The "Big Beautiful Bill" gets a Byrd bath.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today’s read: 14 minutes.

Correction.

In yesterday’s newsletter, we described Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani’s experience working as campaign manager for the 2018 mayoral campaign of a Jewish candidate, Ross Barkan. In fact, Barkan was running for state Senate in New York, not mayor. This was a simple mix-up likely related to our main topic being the mayoral race, but nobody caught the error. We apologize.

This is our 138th correction in Tangle's 307-week history and our first correction since June 23. We track corrections and place them at the top of the newsletter in an effort to maximize transparency with readers.

Quick hits.

1. President Donald Trump said the U.S. will hold nuclear talks with Iran next week and seek an agreement to end its nuclear program, though he also said he didn’t think such a deal was “necessary.” (The comments) Separately, Iran's government approved legislation to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, hampering efforts to assess the damage to the country’s nuclear facilities by U.S. airstrikes. (The suspension)
2. During a news conference at Wednesday’s NATO summit, President Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and said he was considering sending additional Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine following heightened Russian airstrikes. (The meeting)
3. The members of the newly appointed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee announced they will review the federal childhood vaccination schedule and make recommendations on measles and Hepatitis B shots. (The announcement)
4. The Supreme Court voted 6–3 that patients do not have a right to sue states that disqualify Planned Parenthood from Medicaid coverage based on their opposition to abortion. The court’s three liberal justices dissented. (The ruling)
5. Syria’s Interior Ministry said the Islamic State (IS) was responsible for a recent bombing at a church near Damascus that killed 25 people. The spokesperson said security forces had stopped two other attempted attacks by IS. (The update)

Today’s topic.

Changes to the “Big Beautiful Bill.” Following a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee on Sunday, Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough advised that several measures in the “Big Beautiful Bill” fail the Byrd Rule and cannot be included in Republicans’ omnibus spending and taxation bill under budget reconciliation. Among the measures MacDonough identified are provisions barring certain noncitizens from receiving benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), requiring the U.S. Postal Service to sell its electric vehicles, reducing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding to zero, and forcing the federal government to sell public lands. 

This week, MacDonough cited additional inclusions as violations of the reconciliation rules. On Wednesday, she identified a provision barring federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act from applying to health plans that cover abortion services, then made further cuts to Medicaid and Medicare reforms (among other measures) on Thursday. Democrats are seeking to remove other provisions, like tax credits for donations to private school scholarships, as the bill works its way through the Finance Committee. 

We first covered the “Big Beautiful Bill” in May.

Back up: The Byrd Rule, named after the late Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), is a procedural constraint that prohibits non-budgetary provisions from being tacked onto reconciliation bills. Reconciliation is a legislative process spelled out in the Congressional Budget Act to expedite legislation that changes spending, revenues, or the federal debt limit; the procedure requires the House and Senate to agree on a budget resolution, and it allows the Senate to bypass the 60-vote threshold required to overcome a filibuster. The Senate parliamentarian is an unelected, nonpartisan official appointed by the majority leader to assist in daily proceedings and rule on the appropriateness of amendments, measures, and motions.

President Donald Trump whipped support among House Republicans to advance the bill from the lower chamber in May and has pushed the Senate to pass it into law by July 4. The parliamentarian’s rulings put the bill in jeopardy of missing the president’s deadline.

Senate Republicans could attempt to overrule MacDonough, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has signalled they are unwilling to attempt to do so, which could end special provisions for reconciliation in the future. To comply with the rulings, Republicans could either remove the provisions or vote on the bill through the regular process that requires a 60-vote majority to pass, which Republicans are unlikely to obtain given that they hold 53 votes in the Senate. However, removing the provisions is risky, as their inclusion was crucial for the support of many lawmakers.

Republicans have largely accepted that portions of the bill will have to be rewritten. “Yes, the Byrd Rule limits what can go in the reconciliation bill, but I’m doing everything I can to support President Trump and move this forward,” Sen. Mike Lee (UT) said on X. On Wednesday, Lee released a smaller replacement policy for his previous land sale proposal that the parliamentarian blocked. However, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (AL) called for MacDonough’s firing on Thursday morning shortly after her decision to exclude several healthcare provisions from the reconciliation process. 

