S5 Ep22: 'This Country is Effed' (with Jonathan Cohn)

Summary

The Focus Group Podcast: "This Country is Effed" (S5 Ep22) with Jonathan Cohn

Release Date: June 14, 2025
Host: Sarah Longwell, Publisher of The Bulwark
Guest: Jonathan Cohn, Healthcare Expert and Author of The Bulwark's "Excellent" Newsletter

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Introduction

In Season 5, Episode 22 of The Focus Group Podcast, titled "This Country is Effed," host Sarah Longwell delves deep into the ramifications of the Republican-sponsored "Big Beautiful Bill" (BBB). Joined by healthcare authority Jonathan Cohn, the discussion navigates the intricate intersections of politics, healthcare policy, and public opinion among Biden to Trump voters.

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Overview of the Big Beautiful Bill

The episode begins with Sarah setting the stage around the BBB, highlighting its significant healthcare implications. Unlike previous discussions narrowly focused on Republican strategies, this episode broadens the lens to include Biden to Trump voters, uncovering nuanced perspectives that may surprise listeners.

Jonathan Cohn provides a foundational understanding of why healthcare remains a persistently contentious issue in American politics. He emphasizes that the complexity of the U.S. healthcare system—marked by high costs, inconsistent coverage, and a lack of universal insurance—renders policy changes particularly challenging.

Jonathan Cohn (04:34): "Healthcare in America kind of sucks in a lot of ways... it's the only advanced economy where we don't make insurance just a thing you get for being, you know, living here and being a citizen."

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Voter Reactions and Personal Narratives

The heart of the episode lies in the authentic voices from focus group participants. These narratives reveal a deep-seated frustration with the current administration's policies, especially regarding Medicaid cuts and their personal financial struggles.

One participant shares her plight vividly:

Participant (00:53): "I'm supposed to live off $900 a month from the government... and with them turning around and cutting Medicaid, I'm already struggling to pay for medications."

Another voice echoes the disappointment and unmet economic promises:

Participant (16:13): "I thought he was going to do something good for everybody, not just billionaires... It's hitting me and my family hard."

These testimonies underscore the tangible human impact of the BBB, moving beyond abstract policy debates to real-life consequences affecting ordinary Americans.

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Healthcare's Intractability in Politics

Sarah and Jonathan explore why healthcare remains a difficult policy area to legislate. Cohn highlights two main factors: the entrenched status quo supported by powerful financial interests and a widespread fear of change among the populace.

Jonathan Cohn (04:34): "One of the really powerful forces here is a status quo bias... Fear of change. Everyone doesn't like this way the system is."

He further explains how these elements contributed to the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) tumultuous passage and the subsequent Republican attempts to dismantle it. The discussion reveals that while Republicans aim to cut costs through Medicaid reductions, these moves face staunch opposition due to their direct impact on vulnerable populations.

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Economic Concerns and Policy Trade-offs

The conversation shifts to the broader economic implications of the BBB. Participants express skepticism about the administration's ability to deliver on economic promises, such as reducing grocery prices—a key voter concern.

Sarah Longwell (16:13): "I'm kind of aggravated with tariffs impacting my industry directly... We just have to see where that lands."

Jonathan Cohn articulates the potential long-term effects if the economy deteriorates further, questioning how voters might react if essential programs like Medicaid and SNAP are compromised during economic downturns.

Jonathan Cohn (22:42): "Programs like Medicaid and SNAP become really important when the economy goes into the tank... What do the politics look like then?"

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Public Perception and Political Strategy

Delving into Republican strategies, Sarah scrutinizes the party's messaging around the BBB, particularly the juxtaposition of Medicaid cuts with tax breaks for the wealthy. Cohn counters the Republican narrative by asserting that cutting Medicaid inevitably reduces coverage for many, despite claims to the contrary.

Jonathan Cohn (33:25): "They know that their strategies are sort of minimize or deny even... they're counting on that money. They're counting on that money to take away health benefits."

The episode also touches upon the use of work requirements in Medicaid policy, a favored Republican tactic aimed at reducing dependency. However, Cohn argues that such measures primarily affect those who are already marginalized and not the able-bodied individuals Republicans claim they target.

Jonathan Cohn (34:37): "Most people on Medicaid work... The system you're setting up is mostly going to get people who actually deserve it."

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Legislative Process and Voter Awareness

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the legislative maneuvering behind the BBB. Jonathan Cohn laments the lack of transparency and the rushed nature of the bill's passage, contrasting it with historical legislative processes like that of the ACA.

Jonathan Cohn (43:30): "We're gonna vote on that for a bill that did not exist in writing two months before, which is nuts."

This opacity breeds skepticism and fuels public distrust, with voters questioning what other agenda items might be hidden within such a massive legislative package.

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Concluding Insights and Future Implications

As the episode draws to a close, Sarah and Jonathan reflect on the potential outcomes of the BBB. Cohn speculates that while the bill is likely to pass due to entrenched Republican priorities, its long-term impacts on healthcare and the national debt remain deeply contentious and potentially damaging.

Jonathan Cohn (58:18): "How much do they cut Medicaid, how much do they cut SNAP, how much do they raise the deficit... These are really important questions that are going to reverberate in this country for not just years, but for decades."

Sarah echoes the sentiment of growing voter frustration, particularly as economic relief remains elusive despite promises of substantial policy shifts.

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Conclusion

"This Country is Effed" offers a comprehensive exploration of the BBB's multifaceted impact on American voters, especially those navigating the intersection of economic hardship and healthcare dependency. Through poignant personal stories and expert analysis, Sarah Longwell and Jonathan Cohn illuminate the profound political and human stakes embedded in this legislative moment.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jonathan Cohn (04:34): "Healthcare in America kind of sucks in a lot of ways... it's the only advanced economy where we don't make insurance just a thing you get for being, you know, living here and being a citizen."

• Participant (00:53): "I'm supposed to live off $900 a month from the government... and with them turning around and cutting Medicaid, I'm already struggling to pay for medications."

• Jonathan Cohn (22:42): "Programs like Medicaid and SNAP become really important when the economy goes into the tank... What do the politics look like then?"

• Jonathan Cohn (33:25): "They know that their strategies are sort of minimize or deny even... they're counting on that money to take away health benefits."

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This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of the episode, providing listeners—both regular and new—with a clear understanding of the key discussions, insights, and the overall narrative surrounding the BBB and its implications on American society.

