Trump Administration Live Updates: Trump Rescinds Biden Policy Requiring Hospitals to Provide Emergency Abortions

The proposal comes as the White House has aggressively challenged Congress’s power of the purse and made clear it is willing to steer around the legislative branch to unilaterally control federal spending.

In this case, though, the administration is going through normal channels and asking Congress to go along with its efforts to redirect federal money. Lawmakers can approve such a measure by a simple majority vote in both chambers. Republican lawmakers have argued that it is important for Congress to codify spending cuts that were already enacted by the Trump administration by executive order.

“This rescissions package reflects many of DOGE’s findings and is one of the many legislative tools Republicans are using to restore fiscal sanity,” Speaker Mike Johnson said on Tuesday. “Congress will continue working closely with the White House to codify these recommendations, and the House will bring the package to the floor as quickly as possible.”

The last time the Trump administration asked lawmakers to pull back federal funds they had already approved, during Mr. Trump’s first term, the effort failed after two Republican senators joined Democrats to defeat what had been a largely symbolic effort.

In an attempt to avoid another failed vote, White House officials worked to narrow the range of proposed cuts.

But at least one powerful Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said she could not accept at least one provision in the package: a $400 million cut to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the global health program started by George W. Bush that is credited with saving more than 25 million lives worldwide.

“It appears that it is cutting PEPFAR, and I will not support a cut to PEPFAR, which is a program that has saved literally millions of lives and has been extremely effective and well-run,” Ms. Collins said.

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in an opinion column for The Daily News-Miner in Fairbanks, Alaska, last month that she supported government funding for public broadcasting, which she called “a key part of daily life.”

With narrow majorities in both chambers, Republicans can afford to lose no more than three votes in either the House or Senate on legislation that is opposed by Democrats, if all members are present and cast a vote.

The plan raised alarms at NPR and PBS, which also represent local stations that rely on government grants.

Katherine Maher, the chief executive of NPR, said in a memo to employees Tuesday that the clawbacks would have “devastating impact” on local stations and “disproportionately harm audiences in rural communities.”

She wrote, “If the funding already appropriated by Congress is rescinded, the effect will be immediate.”

Paula Kerger, the chief executive of PBS, said the cuts would deprive Americans of “unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.”

The package is one of several attempts underway by Republicans to weaken public media. Mr. Trump signed an executive order last month to cut off funding for NPR and PBS, an edict that was challenged in court. Legislation is also working its way through Congress that would eliminate the funding.

Patricia Harrison, the chief executive of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said in a statement that funding from Congress was “irreplaceable.”

“The path to better public media is achievable only if funding is maintained," she said.

It turns out that the sprawling legislation to advance tax and spending cuts and cement much of President Trump’s domestic agenda included a raft of provisions that drew little notice or debate on the House floor. And now, Republicans who rallied behind it are claiming buyer’s remorse about measures they swear they did not know were included.

Last week, Representative Mike Flood of Nebraska admitted during a town hall meeting in his district that he did not know that the bill would limit judges’ power to hold people in contempt for violating court orders. He would not have voted for the measure, he said, if he had realized.

And as lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday after their weeklong break, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said that she had been unaware that the mega-bill she voted for would block states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade.

“Full transparency, I did not know about this section,” Ms. Greene posted on social media, calling it a violation of states’ rights and adding that she “would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.”

The remorseful statements highlighted the realities of legislating in the modern age. Members of Congress, divided bitterly along partisan lines and often working against self-imposed political deadlines, have become accustomed to having their leaders throw together huge pieces of legislation at the very last moment — and often do not read the entirety of the bill they are voting on, if they read any of it at all. At the same time, the polarization of Congress means that few pieces of legislation make it to the floor or to enactment — and the few “must pass” bills that do are almost always stuffed full of unrelated policy measures that would otherwise have little hope of passing on their own.

In the case of the 1,037-page bill the G.O.P. is calling the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Republicans barely cobbled together the votes to pass it after a protracted fight within their ranks and significant pressure from Mr. Trump to advance some of his top domestic priorities.

As a number of disparate factions threatened to withhold their support, the focus remained on Mr. Trump’s key agenda items: extending tax cuts, boosting defense and immigration spending and rolling back Biden-era climate initiatives.

The effort ended with a sprint to the finish line as Speaker Mike Johnson tried to meet a self-imposed Memorial Day deadline for passing the bill. The final version was not completed and moved to the floor until 10:40 p.m. the evening before it passed, giving lawmakers eight hours overnight to read it and decide how they would vote. By then, it was clear that nearly every Republican was going to toe the party line and vote “yes.”

