Trump Budget Passes After Bruising Battle

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0:58Offer not available in all states. Terms of plaque. See Fanatics app for details. Welcome to The Beat. We begin on Capitol Hill. We're House Republicans. After some defections have passed Trump's spending bill. This is that big budget clash we've been following. It heads to the president's desk, where Donald Trump will be signing it into law tomorrow. We have the nonpartisan estimates here. The CBO says the bill adds$3 trillion plus the deficit. It'll slash over a trillion from healthcare and Medicaid. 10 to 12 million Americans ultimately could be booted off their health coverage. Funnels a lot of money to ICE and border enforcement, 100B over there.

1:32Trump and Republicans are celebrating however tough this was, longer, slower, more defections than they wanted. Ultimately, as they say, a win is a win. They set out to pass this thing. They lost some votes along the way. They even had some parts of it stripped by the parliamentarian. But they won passage today. Not without a fight. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries was on a war path discussing the risks and the problems in the bill. and doing what Democrats have done increasingly in the second Trump term, which is find different ways, sometimes symbolic, sometimes even physical, to get up and show that they're fighting and to command some attention, even against Donald Trump, whose entire skill set is PR and attention.

2:16You're looking at some of the thunderous applause there as he continued on the record-breaking speech, eight hour plus, the longest speech in the history of the United States House. This began around 5 a.m. this morning.

2:55Next November, extraordinary levels of corruption. Got some folks in this town, they go to church and they pray on Sunday. P-R-A-Y. Say it. Say the truth. And then they come to Congress and pray P-R-E-Y on the American people. I'm not down with that kind of faith. No matter what the outcome is on this singular day. Say it. What the hell? Fight forward. We're going to press on. Say it. Press on for the rule of law. Press on for the American way of life. Press on for democracy. We're going to press on until victory is won. I yield back. I yielded, but only after breaking the record. That marathon address went down pretty well, considering the Democrats are losing the budget battle here, which is expected.

3:50They don't have the same number of votes as Republicans. Some congressional math is just that. But you see here, Leader Jeffrey's flanked by Democratic colleagues who seemed genuinely energized. Yes, politics is full of show, but you see here, there was some real enthusiasm today about waging this battle any which way they could. The Democrats did not have the votes to stop the bill. There is no magic strength or strategy that was gonna change that. It was only a question of whether Republicans were going to lose enough of their own. And they lost some in the Senate and ultimately two in the House.

4:26Now, Jeffrey's intention was to force Republicans to also vote in the daytime Politico reports, using, again, the procedural levers they have to not stop the bill, but make sure that this still landed in the daylight with so many Republicans who are worried this is the kind of vote that might cost them their jobs if enough constituents realize what it does and what it does to health care, etc. The bill ultimately passing by four votes with, as mentioned, those two Republican defections. That is how we end the week going into American Independence Day weekend. And we're joined by Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian, Rice University professor and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson.

5:08Gene, your thoughts on what is now the ending of this round, the budget plan going to the White House tomorrow. Well, look, this ended the way I always thought it would end in terms of the legislation being passed. The Republicans do have the majority in the Senate and the House. And Donald Trump wanted this bill passed, this big bill. It is big. And so it was going to pass. I mean, that was going to happen. The unexpected note was Hakeem Jeffries' speech. His eight-hour-plus speech was an extraordinary thing in the House. And it certainly did serve to cause this vote to be held in the daylight and to bring attention on the fact that these majorities are very narrow in both the Senate and the House that Republicans have.

6:10And this is a deeply unpopular bill. When people learn what's in it, they don't like it at all. And so to that extent, to the extent it was possible for Democrats to be successful today, they were successful. They were not able to stop the passage of this legislation that they believe and I believe is going to hurt a lot of people. Mm-hmm. Professor Brinkley? You know, 218 Republicans, 214 Democrats, as Eugene's pointing out. It's close. And that's what the next election is going to be all about. This is the opening tomorrow opens the election for 2026. There's just no doubt about it. there were shocks this week or tension-filled moments.

