June 30, 2025 • 8 mins
Political Analyst, Steve Roberts looks at the landscape of this bill and Medicaid seems to be at the heart of the issue. It has Dems and some Republicans concerned
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the Big Beautiful Bill. The good is tax cuts
(00:04):
and funding for the president's immigration and defense proposals, but
they're not so good, adding three point three trillion to
the national debt over the next ten years. Here with
more on the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line,
It is Steve Roberts, ABC political analyst Steve. Good Morning.
Did they really take what fifteen hours to read every
single word of the Big Beautiful Bill on the Senate
(00:25):
floor out loud?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
They did? And you know, this is the Democratic strategy
to try to delay things and trying to shine a
spotlight on this bill. Some preliminary polls, and they're very preliminary,
have showed this bill is not very popular. Now, those
are hypothetical polls and I don't put much stock in them.
But the Democrats do think that this bill could be
(00:51):
a political liability for the Republicans, and so does Senator
Tom Tillis. He's the Republican from North Carolina who is
broken with the president and said to speak yesterday, he
said the President has betrayed that's the word he used,
betrayed his promise not to cut medicaid funding. And according
(01:11):
to independent estimates, this bill could drive as many as
twelve million people off of Medicaid over the next ten years.
And that's one of the reasons why your Senator Bernie
Marino little nervous about this bill in Ohio. And Trump
said he would never cut Medicaid, He would only cut waste, fraud,
(01:32):
and abuse. But this bill would go far beyond that.
And so till Us and other Republicans are saying, look,
you know, back in the sixties when I coed President,
or back in the eighties, President Reagan could denounce people
who were on Medicaid and other programs as welfare queens,
you know, and that those were Democratic voters and they
(01:52):
weren't us. But today the heart of the Republican Party
here are a lot of working class voters who voted
for Donald Try and who need and want these benefits.
And that's the warning that the Senator Tillis and Senator
Marino have to be worried about.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And Tom Tillis promptly announced his retirement, by the way,
after breaking with the President and voting no on that,
because politically he I mean, there's always fallout when that
kind of thing happened. Speaking with ABC, Steve Roberts on
the big, beautiful bill. So what is the what is
the path here? What is the next step? I hear
about this nine o'clock vote, a rama happening this morning.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
What is that? Yeah, well, under Senate rules, anybody can
raise an amendment, and so there will be a whole
parade of amendments. Hardly any of them have a chance
to pass. But this is performance are this is theatricals
on the part of the Democrats who want to force vote.
They will propose a whole series of votes that would
(02:53):
mitigate some of the cuts, not just in Medicaid but
also in food stamps. And they want to put Republicans
on record as voting for these cuts so that they
can use them as campaigns. It's all performance and nothing's
really going to be passed. The one vote to keep
your eye on. There are Republican senators, a group of them,
(03:15):
who want to propose an amendment that we cut even
more on medicated than is in the bill now. And look,
here's the problem, because there were two Republican senators who
voted against advancing this bill over the weekend. Tillis from
North Carolina because he complained the bill cut too much,
and Senator Ran Paul of Kentucky who complained the bill
(03:37):
didn't cut enough. And that's the tension, right, you know,
in your own national party, like the Republicans and a bin.
As as successful as they've been at extending extending their coalition,
they now have the same problem that we deviled the
Democrats all those years, which is you've got a big
(03:57):
tenth and you have a vast reign of ideologies, of
regions of economic incentives, and they only have a three
vote margin in the Senate. And there's two guys who
have already said they won't vote for it, but for
totally different reasons. And that's the balancing act. How do
(04:19):
you find the sweet spot? How do you keep the
center together of the party even as you lose votes
on each end. And if you move too much toward
cutting more, you could risk the votes of people like
Senator Moreno, who are already nervous about what the bill
as it stands now could mean for Medicaid and food
(04:43):
stamp recipients in Ohio. But if you adapted even more
draconian amendment, then you risk you satisfy the conservatives.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
But then you want yeah, So what's the solution? Steve
I mean, how do you leave Medicaid intact but still
pay for this bill?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You don't. The answer you don't. You can't keep Medicaid
intact because look, the fact is that the drivers, the
main drivers are the federal deficit. Are these huge entitlement programs,
and everybody knows that, and you can't come close to
that even with all the cuts in Medicaid and food stamps.
(05:25):
This bill, as you pointed out, independent projections say it's
still going to cost three point three trillion. That's a
t trillion dollars in adding to the deficits. And the
real reason for that is the huge tax cuts that
are in this bill that would extend the tax cuts
Trump passed during his first term, plus enormous added expenditures
(05:47):
in two areas, defense spending and in terms of immigration
and deportation. This bill would hire thousands of new immigration
agents that try to track down and deport undocumented immigrants.
