The Big Republican Spending Bill Debacle Disaster Adventure
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It's Wednesday, July 2nd. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What Today, the show that is not going to spend $250 to smell like President Donald Trump. His new fragrance, called Victory 4547, is supposed to represent, quote, winning, because nothing says winning like being the president of the United States and still feeling the need to sell cologne.

On today's show, Elon Musk and Trump's bromance breakup continues, and a new study finds that shuttering USAID will result in the deaths of millions of people around the world. Good work, Doge. Let's talk about the big Republican spending bill debacle disaster adventure. That's what we're calling it.

On Tuesday morning, the Senate passed President Trump's spending bill after Vice President J.D. Vance arrived to break a 50-50 tie. And it's probably not a great sign for what this bill will actually do to America that this is how Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski responded to a question about voting for it. I advocated for my state's interests. I will continue to do that and I will make no excuses for doing that.

Do I like this bill? No. Because I tried to take care of Alaska's interests. But I know, I know that in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don't like that. Feel the enthusiasm.

I mean, she's not exactly wrong to be less than jazzed. The Senate version of the alleged Big Beautiful Bill cuts Medicaid by billions and would push millions of people off their health care. And setting aside health care for just a second, an estimate from researchers at Yale University shows that the bottom fifth of all earners would see their after-tax earnings decrease by 2.3 percent within the next decade because of this legislation. But the top earners will benefit from tax cuts, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement will get billions of dollars in new funding.

Populism. Can you feel it? Funnily enough, the Senate version is still not good enough for fiscal hawks who love the House version. And now that the bill is headed back to the House, Speaker Mike Johnson can only lose three members and still pass the bill by a party-line vote. And he already has fiscal hardliners like Texas Representative Chip Roy, libertarian leaners like Kentucky Representative Thomas Massey, and weirdo gadflies like Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles complaining about the changes the Senate made to the House bill.

And all of this needs to get settled by Trump's self-imposed deadline of Friday. So to talk more about the big Republican spending bill debacle disaster adventure, I spoke with Nicholas Wu. He's a congressional reporter for Politico. Nicholas, welcome back to What Today. Thanks so much for having me. The Senate passed President Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill by the skin of its teeth after Vice President J.D. Vance broke the 50-50 tie. Top line level, what's in it and what's been cut out?

In many ways, kind of the basic contours of the bill are still there. This still extends many of the 2017 tax cuts. It still ends up cutting Medicaid. It still pluses up defense spending and border enforcement. But the difference between the House and the Senate bill comes down to a lot of ways in how...

So the Medicaid scheme is coming back over here. And that's why we're seeing some resistance from Hill Republicans about taking this back in the House. Some conservatives actually wanted it to cut even more federal spending. And so you have folks like Chip Roy, Ralph Norman, other Freedom Caucus members threatening to vote against it on the floor.

So what happens now? It goes back to the House and they fight about it for some more until we get to a vote maybe today? Yeah, so right now, House Republican leadership has scheduled the House to come back in this morning. There's no time officially yet for a vote, but we're expecting them to first try to take up the rule, you know, the procedural motion for the bill and then the bill itself first.

But the question is whether they'll have the votes to do that. You have some folks who are no's no matter what, like Thomas Massey. But, you know, folks like Chip Roy, others, these are folks that have caved in the past when they've registered objections. It's just a question of, you know, how tough that opposition is this time around. Yeah, I have a couple of questions on that. But I want to go to your colleague reported that Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, whose yes vote allowed the bill to pass, said,

said it was, quote, agonizing to vote yes. And that, quote, my hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we're not there yet. While this is insane for Murkowski to say, is there any validity to her statement? Personally, I don't understand how the House doesn't just make everything worse.

Yeah, the procedure here doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, President Trump has this kind of self-imposed deadline for them to pass this and put it on his desk by July 4th. The Senate is already gone after they pass this. They're clearly trying to push this back over to the House and, you know, say, take it or leave it.

And, you know, you have some members of the House who are thinking that they could do this. But this is a position that House Republican leadership has no desire to do. They don't want to take up this bill again and make more changes because if you know, as we've seen through this whole process, their margins are so small that if you tweak one thing, you could end up losing votes on one side, even as you pick up others.

And so the preference is for them just to pass all of this now, rather than draft it again, go to a conference committee, which would take even more time and might bleed even more support in the process.

