May 29, 2025 • 50 mins
Just the News No Noise on Real America's Voice
Segment A: NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL CHAIR KEVIN HASSETT SAYS AMERICAN FAMILIES WILL SEE AN INCREASE OF $10K IF BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL IS PASSED INTO LAW
Segment B: SENATOR RON JOHNSON EXPLAINS HIS OPPOSITION TO THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL
Segment C: CONGRESSMAN BURGESS OWENS DISCUSSES WHY HE VOTED FOR THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL
Segment D: WHAT ARE THE UPSIDES AND POTENTIAL DOWNSIDES TO THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL IN ITS CURRENT FORM?
Segment E: ANDY MANGIONE ON HOW AMAC ACTION IS HELPING SENIORS
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Good evening, America, and welcome to this Just the News,
Real America's Voice special report breaking down the Big Beautiful Bill,
or as it's now called in Washington. The BBB all
brought to you in partnership with our good friends at
the Association for Mature American Citizens are better known as AMAC.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
ALL.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Throughout tonight's show, we're going to be taking a deep
dive into President Trump's signature legislative bill, exploring whether it
can deliver on economic growth, regin in federal spending, deal
with healthcare costs, and address concerns about the national debt.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
President Trump's legislative push is.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Being put to the test, but according to the White House,
this bill could set America on a path of prosperity.
We'll also examine the opposition to some things in the
bill from Republicans to the Senate and the Pencil, and
the potential for compromise with the incredible lineup of guests
we have for you tonight, starting with President Trump's Director
for the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. He's going to
(01:13):
kick things off. He'll break down the Big Beautiful Bill
and give you some surprising new numbers on what it's
going to do to the economy. We also have Senator
Ron Johnson from the great state of Wisconsin, a leading
voice in the Senate Republican opposition to the bill. Why
he wants more cuts than spending. We'll see when he
can get downe on that. Congress and Burgess Owens will
be here to discuss why he voted to pass the
bill out of the House. And then Phil Kirkpan will
(01:35):
be here, the President of the American Commitment, to discuss
the bill's regulatory reforms and the controversial sought the state
in local tax deductions, along with the bill's impact on
federal health spending. And finally, we'll end tonight with a
great conversation with our good friend Andy Manjoni. He's AMAX
Action Senior Vice President, basically the field general for the grassroots.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
He's going to be here to.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Talk about Medicare reform and the great things happening with
social Security. We'll cover all that, But before I get
started and all that great lineup, I want to bring
in my amazing gos for the evening. He's AMAX Senior
vice President, Charles. Great to have you on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Thank you, John.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
It's great to be here and what important conversation we're
having tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
At AMAC.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
We represent over two million conservative Americans, people who believe
in personal responsibility, smaller government, and protecting the future for
their children and their grandchildren. So they're not just interested
in political theater anymore. They want results, and they've been
waiting a long time for Washington to take bold action.
So tonight's discussion around President Trump's budget bill isn't just
(02:41):
about dollars and cents. It's about restoring sanity to the
way that we govern. It's about stopping endless cycles of
reckless spending, reigning in the federal bureaucracy, and finally putting
working Americans first, especially our seniors who feel the pressure
of rising costs.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
More than anyone else.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
So happy to be here, looking forward to the conversation, John, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I am too. It's going to be great.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And AMAC is on the front lines helping to get
this bill over the finish line. You've unleashed a big army.
I know we're going to talk about that later in
a show. But the patriots of AMAC are inaction, aren't they.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Absolutely, they take this very seriously.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
They're looking for multiple reform levels on spending, healthcare, PBMs,
drug pricing, foreign investment. We have a wide variety of
members in the US and they're all watching this big
beautiful bill very intently.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, so important.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's amazing to watch the great work that amac's action
team does. We're going to get to that later in
the show. All throughout the show, folks go to AMAC
dot uslash JUSTINWS a very special offer. We're going to
tell you about it at the end of this block.
But first, exciting way to kick off. All right, time
to get to our first guys joining us now. We're
very lucky to kick off the show with the Director
(03:53):
of the National Economic Council for the President of the
United States, Kevin Hasse.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Kevin, great to have you on the show.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Thanks for having me. There is a lot of buzz.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
In fact, I haven't seen Washington vibrate like this in
a long time. The velocity of Trump change is extraordinary.
Big beautiful bill through the house. Tell us what's going
on behind the scenes. How's it going with the Senate?
What should we be looking for in that chamber?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Right?
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Well, I think that what you need to be looking
for is success, because that's the only thing that we're
going to accept. If Republicans in the Senate don't pass
the big, beautiful bill, then we're going to see the
biggest tax hike as the previous tax cuts expire, the
biggest tax hike that we've ever had in US history.
If we have that tax hike, the couscle of economic
(04:38):
advisors here the Way is estimated that we'll have a recession,
a really deep procession with maybe a decline of four
percent of GDP. And if we pass the bill, on
the other hand, then you're going to see really striking
economic growth, just like we saw in twenty eighteen and
twenty nineteen, and our own models that said we'd have
that four thousand dollars increase in income. Do you remember that, John,
(05:00):
They now say that we're going to get ten thousand
an income for the typical family over just a few years.
And so the stakes are really high, and the bill's
going to pass, and so what's going to happen is
that between now and then that what I would advise
people to do, that your loyal viewers, is to keep
your eye on the horizon and remember that when you're
in a boat and if you're looking down at your feet,
(05:21):
then you might get seasick. But if you're looking at
the horizon, then you're going to see really golden age
the horizon, and it'll be here probably by the fourth
of July, certainly by recess.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I like it absolutely. I love the confidence.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
So many Americans are still feeling the effects of the prices.
They're watching closely for the policies that can offer the
relief you're talking about. So, how how do you expect
this legislation to impact inflation and job growth?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Right?
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Well, the way to think about it is that let's
suppose it our economy. Let's I get to be economists
now and then not, you know, So, let's suppose the
economy is just like an apple tree, and then we
got an apple tree and some apples, and then we
plant another apple tree. Then we got more apples.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And so if.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
GDP is just how many apples do we got, then
we get more GDP because we got more apples. But
what happens to the price of apples. It probably goes
down because we got twice as many apples. And so
what we got to do is plant more trees, bottom line,
And so how.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Do we plant more trees?
Speaker 5 (06:20):
While we do things, like President Trump has said, make
it so that there's a huge tax benefit per factory
investment in the US, a tax benefit for the machines inside,
and even a huge tax benefit for the buildings. And
so for four years, these firms that build a new
building and put stuff in it and create jobs in America,
they get to expense the whole building. They get to
(06:41):
write it off against their taxes, which is going to
cause a massive building boom. If there's a massive building
boom and lots of job creation and lots of capital formation,
that it's just like planting a whole bunch of apple trees.
And so we're going to have a lot more apples,
and the price of apples isn't going to go up,
it's going to go down because we got more supply.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I want to break down that ten thousand dollars figure
because that is a pretty stunning figure. That's a combination
of tax savings and economic growth. Right, you're going to
see income churacus. People are just going to be able
to get more opportunity.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
And the way to think about it is that you've
seen that everybody said, Oh, the uncertainty over the taxes
of the tariffs is going to cause all like this,
like quasi recession, and activity is going to slow down
and consumers are going to not be able to buy stuff.
But in fact, you know, sales are way up and
the jobs reports have been surprising on the upside, and
(07:38):
inflation is down towards two percent because what's happening is
that there is an explosion of investment in new production
in the US and jobs in the US, and that's
basically where non inflationary growth comes from. So people don't
have to worry about inflation again under this president. Inflation
got out under control last time because what happened was
(07:59):
the the Democrats and President Biden they mailed check to people.
Remember they just mailed checks to people and the first term,
the first year of the Biden administration, and they didn't
do anything. In fact, they attacked supply, so they reduced supply,
so they cut down apple trees, and they mailed checks
to people, and so the few apples left people had
to buy, but they had mailed them all these checks,
(08:20):
and so the price apples went way up. But what
we're doing is we're not mailing checks to people. We're
giving people an incentive to go to work. We're giving
businesses an incentive to create jobs here in the US
and to build buildings of the US. And that's going
to be just absolutely a past prosperity in the US
that President Trump has discussed over and over again, the.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Way consumer confident has jumped way up, right, Kevin, that
was a big factor in the last couple of days.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Y's one of the biggest increases in consumer confident is
ever And the reason is exactly what we're talking about,
right that people now see in the data that you know.
So the left wing media is saying, oh, President Trump's
causes so much trouble, and oh the tariffs are going
to make it so when you go to Walmart, you're
not going to see anything and all that didn't happen,
and people now see that, in fact, there's a race
(09:08):
to participate in the Golden Age in America right now,
and firms are coming as fast as they can to
build stuff in the US, to create jobs in the US,
to rebuild factories. You saw President Trump announced the US
Steel deal. It's a really big, beautiful deal for US
steel where nip On Steel is putting in billions and
billions of dollars to revive old plants that had previously.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Been moth balled.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
And that's exactly what we have in mind, not just
for western Pennsylvania, but for the whole country. That's going
to happen everywhere. And that's why it's a golden age.
And President Trump is like promising it, and I'll promise.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
It as well.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Very confident, we love it here.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
So this bill also proposes rollbacks, regulatory rollbacks in several sectors.
So we often see deregulation framed as a catalyst for
the growth and expansion. How meaningful is that regulatory reform
when it comes to driving real GDP gains?
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Oh, it's huge, it's huge. But the problem with regulatory reform,
right is that when I say, oh, well, what are
we doing to deregulate, then well, to read the regulation
is going to make your brain heard, right, and then
to understand the regulation is going to be almost not
worth the effort if you're just an external viewer.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
But you know that.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Regulations are really really harmful and costly to America businesses.
And one of the ways to think about deregulation that
I think aggregate. The positive influence of what we're doing
is that we've got maybe seven trillion dollars in commitments
from big US companies and foreign companies and some forard
(10:42):
sovereign wealth funds to build new factories and new things
here in the US. So why did they make that
commitment Because they know that they can do it safely.
Then it'll happen. Because if you promise to build a
factory in the US, we're going to cut the red tape.
You're going to get that factory built right away, and
so there before you should come.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
And so I think the best metric.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Of what's happening with deregulation is all these people are
willing to put their money on the line and create
jobs of the US because they trust us that we're
not going to cover them up in red tape and
smother them in red tape and make it so that
nothing ever happens. And I think that's the best way
to think about the immediate results right now of deregulation.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Such a good point, Kevin. I wanted to ask a
little bit about trade deals. Those also are going to
bring some extraordinary new opportunities. Big ones already in the
House with such as Great Britain. When do you see
the next ones coming in? How do they also alter
this picture and continue to create optimism in America?
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Yeah, well, the trade deals are really targeted to both
create jobs in the US, but also to create jobs
in the US by opening up their markets to our stuff.
