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- [00:00]
Ryan Seacrest
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- [00:26]
Jonathan Cohn
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- [00:31]
Sam Stein
All right. Hey guys. Me, Sam Stein, managing under the block, joined by Jonathan Cohn, who's got a great newsletter out this morning for the breakdown. We're going to be talking about that and the big beautiful bill, if we want to still call it that. I always get a little bit angry when I have to call it that. This thing's passing or it's on, on track to pass the Senate. It's going to probably happen sometime on Monday. I know you and I have been saying we expected it to pass and so I'm not totally surprised. And yet I, I can't get over like a little bit of shock that this is happening because the more you see and read about this bill and the scores are coming in and the analyses of the bill and we're seeing some legislative text, the more amazing it is to think that we're actually about to do this to ourselves. The amount of self inflicted damage we're about to cause is really remarkable. And I just can't, to a degree, I can't really wrap my head around it. So I have a few things in the bill that really sort of stood out to me. But what's your first takeaway of what happened overnight, Jonathan?
- [01:38]
Jonathan Cohn
I mean, same thing. Both not surprised and shocked at the same time. I mean it's sort of, it is, it's an accomplishment to write a bill that is this destructive in this many ways. Right. I mean, just big picture, right? We're taking out a generational investment in clean energy, going to kill a ton of factory jobs. We're taking away food assistance from people who are already, you know, barely making it. Right.
- [02:11]
Sam Stein
And not, not apparently in the two non contiguous states. I read that this morning that we'll get that.
- [02:17]
Jonathan Cohn
Although we'll get to that a second because that may not be part of the bill now.
- [02:22]
Sam Stein
Oh, right.
- [02:22]
Jonathan Cohn
This gets to the question of Whether they get over the line.
- [02:25]
Sam Stein
I stopped your role. You go ahead.
- [02:27]
Jonathan Cohn
No, no, no, no, no. It's okay. It's okay. And then of course you have these, these historic, largest cuts to Medicaid in history with additional cuts to the Affordable Care Act. You know, you're looking at 11, 12, throwing the ACA cuts, 15, 16 million people, 16 million people losing health insurance. And kind of the crazy thing about this, I mean, the crazy thing, there's a million crazy things, is that they're doing all of this and still know if you're like a fiscal conservative, you should hate this bill because it's going to add trillions of dollars to the deficit and, and all for the sake of, you know, really big tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and I guess sticking it to the libs. So, you know, those are tough trade offs to make. I realize I.
- [03:12]
Sam Stein
Apparently this is just from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which looked at the CBO analysis and conducted a bit of their own. The bill, the Senate bill, will have a $3.9 trillion addition to the debt that is constituted with $4.45 trillion in net tax cuts, $300 in gross spending, and $1.5 trillion in cuts. It is actually, it's worse than the House bill. It will have a bigger impact on the debt and deficit than the House bill. How do the Medicaid cuts compare to the House bill? Harsher.
- [03:49]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, yeah, they got worse. I mean, they were already bad. They've managed to make them worse. You know, we'll have to look at the breakdown. Exactly. When CBO goes through a line by line why they think it's worse. But I mean, there were features in here. I mean they, they're at least based on the bill that CBO was, was using for its estimate, which again is no longer the bill, I think, because I think they've since modified it. You know, there were differences relative to the House bill. The provider tax cut was, was a little bigger. Thanks. On the timing on some of the. Of the features were changed there other small tweaks. But yeah, I mean, you know, I guess what, you know, you're taking insurance away from 11 million people. What's another million?
