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The Kinzinger Report
Broken Promise | Trump Ends the Medicare Program Holding Down Costs — July 29, 2026
00:13:25
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I'm Adam Kinzinger, and you're listening to the Kinzinger Report, where I bring you top stories and analysis on current events and the growing threats to our democracy. After serving over a decade in Congress, I help you know what's true and what really matters so that we can all work to save this country that we love so much. Well, hey, everybody. Welcome back. Happy Wednesday. It's great to have you here. So what's today's top story? The Trump administration is pulling the plug on Medicare subsidies that keep prescription drug costs down for about 25 million seniors. The White House says it's ending a bailout. They call it whatever they want. Bailout, whatever. But it doesn't change the fact that it's going to make things way more expensive for seniors, not cheaper. We're also going to get into the president embarrassing himself at Lindsey Graham's funeral, a bipartisan breakthrough on new Russia sanctions, the confirmation of Jay Clayton as our new intelligence chief, and a leaked memo that admits the GOP communist scare campaign isn't moving voters. Not surprising. So do me a favor, like the video, share it with someone who needs to see it and subscribe so you don't miss an episode and makes you the smartest person you know. So let's get to it. We're going to start with the announcement that it's going to raise drug costs for millions of seniors next year. On Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it's ending the program that holds down premiums for Medicare drug plans. Medicare Part D is the drug coverage that roughly 25 million seniors buy through private insurers. Two years ago, the premiums were about to jump. The Biden administration set up a program that held the line. It knocked money off every senior's premium, and it capped how much any plan could raise its prices in a year. And it worked. Premiums didn't spike. In fact, it worked so well that when Trump took office, his own administration renewed it for another year. So what changed? Here's the explanation given by Trump's pick to manage health coverage for 68 million Americans. Dr. Freaking Oz, by the way, quote, we are stabilizing the market so this bailout is no longer needed. Premiums will go up by less than $10 for most Medicare recipients, with many even seeing lower premiums. When you're rich, I guess, you know, 10 bucks is nothing. But those numbers actually don't hold up against what his own agency told reporters. Yes, about a quarter of seniors will see premiums hold flat or drop another 30% get hit with less than $10 a month. But the remaining 45%, nearly half the program, are looking at 11 to $20 more a month. To put that in perspective, the average plan runs about $36. So for millions of seniors, this is a jump of 30 to 50%. And most of these folks pay their premiums straight out of their Social Security check. That payment is estimated to go up about 4% next year to help cover the rising cost of things like groceries and rent, which, let's be honest, that's not going to be enough. But now it's got to cover this, too. The President has repeatedly promised seniors that he'd never touch Medicare. Anybody who said otherwise was fake news. Democrats who warned about it were fear mongering. Well, millions of seniors are about to open their mail and find out that the fake news wasn't so fake. And the final numbers come out this fall. So they're going to watch their premium spike at the same time they're deciding how to vote.
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Huh.
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Anyway, Meanwhile, the President was at the National Cathedrals for Lindsey Graham's funeral. The casket was at the Capitol in the morning. Then the service moved to the National Cathedral and it was packed. The Trump family, the Vice President, Netanyahu, Zelinsky, and much of the Senate. Graham's pastor gave the homily. Trump gave the eulogy. And as you can expect, Trump made a fool of himself. Before we get into it, I just want to show you one clip in full, so just watch this. For anyone who's just listening. The video shows Trump pulling out a container of Tic Tacs in the middle of the service. And when he tries to put one in his mouth, he misses and it falls to the ground. A second attempt is successful. After feeding himself like a toddler with a SpaghettiO. It was just too good of a clip not to include, by the way. So there you go. Enjoy. You can rewind and watch again if you want to, but there's more. Let's start with the eulogy. So Trump couldn't get through his own prepared remarks without arguing with him.
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Virtually everyone, Republican or Democrat, liked Lindsay. Well, not everybody, but it sounds good.
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Not everybody. He made it as far as the line about how well liked Lindsey Graham was. Then he stopped and corrected himself. He also brought up the time he read Graham's personal cell phone number out loud at a rally. Graham's sister was sitting right there. He just can't help himself. And after he sat back down, the camera stayed on him. They happened to catch the President Once again having a very long blink.
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See, now he saw.
