Republican lawmakers are scrambling to defend President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” which passed the House last week and has come under scrutiny for its massive cuts to Medicaid and food assistance, among other unpopular moves.
Appearing Wednesday on Fox Business, Republican Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania called the bill’s massive cuts to Medicaid “savings,” despite that those so-called savings will come at the expense of millions losing their health insurance, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Republican Rep. Michael Rulli of Ohio took a different approach. Avoiding the bill’s disastrous details, he instead attacked Senate Republicans during his appearance on Fox Business, calling their criticisms of the bill an affront to Trump and saying that the House won’t accept any changes the Senate makes to the bill.
“It is great. It is beautiful,” Rulli said of the House’s bill. “They are going to destroy the entire movement of America First by these tactics that they’re doing in the U.S. Senate. We will never get their cuts and all the different things they want through our conference. It’s not going to happen.”
“If they play around like they’re doing … we’ll lose the midterms, and they will spend the next two years impeaching America First,” he added.
Following Rulli on the same show on Fox Business was Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who said his conference’s plan was to go through “every line in the budget.”
“My goal would be to not have to raise the debt ceiling because we balance the budget,” he said. “That’s what we should be doing.”
“Can you identify some specifics for us?” host Maria Bartiromo asked. “Have you gone through every line in the budget?”
“Maria, you cannot see a copy of the budget. We do spending bills. We don’t have budget bills.”
“How long have you been in Congress?” Bartiromo replied. “You know the budget roughly speaking, right?”
Ouch.
Since passing their bill through the House, Republicans have faced a surge of rage from their constituents. Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska made the mistake of holding a town hall Tuesday night, where he was booed by voters. He even confessed to not knowing about some of the provisions in the bill, which he voted for.
Even Trump’s co-president, Elon Musk, has trashed the bill for heavily increasing the federal budget deficit. “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both,” he said.
It sure seems like Trump’s big bloated bill is a political hot potato few conservatives want to get caught holding.