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Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday the Senate will delay the start of its summer recess to finish action on repealing Obamacare and other priority items. “In order to provide more time to complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August,” McConnell said in a statement. (Berry, 7/11)

In addition to health care and appointments, the Senate will also devote time to passing a defense authorization bill “and other important issues,” McConnell said. The Senate will now remain at work through the week of Aug. 7. (Snell, Sullivan and Eilperin, 7/11)

“We’re going to do health care next week,” Mr. McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “And then we’re going to turn to other issues,” he said, citing the annual defense policy bill, confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominees and raising the federal government’s borrowing limit among the summer’s goals. (Peterson and Rubin, 7/11)

Agitation from the Republican rank and file to cancel at least part of the annual August recess has been building for weeks with a small group of junior GOP senators pressuring their leadership to stick around in Washington to tackle not just health care but tax reform and other items on the party's agenda. (Kim and Everett, 7/11)

It’s not uncommon for backbench lawmakers to demand that a recess be canceled to play catch-up on unfinished work. But such efforts often amount to grandstanding, and most everybody in Washington is privately relieved when vacations aren’t canceled. “If you were going to school and you were getting failing grades in your spring semester, you better stay in school for the summer and go to summer school, not take a recess,” said freshman Sen. Steve Daines of Montana at a Tuesday news conference populated by mostly junior Republicans. (Taylor, 7/11)

Senators had been scheduled to leave town at the end of July and not return to Washington until early September. (Carney, 7/11)

President Donald Trump has called on lawmakers to complete health-care legislation before going on recess. (Dennis and Litvan, 7/11)