And so one of the things that has happened in
the past is that we allow them access to our
markets other countries, and so their ferbs are selling things everywhere.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
But when we try to sell stuff.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
To them, like our agricultural products, you know, our beef,
our core that they say, oh no, no, you can't
have the beef because of this, can't have the corn
because you know, like we don't. We think it's genetically
modified or whatever it is. And so what these trade
deals are doing is that they're making a level playing field. Again,
they're giving us lots of tariff revenue, but they're also
(12:24):
creating access to foreign markets for US producers, US small
businesses at US agriculture.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Amazing in terms of ambition and design.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
How does this bill compared to the twenty seventeen tax
reform you helped craft.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Oh yeah, it's the twenty seventeen bill. Maybe I guess
we'd say on steroids that it takes everything. Every lesson
we learned that created the three percent growth and the
sixty five hundred in increased income for the typical americand
and we multiplied it by two, and we added new
things like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime,
(13:02):
no tax on social Security, which are going to make
it so that the people who want to work hard
and want to have a better life in America are
richly rewarded to do that, both by the wage that
they get before tax and the wage that they get
after tax.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It's amazing, so much to watch, it's hard to keep up.
I don't know how you guys keep up with all
the velocity of stuff, but it's changing us.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Thanks, we try.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
What a great honor to have you on the show today.
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Thanks John, great to be great to have you guys.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
All right, folks, we have much more ahead for you.
What a great conversation that was. You've got a lot
more like that over the next hour. While you're watching,
I also want you to head over to amac dot
us slash just News amac dot us slash just News
because you can join right now. Get a load of
this for just one dollar for a whole year. It's
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(13:49):
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also going to get to attend my next private town
hall meeting. We have a VIP subscriber cover here.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
At this news. Everybody gets to ask questions.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I answer questions for news for an hour, hour and
a half tonight tonight. Only if you join, you go
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(14:21):
taken care of. We'll be back in a second with
more great interviews. Well, welcome back in America to this
justin News, really America's voice, special report breaking down the
big beautiful bill, all brought to you in partnership with
our friends at AMAC. I want to bring back in
my coast tonight, AMAX and your vice president Charles Stuhlan
(14:44):
and joining us now a frequent guest on this show.
He always gives a to us straight. He's the great
senator from Wisconsin, Senator Ron Johnson. So good to have
you on the show.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Well, guys, hope you doing well.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
We are doing well.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I know you're in the thick of a pretty big
battle intent enforcing your party to get more savings out
of this big, beautiful bill, because it does bring the
deficit up.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Tell us where you are in that process, what sort
of support are you getting and do you think President
Trump will engage constructively.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
Well, just to quick give you some background, I sprang
out of the Tea Party in twenty ten.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Right when I was campaigning.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
During all those parades, what I would shout was this
a fight for freedom. We're mortgaging our children's future. It's wrong,
it's moral, it's got to stop.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
There you go.
Speaker 7 (15:32):
That was my campaign theme in twenty ten, got me elected.
It's been my primary focus.
Speaker 6 (15:37):
Again. I wish we had.
Speaker 7 (15:39):
Been able to maintain only a fourteen trillion dollar debt.
That's what it was when I got elected. Now thirty
seven trillion dollars. The current CBO estimate, the most recent one.
They have projects spending eighty nine point three trillion dollars
over the next ten years, incurring another twenty two trillion
dollars worth of deaths and so John, that's that means
two point two trillion dollar per year, and I would
(16:02):
argue that is a Rosie scenario.
Speaker 6 (16:04):
They are assuming that we're.
Speaker 7 (16:06):
Going to get a tax increase, the automatic tax increase
by letting the Tax Cutting Jobs Act expire, that they
estimate that will bring about four trillion dollars revenue. And
now I know there's all kinds of argument over you know,
what is the dynamic score and all that type of thing.
What's pretty certain, though, is the eighty nine point three
trillion dollars. And let's face it, the House at most
(16:28):
say they're going to be cutting one point five trillion,
but they're going to be spending about three hundred billion
dollars on defense in the border, so that brings at
one point two A couple hundred billion of that is
student loans, which they've got to pass really quick before
the Supreme Court rules that unlawful, are unconstitutional. A lot
of the spending is out in the out years. It's
just not real. It never happens. So we need to
(16:48):
get serious about this. We can't tolerate two point two
trillion dollar deathlet's priorizing two point five two point six
if you look at independent scores of the big beautiful bill.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
So that's the ugly reality. I wish it weren't so.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
I wish, you know, everybody on my side was as
dedicated as their rhetoric. They all say, we don't have
a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Big part
of this bill is just new tax cuts to President
Trump promised on me on the campaign trail that quotas
are not going to promote growth, they're just going to
reduce revenue.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Senator, there's clearly a lot of concern about the size
of this bill, but also there's real urgency from voters
who want to see action at AMAC. We hear both,
so we hear cut spending, and then we also hear
do something that actually helps us. So how do you
think we actually get that right balance between bold reform
(17:44):
and political and economic reality.
Speaker 7 (17:47):
I've always been a favor of a multi step process,
folks on the areas of agreement, that's the border defense.
Take whatever spending reductions we can get the Senate and
our budget proposals at eight hundred and fifty billion. But
let's take advantage of some of the good work the
House did. Let's load as much of those savings as
we can in this first bill. Extend current tax law
as unwieldy and grotesque's current tax law is. I want
(18:11):
to take an automatic tax increase off the table. We
should have done that in twenty seventeen. Could use current
policy back then, but we weren't smart enough to do that.
And then, because time is short, we're gonna have to
increase the death ceiling. Not four or five trillion dollars.
It's going to be bad enough. How much we're gonna
have to increase it just to get us into twenty
twenty six about two point five trillion dollars. That ought
(18:31):
to shock shock everybody, because we're running half a trillion
dollars a quarter deficits. That's what we need to bring
under control. It's about spending, spending, spending, To quote Scott Besson,
a bunch of people in the administration, we don't ever
have anue problem. We have a spending problem. The question
I ask is are we willing to fix it right now?
Based on the big beautiful bill. Doesn't look like we are, sir.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
What are some ideas that you're bouncing off the White House,
bouncing off your colleagues. I mean, you're guy that likes
to take your ideas and get them into action. What
are some things you're looking at that could substantially reduce
spending and still get this bill across the line in
some form.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
So I've been very consistent since my first article was
published in the Wall Street Journal. We need to return
to a reasonable pre pandemic level spending. I've laid out
a couple options. I've actually printed out the full budgets.
You take Clinton or Obama or Trump, their actual totally outlays,
exempt Social Security, Medicare, and interest. Spend what you need
to spend all the other outlays from those years from
(19:31):
ninety eight, from twenty fourteen twenty nineteen, increase by population
and inflation. There you go, fully plussed up. That give
you some between five point five and six point five
trillion dollars. You start there. You don't start at over
seven trillion. Dollars and suffer death by a thousand cuts.
You start with a reasonable baseline and then you what
I've suggested is a budget review panel, Senators, House members,
(19:54):
members of om B, bring the department heads up, have
them justify their budgets by line.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
Now that's gonna take work. It's gonna take time. But
again those showed us how to do this.
Speaker 7 (20:05):
You go line by line, contract by contract, you expose
grotesque examples of waste fraud abuse. John, I've got to believe,
and again I've laid this out based on Budge story category.
There's literally one hundreds of billions of dollars in discretion
spending in other mandatory again assol scating Medicare or even Medicaid,
although we need to fix the Obamacare portion of Medicaid.
(20:26):
That if you didn't spend that money, nobody would even
notice it except for the grifters who are sucking down
the waste frauden abuse. So again, you got to do
the work. You have to do line by line. That's
what businesses do. People need to understand a ten million
dollar business price spends more time going line by line
through their annual budgets than Congress spends going through the
(20:47):
seven thousand billion dollar budget of the federal government.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
There's a sense now that voters are engaged in paying
attention ways we haven't seen in years. So do you
see this moment as ats to reset how Washington talks
about budgeting, talks about accountability.
Speaker 7 (21:05):
It's all only chance, it's a chance for a lifetime.
We saw an unprecedent increase in spending other than World
War Two, and by the way, even World War two,
because we were governed by the greatest generation responsible leaders.
We actually finished World War Two, but nineteen forty eight
spending less than we did the year before the war started. Okay,
that's responsible leadership. We have to return to pre pandemic
(21:27):
level spending. And it is true. I think more Americans
are aware of the fact because they just experienced forty
year high inflation, the devaluation of their dollar, that we've
got to get this out of control. But I'm not
sure it's a majority. And based on the reaction of
what happened with Republicans in the House and even President
Trump's lack of attention to spending and returning to a
(21:48):
reasonable pre pandemic level, I still fear people are whistling
by the graveyard here.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, if I do my math right from the current
outline in the big beautiful bill, just for this next year,
you got to find another three to five hundred billion
dollars of savings. Can it be found through the process
that you've laid out.
Speaker 7 (22:09):
Yes, again, I've shown people just take twenty nineteen outways.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
I'd rather go back to Clinton or Obama.
Speaker 7 (22:15):
I don't think we're spending too much in those years either,
But okay, I can see the fact go to twenty nineteen.
There's a couple hundred billion dollars of spending that exceeds
twenty nineteen, plused up by inflation and population in both
the discretionary accounts and the mandatory accounts, without even touching Medicaid. Again,
we have to fix that as well. That you know
the Obamacare portion of that, where for every dollar state
(22:37):
spends on Medicaid expansion for single, healthy working age adults
childless adults, the federal government kicks in nine bucks, versus
for a disabled child. For every dollar the state spends,
the federal government kicks in one dollar thirty three. Now,
that's the way Medicaid was designed. Shared responsibility with the state,
(22:58):
so the states would help control it as opposed to
not controlling it, setting up ineligible recipients, illegal immigrants, quite
honestly plussing up the reimbursement rate because they're kind of
in on it with the providers. I mean, it's grotesque
what Obamacare Medicaid expansion has done to threaten the benefits
we all want to provide for disabled children, the.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Vulnerable its current form of this bill. Is there anything
that you do like to address that? Is there anything
in this bill that you think is headed in the
right direction, even if the package as a whole falls
short in its current iteration.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
Sure, again, they are trying to address the Obamacare portion
of Medicaid. I would say they haven't done a real
good job of explaining it and selling it. That takes time,
that also takes presidential leadership. So they've just succumb to
the you know, the criticisms of the big spenders. Are
you gonna slash Medicaid, You're gonna take Medicaid away from
(23:54):
disabled children? No, No, we're trying to save medicaid for
the vulnerable. We're trying to avoid a debt bomb, going
off an acute debt crisis by the way. We've been
experiencing what I call a chronic debt crisis now for decades.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
Do you realize that a dollar you held.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
In nineteen ninety eight is only worth fifty one cents
When I ran twenty ten, a dollar back then is
only worth sixty eight cents, a dollar you held in
twenty fourteen is worth seventy four cents, and a dollar
you held just six years ago in twenty nineteen is
only worth eighty cents. That is the devaluation of the currency.
That is the tax on everybody called inflation. It's insidious.
(24:35):
It destroys people's lives.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, so well said, the dollar has been devalued in
ways I don't think anyone could imagine thirty years ago.
Senator Johnson, one thing I know we can always count
on you. You give us a straight scoop on what
you're thinking, and your clarity I think is greatly appreciated.
The town that AFA has a lot of offeusection. Great
to have you on the show today.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, that's an important message you delivered.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
All right, folks, we're gonna take quick commercial break when
we come back. Congress Burgess Owens are the Great State
of Utah's here to help break down why he ended
up voting to pass the build through the House.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
But before we do that, do me a favorite.
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lash Destinies. Right now, we'll be back in.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Just a moment.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Welcome back in America to our special report breaking down the
big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
It's all brought to you by AMAC.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I'm still joined by AMAX Senior vice President Charles Stuckhan,
and we're about to go to our next guest. Anyone
who's listened to my podcast appreciates him. He comes on,
he lights it up every time. He represents the Great
State of Utah. He's also a former NFL player and
Super Bowl champion. Of course, talking about Congressman Burgas Owens Congress.