Transcript

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It's the sound of the new Remarkable Paper pro rewriting the future. A paper tablet with a true color ink display, gentle reading light and unheard of tactility with digital features for taking notes, thinking and organizing without any distractions. Paper is about to change the world again. Get your paper [e-mail] today. Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group Podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark and this week we're covering the Republicans Big Beautiful or not so Beautiful Bill, both its human consequences and its political ones. Now we spent some time on this with Annie Carney from the New York Times a couple weeks ago, but in that show we were very focused on Republicans. This time we're focusing on two groups of Biden to Trump voters and some of what we've heard may surprise you. I want to talk about what is and isn't breaking through about this bill and how public opinion has evolved on issues like health care that we really see sort of taking center stage in this bill. My guest today is Jonathan Cohn, healthcare savant and author of the Bulwarks Excellent newsletter. The Breakdown, which is both a policy breakdown and a beat on how our federal government is breaking down, maybe even having a nervous breaking down situation. Jonathan, thanks for being here.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Thank you for having me.

[Sarah Longwell]

You're not having a nervous breakdown. You're cool, right? You're like, solid.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Well, we haven't done the focus group yet, so let's see where I am at the end of this show.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, you watched the focus groups, you prepared, so I appreciate that. So much has changed even in the couple of weeks since we've had the Musk and Trump blow up. And one of the groups was happening while that was going on. And so I thought we should revisit it. Now that it's with the Senate, they're trying to figure out what to do. There's been pushback, but like, let's do some scene setting with your expertise. One of the things in this BBB is that it would have significant cuts to Medicaid. And you've written about this because this is where Republicans are getting stuck by being like, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not actually cutting anything. And over the last decade and a half, and you've written a whole book about this, the ACA was immensely difficult to pass and then it was immensely difficult for Republicans to repeal once it had started to really take effect.

[Unknown]

Once.

[Sarah Longwell]

What is it about healthcare that makes it so difficult to move things? I do focus groups all the time. Healthcare comes up top issue for just about everyone. Democrats tend to be slightly more trusted on it than Republicans. But like, people are mad about their healthcare all the time. They're talking about it. It's too expensive. They struggle with the system. And so why is this such a difficult political issue?

[Jonathan Cohn]

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of reasons it's a difficult political issue. I mean, the bottom line is healthcare in America kind of sucks in a lot of ways. And there's some things that are really good about American healthcare. If you're really sick and cutting edge care tends to be pretty good and there are pockets where you get good care. But even for people who can get the good care, unless you're really, really rich, it's gonna cost a lot of money. Insurance in this country, as you know, we're the only advanced economy where we don't make insurance just A thing you get for being, you know, living here and being a citizen. It's a complicated system and lot who don't have health insurance. And for 100 years, we've been trying to get to a universal coverage system. It's a tough fight and there's a lot of reasons. But one factor we see that plays into both why it was tough to pass the Affordable Care act, why Republicans failed to repeal it fully, and why they're struggling now to do something that's not repeal, but would be a quite significant retrenchment is that one of the really powerful forces here is a status quo bias. And there's sort of two factors that go into that. One is that you got lots of people who are invested financially in the system as it is. You got doctors, you got hospitals, you got labor unions. Everybody's got a financial stake in this. And almost by definition, if you're going to deal with the problem of healthcare, getting people insurance who don't have it, bringing down costs for people who are paying too much, you're pulling money out of someone's pocket, that person's going to fight, and that becomes a special interest fight. And I think most people realize that when they say, oh my gosh, it's the healthcare industry that's fighting this. That's all true. There's a lot to that. The industry is pretty broadly defined. People tend to think of insurers and pharmaceutical companies. It's also hospitals, it's also your friendly doctor. It's also labor unions. It's a pretty big group. But there's a second factor which is just a fear of change. Everybody doesn't like this way the system is. But then once you start to talk about, well, what would you change it to? How would you move it? People start to think about what they do have, what they do like, and they don't want to give it up. And that is true if you're coming from the left or you're coming from the right. This is why the Affordable Care act looks like the way it does. Obamacare was all designed after decades of Democrats hitting their heads against the wall trying to get to a single payer system or some comprehensive system. They're like, you know what? People freak out. They think we're going to take away what they have. Let's just build on the current system, the pieces that are in place, and try to make them work better, which is very complex. And that's why you get a lot of the problems you have with the Affordable Care Act. But then Once it was in place, people who got insurance are like, hey, I'm glad I have this insurance. And maybe I'm not happy with it, maybe it's still too expensive, but I don't want to give it up. I don't want to lose my protection. For people with pre existing conditions, that's a very powerful factor. So when Republicans come in and decide to try to repeal it, they run into that same thing. You can see this so vividly in the public opinion polling. The best sort of long term polling on the Affordable Care act is from, used to be called the Kaiser Family Foundation. Now they've changed their name to kff, but you can see it, there's a nice easy graph. And the ACA, which includes both its expansion of Medicaid and insurance, healthcare.gov, where you buy private insurance, it's kind of split opinion and if anything, it's a little bit underwater. More people don't approve of it, really got unpopular. If you remember back then when healthcare.gov first came on and it crashed and it was a big fiasco and it got pretty negative. And Trump gets elected and there's more people who disapprove of the Affordable Care act than approve it. And then like on a dime, December 2016, it flips. And ever since then, the Affordable Care act has been above water and increasingly so over the years. People were not happy with it. They didn't like a lot about it until somebody threatened to take it away. And then suddenly people were like, wait a minute, this is valuable to me. I don't want to give this up. I want to make the system better, but I don't want to go backwards. And that is the sort of wall now Republicans are trying to push against.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, healthcare is so intensely personal and the way you interact with it has an enormous impact on what you think about it. I have two things. I am both a parent of a child who needed early intervention medically on something. And I am also a business owner. And so I actually saw sort of both sides of this. And I remember asking now that my kid was gonna have what is known as a pre existing condition. I hadn't thought much about pre existing conditions until you have it yourself. And then you think, will he be able to get insured? And I remember people saying, I don't even think I asked. I think people just said no, because of Obamacare, he will have no problem being covered. And I remember being like, oh, okay. Like these things are abstract until they're personal. Then I also saw as a Business owner who insures a lot of people, how much the costs not just have gone up, but continue to go up year over year. To a point where I sit there and go, how do people. If you don't have an employer covering this, it is expensive. I had somebody recently who had not been in the position of seeing the health insurance numbers had been sort of out of the workforce and that came back into it and was looking at the numbers and said, well, these can't be right. And I was like, oh no, they're right. Like they have been going up year over year. People are just like, it's out of control, the level of costs. But that is sort of the trade off, right, Is like encompassed in those two things, is a lot of people are paying a lot more. But also people who have preexisting conditions now aren't being kicked off. And that's a lot to grapple with. And just the complexity of what this.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Means for an individual, it is super complex. And there are trade offs. And, you know, back when they were debating the Affordable Care act, you always hear the story that Obama would sit there in the Oval Office getting the different, you know, back when we had presidents who, you know, actually took policy debates seriously, and he would sit there and he'd listen. He had the economic advisors tell him he had to do this. He'd always pretend like he was doing a Rubik's Cube. You know, he'd sort of actually pull his hands up and he'd do like, how do I get this all because they were trying very hard to do this in a way they could expand coverage and hold down cost. You know, I will just say, you know, for me, like, I've been doing this for a long time. I started, my entry into this was interviewing people who didn't have access to health care. And what you were just saying, just, you know, talking about your story, and I've heard from so many people over the years, I mean, it is a deeply personal thing and it's deeply threatening. And this idea that you would need medical care and could not get it, or that the only way to get it was to go into bankruptcy or sell your house. And that kind of thing happens in our society, happens less now than it used to because of the Affordable Care act, because of going Back to the 60s, the creation of Medicare. And I do think there is a kind of steady progression along those lines. I think like whatever else you think, whatever you think about, welfare, government programs, people should have a right to health care. You shouldn't have to go bankrupt because you're diagnosed with cancer or you were in an accident. If there's life saving care out there, if there's care to keep you healthy, you should be able to get it. Now, getting from that realization to something you can do politically is a more complicated story. But I do think that most Americans fundamentally believe that's what every other country does. And I think that's why you sort of think of it as this sort of steady march of Medicare guarantees insurance for the elderly. So now you have the Affordable Care act. So preexisting conditions. We guarantee coverage for that and we're moving in that direction. But we're about to get a test case. You know, it's always, almost always been moving forward a few little steps, a couple of big steps. Are we about to take a few steps back? And that's what this bill would do.