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The poor guy is just tuckered out. He's so exhausted. Of course, the White House says he was reflecting. Their spokesman said anyone who thought otherw wise was, quote, a depraved. He was just reflecting. We know him. He's very reflective. Trump often just cares about other people and reflects. Lindsay and I saw the world very differently by the end of his life, and I said so plenty of times. But he gave this country more than three decades, both in uniform and in Congress, and yesterday was supposed to honor that one day. It's a shame that Trump, an 80 year old president of the United States, could not hold it together for one hour. And just hours after they carried Graham's casket out of that cathedral, the Senate finally moved the bill he spent the last year of his life fighting for. Tuesday night, The Senate voted 86 to 12 to advance a Russian sanctions package that's tougher than any this country has enforced before. Graham wrote it with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. They worked on it for more than a year. They built it to 62 CO sponsors, and they locked down the White House's blessing in the days before his death. It goes after the whole war machine. It goes after the energy sector, the banks, the defense industry, the oligarchs, the shadow fleet that's sneaking Russian oil past sanctions. Zelensky, in Washington for the funeral, walked over to the Capitol and watched the vote from inside the chamber, which was really cool. So why did 12 senators vote now? Well, because of how the bill applies the pressure to squeeze Moscow's customers. It lets the president impose tariffs of up to 100% on the biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas. China and India topped that list. And that word tariffs is a sticking point. In February, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that this president never had the authority to impose his global tariffs. That power belongs to Congress. Five months later, here is Congress handing a piece of it back. In the words of Senator Peter Welch of Vermont, this would be a blanket delegation of congressional tariff authority to the executive. The authors of the bill say the guardrails are real. The tariff ceiling was cut from 500% to 100 to win votes, and the new powers expire after five years. But some senators were not convinced. I want to see Russian sanctions more than anything. What we've seen with the tariffs, though, with this president, you can't blame anyone who's hesitant to hand him that power. The House already left for August, so we're going to have to wait until September. To see if Mike Johnson gets it to the President's desk. But all in all, I'm supportive this needs done. It's just up to whether the President will enforce this correctly, but we'll have to wait and see. It is true, though, we need to go after Russia. But the Senate wasn't finished last night. With that, they handed Trump another confirmation win. You remember all these people, by the way, that are like, oh, I'm. I don't have to do what the President wants anymore. He beat me in my own primary. Keep that in mind. When the President nominated Jay Clayton for Director of National Intelligence, it initially got bipartisan praise. Some of that goodwill came because from his alternative right. For weeks, the office was run by Bill Pulte, an unqualified housing regulator who used his previous job to investigate Trump's political enemies. But some on the left genuinely liked Clayton. Mark Warner, the Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, said he had known and respected the man for years. But then came Clayton's confirmation hearing. Under oath, Clayton refused over and over to answer simple questions like who won the 2020 election. He just couldn't bring himself to hurt Trump's feelings. So when the Senate officially voted to confirm him last night, it was split down party lines. Not one Democrat voted for him, but all the Republicans. Anyway, even without their support, Clayton inherited the reins to our intelligence and the huge mess that comes with it. Pulte spent his last hours in office bragging about everyone he's fired as he reduced the size of the office to half of its pre Trump size. And that same office was behind the declassification documents used by the President in his primetime election denial speech. Of course, those documents didn't actually support what the President was saying, but that didn't stop him, and it didn't stop Pulte from spreading his lies. And it seems like it won't stop his replacement either. Take a look on the integrity side. We're doing an absolutely terrible job, and the American people are right to question it. California's election law allows ballots per by election Day to be counted. That means tabulation typically continues for weeks after the election. But why, why? Why is that law? I get you. I mean, that doesn't sound like fraud, that you can argue whether the law makes sense, but that doesn't sound like a fraudulent situation. No, there's a great. There's a great phrase, opportunity for fraud. So Paul D. Is gone. I'm glad he is. But the problem in that building was never Pulte. It was the man he worked for. Clayton has the same boss now, and he showed exactly what he'll do to challenge the President. Absolutely nothing. And finally, we found out exactly why the President's message is so desperate. After all, for the past month or so, Trump has turned to one particular word to describe his political opponents. Communist. Not socialist. Communist. He made that distinction clear at a rally on Monday.
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Do you remember? Like in one of my State of the Union speech, I said, we will never be a socialist country. But I was right. We're going to be a communist country. That's what they want. They skipped socialism. Can you believe it? But communism is the greatest threat to our country in history, including even World War I, World War II, Pearl harbor, or 9, 11. In one year, the country will be absolutely bankrupt. You'll live in squalor. You'll live in fear.
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It's worth noting that this same president instructed our government to hold stake in about 30American companies. I think Marx himself would approve of that. But communist is a big, scary word, so he uses it anyway. And now we know why. Yesterday, a recent strategy memo sent to House Republican offices was leaked. And among other things, it included a poll that found that Americans fear communism much more than they fear socialism. So members were instructed to stop treating them as separate words because they are, quote, fruits of the same poisonous tree. By attaching extreme labels to the left, Republicans are trying to rescue their own reputation before the midterms, and they have a lot of work to do. Another poll this month found that while about half of voters are less likely to back a Democratic socialist, even more were turned off by a Trump endorsement. And the MAGA label did the worst of all. After their talk about. After all their talk about Democrats, the most toxic brand in American politics is still the one with the President's hat. So whenever Trump goes on his rants about communism, just remember where it's coming from. He's trying to save himself from a complete midterm embarrassment. And it's not going that well anyway. There we go. That's Joe for July 29th again. Do me a favor like this. Share it with someone who needs to see it. Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and we will catch you right back here tomorrow. Take care.