- [04:35]
Sam Stein
Yeah. Why? Who cares? You know, just throw it on there. This bill spends money in interesting ways here and there. For instance, there is $173 billion for immigration. Some of that's offset by new fees, but a lot of money on immigration. And they have this weird thing involving a plane or a shuttle that they're transporting from D.C. to Texas. There's like 80, what was it, $85 million to transfer the space vehicle and that's referring to shuttle the Discovery shuttle from the Smithsonian to a non profit in Houston, Texas. Just a little gift to the Texans there. They spent yesterday trying to butter up Lisa Murkowski by throwing a bunch of stuff in for Alaska tax breaks for like whalers and things like that including. And now you can explain what's going on. They were going to exempt the non contiguous states from some of these snap cuts but apparently the parliamentarian ruled this morning that that is not compliant with the reconciliation construction. So that's who knows if that's the out now or they're going to rewrite it. Who knows? God knows. I want to just get to the thing. Two things and I'll get your reaction one at a time. You referenced the, the just the absolute devastation to clean energy subsidies and tax breaks that are in this bill. There was a Washington Post piece that I would highly recommend people read about this and it was just sort of shocking the degree to which we're just totally screwing ourselves over with this. But one thing stood out. So they're just eliminating all these subsidies. They're eliminating all the consumer, sorry the tax breaks. They're limiting all the consumer subsidies for all this stuff. The Post story has this anecdote about this company, a factory in Texas, sorry in Tulsa. They're getting a 620, it's a $620 million factory in Tulsa that is just now up in the air because they don't know if they're going to have any of these tax subsidies. And the guy's like we can't build a factory if on you know, one administration is going to give us these subsidies and then the other one's going to yank them away. It's also unless people are unaware is in oklahom. The senators from Oklahoma seem totally on board with this bill or at least they're not like protesting it. So what in Elon and the other thing that happened overnight was Elon Musk, formerly the the top advisor to President Trump and the biggest donor in Republican politics called the suicidal. So this is just forfeiting our future. But obviously that no, he no longer has sway in the Republican Party for some reason. So that to me I was just like shocked reading that Post piece. Can you like kind of because I'm not, I don't religiously follow this stuff like you do. But like just how bad is what we are doing on the, on the renewable energy front here?
- [07:22]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, I mean, it's terrible. I was speaking to. It really is. I, it is such a self hone too, you know, I mean, look, I mean like so many other things that happened during the Biden administration didn't get the publicity it deserved some, it was slow to roll out. So, you know, this didn't get a lot of appreciation. But one of the things that happened when Biden was president was they put this huge investment into clean energy. And you know, to the, in the sort of MAGA ID world, it's the libs and they're, you know, granola eating latte, quaffing, Merlot sipping fancy EVs. Right? Right. But here's the thing, you know, led to this boom in battery ev, battery construction all across where I live, in Michigan, the Midwest, also across the South. You know, I interviewed Governor Bashir from Kentucky the other day and he was talking about the huge battery investments they have in Kentucky. Same thing in South Carolina and Georgia. And then the solar industry. Texas is like the capital of the solar industry right now. I spoke to a woman who represents the solar manufacturer. She's like, we don't know what we're going to do between losing these investments potentially also the tariffs, which are like putting a stranglehold on a lot of their raw materials. And it's a cell phone for Texas industry, for industry in Oklahoma, for industry in Kentucky and South Carolina. And all these senators are.
- [08:51]
Sam Stein
Why are they, why are they doing this? Because I was like a week or two ago, the whole CW was that they were, some of the moderate Republicans or even the non moderate Republicans were really worried about things phasing out these incentives and they just went ahead and plowed forward with it. I don't, I don't understand it, what happened here.
- [09:10]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, I mean, I think they tried to dial them down a little bit. Right. They'd say, okay, can we get some of these a little bit delayed? Can we phase some out, phase some in. They won some small victories here and there, although then a lot of them vanished with the Senate bill. But I honestly think this is just, this is, this is where we've, we've come to this point where the vibes and Trump just overwhelm, at least in the short term for now, are overwhelming everything else. Trump hates this stuff and it's the Green New Deal, so we gotta kill it. It's funny, this played out in Texas, in the state, because the state had a battle just a few weeks ago in the legislature about some clean energy incentives. And was the Republicans there and that the clean energy, the advocates beat it back in part because you had a lot of the tech people saying, hey, we need this energy for the data centers. And it, you know, and so I don't, doesn't seem to be working that way at the National. But they will notice afterwards because those jobs are going to go away. Those factories are not going to get built like that story you were just telling.