[Sarah Longwell]

My Republican instincts. I read your newsletter and I was not somebody who was for universal healthcare. And I don't know if I've evolved on this issue. I do worry about our ability to innovate. I worry about our ability to have cutting edge care in this country. I worry about the tension between something like universal health care and immigration, where the second that the government is paying for people's health care, then it creates different incentives about who gets to be here and how do people live their lives. And you look at some of these other countries and you're also like, I don't know, is that a good system? Like, yes, they have them. Do we like them? Do the people in their country like them? It is a very, very complicated issue. Anyway, I don't know. I'm not gonna make you answer those questions right now. Those are just things that I think about. In any event, we can get into all that as we go. I wanna level set these two groups by walking through our first question. So at the start of every group, we, we always ask, how do you think things are going in the country? Let's listen to what folks told us because some of it is different from what you've gotten used to hearing on this show, from this particular set of voters, which are the Biden to Trump voters. Let's listen.

[Unknown]

I mean, there's just so many reasons that I can say why this country is effed right now. I'm disabled. I don't even get regular disability. I draw SSI disability, which is like a set amount that they give you because you don't have enough work credits to draw a full blown disability. And I get Medicaid. And I get food stamps and I don't draw money for my kids, okay? So I'm supposed to live off 900amonth from the government. And with them turning around and cutting Medicaid, I'm already struggling to pay for medications they're going to take and take and take until there's nothing left. And people like me who can't work, who have no way to draw other income as a tax paying job, just, I don't know, I think the way that the grocery prices are, they're insane. They're really not coming down. And this big beautiful bill is. I voted for Trump because I thought that he was going to do something good with our country this go round. You know, maybe be a. Because he's a good businessman, create something good for everybody, not just billionaires and these idiots that he's pardoning and just, I don't know, he needs to focus on the American people, the regular people, the average people, the middle class people, the poor people instead of all the billionaires. And that's all he's doing. It's a reality. It's hitting me hard, hitting my family hard. I don't get enough money to barely pay my rent and my power bill out of my check. They give me 200 and something dollars worth of food stamps a month and that's supposed to pay for me and two children to have enough groceries to last 30 days. And if they go to cut that food banks don't even take care of people enough to get by. The only thing that I think is going semi okay is getting rid of illegals that are actually illegals that have committed crimes that I'm okay with, not okay with the other routes that he's going with that. And I think the only thing that he did right was stop this mess with trans children getting medical and stuff. I'm glad he put a stop to that and I'm kind of glad he made it a fact that it's two sexes. But other than that, you know, I had high hopes for, for him to do something good. All his promises he's broke, everything he said is a lie. I'm sorry, I could talk about this forever. I will shut up.

I think the most recent thing that occurred to end my note here that should be looked into is the contradictory nature of the big beautiful bill.

For most, it probably seems like it's the end of the world. But I do feel that there is progress based on what we've seen in the past administration. I do see that and feel that progress is being made. It's just going to take more time based on what everyone else is expecting.

[Sarah Longwell]

I feel like Trump's at least been a lot more honest than our previous administration, which is one thing that I do appreciate is the honesty. But at the same point, I'm in logistics, so I'm a little bit more biased with all the tariffs going on. It's impacting my industry directly, so it's easy enough for me to be like, I'm kind of aggravated with that, but I guess we just have to see where that lands.

[Unknown]

I was kind of a little optimistic, like, okay, well, maybe, you know, there's some things about him that I don't care for, but there are some other things that I was hoping to see some momentum with specifically, like the economy. And I just think it's honestly not going well. Like, so many people are laid off, so many people are struggling. And I just feel like it's across the board. Like, pretty much everybody that I know knows one or two people who are just kind of barely getting by. And that wasn't always the case.

[Sarah Longwell]

So it was a pretty bracing group in terms of what we were hearing from people. I'm gonna set this up quickly by saying, don't riot on me, people. But the show is gonna go on a bit of a hiatus in a couple weeks, and so we'll be back in early September as we get into the election season for the off year elections. But this is gonna be the last thing you hear from our Biden Trump voters for a little bit. So we wanted to level set the show with just their takes on the state of things. But, John, what did you think about what you just heard?

