The Honorable Speaker, House of Representatives, sir, pursuant to Section 1K of House Resolution 895, 110th Congress, and Section 4D of House Resolution 5, 119th Congress,
I transmit to you notification that the following individuals each have signed an agreement not to be a candidate for the office of senator or representative in or delegate or resident commissioner to the Congress for the purpose of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 until at least three years after they are no longer a member of the board or staff of the Office of Congressional Conduct.
Karen L. Haas, Grace Lieberman, Bill Luther, Lorraine C. Miller, Lynn A. Westmoreland, Omar Ashmawley, Endahara Benitez, Doctor L. Cromarty, Christina Crump, Helen Eisner, Jean-Paul Toreau, Peter Tilley, and Ember Venzen.
Copies of the signed agreements will be retained by the Office of the Clerk as part of the records of the House.
And with that, the House has gaveled out, finishing up their legislative business with a big win, according to political observers.
What do all of you think about House Republicans pushing forward on President Trump's tax and spending bill, $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to pay for making permanent his 2017 tax cuts?
All right, Tony in Clifton, New Jersey, Republican.
Good morning to you, Tony.
What do you think about what your party did here?
unidentified
Good morning.
You know, I'm delighted.
I have been in favor of President Trump's performance financially for our country in his first term and his sense that he brings of, you know, restoring things, making people do better.
We all thrived in his first term.
So I'm delighted.
And I see the memories of the Kennedy tax cuts that came about after his passing, and the country did so beautifully.
So looking at the financials of it, I'm very excited.
And I'm delighted that Speaker Mike has been our Speaker of the House, and his performance has been astounding.
We said on the House floor, it's finally morning in America again.
The media and the Democrats have consistently dismissed any possibility that House Republicans could get this done.
They did not believe that we could succeed in our mission to enact President Trump's America First Agenda.
But this is a big one.
And once again, they have been proven wrong.
Today, the House has passed generational, truly nation-shaping legislation to reduce spending and permanently lower taxes for families and job creators, secure the border, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength, and make government work more efficiently and effectively for all Americans.
House Democrats voted against all of that.
So, everything that I just said, they voted the opposite.
Clearly proves they actually must want the largest tax increase in U.S. history on the American citizens.
They must want open borders.
They've proven that over and over.
They must want Medicaid for illegal immigrants.
We look forward to the Senate's timely consideration of this once-in-a-generation legislation.
We stand ready to continue our work together to deliver on the one big beautiful bill, as President Trump named it himself.
We're going to send that to his desk.
We're going to get there by Independence Day on July 4th, and we are going to celebrate a new golden age in America.
And as the Speaker said, it truly is morning in America again.
You know, when you think about all of the work that's gone into putting this bill together, it's one big, beautiful bill for a lot of reasons.
There are a lot of really important wins for the American people in this bill.
And we had 11 committees come together and meet in hearings.
Some went on over 24 hours.
Rules Committee went over 20 hours.
You had, you know, of course, the Budget Committee.
Chairman Errington is the lead author of the bill.
All of the people that had to come together in our conference, and I think a lot of you know we don't all think alike, Democrats made it very clear they didn't want to have any part in helping get America back on track again, but we were never deterred.
When this bill could have failed 10 times over, we said we were going to get this done, and failure is not an option, and we meant it.
We knew we were fighting for the families who've been struggling for way too long under the failed policies of Joe Biden and all the Democrats who did have control of Washington for too long.
We watched higher interest rates and higher inflation and lower wages and a demise of the American dream that we knew should not be permanent, but was only going to turn around if we passed a bill to get America back on track.
We knew we had to prevent a massive tax increase, so we put it in the bill.
We knew we needed to secure America's border, as President Trump ran on all across this country and won the election on, and we put it in this bill.
We ran on and said we would produce more American energy, and we put it in this bill.
All the things that we knew we needed to do to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in government, focus on those families who are struggling.
All of that is in this one big, beautiful bill.
And yes, now the House has come together and passed this bill against all odds, but we're still working on the rest of the process.
Still goes to the Senate.
Senate has a lot of work to do too.
That's why we've been talking to the Senate for a long time, but it's their turn to take this bill and move forward.
But I'll tell you, none of this would be possible without the leadership of President Trump, who every step of the way not only laid out the vision, ran a campaign on this vision, but every step of the way too said, whatever you need, let me know.
And he was there to help us.
Our great speaker, Mike Johnson, who was never deterred, probably hasn't slept in a few days, but never wavered in his commitment to get this done.
And this whole team has come together.
And our WIP has never relented and never stopped pushing to get this done.
With that, I bring up our great majority whip, Tom Emmer.
On November 5th, the American people rejected the failed policies of the Biden-Harris administration and overwhelmingly endorsed President Trump's America First Agenda.
Using his executive authority, President Trump hit the ground running on day one to deliver on the promises he made to the American people.
Today, House Republicans followed suit.
Our one big, beautiful bill fulfills the mandate for change we were given last November.
It allows President Trump to continue his successful border security and deportation operations by investing in more border patrol agents and ICE officers, funding the continuation of the border wall, and equipping our men and women on the front lines with the tools they need to keep us safe.