With the legislative battle in the rearview mirror and the measure in the hands of the Senate, House Republicans can now turn to a politically expedient excuse that they often used to defend their votes in giant spending bills with small objectionable provisions: that the bill was simply too big.

Ms. Greene said she was not sure whether other colleagues had similar concerns about provisions in the bill that they might not have been aware of.

“You know, it’s hard to read over 1,000 pages when things keep changing up to the last minute before we voted on it,” she said.

Their criticism was echoed in part by Elon Musk, a staunch Trump supporter who just last week left his role leading the Department of Government Efficiency. On Tuesday, he unloaded on the sprawling measure, which he described as “massive, outrageous, pork-filled” and “a disgusting abomination.”

“Shame on those who voted for it,” Mr. Musk wrote. “You know you did wrong. You know it.”

Both Ms. Greene and Mr. Flood have urged Republican senators to strike the provisions that they are concerned about. That may well happen, since both could run afoul of the special rules that Republicans are using to push the legislation through the Senate on a simple-majority vote, shielding it from a filibuster and Democratic opposition. Such bills must comply with strict rules that require that all of their components have a direct effect on federal revenues.

Still, Democrats swiftly criticized Ms. Greene and Mr. Flood for failing to properly examine legislation that both of them had backed and at various points championed.

“PRO TIP: It’s helpful to read stuff before voting on it.” Representative Ted Lieu of California said, responding to Ms. Greene’s post.

And throughout the debate on the bill, Democrats repeatedly voiced their objections to the language that would bar states from setting their own regulations on artificial intelligence.

“I even brought this provision up during the debate,” Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, wrote on social media. “I welcome those on the other side to join me in opposition to it.”

The language that Mr. Flood said he opposed, which could potentially shield Mr. Trump and members of his administration from being held in contempt for disobeying court orders, was part of a larger push by Republicans to address injunctions that have blocked the president’s executive actions.

The measure was advanced out of committee three weeks before the policy bill passed the House. Still, at a town hall last week, Mr. Flood told constituents in Nebraska that it was “unknown to me when I voted for the bill.”

Met with boos from the crowd, he added: “I am not going to hide the truth.”

“It basically gives a bright green light to hospitals in red states to turn away pregnant women who are in peril,” Lawrence O. Gostin, a health law expert at Georgetown University, said of the Trump administration’s move.

The administration did not explicitly tell hospitals that they were free to turn away women seeking abortions in medical emergencies. Its policy statement said hospitals would still be subject to a federal law requiring them to provide reproductive health care in emergency situations. But it did not explain exactly what that meant.

Mr. Gostin and other experts said the murky policy could have dire consequences for pregnant women by discouraging doctors from performing emergency abortions in states where abortions are banned or restricted.

“We’ve already seen since the overturn of Roe that uncertainty and confusion tends to mean physicians are unwilling to intervene, and the more unwilling physicians are to intervene, the more risk there is in pregnancy,” said Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California-Davis and a historian of the American abortion debate.

“This is not just withdrawing what the Biden administration did,” she said. “It’s creating a lot of unanswered questions about what hospitals are supposed to do going forward. So more confusion means more risk.”

Abortion opponents were pleased. “President Trump promised to dismantle the abortion radicalism left by his predecessor, and today another abortion mandate bites the dust,” said Roger Severino, the vice president for domestic policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who served in the first Trump administration.

At issue is how the government should interpret the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a 1986 law aimed at discouraging hospitals from turning away patients who lack insurance or cannot afford care. The law requires hospitals that receive federal funding to treat or stabilize emergency patients, or transfer them to a facility that can provide care.

The law does not specifically include abortion, but Mr. Gostin said administrations going back to President George W. Bush have interpreted it that way. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe, the Biden administration reminded hospitals that the law obligated them to provide abortions in cases where they were medically necessary.

In a statement announcing the revocation of that policy, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it would “work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration’s actions.”

The Biden policy resulted in lawsuits; the Biden administration sued Idaho, and Texas sued the administration. Both states asserted that their laws restricting abortion superseded the emergency medical act. Idaho has one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation, offering an exception only when the life — not the health — of the mother is at risk.

The Idaho case made its way to the Supreme Court last year. But the court ultimately decided that it had taken the case in error and dismissed it, leaving intact a lower-court ruling that allowed women in the state to receive abortions when their health was at risk.

Instead, Mr. Hegseth’s order was intended as a rebuke of Pride Month, keeping with the Trump administration’s drive to expunge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the federal government, according to a senior defense official familiar with the decision.

