MAGA hardliner Steve Bannon has a bone to pick with President Donald Trump over his “big beautiful” budget bill.
Former Trump chief strategist turned MAGA livestream and War Room podcast host, Bannon said he is “very upset” with key provisions in the budget package that passed the House by a razor-thin margin on Thursday, suggesting that it could “be a lot better.”
“I’m very concerned about the deficits in the short term, but given the totality of President Trump’s program, it’s the best you’re going to get for right now. And I’m very upset,” Bannon said on his podcast. “I think defense spending is too much. I think that the Social Security taxes are not, you know, not acceptable.”
The package, titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” narrowly passed 215-214 in an overnight session following weeks of intense negotiations. Just two GOP lawmakers, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, broke ranks to vote against the more than 1,000-page bill, which would impose budget and tax cuts, new work requirements for Medicaid, and increase defense and border security spending.
Bannon was particularly critical of the bill’s potential to balloon the deficit, suggesting taxes needed to be raised to offset spending.
“I do believe, and I stand by this, you’ve got to increase the taxes. Or not give the tax cut to the wealthy, not for right now, just can’t happen,” Bannon went on. “And I understand some of these things are not popular and they’re not popular in the White House, but that’s just the—reasonable people can disagree.”
The bill now heads to the Senate, where further revisions may be made.
MANDEL NGAN/MANDEL NGAN/AFP
Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday to praise the bill as the most consequential legislation in U.S. history.
“‘THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ has PASSED the House of Representatives!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform. “This is arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country!”
He urged the Senate to get to work to send the bill to his desk “AS SOON AS POSSIBLE,” saying “there is no time to waste.”
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