So you can't do it all. Then the math just
doesn't work. And Republicans will say, as they often do, well,
(06:09):
tax cuts will stimulate economic activity and we'll get new revenue.
But that's only two along the margins. The fact is
that tax cuts never pay for themselves. They always cost
the treachery money. So the answer to your question is
you can't do it without adding to that. What you
do is you add to the deficit. And that's what
this country's been doing for a long long time, so
(06:29):
well at both parties have been doing that, by the.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Way, right right, And for a lot of people, you know,
just trying to make ends meet day to day, that's
that is a just a tree tops problem that you know,
the deficit doesn't affect me day to day, and it's
monopoly money and I'm just trying to, you know, get
to keep the car gassed up and groceries on the table,
and you know, they just don't want their taxes to
go up at the end of the year, is the
(06:51):
big thing there. Speaking with ABC, Steve Roberts, so it
seems like, based on what I'm hearing from you that
the president's July fourth deadline to have this thing signed
and wrapped up is probably not going to be met.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Well, I'm not sure about that. The bottom line here
is that even though you have a lot of unhappy
Republicans and you have a handful on both sides, the
deficit hawks who want more cuts and the moderates who
want fewer cuts. In the end, the basic political fact
in Washington today is Donald Trump rules the Republican Party.
(07:26):
And you saw it. You Senator Tillos announced that he
was going to vote against this bill, and immediately Donald
Trump went on social media threatening to back politically and
financially the challengers in his primary because Tillis would be
up for re election next year. And that's how Donald
(07:47):
Trump operates. And every single Republican has two incentives. One
is they want Donald Trump to succeed. Every Republican has
a vested interest in Trump's success as a president because
the already benefits. But also it's not just support for Trump,
it's fear of Trump. And he just demonstrated over the
weekend he has shown again and again and again he's
(08:10):
willing and able to lacerate anybody in the party who
steps out of line and excoriate them on social media,
run campaigns against them, raise money against them. He just
did it over the weekend. And so bottom line here
by the end that maybe not by so high for it,
but I expect that this bill will somehow pass, it
(08:31):
will be signed into law because Donald Trump wants it
and dot What Donald Trump wants is by far the
dominant factor in Washington today.
So the Big Beautiful Bill. The good is tax cuts
(00:04):
and funding for the president's immigration and defense proposals, but
they're not so good, adding three point three trillion to
the national debt over the next ten years. Here with
more on the Legacy Retirement Group dot com phone line,
It is Steve Roberts, ABC political analyst Steve. Good Morning.
Did they really take what fifteen hours to read every
single word of the Big Beautiful Bill on the Senate
(00:25):
floor out loud?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
They did? And you know, this is the Democratic strategy
to try to delay things and trying to shine a
spotlight on this bill. Some preliminary polls, and they're very preliminary,
have showed this bill is not very popular. Now, those
are hypothetical polls and I don't put much stock in them.
But the Democrats do think that this bill could be
(00:51):
a political liability for the Republicans, and so does Senator
Tom Tillis. He's the Republican from North Carolina who is
broken with the president and said to speak yesterday, he
said the President has betrayed that's the word he used,
betrayed his promise not to cut medicaid funding. And according
(01:11):
to independent estimates, this bill could drive as many as
twelve million people off of Medicaid over the next ten years.
And that's one of the reasons why your Senator Bernie
Marino little nervous about this bill in Ohio. And Trump
said he would never cut Medicaid, He would only cut waste, fraud,
(01:32):
and abuse. But this bill would go far beyond that.
And so till Us and other Republicans are saying, look,
you know, back in the sixties when I coed President,
or back in the eighties, President Reagan could denounce people
who were on Medicaid and other programs as welfare queens,
you know, and that those were Democratic voters and they
(01:52):
weren't us. But today the heart of the Republican Party
here are a lot of working class voters who voted
for Donald Try and who need and want these benefits.
And that's the warning that the Senator Tillis and Senator
Marino have to be worried about.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And Tom Tillis promptly announced his retirement, by the way,
after breaking with the President and voting no on that,
because politically he I mean, there's always fallout when that
kind of thing happened. Speaking with ABC, Steve Roberts on
the big, beautiful bill. So what is the what is
the path here? What is the next step? I hear
about this nine o'clock vote, a rama happening this morning.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
What is that? Yeah, well, under Senate rules, anybody can
raise an amendment, and so there will be a whole
parade of amendments. Hardly any of them have a chance
to pass. But this is performance are this is theatricals
on the part of the Democrats who want to force vote.