Mr. Milk is one of several trailblazers whose name has been identified for possible removal from naval vessels. According to a senior official familiar with a memo from John Phelan, the secretary of the Navy, they include Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, another Supreme Court justice, who became a feminist icon; Harriet Tubman, who, after being born into slavery, became an abolitionist instrumental in the Underground Railroad; Lucy Stone, a prominent abolitionist and suffragist; Medgar Evers, a civil-rights leader who was assassinated by a member of the Ku Klux Klan; Cesar Chavez, a labor leader; and Dolores Huerta, another labor leader.

The names of the additional ships under review were previously reported by CBS News. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about unannounced policy decisions.

“Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the commander in chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” the Pentagon said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

Any potential ship renaming, the statement said, “will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”

In January, Mr. Hegseth issued an order stating that the military would not expend resources to recognize cultural awareness months, including Pride.

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, condemned the move.

“Our military is the most powerful in the world — but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos,” Ms. Pelosi, a California Democrat, wrote on social media. “It is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.”

The vessels in question are mostly John Lewis-class fleet replenishment ships, named for Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a prominent figure in the civil rights movement who died in 2020. Congress began funding the construction of those ships in late 2015, and the first of them was launched in 2021. Not all of the vessels that might be subject to renaming have yet been put into service.

The U.S.N.S. Cesar Chavez and U.S.N.S. Medgar Evers belong to a separate class of supply ships but serve a similar purpose of supporting warships at sea with fuel, ammunition and other supplies.

Several of the military’s official web pages noting the introduction of some of those vessels were nonfunctional Tuesday afternoon.

In his order, Judge Lamberth said it was not necessary to address the constitutional issue at this stage of the case because the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on Administrative Procedure Act grounds. Under the act, he wrote, the Bureau of Prisons “may not arbitrarily deprive inmates of medications or other lifestyle accommodations that its own medical staff have deemed to be medically appropriate without considering the implications of that decision.”

Judge Lamberth was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

The ruling temporarily blocks a policy that stemmed from an executive order, issued by President Trump the day he took office, that no federal funds be spent for medical treatments “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”

That order, part of a broader push to eliminate protections for transgender people in the United States, suggested that recognizing the legitimacy of gender identities that do not match a person’s biological sex “has a corrosive impact” on the “entire American system.”

One plaintiff in the suit, Alishea Kingdom, a transgender woman who had been receiving hormone therapy since 2016, was denied hormone injections under the new policy, though she later began receiving them again, according to court documents. Two other plaintiffs, both transgender men, were told that their hormone therapies would not be renewed. Each was denied access to undergarments or hygiene products that corresponded with their gender identity. About 600 inmates with gender dysphoria are receiving hormone treatments, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

The judge’s order does not require the bureau to provide gender-related surgeries. The number of inmates requesting such operations is minuscule, and only two such surgeries are known to have been performed on inmates.

Gender dysphoria can “produce severe side effects ranging from depression and anxiety to suicidal ideation and self-harm if inadequately treated,” the judge wrote, adding that the Bureau of Prisons “does not dispute this medical reality.”

He wrote that it was not necessary to take into account debates over the efficacy of hormone therapies in his decision to issue a preliminary injunction against the policy.

“To conclude that the defendants have failed to meet the procedural strictures of the APA,” Judge Lamberth wrote, referring to the Administrative Procedure Act, “is not to take any position on the underlying merits of the BOP’s substantive policy decisions or the goals motivating the Executive Order.”

The move was a rare instance of the Trump administration proceeding cautiously amid litigation, relenting for now before potential intervention by a judge.

The Agriculture Department released guidance outlining the federal government’s intentions in May. The document referred to states and territories, which administer the program independently, as “a SNAP information silo” and directed state agencies to begin providing personal data on recipients under an executive order that President Trump signed in March.

The data the department requested from state administrators includes identifying details on recipients including home addresses, federal tax returns and social security numbers.

A group of individuals and nonprofits quickly filed a lawsuit challenging the policy on personal privacy grounds, represented by lawyers from public interest groups including the Protect Democracy Project and the National Student Legal Defense Network.

The lawsuit raised broader concerns about the data-collection efforts driven by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency team he has left in place, which have spawned multiple legal challenges.

At the same time the Agriculture Department was canvassing data from states, Mr. Musk’s team was also contacting third-party companies that process bank transactions tied to the benefits in an attempt to build out the database, according to emails first reported by NPR.

Mr. Musk’s team has in recent months taken steps to merge and centralize sensitive data maintained by multiple federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education and others.