Here's my question on that. The House version of this bill sucks and the Senate version sucks in a different way. But Republican representatives, mainly the Freedom Caucus, are already mad about the Senate version, which seems to be making Speaker Mike Johnson nervous. There's a couple of things like, for instance, salt tax deductions. What will Johnson have to concede to get this thing done if they are getting a Senate version that the Freedom Caucus, which he had to try tooth and nail to get them on board the first time, is mad at?

This is the problem for Speaker Johnson and Hill Republican leadership right now. They're kind of out of things to offer these guys that are in the bill itself because it's coming back over to the House. It can't really be changed to anything more. Anything else that has to be promised will have to come outside of it. So whether that's, for example, Speaker Johnson could propose they take up another piece of legislation. He could propose that, you know, there's been talk among Republicans of trying to do another reconciliation package for

in the very last few months of this calendar year. You know, it's kind of like if you remember a few years ago when Democrats did Build Back Better, you had similar groups of members who registered objections to. And then Speaker Pelosi found ways to dole out things to them to end up getting them back on board, whether that was like a vote on a fiscal commission or, you know, any other sorts of giveaways outside of the bill.

Who do you think will be Speaker Johnson's biggest problem child or children as this nonsense wagon trudges its way back to the House? The biggest problem children right now might appear to be the Freedom Caucus, because those guys do seem right now to be dug in pretty hard against parts of the

the bill. They're concerned about how this is coming back to the House without the level of spending cuts they'd send it over to the Senate with. They're accusing the Senate of violating the framework that they had come up with. And also, these are folks who are not necessarily as beholden to leadership in the first place. And so as opposed to, you know, you have

Some centrist Republicans in the House who have registered concerns about Medicaid, but we have yet to see exactly how they're going to land on this. All in all, will Congress make their self-imposed July 4th deadline, which I'd like to remind our listeners is two days away? Or is there hope that millions of Americans will maintain access to health care because Chip Roy cannot be dealt with? Well, the odds are that Republicans are going to find a way to make this happen.

work within their conference. I mean, the question for them is just, you know, what concessions will they have to give out to hardliners? You know, how dug in will these guys be? And, you know, Hillary Hogan seemed really determined to pass this, whether, you know, it's during the day, Wednesday, or if it ends up being at, like, some early hour of the morning. With the pressure of President Trump on them, the pressure, the time pressure of this that they've imposed on themselves, you know, the odds seem to be that they would be able to get this over the finish line.

Yeah, I wanted to know what consequences can congressional Republicans expect from Trump if they don't, as White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt put it Monday, stay tough and unified? Because it seems like he is absolutely down to primary anyone, but he's also threatening to primary people like Thomas Massey, who doesn't seem very worried about that.

Yeah, Massey seems entirely nonplussed about any threat of a primary challenger. And besides, when you have Elon Musk tweeting that he could support Massey, I mean, the financial part of a primary challenge perhaps might be a little less daunting for him.

But as for other Republicans, I mean, we saw what happened with Senator Tillis and Congressman Don Bacon, both folks who had registered concerns about the big beautiful bill as it was moving through the House and Senate. Both of them announced their retirements.

over the last few days. And so, you know, I think there is a possibility that we could see some folks head for the exits rather than, you know, decide to stick it out for longer and face the wrath of, you know, a primary electorate that wants them to stick to President Trump's agenda. Nicholas, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks so much, Jane.

That was my conversation with Nicholas Wu, a congressional reporter for Politico. We'll get to more of the news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads.

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Here's what else we're following today. Headlines. I guess that's the concept.

This is not a nice business. I guess that's the concept. If you, you know, snakes are fast, but alligators, we're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator, okay? If they escape prison. How to run away. Don't run in a straight line. Run like this. And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.

Yes, that was the president of the United States of America telling reporters how migrants trying to escape his new so-called Alligator Alcatraz detention center will need to run in a zigzag pattern to avoid the gators. President Donald Trump made the remarks on Tuesday as he headed off on a plane to the Florida Everglades detention facility. And if you want to see Trump make some weird motions with his hands to describe how migrants should run, head to our YouTube channel.

Joined by MAGA lapdogs, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Trump also spoke to reporters at the center about his goals.