So good to have you on the show.
Speaker 8 (26:02):
Joh I'm looking forward to chatting with you.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Absolutely, It's a great honor to have you on.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
You were a big part of getting this bill over
the finish line in the House. Lots of things that
you worked on got into it. Tell us why you
work so hard and why you were able to get
it through the house with few other colleagues.
Speaker 8 (26:20):
Well, I'll say this.
Speaker 9 (26:21):
I have a couple of things that I'm going to
highlight that came out of the bill, but just to
say before this, it's something about momentum. It's something about
having a team, kind of working together. The current weed
of people is such a powerful term and I've never
seen anything like this, And the three terms that I've
been involved were our team. No matter as diverse as
it is, we're coming together and we realize we have
(26:43):
a coach that understands this process and we want to
see as mandate comes through. So right now we have
a focus on the middle class and we're doing it
through innovation, We're doing it through just common sense. And
it's so excited to see the momentum that we have
the muscle memory of working as a team and getting
this thing price through and I think the end of
they just make sure that the American people uh know
that we were holding out promises and that was gonna
(27:04):
come out of that as even more more successful move forward.
So a couple of things coming out of this is
so important. Again, think about the middle class when you
hear these things. Number one, no tax on tips, no
taxing over time. Uh it is no tax on interest. Uh.
And buying and buying personal car, a MAGA program, a
savings program for our kids.
Speaker 8 (27:23):
I mean I go to the live near things.
Speaker 9 (27:24):
Actually, Uh, the permanent tax break which is business owners.
This is the true I guess power of our middle class,
and our middle class is the It's really what defines
our American culture. And you start seeing that bi small
businesses have a road a map where they can they
can be very predictable. That's when they grow and that's
(27:45):
when they're prosible. So it's gonna be exciting to see
that happen. And of course, uh, the border. Uh, it
is nice that we can finally start talking finally about
how do we reform our immigration system, how do we
make it so that our country is growing by the
great into information or the Great wealth that can come
to us, that we're vetting to make sure that it's
helping our country and it's not drained from our country.
(28:06):
This has been a long overdue conversation.
Speaker 8 (28:08):
We need to have. It makes our country great, but
we have to do it the right way.
Speaker 9 (28:11):
And finally, because ninety seven percent has been shut down,
it's gonna be even betterest time moves on. It's gonna
be kind of excited where we're going right now. So John,
I can't say excited. I am about what the President
is doing, not only here, but he's innovating in so
many different ways it's kind of hard to keep up.
So I'm looking forward to being part of that process.
Speaker 8 (28:30):
Citily Is.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Said before that we need to push back on the
idea that government should run everything. People are looking for
policies that return power to communities, not just shifted around
in Washington. Do you think there's anything in this bill
that takes meaningful steps towards getting Washington out of the way.
Speaker 9 (28:50):
I would say this again, if you start thinking about
what is good for the middle class, and middle class grows.
When we can control our future, we can hold on
her income, we can reinvest in our businesses, we can
reinvest in our kids.
Speaker 8 (29:03):
I don't even say it's look at education.
Speaker 9 (29:05):
Were finally looking at taking the power from DC and
putting it back in the district. Been back in the states,
Let the American let the American parents talk about choice
and the way we never talked about before. I think
the most important thing about this total conversation is we
have a president who's a genius when it comes down
to business, a genius when comes down to negotiating, and
he loves our country and he understands where where the
(29:26):
where the where the power it comes from? Which were
the people. So if you look across the board the
things we're doing, it's about getting us now that we're engaged,
now that we want we're gonna we're demanding that we
have put first uh to see now how the Republican
Party comes through that, and I think every every post
we have is going in that direction.
Speaker 8 (29:44):
I just want to say this one thing.
Speaker 9 (29:45):
This has been a remarkable ship that been has been
on this track for a long long time. We're not
going to turn it around in one minute. It's going
to take some time, but we do it a little
bit of a time. And getting a bigger majority in
the House, which we're doing right now. We're going to
do is we're getting next to the next term, and
we start to see that in American people expect more
and trust us more. We'll see a very fast pace
(30:07):
of getting things codified and put in place, so we
cannot go back in a different direction.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
In fact, the House is going to come right back
from the memorial of day recess and start taking on
some decisions, which are ways of taking back money that
didn't get spent under Joe Biden. That's the next important staff.
You feel good that your colleagues can get that done.
Speaker 8 (30:26):
You know, think about the things we're talking about. We're
talking about.
Speaker 9 (30:32):
In terms of pulling back money that we deserve that
has been spent the wrong way, and we're going to
codify the fact that there should be something that should
be going back into the American people's pocket. So when
I think about those kind of things, how about this.
You know, we're hearing from the President's lips a concept
of balance the budget. We're talking about that, we're talking
about external revenue service that will take the pressure off
(30:54):
internal revenues. These are things that we're looking at again
a little bit soon we're gonna be a bit longer term.
But what we're doing now is making sure that what
we have control over was even been done with with
with Doge. We're going to codify that, bring it back
and let the American people know just how we're saving
money for them given more confidence, and what dc DC
can do as to send more power out out to
(31:14):
those folks.
Speaker 8 (31:14):
That's that's us as sentence here.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
We often speak of the importance of strong families as
the foundation of a strong country. Our members see that
connection too, and worry about policies that undermine it, that
undermine the family. Do you believe there's anything in this
legislation that supports that foundation, that family foundation.
Speaker 9 (31:36):
Yes, I'll say there's a lot. And by the way,
we're going to hold onto American culture. We're going to
hold onto American culture of freedom the family units where
it starts.
Speaker 8 (31:46):
And that's what's been our tack for a long time.
Speaker 9 (31:48):
So you think about the uh, the I'll call it
a MAGA saves the account in which now parents, grandparents,
and nephews i mean uncles, they can put money into
accounts for for their their kids, and which they begin
to take advantage of at eighteen years old and thirty
years old.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
Those are the kind of things we can do.
Speaker 9 (32:06):
Obviously, I would say the biggest thing is when you
start to allow them, the small businesses to run and grow.
Guess who's benefiting from that. The kids of these moms
and dads to go out there to take this risk.
They teach the culture of acceptance, the culture of dreaming
the big and overcoming obstacles. Those are the kind of
I think the most important ways that we can make
(32:27):
sure our family is beginning to come together again, and
then there's gonna be a lot more we have to
go ahead. Our family unit has been on attack for decades,
so it's going to be a process and first of all,
identifying how we can support, how can we help, how
we can help self self sufficiency instead of dependency, and
giving incentives for parents to stay, for fans to stay
together versus dividing us.
Speaker 8 (32:48):
So this is just the beginning.
Speaker 9 (32:49):
Again, we're just over one hundred days or whatever that
might be now, but the fact that we're on the
right track and we know that the family unit is
at the very core of this process, We're going to
address that as as we move forward.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, it's funny you said the right track, Congressman, there
was a poll came out this week, the highest number
in the history of the polling company for people who
think the country's finally on the right track. That that
is not an accident, it said. Great honor to have
you on as always, so we always enjoy your insights.
Speaker 8 (33:14):
Thank you, guys, appreciate it all.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Thank you so much. So're great to have you on.
All right, folks, we're gonna take a quicker rush for break.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Next, we're diving deeper into the big beautiful bill with
Phil Kirpin.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
From American Commitment.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Does this bell tackle the tough issues or is it
missed an opportunity? I got a word for your regulation.
It's going to come up next. You're going to be
shocked what you're going to hear. But first, before we
go to break, remember to visit AMAC dot USSH just News.
Sign up for a year of AMAC membership for just
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(33:45):
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Speaker 2 (33:55):
We'll be right back. Welcome back in America.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
To this Just the News, Real America's Voice special report breaking.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Down the big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I want to bring back my co host for tonight AMAX,
Senior Vice President, Charles Stucklan, and with both of us
now to further break down what's in it. It's why
it's so important. Is the President of American Commitment, Phil Kirpan. Phil,
good to have you on the show, My pleasure. All right,
there is a lot of historic conservative ideas and here
things that go all the way back to the Reagan
(34:32):
era of wish lists that maybe didn't get enacted. But
something wonder is there enough to reigin in regulation, the
thing that actually slows the economy down?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Let me get your take on that.
Speaker 10 (34:43):
Yeah, I'm really glad you asked about that, because everybody's
been so focused on the taxes and spending that they've
almost completely missed one of the biggest regulatory forms in
US history. That Chairman Jim Jordan was able to put
in this bill. Coming out of the House Judiciary Committee,
everyone was focused on ways and means for the tax changes,
everyone was focused on energ and commerce for the Medicaid changes.
But the House Judiciary Committee put in provisions they could
(35:05):
in the long term be the most significant of everything
in this bill because they put a version of the
Rains Act in this bill. This is the bill that
this is the bill that would require affirmative approval from
Congress for major regulations before they can take effect, rather
than the way it works now, where agencies can do
more or less whatever they want unless you somehow muster
enough votes to stop them, which is almost impossible. So
(35:25):
this would be a massive, massive positive change and stop
this pendulum from swinging wildly back and forth with the
party in the White House. We'd have a lot more
policy stability, and we'd be able to stop a lot
of the worst, most expensive regulations before they ever even
get off the ground. And I'll give you an example
that's so important of why this process would be so
different from what we have now. Remember when the Cap
(35:45):
and Trade Bill crashed and burned, even though we had
a Democrat President Obama, we had Nancy Pelosi and Harry
Reid running the Congress, they could never get the votes
to do that because the politically it was too damaging
because the costs were so large. Even Democrats balked at
it while they had the EPA implement half the things
in that bill anyway, and Congress never voted on it.
And of course, you know, there's been a lot of
back and forth as Trump came in, Biden then Trump
(36:07):
again on this stuff. But if we said you have
to vote first, you need an affirmative approval of a
majority in the House and Senate before were new major
regulations could come in, we would have much more stability,
and they never get off the ground. So that is
in this bill. They had to trim it down somewhat.
It only applies to regulations with a major budgetary effect,
and it only applies to a list of agencies. But
epas on the list, the Department of Energies on the list,
(36:29):
HHS is on the list. So this is huge, huge
change unfinished business from the Tea Party era. It would
make a massive difference for the regulatory burden going forward.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
That's a great point.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
We've seen some regulatory removals as far as what we
saw in Inflation Reduction Act. Can you get into any
specifics on some of those agencies specifically what we're seeing
in this bill.
Speaker 10 (36:54):
Yeah, the you know, the Inflation Reduction Act really was
a disguised Green New Deal, or Green New scam as
the as President Drum called it. And it's it's not
so much the regulations as it is the massive subsidies,
massive spending and tax subsidies to the wind and the
solar guys and hydrogen and electric vehicles. And the original
version of this bill was very soft on the phase
(37:16):
outs of these giveaways. They didn't start for a number
of years, They phased out slowly. Conservatives really fought hard
on this, and you know in that late night package
of changes, the Manager's Amendment, right before the bill finally passed.
But one thing that got worse was salt, and that
got a lot of attention. But a lot of things
got better, and one of the things that got better
was the phase out of these Green New scam giveaways.