The Trump administration has also quietly enlisted Palantir, a data analysis firm, to organize and interrogate that data in order to piece together holistic portraits of individual Americans based on the totality of the information stored on them across the federal government.

The lawsuit against the Agriculture Department argued that the demand for up-to-date information on SNAP recipients fit the larger pattern, and promised to put tens of millions of people who rely on the program into a system where they could be scrutinized over eligibility requirements.

In a filing, the groups suing noted that Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa and Ohio had already started producing data, and that all other states were already facing pressure to comply in violation of federal privacy laws.

“This case concerns the executive branch’s attempt to round up the sensitive personal data of tens of millions of economically vulnerable Americans with callous indifference for the mandatory privacy protections enshrined in federal law,” the groups wrote.

The concerns raised in the lawsuit have been compounded by proposals by Republicans in Congress to dramatically shrink SNAP and other federal anti-poverty programs as part of sweeping cuts that lawmakers have used to justify tax cuts concentrated on the wealthiest Americans.

An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the provisions of the tax cut bill could result in 1.3 million people losing access to SNAP benefits.

After the groups suing moved to block the Agriculture Department from implementing the policy, the government said in its filing that it had yet to receive any data and would not proceed until it had taken steps “to satisfy all necessary legal requirements.”

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Mr. Musk wrote on X. He called the domestic policy bill “massive, outrageous, pork-filled,” adding that it would “massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit” and that “Congress is making America bankrupt.”

He did not target any specific members of Congress, but hinted that he might support efforts to unseat those who backed the bill in the 2026 midterm elections. “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” he wrote.

The blitz of messages signaled a widening rift between Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump as the tech mogul winds down his governmental role leading the Department of Government Efficiency. While the men have publicly professed continued admiration for each other, Mr. Musk’s departure from Washington has appeared to liberate him from presenting a united front with the White House.

Instead, he has returned to wielding his brand of unpredictable political influence through X, the social media platform he owns. In December, before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Musk torpedoed a bipartisan spending bill with an onslaught of posts on X, including a threat to find primary challengers for Republicans who supported it. In March, he tried unsuccessfully to sway the outcome of a Wisconsin judicial race with myriad posts in favor of the conservative candidate.

Now unshackled from loyalty to the Trump party line, Mr. Musk can again foment chaos with his X feed.

Mr. Musk, 53, has often criticized legislation, agencies and others that are against the interests of himself and his companies, which include the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX. In its current form, Mr. Trump’s domestic policy bill would end subsidies and tax credits meant to spur consumers to buy electric vehicles, which would have ramifications for Tesla.

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, called Mr. Musk’s criticism of the domestic policy bill “very disappointing.” He told reporters at the Capitol that the two spoke on Monday and that Mr. Musk “seemed to understand” the virtues of the legislation.

The White House and the president were caught off guard by Mr. Musk’s posts, a person with knowledge of the situation said, but it’s not yet clear whether Mr. Trump will return fire.

“The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. “It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it.”

A representative for Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Trump has urged swift passage of the legislation — officially called the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act — which would slash taxes, providing the biggest savings to the wealthy, and steer more money to the military and immigration enforcement. As written, the legislation would cut health, nutrition, education and clean energy programs to cover part of the cost.

White House officials and Mr. Johnson have claimed that the bill would shrink the national debt, although the Congressional Budget Office and a number of independent analysts have estimated that the bill would increase federal deficits by well over $1 trillion, even when economic growth is factored in.

Mr. Musk posted his criticism at a critical moment for the bill, which passed the House on May 22 in the face of a strong pressure campaign by Mr. Trump. As Mr. Johnson corralled several competing Republican factions, the president summoned recalcitrant holdouts to the White House, and his staff likened Republican opposition to the bill to “the ultimate betrayal.”

But Republican senators have already made clear that they plan to make changes to the bill. Fiscal conservatives, alarmed at the estimates that it would swell the national debt, have demanded further changes and cuts to Medicaid and other programs that could help rein in deficits. Mr. Trump has warned Republicans not to mess with Medicaid, a program that many of his supporters rely on.

Mr. Musk started publicly criticizing Mr. Trump’s bill last week, saying on CBS News’s “Sunday Morning” that he was disappointed in the legislation’s size and impact on the deficit.

People close to the congressional negotiations said Mr. Musk was disappointed that Republicans were removing electric vehicle subsidies, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

“I know that has an effect on his business, and I lament that,” Mr. Johnson said. But he added that he did not believe the government should be subsidizing a transition to electric cars.