- [10:09]
Sam Stein
Yeah, I'll just, I'll just add on that the Chamber of Commerce used to be an influential entity in Republican politics. Probably right. Immaterial.
- [10:16]
Jonathan Cohn
Now right next door to the White House, right?
- [10:19]
Sam Stein
Yeah. Across the street. They, they came out, said, don't do this, they're going to do it anyway. The, the thing that really say one more thing.
- [10:27]
Jonathan Cohn
The building trades union called this the biggest job killer. I mean, I mean, it's crazy.
- [10:33]
Sam Stein
I mean, it makes no sense on any level except for the fact that Trump doesn't like this stuff. And so here we are. The quote that I think summarizes the situation. The best where we're at politically right now came from Josh Holly yesterday. Josh Alley, for, I know Josh Alley for months now has been saying, we can't cut Medicaid, we can't cut Medicaid. And he's been very clever and lawyerly in trying to figure out how to define what a cut to Medicaid is. And he went with, you know, well, we don't want to cut Medicaid benefits, but we can cut and fit to reform of Medicaid and yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. It was all bullshit. Obviously. You know, for a brief moment, I thought maybe he was sincere about it. But it became very apparent a couple weeks ago that he was going to get to yes on this bill. But he wants his cake. He wants, he wants to eat it, too. And so he, he, he had this to say to NBC News about why he's voting yes on this bill. He says he's not pleased that it will, quote, take away health care from working people. This is his, quote. He admits the bill will, quote, take away health care from working people. Quote, this has been an unhappy episode here in Congress, this effort to cut Medicaid. And I think, frankly, my party needs to do some soul searching. If you want to be a working class party, you've got to deliver for working class people. You cannot take away health care from working people. And unless this is changing going forward, this is what will happen in coming years. So I'm going to do everything I can to stop that. Well, technically you're not doing everything you can to stop that because you're voting to allow it to happen. And so I, it's like, what kind of universe does he think we're living in? Like that we can't read that he's voting yes for a bill that he thinks sucks. He thinks the bill sucks and he's going to vote for it on the idea that he will try to stop it from happening. I mean, it's like we're in the theater of the absurd here. I don't even understand it.
- [12:34]
Jonathan Cohn
I, I've been trying to figure this one out. My theory is, I thought, you know, I was thinking, you know, he, Josh Hawley, kind of really young looking guy, so maybe he looks in the mirror and he, for he thinks he's actually on Senate staff and not an actual senator who casts a vote. Like, you know, Senator Josh Hawley could vote against this. He could actually do this instead of, you know, sitting apart from the party and say, gee, it's very strange that this thing is happening.
- [12:59]
Sam Stein
The thing is, it's like all of this is centered around a completely arbitrary deadline. So it's like if Josh Hawley was like, you know what, I want to take another week to just make sure we're doing this right or to try to convince people to dial back these Medicaid cuts and reforms and think about doing it differently, he could do it. There's no reason to pass this Monday. Like, it's just so arbitrary and made up and I, I, I have to tip my hand. I do, I have to tip my hand to Trump because he's manufactured a completely made up deadline for legislative action. I think he wants to have some sort of signing ceremony on July 4th with fireworks going off and, and like. Yeah, but no one had to say yes. They could have all said no, we need a little more time. But first he's, he managed to convince these people that they had to move at this speed. And I don't get it, but he did it.
- [13:55]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah. I'm so glad you said that. There's zero reason why they're rushing through. There's no crisis. There's nothing that's going to change sooner.
- [14:02]
Sam Stein
Sucks. Just fix the bill now.
- [14:04]
Jonathan Cohn
It's so stupid what you're elected to do.