Not only will the one big beautiful bill help to make America safe again, it will also help to make America wealthy again.
America's economic revival has already begun under President Trump's leadership, but House Republicans back it up in this bill by making the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent, eliminating tax on tips and overtime, and throwing out regulations that burden American businesses and suffocate American innovation.
From promoting the safety and security of our great nation and giving much-needed tax relief to American families to unleashing American energy and bringing accountability to important government programs, there are wins in this bill for every corner of America.
Take this as a lesson: don't bet against the House Republicans.
We've shown time and time again that we deliver for the American people, especially when it matters most.
By taking hold of this historic opportunity, I truly believe we've unlocked the opportunities for generations to come.
With that, I turn it over to our conference chair, Lisa McLaren.
All right, you've heard from the top three Republican leaders in the House of Representatives.
They're all giving credit to President Trump for getting this domestic agenda bill over the finish line in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Again, it passed 215 to 214 with one present.
Two Republicans voted against this legislation.
David Warrenson and Thomas Massey voted no.
Andy Harris, who's the chair of the Conservative House Freedom Caucus, he voted present.
Jake Sherman of Punch Bowl News also saying it was President Trump who was key to getting this bill passed in the House of Representatives this morning.
He says the entire process was stuck until President Trump got involved yesterday.
As you know, the President made a trip to Capitol Hill this week to meet with House Republicans behind closed doors and the White House yesterday putting out a statement that if anybody voted against this, any Republican who voted against it, it would be the ultimate betrayal.
We're getting your reaction to action here this morning in the House of Representatives.
They've pulled an all-nighter to get this across the finish line.
The legislation now goes to the Senate where there will be debate and a vote.
And if they can approve it there without any changes, unlikely, they will get it to the president's desk.
You heard the speaker say the deadline to get this to the president's desk is 4th of July.
Rod in Eaton, Ohio, Independent.
Good morning to you, Rod.
Thanks for joining us here in the Washington Journal.
Your reaction to the vote in the House.
unidentified
Good morning, Brother.
My first reaction is: I'm happy that my congressional rep, Warren Davidson, voted against it.
And secondly, the Republicans are doing the same thing the Democrats did, hang together through thick or thin, hell or high water, no matter what.
Got to support the man in charge.
It's all just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
I bet there's only a handful of the reps that even know what's contained in that thousand-plus-page tome.
And there could be anything buried in there that amounted to one page, half a page, ten pages that no one even knows.
So they're just yeah, all right, Rod.
So, and that, you know, Rod, let me ask you because you're an independent.
Have you voted for President Trump in any of the recent elections?
unidentified
Yes, I have.
I voted for Trump in the last election.
That's basically the lesser of the two evils.
Because if you don't vote or you vote for a third-party candidate, the way our Constitution is set up with the Electoral College, it's a wasted vote.
Now, maybe your conscience may be clear voting for a third-party candidate, but that was mainly the lesser of the two evils overall because I thought what was going on, the road that the Democrats are going down, you know, it wasn't going to get any better.
So, Rod, this morning, do you regret your vote for the president?
unidentified
No, no, I don't regret it.
Okay.
Before I vote, I'm clear in my mind what I want to do.
Like I said, if I didn't feel good about it, I either wouldn't vote or I would vote for a third-party candidate, knowing that my vote wouldn't count, but at least, but no, my conscience is clear on that.
So, why are you happy that Warren Davidson, your representative, went against his party and voted no?
unidentified
Yeah, because I'm not of the party.
When I vote, even I was registered Republican for a long time, but that doesn't mean that everything that comes down the pipe from the Republicans, I'm going to agree with.
I mean, we need, like me, I'm a consider myself just right of center overall politically.
When it comes to individual rights, I'm very liberal.
When it comes to the defense of the country and looking out for the people in this country, I'm very, very conservative.
So, if you take all that together, I wind up just right of center.
Well, number one, I don't know what's contained in it.
I don't have time like most people in this country don't have time to even read one of their favorite books they want to read, let alone sit down with a thousand pages of Mumbo Jumbo that's in basically legalese and try to figure out what the hell does that mean for me as a citizen?
Rod, one final question for you because we've got other people waiting.
Do you think that this could, this legislation, could jeopardize the Republican majority in the 2026 elections?
unidentified
Well, it's very possible.
That's another thing, Greta.
I don't know.
Everything's got a separate date.
Everything that's in that bill, who knows when it takes effect?
Like a lot of things that Trump has touted as being, look what I did, look what I did.
If you look at the dates when they take effect, it's not until either close to the end of his term or, you know, just so far down the road that who knows it may be overturned with new legislation or maybe he'll make a new executive order or something like that.
Rod in Eaton, Ohio, an independent voted for President Trump in the 2024 election, opposes this bill that was just approved by the House of Representatives.
Happy that his representative, David Warrenson, voted for, voted against this legislation.
He and along with Thomas Massey were no votes.
And as you heard him say, this bill, 1,000 pages plus, was brought before the House Rules Committee at 1 a.m. Wednesday.