Democrats praise the parliamentarian’s decision, saying the provisions she identified clearly violate the rule. “The Byrd Rule is enshrined in law for a reason, and Democrats are making sure it is enforced,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said.

Today, we’ll look at what the right and left are saying about the potential changes to the spending and tax bill, then my take.

What the right is saying.

• The right is dismayed by the cuts, and some call on Senate Republicans to circumvent the parliamentarian.
• Many say the removals undermine the bill’s budget savings.
• Others endorse a cautious approach to selling federal land. 

The Washington Times editorial board said “GOP leaders must not let Senate parliamentarian MacDonough derail [their] agenda.”

“An unelected functionary wields enormous influence over the fate of major legislation. Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, is using her clout to veto key elements of the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That needs to stop,” the board wrote. “Although she holds a nonpartisan position, it’s hard not to play favorites when implementing a legal standard that’s as vague and convoluted as the Byrd Rule… Under the Byrd Rule, any senator can object to an ‘extraneous’ provision that doesn’t meet the criteria laid out by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the late Democratic leader.”

“Ms. MacDonough’s decisions regarding President Trump’s top priorities have raised concerns about her objectivity. She rejected a section that would make it more difficult for federal judges to impose nationwide injunctions. It does so by forcing anyone suing the administration to post a bond covering the full cost to the public of carrying out the judicial decree,” the board said. “When Sen. Trent Lott was in charge, the Mississippi Republican canned an unhelpful parliamentarian who interfered with the Republican agenda. That’s the precedent Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, ought to apply now.”

In National Review, John R. Puri explored the “dozens of provisions” stripped from the bill.

“Given the obvious politics of the Republicans’ bill, winning bipartisan support to meet that threshold is not an option. Therefore, the reconciliation package must undergo a ‘Byrd bath’ to eliminate all provisions that the parliamentarian thinks are more about making policy changes than adjusting the federal budget,” Puri wrote. “Unfortunately, the removal of such policies will make the Big Beautiful Bill worse. The bill was already a mixed bag for fiscal conservatives. Now, over $250 billion worth of savings will have to go, as well as some immigration enforcement tools and limits on regulatory overreach.”

“One silver lining of this Byrd bath is a provision on artificial intelligence that the parliamentarian surprisingly allowed to stay. This would predicate federal funding to states on the condition they not regulate AI for ten years. Beyond that, there is not much to cheer for other than upholding the rules that sustain the Senate filibuster. Republicans will especially have a hard time filling the holes in their planned budget savings that the Byrd rule has carved out.”

The Deseret News editorial board wrote “sell some public lands, but do it carefully.”

“Lee says changes to his bill are coming. That’s good… We hope they include clear and unmistakable language that protects important public lands, which Lee has said all along is the intent of his bill,” the board said. “Lee has said the revised bill would restrict the Bureau of Land Management to selling land within 5 miles of a population center. He has said the land should be connected to existing subdivisions. Forest Service land would not be for sale. ‘Freedom zones’ would be established to protect farmers, ranchers and those who use public lands for recreation. These are solutions worth considering.”

“Lee’s original proposal would require 11 states to sell between 0.5% and 0.75% of all Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service lands, with a combined maximum of 1.5% in some cases. The plan was to use the proceeds to help pay for some of the proposed tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the board wrote. “We are encouraged by any plausible measure that would reduce this relentless, and ultimately disastrous, accumulation of debt. However, the sale of land would provide a one-time reduction of the annual deficit. What the nation needs is more permanent fiscal integrity, most likely through reforms to entitlement programs and a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases.”

What the left is saying.

• The left welcomes the parliamentarian’s rulings, suggesting they uphold the intent of the Byrd rule. 
• Some worry that Republicans could move to circumvent the parliamentarian.
• Others say the land-sale measure would primarily benefit corporations and the wealthy.

In The American Prospect, David Dayen wrote “the parliamentarian comes for the beautiful bill.”

“The parliamentarian has reshaped the bill in important ways. She threw out most of the Senate Banking Committee title, including measures that would have defunded or dismantled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of Financial Research, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board,” Dayen said. “She stopped the repeal of emissions standards for passenger vehicles, and a ‘pay-to-play’ measure whereby developers of infrastructure projects could avoid judicial review if they paid a fee. She stopped two bizarre home-state gifts snuck in by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), one of which would have… robbed a Space Shuttle from the Smithsonian and ferreted it to Houston on the taxpayer’s dime.”