[Jonathan Cohn]

I heard a lot of things and I felt like I picked up the general reaction to the Trump presidency right now among this group, which is a lot of disappointment. You hear these more than I do. You talk to more people than I do. Probably they don't feel like people already give up on him yet. There's disappointment, but they're waiting to see how this all goes on the specific issues of this bill. Some knowledge of what's in there. Some not that. First focus group participant talking about her situation. I will say, as someone who covers policy and talks to people who are using different programs, that's not atypical story. So someone who has some kind of disability is on food stamps, disability insurance, Medicaid. You know, it's funny, we talk a lot about taxpayer dollars and if they're getting wasted and if people are abusing the system and that's a debate to have and we can talk about what the numbers show and what we think is happening, what is really happening. I will just say sort of, to sort of put that in context, very few people who are on disability insurance and Medicaid, they're not living the good life. I mean, it's not a lot of money if you're in those situations, typically. Now, again, is there fraud in some of these programs? Is there waste? That's a separate question. Who deserves it? Who doesn't? But I appreciate the fact that she was pointing out that it's not a lot of money to get, you know, you're going to struggle. And a lot of what she talked about I think was relevant to the specific features of what Republicans want to do in this bill would actually quite possibly affect her and her situation. So that, that kind of jumped out at me.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I do see a lot of people like this in the focus groups who talk about being disabled and what federal programs they rely on for their lives. I think what's interesting to me, and I think that Republicans are feeling the force of this with the bill right now is that a lot of those voters, I think used to be Democrats or would vote for Democrats because the Democrats were there to say, we're gonna protect your Medicaid and your Social Security and like that's who we are. And I think there's a lot of voters who are on these programs who voted for them because of that. These voters, many of them now are Trump voters. And actually what I liked about this woman is she was quite articulate about the trade off. Right. She was saying, here are the cultural things that I wanted to happen. I wanted him to deport immigrants who committed crimes. Although she noted she didn't like the excesses in that, which is a thing I think we do hear from people and we're hearing a lot of now as the excesses are happening. Then we're taping this on Wednesday where what's happening in LA is very prominent in the news right now. She talked about the trans kids, which I hear that a lot from people. They'll feel like I'm disappointed in all the economic things, but I sure am glad he stopped these trans surgeries or that he's just defined biological sex as a one man, one woman. And I'm always like, that's an interesting way to make a trade off for yourself because one of them clearly impacts you in a deeply personal way in terms of your life. The other one would appear to not impact you directly, like a Lot of people voted for him because of the immigration and the trans stuff and hoped he would do good things in the economy. And right now, I would say the strain of disappointment you hear from people now is very consistently on the economy. Like, he said he was gonna do something about it. He said he was gonna lower grocery prices on day one. Things are not getting cheaper, and I'm upset about that. And they do often say Rome wasn't built in a day. You gotta give him time. It hasn't been that long. But if the economy does not improve, if grocery prices do not go down as he promised, I don't think these voters are there for the long haul.

[Jonathan Cohn]

I mean, to me, it's just so interesting because it is this sort of test case, right? I mean, we've all been talking about this culture now sort of overwhelming economics and personal finances in a way that it didn't used to. I don't know the answer to that. I'm sure you have a much better sense than I do. I'm kind of curious to see how that turns out, especially when this stuff turns from hypothetical to real. Okay, I'm glad he's doing what he's doing on trans kids. I'm glad what he's doing on immigration. I don't like this thing on Medicaid. Maybe I'm still willing to vote for him. Okay, well, what if you actually lose your Medicaid? Are you still willing to vote for him if the economy really tanks down? We even talk about healthcare, because that's what I do. But it's also cuts to food assistance. All these clean energy investments, a lot of them are in these red communities and tariffs people talk about. When that stuff becomes real, do they start to vote differently? And the other thing, just in terms of the economy, it's hard to know about this because timing is funny. But programs like Medicaid and SNAP become really important when the economy goes into the tank. That's when you need those programs. Right now, the economy is, at least in terms of unemployment, looks pretty good. But imagine a world where unemployment is now up because we have a recession, and all of a sudden Medicaid isn't taking on the role it used to, SNAP isn't providing the assistance. What do the politics look like then? And what if that's in, say, fall of 2026, fall of 2027? How does that play out politically?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I guess for me, it's just interesting to know that these voters, they didn't used to be as much part of the Republican coalition. And so now that they are like, now that these are Trump voters who are much more dependent on these social programs, there's like a lot more lower income voters that are now part of the MAGA Trump coalition. That is the real test. Like this is where the rubber rule meets the road. Where what he has done to sort of gin up the cultural grievances, whether that is enough to overcome the fact that he's gonna act a little bit like a regular Republican, like he's gotta find a way to offset his tax cuts. And so, you know, if he's gonna cut Medicaid, are they gonna stand for it? And will the Republicans care about doing this to their own members of their political coalition now that it's changed so much? That's an interesting question. Okay, this is a question for you outside of the bbb. What is going on right now in the government that people in these groups should be thinking about but aren't? Like, what did you feel like just wasn't on their radar. You didn't hear come up?

[Jonathan Cohn]

Well, I mean, immigration and it did come up a little bit. We've talked about immigration so far, mostly in terms of the impact on these families, on the people who are subject to deportation. I mean, how many people have heard this story now of that? Was it Missouri where that community was? Yeah, I mean that story I felt like was one of those, you know, how sometimes every now and then the story kind of breaks through and just like everybody read it. So I feel like the sort of human impact on people who are subject to deportations that is sinking in and people are aware of that. Where I don't think people have really made the connection yet is on the ripple effects of that. The one that I've been paying attention to, I hope to write about at some point in the not too distant future. Immigrants are an enormous part of our care economy. Home care workers, childcare workers throughout the service industry, agriculture, that is really going to start to have an effect. And anyone who's got a kid dealing with an aging relative knows how hard it is to find home care, childcare, all that. Well, it ain't going to get easier if the labor supply shrinks. So I feel like that is something I didn't hear about in this particular group. Obviously democracy, prosecutions, all of that. I mean, I know that doesn't feel real and it's not pocketbook issues that most people are paying attention to. And it feels like noise out there, feels like everyone's just yammering about it. People like us, we think there's something much bigger going on there, so we'll see. Maybe it just didn't come up in these conversations, I don't know. But I don't get the impression enough people are paying attention to that yet.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, look, if you were talking to a group of Democrats right now, I guarantee you they would know what was happening in LA and they would talk about it and they would probably mention, if not exactly a threat to democracy. They would sort of have like a this isn't what we do in this country. I feel like this isn't what we stand for. You get the Trump voters even sort of the swingier ones and you just hear about the economy, economy and you hear about then some of these cultural issues and the stuff about democracy. Checks and balances, man. Does that not come up. Is that not animating as an issue?

[Richard Karn]

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[Unknown]

By texting 64,000 you agree to receive recurring automated marketing messages from Pocket host. Message and data rates may apply. No purchase required. Terms apply. Available at pockethost.com terms Drivers who switch and save with Progressive could save hundreds. With that kind of money, you could go big time on a fancy water bottle with ultra titanium alloy metal. You're not sure why you need I mean it just holds water. But you're getting it anyway because if you're hiking near an active volcano and you accidentally drop the bottle into molten lava, your water will still be icy cold. Switch to Progressive and you could save big time for water bottles, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states. Potential savings will vary.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, I want to dive into the specifics of the big beautiful bill cuz it's pretty ugly and it's clear that the people in our groups did not know that much about the specifics. Which by the way, again now having done focus groups through a lot of big bills, big omnibus, including a bunch with Biden, the way in which voters often know what something costs or know the size of it but have no idea what's in it is pretty consistent. But I do want to play the parts about what jumped out at them. Like here's what they did know about it. Let's listen.