C-SPAN cameras were there, and we stayed with it throughout their 21 hours of work.
They ended close to 11 p.m. yesterday and at around 1 a.m. The House of Representatives brought this piece of legislation to the floor with a manager's amendment.
And in that manager's amendment, included changes to get Republican holdouts to vote yes.
And most of them did.
Mildred, in Anderson, Indiana, Republican, let's hear from you.
What do you think, Mildred?
unidentified
I'm so proud of President Trump and all the Republicans working together.
And I did feel sorry for Kim Jeffers when he was very rude to the speaker when he calmed down.
And he made his colleagues suffer behind him.
He was so tired, the two gentlemen, I felt sorry for them.
But I am so proud of President Trump working for the people of America that we have been such in a mess for the last four years.
Biden just simply had this country in a mess.
And they expect President Trump to make everything better in two or three months when the Democrats tore it up for four years.
And so, God bless President Trump.
He is working for the people.
And I stayed up the whole night to work to watch this.
I've been a legislative analyst for 30 years here in the state of Florida, and I know very well that if they are riding in here, the GOP is riding in here on the flagship of waste, fraud, and abuse.
There's no evidence presented.
There's no documentation having been presented that that is even going on.
And they are riding this great swell of against waste, fraud, and abuse, and don't even tell us where it is, who did it, how much was it.
This is a farce.
This is a farce.
I do not support this bill.
The wealthy in this country do not need another tax reduction.
The people of Florida, the people of the United States, deserve to have a bill that continues to feed their children, give them health care, and just bring their lives to as far forward as possible.
This bill that the House just passed is going to, they will rue the day they passed this bill.
A few details from theHill.com this morning about what's in this so-called big beautiful bill.
Extends the tax cuts enacted by the president in 2017, boosts funding for the border, deportation, and national defense priorities, imposes reforms like beefed up work requirements on Medicaid that are projected to result in millions of low-income individuals losing health insurance, rolls back green energy tax incentives, and increases the debt limit by $4 trillion.
The leader of the Democratic Party, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, was on the floor closing out his side of the aisle before they went to final passage.
The leadership on both sides gets what's called a so-called magic minute, meaning while there's restricted time for the rank and file members for how long they can talk during debate, when a leadership takes the microphone on the floor of the House of Representatives, they can speak for as long as they want.
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, started at 5:34 a.m. this morning.
Congress, according to James Madison, at its best, would serve as a rival to the executive branch.
But unfortunately, our House Republican colleagues haven't followed the vision of this Madisonian version of democracy because you have consistently proven to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for Donald Trump's extreme agenda.
And the American people are paying attention.
The American people are paying attention.
So I think that when a story is told of the 119th Congress, when the votes are ultimately cast on that first Tuesday in November next year, that this day may very well turn out to be the day that House Republicans lost control of the United States House of Representatives.
The leader of the Democratic Party in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, with the closing argument earlier this morning before the House approved President Trump's tax and spending cuts bill.
$1.5 trillion in tax in spending cuts to pay for the 2017 tax cuts, along with many, many other provisions.
Hakeem Jeffries, they're arguing that this legislation will be the end of the GOP trifecta in Washington.
They control the House, the Senate, and the White House.
And they are looking to leverage that power by putting through President Trump's sweeping domestic agenda bill.
He's called it the Big Beautiful Bill, and that is the name of the legislation as well.
It goes to the Senate, where they only need a simple majority to get it to the President's desk.
The deadline for that, 4th of July.
Barbara in Washington, D.C., Independent.
Good morning.
Barbara, you've got to mute that TV.
unidentified
Okay, I am so sorry I meant to prompt Democratic.
Okay, so that is one thing I made a mistake.
I am so saddened about what happened.
This will hurt me as a senior on Medicaid or QMB and Medicare and so many others out there that had kids and had a lot of health issues.
And this is something that Trump has stirred up among his staff and the ones that knowing that if he go against his word, they will be ignored.
I don't want to say anything bad about using words that I should not use, but this will corrupt and it's a corruption with Trump and his GOP Republicans.
All right, Barbara, I'm going to move on to Randy, who's in Fairport, New York.
Randy, Democratic caller, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you for your show.
It's been very informative.
There was a point that was made yesterday that I don't think was very well discussed.
That is, because of the size of the deficit that's going to be created by this bill, that there will be automatic cuts to Medicare because of it.
And I don't know why that hadn't been a point of contention.
There was supposed to be no cuts to Medicare, but because of the size of the deficit, It's my understanding that there'll be automatic cuts that will kick in.
And no one really wants to talk about that in the Republican Party.
And no one during any of the debate that they had yesterday, and I watched a good portion of your coverage, even talked about that that's going to be the result once it's voted in and that deficit becomes so massively large that it's going to require automatic cuts to Medicare.
Randy, there were lots of numbers thrown around during this debate, to be sure.
It began with the House Rules Committee when they began their work at 1 a.m. Eastern Time and through 21 hours of debate before they finally voted this legislation to go to the floor at nearly 11 p.m. yesterday.
A lot of numbers being thrown around.
