Plus: WNBA expansion | Monday, June 30, 2025
| | | | | | | PRESENTED BY VISA | | | | Axios PM | | By Mike Allen · Jun 30, 2025 | | Good Monday afternoon. Today's newsletter, edited by Sam Baker, is 568 words, a 2-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing. ⚡️ Breaking: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will head to the White House next week to discuss a potential ceasefire in Gaza. Go deeper. | | | | | | 1 big thing: House GOP pleads for last-minute changes | | | | House Speaker Mike Johnson at the Capitol on Friday. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images While senators slog through their vote-a-rama, House Republicans are frantically trying to squeeze some final changes into the Senate's "big, beautiful bill," Axios' Kate Santaliz and Justin Green report. - The Senate is trying to jam the House to accept its version, with a final floor vote expected tonight. There isn't time for a House-Senate conference before President Trump's July 4 deadline.
- But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) opened the door last week to blowing past that deadline, saying some Senate provisions could force the House to make revisions.
📝 "If there are major modifications that we can't accept, then we would go back to the drawing board, fix some of that and send it back over," he told reporters last week. - The Senate can use a "wrap-around amendment" at the end of the vote-a-rama to add any changes to the bill.
🔎 Zoom in: Johnson held a call Monday with Republicans concerned about the Senate's Medicaid cuts, Axios has confirmed. - House spending hawks are also pushing the Senate for much deeper spending cuts.
- Elon Musk is trying to whip up last-minute opposition among conservatives, saying there's only one party in charge, the "PORKY PIG PARTY."
⚡️ The bottom line: Johnson can only afford to lose three votes if all House Democrats are present. And far more than three Republicans are threatening to vote "no." - But this is President Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill, and members are wary of being the vote to torpedo the president's legislative agenda.
- They've already watched Trump and his allies go after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) for voting against the bill last month.
|     | | | | | | 2. 🌎 Bipartisan rebuke | | |  | | | Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios | | | | Former Presidents Obama and George W. Bush criticized Trump's dismantling of USAID in videotaped statements as the agency shuts down, AP reports. - Bush — the only other Republican president of the past 25 years — homed in on Trump's cuts to PEPFAR, his signature program for HIV and AIDS.
- "Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is," Bush said.
💬 Obama called the end of USAID "inexplicable" and "a colossal mistake." | | | | | | | | A MESSAGE FROM VISA | | Visa-backed programs give students real-world money skills | | |  | | | | Visa and its FinEd50 partners are expanding access to personal finance education in all 50 states. - Why it's important: Free tools equip graduates with skills to budget, save, and build stronger financial futures.
Learn how Visa is helping students. | | | | | | 3. Catch me up | | | | Firefighters arrive at the scene today, the day after a shooter ambushed and killed multiple firefighters responding to a wildfire in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Photo: Lindsey Wasson/AP - ⚖️ A 20-year-old man was identified as the suspected shooter in an incident that left two Idaho firefighters dead and another critically injured last night. The suspect was found dead at the scene of the incident. Go deeper.
- 💰The Supreme Court agreed to hear a new challenge to campaign finance restrictions. Go deeper.
- 🎓 Harvard violated Jewish students' civil rights, the Trump administration said, accusing the school of "acting with deliberate indifference towards harassment of Jewish and Israeli students." Go deeper.
| | | | | | | | 4. 🏀 WNBA adds 3 new teams | | | | A'ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces drives to the basket during a game against the Phoenix Mercury yesterday. Photo: Barry Gossage/NBAE via Getty Images The WNBA will expand to three more cities — Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland — by 2030, bringing the rapidly growing league's total team count to 18, Axios' Herb Scribner reports. - "The demand for women's basketball has never been higher," WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement.
📺 The league inked an 11-year media rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime and NBC in July 2024, valuing the live rights at $200 million per year. That's about four times more valuable than its previous deal. | | | | | | | | A MESSAGE FROM VISA | | Digital payment systems face growing fraud threats | | |  | | | | Visa is protecting the payments ecosystem, analyzing over 500 data points on up to 83,000 transactions per second. - The impact: Real-time insight helps detect fraud and keep digital payments secure.
Learn how Visa is protecting America's payments. | | | | 📬 Thanks for reading! Please invite your friends to join PM. |  | Your essential communications — to staff, clients and other stakeholders — can have the same style. Axios HQ, a powerful platform, will help you do it. | | | |
