NEW YORK (AP) — Francisco Lindor is ready to rejoin the New York Mets — just as Juan Soto deals with a back injury that may sideline him beyond Wednesday.
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said he couldn’t rule out a trip to the injured list for Soto, who exited a 9-6 loss to the Chicago Cubs after the fourth inning Tuesday night because of a tight back.
Soto, who was pictured on SNY wearing a wrap around his back in the dugout Tuesday, underwent imaging before Wednesday’s doubleheader. Mendoza said he hoped Soto could be available at some point Wednesday but acknowledged a level of concern for the superstar outfielder, who is in the second season of a 15-year, $765 million deal.
“We’ve got to wait,” Mendoza said. “Obviously not ideal when a player like him come out of a game. Those guys are tough and they know how important they are and they take pride on being in the lineup everyday and posting.
“I just didn’t like how he looked yesterday. We’ve got to wait.”
Soto’s injury may delay his reunion with Lindor, who is expected to be activated prior to Wednesday’s nightcap. The 32-year-old shortstop has been sidelined since suffering a strained left calf while running the bases against the Minnesota Twins on April 22 — the same day Soto returned from an 18-day stint on shelf due to a strained right calf.
Lindor played in his third rehab game Tuesday, when he was 2 for 5 while scoring twice for Triple-A Syracuse. He made the four-hour trip back to New York following the game, which factored into the Mets’ decision to hold off on activating him.
“Everything checked out well after the game last night but he got in late, so we told him to kind of recover this morning,” Mendoza said. “We anticipate him being in the lineup.”
Mendoza said the Mets will proceed cautiously with Lindor following the longest injured stint of his 12-year career. Lindor, who missed just 15 games the previous four years, will likely sit out Thursday’s game and will also see more time than usual at designated hitter.
Lindor and Soto have played just nine games together this season for the last-place Mets, who haven’t recovered from the 12-game losing streak they endured during Soto’s absence. New York, which hasn’t finished in last place since 2003, is seven games out of the final National League playoff spot.
“I’m just worried about Soto,” Mendoza said. “I’m not thinking about Lindor back, Soto out. It is what it is, right? Hopefully we can get those two in the lineup for a long time here for the rest of the season and we can make a run at it.”
Mendoza also announced beleaguered starter Kodai Senga has been shifted to the bullpen. Senga gave up seven runs over 3 2/3 innings Tuesday as his ERA rose to 10.08. He hasn’t earned a win since June 12, 2025, when he suffered a hamstring injury covering first base against the Washington Nationals.
Senga, a noted creature of habit, has made just one relief appearance for the Mets. He threw the final 1 2/3 innings of Game 6 of the 2024 NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“We’re going to adjust his routine, he’s going to have to adjust his routine,” Mendoza said.
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New York Mets pitcher Kodai Senga throws against the Chicago Cubs during the first inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, June 23, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)
New York Mets' Juan Soto looks back after striking out during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Sunday, June 21, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump arrived at the Capitol to meet with Senate Republicans on Wednesday, hours after he called off a planned signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing bill that GOP lawmakers were touting as an election-year achievement.
Trump's decision not to sign the bill, for now at least, made clear that he's in no mood to compromise as he pressures the Senate to move his voting legislation even though it doesn't have enough support to pass.
“Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency,” Trump posted.
Republican senators were eager for a conciliatory luncheon with the president after escalating tensions in recent weeks. But the president appeared to upend their plans when he declared on social media that he won't sign the legislation until they send him his bill to require proof of citizenship for all voters.
“We'll see what he says,” said Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana as he walked into the lunch ahead of Trump's arrival. “But what is really on people's minds is affordability.”
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis says he doesn't know why Trump is holding the housing bill “hostage” for the voting bill that “will never pass in this Congress.”
“It makes no sense to me,” Tillis said.
Trump has pressed Republicans for months to kill the Senate filibuster and focus on the proof-of-citizenship voting bill even though Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has repeatedly told him that neither has the votes. The bill would require proof of citizenship for all voters and force states to require voter identification.
Asked about Trump’s post on the housing bill, Thune told reporters, “that was his call to make.”
“What I would say is that the bill is a bill that has been worked on for a long time,” Thune said. "It’s a great piece of legislation that increases the supply of housing and the availability of credit for people to afford homes. So it’s an affordability issue and eventually I hope he finds a way to sign it.”