“The biggest move by the parliamentarian in budgetary terms thus far was her jettisoning of a provision that would have forced states to add matching funds to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), on a sliding scale based on program error rates. Because states don’t have reserves lying around to backfill the loss, it would have meant severe cutbacks to nutrition assistance eligibility,” Dayen wrote. “It should be said, of course, that Senate Republicans could simply ignore the parliamentarian… But Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has vowed to heed the parliamentarian’s rulings, and so far, everyone is proceeding as if they will be adhered to. Blowing up the current policy baseline would be the real test here.”

In Common Dreams, Steven Harper called MacDonough an “unsung hero.”

“Republicans in the Senate made [the bill] worse. Over the weekend, an unlikely hero blocked this assault on the Constitution: the Senate parliamentarian. Will her ruling stick? Or will Senate Republicans detonate the ‘nuclear option’ to save the provision?,” Harper asked. “Buried in the House bill’s 1,000-plus pages was Section 70302, which allowed Trump to disregard all existing injunctions and continue his unconstitutional policies with impunity. It provided — retroactively — that unless a court required a bond, it could not enforce a contempt charge for violating an injunction or temporary restraining order.”

“The Senate proposed a different way to protect Trump’s unconstitutional actions from judicial scrutiny: an enormous bond that would close the courts to the vast majority of potential litigants… The current attempt to limit federal court injunctions is among many provisions that [MacDonough] struck from the Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill,” Harper said. “Unfortunately, Trump — who has urged elimination of the filibuster — doesn’t care about preserving the institutional value of anything. If he can neuter the courts in the process of bending the Senate to his will, so much the better. Sen. John Thune is about to get the test of his political career: loyalty to Trump or to the Constitution?”

In MSNBC, Hayes Brown argued the land sale provision is designed “to benefit the wealthy.”

“The fire sale of public lands is something of a pet project from the committee’s chair, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee. Lee and other supporters argue that the provision would help alleviate the nation’s housing crisis. But, in practice, the sale of these lands would more likely be yet another boon to the wealthy in a bill already designed to facilitate a massive upward transfer of wealth,” Brown wrote. “He believes the West’s ‘vast federal estate is reserved for the enjoyment of the very few: an elite who want to transform the American West into picturesque tourist villages and uninhabited, but nonetheless beautiful, vistas.’”

“The Senate’s version of the provision goes further than one the House rejected, offering up almost four times as much land for sale. Crucially, the Senate bill would exempt one Western state: Montana — and one of that state’s congressmen, Rep. Ryan Zinke, led the opposition to the House version. But leaving out the state still might not be enough to sway the Montana delegation to support Lee’s provision,” Brown said. “As the Wilderness Society warned, letting this provision pass ‘sets up a precedent to quickly liquidate huge chunks of America’s treasured lands in the future whenever politicians have a pet project to pay for.’ In this case, it would entail ‘disposing’ of untouched nature in favor of newly built McMansions and second homes.”

My take.

Reminder: “My take” is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• The parliamentarian’s decisions are a result of Republicans choosing to cram everything into one bill.
• I agree with most of her choices, but think she didn’t apply the Byrd Rule consistently in some cases.
• Republicans should respect the parliamentarian’s choices and offer a cleaner bill for reconciliation.

Legislating is hard.

Bringing together Republican members in the House to pass a bill with a thin majority is difficult enough; creating a bill that gets 95% of Republicans in the Senate to unify behind is even more challenging. These are two different kinds of members of Congress — Senators elected statewide to six-year terms vs. district-elected representatives on two-year terms — with very different motives, instincts, and incentives. Getting them all to align gets ten times harder when you try to cram every legislative priority into one, giant, “Big Beautiful Bill,” as President Trump has opted to do.

And the result here is why we leaders increasingly settle for the easy work of symbolic, illegal, or fickle executive action. 

The Senate parliamentarian wields a great deal of power, which may seem irrational and does carry its own issues: Trusting one unelected official to impartially rule on what is or isn’t fair game in a reconciliation bill is a tenuous process. But to say it plainly, the parliamentarian is not the problem. 

