Speaker Mike Johnson now supports the push inside his party to bring impeachment articles against judges perceived as antagonistic of President Donald Trump’s agenda — a notable shift for the Louisiana Republican who over the summer sought to squelch such effort.

“I’m for it,” Johnson told reporters at his weekly news conference Wednesday, responding to the question of whether he would endorse impeaching judges who have ruled against the administration.

A symbol of this ongoing effort has been James Boasberg, a U.S. district judge who ruled last year that the Trump administration’s abrupt deportation of 137 men violated their due process rights and defied court orders to keep them in U.S. custody.

Trump allies and Hill conservatives have argued Boasberg is an activist who ought to be ousted from the bench. Johnson, over the summer, tried to tamp down the enthusiasm among hard-liners to remove him.

But judicial impeachment cries among House and Senate Republicans have flared up again in recent weeks. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has written to Johnson urging him to take up impeachment proceedings against Boasberg, while the Judiciary committees of both chambers have held hearings on the matter broadly.

Judicial activist Mike Davis also spoke with the Republican Study Committee earlier this month about the mechanics of impeaching Boasberg. Though he acknowledged that the party does not have the votes to impeach or remove Boasberg or others, Davis advised lawmakers to put the judge through the process as a punishment.

Johnson also acknowledged Wednesday that “impeachment” would be “an extreme measure” and “we’ll see where it goes.”

He added, however, that “some of these judges have gotten so far outside the bounds of where they’re supposed to operate [that] it would not be, in my view, a bad thing for Congress to lay down the law, so to speak, and … make an example of some of the egregious abuses.”

Health insurance CEOs testifying before Congress about whether they’re to blame for soaring health care costs have a plan: pass the buck.

Five CEOs of major insurers will make the case that the health care premiums they set are rising because of prices charged by other health care players — like hospitals and drugmakers — according to their prepared testimony.

The insurer blueprint comes as the industry is under immense public and political pressure to address rising health care costs, especially after enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expired last year, sending Obamacare premiums skyrocketing for millions.

The well-heeled CEOs of some of America’s biggest insurance companies aren’t used to groveling, but want to keep lawmakers on their side and avoid any viral moment under cross-examination. The questioning could be tough, considering President Donald Trump called their firms “money sucking Insurance Companies” this month on Truth Social.

The CEOs will testify before the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Thursday morning, before facing the Ways and Means panel later in the day. In their testimonies, they’ll attempt to reverse the narrative that they’re at fault for how unaffordable American health care has become.

“The cost of health insurance is driven by the cost of health care. It is a symptom, not a cause,” said UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen Hemsley in his prepared testimony. “Premium rates are based on two key factors: how much care is used and how much is charged for that care. When the price of care goes up and care activity increases, the cost of health coverage necessarily follows.”

Whether the administration buys that is a different story.

Trump has applied pressure, calling on the companies to slash prices and saying he’d convene the CEOs to secure commitments similar to ones he’s received from the pharmaceutical industry to reduce drug prices.

In their testimony, the CEOs will highlight affordability-related policies they hope Congress will take up — from reforming how providers are paid to digitizing Americans’ health records. The insurers plan to emphasize steps they’ve taken, including commitments to the Trump administration last year to speed up their processes for approving treatments.

Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest insurer, pledged in his testimony to return any profits the company makes on Obamacare plans in 2026 to customers.

“Our message as an industry is that we’re advocates for affordability,” Mike Tuffin, CEO of health insurance trade group AHIP, told POLITICO. “We’re the only part of the system that gets up every day working to lower costs. We’re doing everything we can to shield consumers from high and rising health care costs.”

Elevance Health CEO Gail Boudreaux plans to point out that hospital care, doctor services and prescription drugs “have been the largest contributors” to rising U.S. health care spending, which grew 7.2 percent to $5.3 trillion in 2024. Cigna CEO David Cordani will highlight data showing hospital prices surged in recent decades — a trend he says has been compounded by hospital acquisitions and private-equity ownership of provider practices.

Some of the executives plan to compare insurers’ thin profit margins to other health care industries’. Insurer profit margins were about 1.8 percent in 2025, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Drug companies’ margins are between 20 to 40 percent, Cordani plans to point out.

Hospitals and drug companies have long made the case that insurers aren’t so innocent. The American Hospital Association, in a statement submitted ahead of the hearing, said “actions by many commercial insurers erect barriers that make it more difficult for patients to receive timely access to needed medical care.”

Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman on Wednesday unveiled a new draft of landmark cryptocurrency legislation that his committee is preparing to vote on next week, even as a bipartisan agreement on the bill remains elusive.

The new text does not currently have the backing of Ag Committee Democrats including Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who has negotiated with Boozman for months on........

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