How many more facilities like this do you feel that the country needs in order to enact your agenda of mass deportations? Well, I think we'd like to see them in many states, really many states. This one, I know Ron's doing a second one, at least a second one, and probably a couple of more. And, you know, at some point they might morph into a system where you're going to keep it for a long time. Great.

Outside of Alligator Alcatraz, DeSantis, looking like a schoolboy begging for praise, said the facility was built in just a matter of days. The site can currently hold thousands in its dormitories, and Florida state officials say it could expand. As Trump and company flaunt and taunt the administration's newest immigration detention center, questions about its longevity, among other things, are swirling. As for what's next, DeSantis said the facility would be ready to hold people as soon as today.

A reporter asked Trump an interesting question on Tuesday. Would he deport Elon Musk? I don't know. I mean, we'll have to take a look. We might have to put Doge on Elon. You know what Doge is? Doge is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn't that be terrible?

Who had Trump basically threatening to deport Elon Musk on their 2025 bingo card? Trump was not messing around Tuesday while discussing Department of Government Efficiency mastermind and former first buddy Elon Musk.

The vitriol and everyone's favorite breakup to watch reignited when Musk got on Twitter to attack Trump's big, beautiful bill in a barrage of tweets that was reminiscent of Musk's previous rampage, where he called the legislation a, quote, disgusting abomination. The one thing Elon and I can agree on. Just the one. In a post, Musk said the spending bill was crazy and said, quote, we live in a one party country, the Porky Pig Party. Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people.

Yes, the Porky Pig Party. Those are words that he typed and said, good. Trump naturally commented on the feud when talking to reporters Tuesday. "Elon's very upset that the EV mandate is going to be terminated. And you know what? When you look at it, who wants, not everybody wants an electric car."

I don't want an electric car. I want to have maybe gasoline, maybe electric, maybe a hybrid, maybe someday a hydrogen. If you have a hydrogen car, it has one problem. It blows up, you know? What? Anyway, can't wait to see the Elon sucks bumper sticker on his Tesla. Chair, would the Fed have cut more by now if it weren't for the tariffs?

So I do think that's right. In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs. So we didn't overreact. In fact, we didn't react at all. We're simply taking some time. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that President Trump's tariff wars pretty much forced the Fed's hand and stopped it from cutting interest rates.

Powell made the comments at the European Central Bank's annual conference. He said any decision on rate changes would be contingent on what happens next, and that members of the committee that sets interest rates expect a cut this year. Trump has repeatedly complained about Powell's wait-and-see approach, calling him Mr. Too Late and Jerome Too Late Powell. Creative. In an open letter to Powell, the president made a sophisticated demand of the Fed, writing, quote, You should lower the rate by a lot.

Powell's term as Fed chair is set to end next year. And according to The Wall Street Journal, Trump is thinking about announcing Powell's successor much earlier than usual in order to undermine him. Just call him Donald Too Early Trump. If you've got an apple and it's got a worm in it, maybe you can take the worm out. But if you've got actually just a ball of worms, it's hopeless. And USID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple, you've just got to basically get rid of the whole thing.

That was Elon Musk speaking during a February Twitter Spaces conversation about the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. But a study published Monday said the Trump administration's huge cuts to the agency could result in over 14 million deaths in the next five years. The study was published in the medical journal The Lancet. It estimates that over the past two decades, USAID's programs have prevented more than 91 million deaths worldwide. Monday was USAID's final day as an independent agency.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency began gutting USAID and putting what remains under the State Department. In the process, they got rid of thousands of employees and axed over 80% of the agency's programs. And that's the news. ♪

Before we go, while Trump tries to out authoritarian himself at home, the global picture isn't prettier. This week on Pod Save the World, Tommy and Ben break it all down from the latest in Gaza and Ukraine to North Korea's bizarre beach resort propaganda. Then Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner joins to talk about what U.S. intelligence knew before the Iran strikes, how effective those strikes actually were, and the political fight over brief and Congress.

If you want the full picture behind the headlines, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in to Pod Save the World wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, call your Republican representatives right now at 202-224-3121 and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how seriously, once again, you can call your Republican members of Congress and tell them that this bill is absolute trash, like me. What Today is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and get on the phone!

What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Foer. Our producer is Michelle Alloy. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Sean Ali, Tyler Hill, and Laura Newcomb. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gillyard and Kashaka.

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