The White House did not immediately respond when asked whether Trump would veto the housing bill. But his apparent reversal on the measure that Republicans have touted ahead of the election is likely to only aggravate the deepening split between the president and his Republican majorities on Capitol Hill.
Trump’s post seemed to catch nearly everyone by surprise. It arrived as House Republican leaders were holding their weekly press conference at party headquarters and celebrating the passage of the bipartisan housing measure. Back at the Capitol, a podium and desk bearing the presidential seal had been set up in Statuary Hall, with around a dozen flags flanking the stage.
At the news conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he had spoken to the president for about 20 minutes earlier Wednesday and expected the housing bill would still be signed.
Trump's move on the housing bill is his latest reversal after weeks of being at odds with Senate Republicans.
Trump has blocked the Senate from confirming one of his own nominees, asked them to fund parts of his White House ballroom project despite opposition and forced them to defend his Iran war even as they question the strategy and endgame. By rejecting a public bill signing, Trump is also indicating a level of indifference to the affordability issues that are a leading concern for voters going into November's midterm elections.
Trump has also helped whittle down his own support in the Senate after endorsing primary challengers to two GOP incumbents who were previously reliable votes for his agenda — Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy. Both men lost their primaries and have since become more critical of the president.
On Tuesday, senators said they had hoped to focus on unity, not disagreements.
“If we’re going to win the midterm elections, we need to get on the same page,” Cornyn said. “We’re not on the same page now, and that I think is dangerous.”
The internal Republican conflicts come as a federal judge ruled that many of Trump’s requested election reforms are unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston ruled on Wednesday that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump’s requirements violated the separation of powers.
Adding to the tension is Trump’s increasingly distant relationship with Thune. While Thune remains popular in his conference and cordial with the president, he has spent much of his time lately telling Trump what he doesn’t want to hear.
Thune said Tuesday that while Trump and some in their conference want to see the voting bill pass, “it’s just not realistic.”
Trump has also demanded that they add a ban on mail-in ballots to the bill as well as unrelated provisions to block sex reassignment surgeries on some minors and prevent people born as men from playing in women’s sports.
“John is a leader and hopefully he can get the votes,” Trump said Tuesday on a trip to Pennsylvania, putting new pressure on Thune.
Thune devoted weeks of floor time to the voting bill earlier this year and has said he supports it. But he has repeatedly said there aren’t enough votes to scrap the filibuster that triggers a 60-vote threshold to pass most bills in the 53-47 Senate. And Democrats are uniformly opposed to the bill.
“Those are just hard realities,” Thune said. “And I think people at some point have to come to grips with that.“
Johnson said Wednesday that he had talked through a different approach with Trump in his call on Wednesday morning — putting the voting bill on a budget reconciliation measure that would only need a simple majority to pass. But the process for that is long and complicated, and Republicans are divided about how to proceed.
“I talked to the president through that in detail this morning as I have in the past,” Johnson said. “And he said, can we do it? I said, we can.”
Only a handful of senators have questioned Thune's rationale that the Senate can't pass the bill. The most vocal in that group is Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican who has amassed a large following on X with daily posts about how they should kill the filibuster and pass the bill. Several Republican senators, including Cornyn, confronted Lee at a closed-door lunch last week about his advocacy, which they said is dividing the party and creating unrealistic expectations.
Lee has also echoed Trump’s claims that Republicans can’t win elections unless the bill passes, despite the party's sweeping victories in 2024. Trump has continued to falsely claim that the 2020 election he lost was stolen.
“The push to pass the SAVE America Act is not a ‘fantasy,’” Lee posted over the weekend. “It’s a plan to avoid a nightmare — one that’s coming soon unless we act.”
Trump could face questions at the lunch about his decision last week to delay Jay Clayton’s nomination to become national intelligence director. Republican leaders had hoped to quickly confirm Clayton and circumvent Trump’s unpopular interim pick Bill Pulte, who has no known experience in the field.
In the same social media post, Trump said he wouldn't sign a renewal of a key surveillance law unless Senate Republicans attach the SAVE America Act.
Republicans could also use the luncheon to push Trump on the war in Iran and the agreement with Iran to end it. Most lawmakers still have not been briefed about the deal.
“The war is going very well,” Trump said to reporters in brief remarks as he went into the Senate luncheon. “Winning by a lot and Iran is making very big concessions.”
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., speaks to reporters as Republican senators arrive for a closed-door lunch at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 23, 2026, to prepare for a meeting with President Donald Trump Wednesday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., arrives at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 23, 2026, as he prepares for a meeting with President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
