congress hit a major setback today as they race to pass President Trump's big beautiful bill a massive tax and spending package the Senate has set a self-imposed deadline to improve by July 4th that's all while lawmakers are trying to move through other important business like approving more of the president's nominees to top positions this week that included Emil Bo a highranking Justice Department official who's been tapped to be a federal judge in New Jersey senate Democrats including Senator Cy Booker accused the judicial nominee of lying during his confirmation hearing Wednesday and said Bo is unfit to serve on an appeals court that represents the state our Washington DC correspondent Ben Hulac is here to shed some light on what happened ben good to talk to you uh among the many things that you've been reporting on uh this week in particular uh are where we stand with this reconciliation bill uh the parliamentarian apparently uh dealt a blow to the Senate version can you just give us an update on on what's been happening where things stand yeah there's a slew of moving parts at this point uh the parliamentarian as you pointed out stripped out some big portions of Republican of the House version I should say uh at this point the two chambers are trying to get together to mash up and blend their uh their opposing visions into something that could become law and that's really tricky there is one faction of the Republican party that wants deep cuts uh as I've spoken about with you before across the board really um and then there's another more moderate faction that really does not want those uh cuts to be as deep in particular that group is worried about Medicaid i spoke with Jeff Vandrew a South Jersey Republican on Monday and he said as is uh there are he would not vote for the Senate version if it were to come back over to the House and he sort of ballpark figure was that there were 12 Republicans in the House at that point who would not vote for it uh that would be enough to tank this bill which is of course the centerpiece of Donald Trump's entire agenda and the Senate may be in for a weekend session there's a test vote in theory scheduled for tomorrow and then the House could come back as soon as Tuesday but they're all rushing toward the self-imposed July 4th deadline and there is nothing binding Republicans in both chambers to do that this is a deadline they've set for themselves and they really want to get out of town and get this done beforehand but it is there are some serious roadblocks to making that happen yeah i mean I know the president has said you know no one goes on vacation until this gets done but I was talking to Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman yesterday and she also expressed skepticism about that timeline what is it looking like realistically at this point the Republicans don't have the votes publicly in either chamber it seems to me um there is blowback on salt provisions that's a tax deduction from a lot of uh Republicans in the House from more moderate states uh blue tinted states politically and um the timeline is really up to the Republicans uh as I said the jet fumes the smell of the jet fumes is strong and members want to leave but if Trump is demanding that they stay they have a long way to go to get some sort of deal all right let me let me switch gears uh quickly the piece you wrote about uh for today was a a pretty tough session yesterday in the Senate for a nominee for the uh third circuit uh Emil Bo he he faced a grilling really particularly um from uh our US Senator Cy Booker um what's the the big issue the main issue Democrats have with his nomination yeah and Booker wasn't the only one who asked some tough questions of Bo uh he is up for a third circuit appellet position uh that covers New Jersey Delaware and Pennsylvania the main issues Democrats zeroed in on I would say boil down to three three broad things one Bo's involvement in the firing of uh the people who prosecuted the January 6 attacker cases his involvement in dismissing charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams which has been described as a a sort of quid proquo um the idea being that the Trump administration would drop charges against him in favor in exchange for favorable immigration policy from Mayor Adams and then the third bucket is really this pattern um that not only Democrats have laid out about Boe but people who've worked for him uh this pattern that dates back years and years of him as a really inflexible and unprofessional lawyer um I got more into it in my piece that ran this morning but those are the broad buckets yeah um do they have the votes to block him almost certainly no they would need four Republicans to come on board and vote with all Democrats assuming every Democrat votes against the Bob nomination but plus the layland yeah and as you said it's a lifetime appointment um you can read Ben's reporting on this and everything coming out of the Hill on our website njspotlightenews.org ben thanks so much anytime