WASHINGTON – The Tuesday White House press briefing will be on camera with Sean Spicer and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.
The briefing is scheduled for 2 p.m. from the White House briefing room. You can watch it live here.
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Here's what is going on in Washington today:
Democrats aim to blast Trump for favoring wealthy
Democrats are out to capitalize on what they believe is growing public sentiment that President Donald Trump, the richest man to call the White House home, is turning his back on the people who got him elected in favor of his wealthy peers. The party is hoping that pitch will pack extra oomph at a time when even some Republicans are raising concerns that the GOP health-care plan could hurt the poor.
Though stung by a series of defeats in special congressional elections, Democrats believe they can make inroads with some of Trump's most loyal supporters by driving home the combined potential impact of proposed tax cuts that would largely benefit the wealthy and pending health care legislation that would fail to cover tens of millions of Americans enrolled in "Obamacare."
In a polling memo circulated by the Democratic group Priorities USA, Democrats say they have seen a significant shift in the last two months in the number of people that believe the president sides with the wealthy and big corporations over average Americans. Democrats plan to turn that message into a prominent sales pitch for their candidates and surrogates, and could make it the theme of ads as well.
Guy Cecil, the group's chairman, said that for the president's first three months in office, voters who backed President Barack Obama then switched to Trump believed that the new president represented middle-class workers more than he represented the wealthy. But he said that has changed since April.
"People are taking a second look," says Cecil. "The reason that health care is so powerful is because it directly affects people's lives and there's a clear trade-off: You're giving tax cuts to the rich; you're taking health care away from everybody else."
Public polling also turns up growing unease about GOP attention to needs of the middle class. A Pew Research Center poll released last week found 57 percent of respondents said the Democratic Party "cares about the middle class" while 42 percent said that Republicans did.
The White House dismissed the findings.
"Unlike the Democrats who have no agenda and no ideas, the president is working hard to lower the cost of health care, cut taxes for all families and businesses, and create good jobs and higher wages for all," said White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Trump, of course, has never shied away from being associated with wealth.
His insurgent candidacy for president was built on his business experience, and his time on the reality TV show "The Apprentice" cast him as America's CEO, with his riches on full display. Even though he refused to release his tax returns, he boasted time and again on the campaign trail about how much money he had, even declaring, "I'm really rich."
That hasn't changed since Trump took office. He spends most weekends at one of his opulent resorts, brags about his advisers' wealth and even told the crowd at an Iowa rally last week that he didn't "want a poor person" for any senior economic jobs.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the House health care bill would leave 23 million people without insurance while the Senate would do the same to 22 million, with the brunt falling on older people with lower income. Trump's proposed budget also targets many of the programs that help low-income Americans, such as help with heating their homes.
Democrats hope it provides more ammunition to revive their effective 2012 attack lines claiming Mitt Romney had turned his back on the working and middle classes.
But what worked against Romney may not necessarily be effective with Trump loyalists.
"The draconian impact of the GOP Trumpcare bill is a potential asset for the Democrats," said Wendy Schiller, political science professor at Brown University, "but the big obstacle for them is that the bill's provisions do not take effect until well after 2018, and not entirely until 2025. So it is unclear they will be able to persuade the majority of voters in congressional districts that the sky is falling on health care if nothing much changes."
Moreover, many of the president's backers don't care about Trump's wealth or his policies, their loyalty instead guided by partisan impulses and Trump's larger-than-life personality and promises.
"His supporters pay attention to what he's saying, and less so to either the Democrats or the press," Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said in an email. "Simply put, Democrats can criticize his health care plan and tax plan as much as they want, but it falls on deaf ears with Trump voters, as they simply tune it out."
The president's allies point to all the failed attacks launched at Trump during the campaign and to GOP wins in the recent special elections as evidence that the Democrats won't be successful if they are simply the anti-Trump party. Former Trump campaign adviser Barry Bennett says the party's latest strategy is further evidence that the president is "living in their heads."
"Attacks like these are to define someone and Donald Trump is already completely defined," Bennett said. "The people of Warren, Ohio, don't care if he is rich. They care if he is creating jobs."
Budget office sees 22 million fewer covered with Senate bill
Rebellious Republican senators are forcing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to scramble to rescue the party's health care bill before debate even begins. The dissension is swelling after Congress' nonpartisan budget referee said the high profile measure would leave 22 million more people uninsured by 2026 than President Barack Obama's law, which the GOP wants to scrap.
McConnell, R-Ky., was hoping Tuesday to staunch his party's rebellion, a day after the Congressional Budget Office released its report. He's been aiming at winning Senate passage this week, before a weeklong July 4 recess that leaders worry opponents will use to weaken support for the legislation.
The CBO analysis suggested some ammunition GOP leaders could use, saying the Senate bill would cut federal deficits by $202 billion more over the coming decade than the version the House approved in May.
Senate leaders could use some of those additional savings to attract moderate votes by making Medicaid and other provisions more generous, though conservatives would rather use that money to reduce red ink.
"You don't want to bring something up unless you know you have the votes to pass it. But I also think we may not know if we have the votes to pass it until we bring it up," said No. 3 GOP Senate leader John Thune of South Dakota.
The projected boost in uninsured people fed concerns by moderate Republican lawmakers that the Senate measure, annulling parts of Obama's 2010 overhaul, was too drastic. Yet conservatives were unhappy that it didn't do enough to dismantle Obama's law and lower premiums by repealing coverage requirements, leaving McConnell with little margin for error -- the bill fails if three of the 52 GOP senators vote no.