When they took it to the House floor starting at 1 a.m. this morning and up until they voted, which was close to 7 a.m. Eastern Time, again, a lot of numbers.
You heard from House Republicans and House Democrats.
Let's go to Frank Pallone, who is the ranking Democrat, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
He came to the floor and he spoke about the changes to Medicaid and Medicare.
For months, President Trump and congressional Republicans have been promising that they would not cut Medicaid or Medicare.
The reality is that Republicans are cutting both Medicaid and Medicare in this bill.
They're essentially repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act, and this bill will destroy the health care system in this country.
And it keeps getting worse with each GOP amendment.
The GOP tax scam takes health care away from at least 13.7 million Americans so they can give giant tax breaks to billionaires and big corporate interests.
It's a shameful reverse Robinhood scheme.
They're stealing from you to give to the rich.
And Republicans are stripping health care away from people by putting all sorts of burdensome and time-consuming roadblocks in the way of people just trying to get by.
The vast majority of people on Medicaid are already working.
This is not about work.
It's about burying people in so much paperwork that they fall behind and lose their health coverage.
And if someone loses their health coverage through Medicaid, this GOP tax scam also bans them from getting coverage through the ACA marketplace.
It's just one of the cruel ways that this bill sends, basically repeals the ACA and makes it more difficult for people to get affordable health insurance.
Now, I just want to say the Republican bill also makes it more difficult for states to finance their share of Medicaid costs by preventing them from implementing new provider taxes.
This will be catastrophic for states as their health care needs change over time and will force them to either increase taxes on their residents or cut health care services.
And for those of you who say it doesn't impact Medicare, the GOP tax scam will also cut Medicare.
I repeat, Medicare, and basically a $500 billion cut to Medicare because of the sequestration under the PAYGO.
And the Medicare cuts will lead to reduced access to care for seniors, longer wait times from appointments, and increased costs.
Mr. Speaker, the GOP tax scam destroys American health care system by cutting over a trillion dollars, and this bill should be defeated.
Democratic Congressman Frank Pallone, you heard him arguing because of sequestration, which was a deal made between the Biden administration and House Republicans, automatic cuts would kick in to Medicare because of the cost of President Trump's tax and spending bill.
It was approved earlier this morning, close to 7 a.m. Eastern time, and of course C-SPAN was gavel-to-gavel with the debate and the vote.
It passed 215 to 214 with one present.
We're spending today's Washington Journal getting your reaction across the country to what House Republicans have done here.
Political observers calling it a major victory for Speaker Mike Johnson and the president.
John, a longtime Republican, he says from New York, opposed, never voted for President Trump, and he's opposed to the president's so-called big beautiful bill, which is approved by the House.
It now heads to the Senate for a debate and vote.
We were showing you the arrival of the President of South Africa yesterday.
Did sit down with President Trump in the Oval Office for a lengthy discussion before the cameras, a tense one as well.
If you missed any of it, you can find it on our website at c-span.org or download our free video mobile app.
We are discussing here this morning throughout today's Washington Journal your reaction to the House of Representatives approving President Trump's tax and spending cuts bill.
It's over a thousand pages.
The House Rules Committee took it up 1 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday.
Our cameras were there, and we have stuck with this debate and vote for the last two days.
We have 220 Republicans in the House Republican Conference and lots of different opinions.
They represent very different districts around the country with very different interests.
But the principle and the philosophy is always the same.
Everybody's conservative.
We believe in limited government and we believe in individual freedom and the rule of law and peace through strength and fiscal responsibility and free markets and human dignity, the things that are all wrapped into this bill.
And so I would say there was a lot of pivotal moments.
One day I might actually write a book about the last year of my life and trying to get this thing over the line.
But I'll say, look, I'm just going to say, I give glory to God.
I mean, there's a lot of prayer that brought this together.
I'm just going to be very blunt about it.
There were a few moments over the last week when it looked like the thing might fall apart.
And I went to the little chapel over here and got on my knees and prayed that these guys would have wisdom and stamina and discernment.
And that's the secret here, and teamwork and mutual respect that everybody has for one another.
And I think that's what defines the Republican Party.
It's a great day to be an American.
It's a great day to be a Republican.
No, all the senators, every one of them have promised me they're not going to change anything in our bill.
Reese, no.
No, I was honored to be at the Senate Republican luncheon on Tuesday.
And, you know, I encourage them to remember that we have a very delicate equilibrium that we've reached on here.
A lot of work went into this to find exactly the right balance.
And you all saw how perilous that was over the last week as it developed.
And I encourage our Senate colleagues to think of this as a one-team effort, as we have, and to modify this as little as possible because it will make it easier for us to get it over the line ultimately and finished and get it to the president's desk by July 4th.
And that's a big thing.
The reason we were so aggressive, and I know some of y'all smiled and probably mocked me a little bit when I said early on we were going to do this by Memorial Day.
You didn't believe it.
I know you didn't, Rhys.
Most of you didn't.
But the reason we did that was not because out of pride of authorship or because we were trying to raise some banner.
We did it because we need to get this relief to the American people as soon as possible.
And President Trump made these promises on the campaign trail, and we did as well.