[Unknown]

I have been hearing a lot about the reduce in the snap that's been going on the past decades or so. I do believe that there is a point in time where it cannot be generational. Okay, if so, and so's mom and then Grandma was on it. I believe that he is doing the right thing, that there needs to be a cap involved when it comes to who's allowed to be on those type of benefits. And it should be more similar to like wic, where okay, you're allotted this amount of food each month or however it may go. But I do believe it's a starting process because I know for me personally if I want to go to the store and get a bunch of soda, energy drinks, chips, that's on my dime on what I make or my husband makes. And it's not fair for other people that have those benefits get to obtain all of that on pretty much on our working dime.

I've heard of that crappy bill. Seen it. I watched them on TV for hours that day where Trump went in and threatened everybody in the Republican thing before they voted. I got, I watched that for hours on Fox. Figured that somebody would get tired of his threats, but they ain't there yet.

I think that doing away with Medicaid, the immigration piece, I mean it's all part of like a larger campaign to stick it to just honestly, really like the working class and middle class. I feel like it's a vendetta. Like some people are like, oh, it's really not. No, it is. It's that serious. Like, I think that there is an intentional thing happening to starve the working class community as well as even the middle class. As long as you're not a billionaire and you depend on someone else to pay your bills through either working through assistance through disability, you are at the whim of the government in many ways, and whatever company you work for. And I honestly think a lot of these programs are there to make it very hard for working class, for the poor, for black people, for anyone who checks the other box. I think that that is the intent and I think as a byproduct of that, unfortunately, if there was a way for Trump to say, I'm gonna do all of this and it's not gonna affect, and I hope this doesn't offend anybody on this call, but I hope it doesn't affect anybody who is white, middle class or upper class, then if there was a way to do that, he would have did that. If you're not rich in America right now, you're on the chopping block, unfortunately, and someone has to come in to really change that trajectory. But right now it's not looking good if you don't have a lot of zeros in your bank account.

I heard recently that when Musk left, he was kind of against some of the increases in the debt ceiling that being raised by 4 trillion, like the budget deficit also going up. I guess some of the stuff that I've seen that maybe would be good, like no tax on Social Security, no taxes on tips and overtime. And as far as the cutting social, social service programs, right. To, to make up some of this money like Medicaid and snap, I think that could be good if, if there's some structure there. Like, I think they're saying that they're asking for like more local, state contribution instead of it being all federal. I guess that makes sense. Or they're talking about people potentially abusing the SNAP program. So I'm interested to kind of see that. But as several other people have mentioned, I'm not quite sure about the budget increases and the debt ceiling. That just seems like too, too much. And I agree, like putting everything into one bill. It seems kind of crazy to try to push all these things through at the same time without people picking and choosing what's what they think is not good.

I think it's got a lot of good elements to it. Like that puts more of the responsibility for SNAP on the states. There's more of a requirement for, for Medicaid. They're getting down on that, which I.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Think has been kind of out of.

[Unknown]

Control the past few years. So more requirements for Medicaid, I think was good. And also the overtime, no taxes on overtime and tips, I thought was good too. So overall, you know, I know it increases the national debt, but I think if we get some of these programs, like under Control, it'll eventually even out.

[Jonathan Cohn]

I haven't looked into it a lot outside of hearing the no tax on overtime, Social Security. Those are the main ones that I've heard. So I like that idea, but I.

[Unknown]

Haven'T heard much else on it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, so there was a poll that came out this week from the Economist that had support for this bill about 20 points underwater. And I think maybe Joni Ernst, well, we're all gonna die, so what can you do? Comments reflected the challenges that Republicans are going to face in sidestepping the problems in this bill for voters. And you wrote about some of the key arguments Republicans are making on how their cuts to Medicaid are really not all that bad. It's like, yeah, it's not so big. It's not so big a deal. Tell me. I mean I've read your stuff so I know you think they are lying. Explain why you think they are not telling the truth about what this bill does.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Yeah, so they know that it is not popular to cut healthcare benefits and especially not popular to cut healthcare benefits when you're also in the same piece of legislation giving a really big tax break to very, very wealthy people. Because then people can say, wait, you're taking health care from poor people and middle class people and you're giving that money to wealthy people as a tax break, which has the virtue of being true. You can make the argument that's a good thing to do, that we're better off for the tax breaks, the health care programs are wasteful, whatever. But I mean that is in fact what is going to happen. So they know that their strategies are sort of minimize or deny even. I mean I've heard how many Republicans out there say we're not cutting Medicaid. They've actually said no one's going to lose coverage. Which in what universe is that possibly true? I mean not only are people going to lose coverage, they're counting on people losing coverage. That's where the savings comes from. The reason this reduces federal spending is because fewer people are going to get Medicaid, fewer people are going to get Affordable Care act insurance. That's what saves the money. They need that money. They're counting on that money. So of course it's going to take away health benefits.

[Sarah Longwell]

What do you make of the pushback though about the work requirements? Like, well, we're just adding work requirements, right?

[Jonathan Cohn]

One of the things, well, we are taking away from some, but we're only taking away from able bodied people who can be working. And you heard it in that poll, that is a good political argument for them. It always has been. This has always been the argument against any kind of welfare program is that these are taxpayer dollars. These are people who could be working. You, the taxpayer, you're going to work, you're barely making money and you're paying taxes. And now this person who's in this argument staying at home, playing on their Xbox or whatever. Did I date myself? Is Xbox a new thing? I'm like so old.

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't know. I don't know. They're on their Nintendo switches.