The root issue, actually, is that Republican Senators (in this case, but Democrats do it, too) want to pass a massive piece of legislation without a 60-vote majority. What they can do with 50 votes is properly limited, because the upper chamber is supposed to be a deliberative body with a higher threshold for changing our country’s laws. 

And it should stay that way. In a more functioning Congress, fewer decisions would come down to the parliamentarian, because the majority would propose compromise bills outside the reconciliation process that could earn 60 or more votes. Republicans are instead choosing to try to do everything they want, all at once, without even engaging the other side, but they simply can’t because they don’t have 60 seats. They have the White House and slim majorities in both chambers, but they don’t have a modicum of restraint — so the parliamentarian is providing it for them.

Frankly, it’s a relief to see Majority Leader Thune respecting the parliamentarian's rulings, given that Republicans could try to fight them — if they wanted to blow up the system and set a new precedent for ignoring them (the Senate has actually done it quite recently, but overriding a reconciliation ruling would be a much bigger deal). Given all the precedent breaking and norm challenging we hear about on a weekly basis, it’s important to emphasize that a lot of people in Washington, D.C., still respect the system and try to work within it. 

Suffice it to say, I was glad to see the Byrd Rule applied. Perhaps most importantly to me, I was relieved to see the attempted federal land sale struck from the bill (though Sen. Mike Lee is now trying again with a revised version). We talked about this last week on the Tangle podcast, but I found myself more bothered by the prospect than I expected to be. Despite the potential sale applying to a small sliver of federally owned lands, and despite us not knowing what precise land might be sold (though national parks and forests were exempted), I thought justifying the sales by “increasing housing supply” was self-evidently nonsense. The actual outcome, to me, seemed obvious: Ultra-wealthy Americans would snatch up the now for-sale land and turn it into privately owned resorts or getaways. We already have swathes of open, privately owned American land surrounding burgeoning cities and across the heartland that need to be revived with housing and jobs.

I was also pleased to see the removal of a House provision, rewritten in the Senate, that would have created a pathway for Trump to avoid federal injunctions. Basically, Republicans wanted to put a bond on federal lawsuits so large that potential claimants would not be able to challenge Trump’s federal actions — an alarming attempt to evade the same court scrutiny every other president has had to abide by. And, even if you support that effort, it certainly doesn’t belong in a definitionally budget-focused reconciliation bill.   

Actually, I think the Byrd bath should have scrubbed more, like the artificial intelligence provision that effectively prohibits states from regulating AI for ten years. This provision has drawn the ire of Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who conceded that she did not see it in the bill she voted for. Putting aside my frustration at Greene for not doing the very basic work of her job (reading a bill before voting for it!), I agree with her on the danger of the provision’s inclusion. Not only is removing the states’ rights to govern undemocratic but, as North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson (D) explained, trusting the provision requires trusting that Congress can pass an AI regulation bill of its own — which it has proven itself totally incapable of. So the likely outcome is no regulation at all.

In maybe the biggest ruling of them all, news broke this morning that the parliamentarian struck several healthcare provisions from the bill (including several that would have prohibited Medicaid and CHIP financing for individuals without verified citizenship), amounting to an estimated $250 billion of savings removed. I haven’t had as much time to read and understand her rationale, but this seems like the most controversial — and perhaps least understandable — set of rulings. It immediately sparked calls for a vote to override the parliamentarian. I’m not sure that vote would succeed, but the importance of Medicaid cuts to this bill might be enough to rally Republicans to fight the parliamentarian in earnest. 

Practically speaking, these rulings very obviously limit this bill’s scope and send Republicans back to the drawing board, but — again — that’s good. The sweeping provisions across so many sectors of American life were very clearly pushing the boundaries of what was appropriate in reconciliation, and the parliamentarian’s rulings all seemed quite reasonable, and in some cases overly restrained. Hopefully, Republicans continue to respect those rulings and their final product is appropriately tempered to fit the legislative process they’ve chosen. 

Take the survey: What do you think of the parliamentarian’s decisions? Let us know!

Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.

Your questions, answered.

Q: How do you feel about visible figures in major news and media outlets being brought in by the White House to fill federal positions? Could this further erode trust in those institutions and reinforce existing biases by rewarding favorable media coverage with prestigious positions? Or is this just how the game is played?