And we wanted, as Jim Jordan likes to say, we're going to do what we said we were going to do.
And that's what this bill represents.
And so the timetable is important.
We also have the debt ceiling approaching.
We've got the relief that the people need.
And the sooner they feel that relief, the better.
So we did our job, rolled up our sleeves, got it done.
We're really proud of that effort.
One more question.
unidentified
Yes?
Is there anything that the Senate might be considering in terms of changing this bill that you will not accept?
Speaker Mike Johnson and his fellow Republicans, along with reporters filing out.
Oh, nope.
It looks like he's going to take some more questions there from a gaggle of reporters before he finally goes home and apparently sleeps.
As Steve Scalise, who is his number two, said that he has had very little sleep over the last couple of days.
They are working on 24 hours plus of nonstop work, the House Republicans.
It began with the Rules Committee at 1 a.m. on Wednesday.
And C-SPAN has been along for the ride here with our cameras showing you uninterrupted.
No analysis, no interpretation of debate and vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
We stuck with the House Rules Committee for its 21 hours of work and then, of course, brought you to the Gabble-Gabble coverage when they came to the floor at 1 a.m. this morning.
Just before 7 a.m. is when that final vote took place.
And you heard Speaker Mike Johnson giving us some color of what happened.
The vote was 215 to 214 with one present.
He said two more Republicans would have voted yes.
Congressman Gabarino fell asleep, he said, in the back, and David Schweiker was too late getting his card into the machine to cast a vote.
So he said he wants to have a footnote in the history books here that says the vote would have been 217 to 214.
Two Republicans voted no against this.
David Warrenson of Ohio, Thomas Massey of Kentucky, and Andy Harris of Maryland, who's the chair of the Freedom Caucus, he voted present.
All Democrats were in opposition.
We're getting your reaction here on the Washington Journal as we do every morning here, a conversation with the American people about what is happening here in Washington.
In Bridgeton, New Jersey, Republican praising his party for pushing the president's tax and spending cuts bill over the finish line.
They were able to do so with a manager's amendment.
It included concessions to Republican holdouts.
Here are some of the details.
It lifted the SALT cap, that's the mortgage deduction cap, to $40,000 for people making under $500,000.
It triggered work requirements for Medicaid recipients to start at the end of 2026 rather than 2029.
It accelerated phase-out of IRA, that's the Inflation Reduction Act, clean energy credits.
This passed under the Biden administration.
Republicans not happy with many of those clean energies, and they wanted to get rid of them.
Lowered remittance tax rate from 5% to 3.5%.
Provided an additional $12 billion to reimburse states for border security and renamed new savings accounts for kids from MAGA accounts to Trump accounts.
That's from Punch Bowl News and Politico's reporting this morning.
What do you think of passage of this bill in the House of Representatives?
unidentified
Well, you know, I was raised a Democrat until I was disenfranchised by government, I guess.
You'd call me an independent.
But when Trump was elected the first time, I started to see things that kind of made more sense to me.
He kind of outed the government, I guess I could say.
But then when Biden came along, I was shocked that people supported him after seeing all that, well, let's call it this.
I watched MSNBC, I watched Fox News, and now I am deciding after those four years that maybe I am a Republican for the simple fact that you listen to all the media and you don't really know what to think or how to interpret it.
So I believe the House passed it, but now we have to wait for the Senate.
And now people are speculating what's going to happen.
I think we wait and see and change what's going to happen in the next election.
All right, Greg, well, let me pick up on that point from Punch Bowl's reporting.
There's still a long way to go.
The Senate will have to take up this legislation and pass it, with a potential debt default looming in August.
Senate Republicans are expected to remake the bill, especially the tax cut package.
President Trump will be in the middle of all of that.
If and when that happens, Speaker Johnson and President Trump would then face the prospect of once again muscling the revised package through the House in a couple of months with the same three-seat margin, this time with the debt limit clock ticking.
There are two things we'll be watching when this goes to the Senate: changes to Medicaid and the Inflation Reduction Act.
The gutting of those clean energy credits will be the subject of intense lobbying in the coming weeks and months.
That is what is happening next here in Washington as the House of Representatives, after polling an all-nighter, were able to approve 215 to 214 with one present President Trump's tax and spending bill.
Paul in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Republican Paul.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I've been listening for about 45 minutes, and every time I do that, my brain gets scrambled because I want to answer so many things that I've heard on the phone, but I'll try to keep this simple because I'll never be able to cover it in two minutes.
The people who seem to be objecting so much seem to be in the Medicare and Medicaid area.
Get Honest About Economics00:03:41
unidentified
And they say that honesty isn't being shown by the Republicans.
Why don't those people be honest also and acknowledge that leaders of both parties have acknowledged that there is waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid system.
So let's do get honest, okay, and admit that that's a fact.
Now, the economics of this package are going to play out, and I have no doubt the American people will be very, very happy with the way it's done.
What the Republicans have done is create an engine that will drive us out of the deficit quicksand that we're in right now by increasing by creating an incentive for production, which will lower inflation, create more jobs, and also, believe it or not, create more taxes to pay down the deficit.