The 22 million extra Americans were just 1 million fewer than the number the budget office estimated would become uninsured under the House version. President Donald Trump has called the House bill "mean" and prodded senators to produce a package with more "heart."
Minutes after the report's release, three GOP senators threatened to oppose a procedural vote to begin debate expected Wednesday -- enough to derail the legislation.
Moderate Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she would vote no. She tweeted that she favors a bipartisan effort to fix Obama's statute but added, "CBO analysis shows Senate bill won't do it."
Conservative Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he would oppose that motion unless the bill was changed. And fellow conservative Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he had "a hard time believing" he'd have enough information to back that motion this week.
Moderate Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., on Friday said he'd oppose the procedural motion without alterations.
Those rebels were just part of McConnell's problem. Two other conservatives -- Texas' Ted Cruz and Utah's Mike Lee -- have also said they'd vote no without revisions, and several other moderates have expressed worries about the bill's Medicaid cuts and reductions in people with coverage.
The budget office report said the Senate bill's coverage losses would especially affect people between ages 50 and 64, before they qualify for Medicare, and with incomes below 200 percent of poverty level, or around $30,300 for an individual.
In one example, the report says that in 2026 under Obama's law, a 64-year-old earning $26,500 would pay premiums amounting to $1,700 a year, after subsidies. Under the Senate bill, that person would pay $6,500, partly because insurers would be able to charge older adults more.
The Senate plan would end the tax penalty that law imposes on people who don't buy insurance, in effect erasing Obama's so-called individual mandate, and on larger businesses that don't offer coverage to workers.
It would let states ease Obama's requirements that insurers cover certain specified services like substance abuse treatments, and eliminate $700 billion worth of taxes over a decade, CBO said, largely on wealthier people and medical companies that Obama's law used to expand coverage.
It would cut Medicaid, which provides health insurance to over 70 million poor and disabled people, by $772 billion through 2026 by capping its overall spending and phasing out Obama's expansion of the program. Of the 22 million people losing health coverage, 15 million would be Medicaid recipients.
CBO said that under the bill, most insurance markets around the country would be stable before 2020. It said that similar to the House bill, average premiums around the country would be higher over the next two years -- including about 20 percent higher in 2018 than under Obama's statute -- but lower beginning in 2020.
But the office said that overall, the Senate legislation would increase out of pocket costs for deductibles and copayments. That's because standard policies would be skimpier than currently offered under Obama's law, covering a smaller share of expected medical costs.
In another troublesome finding for the legislation, the budget office warned that in some rural areas, either no insurer would be willing participate in the individual market or the policies offered would be prohibitively expensive. Rural America was a stronghold for Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
Vice President Mike Pence invited four GOP senators to dinner Tuesday to discuss the bill, his office said: Lee and Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.
White House warns Syria's Assad against chemical attack
The White House issued a stern warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday night as it claimed "potential" evidence that Syria was preparing for another chemical weapons attack.
In an ominous statement issued with no supporting evidence or further explanation, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the U.S. had "identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children."
He said the activities were similar to preparations taken before an April 2017 attack that killed dozens of men, women and children, and warned that if "Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price."
The White House offered no details on what prompted the warning and spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said she had no additional information Monday night.
Several State Department officials typically involved in coordinating such announcements said they were caught completely off guard by the warning, which didn't appear to be discussed in advance with other national security agencies. Typically, the State Department, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies would all be consulted before the White House issued a declaration sure to ricochet across foreign capitals.
The officials weren't authorized to discuss national security planning publicly and requested anonymity.
A non-governmental source with close ties to the White House said the administration had received intelligence that the Syrians were mixing precursor chemicals for a possible sarin gas attack in either the east of south of the country, where government troops and their proxies have faced recent setbacks.
In Moscow Tuesday, a senior Russian lawmaker dismissed the warning as "provocation."
Assad had denied responsibility for an April 4 attack in the rebel-held Idlib province that killed dozens of people, and Russia, Assad's key backer, sided with him. Days later, President Donald Trump launched a retaliatory cruise missile strike on a Syrian government-controlled air base.
Frants Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of the defense and security committee at the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, on Tuesday accused the United States on "preparing a new attack on the positions of Syrian forces."
In comments to state-owned RIA Novosti, he added: "Preparations for a new cynical and unprecedented provocation are underway."
The U.S. strike was the first direct American assault on the Syrian government and Trump's most dramatic military order since becoming president months before.
Trump said at the time that the Khan Sheikhoun attack crossed "many, many lines," and called on "all civilized nations" to join the U.S. in seeking an end to the carnage in Syria.
Syria maintained it hadn't used chemical weapons and blamed opposition fighters for stockpiling the chemicals. Russia's Defense Ministry said the toxic agents were released when a Syrian airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons arsenal and munitions factory. Russia is a close ally of Assad.
The U.S. attack on a Syrian air base came after years of heated debate and deliberation in Washington over intervention in the bloody civil war. Chemical weapons have killed hundreds of people since the start of the conflict.
Earlier Monday, Trump had dinner with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and other top officials as he hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House.
Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov talked earlier Monday about the need to secure a cease-fire in Syria, fight extremist groups and prevent the use of chemical weapons, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, followed up Spicer's statement with a Twitter warning: "Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Asaad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people."
Less than an hour after Spicer issued the statement, Trump was back to tweeting about the 2016 campaign, denouncing investigations into potential collusion between Moscow and his campaign aides as a "Witch Hunt!"