In an earlier public break with the administration, Mr. Musk slammed the president’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, as a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks” in a series of X posts in April. Tesla executives said Mr. Musk, who abstained from criticizing Mr. Trump directly, seemed not to immediately realize the impact that the administration’s tariffs could have on the automaker.

The White House downplayed the conflict at the time. Asked about it then, Ms. Leavitt said, “Boys will be boys.” Late that month, Mr. Musk was briefed on the tariffs’ effects and the company’s supply chain vulnerabilities.

Mr. Musk’s threats about unseating Republicans contrast with his political spending last year. His super PAC, America PAC, spent about $20 million in the last election cycle to boost Republicans running for the House. And a different PAC he backed spent $10 million to help Republicans in the Senate.

Some Democrats celebrated Mr. Musk’s criticism. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, brought a printed-out copy of Mr. Musk’s X posts to the party’s weekly news conference on Tuesday.

“He’s right,” Mr. Schumer said. “Republicans should listen to him.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Musk — who appeared onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February with a chain saw and said it would be “easy” to save the government billions of dollars — shared a meme on X that included a photo of fingertips pinching a minuscule pair of scissors.

“Republicans getting ready to reduce the size of government,” the caption read.

Shawn McCreesh, Theodore Schleifer and Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.

Under the proposal, the United States would facilitate the building of nuclear power reactors for Iran and negotiate the construction of enrichment facilities managed by a consortium of regional countries. Once Iran began receiving any benefits from those promises, it would have to stop all enrichment in the country.

The outline of the potential deal, which was described on the condition of anonymity by Iranian and European officials, was handed to Iran over the weekend. Officials in Tehran indicated on Monday that a response would come in several days.

It is the first concrete indication since President Trump took office that the United States and Iran might be able to find a path to compromise that would head off a potential regional war over Tehran’s ambitions to build a nuclear weapon.

But the details remain vague, the two sides remain far apart on some elements of a deal, and the domestic politics for both are complex. In his first term, Mr. Trump canceled an agreement negotiated under President Barack Obama that had similarly sought to keep Iran from being able to produce a nuclear bomb.

At least in the opening years of the proposed arrangement, when new enrichment facilities to produce fuel for power plants are being built in cooperation with Arab states, Iran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium at low levels, despite Mr. Trump’s post on social media on Monday saying the United States would “not allow any enrichment of uranium.” (It is possible that he was referring to what would be allowed at the concluding stage of the potential deal rather than during an interim arrangement.)

The idea of a regional consortium would essentially wrap Iran in a bearhug with countries that might include the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and others, allowing the production of low-grade nuclear fuel for power plants while seeking to ensure that Iran is not enriching fuel on its own for a bomb.

But one key unresolved question is whether Iran’s leadership will agree to an ultimate arrangement in which no nuclear fuel is produced on Iranian soil. “We do not need anyone’s permission to enrich uranium,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Tuesday.

Israel has also been deeply skeptical of any deal that would leave Iran with nuclear capabilities. It has repeatedly suggested that now is the time for a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, citing Tehran’s degraded air defense systems and the weakness of its regional allies Hamas and Hezbollah.

Iran, however, still possesses a formidable arsenal of conventional weapons, including ballistic missiles, capable of threatening Israel, Gulf neighbors and U.S. bases in the region.

Iranian officials have warned that in the event of a military strike on their nuclear facilities, they would respond forcefully, exit the nonproliferation agreement and end international inspectors’ access to sites.

The wording of the new proposal, crafted by Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, is vaguely worded on many of the most important issues, suggesting that considerable negotiating lies ahead, Iranian and European officials said.

For example, it is unclear that the accord meets the standard Mr. Trump said last week that he would demand, an agreement where “we can take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want.” Senior Iranian officials involved in the negotiations called the bombastic statement “a fantasy.”

Mr. Araghchi said on Monday at the sideline of meetings in Egypt with officials that Iran would “soon send America an appropriate response. Without respecting our right to enrich uranium, there will be no agreement.”

He added that he was confident of a diplomatic breakthrough to avert further crises.

Some details of the proposal were reported earlier by Axios.

Asked about Mr. Witkoff’s outline, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Monday that “President Trump has made it clear that Iran can never obtain a nuclear bomb.”

In a statement to The New York Times, she added: “Special Envoy Witkoff has sent a detailed and acceptable proposal to the Iranian regime, and it’s in their best interest to accept it. Out of respect for the ongoing deal, the administration will not comment on details of the proposal to the media.”

