A Democratic lawmaker said the tense standoff over Donald Trump’s signature bill has given him flashbacks to how the president used to whip Republican lawmakers into submission.
In a Wednesday night interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Philadelphia Rep. Brendan Boyle said he has witnessed “time and again” how House Republicans would indicate that they are voting against a bill, until “suddenly they get a tap on the shoulder.”
“They’re dragged out of the House floor and back into the Republican members’ cloak room, and they’re handed a cell phone, and it’s Donald Trump literally yelling at them and cursing at them,” he said. “I tend to think that that history will repeat itself, and that one way or the other, they’ll be able to get the votes. I hope I’m wrong. I pray that I’m wrong.”
Trump showed up on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to ramp up the pressure on warring factions of his party to unite behind his long-promised “one, big, beautiful bill.” Several hardline conservatives earlier refused to support the measure until specific changes were made, but House Republicans moved late Wednesday night to bring it to the floor.
“I think we’re a very unified party,” Trump said. “It’s the biggest bill ever passed, and we’re going to get it done.”
Boyle said the massive bill was “the entirety of the Republican agenda, not just for this year, not just for this term in Congress, but this term of Donald Trump’s presidency.”
“What else do they have other than ‘Fight Woke’?” he said. “They really have no other agenda than this. So I think the pressure on them to pass this will be enormous.”
Boyle, a ranking member of the House Budget Committee, said he asked the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to verify whether Trump’s bill would trigger Medicare cuts.
The CBO confirmed that millions will become uninsured with the Medicare reforms currently in the measure, which could force almost $500 billion in cuts to Medicare spending starting next year.
But Trump has denied that his bill would cause Americans to lose health insurance, insisting that the legislation would only cut “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Privately, however, he reportedly told lawmakers: “Don’t f–– around with Medicaid.”
Lawmakers are expected to vote on the bill’s passage at dawn on Thursday.
“I’m going to fight like hell to make sure this awful policy doesn’t become law,” Boyle said. “But I’ve just seen them fold too many times before to believe that they won’t fold again this time.”
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