What about arguments, the arguments that we heard from Thomas Massey, Republican from Kentucky, who voted no and has voiced his opposition all along because he called it a debt bomb?
unidentified
A debt bomb.
Okay.
So if you want a new engine to drive you out of something, you've got to buy it.
And there may be some initial increase in the deficit, but you have to have that engine.
You can't just sit in tax and regulation quicksand and get out of this.
You've got to drive out of it.
And that's what the Republicans are doing.
They're going to drive this economy out of this deficit problem.
And one other thing, too, is these automatic cut that people want to talk about so much, that's going to be taken care of through efficiency in the system.
There won't be a red dime that goes to an individual taxpayer that will be cut.
Not a red dime.
It's going to be taken care of the inefficiency and fraud that's in the system.
Yeah, it'll be cut.
But there's waste, fraud, and abuse that needs to be cut, people.
We're taking your questions and your comments, your reaction, that is, to the marathon debate that happened in the House with a final vote early this morning.
Democrats, you dial in at 202-748-8000.
Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
We're going to take a short break.
unidentified
we come back, we'll pack, we'll pick back up with our conversation with all of you in a nation divided, a rare moment of unity.
This fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins.
In a town where partisan fighting prevails, one table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground.
This fall, ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN.
Sunday on C-SPAN's Q&A, travel writer Rick Steves talks about his 1978 journey along the hippie trail and the 60,000-word journal he kept of the trip, which he recently published as a book.
During the 3,000-mile trek, the then 23-year-old Steves and a friend visited Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal.
He recalls the people he met along the way, the challenges of traveling in foreign countries in the 1970s, and the lifelong impact the trip had on him.
On November 17, 2002, 23 years ago, Rich Atkinson appeared on the Book Notes television program to discuss his book, Army at Dawn.
This was the first of three books Atkinson called The Liberation Trilogy, a full history of the European theater of World War II, which is a total of 2,512 pages, including notes and indexes.
Beginning in 2019, Rick Atkinson switched trilogies.
This time, it's the history of the American Revolution.
In this episode of Book Notes Plus, we are repeating the 2002 interview, which has substantial background on Rick Atkinson's life and writing experience.
Speaker Mike Johnson has scored a major victory this morning.
House Republicans have approved on a party line vote President Trump's tax and spending cuts bill.
Close to 7 a.m. Eastern Time on a vote of 215 to 214 with one present.
The House approved the legislation that would cut $1.5 trillion in spending and make permanent President Trump's 2017 tax cuts.
The battle is not over because the Senate needs to take up this legislation and they can approve it with a simple majority, meaning they don't have to have the 60-vote filibuster threshold because they are proceeding with this legislation under reconciliation.
If the Senate passes it and if there are no changes, it could go to the president's desk.
Changes are expected though, and then it will have to go back to the House.
And Speaker Mike Johnson will have to pray again.
He said this morning that throughout the last few days and weeks, he frequently knelt down in prayer and hoping that he could score this victory and get it over the finish line.
The speaker also told us that the vote actually would have been 217 to 214.
Two Republicans missed their chance.
One of them was Congressman Gabarino.
He fell asleep.
Here's Jake Sherman of Punch Bowl News with a quote from Gaborino's office.
After sitting through proceedings all night, the congressman briefly stepped out and inadvertently missed the vote.
He was present throughout the lead up to the legislation's consideration and fully intended to support it.
This is one of many reasons why governing should happen in the light of day, not in the dead of night.
David Schweikert also missed the vote.
He said he would have voted yes.
He put his card into the machine on the House floor in the remaining seconds, but just missed casting his vote for yes.
And both of them said that they will then go on record saying they would have voted yes.
All the Democrats opposed it along with two Republicans, David Warrenson of Ohio, Thomas Massey of Kentucky.
They all voted, those two voted no.
And Andy Harris of Maryland, who chairs the Conservative Freedom Caucus, he voted present.
Now it's your turn to tell these lawmakers what you think about this vote.
Let's go to Meryl, who's in Pomona, New York, an independent.
Marilyn, New York, 63 years old, I believe she said, pulled two all-nighters.
She was up with House Rules, she said, watching Wednesday morning when they started at 1 a.m. Eastern time.
They worked for 21 hours to debate and then finally vote on a final passage of the legislation.
It included a manager's amendment with changes to try to get, and most successfully Republicans did, GOP holdouts.
You heard from about Republicans who were not going to vote yes for this.
There were different factions within the party, moderate Republicans, conservatives, who were threatening to vote no.
And in the end, it was only two Republicans who voted no.
C-SPAN has been there for the debate, the amendments that were offered.
There were 500, almost 500 amendments before the Rules Committee.
That's what took the Rules Committee hours and hours to do their work before it was then brought to the floor at 1 a.m. this morning.
And as the clock approached 7 a.m., House Republicans were successful in their bid to pass President Trump's tax and spending bill.
What was in that manager's amendment?
It lifted the mortgage deduction from up to $40,000 for people making under $500,000.
It triggered work requirements for Medicaid recipients to start at the end of 2026 rather than 2029.