(37:38):
It's much quicker now and they will actually end during
the Trump presidency. The original version of the bill postponed
them into the next presidency, which meant they might never
have happened, and so that was a major improvement in
this bill. In the last minute Manager's amendment.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Great point, and I asked you about a great point?
Can I say about the salt real quick?
Speaker 4 (37:55):
So Republicans like Lawler and Garbarino campaigned on increasing the salt.
Garbarino just gets Trump's endorsement. So the political math is
cleared there. Those seats are tough to hold without that position.
American Commitments says salt deductions are a total scam. So
how do we make room for that strategy without losing
conservative credibility nationally?
Speaker 10 (38:16):
Well, look, I hope the Senate's going to be able
to dial it back. They quadrupled the salt cap from
ten thousand dollars to forty thousand dollars in this bill.
Actually a little more than that, because there's a one
percent increase every year going forward, so it actually ends
at about forty three thousand change at the end of
ten years. This is a subsidy to high taxes at
the state and local level, and we don't want to
create an incentive for state and local government to be
(38:37):
able to raise taxes and pass those costs off to
the rest of us. This is something though that some
of those members campaign down. The interesting thing about New York, though,
is about half the districts in New York have lots
of salt taxpayers, the other half have almost none. And
so even within New York State, this is a major
redistribution from lower income people to higher income people, which
I thought the Democrats were supposed to be against, but
(38:58):
they're all for it because it fits them. And we
still have a handful of Republicans in these very high
tax blue states like New York, New Jersey, and California.
They felt politically they had to deliver on this, but
it carries a huge, huge cost associated with it, and
that means we didn't have room for other things we'd
like to see in this bill, in particular the pro
growth cost recovery provisions that led businesses write off their
(39:19):
investments immediately. Those only last four years. We had been
hoping they could be made permanent, but they only last
four years in part because of the budget math of
being able to get that salt deal in here. So
I hope that the Senate can dial that down a
little bit to pay for making those expensing provisions permanent.
That would make it a much more robustly pro growth bill.
But it's political reality. These guys played hardball and they
(39:40):
delivered for their constituents. And boy, I hope they at
least get a benefit comme election time, because they definitely
made it a worse bill from a pro growth economic
standpoint in order to deliver for those constituents.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah. Amazing.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
So I want to talk a little bit about the path.
So the Senate could take this bill apart, which means
then it would have to go all the way back
to the House. If they keep it substantios saying, make
some tweaks with amendments, it goes to conference committee, where
some of the backroom dealing can be ironed out behind
closed doors.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
What's your guess? Which path does this likely go on?
Speaker 10 (40:13):
I think what will probably happen is the Senate will
take up the House bill as the base bill. I
don't think this is going to be one of those
things where they throw it in the garbage and write
their own brand new thing. I think they're going to
use the House bill as the base for Senate consideration.
I think we'll see. We may see an actual markup
in the Senate Finance Committee, but I think they may
even skip that and just go to the floor with
a handful of sort of agreed upon amendments and changes.
(40:35):
That's when it gets interesting, though, because you could see
hostile amendments potentially on the Senate floor. Remember in twenty seventeen,
the corporate rate went to the floor at twenty and
it became twenty one because Rubio organized with Democrats with
a hostile amendment to increase the chrial tax credit and
pay for it with a higher corporate tax rate. We
could see efforts like that again. And so the question
(40:57):
I think will be kind of what is the leadership chain,
what do the leadership changes look like, what are the
things they're going to try to improve on the House bill?
And then can they beat back hostile amendments or do
some of those pass as well. But I don't think
we're going to see the Senate do their own brand
new bill, because the President really wants this done as
soon as possible. The House made that Memorial Day deadline.
He wants it on his desk by July fourth, and
(41:18):
for that to happen, I think we're going to have
to see a pretty abbreviated process where the Senate makes
limited changes and Ideally the House can accept those changes,
and we don't need to have any kind of conference,
either formally or informally with the back and forth. So
it's the balls in the Senate's port right now. If
the changes are relatively minor, I'm hoping the House can
take them and we don't have a lot of back
and forth.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, good point.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
So I want to ask you a question that's come
from our AMAC members. Paragon has raised serious red flags
about state directed medicaid payments, calling it legalized medicaid money laundering.
So these payments have grown to over one hundred and
ten billion a year. Paragon argues that curving them could
reduce real structural state or produce real structure savings. Does
this bill take on that issue directly or is this
(42:03):
the loophole states can exploit.
Speaker 10 (42:06):
Well, this is another change. There were some sort of
minor changes to this. In particular, they scam the California
and New York use bill would prohibit more states from
adopting these managed care organization taxes, but it with grandfather
California and New York, which is a little ridiculous. Basically,
you scammed first, so you get to keep scamming which
I don't really like. But you know, one of the
(42:28):
late late changes in this which is so important and
something that Brian Blaze at Paragon has been asking for
and is really important for seniors in particular, is they
cap Medicaid provider payments at the Medicare rates. And a
lot of people scratch their head when they hear this
and say, you know, my doctor says Medicaid pays way
less than Medicare anyway. But what's been going on is
the hospitals, the hospital systems have these arrangements now on
(42:49):
all these states, which is exactly what you were just
referring to, where they'll basically say, hey, we'll pay a
big tax to the state, but you give us all
the money back and then some after you get the
federal matching funds. Really by having these inflated, ballooned up
reimbursements for us as providers and so some hospital payments
now are three hundred percent of the Medicare rate for
Medicaid as a way to engage in this money laundering
(43:11):
scam where they tax the hospitals, get the federal money,
then hand the money right back to the hospitals through
these inflated payments. And if you tell the hospitals you're
going to get two or three times as much money
for a Medicaid treatment as you do for Medicare. Think
about that what that means for seniors. Think about what
that means when you say hospitals can make a lot
more money treating Medicaid patients than they can Medicare. I
think it's a terrible, terrible incentive. Not only does it
(43:34):
enable this financial scamming of federal tax payers, but it
means that on the margin, hospitals would rather treat Medici
patients than people who paid their whole life into Medicare.
So this built caps Medici reimbursements at the Medicare rate.
I think that would make it much much harder for
these types of scams to go on. And that was
one of the changes that conservatives fought for that got
into that last minute amendment package. So a really positive
(43:55):
change in taking this on.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, a lot of shell games that were going on
deprive the American taxpayers of good services, and also a
lot of unnecessary money has been wasted. Great that maybe
they're going to get to the bottom of the Phil Kurbin,
President of American Commitment great to have you on the
show today.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 10 (44:11):
My pleasure. Guys, have a go one.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, what a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
All right, folks, before we get to our next break,
remember to go to AMAC dot us slash just news
right now. You can join for just one dollar for
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(44:34):
change in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Again, go to AMAC dot us slash.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Just news right now to get your membership to AMAC
for only a dollar's day.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Welcome back to America to this special report breaking down
the big Beautiful Bill. I'm still joined by my cost
for the evening, AMAX Senior Vice President and Charles Stucker.
And joining us now is another great leader from the
AMAC team, Andy Manngioni. He's AMAC Action Senior Vice President.
I call him the field general of all the great
grassroots work that they do. We're here to talk about
the Big Beautiful Bill. Andy, welcome, good to have you on.
Speaker 8 (45:15):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
All right, what's in this bill that AMAC member is
going to care a lot about and what are AMAC
members do to getting it over the finish line.
Speaker 11 (45:24):
Well, there's a lot in the bill that AMAC members like,
but I think one of the biggest aspects is healthcare
and that specifically the pharmacy benefit manager reforms that are
in this bill. And AMAC members John are completely engaged
on this issue and others, I mean, they wanted to
see the one big beautiful bill past. We asked them
(45:45):
to reach out to their member of Congress after, you know,
during the debate in the House of Representatives, and within
seventy two hours last week, AMAC members sent over fourteen thousand,
four hundred messages to their member of Congress to help
get this bill over the finish line in the House,
and they stand ready to do the same in the
seven Wow.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
One of the things you've been warning about for years
is how pharmacy benefit managers operate in the shadows, driving
up drug prices without any real accountability. AMAC members constantly
tell us that they feel like they're paying more while
getting less and they don't understand where the money is going.
So can you walk us through how this bill tackles
KBM transparency and what that could mean for seniors on
(46:31):
fixed incomes.
Speaker 11 (46:32):
Absolutely, and as you know, AMAC Action has been advocating
for pharmacy benefit manager transparency since way back in twenty eighteen,
and you could see how pleased we were to see
that the one big, beautiful bill was passed that contains
significant PBM transparency measures. The bill gives Medicare plan sponsors
the power to audit PBMs annually. So what that means
(46:55):
is PBMs must provide not only their own records, but
those of their affiliate organizations as well. And as you
mentioned before, some of these affiliates operate in the shadows
and there's severe penalties for non compliance, So pricing games,
FEA structures, and bonuses that are tied to drug costs
will all be under scrutiny. The bill requires PBMs to
(47:16):
submit of report annually to HHS that includes costing, utilization
data and importantly, justifications for favorable drug formulary status of
branded products over cheaper alternative, generic, and biosimilar drugs. The
bill also breaks the link between PBM compensation and the
(47:37):
price of medicines by prohibiting PBMs from receiving any compensation
that's related to the dispensing of a specific prescription drug
other than a bonafide service fee and other payments. All
of this is aimed at reducing premiums and codepays for
Medicare beneficiaries.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
Absolutely, and spread pricing and has lef PBMs charged Medicaid
and medicare far more than what they pay pharmacies and
then obviously keeping the difference as pure profit. So I
know you've been sounding the alarm about this behind the
scenes practice for a while now, especially it's impact on
taxpayer funded programs. So does this bill finally start to
(48:18):
close the door on spread pricing or are there still
too many loopholes.
Speaker 11 (48:22):
The bill bans PBM spread pricing and Medicaid, and as
you mentioned, spread pricing is a practice for PBMs charge
more for a medicine than the price they secured.
Speaker 8 (48:32):
From a drug company and they keep the difference. So
it's banned in Medicaid.
Speaker 11 (48:36):
Now, AMAC Action would like to see spread pricing banned
in the medicare space as well as other PBM reforms,
So we pledge and we're going to continue to keep
working with Congress to see that further legislation is passed,
it accomplishes these.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Goals, Andy, real quickly.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
If someone wants to join the grassroots army today and
get involved in help get this bill over the line,
what's the best way to.
Speaker 11 (48:56):
Do it but at amacaction dot org or and you
have to learn all about the work that we're doing
at behalf of the AMAC membership.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, we had a blast you.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
We're here with some of those great AMAC members a
couple of weeks ago. What a great conversation, What an
exciting thing to see an action Andy.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Always a great pleasure to have you on the show.
Speaker 8 (49:15):
Thank you, my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Yeah, all right, folks, that's all the time we have
for tonight. Unfortunately, but if you haven't yet, I really
want you to go to AMAC dot us slash just
news right now because for a limited time, viewers of
the show can join AMAC for just one dollar for
a whole year.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
That's all the great benefits.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Of AMAC, the magazine, the podcast, the daily news feeds,
the opportunities to get involved in great citizenship things. You
won't find a better deal anywhere. And tonight, if you
sign up tonight by going to AMAC dot us slash
just news, you also get a free opportunity to attend
my next town hall, where I spend an entire hour
answering just the news reader's question, so you can get
(49:50):
a free be on that one. Go check that out
one more time. AMAC dot us slash just News. All right, folks,
have a great night. We're going to hand off to
the great Grandstitch Film.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
We'll be back tomorrow. Get a product,
Good evening, America, and welcome to this Just the News,
Real America's Voice special report breaking down the Big Beautiful Bill,
or as it's now called in Washington. The BBB all
brought to you in partnership with our good friends at
the Association for Mature American Citizens are better known as AMAC.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
ALL.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Throughout tonight's show, we're going to be taking a deep
dive into President Trump's signature legislative bill, exploring whether it
can deliver on economic growth, regin in federal spending, deal
with healthcare costs, and address concerns about the national debt.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
President Trump's legislative push is.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Being put to the test, but according to the White House,
this bill could set America on a path of prosperity.