6:56I thought perhaps Lisa Murkowski on the heels of a book coming out and the press she was getting have stood up to President Trump in a Profiles in Courage. I was at the JFK Library this year. They gave Profile in Courage award to Mike Pence. I thought Murkowski would be that person. But in the end, the fossil fuel industry controls her out of Alaska, and she didn't want to mess with them, and she didn't want to be the bane of all of the disdain from the MAGA world. So she folded her tent. And at that point, I had seen a foregone conclusion that it would get through Congress. I will say Mike Johnson seems to be delivering on what he needs to do.

7:38He did a prayer session. He huddled. Donald Trump then went and got on the phone and they did what they needed to do to get this passed. But Johnson is now a significant speaker pulling this off. Yeah, you mentioned that. I'm curious, Gene, because you followed this over so many eras. It does seem that the White House operation has learned over time that they are using the president's time and advocacy strategically, as Doug Brinkley just mentioned, that there are many extreme radical and indeed, according to many courts, unlawful activities by this White House. We actually cover that in the news frequently.

8:21But there's also a learning curve on this process, which, however controversial, is not illegal. This is not the abuse of federal forces or some other controversy we've covered. And it seems that in comparison to term one, they are more organized. And from what we can tell, the president is more engaged when called upon to deal with legislating something he's never shown a great personal interest in. Yeah, they have definitely learned, and they have learned when the president should engage directly with members of the House or the Senate. He's clearly learned how to do that. He's learned what buttons to push.

9:02They used both carrots and sticks. It was a lot of carrots with Murkowski, a lot of benefits for Alaska, A lot of sticks with some others. And they've learned that there are a few votes that they can just sort of write off. They weren't going to get Rand Paul on the Senate. They, you know, they're not going to get Massey. Massey is always going to be a problem in the House. But they've learned a lot. And I agree with Doug. You have to say Mike Johnson is a much, much more effective Speaker of the House than certainly I expected him to be. And then I think almost everyone expected him to be. He is getting results.

9:46The president wants it passed. He gets it passed. Yeah, and he's proven to be a little bit like Bruce Lee, where you have to be water first. Some people criticize that and say, oh, you have no firm position. I don't know what you think about anything. We can have that debate. But legislatively, he's done that approach. And that's different than McCarthy was in these spats. They may not have been of his choosing, but he couldn't get out from under them. He was in public open warfare with what were admittedly difficult members of the caucus. Matt Gaetz no longer there. But he and Boehner and Paul Ryan before them would have these rolling public battles with those flanks.

10:25And Johnson, partly because you don't, I say it not with any disrespect, deliberately not trashing him. But you don't really know where he is on these things. And then sooner or later, he tries to land the plane. It's sort of the job. I mean, that's what LBJ did on a very different legislative agenda, one for civil rights and a fair deal. Our guest today, I want to point out on the substance, we talked about the maneuvering, but this cuts this budget. A trillion dollars out of Medicaid,$150 billion from Medicare and Obamacare. 10 to 12 million people booted off coverage. And that is a direct, obvious breaking of Donald Trump's vow, meaning what he said before, if he knew he was going to do this, were outright lies, including to his own supporters.

11:14Can you guarantee that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security will not be touched? Yeah, I mean, I have said it so many times, we're not going to touch it. We will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits. We're not cutting Medicaid, we're not cutting Medicare, and we're not cutting Social Security. So what do I tell 663 ,000 people in two years or three years? when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid. The last voice, one of the Republican defectors, Doug Brinkley, it's very clear there that Donald Trump's mastery of PR and politics is these are widely unpopular plans, including on the right.

11:56So he broke a promise or was lying the whole time. How important is that as we live in an era where people want to retreat to their own spin or facts. But the fact is he broke that vow. It's going to matter when people get hurt. You know, all economies go up and down and it's going to depend Donald Trump's fate or the fate of 2026 of what our economy does. But what's shocking to me is that Trump is the one carrying out the sledgehammer to the great society of Lyndon Johnson, going after, really, Medicaid, Medicare, PBS, NPR, Wild and Scenic Rivers, you know, after-school programs, going after, you know, so-called food stamp programs, as they used to be called.

12:42He's the one. He's the Avenger. And that he's pulling off, it's really quite stunning. I'm not quite sure Trump has the gall to really go after the FDR heirlooms, to go after Social Security and a lot of what FDR did was infrastructure of that time also. But boy, are they trying to dismantle what LBJ did because the right in America feels Johnson got those Senate votes, congressional votes out of 64 and just signed, signed, signed things. And now they want to undo it. So this is a big U-turn in American history that just took place. Trump going backwards in time and trying to negate many of LBJ's accomplishments.

