All Hell Breaks Loose in Congress After Major Vote

0:00Ben Meiselas:Wow, so all hell was breaking loose in the Senate, which barely passed the disastrous budget bill reconciliation package. It's now back with the House of Representatives. Since the Senate version is different than the House version, let me give a few data points of what's going down. In the Senate, the disastrous budget bill was deadlocked at a 50-50 tie, 50 in favor, 50 against, with MAGA Republican Senators Collins, Tillis, and Paul voting against the disastrous budget bill. So Vice President J.D. Vance had to break the tie, so it became 51-50. That's how the disastrous budget bill passed. MAGA Republican senator from Alaska who pretends not to be a MAGA Republican senator but pretends to be a moderate, Lisa Murkowski, voted in favor of the disastrous budget bill.

0:54Ben Meiselas:She could have killed the budget bill, but get this, Murkowski told reporters after she voted for the disastrous budget bill that she didn't like what she voted for. She wants the House of Representatives to send the disastrous budget bill back to the Senate with changes to continue work. So she voted for something she didn't like, and now she says she wants the House to bail her out. And remember my reporting on what the House said. Lots of members of the House said they didn't like the budget bill that they voted on and wanted the Senate to bail them out. The Senate made it worse, cut more Medicaid, added more to our national debt, and now they want to be bailed out by the House.

1:37Ben Meiselas:as Donald Trump is out there saying, don't worry, I'm not touching your Medicaid, no tax on Social Security, which is not even in the freaking bill. Direct quote from Lisa Murkowski, quote, my hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we're not there yet. A point that really doesn't matter to me of any moment because I care about the 15 million people who are going to lose their Medicaid, people who are going to lose Medicare, people who are going to lose a supplemental nutrition assistance program and other things. The bill is no longer being officially called Big Beautiful Bill, which is a stupid name also for it because Chuck Schumer struck the name and the name got removed.

2:20Ben Meiselas:But at the end of the day, I care less what it's. It's a stupid name no matter what. This is a murder bill that is killing Americans. Now, Ralph Norman, MAGA Republican Congress member from South Carolina, is telling reporters that based on what he knows about the Senate bill, it is a nonstarter and he will vote against it. He's on the Rules Committee, which is meeting now. We'll see what he does. This is the shtick that the MAGA Republicans always do, where they claim they're going to vote against it. And they end up voting for it when Donald Trump calls him up and is like, I'm going to primary you.

2:56Ben Meiselas:I'm going to make sure you don't win election. All right, Daddy Trump, do whatever we want, Daddy Trump. It's so stupid. Lisa Desjardins writes, Norman told me repeatedly that the House needs time to read the bill. Going the way it's going, I don't see how we pass it this Friday, Norman told the reporter. I don't know why we would rush this. Well, you're going to rush it because your cult leader, your dear leader, Donald Trump is telling you to rush it because he wants it passed before July 4th. The less people discuss the terms, the easier it is to pass, apparently, because then all of the disastrous provisions won't be analyzed or discussed.

3:40Ben Meiselas:MAGA Republican MAGA Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, says the following. The House will work quickly to pass the one big beautiful bill that enacts Trump's full America first agenda by the 4th of July. The America people gave us a clear mandate. And after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay. Explain to me the failure where we had record job growth, record low unemployment. America was leading the world in GDP. Yes, inflation was up, but it was hitting 2%. It was going down with actual affirmative steps taken by Democrats and Biden, like the Inflation Reduction Act.

4:20Ben Meiselas:We had stable fiscal policy. Interest rates were being cut. The reason inflation was up because Donald Trump did the disastrous budget bill, a small version of it, his first time in office. And then he printed money recklessly during COVID when he gave handouts to all of his buddies. And that caused $8 trillion to be added to our debt. That's what happened. And then that caused inflation. Then it had to be dealt with. And now they're going to cause massive, they're already causing a significant inflation. It's up to 2 % core inflation in May. And here's what's going down now. Folks, if you are a loved one or turning 65 soon, you need to hear how much my Medicare partner chapter is saving people thousands of dollars.

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6:08Ben Meiselas:You have Vice President Vance. This is the moment where he cast the tie-breaking vote to move the disastrous budget bill forward. Again, now the House has to pass the Senate version. If they make changes, it goes back to the Senate. Reconciliation, the word reconcile. They have to be reconciled together. Here's Vance breaking the tie play this clip on this vote. The yeas are 50. The nays are 50. The Senate being evenly divided. The vice president votes in the affirmative. The bill as amended is passed.

7:00Ben Meiselas:and now throughout the day we saw elon musk attacking the disastrous budget bill saying that it would destroy the united states of america so the maga darling elon musk who they all said is the smartest person ever his algorithms have figured it all out right that's what maga Republicans were saying about this guy. Here's what Elon Musk posts. It's a picture of Pinocchio that says, liar. Anyone who campaigned on the promise of reducing spending, but continues to vote on the biggest debt ceiling increase in history, will see their face on this poster in the primary next year. And the poster is Pinocchio.

7:37Ben Meiselas:It says, liar. Voted to increase America's debt by $5 trillion. Musk then writes, every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame and they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing on earth that I do. Then Justin Amash writes, please support Thomas Massey, MAGA Republican. The establishment is working to primary him because he's a genuine fiscal conservative and opposes the big bloated scam. Musk then says, I will. And then Trump responds, new poll. I don't know which poll this is.