It accelerated phase-out of the Inflation Reduction Act clean energy credits.
It also lowered remittance tax rate from 5% to 3.5%, provided an additional $12 billion to reimburse states for border security, and it renamed new savings accounts for kids from mega accounts to Trump accounts.
Those are some of the details.
Of course, the legislation, over 1,000 pages.
All of our coverage can be found on our website online on demand at c-span.org or our free video mobile app.
Before we go back to calls, let's go to the debate on the House floor.
Thomas Massey, one of two Republicans who voted no, argued this was a debt bomb.
Well, I'd love to stand here and tell the American people we can cut your taxes and we can increase spending and everything's going to be just fine.
But I can't do that because I'm here to deliver a dose of reality.
This bill dramatically increases deficits in the near term, but promises our government will be fiscally responsible five years from now.
Where have we heard that before?
How do you bind a future Congress to these promises?
This bill is a debt bomb ticking.
Congress can do funny math, fantasy math, if it wants, but bond investors don't.
And this week, they sent us a message.
Moody's downgraded our credit rating, and the bond investors who buy our debt and finance our debt demanded higher interest rates on the 10-year note, the 20-year note, and the 30-year note.
What does this mean?
Very soon, the government will be paying $16,000 of interest, interest alone per U.S. family.
And what are we telling them?
Instead of taking care of that problem, we're going to give you a $1,600 tax break.
Under the taxing and spending levels in this bill, we're going to rack up the authors say $20 trillion of new debt over the next 10 years.
I'm telling you, it's closer to $30 trillion of new debt in the next 10 years.
Mr. Speaker, we're not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic tonight.
We're putting coal in the boiler and setting a course for the iceberg.
If something is beautiful, if something is beautiful, you don't do it after midnight.
Thomas Massey, Republican of Kentucky, one of two GOP lawmakers who voted against President Trump's tax and spending bill.
It ultimately was passed on a narrow margin, 215 to 214, with one present.
Reese Gorman, who reports for notice, saying that someone started playing We Are the Champions over on the House Republican side as they voted on this so-called one big beautiful bill.
That was on the floor earlier, close to 7 a.m. Eastern Time, and C-SPAN was there with our coverage.
They started playing We Are the Champions.
You also heard chants of USA coming from the Republicans as well.
Speaker Mike Johnson given a victory here as they approve the president's domestic agenda and send it over to the Senate.
The speaker getting very little sleep along with reporters and many, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over the past 36, almost 36 hours.
Nicole in Michigan, Democratic caller.
unidentified
Yes, hello.
I would like to respond to a caller a while ago that said that he was talking about where this bill was going, and I was impressed by what he said.
From what I understand, there's many short-term benefits in this bill, such as no tax on tips and overtime and certain Social Security numbers.
There's a bigger standard deduction.
Plus, you know, there's something happening to keep the gas prices low.
That's going to make us all feel good, you know, while we're paying more for everything else.
I had speculated a while ago that this administration's remedy to the tariffs was going to be a big fat check to all of us, and that's kind of what it seems like right now.
You can't replace the lack of revenue that this bill is going to cause.
Michael Schnell, who reports for The Hill, tweets out that a quote here from Virginia Fox, who is the chair of the Rules Committee, 80-some years old, and she was heading up that marathon session in the Rules Committee.
Here's a quote from her.
I told him I'm going to nominate him for sainthood because he's now done many miracles here as Speaker.
Raleigh in California, Independent.
Raleigh, let's hear from you.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
I've never been affiliated with any party.
I don't believe in it.
I believe you should pay attention to everyone and you should vote your conscience.
I'm appalled at what our government has come to.
There are three branches of government, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.
They don't have the numbers because we have a country full of idiots that are followers that are buying in to whatever comes out of the mouth of a habitual liar.
He hasn't followed through on any of the things he said that benefit us.
He's going to run this country into the ground.
He's trying to turn it into a dictatorship.
I'm so appalled.
That managers that they put in at the last minute.
Raleigh from California and Independent, she says, in opposition to the President Republicans' agenda, the agenda move forward with a vote early this morning, 215 to 214.
It's a sweeping piece of legislation on the president's domestic agenda.
It has been approved in the House, but it still has to go to the Senate, where they only need a simple majority to get it through.
If there are changes, it has to go back to the House.
And Speaker Johnson needs to pull off another vote again if that happens before the President could sign it.
And they want him to do so by 4th of July.
Kevin in Mount Erie, Maryland, Democratic Caller.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'd like to thank you for being on the air and give everybody an opportunity to speak their mind.
You are very nondiscriminatory in that regard.
I don't understand why the conversation of a flat tax isn't brought up.
It seems like every problem could be taken care of if there was just a simple flat tax.
Everybody pays their fair share.
If you have a less than livable income, maybe you get relief.
But I do believe that the fact that Trump keeps saying he has a mandate is just completely false.
There are 73 million people who did not vote for him, and they seem to be kicked off to the side of the road.
And it just doesn't seem fair.
And I'm curious how Representative Johnson can pray to his God for all the misgivings that this bill is doing to those in need.
Who is their God?
