It’s the celebration President Donald Trump has been waiting for.
After weeks of cajoling Republicans into backing his domestic mega-bill — despite lingering concerns about its Medicaid cuts, deficit expansion and political pitfalls — Trump will sign the measure into law on the White House South Lawn on Friday afternoon.
He’s turned the traditional July 4 picnic into a celebration of the country’s independence and of his win in Congress, seizing upon the day’s fanfare to salute the most decisive legislative victory of his second term. The festivities will include a bomber jet flyover – a nod to the military’s recent strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities – and a fireworks show on the National Mall.
It’s all how Trump envisioned it when he first set the July 4 deadline to get the bill approved weeks ago. Even some of his own allies thought the timeline was overly ambitious. But Trump’s iron grip on his own party, combined with what a White House official described as an “omnipresent” effort by the president to get Republicans on board, culminated in the bill’s passage in the House on Thursday with only two GOP defections in the chamber.
In many ways, the event marks the payoff for weeks of effort by the president and his team to get the bill across the finish line. Trump invited members of Congress to come to the event, which will also be attended by military families who are the usual guests for the Independence Day picnic.
In other ways, however, the moment is just the start of Trump’s efforts to sell his bill to an American public that, according to polls, remains skeptical of its contents.
The bill extends tax cuts Trump first approved in 2017 during his first term, along with creating new ones, totaling in cost of $4.5 trillion. It also boosts funding for immigration enforcement and defense.
To pay for the new spending and declines in tax revenue, the measure cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid, along with cuts to food assistance. But it will still, according to an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, add $3.3 trillion to the federal deficit, which does not include the cost of servicing the debt.
Many Republicans had feared the bill’s cuts to social safety net programs, like Medicaid and food stamps, could open them to political attacks ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
According to the CBO, almost 12 million Americans could lose health coverage as a result of the bill’s changes to government programs. Other analyses put the number higher, taking into account new paperwork burdens on recipients to prove their eligibility.
Democrats have already begun pointing to the bill’s overwhelming tax rewards for wealthy Americans to accuse Trump of snatching away benefits from the poor to reward his rich backers.
Some of Trump’s allies have conceded they have some catching up to do in messaging what they view as the benefits of the bill, including eliminating taxes on tips and bolstering money for Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda. Trump said Thursday that he wanted Republicans to message on it during the midterm campaign.
“Not one Democrat voted for us, and I think we use it in the campaign that’s coming up the midterms, because we got to beat them,” Trump said.
Recent history is littered with presidents who, after using congressional majorities to push through major legislation meant to burnish their legacy, later lamented not doing enough to sell the bill to the American public – after their party members paid the price at the ballot box.
For Trump, however, the bill he’ll sign into law Friday is less about helping Republicans win and more about his own legacy. He has framed the package as codifying the promises he made to voters on the campaign trail, and used it to punctuate what he’s called the most successful start to any presidency in history.
Friday’s flyover of the B-2 bombers — used to drop bunker-busters on Iranian nuclear facilities last month — underscores the consequential stretch of days punctuated by passage of Trump’s bill.
Aside from the Iran strikes, Trump successfully convinced NATO allies to spend more on defense at a leaders’ summit last week; secured a major victory at the Supreme Court that expands his executive powers; and generated new momentum toward a ceasefire in Gaza that could materialize in a matter of days.
A day ahead of his July 4 celebration, Trump basked in the string of victories.
“This had to be the best two weeks,” he said. “Has anybody ever had a better two weeks?”
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