13:28Okay. Yeah, including civil rights, including on the premise of the civil rights legislation that Lyndon Johnson got through. You know, we've seen continued weakening of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Certainly, there's apparently no enforcement contemplated of the Voting Rights Act going forward by Trump. So, yes, it is an attempt to negate the Great Society and civil rights accomplishments of LBJ. It's an astonishing thing to see, but that's what they're attempting. And we'll see how long they get away with it. Yeah. Both of you are staying with us. This is one of those days where we're tracking through what happened on the Hill.

14:22But we have a lot more coming up. Doug Brinkley, Gene Robinson, we're back together in 90 seconds. Sponsored by Live Right, publishers of New York Times bestselling author Kristen Kobes Dume's new book, Live, Laugh, Love, The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. Dume uncovers the roots of today's Instagram-ready culture of white Christian femininity. John Fugelsang calls Live, Laugh, Love a brilliant, infuriating, inspiring read for anyone who wants to understand modern Christianity. And Dume, one of our boldest historians and finest writers of nonfiction. Live, Laugh, Love.

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16:34House Democrats are a hell no on this legislation. We were a hell no last week, a hell no this week, a hell no yesterday a hell no today that's like five hells and five no's uh leader jeffrey's there on that war path uh the speech was literally historic and that like cory booker before him the democrats here have used these moments to break records longest house speech ever targeting the trump budget democrats do think it'll be a big issue in the midterms and the writing is on the wall with how many republicans are already publicly saying they're going to lose over this. Now, as part of their defense, Republicans have tried to basically convince 10 million plus people that they're not necessarily going to be affected.

17:25That's the lie. Or that only bad people, lazy people will somehow be affected by these health coverage cuts. Take a look. They shouldn't be going to a 29-year-old guy who's living in his mom's basement, choosing not to work. They're living in their mom's basement, playing video games. I'm sorry, you got to go get job. Not for 29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games. The able-bodied person I'm talking about is the 25-year-old who's sitting on his couch playing Xbox. Who knew there were this many millions of 20-something disaffected men playing video games, always in a basement?

18:02Nobody ever plays like on the first or second floor with a window? This is obviously what is called a talking point. It's one of the many reasons that people get so annoyed with politics, because you're trying to maybe listen for a second and see what the explanation or the defense is to this very controversial plan, which, by the way, violates what Donald Trump vowed and pledged over and over, what we showed you earlier, that he wouldn't cut Medicaid, but he is. And then everybody gets up with the same talking point, which is designed not to explain or to govern, but to obfuscate and to spin.

18:34There simply aren't enough 30-year-old dudes, 29-year-old dudes, 28-year-old dudes in the basement to cover all these cuts. But there is a larger pattern here. Reagan talked about, quote, welfare queens. MAGA has updated it with Lazy Gamer. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan talked a lot about how virtually half the country, 47%, were just taking. Whereas if you're listening to these kind of right-wing attacks and then you think about your own life and all the people in your community who are working so hard at regular jobs, retail, restaurants, buses, public service, nurses, teachers. Walk around any town in America, big, large, red, blue.

19:19This stuff doesn't really make sense. Sure, there are some people on the margins of society. Some of them might need help and might need public assistance, but there ain't 10 million plus people sucking off the proverbial teat of Medicaid because they are in their mom's basement playing Xbox. With that in mind, I want to bring back Doug Brinkley and Gene Robinson. Gene, your thoughts on this sort of updated version of the famed welfare queen. Right. So it was bad when Reagan did it. It was inaccurate. It was a misrepresentation of reality. It's much worse now because our society has become so much more unequal.

20:04These are people who are working. The vast majority of people who receive Medicaid benefits, who are not senior citizens in nursing homes, the vast majority of able-bodied working age people on Medicaid are working. They're just working either for a minimum wage, which our Congress refuses to increase to a living wage or something near that. And they simply don't have enough money to afford to live in this country. I mean, that's just the reality. And people know that. People see it around them. People experience it. So that is not going to ring true, I think, with the Republican constituency the way it did in Reagan's day, simply because it's much less true now.

