The Supreme Court on Friday limited the ability of lower-court judges to block executive branch policies nationwide, opening the door for a majority of states to at least temporarily enforce President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. With their decision, the justices appeared to upend the ability of single federal judges to freeze policies across the country. The powerful legal tool, known as a nationwide injunction, had been used frequently in recent years to block policies put in place by Democratic and Republican administrations and gave rise to charges of judge shopping. But the immediate effect of the 6-to-3 decision, which was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and split along ideological lines, was to give Mr. Trump a major if perhaps temporary victory in his efforts to redefine citizenship in the United States. The justices did not rule on the constitutionality of the executive order issued by Mr. Trump in January, which seeks to end the practice of automatically granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States, even if the parents are not citizens. That question is likely to come back to the Supreme Court, perhaps as soon as next year.

NYT

4. Trump Says Buyer Found for TikTok's U.S. Branch

President Trump said on Sunday that he had a buyer for the U.S. branch of TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned video app that faces a ban over national security concerns. In an interview on the Fox News program “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” that aired on Sunday, Mr. Trump said, “We have a buyer for TikTok, by the way.” He added that he would need China’s approval, but “I think President Xi will probably do it,” in reference to China’s leader, Xi Jinping. Mr. Trump did not disclose who the potential buyers were, saying only that it was “a group of very wealthy people.” He added, “I’ll tell you in about two weeks.” The fate of TikTok has been unclear for months. A law approved in 2024 required that the app be effectively banned in the United States unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold it to a non-Chinese company, over concerns that sensitive user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government. While the law called for a sale by January 2025, Mr. Trump has repeatedly declined to enforce the law and extended the deadline three times.

NYT

5. Under U.S. Pressure, Canada Cancels Tech Tax, Handing Trump a Victory

Canada’s government announced on Sunday night that it would cancel a tax on American technology companies that led President Trump to suspend trade talks between the two countries, handing an important victory to Mr. Trump.Prime Minister Mark Carney discussed the decision to scrap Canada’s digital services tax with Mr. Trump on Sunday, Mr. Carney’s office said. In a sign that trade talks were resuming, Canada’s finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, spoke with the United States Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer, on Sunday, according to Mr. Carney’s office. The tax, which had been due to take effect on Monday, became the latest flashpoint in difficult negotiations between the United States and Canada on Friday, when Mr. Trump said the talks were off. On social media, Mr. Trump called the levy a “blatant attack” and said he would inform Canada within a week about the duties “they will be paying to do business with the United States of America.” Forty-eight hours later, the Canadian government folded, announcing it would not go ahead with the tax. The finance ministry said the government had decided to “rescind the Digital Services Tax in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the United States.” Canada’s 3 percent digital services tax has been in place since last year, but the first payments were only due beginning on Monday. Because the tax is retroactive, American companies were preparing to turn over roughly $2.7 billion to the Canadian government, according to a trade group for large American tech companies. U.S. officials from both parties have long chafed at taxes like the one Canada has imposed, calling them unfairly targeted at services provided by American companies like Google, Apple and Amazon.

NYT

Editors note: politically, Trump’s on a roll