President Donald Trump is a man on a mission—and he wants his “big, beautiful bill” to pass pronto.
On Tuesday, Trump pushed back against congressional Republicans demanding bigger Medicaid cuts in an effort to unite bickering GOP factions, warning them: “don’t f— around” with Medicaid.
The bill, which unveiled ways to cover the cost of tax breaks by slashing $880 billion in federal spending, has received backlash from lower-income MAGA members who anticipate major Medicaid cuts and face losing critical healthcare.
After an outpouring of frustration the president quelled widespread fears by promising no major cuts to the social service and vowing to only root out “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
“President Trump and Republicans are protecting and preserving Medicaid for the Americans who the program was intended to be a lifeline for: pregnant women, children, disabled individuals, and seniors,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Axios.
The legislation, which tallies hundreds of pages, kicked off a major fight over healthcare after Democrats exposed the bill for its threat to millions of Americans’ health insurance.
A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that up to 8.6 million people could lose the essential services.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has pushed GOP members to pass the bill, but there’s division among Congress. More than a dozen House Republicans told Johnson a week ago that they would not support cuts to the safety net programs that millions of their own constituents rely on.
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri even wrote a New York Times op-ed calling the move “morally wrong and politically suicidal.”
Trump has shied away from threatening Medicaid cuts outright due to the onslaught of disagreement from many of his own MAGA supporters. On Tuesday, he visited Capitol Hill urging Republicans to immediately unite behind the bill and assured them that he was focused on “saving” Medicaid.
He ripped into Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie who plans to vote “no” on the bill by calling him a “grandstander” who should be “voted out of office.”
Trump also took aim at the Republicans pushing for a higher cap on the state-and-local-tax (SALT) deduction, which several right-wing lawmakers from blue states have stood behind.
Trump told SALT supporters to “leave it alone” and accept the current deal to slightly increase the existing $10,000 deduction cap. He said that the tax break mostly benefits blue-state governors.
Trump’s visit to Congress comes less than a day before Johnson aims to finalize the bill for a floor vote, which could end up happening as early as Wednesday.
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