- [14:08]
Sam Stein
I know. Let's talk quickly about Ron John. He also said the bill was, you know, he couldn't vote for the bill. Couldn't vote for the bill. Just didn't cut enough. Didn't cut enough. Couldn't vote for the bill. Couldn't vote for the bill. Gonna vote for the bill even though it's, it's worse with respect to debt and deficits than the House bill. He's gonna vote for this bill even though he thought the House bill was crap because do it over 10 deficit. I think the thing he got was a vote to curtail the Medicaid expansion that was done under Obamacare. That should be offered in the amendment process sometime today. Thoughts on that? Will that pass?
- [14:37]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, so I, it's difficult to imagine that passing then that would, I mean, that would be huge. I mean, so, you know, I definitely think. I would not assume it would fail. You know, the weird thing is, so the pattern has been both, both, you know, the moderates, I don't even know if we call them moderates versus conservatives. The people who want fewer cuts in Medicaid versus the people who want bigger cuts in Medicaid have both, Every step of the process, both have screamed and said we can't accept this. And every single time, the bill keeps moving towards the side of more cuts. I mean, do you remember someone was post this on Twitter earlier and I had forgotten this because it's 2025 and you forget things that happened two weeks ago or two months ago, but you remember Don Bacon, retiring member.
- [15:25]
Sam Stein
Oh, I saw something.
- [15:26]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah. You know who said $500 million billion dollars is my red line? Yeah, we're twice that now. Twice that.
- [15:33]
Sam Stein
And well, he' a chance. He'll get a chance to vote again. Right? This guy go.
- [15:36]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, well, yeah. So, I mean, look, the flip side is there is, I do want to emphasize, I mean, like the final votes haven't happened yet. It was the Senate 2017. This, we followed this exact pattern. There was a motion to debate the bill and it was only on the final vote that McCain voted down on that bill. But yeah, no, I mean, Johnson's amendment would. It's something that has come up several times during this debate and every time it's been killed because it would be, it would be by as devastating as the cuts are in the bill already, for the most part, they do not touch the underlying architecture of the Affordable Care Act. They, they, they, they cut it in all kinds of other ways that are going to be devastating to people. But, but, but if you think about the framework of the House is still there. This will be taken, taken a sledgehammer to one of the pillars of the House and much more serious. It would completely screw over a bunch of states that have expansion, including Missouri, including North Carolina, including Kentucky. A lot of red states with senators who, they may say they don't care about this, but, I mean, their state legislators do, and their hospitals. And that may be a bridge too far. And that's probably why it doesn't.
- [16:53]
Sam Stein
It probably isn't bridge too far. But then again, we had a bunch of hospital associations come out yesterday and be like, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. And they did it. So I just, I just feel like, you know, no matter what, they. They're going to get something done. And even if we think, like, there might be some House members out there who can't stomach this, they'll stomach it. All right, man, we should cut it there, because by the time this goes up, we'll have five other variables that we will not have accounted for in this video. And so we'll have to do this again later today. I appreciate you, and I should say. And I don't. I know I. I'm sort of obligated to say this because, you know, I edited the piece and, you know, I loved it. But your piece this morning on what would happen to people in North Carolina if the Medicaid cuts go into effect is, I think, essential reading. And if people haven't read it yet, they should. It's so good. It really puts a face on what's happening in Washington, D.C. so thank you for doing it. People should check it out, and people should subscribe to this feed as well. We appreciate you, and we'll talk to you later.
- [17:53]
Ryan Seacrest
Ryan Seacrest here. When you have a busy schedule, it's important to maximize your downtime. One of the best ways to do that is by going to chumbacasino.com Chumba Casino has all your favorite social casino games like spin slots, bingo and solitaire that you can play for free for a chance to redeem some serious prizes. So hop on to chumbacasino.com now and live the Chumba Life. Sponsored by Chumba Casino.
- [18:17]
Jonathan Cohn
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