The Disaster That Just Passed the Senate

I’m taping this introduction on Tuesday, July 1. The Senate passed Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” just moments ago in a 50-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance as the tiebreaker.

This bill is a bad piece of legislation — trillions of dollars in tax cuts, very much tilted toward the rich, with savage cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance and green energy. Even with those cuts, we can expect more than $3 trillion to be added to the national debt over 10 years.

And befitting a policy like that, the bill is hugely unpopular: A poll from late June found nearly two-to-one opposition to the bill. Vulnerable Republicans do not seem excited to run on the wreckage it’s going to create. Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina — a state Trump has won over and over again — just announced he’s stepping down at the end of this term, in part over the Medicaid cuts.