We'll also examine the opposition to some things in the
bill from Republicans to the Senate and the Pencil, and
the potential for compromise with the incredible lineup of guests
we have for you tonight, starting with President Trump's Director
for the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. He's going to
(01:13):
kick things off. He'll break down the Big Beautiful Bill
and give you some surprising new numbers on what it's
going to do to the economy. We also have Senator
Ron Johnson from the great state of Wisconsin, a leading
voice in the Senate Republican opposition to the bill. Why
he wants more cuts than spending. We'll see when he
can get downe on that. Congress and Burgess Owens will
be here to discuss why he voted to pass the
bill out of the House. And then Phil Kirkpan will
(01:35):
be here, the President of the American Commitment, to discuss
the bill's regulatory reforms and the controversial sought the state
in local tax deductions, along with the bill's impact on
federal health spending. And finally, we'll end tonight with a
great conversation with our good friend Andy Manjoni. He's AMAX
Action Senior Vice President, basically the field general for the grassroots.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
He's going to be here to.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Talk about Medicare reform and the great things happening with
social Security. We'll cover all that, But before I get
started and all that great lineup, I want to bring
in my amazing gos for the evening. He's AMAX Senior
vice President, Charles. Great to have you on the show.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Thank you, John.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
It's great to be here and what important conversation we're
having tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
At AMAC.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
We represent over two million conservative Americans, people who believe
in personal responsibility, smaller government, and protecting the future for
their children and their grandchildren. So they're not just interested
in political theater anymore. They want results, and they've been
waiting a long time for Washington to take bold action.
So tonight's discussion around President Trump's budget bill isn't just
(02:41):
about dollars and cents. It's about restoring sanity to the
way that we govern. It's about stopping endless cycles of
reckless spending, reigning in the federal bureaucracy, and finally putting
working Americans first, especially our seniors who feel the pressure
of rising costs.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
More than anyone else.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
So happy to be here, looking forward to the conversation, John, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I am too. It's going to be great.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And AMAC is on the front lines helping to get
this bill over the finish line. You've unleashed a big army.
I know we're going to talk about that later in
a show. But the patriots of AMAC are inaction, aren't they.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Absolutely, they take this very seriously.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
They're looking for multiple reform levels on spending, healthcare, PBMs,
drug pricing, foreign investment. We have a wide variety of
members in the US and they're all watching this big
beautiful bill very intently.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, so important.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's amazing to watch the great work that amac's action
team does. We're going to get to that later in
the show. All throughout the show, folks go to AMAC
dot uslash JUSTINWS a very special offer. We're going to
tell you about it at the end of this block.
But first, exciting way to kick off. All right, time
to get to our first guys joining us now. We're
very lucky to kick off the show with the Director
(03:53):
of the National Economic Council for the President of the
United States, Kevin Hasse.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Kevin, great to have you on the show.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Thanks for having me. There is a lot of buzz.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
In fact, I haven't seen Washington vibrate like this in
a long time. The velocity of Trump change is extraordinary.
Big beautiful bill through the house. Tell us what's going
on behind the scenes. How's it going with the Senate?
What should we be looking for in that chamber?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Right?
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Well, I think that what you need to be looking
for is success, because that's the only thing that we're
going to accept. If Republicans in the Senate don't pass
the big, beautiful bill, then we're going to see the
biggest tax hike as the previous tax cuts expire, the
biggest tax hike that we've ever had in US history.
If we have that tax hike, the couscle of economic
(04:38):
advisors here the Way is estimated that we'll have a recession,
a really deep procession with maybe a decline of four
percent of GDP. And if we pass the bill, on
the other hand, then you're going to see really striking
economic growth, just like we saw in twenty eighteen and
twenty nineteen, and our own models that said we'd have
that four thousand dollars increase in income. Do you remember that, John,
(05:00):
They now say that we're going to get ten thousand
an income for the typical family over just a few years.
And so the stakes are really high, and the bill's
going to pass, and so what's going to happen is
that between now and then that what I would advise
people to do, that your loyal viewers, is to keep
your eye on the horizon and remember that when you're
in a boat and if you're looking down at your feet,
(05:21):
then you might get seasick. But if you're looking at
the horizon, then you're going to see really golden age
the horizon, and it'll be here probably by the fourth
of July, certainly by recess.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I like it absolutely. I love the confidence.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
So many Americans are still feeling the effects of the prices.
They're watching closely for the policies that can offer the
relief you're talking about. So, how how do you expect
this legislation to impact inflation and job growth?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Right?
Speaker 5 (05:49):
Well, the way to think about it is that let's
suppose it our economy. Let's I get to be economists
now and then not, you know, So, let's suppose the
economy is just like an apple tree, and then we
got an apple tree and some apples, and then we
plant another apple tree. Then we got more apples.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And so if.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
GDP is just how many apples do we got, then
we get more GDP because we got more apples. But
what happens to the price of apples. It probably goes
down because we got twice as many apples. And so
what we got to do is plant more trees, bottom line,
And so how.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Do we plant more trees?
Speaker 5 (06:20):
While we do things, like President Trump has said, make
it so that there's a huge tax benefit per factory
investment in the US, a tax benefit for the machines inside,
and even a huge tax benefit for the buildings. And
so for four years, these firms that build a new
building and put stuff in it and create jobs in America,
they get to expense the whole building. They get to
(06:41):
write it off against their taxes, which is going to
cause a massive building boom. If there's a massive building
boom and lots of job creation and lots of capital formation,
that it's just like planting a whole bunch of apple trees.
And so we're going to have a lot more apples,
and the price of apples isn't going to go up,
it's going to go down because we got more supply.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I want to break down that ten thousand dollars figure
because that is a pretty stunning figure. That's a combination
of tax savings and economic growth. Right, you're going to
see income churacus. People are just going to be able
to get more opportunity.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
And the way to think about it is that you've
seen that everybody said, Oh, the uncertainty over the taxes
of the tariffs is going to cause all like this,
like quasi recession, and activity is going to slow down
and consumers are going to not be able to buy stuff.
But in fact, you know, sales are way up and
the jobs reports have been surprising on the upside, and
(07:38):
inflation is down towards two percent because what's happening is
that there is an explosion of investment in new production
in the US and jobs in the US, and that's
basically where non inflationary growth comes from. So people don't
have to worry about inflation again under this president. Inflation
got out under control last time because what happened was
(07:59):
the the Democrats and President Biden they mailed check to people.
Remember they just mailed checks to people and the first term,
the first year of the Biden administration, and they didn't
do anything. In fact, they attacked supply, so they reduced supply,
so they cut down apple trees, and they mailed checks
to people, and so the few apples left people had
to buy, but they had mailed them all these checks,
(08:20):
and so the price apples went way up. But what
we're doing is we're not mailing checks to people. We're
giving people an incentive to go to work. We're giving
businesses an incentive to create jobs here in the US
and to build buildings of the US. And that's going
to be just absolutely a past prosperity in the US
that President Trump has discussed over and over again, the.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Way consumer confident has jumped way up, right, Kevin, that
was a big factor in the last couple of days.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Y's one of the biggest increases in consumer confident is
ever And the reason is exactly what we're talking about,
right that people now see in the data that you know.
So the left wing media is saying, oh, President Trump's
causes so much trouble, and oh the tariffs are going
to make it so when you go to Walmart, you're
not going to see anything and all that didn't happen,
and people now see that, in fact, there's a race
(09:08):
to participate in the Golden Age in America right now,
and firms are coming as fast as they can to
build stuff in the US, to create jobs in the US,
to rebuild factories. You saw President Trump announced the US
Steel deal. It's a really big, beautiful deal for US
steel where nip On Steel is putting in billions and
billions of dollars to revive old plants that had previously.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Been moth balled.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
And that's exactly what we have in mind, not just
for western Pennsylvania, but for the whole country. That's going
to happen everywhere. And that's why it's a golden age.
And President Trump is like promising it, and I'll promise.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
It as well.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Very confident, we love it here.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
So this bill also proposes rollbacks, regulatory rollbacks in several sectors.
So we often see deregulation framed as a catalyst for
the growth and expansion. How meaningful is that regulatory reform
when it comes to driving real GDP gains?
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Oh, it's huge, it's huge. But the problem with regulatory reform,
right is that when I say, oh, well, what are
we doing to deregulate, then well, to read the regulation
is going to make your brain heard, right, and then
to understand the regulation is going to be almost not
worth the effort if you're just an external viewer.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
But you know that.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Regulations are really really harmful and costly to America businesses.
And one of the ways to think about deregulation that
I think aggregate. The positive influence of what we're doing
is that we've got maybe seven trillion dollars in commitments
from big US companies and foreign companies and some forard
(10:42):
sovereign wealth funds to build new factories and new things
here in the US. So why did they make that
commitment Because they know that they can do it safely.
Then it'll happen. Because if you promise to build a
factory in the US, we're going to cut the red tape.
You're going to get that factory built right away, and
so there before you should come.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
And so I think the best metric.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
Of what's happening with deregulation is all these people are
willing to put their money on the line and create
jobs of the US because they trust us that we're
not going to cover them up in red tape and
smother them in red tape and make it so that
nothing ever happens. And I think that's the best way
to think about the immediate results right now of deregulation.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Such a good point, Kevin. I wanted to ask a
little bit about trade deals. Those also are going to
bring some extraordinary new opportunities. Big ones already in the
House with such as Great Britain. When do you see
the next ones coming in? How do they also alter
this picture and continue to create optimism in America?
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Yeah, well, the trade deals are really targeted to both
create jobs in the US, but also to create jobs
in the US by opening up their markets to our stuff.
And so one of the things that has happened in
the past is that we allow them access to our
markets other countries, and so their ferbs are selling things everywhere.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
But when we try to sell stuff.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
To them, like our agricultural products, you know, our beef,
our core that they say, oh no, no, you can't
have the beef because of this, can't have the corn
because you know, like we don't. We think it's genetically
modified or whatever it is. And so what these trade
deals are doing is that they're making a level playing field. Again,
they're giving us lots of tariff revenue, but they're also
(12:24):
creating access to foreign markets for US producers, US small
businesses at US agriculture.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Amazing in terms of ambition and design.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
How does this bill compared to the twenty seventeen tax
reform you helped craft.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
Oh yeah, it's the twenty seventeen bill. Maybe I guess
we'd say on steroids that it takes everything. Every lesson
we learned that created the three percent growth and the
sixty five hundred in increased income for the typical americand
and we multiplied it by two, and we added new
things like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime,
(13:02):
no tax on social Security, which are going to make
it so that the people who want to work hard
and want to have a better life in America are
richly rewarded to do that, both by the wage that
they get before tax and the wage that they get
after tax.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
It's amazing, so much to watch, it's hard to keep up.