Any breakthrough would be a diplomatic victory for Mr. Trump, whose efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the Russia-Ukraine war have floundered. His diplomacy with Iran has also been unexpected: After pulling out of the Obama-era nuclear agreement, he ordered the killing in early 2020 of one of Iran’s highest-ranking generals. Iran, in return, has been accused by U.S. officials of hiring assassins to kill Mr. Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign. Iran has denied the allegations.

The Trump administration’s proposal, according to two Iranian officials, leaves unclear exactly what would be required in dismantling the country’s nuclear program.

Iran has invested billions of dollars in building its two main nuclear enrichment facilities, Natanz and Fordow, and in developing its advanced nuclear program, which it considers a source of national pride. Shuttering the facilities would be humiliating and difficult to justify, according to an Iranian official familiar with the internal deliberations.

These facilities also employ hundreds of scientists, some of the country’s most talented, and the government worries that many of the top ones may leave Iran if they are unemployed and waiting for the new consortium to take shape, an Iranian official said. Over the years, Israel has targeted and assassinated a number of leading nuclear scientists, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

The proposal raises the possibility of U.S. help in facilitating the construction of a nuclear power reactor in Iran. The country currently has only one such plant, built and supplied by Russia. Iran has said it has a goal of constructing 10 more. (A similar project was conceived for North Korea by the Clinton administration in 1994. It collapsed a decade later, and soon after North Korea conducted a nuclear weapons test for the first time.)

The proposal did not specify which of the hundreds of sanctions against Iran would be removed in any final deal. Iran has told the United States that all sanctions would need to be removed in order to sign a deal — not just those related to its nuclear program.

Iranian officials said they would not take any measures curbing their program without parallel sanctions relief, particularly diluting or exporting the huge stockpile of enriched uranium that the United Nations’ atomic watchdog says allows them to build 10 bombs if they chose to weaponize.

The United States has sanctioned Iran’s oil sales and banking transactions over the years, stifling the country’s economy for advancing its nuclear program, supporting terrorism, helping Russia in the Ukraine war, plotting assassinations of Western officials and perpetuating human rights abuses.

Iranian officials said they did not trust Mr. Trump because of his unilateral exiting of the Obama-era nuclear deal and conflicting comments from American officials during negotiations in the past few weeks. The officials said one of the issues being debated in Tehran was what guarantees Washington would provide that Mr. Trump or his successors would not force Iran out of the consortium in the future.

While the outcome of the negotiation remains unclear, Mr. Witkoff’s strategy is beginning to emerge.

The consortium he proposed would provide nuclear fuel for Iran and any of its neighbors interested in developing civilian nuclear power or research programs. The many players would watch one another — and they would be watched by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. group that monitors nuclear fuel around the world and is supposed to send alarms if it believes the fuel is being diverted to a weapons program.

But the proposal does not make clear exactly where the enrichment facility would be located, though the United States has said it cannot be in Iran. Iranian officials continue to insist it must be in their territory, because they would not give up their right to enrich nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Iran is a signatory to the treaty, though so far it has not ratified an addendum, called the Additional Protocol, that would give inspectors much greater rights to search any part of the country where they suspect nuclear activity.

Although it was not noted in the U.S. proposal, Omani and Saudi officials have discussed the idea of building an enrichment facility on an island in the Persian Gulf. This would potentially give both sides a talking point: The Iranians would be able to say they are still enriching uranium, and the Americans could state that enrichment is not happening on Iranian soil.

Two Iranian officials said the country was open to accepting the consortium idea because the government did not want talks to fail. But the Iranian officials said negotiators planned to bargain in the next round of talks for the island to be one of their own: They may propose Kish or Qeshm in the Persian Gulf, though other possibilities have been discussed.

Iran claims these territories and would most likely argue that this would allow it to keep enrichment on its soil. But it would also make a facility much more visible to the world than Iran’s current enrichment facilities, which are underground, and in one case deep inside a mountain to protect against Israeli attack.

Another unknown is how Israel will react to the American proposal. Mr. Witkoff met with Ron Dermer, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest advisers, around a negotiating session in Rome. The two countries have been in regular communication over the negotiations, even while Mr. Netanyahu has pressed for military action.

In Iran, as in the United States, a minority of hard-line politicians steadfastly oppose any concessions to the United States. They openly called the terms of the U.S. proposal a defeat and suggested that Iran walk away from talks. But these politicians do not hold much sway because the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has given the green light for negotiations to continue with the goal of reaching a deal.

Some analysts described the consortium idea as a win-win, saying it would allow Iran to save face and let regional allies and American inspectors be directly involved in Iran’s nuclear activities. It also removes the U.S. concern of a regional race to enrich uranium.