[Jonathan Cohn]

There you go. There you go. Thank you. So, you know, on their Nintendo switches. And they could be working. That is an effective political argument. There's a reason they keep coming back to that. I will tell you, from a policy standpoint, very few people fit into that category. Most people on Medicaid work, the ones who aren't working. Most of them have a caregiving responsibility, they have some kind of disability, they're in school. I mean, there's a whole list of things they're doing. You don't have a lot of these people in part because if you think about it for a second, Medicaid isn't a cash benefit. I mean, we've had this argument about welfare. People get cash benefits and then, you know, there's this idea that they're going out and they're buying the Nintendo or the car or the TV or whatever. But you can't spend a Medicaid check. You can get a colonoscopy. I mean, if, you know, 25 year olds, usually the challenge is getting them to go to the doctor. They don't want to. And the other part of this is we know from experience that when you set up these systems to verify it, these become these bureaucratic messes inevitably. And what ends up happening is a lot of people who need insurance, who really need care, they have the chronic health conditions, they don't have a place to live, they don't have Internet access. These are the ones who lose access to Medicaid. You don't end up catching a lot of those people who are the lazy ones. And there's an argument which side to err on. But I do think that's an effective political argument for them and that's why they keep pushing it. What I would say as a policy check is that it's really, again, it's a small number of people. The system you're setting up is mostly going to get people who actually deserve it. And by the way, there's a bunch of Other stuff in the bill that's got nothing to do with work requirements. And that's where a lot of the cuts are coming from.

[Richard Karn]

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[Sarah Longwell]

What do you make about the bill's tax giveaways? Like the no tax on tips. Just on the merits. What do you think of that?

[Jonathan Cohn]

So I mean on the merits. I don't love either one of those. The way they're structured. I mean they know that there's no tax on tips. Will salaries come down as a result? There's a complex interaction there. And Social Security, there's the question of long term Social Security solvency. What should we be doing about it? So I don't love these ideas on the merits. I will say listening to these focus groups, that was the thing that sort of hit me the most was that I have been thinking of someone who covers more on the benefit side. So I'm more thinking about snap. I'm more thinking about the health care, I'm thinking about those clean energy credits. Obviously, I do think these tax breaks are popular. I think the question for me, I'd be interested to know what you think, which is. I think one of the most powerful arguments Democrats have in this debate is that we're cutting health care to give tax breaks to the rich. And I think that works because it plays into people's preconceptions of who Republicans are, fairly or not. You know, if you're a Republican, this helps inoculate yourself against that. I don't know how much do they get credit for that? Do people say, oh great, I don't care that we cut Medicaid, I don't care that rich people got a tax break because I'm getting this tax break on tips, or do they not care? I honestly don't know. I mean, I'm curious what you would think whether how powerful that is.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I mean, my guess is it's like slightly different. People think different ways. Like young people in the service industry might really go for the no tax on tips thing, but older people who go to the doctor a lot more who think that they're being sacrificed on the altar of rich people. I mean, that was what struck me from the groups is that there was multiple people in them who had really swallowed the. They are gonna cut this so that they can give tax breaks to really, really rich people. Or Trump is just for really, really rich people. Cuz that is a crack in the populist perception of him. Right? Where people are like, no, no, he fights for us and he's on the side of the working man. The veneer of that seems to be drifting away for people who are hearing that cuts are coming for them. And I don't think the tax on tips is gonna offset it for those kinds of people.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Yeah, we saw that in 2017. Right? I mean, that was a big part of his drop in popularity in 2017 was when they went after the ACA. People remembered that and then they passed the tax cut and people took that on board and people forget. He ran as a different kind of Republican in 2016. He was not Paul Ryan. Right. He was gonna, he was gonna protect Social Security, he's gonna protect Medicare now. Of course he was not Paul Ryan. And then he worked with Paul Ryan. So that probably hurt his case once he was president, cuz Ryan was the speaker of the House back then. But again, you're the expert in public opinion. I always assume the most effective political arguments, especially when these policy debates get complicated, are the ones that reinforce preexisting notions of who the parties are. It's why Democrats struggle even if they have a good argument on immigration or crime. And it's why Republicans are gonna struggle on anything that's redistributive.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, there was one interesting thing we heard incidental to the talk about this bill, which is folks were annoyed with one, how big the bill is, which is true of every big bill. Like, voters don't like the big bills. And then the second thing is they didn't like how ambiguous the branding is. Like, there's an awareness from these voters of like Trump does this thing where he calls it beautiful to mask who knows what's lurking beneath his branding. So let's listen to how they talked about this.

[Unknown]

They buried so many things in there. I mean, the bills, 1300 pages long. I used AI to try to summarize as much of it as possible. It's just ridiculous, especially the whole judge, federal judge, and the security bond that they're trying to impose in there. That's just scary. And it's retroactive.

A lot is going in there and it doesn't really address the national debt. And that's a huge concern of mine too. And I know this is so shallow level, but just like giving these big bills, these, these names, like, I don't, I don't know what's up with that big beautiful bill. Bill back better. I don't know why they like the letter B, but it is just annoying to me. I think that they think we're simple minded, that they can put this name on this bill. And if you don't like it, you know, they're like, well, you don't want to help the country. You know, you don't believe that a big beautiful bill is those three things. And build back better. It's like, build what back better? It just is, it's vague. The media takes it, runs with it and throws it around like, this is what it is, accept it. I, I just don't think enough questions are asked about it. Those things need to be smaller, first of all, and the Senate needs to do more of their job and not pass responsibilities, which I think I'm digressing a bit. But a lot of this stuff can be chopped up and I just, I just think this Senate should do a little bit more than throwing everything together.

[Sarah Longwell]

I do know it is a Very large bill like you guys have already mentioned. And I think that it's just kind of almost suspicious because what else could you be hiding in there because it's so large? What other things could be almost hidden.

[Unknown]

I don't know, with the name of it.

[Sarah Longwell]

The big beautiful bill. It's so typical of Trump's verbiage. Everything is better and great and the best and big and beautiful.

[Unknown]

And that kind of irritates me.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Voters.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sometimes they know more than I think they're gonna know, and then other times, certain things are just completely missing them. And so they don't seem to grok that bills are this big because they're passed through the budget reconciliation process as an end run around the filibuster. What are the consequences of so much of the legislation coming out of D.C. now this and basically every government funding bill being so big and opaque?