I don't know how you guys keep up with all
the velocity of stuff, but it's changing us.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Thanks, we try.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
What a great honor to have you on the show today.
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Thanks John, great to be great to have you guys.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
All right, folks, we have much more ahead for you.
What a great conversation that was. You've got a lot
more like that over the next hour. While you're watching,
I also want you to head over to amac dot
us slash just News amac dot us slash just News
because you can join right now. Get a load of
this for just one dollar for a whole year. It's
an incredible deal. You know, get anything for a dollar, man,
it's a great deal. And we're going to do something
(13:49):
special tonight. If you sign up tonight, you're not only
going to get a whole year of Amax membership, You're
also going to get to attend my next private town
hall meeting. We have a VIP subscriber cover here.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
At this news. Everybody gets to ask questions.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I answer questions for news for an hour, hour and
a half tonight tonight. Only if you join, you go
to AMAC dot us slash destin News, and I'm only
going to get the one dollar for one year membership,
which is a steal in itself. You will get a
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ask private questions at a private seminar. We'll get all
that ta care of. The way to start, go to
AMAC got us slash just News right now, Get it
(14:21):
taken care of. We'll be back in a second with
more great interviews. Well, welcome back in America to this
justin News, really America's voice, special report breaking down the
big beautiful bill, all brought to you in partnership with
our friends at AMAC. I want to bring back in
my coast tonight, AMAX and your vice president Charles Stuhlan
(14:44):
and joining us now a frequent guest on this show.
He always gives a to us straight. He's the great
senator from Wisconsin, Senator Ron Johnson. So good to have
you on the show.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Well, guys, hope you doing well.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
We are doing well.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I know you're in the thick of a pretty big
battle intent enforcing your party to get more savings out
of this big, beautiful bill, because it does bring the
deficit up.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Tell us where you are in that process, what sort
of support are you getting and do you think President
Trump will engage constructively.
Speaker 7 (15:14):
Well, just to quick give you some background, I sprang
out of the Tea Party in twenty ten.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Right when I was campaigning.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
During all those parades, what I would shout was this
a fight for freedom. We're mortgaging our children's future. It's wrong,
it's moral, it's got to stop.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
There you go.
Speaker 7 (15:32):
That was my campaign theme in twenty ten, got me elected.
It's been my primary focus.
Speaker 6 (15:37):
Again. I wish we had.
Speaker 7 (15:39):
Been able to maintain only a fourteen trillion dollar debt.
That's what it was when I got elected. Now thirty
seven trillion dollars. The current CBO estimate, the most recent one.
They have projects spending eighty nine point three trillion dollars
over the next ten years, incurring another twenty two trillion
dollars worth of deaths and so John, that's that means
two point two trillion dollar per year, and I would
(16:02):
argue that is a Rosie scenario.
Speaker 6 (16:04):
They are assuming that we're.
Speaker 7 (16:06):
Going to get a tax increase, the automatic tax increase
by letting the Tax Cutting Jobs Act expire, that they
estimate that will bring about four trillion dollars revenue. And
now I know there's all kinds of argument over you know,
what is the dynamic score and all that type of thing.
What's pretty certain, though, is the eighty nine point three
trillion dollars. And let's face it, the House at most
(16:28):
say they're going to be cutting one point five trillion,
but they're going to be spending about three hundred billion
dollars on defense in the border, so that brings at
one point two A couple hundred billion of that is
student loans, which they've got to pass really quick before
the Supreme Court rules that unlawful, are unconstitutional. A lot
of the spending is out in the out years. It's
just not real. It never happens. So we need to
(16:48):
get serious about this. We can't tolerate two point two
trillion dollar deathlet's priorizing two point five two point six
if you look at independent scores of the big beautiful bill.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
So that's the ugly reality. I wish it weren't so.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
I wish, you know, everybody on my side was as
dedicated as their rhetoric. They all say, we don't have
a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Big part
of this bill is just new tax cuts to President
Trump promised on me on the campaign trail that quotas
are not going to promote growth, they're just going to
reduce revenue.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Senator, there's clearly a lot of concern about the size
of this bill, but also there's real urgency from voters
who want to see action at AMAC. We hear both,
so we hear cut spending, and then we also hear
do something that actually helps us. So how do you
think we actually get that right balance between bold reform
(17:44):
and political and economic reality.
Speaker 7 (17:47):
I've always been a favor of a multi step process,
folks on the areas of agreement, that's the border defense.
Take whatever spending reductions we can get the Senate and
our budget proposals at eight hundred and fifty billion. But
let's take advantage of some of the good work the
House did. Let's load as much of those savings as
we can in this first bill. Extend current tax law
as unwieldy and grotesque's current tax law is. I want
(18:11):
to take an automatic tax increase off the table. We
should have done that in twenty seventeen. Could use current
policy back then, but we weren't smart enough to do that.
And then, because time is short, we're gonna have to
increase the death ceiling. Not four or five trillion dollars.
It's going to be bad enough. How much we're gonna
have to increase it just to get us into twenty
twenty six about two point five trillion dollars. That ought
(18:31):
to shock shock everybody, because we're running half a trillion
dollars a quarter deficits. That's what we need to bring
under control. It's about spending, spending, spending, To quote Scott Besson,
a bunch of people in the administration, we don't ever
have anue problem. We have a spending problem. The question
I ask is are we willing to fix it right now?
Based on the big beautiful bill. Doesn't look like we are, sir.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
What are some ideas that you're bouncing off the White House,
bouncing off your colleagues. I mean, you're guy that likes
to take your ideas and get them into action. What
are some things you're looking at that could substantially reduce
spending and still get this bill across the line in
some form.
Speaker 7 (19:09):
So I've been very consistent since my first article was
published in the Wall Street Journal. We need to return
to a reasonable pre pandemic level spending. I've laid out
a couple options. I've actually printed out the full budgets.
You take Clinton or Obama or Trump, their actual totally outlays,
exempt Social Security, Medicare, and interest. Spend what you need
to spend all the other outlays from those years from
(19:31):
ninety eight, from twenty fourteen twenty nineteen, increase by population
and inflation. There you go, fully plussed up. That give
you some between five point five and six point five
trillion dollars. You start there. You don't start at over
seven trillion. Dollars and suffer death by a thousand cuts.
You start with a reasonable baseline and then you what
I've suggested is a budget review panel, Senators, House members,
(19:54):
members of om B, bring the department heads up, have
them justify their budgets by line.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
Now that's gonna take work. It's gonna take time. But
again those showed us how to do this.
Speaker 7 (20:05):
You go line by line, contract by contract, you expose
grotesque examples of waste fraud abuse. John, I've got to believe,
and again I've laid this out based on Budge story category.
There's literally one hundreds of billions of dollars in discretion
spending in other mandatory again assol scating Medicare or even Medicaid,
although we need to fix the Obamacare portion of Medicaid.
(20:26):
That if you didn't spend that money, nobody would even
notice it except for the grifters who are sucking down
the waste frauden abuse. So again, you got to do
the work. You have to do line by line. That's
what businesses do. People need to understand a ten million
dollar business price spends more time going line by line
through their annual budgets than Congress spends going through the
(20:47):
seven thousand billion dollar budget of the federal government.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
There's a sense now that voters are engaged in paying
attention ways we haven't seen in years. So do you
see this moment as ats to reset how Washington talks
about budgeting, talks about accountability.
Speaker 7 (21:05):
It's all only chance, it's a chance for a lifetime.
We saw an unprecedent increase in spending other than World
War Two, and by the way, even World War two,
because we were governed by the greatest generation responsible leaders.
We actually finished World War Two, but nineteen forty eight
spending less than we did the year before the war started. Okay,
that's responsible leadership. We have to return to pre pandemic
(21:27):
level spending. And it is true. I think more Americans
are aware of the fact because they just experienced forty
year high inflation, the devaluation of their dollar, that we've
got to get this out of control. But I'm not
sure it's a majority. And based on the reaction of
what happened with Republicans in the House and even President
Trump's lack of attention to spending and returning to a
(21:48):
reasonable pre pandemic level, I still fear people are whistling
by the graveyard here.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, if I do my math right from the current
outline in the big beautiful bill, just for this next year,
you got to find another three to five hundred billion
dollars of savings. Can it be found through the process
that you've laid out.
Speaker 7 (22:09):
Yes, again, I've shown people just take twenty nineteen outways.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
I'd rather go back to Clinton or Obama.
Speaker 7 (22:15):
I don't think we're spending too much in those years either,
But okay, I can see the fact go to twenty nineteen.
There's a couple hundred billion dollars of spending that exceeds
twenty nineteen, plused up by inflation and population in both
the discretionary accounts and the mandatory accounts, without even touching Medicaid. Again,
we have to fix that as well. That you know
the Obamacare portion of that, where for every dollar state
(22:37):
spends on Medicaid expansion for single, healthy working age adults
childless adults, the federal government kicks in nine bucks, versus
for a disabled child. For every dollar the state spends,
the federal government kicks in one dollar thirty three. Now,
that's the way Medicaid was designed. Shared responsibility with the state,
(22:58):
so the states would help control it as opposed to
not controlling it, setting up ineligible recipients, illegal immigrants, quite
honestly plussing up the reimbursement rate because they're kind of
in on it with the providers. I mean, it's grotesque
what Obamacare Medicaid expansion has done to threaten the benefits
we all want to provide for disabled children, the.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Vulnerable its current form of this bill. Is there anything
that you do like to address that? Is there anything
in this bill that you think is headed in the
right direction, even if the package as a whole falls
short in its current iteration.
Speaker 7 (23:34):
Sure, again, they are trying to address the Obamacare portion
of Medicaid. I would say they haven't done a real
good job of explaining it and selling it. That takes time,
that also takes presidential leadership. So they've just succumb to
the you know, the criticisms of the big spenders. Are
you gonna slash Medicaid, You're gonna take Medicaid away from
(23:54):
disabled children? No, No, we're trying to save medicaid for
the vulnerable. We're trying to avoid a debt bomb, going
off an acute debt crisis by the way. We've been
experiencing what I call a chronic debt crisis now for decades.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
Do you realize that a dollar you held.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
In nineteen ninety eight is only worth fifty one cents
When I ran twenty ten, a dollar back then is
only worth sixty eight cents, a dollar you held in
twenty fourteen is worth seventy four cents, and a dollar
you held just six years ago in twenty nineteen is
only worth eighty cents. That is the devaluation of the currency.
That is the tax on everybody called inflation. It's insidious.
(24:35):
It destroys people's lives.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, so well said, the dollar has been devalued in
ways I don't think anyone could imagine thirty years ago.
Senator Johnson, one thing I know we can always count
on you. You give us a straight scoop on what
you're thinking, and your clarity I think is greatly appreciated.
The town that AFA has a lot of offeusection. Great
to have you on the show today.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah, that's an important message you delivered.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
All right, folks, we're gonna take quick commercial break when
we come back. Congress Burgess Owens are the Great State
of Utah's here to help break down why he ended
up voting to pass the build through the House.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
But before we do that, do me a favorite.
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Speaker 1 (25:13):
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lash Destinies. Right now, we'll be back in.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Just a moment.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Welcome back in America to our special report breaking down the
big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
It's all brought to you by AMAC.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
I'm still joined by AMAX Senior vice President Charles Stuckhan,
and we're about to go to our next guest. Anyone
who's listened to my podcast appreciates him. He comes on,
he lights it up every time. He represents the Great
State of Utah. He's also a former NFL player and
Super Bowl champion. Of course, talking about Congressman Burgas Owens Congress.