21:00Doug? yeah you know i would think back um to you know newt gingrich's contract with america where some of this all really began and the republicans have uh professionalized their messaging and we talk in terms of mago or even you know i have no other way to call it but the big very big bill you know and their language um you don't have um you know the you know alcatraz you know alligator alcatraz I think Democrats have to start sloganeering. They've got to like get their messaging down. It's great to make the history books for the longest speech, but you've just got to do that, you know, kind of like AOC does when she's on Instagram, those quick hits that move things and talk things.

21:45And then you have to ask who really just got hurt. Who's getting hurt the most by this? And I think rural America has taken a big hit. A lot of MAGA rural towns that we just to rep with, they're already having poor, there are no doctors, there are not enough nurses, there's no access. Trump just, in my mind, threw rural America, you know, under a bus in favor of these big corporate entities or people that are his donors. And so the Democrats have to really get out there like Andy Beshear does in Kentucky, a red state, and talk about the need of public education at local schools, health care, and bring it home.

22:26And don't say a red or blue state. We're on our 4th of July here. They're all American states. Democrats should engage in Iowa. They should engage in New Hampshire, Nevada, and anywhere and everywhere. Less pollsters, less DNC bigwigs, and just a little bit more of I love America common sense and get into the back roads of America and talk about what this has just done and then use optimistic phrasing like Theodore Roosevelt or FDR would do about the better days are coming. Bill Clinton, you know, the man from hope, you know, Barack Obama, you know, yes, we can. People are moved by optimism, not just fear.

23:08And the failure, I think, of the Biden years was the believing that you just preach fear, democracy's dead, and that will bring people out, and you have to deal with the future. Yeah, Bill Clinton and Obama both talked about hope. As you say, Clinton's 92 campaign song, Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow, a banger. But to your point, one that said, hey, our better days might still yet be ahead. Fitting thoughts here as we inch towards America's birthday. Doug Brinkley and Gene Robinson, thanks to both of you. Thank you, Murray. Appreciate it. We have Professor Melissa Murray coming up Because we are watching scrutinizing, and sometimes that helps hold the line as the DOJ takes Donald Trump's discredited failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election and now wants to threaten election workers with indictments which could interfere with our future elections.

24:01We are on the case with the professor, and by the end of the hour, the creative mind behind Curb and Seinfeld is here. This case has been turned over to our library investigations officer, Mr. Bookman. Bookman? The library investigator's name is actually Bookman. It's true. That's amazing. That's like an ice cream man named Cone.

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26:29One question that hangs over the entire MAGA period that we're in is whether the usual checks on power in our democracy will still hold. We hear about the Medicaid cuts backfrying on Republicans in the next election, but that means there will be a free and fair election, which is not a guarantee nowadays. Nowadays, we have a president who pardoned people who staged an insurrection to overthrow an election, attacking police and who fomented it and who pushed false voter fraud claims. One of the lines against that that held in 2020 was election workers and courts not succumbing to pressure, threats of violence or even an outgoing president with all of his assembled powers, which when you think about it is really something.

27:14Fast forward to today, and that individual, Donald Trump, now in office, has a Justice Department that is exploring ways to charge election officials, state or local, if the feds under Trump determine that they want to. They have excuses about computer systems and other sourcing about this, but let's remember, we're talking about the people who lost the election and wanted to have the alternate outcome, meaning steal it. so their references to computers or anything else can't be taken that seriously. And the move is not based on new evidence data or legal authority, the reporting notes, but the actually unsubstantiated argument that elections are easy to prey on with voter fraud or foreign manipulation.

27:56Again, this is a smokescreen. Everybody understands what's going on. If Trump and his allied Republican Party were to be on a path to losing or actually lose, there is evidence they want to abuse power to pull off what they failed to do in 2020, steal the result. This is an attempt to manipulate elections. And as always, the Orwellian propaganda is to hide behind terms like safe and secure voter fraud when, again, we all live through 2020. You can divide American politics between the people who understand the actual result of that election and the people who don't or won't. The Times reports that sources have referred to how lawyers are struggling to even find a criminal statute that would match Trump's demands.