[Jonathan Cohn]

I had a sort of twin reaction of part of me is like, yes, this is why it's so big. And let me give you the explanation of the reconciliation, because that's what we do. And then I sort of think. But actually, these voters are pretty savvy. They're picking up on something which this is an attempt to hide the ball and hide the ball in a very particular way. It's not just that it's, you know, one big bill could be anything. And it is this mishmash, right? I mean, it is taxes and it's healthcare and it's clean energy and it's stuff with judges. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff packed into this. And it is an end run around the filibuster, which, you know, I mean, I have thoughts on the filibuster. That's a whole other conversation for. For another day. But even by the standards of modern Washington, where we get these big bills, this is lightning fast to move something through. And this thing, I'm a little bit obsessed with this. I mean, the House voted on a bill for which there was no language five days before. There was no normal committee process. That is a new thing. I use the example of the Affordable Care act, which ironically was trashed by a lot of people for being hatched in secret. I think a lot of Democrats talk to Rahm Emanuel about that. He wishes it were hatched in secret quickly. I mean, it took them forever. And all these committee hearings, frankly, hurt the bill's popularity. We can argue whether it made for a better bill or a worse bill. But everything that was in there was known because it was out there in public for months and Months and months. We're in a world where quite possibly this massive bill with this huge cut to healthcare, this huge change in our clean energy incentives, a big change in food assistance, blowing up the debt and deficit for the sake of these incredibly large tax cuts, we're gonna vote on that for a bill that did not exist in writing two months before, which is nuts. And I think people are picking up on the fact that. Wait, what is in this now? I think Republicans are doing this in part cuz they think that is the way to get this thing passed. And they might be right. I mean, it's true. Speed helps. There's a great quote from Lyndon Johnson from when they were doing Medicare and he was trying to get them to pass Medicare, which by the way had been debated for years. So it wasn't like it was was a new thing. And he has this great quote and he's talking to his aide on Capitol Hill in which he says, well tell him don't let it sit out there because my legislation's like a dead cat out on the stoop. And the longer it sits, the more it smells. And you can google it, it's on the LBJ library. The other thing that, in that excerpt you just played that really occurred to me was that focus on the Senate and the fact that they might pass it, they might get what they want, but they got senators, members of the House running in the midterms may very well discover that they get held responsible for that the same way, you know, in 2018, 2010.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think that's right. I was thinking a lot about the shellacking with this.

[Richard Karn]

Hi, I'm Richard Karn and you may have seen me on TV talking about the world's number one expandable garden hose. Well, the brand new pocket hose Copperhead with pocket pivot is here and it's a total game changer. Old fashioned hoses get kinks and creases at the spigot, but the Copperhead's pocket pivot swivels 360 degrees for full water flow and freedom to water with ease all around your home. When you're all done, this rust proof anti burst hose shrinks back down to pocket size for effortless handling and tidy storage. Plus your super light and ultra durable pocket hose. Copperhead is backed with a 10 year warranty. What could be better than that? I'll tell you what an exciting exclusive offer just for you for a limited time. You can get a free pocket Pivot and their 10 pattern sprayer with the purchase of any size copperhead hose. Just text water to 64,000. That's water to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase w a t e r to 64,000 by texting 64,000.

[Unknown]

You agree to receive recurring automated marketing messages from Pocket. Host Message and data rates may apply. No purchase required. Terms apply. Available at pockethost.com terms Drivers who switch and save with Progressive could save hundreds. With that kind of money, you could go big time on a fancy water bottle with ultra titanium alloy metal. You're not sure why you I mean, it just holds water, but you're getting it anyway because if you're hiking near an active volcano and you accidentally drop the bottle into molten lava, your water will still be icy cold. Switch to Progressive and you could save big time for water bottles. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states. Potential savings will vary.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, as we wrap up here, I want to leave everybody with. I don't know if it's a bit of schadenfreude that sounds sort of JVL ish, but we're taping this on a day where Elon is sort of walking all of this back. But the day that we were taping this focus group, it took place the afternoon that Trump and Elon were just like melting down all over Twitter and tweeting at each other into oblivion about the big, beautiful bill that was at the center before Elon called him a pedophile and said he was in the Epstein files and said he should be impeached, that the main fight was over this bill. Which is, I do think one of the reasons that you hear a certain amount of real concern about its size is because Elon's been really just hitting that idea that it's too big, it's gonna cost too much money, it's gonna raise the debt. And so most of the group at the time, though, had not heard about their breakup, like this was happening in real time. But let's listen to how one of the guys talked about the breakup and how both groups talked about the legacy of Doge more broadly.

[Unknown]

I know that Elon wrote something on his social media platform that he owns, funny enough, as Trump has his, but that he said he's in the Epstein files and that's why they haven't been released. Have a good day, Donald. But then Donald addressed in like some sort of presser in his office, he was saying like, yeah, he said some things. I've done a lot for him. That's a shame. I'm sure personal tax will Come next? As far as Doge goes, there was a lot of cuts and everyone's like, great, let's do it, let's cut the budget. This is beautiful. That's what we want. But we also just raised the debt ceiling, I believe by like billions of dollars or trillions maybe.

[Sarah Longwell]

I have to double check if it's.

[Unknown]

The B or the T. But like, okay, why are we doing that? Why do we need to do that if we're cutting money? You know, like, so what's the point?

Their waller seats is just all lies. I mean, from the very start, being a technical person, I can see they used to be able to inspect the website and see the contract numbers and all you had to do was look them up and see that they listed like the same contract three times. You know, each one was $80 million. And they claimed, oh, we saved $240 million. That contract only paid out a hundred thousand. So you didn't save anything. You didn't save anything at all. So everything they're doing is all BS and all lies and they haven't found any corruption. Now they're focusing on getting rid of people's Medicare and stuff because they don't have anything else to go with finding corruption, Finding corruption. They haven't found any corruption. So things like that. I was hoping that they can fix the military paying $20 for a 10 cent bolt, but that's not going to happen with Hexf in there.

Elon's always kind of rattled off on his X account about various things. It's always kind of been a little strange. I thought even bringing him in to do all of us, I thought was kind of bizarre. Now I think Trump tried something new and that was great, but now it's. He's saying that that was possibly the wrong decision.