So good to have you on the show.
Speaker 8 (26:02):
Joh I'm looking forward to chatting with you.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Absolutely, It's a great honor to have you on.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
You were a big part of getting this bill over
the finish line in the House. Lots of things that
you worked on got into it. Tell us why you
work so hard and why you were able to get
it through the house with few other colleagues.
Speaker 8 (26:20):
Well, I'll say this.
Speaker 9 (26:21):
I have a couple of things that I'm going to
highlight that came out of the bill, but just to
say before this, it's something about momentum. It's something about
having a team, kind of working together. The current weed
of people is such a powerful term and I've never
seen anything like this, And the three terms that I've
been involved were our team. No matter as diverse as
it is, we're coming together and we realize we have
(26:43):
a coach that understands this process and we want to
see as mandate comes through. So right now we have
a focus on the middle class and we're doing it
through innovation, We're doing it through just common sense. And
it's so excited to see the momentum that we have
the muscle memory of working as a team and getting
this thing price through and I think the end of
they just make sure that the American people uh know
that we were holding out promises and that was gonna
(27:04):
come out of that as even more more successful move forward.
So a couple of things coming out of this is
so important. Again, think about the middle class when you
hear these things. Number one, no tax on tips, no
taxing over time. Uh it is no tax on interest. Uh.
And buying and buying personal car, a MAGA program, a
savings program for our kids.
Speaker 8 (27:23):
I mean I go to the live near things.
Speaker 9 (27:24):
Actually, Uh, the permanent tax break which is business owners.
This is the true I guess power of our middle class,
and our middle class is the It's really what defines
our American culture. And you start seeing that bi small
businesses have a road a map where they can they
can be very predictable. That's when they grow and that's
(27:45):
when they're prosible. So it's gonna be exciting to see
that happen. And of course, uh, the border. Uh, it
is nice that we can finally start talking finally about
how do we reform our immigration system, how do we
make it so that our country is growing by the
great into information or the Great wealth that can come
to us, that we're vetting to make sure that it's
helping our country and it's not drained from our country.
(28:06):
This has been a long overdue conversation.
Speaker 8 (28:08):
We need to have. It makes our country great, but
we have to do it the right way.
Speaker 9 (28:11):
And finally, because ninety seven percent has been shut down,
it's gonna be even betterest time moves on. It's gonna
be kind of excited where we're going right now. So John,
I can't say excited. I am about what the President
is doing, not only here, but he's innovating in so
many different ways it's kind of hard to keep up.
So I'm looking forward to being part of that process.
Speaker 8 (28:30):
Citily Is.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Said before that we need to push back on the
idea that government should run everything. People are looking for
policies that return power to communities, not just shifted around
in Washington. Do you think there's anything in this bill
that takes meaningful steps towards getting Washington out of the way.
Speaker 9 (28:50):
I would say this again, if you start thinking about
what is good for the middle class, and middle class grows.
When we can control our future, we can hold on
her income, we can reinvest in our businesses, we can
reinvest in our kids.
Speaker 8 (29:03):
I don't even say it's look at education.
Speaker 9 (29:05):
Were finally looking at taking the power from DC and
putting it back in the district. Been back in the states,
Let the American let the American parents talk about choice
and the way we never talked about before. I think
the most important thing about this total conversation is we
have a president who's a genius when it comes down
to business, a genius when comes down to negotiating, and
he loves our country and he understands where where the
(29:26):
where the where the power it comes from? Which were
the people. So if you look across the board the
things we're doing, it's about getting us now that we're engaged,
now that we want we're gonna we're demanding that we
have put first uh to see now how the Republican
Party comes through that, and I think every every post
we have is going in that direction.
Speaker 8 (29:44):
I just want to say this one thing.
Speaker 9 (29:45):
This has been a remarkable ship that been has been
on this track for a long long time. We're not
going to turn it around in one minute. It's going
to take some time, but we do it a little
bit of a time. And getting a bigger majority in
the House, which we're doing right now. We're going to
do is we're getting next to the next term, and
we start to see that in American people expect more
and trust us more. We'll see a very fast pace
(30:07):
of getting things codified and put in place, so we
cannot go back in a different direction.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
In fact, the House is going to come right back
from the memorial of day recess and start taking on
some decisions, which are ways of taking back money that
didn't get spent under Joe Biden. That's the next important staff.
You feel good that your colleagues can get that done.
Speaker 8 (30:26):
You know, think about the things we're talking about. We're
talking about.
Speaker 9 (30:32):
In terms of pulling back money that we deserve that
has been spent the wrong way, and we're going to
codify the fact that there should be something that should
be going back into the American people's pocket. So when
I think about those kind of things, how about this.
You know, we're hearing from the President's lips a concept
of balance the budget. We're talking about that, we're talking
about external revenue service that will take the pressure off
(30:54):
internal revenues. These are things that we're looking at again
a little bit soon we're gonna be a bit longer term.
But what we're doing now is making sure that what
we have control over was even been done with with
with Doge. We're going to codify that, bring it back
and let the American people know just how we're saving
money for them given more confidence, and what dc DC
can do as to send more power out out to
(31:14):
those folks.
Speaker 8 (31:14):
That's that's us as sentence here.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
We often speak of the importance of strong families as
the foundation of a strong country. Our members see that
connection too, and worry about policies that undermine it, that
undermine the family. Do you believe there's anything in this
legislation that supports that foundation, that family foundation.
Speaker 9 (31:36):
Yes, I'll say there's a lot. And by the way,
we're going to hold onto American culture. We're going to
hold onto American culture of freedom the family units where
it starts.
Speaker 8 (31:46):
And that's what's been our tack for a long time.
Speaker 9 (31:48):
So you think about the uh, the I'll call it
a MAGA saves the account in which now parents, grandparents,
and nephews i mean uncles, they can put money into
accounts for for their their kids, and which they begin
to take advantage of at eighteen years old and thirty
years old.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
Those are the kind of things we can do.
Speaker 9 (32:06):
Obviously, I would say the biggest thing is when you
start to allow them, the small businesses to run and grow.
Guess who's benefiting from that. The kids of these moms
and dads to go out there to take this risk.
They teach the culture of acceptance, the culture of dreaming
the big and overcoming obstacles. Those are the kind of
I think the most important ways that we can make
(32:27):
sure our family is beginning to come together again, and
then there's gonna be a lot more we have to
go ahead. Our family unit has been on attack for decades,
so it's going to be a process and first of all,
identifying how we can support, how can we help, how
we can help self self sufficiency instead of dependency, and
giving incentives for parents to stay, for fans to stay
together versus dividing us.
Speaker 8 (32:48):
So this is just the beginning.
Speaker 9 (32:49):
Again, we're just over one hundred days or whatever that
might be now, but the fact that we're on the
right track and we know that the family unit is
at the very core of this process, We're going to
address that as as we move forward.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, it's funny you said the right track, Congressman, there
was a poll came out this week, the highest number
in the history of the polling company for people who
think the country's finally on the right track. That that
is not an accident, it said. Great honor to have
you on as always, so we always enjoy your insights.
Speaker 8 (33:14):
Thank you, guys, appreciate it all.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Thank you so much. So're great to have you on.
All right, folks, we're gonna take a quicker rush for break.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Next, we're diving deeper into the big beautiful bill with
Phil Kirpin.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
From American Commitment.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Does this bell tackle the tough issues or is it
missed an opportunity? I got a word for your regulation.
It's going to come up next. You're going to be
shocked what you're going to hear. But first, before we
go to break, remember to visit AMAC dot USSH just News.
Sign up for a year of AMAC membership for just
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(33:45):
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Speaker 2 (33:55):
We'll be right back. Welcome back in America.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
To this Just the News, Real America's Voice special report breaking.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Down the big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I want to bring back my co host for tonight AMAX,
Senior Vice President, Charles Stucklan, and with both of us
now to further break down what's in it. It's why
it's so important. Is the President of American Commitment, Phil Kirpan. Phil,
good to have you on the show, My pleasure. All right,
there is a lot of historic conservative ideas and here
things that go all the way back to the Reagan
(34:32):
era of wish lists that maybe didn't get enacted. But
something wonder is there enough to reigin in regulation, the
thing that actually slows the economy down?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Let me get your take on that.
Speaker 10 (34:43):
Yeah, I'm really glad you asked about that, because everybody's
been so focused on the taxes and spending that they've
almost completely missed one of the biggest regulatory forms in
US history. That Chairman Jim Jordan was able to put
in this bill. Coming out of the House Judiciary Committee,
everyone was focused on ways and means for the tax changes,
everyone was focused on energ and commerce for the Medicaid changes.
But the House Judiciary Committee put in provisions they could
(35:05):
in the long term be the most significant of everything
in this bill because they put a version of the
Rains Act in this bill. This is the bill that
this is the bill that would require affirmative approval from
Congress for major regulations before they can take effect, rather
than the way it works now, where agencies can do
more or less whatever they want unless you somehow muster
enough votes to stop them, which is almost impossible. So
(35:25):
this would be a massive, massive positive change and stop
this pendulum from swinging wildly back and forth with the
party in the White House. We'd have a lot more
policy stability, and we'd be able to stop a lot
of the worst, most expensive regulations before they ever even
get off the ground. And I'll give you an example
that's so important of why this process would be so
different from what we have now. Remember when the Cap
(35:45):
and Trade Bill crashed and burned, even though we had
a Democrat President Obama, we had Nancy Pelosi and Harry
Reid running the Congress, they could never get the votes
to do that because the politically it was too damaging
because the costs were so large. Even Democrats balked at
it while they had the EPA implement half the things
in that bill anyway, and Congress never voted on it.
And of course, you know, there's been a lot of
back and forth as Trump came in, Biden then Trump
(36:07):
again on this stuff. But if we said you have
to vote first, you need an affirmative approval of a
majority in the House and Senate before were new major
regulations could come in, we would have much more stability,
and they never get off the ground. So that is
in this bill. They had to trim it down somewhat.
It only applies to regulations with a major budgetary effect,
and it only applies to a list of agencies. But
epas on the list, the Department of Energies on the list,
(36:29):
HHS is on the list. So this is huge, huge
change unfinished business from the Tea Party era. It would
make a massive difference for the regulatory burden going forward.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
That's a great point.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
We've seen some regulatory removals as far as what we
saw in Inflation Reduction Act. Can you get into any
specifics on some of those agencies specifically what we're seeing
in this bill.
Speaker 10 (36:54):
Yeah, the you know, the Inflation Reduction Act really was
a disguised Green New Deal, or Green New scam as
the as President Drum called it. And it's it's not
so much the regulations as it is the massive subsidies,
massive spending and tax subsidies to the wind and the
solar guys and hydrogen and electric vehicles. And the original
version of this bill was very soft on the phase
(37:16):
outs of these giveaways. They didn't start for a number
of years, They phased out slowly. Conservatives really fought hard
on this, and you know in that late night package
of changes, the Manager's Amendment, right before the bill finally passed.
But one thing that got worse was salt, and that
got a lot of attention. But a lot of things
got better, and one of the things that got better
was the phase out of these Green New scam giveaways.
(37:38):
It's much quicker now and they will actually end during
the Trump presidency. The original version of the bill postponed
them into the next presidency, which meant they might never
have happened, and so that was a major improvement in
this bill. In the last minute Manager's amendment.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Great point, and I asked you about a great point?