“But even if the parties agree on the concept, they still need to hash out the details,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the International Crisis Group. “They will also need an interim solution, as it will probably take a few years to set up a functional consortium.”

Mr. Vaez added that as long as the two sides remained divided on core issues — namely, whether Iran can enrich uranium — a final deal remained elusive and at best the two sides could agree on a document laying out broad frameworks of a future deal.

The back-and-forth highlighted the challenges facing Mr. Trump’s top domestic priority, which has prompted a searing debate in the G.O.P. about policy priorities and how much additional debt the federal government should take on to address them.

Mr. Trump began the day lashing out on social media at Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, for refusing to back the bill, claiming that Mr. Paul had little understanding of the measure and adding: “His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him.”

“He loves voting ‘NO’ on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not,” Mr. Trump wrote of Mr. Paul, calling the legislation a “big WINNER!”

Hours later, Mr. Musk panned the bill in his own social media posts, calling it “massive, outrageous, pork-filled,” and warning that it would “massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit” and “burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”

“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong,” Mr. Musk wrote, apparently referring to House Republicans who backed it almost unanimously when it squeaked through their chamber late last month.

His broadside served as a shot in the arm for conservatives in Congress like Mr. Paul who are agitating for deeper spending cuts in the legislation and object to the estimated price tag of the bill, which is projected to add as much as $3 trillion to the debt over the next decade.

“I agree with Elon,” Mr. Paul wrote later in his own post, while Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, one of just two House Republicans who voted against the measure, chimed in with a “He’s right.”

Republican leaders sought to play down Mr. Musk’s criticism. Speaker Mike Johnson said he had talked to Mr. Musk on Monday, and left the call under the impression that he “seemed to understand” the importance of the legislation.

“For him to come out and pan the whole bill is to me just very disappointing, very surprising,” Mr. Johnson said, adding, “With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong.”

Mr. Musk weighed in as Senate Republicans convened for their weekly private luncheon. The reaction inside the room, Senator Kevin Cramer of South Dakota said, was “eye-roll, I suppose.”

“I just don’t base my policy positions based on his,” Mr. Cramer said.

But Mr. Musks’s criticism only underscored the rifts that were already threatening the bill. Other Senate Republicans have raised the opposite concern, arguing that it cuts too aggressively into certain federal programs, including Medicaid and clean energy tax credits created during the Biden administration.

The dispute is playing out as Senate Republicans begin their work on the bill, following its passage in the House over solid Democratic opposition. Even as Mr. Johnson has implored senators not to make major changes that could jeopardize the measure’s chances of final approval in the House, they have made clear that they intend to put their own mark on the package.

“We’re anxious to have the ball and to run with it,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, said on Tuesday.

“Obviously, we’re going to take a lot of input from our members and make sure that as we go through the process, it’s done in a way that incorporates the views of Republican senators,” he added.

Mr. Trump on Monday publicly urged Senate Republicans to move swiftly on the measure, touting its provisions cutting taxes, beefing up border enforcement and deportations, rolling back clean energy programs and scaling back Medicaid and food assistance, among others.

“I call on all of my Republican friends in the Senate and House to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY,” Mr. Trump wrote.

That means that competing factions of Republicans will have to patch over their divisions in short order. Senate Republicans have a slim majority, and can afford to lose only three votes on the bill.

One group, led by Mr. Paul as well as Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah, is agitating for deeper spending cuts, noting that the bill as written is projected to balloon federal deficits. Mr. Paul also opposes the measure’s $4 trillion increase in the debt limit, a boost that the Treasury Department says is needed to avert a federal default as early as July.

Party leaders have been working to try to tamp down their opposition. Mr. Trump spoke by phone with both Mr. Paul and Mr. Johnson earlier this week.

“He did most of the talking,” Mr. Paul told CNN of the president. Asked whether Mr. Trump changed his mind, the senator replied, “No.”

Another faction — including Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri, Jim Justice of West Virginia and Susan Collins of Maine — has expressed concerns about a provision in the bill that would limit strategies that states have developed to tax medical providers and pay them higher prices for Medicaid services. The senators’ worry is that the change could adversely affect rural hospitals in their states.

“They’re very concerned about it, and rightly so,” Mr. Hawley said of the leaders of rural hospitals in Missouri. “You want to get major savings in the health care sector? Don’t take away the rural hospital improvement benefits from working people.”

Still another group, including Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Curtis of Utah, have indicated unhappiness with the legislation’s aggressive — and almost total — repeal of clean energy tax credits created by legislation passed during President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration, which he named the Inflation Reduction Act.