Even with Elon Musk, the Doge thing, that was a big ass joke. At this point, they're not saving any money. Especially when the government bill that they are trying to push through is going to make us go in debt even more and then take from the most vulnerable people.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, so in that same Economist poll that I mentioned earlier, 56% of Americans agreed with Elon Musk that the bill will massively increase the already gigantic deficit. So I'll just ask you, to what degree was Doge really about cutting spending? And what would a good faith effort at cutting the debt and deficit look like from a Republican administration? And how is it different from this bill? That's like a real, it's like a real big question to End on. So it's like, jonathan, write me your own bill. That would work for Republicans.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Right, Right. Do we have an hour? No. So I'll do two quick pieces. All right, so first of all, I mean, there's the Doge piece and there's the legislative piece. I have said from, like, in the day. I've been dismayed at some of these cuts in DOGE and just, I mean, it's shocking to me, right? Cutting medical research, cutting pepfar. Literally hundreds of thousands of children, people are going to die, are dying because we've cut off medical aid. And that's a dumb cut. It's not just cruel, but it's dumb. I mean, it's cheap in the grand scheme of the budget. It's soft power. It's American influence abroad. I mean, even if you don't sort of feel the humanity to do it, I mean, it's just. It's a dumb cut. Same with medical research. I mean, that is a driver of economic innovation. So what would it look like? Well, the National Institutes of Health, just to take one example, is not a really well organized organization at this point. It's gotten all these different centers that grew up over time because you had a senator who wanted this project or that project, lots of really smart ideas for reorganizing NIH and how you would do it. And Trump could have come in and said, I want to reorganize NIH and make it more efficient, truly more efficient. And I want to change the way we fund programs so that we really kind of put money into sort of more promising lines of research. And you do that in a way that doesn't halt studies that are out there just because you don't like them and doesn't just mass fire all your experienced people, who, by the way, are the ones who know how to save money, how to make it more efficient, how not to have corruption. So, I mean, that, to me, is what Doge would have done. There was a wide opening for that, and it would have gotten support. The abundance crowd would have loved that of this was like, the kind of stuff they're talking about. So you can imagine a version of that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Can I just stop you for this? Cause this is what I never understood is, like, if Trump had come in and be like, I want all of you to cut 10% of your budgets. Like, you come to me and tell me how we're gonna cut 10% of our budgets. That would have been an interesting experiment to let all the people with a lot of expertise come up with a way that they were going to make their own programs more efficient. And like, there would have been some complaining or things like it, but it was crazy when it happened. But now, looking back with a little time to think about it, it was like, no, we're just going to take this 40 year clinical study of heart disease and halt it. That we can never get back. And then when people looked up and said, wait, that was a bad idea, or we're going to fire all the nuclear scientists, it's just like Americans seem to understand, as I've been listening to them talk about Doge, that it's a little bit of a joke. They understand that it didn't do that much, but they still like the idea of it. And so it's wild that they couldn't take advantage of the goodwill of people who really wanted to see them cut something and do it in such a way that now everybody's like, that. Ended up being a clown show.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the two things going on there were. Number one, I think most of these folks, a lot of them, I'm not going to name names because I don't know them individually that well, but I think for a lot of them, it isn't actually about making government more efficient. It's the spectacle, it's the fight, it's the shaking things up. Right. I mean, that's just. They like it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Silly me, trying to come up with an actual.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Yeah, no, no, because I. So the second part is, I do actually think there was like a theory behind this and maybe Musk thought, I don't know, Elon Musk, you know something, certainly you see in the tech world, these sort of break things, you know, and then we'll rebuild it. But, you know, that doesn't actually turn out to be a great strategy. A lot of the time I don't remember the exact wording of the quote anymore. It was a Mark Zuckerberg quote originally. Right. You know, move fast, break things.

[Sarah Longwell]

Move fast, break things.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Break things.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right, yeah.

[Jonathan Cohn]

Break shit. I don't know. Do we say break shit on here? I guess we do.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's an adult podcast.

[Jonathan Cohn]

That's right. It's not a family publication. To quote Ben Bradlee supposedly, and all the President's Men got me into journalism when I was a kid. I just dated myself. But if I remember correctly, Zuckerberg, years later, kind of walked that back a little bit. He said, actually, if you have people who have expertise and you have institutional knowledge, you don't want to get rid of that. You need that you want to tap that. And we need a more nimble civil service. And it's not easy and it's frustrating and it's hard. But in some ways that's sort of the point here, which is that governing is hard. And if you have serious people come in and want to do it the hard way, you can make changes that are both productive and can last. And I just don't think that's of interest to this crowd.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think you're right. And I will say for those people who've been listening to this show and been very frustrated with these sort of swing voters, I do feel like slowly it's not going to happen all at once. But I do think slowly you're just hearing more and more frustration with the fact that the central thing that they wanted, which was lower prices, isn't happening. And the stuff that is happening, with the exception of a few hot button cultural issues, people are kind of like, I'm not sure this is what I want.

[Unknown]

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[Richard Karn]

What is daddication?

[Unknown]

The thing that drives me every day as a dad is Dariana. We call them date for short. Every day he's hungry for something, whether it's attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we worked together. We did a good job.

[Jonathan Cohn]

That's dedication.

[Richard Karn]

Find out [e-mail] brought to you by.

[Jonathan Cohn]

The U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.

[Sarah Longwell]

And so. So we'll see where it goes. And I don't know if actually if you want to get into the protection business as we close, but do you think that the fate of this bill is that they're just going to jam it through or do you think this ends up sitting out there like the cat on the stoop because now that Elon has come out as hard against it, he had even with the reconciliation, you do see a Lot of people concerned about the price tag, concerned about all the stuff that's in there. And by people, I mean, obviously they jammed it through the House, but it feels like the Senate's going to have to take a slightly more responsible attack on it. So does it make it? What happens next?

[Jonathan Cohn]

So I try really never to make predictions because I'm really bad at it. So can I give the two variables? I think that'll determine the three variables. So number one, I think how much the right feels pressure, the sort of fiscally conservative, the hawks feel like this is too much and sort of press on it. I think there's tension on the other side on the left. I mean, we've seen this from Josh Hawley, who's been very outspoken against Medicaid cuts. And there's so many red states and if this has to go back to the House, which presumably will. There's so many red districts where their constituents aren't going to feel it. So that's a variable that I think, how much pressure do they feel? And that's a variable in part because I think there's still time. Not a lot left. But go back 2017, those protests. You remember Jimmy Kimmel back. He did a whole thing on his late night show about it really got people paying attention to the bill. So I mean, whether or not that sort of pressure mounts and then where Trump comes in and Trump is interesting on this because he wants the bill, he wants the tax cuts. He wants the bill. Right. More than anything else. He wants to say he had the big beautiful bill that was the most important piece of domestic legislation ever in the history of the United States of America and maybe the world and the galaxy or whatever it is. He's going to say it was, I think the bill passed. Okay, I guess I am going to make a prediction. I think the bill passes because Republicans pass tax cuts. It's like the one thing you can set your watch by. The question is what else is in the bill? Does it have a less impact on the deficit? How much does it cut back on spending cuts? Of course, those two things are a little bit in tension. What does Elon Musk do? He wants to cut spending more. What does Josh Hawley want to do? He wants to cut spending less, in effect, although he doesn't call it that. Where those things meet in the middle, I don't know. I think they pass something. But I also think for that very reason, the fact that passing something, the dials here matter. How much do they cut Medicaid, how much do they cut Snap? How much do they raise the deficit? These are really important questions that are going to reverberate in this country for not just years, but for decades. So I think for people who are watching and thinking, does it matter? Yes, it matters. There's a lot still in play and a lot could still happen.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right. Let's leave it there. Jonathan Cohn, thank you so much for joining us. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. We will be back next week, but in the meantime, remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Really helps people find us. Subscribe to the Bulwark on YouTube and become a Bulwark plus member at the bulwark. Com. We will see you guys next week.