8:17Ben Meiselas:Anybody I endorse beats Thomas Massey of Kentucky by 25 points. Get ready. Massey is a very bad guy because he's one of the MAGA Republicans who don't support the, doesn't support the disastrous budget bill. Donald Trump, after hearing that Elon Musk was attacking the disastrous budget bill on a number of grounds. Donald Trump threatens to deport Elon Musk and have Doge go after Elon Musk. This is exactly what we see in oligarchies across the world where the regime uses the oligarchs at first, but then when the oligarchs fall in disfavor, they're one of the first people the regime goes after. Here, play this clip.

9:04I don't know. I think 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? He gets a lot of subsidies, Peter. But 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. So I'm going to give that one to Peter.

9:45I'm going to let Peter test it out.

9:47Ben Meiselas:A reporter asked Donald Trump more questions about Elon Musk. And here's what Trump says. Play this clip. Musk is ripping into this bill again. Are you concerned that Republicans are going to be swayed by Musk and his money? No, I don't think so. I think what's going to happen is Doge is going to look at Musk. And if Doge looks at Musk, we're going to save a fortune. Thank you very much, everybody. I don't think you should be playing that game with me. Donald Trump has been posting on social media as well about Elon Musk. Donald Trump says Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa if we investigated him.

10:23Ben Meiselas:No more rocket launches, satellites or electric production, and our country would save a fortune. Perhaps we should have Doge take a good hard look at this. Big money to be saved. By the way, doesn't this also undermine the very purpose of Doge and prove that Doge was being used by Musk in order to help Musk? I mean, this cluster F, you know what I'm talking about here is just exposing all of these people as just complete and total liars and complete and total frauds right now. But the bottom line is who's suffering? We, the people are suffering and talking about the big frauds out there. I mean, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, her focus.

11:03Ben Meiselas:And I understand she represents Alaska, which has less than 800000 people who live in Alaska. I care deeply about the people who live in Alaska. I think Alaska is a beautiful state. But I think if you spoke to a lot of people in Alaska and said, hey, you may have some of your supplemental nutrition assistance saved and you may get health care, but you are going to do that at the expense of having Americans get killed in other states because they're going to lose Medicaid because they're trying to figure out special Alaska carve outs to get Lisa Murkowski's vote. So you may survive, but your survival is at the death of other Americans.

11:42Ben Meiselas:Go and ask Alaskans. I think I may be naive that the people of Alaska would not want to see others die. They'd want to see them get the health care and the snap and other essential services and other Americans get essential service. Why are we pitting Americans against Americans? That's Trump's tactic. And here it's Alaska over blue states. That's how they see things right here. Here was Lisa Murkowski back on April 17, 2025, where she said that she's afraid to vote against Trump because she fears retaliation. You could hear her in her own words saying, here, play this clip. And I'll tell you, I'm oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real.

12:36Ben Meiselas:Now, here is Murkowski saying that Trump engages in authoritarian acts. This was an interview she did a little while ago. Play this clip. I think the comment that I made was, you know, is it being authoritarian or is it Trump being Trump? I think we are seeing authoritarian acts. Is there a red line for you? I have told people that when it comes to legislating, I don't like to advertise what my red line is because I've got to negotiate, right? But I think that when you have clearly overstepped that rule of law, when you have defiantly pushed back on the Supreme Court as a president and said, I'm going to disregard that, I think I think those are red lines.

13:42Ben Meiselas:And here's Murkowski on the floor of the of the Alaska of Alaska's legislature. And here's what she says about the Trump regime as well. Play this clip. Quite honestly, I've been stunned by a turn of events that that would would appear that we might abandon Ukraine and collapse longstanding alliances from NATO to NORAD. And then we've got two close neighbors here in Alaska. We got Russia over here. We've got Canada over here. How we came to a place where we're fighting now with Canada and we're making nice with Russia, it just, it's it's beyond me. And as long as we've got to send up fighter jets to chase off Russian bear bombers from our Addys, I'm not going to trust Putin here.

14:40And I'm not going to be quiet about it. I'm going to stand up and say so.

14:57thank you

15:00Ben Meiselas:meanwhile donald trump continues to incessantly lie about the budget bill he claims it has no tax on social security which is not in there by the way the no tax on tips provision that expires pretty soon. So it's like temporary and the exemptions and how it's framed, it's providing really no major material benefit as well. It's just a gimmick that's put in there. And the fact that someone who's likely earning their living based on tips, they're going to get screwed by probably losing their healthcare and they're going to get screwed through the other aspects of this. And they'll get screwed vis-a-vis the billionaires who are going to be the ones getting billions of dollars in benefits as a result of this disastrous budget bill.

15:45Ben Meiselas:But here Donald Trump is just lying and saying, no, this bill doesn't even talk about Medicaid at all. Nothing about it when it absolutely does. He is a liar about every single thing. Here, play the clip. Are there concerns about the Medicaid, though? No, no, we're not going to be playing with Medicaid. Only waste fraud and abuse. Yeah, the Democrats have it wrong. Yeah. Waste, fraud and abuse. In fact, if you look at what's gone on, we've gone way back. We take care of Medicaid. We take care of Medicare. They will blow Medicare and Medicaid because they have no idea what they're doing. Just like they don't have any idea what they did on the border.

16:23They have no idea. Medicaid is in big trouble with the Democrats. So you're talking about anyone who loses their health care coverage, that is because of waste, fraud and abuse? Waste, fraud. Only waste, fraud and abuse, which is what everybody wants.

16:44Ben Meiselas:Russia has about it.

17:04Ben Meiselas:they now have to tell their constituents that the Senate is cutting even more of Medicaid. And then you have, you know, others as well who say that the Senate made things worse when it comes to increasing the debt ceiling by$5 trillion and increasing our debt by trillions of dollars more. We'll keep you posted every step of the way. That's where we're at now. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million. We'll keep you posted. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.