Consider This from NPR - The Trump domestic policy megabill is set to become law

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

President Trump put essentially his entire domestic agenda in one bill.It would significantly cut clean energy incentives, Medicaid and food assistance programs — and double down on tax cuts, immigration enforcement and national defense.Despite opposition from Democrats, and divides within the Republican Party, it passed through Congress.How did that happen? And what does it mean for American taxpayers? NPR correspondents explain.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.nprth.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Trump gave Congress a deadline by July 4th, past his massive tax and domestic policy bill. Earlier today, Congress delivered. The yeas are 218, the nays are 214. The motion is adopted. That's House Speaker Mike Johnson reading the final tally on the House floor before sending the bill to the President to sign into law. The legislation may dramatically change the role

of the federal government in Americans' lives. It would significantly cut clean energy incentives, Medicaid, and food assistance programs, and double down on tax cuts, immigration enforcement, and national defense. Consider this. The act called One Big Beautiful Bill is set to become law.

How did a narrowly divided Congress deliver this win for the president, and how will it affect Americans? From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things and other currencies. With WISE, you can send, spend, or receive money across borders, all at a fair exchange rate. No markups or hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Support for this podcast comes from Dignity Memorial. For many families, remembering loved ones means honoring the details that made them unique. Dignity Memorial is dedicated to professionalism and compassion in every detail of a life celebration. Find a provider near you at DignityMemorial.com.

This message comes from the BBC with World of Secrets Season 8, The Killing Call. The Murder of Indian Music star Sindhu Mooseala at the height of his success It's Consider This from NPR. President Trump put essentially his entire domestic agenda into one bill. Despite opposition from Democrats and divides within the Republican Party, it passed through Congress. How did that happen and what does it mean for American taxpayers? We sought answers from NPR correspondents covering the Capitol, the White House, and the economy, starting with Congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh. Deirdre, it was unclear until today whether the House would pass the latest

version of this package. How did they get there? President Trump was really the closer. You know, there were as many as a couple of dozen House Republicans who threatened to vote no on this after the Senate passed the bill earlier this week, unless they got changes. Conservatives complained it added to the deficit. Moderates warned that there were steeper Medicaid cuts in it that would harm their constituents. But Speaker Johnson said earlier today that Trump worked the phones.

He had many members over to the White House. He got cabinet secretaries involved. But in the end, none of these members got any changes to the bill that passed. They voted for the same bill they spent days railing against. Some suggested the president could use executive actions to tweak how the bill is implemented, but the speaker admitted he didn't really know how that would work. You know, these Republicans made a political calculation after a ton of political pressure

from both the White House and the Republican base to get in line with Trump. And they did, with the exception of two Republicans who voted no, Tom Massey of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. So that's the view from Congress. Now let's turn to White House correspondent, Deepa Shivaram. Deepa, this is clearly a win for President Trump.

What can you tell us about his influence on the process? Yeah, well, according to the White House, the president was deeply involved in the process. He was holding calls with lawmakers like Deirdre said, who were on the fence about this. And they described Trump's relationships with lawmakers that he's built since being in office as helping a, quote, cascade of support come together in the end. And Deirdre had also just mentioned Representative Tom Massey. That's kind of a good example here of someone who didn't really get in line with Trump and

behind Trump on this bill. He said that he wasn't going to vote for the legislation. And ever since then, the president has been posting about Massey on Truth Social, which is his social media platform, saying he's going to support a primary challenger for that seat in Kentucky. And so, you know, whether it was online, through the phones, there was definitely just a lot of influence from the president in this process. Even yesterday, he was posting online saying

to Republican members, quote, it should be an easy vote. So a very heavy handed Trump in this process. Some of the reservations from members of Congress come from the fact that a lot of voters and constituents have reservations about it. How does President Trump plan to overcome that? Well, the interesting thing about Trump in that regard

is that he's not running for reelection, right? So he doesn't really have to answer to voters here. So answering those concerns might fall more on Republican members who have to go back to their home districts, face their constituents about some of these issues. And the big one there, Ari, is changes to Medicaid, which is the health insurance program for lower income Americans, the elderly, the disabled.