“I just want Republicans to be thoughtful and not reactive. Just because it was in the I.R.A.,” Mr. Curtis told reporters, referring to the law by its abbreviation, “doesn’t make it bad.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, also has raised concerns about both the Medicaid cuts and the repeal of the clean energy tax credits.

Democrats reacted with glee to Mr. Musk’s broadside against Mr. Trump’s signature bill. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said he was shocked to be uttering the phrase “I agree with Elon Musk,” noting that the Republican Party was once the party of fiscal hawks.

“Republicans should listen to him — and actually to their former selves — outraged about the national debt,” Mr. Schumer told reporters.

Carl Hulse, Michael Gold and Jonathan Swan contributed reporting.

President Trump has ordered what he called a restoration of a “gold standard science” across federal agencies and national laboratories.

But the May 23 executive order puts his political appointees in charge of vetting scientific research and gives them the authority to “correct scientific information,” control the way it is communicated to the public and the power to “discipline” anyone who violates the way the administration views science.

It has prompted an open letter, signed by more than 6,000 scientists, academics, physicians, researchers and others, saying the order would destroy scientific independence. Agency heads have 30 days to comply with the order.

Since Mr. Trump returned to the presidency in January, his executive actions have not expressed robust support for science, nor even an understanding of how scientists work.

Among other things, the administration has eviscerated National Science Foundation research funding and fired staff scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, which is responsible for forecasting weather hazards. A government report on child health cited research papers that did not exist.

“The erosion of American scientific capacity isn’t theoretical, it’s underway,” Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, wrote Monday in his newsletter. In an email later in the day, he called the executive order “a general tool for dismissing all inconvenient science.”

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy spokeswoman, Victoria LaCivita, said by email that the executive order was designed to rebuild “a crisis of trust between the scientific community and the American public.”

During Mr. Trump’s first term, his administration repeatedly undermined or disregarded scientific research, especially with respect to climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency tried to restrict the data that could be used to set environmental policy. The new executive order would expand that kind of control across the federal agencies and the national laboratories.

The open letter invoked a troubled past of manipulating science. “History illustrates, in no uncertain terms, the dangers of state-dictated ‘scientific truths,’” it says. “State-sponsored programs in Nazi Germany based on the ‘science’ of eugenics led to the genocide of millions of Jews, people with disabilities, and people identifying as L.G.B.T.Q.+ who were deemed to have ‘life unworthy of life.’”

Co-opting Familiar Words

The executive order echoes many of the principles of scientists who seek to make research papers more rigorous and transparent. For instance, lifting from what is known as the “open science” movement, the order says research should be reproducible, meaning that an experiment carried out in one lab can be repeated in another lab to see if it delivers similar conclusions.

The order says research should be subject to “unbiased peer review” and that there should be no conflicts of interest. That’s standard practice for scientific journals already: Authors are required to state whether they have any conflicts of interest and their findings are peer reviewed before publication.

The letter of protest says the executive order is “co-opting the language of open science to implement a system under which direct presidential appointees are given broad latitude to designate many common and important scientific activities as scientific misconduct.”

“As scientists, we are committed to a discipline that is decentralized and self-scrutinizing,” the letter reads. “Instead this administration mandates a centralized system serving the political beliefs of the President and the whims of those in power.”

According to a survey carried out last fall by the Pew Research Center, the American people trust scientists far more than the federal government.

The consequences

One line in the executive order draws particular attention to climate change studies that sometimes include what could happen if the most extreme (and highly unlikely) temperature increase scenario comes to pass. Known as the Representative Concentration Pathway scenario 8.5, or RCP8.5, the order described it correctly as a “a worst-case scenario based on highly unlikely assumptions.”

But there are good reasons to evaluate worst-case scenarios, even if they are unlikely, scientists point out. The worry is that administration officials would wholesale reject the findings of any studies that include any worst-case-scenario projections.

Meteorologists and climate researchers ran a livestream for more than four days to protest the administration’s cuts to weather and climate research, warning that people’s lives were at risk.

The order also criticizes provisions that encourage government agencies to take diversity, equity and inclusion considerations into account in their studies. That, too, could affect funding for a range of research proposals that include D.E.I. objectives.

Medical journals have received threatening letters from the Justice Department, suggesting without citing evidence that they published biased work.

Now comes the executive order on science.

“What’s being demanded here is an unwinding of scientific integrity policies, under the misleading name of “Gold Standard Science,” to serve the values and priorities of the current administration,” the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy organization that has been critical of Trump’s health and environmental policies, said in a blog post.