— Keith in North Haven, CT

Tangle: Simply put: This is not typically how the game is played, and it will do more to affect trust in government than reshape any media coverage. That trust is generally eroded the other way — with people leaving government positions for lucrative media spots — but people going from media to government is, frankly, more concerning.

Broadcast news experience isn’t nothing; it ensures someone is a professional communicator, plays well on camera, and understands how to deliver a political message. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has experience as a Fox News broadcaster, but complements it with eight years as a district attorney and eight more in Congress. 

However, two people made jumps from broadcasting careers (specifically at Fox News) to important government positions without recent complementary experience: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro. They both have their own relevant experience, of course, but neither seemed to have the resume to lead professionals at a government agency, take on long and thankless projects outside the public eye, or stay current in the area that experts are depending on them to lead. Perhaps the media personality with the least qualification is Dan Bongino, a former secret service agent turned podcast host who now has a very high-ranking position at the FBI.

We expressed these concerns, and others, when President Trump nominated Hegseth, a former Fox and Friends co-host, to lead the Department of Defense. So far, Hegseth has made high-level professional missteps while reports circulate that the White House is struggling to hire senior advisers to support him. And while Judge Pirro has only been in office for a few weeks, we have similar worries: Her last judgeship ended in 2005, and her only political experience is three failed campaigns for office in New York.

Could Trump appointing media personalities incentivize more people in broadcasting to play nice in hopes of landing positions within the administration? Maybe, but editorial media bias is an existing problem; we’re more concerned with the competency of these selections and their effect on trust in government. Appointing people with thin resumes on the basis of political allegiance is a risky practice, and if major mistakes like Signalgate continue to happen, we shouldn’t be surprised if trust in government continues to decline.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

On Monday, New York Governor. Kathy Hochul (D) directed the state’s power authority to develop plans for its first new nuclear power plant in decades. Hochul framed the initiative as a bid for energy independence and economic growth as the state moves away from fossil fuel power plants. New York has three active nuclear power plants generating approximately 3.3 gigawatts of power, and the new plant would aim to increase that capacity to roughly 4.3 gigawatts. However, some opponents worry about the cost and time needed to construct the plant, citing a pair of reactors recently built in Georgia that opened seven years later than expected and cost $35 billion to build. The Associated Press has the story.

Numbers.

• 1974. The year the Congressional Budget Act was enacted, establishing the budget reconciliation process. 
• 1990. The year the Byrd Rule was incorporated into the Congressional Budget Act and made permanent. 
• 23. The number of reconciliation bills signed into law since 1980, according to a March 2025 Congressional Research Service report.
• 152. The average number of days between the adoption of a congressional budget resolution and the enactment of the resulting reconciliation bill.
• 152. The total number of actions considered and disposed of under the Byrd Rule on reconciliation bills in the Senate since 1980. 
• 35% and 64%. The percentage of U.S. adults who have a favorable and unfavorable view, respectively, of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, according to a June 2025 KFF poll.
• –72%. The bill’s net favorability among Democrats.
• +25%. The bill’s net favorability among Republicans. 

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about Julian Assange’s plea deal.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was once again the Labubu craze.
• Nothing to do with politics: How a contestant’s distant relation helped her win Jeopardy!
• Yesterday’s survey: 2,492 readers responded to our survey on Zohran Mamdani as New York City mayor with 55% saying they’re optimistic. “He’s young and will, I believe, be far more pragmatic in his approach once he’s in office. Cuomo and Adams were two of the worst choices for Democrats — where is a senior democrat with some spine and vision who can lead?” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

Goliath, a Galapagos tortoise, recently celebrated his 135th birthday. The occasion was extra sweet, as it was also Goliath’s first birthday as a father. The 517-pound tortoise, who lives at Zoo Miami, had failed to conceive with several female tortoises before finally succeeding with Sweet Pea. According to the zoo, “the hatchling appears to be healthy and has been removed from the incubator and placed in a separate enclosure where it is active and full of energy!” The zoo has also submitted applications to the Guinness Book of World Records seeking to recognize Goliath as “the oldest first-time father in history” and him and Sweet Pea as “the oldest first-time parents in history.” NPR has the story.

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