And the fact that there are changes being made to that program in the first place is a violation of a campaign promise that Trump made, which is that he wouldn't touch Medicaid at all. And now under this bill, nearly 12 million people are expected to lose their coverage in the next decade. Well, let's talk more about the impact this is going to have on Americans. And for that, I want to bring in NPR chief economics correspondent, Scott Horsley. Scott, are Americans going to feel immediate differences once the president signs this

bill into law? This is not going to feel like a windfall to most people because this bill just keeps the 2017 tax cuts in place. Most people's take home pay is not going to change very much. Taxes that would have gone up will instead stay the same. For those at the top of the income ladder, they will avoid what would have been a pretty sizable tax hit. According to the Tax Policy Center, about 60% of the tax savings in this bill go to

the top 20% of earners, that is people making more than about $217,000 a year. Middle income families will see a smaller tax break and those at the bottom of the income ladder may actually wind up worse off because for them the cuts to safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps will on average outweigh any of their tax savings. When you put all this together what are some of the longer term economic impacts? Well you mentioned the bill adds several trillion dollars to the federal debt over the next decade. Another thing it does is put a lot more money into immigration enforcement. So we are likely

to see more deportations. The administration's also been closing off legal pathways for people to come into the country. Forecasters at the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute say we are likely to see a net outflow of immigrants this year and next. That's the first time that's happened in at least six decades. We've already started to see a drop in the foreign-born workforce. Over time, that outflow means there will be fewer workers, fewer people spending money, and overall a smaller economy than we otherwise would have had. There was strong resistance throughout the entire process

about some of the issues that Scott has just described. So Deirdre, when you look at both Democrats and members of the Republican Party who resisted this strongly, what does it say about opposition to this legislation that it eeked out and passed in the end? I mean, for Republicans, it just shows you the shift in the party under Trump.

Conservatives in Congress, many of them campaigned on promises to slash the deficit, but we've already talked about how this adds more than three trillion to the deficit in the next decade. The fiscal conservative wing of the party just has less power. There are members who tried to warn about the economic fallout of deficits, but the bill also adds five trillion more to increase the country's borrowing authority. Republicans used to call for any kind of reforms to do anything like that. Democrats were very united on this bill and were very focused on the Medicaid cuts. But in terms of Republicans, this debate shows you what happens to Republicans who break

with Trump. Those who thought about voting no saw what happened to North Carolina Republican Tom Tillis. He voted against this in the Senate on Saturday. He was attacked by Trump. By Sunday, he announced he wasn't running for reelection. Yeah. And speaking of reelection, I mean, this is all now about the next election, right?

The midterms 2026. Trump has to sell this agenda and this bill to the American people. And there are now potentially plans for Trump to travel around the country and take a victory lap of sorts to celebrate his agenda getting passed. And he'll sign the bill later tomorrow at 5pm on July 4th, Independence Day,

which meets that self-imposed deadline that he wanted. And so as this bill starts to take effect across the country, what are you all gonna be looking out for over the next year or so? I mean, I think the Democrats are really banking on making this issue the central issue in the 2026 midterms. You heard that from Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader

who broke the record for the longest floor speech today with the big applause line. He said, project 2026 starts today. But it is worth noting that some of these key provisions affecting Medicaid don't kick in until after the 2026 midterms. There's a couple other things I think to watch with Trump. I mean, this bill has more funding for immigration enforcement, right? But how the administration goes about doing that work, if

immigration raids ramp up, for example, it may not play out as well politically. There's already been some pullback from voters on how the administration has handled immigration crackdown. And also, while this bill focuses so much on Trump's domestic agenda and campaign promises, he's still dealing with a lot of issues on the world stage, right? The Middle East, Russia's war in Ukraine, these recent strikes in Iran. So I'm also kind of curious to see how much of that might overshadow some of Trump's abilities to tout this really big domestic win.

That's NPR's Deepa Shivram, Deirdre Walsh and Scott Horsley. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for having us. This episode was produced by Kai McNamee and Catherine Fink with Audio Engineering by Hannah Glovna. It was edited by Patrick Jaron-Watananen, Dana Farrington, Kelsey Snell, and Rafael Naum.

Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro. Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all on the web at theschmidt.org. Support for NPR and the following message come from Yarle and Pamela Mohn, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks?

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