They will propose a whole series of votes that would
(02:53):
mitigate some of the cuts, not just in Medicaid but
also in food stamps. And they want to put Republicans
on record as voting for these cuts so that they
can use them as campaigns. It's all performance and nothing's
really going to be passed. The one vote to keep
your eye on. There are Republican senators, a group of them,
(03:15):
who want to propose an amendment that we cut even
more on medicated than is in the bill now. And look,
here's the problem, because there were two Republican senators who
voted against advancing this bill over the weekend. Tillis from
North Carolina because he complained the bill cut too much,
and Senator Ran Paul of Kentucky who complained the bill
(03:37):
didn't cut enough. And that's the tension, right, you know,
in your own national party, like the Republicans and a bin.
As as successful as they've been at extending extending their coalition,
they now have the same problem that we deviled the
Democrats all those years, which is you've got a big
(03:57):
tenth and you have a vast reign of ideologies, of
regions of economic incentives, and they only have a three
vote margin in the Senate. And there's two guys who
have already said they won't vote for it, but for
totally different reasons. And that's the balancing act. How do
(04:19):
you find the sweet spot? How do you keep the
center together of the party even as you lose votes
on each end. And if you move too much toward
cutting more, you could risk the votes of people like
Senator Moreno, who are already nervous about what the bill
as it stands now could mean for Medicaid and food
(04:43):
stamp recipients in Ohio. But if you adapted even more
draconian amendment, then you risk you satisfy the conservatives.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
But then you want yeah, So what's the solution? Steve
I mean, how do you leave Medicaid intact but still
pay for this bill?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You don't. The answer you don't. You can't keep Medicaid
intact because look, the fact is that the drivers, the
main drivers are the federal deficit. Are these huge entitlement programs,
and everybody knows that, and you can't come close to
that even with all the cuts in Medicaid and food stamps.
(05:25):
This bill, as you pointed out, independent projections say it's
still going to cost three point three trillion. That's a
t trillion dollars in adding to the deficits. And the
real reason for that is the huge tax cuts that
are in this bill that would extend the tax cuts
Trump passed during his first term, plus enormous added expenditures
(05:47):
in two areas, defense spending and in terms of immigration
and deportation. This bill would hire thousands of new immigration
agents that try to track down and deport undocumented immigrants.
So you can't do it all. Then the math just
doesn't work. And Republicans will say, as they often do, well,
(06:09):
tax cuts will stimulate economic activity and we'll get new revenue.
But that's only two along the margins. The fact is
that tax cuts never pay for themselves. They always cost
the treachery money. So the answer to your question is
you can't do it without adding to that. What you
do is you add to the deficit. And that's what
this country's been doing for a long long time, so
(06:29):
well at both parties have been doing that, by the.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Way, right right, And for a lot of people, you know,
just trying to make ends meet day to day, that's
that is a just a tree tops problem that you know,
the deficit doesn't affect me day to day, and it's
monopoly money and I'm just trying to, you know, get
to keep the car gassed up and groceries on the table,
and you know, they just don't want their taxes to
go up at the end of the year, is the
(06:51):
big thing there. Speaking with ABC, Steve Roberts, so it
seems like, based on what I'm hearing from you that
the president's July fourth deadline to have this thing signed
and wrapped up is probably not going to be met.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Well, I'm not sure about that. The bottom line here
is that even though you have a lot of unhappy
Republicans and you have a handful on both sides, the
deficit hawks who want more cuts and the moderates who
want fewer cuts. In the end, the basic political fact
in Washington today is Donald Trump rules the Republican Party.
(07:26):
And you saw it. You Senator Tillos announced that he
was going to vote against this bill, and immediately Donald
Trump went on social media threatening to back politically and
financially the challengers in his primary because Tillis would be
up for re election next year. And that's how Donald
(07:47):
Trump operates. And every single Republican has two incentives. One
is they want Donald Trump to succeed. Every Republican has
a vested interest in Trump's success as a president because
the already benefits. But also it's not just support for Trump,
it's fear of Trump. And he just demonstrated over the
weekend he has shown again and again and again he's
(08:10):
willing and able to lacerate anybody in the party who
steps out of line and excoriate them on social media,
run campaigns against them, raise money against them. He just
did it over the weekend. And so bottom line here
by the end that maybe not by so high for it,
but I expect that this bill will somehow pass, it
(08:31):
will be signed into law because Donald Trump wants it
and dot What Donald Trump wants is by far the
dominant factor in Washington today.
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