Can I say about the salt real quick?
Speaker 4 (37:55):
So Republicans like Lawler and Garbarino campaigned on increasing the salt.
Garbarino just gets Trump's endorsement. So the political math is
cleared there. Those seats are tough to hold without that position.
American Commitments says salt deductions are a total scam. So
how do we make room for that strategy without losing
conservative credibility nationally?
Speaker 10 (38:16):
Well, look, I hope the Senate's going to be able
to dial it back. They quadrupled the salt cap from
ten thousand dollars to forty thousand dollars in this bill.
Actually a little more than that, because there's a one
percent increase every year going forward, so it actually ends
at about forty three thousand change at the end of
ten years. This is a subsidy to high taxes at
the state and local level, and we don't want to
create an incentive for state and local government to be
(38:37):
able to raise taxes and pass those costs off to
the rest of us. This is something though that some
of those members campaign down. The interesting thing about New York, though,
is about half the districts in New York have lots
of salt taxpayers, the other half have almost none. And
so even within New York State, this is a major
redistribution from lower income people to higher income people, which
I thought the Democrats were supposed to be against, but
(38:58):
they're all for it because it fits them. And we
still have a handful of Republicans in these very high
tax blue states like New York, New Jersey, and California.
They felt politically they had to deliver on this, but
it carries a huge, huge cost associated with it, and
that means we didn't have room for other things we'd
like to see in this bill, in particular the pro
growth cost recovery provisions that led businesses write off their
(39:19):
investments immediately. Those only last four years. We had been
hoping they could be made permanent, but they only last
four years in part because of the budget math of
being able to get that salt deal in here. So
I hope that the Senate can dial that down a
little bit to pay for making those expensing provisions permanent.
That would make it a much more robustly pro growth bill.
But it's political reality. These guys played hardball and they
(39:40):
delivered for their constituents. And boy, I hope they at
least get a benefit comme election time, because they definitely
made it a worse bill from a pro growth economic
standpoint in order to deliver for those constituents.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah. Amazing.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
So I want to talk a little bit about the path.
So the Senate could take this bill apart, which means
then it would have to go all the way back
to the House. If they keep it substantios saying, make
some tweaks with amendments, it goes to conference committee, where
some of the backroom dealing can be ironed out behind
closed doors.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
What's your guess? Which path does this likely go on?
Speaker 10 (40:13):
I think what will probably happen is the Senate will
take up the House bill as the base bill. I
don't think this is going to be one of those
things where they throw it in the garbage and write
their own brand new thing. I think they're going to
use the House bill as the base for Senate consideration.
I think we'll see. We may see an actual markup
in the Senate Finance Committee, but I think they may
even skip that and just go to the floor with
a handful of sort of agreed upon amendments and changes.
(40:35):
That's when it gets interesting, though, because you could see
hostile amendments potentially on the Senate floor. Remember in twenty seventeen,
the corporate rate went to the floor at twenty and
it became twenty one because Rubio organized with Democrats with
a hostile amendment to increase the chrial tax credit and
pay for it with a higher corporate tax rate. We
could see efforts like that again. And so the question
(40:57):
I think will be kind of what is the leadership chain,
what do the leadership changes look like, what are the
things they're going to try to improve on the House bill?
And then can they beat back hostile amendments or do
some of those pass as well. But I don't think
we're going to see the Senate do their own brand
new bill, because the President really wants this done as
soon as possible. The House made that Memorial Day deadline.
He wants it on his desk by July fourth, and
(41:18):
for that to happen, I think we're going to have
to see a pretty abbreviated process where the Senate makes
limited changes and Ideally the House can accept those changes,
and we don't need to have any kind of conference,
either formally or informally with the back and forth. So
it's the balls in the Senate's port right now. If
the changes are relatively minor, I'm hoping the House can
take them and we don't have a lot of back
and forth.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, good point.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
So I want to ask you a question that's come
from our AMAC members. Paragon has raised serious red flags
about state directed medicaid payments, calling it legalized medicaid money laundering.
So these payments have grown to over one hundred and
ten billion a year. Paragon argues that curving them could
reduce real structural state or produce real structure savings. Does
this bill take on that issue directly or is this
(42:03):
the loophole states can exploit.
Speaker 10 (42:06):
Well, this is another change. There were some sort of
minor changes to this. In particular, they scam the California
and New York use bill would prohibit more states from
adopting these managed care organization taxes, but it with grandfather
California and New York, which is a little ridiculous. Basically,
you scammed first, so you get to keep scamming which
I don't really like. But you know, one of the
(42:28):
late late changes in this which is so important and
something that Brian Blaze at Paragon has been asking for
and is really important for seniors in particular, is they
cap Medicaid provider payments at the Medicare rates. And a
lot of people scratch their head when they hear this
and say, you know, my doctor says Medicaid pays way
less than Medicare anyway. But what's been going on is
the hospitals, the hospital systems have these arrangements now on
(42:49):
all these states, which is exactly what you were just
referring to, where they'll basically say, hey, we'll pay a
big tax to the state, but you give us all
the money back and then some after you get the
federal matching funds. Really by having these inflated, ballooned up
reimbursements for us as providers and so some hospital payments
now are three hundred percent of the Medicare rate for
Medicaid as a way to engage in this money laundering
(43:11):
scam where they tax the hospitals, get the federal money,
then hand the money right back to the hospitals through
these inflated payments. And if you tell the hospitals you're
going to get two or three times as much money
for a Medicaid treatment as you do for Medicare. Think
about that what that means for seniors. Think about what
that means when you say hospitals can make a lot
more money treating Medicaid patients than they can Medicare. I
think it's a terrible, terrible incentive. Not only does it
(43:34):
enable this financial scamming of federal tax payers, but it
means that on the margin, hospitals would rather treat Medici
patients than people who paid their whole life into Medicare.
So this built caps Medici reimbursements at the Medicare rate.
I think that would make it much much harder for
these types of scams to go on. And that was
one of the changes that conservatives fought for that got
into that last minute amendment package. So a really positive
(43:55):
change in taking this on.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, a lot of shell games that were going on
deprive the American taxpayers of good services, and also a
lot of unnecessary money has been wasted. Great that maybe
they're going to get to the bottom of the Phil Kurbin,
President of American Commitment great to have you on the
show today.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 10 (44:11):
My pleasure. Guys, have a go one.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, what a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
All right, folks, before we get to our next break,
remember to go to AMAC dot us slash just news
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(44:34):
change in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Again, go to AMAC dot us slash.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Just news right now to get your membership to AMAC
for only a dollar's day.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Welcome back to America to this special report breaking down
the big Beautiful Bill. I'm still joined by my cost
for the evening, AMAX Senior Vice President and Charles Stucker.
And joining us now is another great leader from the
AMAC team, Andy Manngioni. He's AMAC Action Senior Vice President.
I call him the field general of all the great
grassroots work that they do. We're here to talk about
the Big Beautiful Bill. Andy, welcome, good to have you on.
Speaker 8 (45:15):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
All right, what's in this bill that AMAC member is
going to care a lot about and what are AMAC
members do to getting it over the finish line.
Speaker 11 (45:24):
Well, there's a lot in the bill that AMAC members like,
but I think one of the biggest aspects is healthcare
and that specifically the pharmacy benefit manager reforms that are
in this bill. And AMAC members John are completely engaged
on this issue and others, I mean, they wanted to
see the one big beautiful bill past. We asked them
(45:45):
to reach out to their member of Congress after, you know,
during the debate in the House of Representatives, and within
seventy two hours last week, AMAC members sent over fourteen thousand,
four hundred messages to their member of Congress to help
get this bill over the finish line in the House,
and they stand ready to do the same in the
seven Wow.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
One of the things you've been warning about for years
is how pharmacy benefit managers operate in the shadows, driving
up drug prices without any real accountability. AMAC members constantly
tell us that they feel like they're paying more while
getting less and they don't understand where the money is going.
So can you walk us through how this bill tackles
KBM transparency and what that could mean for seniors on
(46:31):
fixed incomes.
Speaker 11 (46:32):
Absolutely, and as you know, AMAC Action has been advocating
for pharmacy benefit manager transparency since way back in twenty eighteen,
and you could see how pleased we were to see
that the one big, beautiful bill was passed that contains
significant PBM transparency measures. The bill gives Medicare plan sponsors
the power to audit PBMs annually. So what that means
(46:55):
is PBMs must provide not only their own records, but
those of their affiliate organizations as well. And as you
mentioned before, some of these affiliates operate in the shadows
and there's severe penalties for non compliance, So pricing games,
FEA structures, and bonuses that are tied to drug costs
will all be under scrutiny. The bill requires PBMs to
(47:16):
submit of report annually to HHS that includes costing, utilization
data and importantly, justifications for favorable drug formulary status of
branded products over cheaper alternative, generic, and biosimilar drugs. The
bill also breaks the link between PBM compensation and the
(47:37):
price of medicines by prohibiting PBMs from receiving any compensation
that's related to the dispensing of a specific prescription drug
other than a bonafide service fee and other payments. All
of this is aimed at reducing premiums and codepays for
Medicare beneficiaries.
Speaker 4 (47:57):
Absolutely, and spread pricing and has lef PBMs charged Medicaid
and medicare far more than what they pay pharmacies and
then obviously keeping the difference as pure profit. So I
know you've been sounding the alarm about this behind the
scenes practice for a while now, especially it's impact on
taxpayer funded programs. So does this bill finally start to
(48:18):
close the door on spread pricing or are there still
too many loopholes.
Speaker 11 (48:22):
The bill bans PBM spread pricing and Medicaid, and as
you mentioned, spread pricing is a practice for PBMs charge
more for a medicine than the price they secured.
Speaker 8 (48:32):
From a drug company and they keep the difference. So
it's banned in Medicaid.
Speaker 11 (48:36):
Now, AMAC Action would like to see spread pricing banned
in the medicare space as well as other PBM reforms,
So we pledge and we're going to continue to keep
working with Congress to see that further legislation is passed,
it accomplishes these.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Goals, Andy, real quickly.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
If someone wants to join the grassroots army today and
get involved in help get this bill over the line,
what's the best way to.
Speaker 11 (48:56):
Do it but at amacaction dot org or and you
have to learn all about the work that we're doing
at behalf of the AMAC membership.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, we had a blast you.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
We're here with some of those great AMAC members a
couple of weeks ago. What a great conversation, What an
exciting thing to see an action Andy.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Always a great pleasure to have you on the show.
Speaker 8 (49:15):
Thank you, my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Yeah, all right, folks, that's all the time we have
for tonight. Unfortunately, but if you haven't yet, I really
want you to go to AMAC dot us slash just
news right now because for a limited time, viewers of
the show can join AMAC for just one dollar for
a whole year.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
That's all the great benefits.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Of AMAC, the magazine, the podcast, the daily news feeds,
the opportunities to get involved in great citizenship things. You
won't find a better deal anywhere. And tonight, if you
sign up tonight by going to AMAC dot us slash
just news, you also get a free opportunity to attend
my next town hall, where I spend an entire hour
answering just the news reader's question, so you can get
(49:50):
a free be on that one. Go check that out
one more time. AMAC dot us slash just News. All right, folks,
have a great night. We're going to hand off to
the great Grandstitch Film.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
We'll be back tomorrow. Get a product,
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