The Republicans need an off-ramp so that some of the more respectable humans, compassionate humans, have an opportunity to speak their mind and not have to fear reprisal.
Kevin, referring to what he heard from Speaker Johnson after this bill was approved, Speaker Johnson, along with other leaders of the Republican Party and rank-and-file members after no sleep, went before the cameras once again and reporters to highlight their victory and talk about the passage.
And we heard the speaker say that he prayed many times at the little chapel he said up there on Capitol Hill that this legislation would go through.
You heard the speaker on the floor in his closing arguments invoke God then as well.
And Virginia Fox says that she would nominate him for sainthood.
We're getting your reaction to what the House Republicans have pulled off here this morning in the early hours after pulling an all-nighter to get the bill to the floor for a vote.
This is how you can join the conversation.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
You can text if you'd like at 202-748-8003.
We heard that caller talk about the tax portions of this legislation.
I want to go back to the debate earlier this morning around 4 a.m. when Representative Linda Sanchez, Democrat of California, talked about the tax cuts in this piece of legislation.
unidentified
The bill that we are debating this morning is an insult to every American who works for a living.
American families are struggling.
Under President Trump and Republican leadership, they've seen nothing but chaos.
Prices for everyday necessities like food, clothing, diapers, and formula keep rising because of Trump's tariffs.
Great Job, Painful Losses00:06:11
unidentified
Premiums for health insurance, car insurance, and housing are going up, making it harder to make ends meet.
Americans are worried about their future.
People are afraid about losing their jobs, their health care, student aid, and food assistance.
And this bill brings that pain.
Almost 14 million people will lose their health care coverage under this Republican bill.
And for what?
So billionaires can get even richer while the rest of us drown in debt.
This is outrageous.
Republicans are doling out tax cuts for the wealthiest while destroying the means of survival for hardworking families.
This bill assaults those seeking the American dream by stealing tax benefits and services from working people who are paying taxes.
It would deny the child credit to 2 million children who live in the United States.
Here's an idea.
How about you start working for the people that you represent, not your wealthy daughters?
But I guess that's asking too much from people who have lost their moral compass.
If the Trump tax cuts expire in the Congresswoman's district, 95,070 of California 38 families would see their household child tax credit slash in half.
From the debate earlier this morning, the House Republicans and Democrats squaring off over President Trump's tax and spending cut bill, ultimately, Republicans were the victor and they approved it 215 to 214.
More from that debate, let's go and hear from Nicole Maliotakis, Republican of New York.
In this bill, we are providing real tax relief for hardworking Americans, for middle-class families, for us senior citizens, not the billionaires like the Democrats claim.
We increase the state and local tax deduction, the standard deduction, the child tax credit.
The last two would be cut in half if we take no action today.
We provide tax relief by including my legislation to provide a bonus deduction to reduce the taxes that our seniors pay on their Social Security income.
We fulfill President Trump's commitment to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime, and we stop the return of the alternative minimum tax that crushed middle-class families.
We allow Americans to fully deduct auto loan interest on their American-made vehicles, and we help young graduates with student loan debt get reimbursed by their employers tax-free.
All of that is for working-class, middle-class, not billionaires.
We also make sure that this bill keeps our borders secure and funds the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants, and we increase and strengthen domestic energy production and security, and we safeguard Medicaid for our seniors, for our disabled, for our children with disabilities.
And we crack down on the fraudsters by targeting waste, fraud, and abuse.
The Democrats can continue to fight for the fraudsters.
They continue to fight for the illegal immigrants, but we're going to deliver for the working families, middle-class, and senior citizens.
After a sleepless night, the floor debate in the House of Representatives and final vote for President Trump's tax and spending cuts bill.
It was approved at 2.15 to 2.14 with one present, close to 7 a.m. Eastern Time.
C-SPAN was gabble-to-gavel, of course, with our coverage of the House of Representatives.
President Trump has posted on Truth Social this morning, close to 8.30 a.m. Eastern Time, the one big, beautiful bill has passed the House of Representatives.
This is arguably the most significant piece of legislation that will ever be signed in the history of our country.
The bill includes massive tax cuts, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, tax deductions when you purchase an American-made vehicle, along with strong border security measures, pay raises for our ICE and Border Patrol agents, funding for the Golden Dome, Trump savings accounts for newborn babies, and much more.
Great job by Speaker Mike Johnson and the House leadership.
And thank you to every Republican who voted yes on this historic bill.
Now it's time for our friends in the U.S. Senate to get to work and send this bill to my desk as soon as possible.
There is no time to waste.
The bill does head to the upper chamber next, where there will be debate and vote, and more than likely, according to news reports, changes to the underlying legislation.
And then if those changes take place, it has to go back to the House for another round of debate and vote.
Linda, let's hear from you in Harlan, Kentucky, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
I am so very proud of our Republican Party.
I was up all night.
I enjoyed every minute of it.
And I'm thankful to God that we have Mike as Speaker of the House and Trump and his great team that put this bill together.
Thank you and C-SPAN for putting all of this out there live and uninterrupted.
I watched most of all day yesterday, but God bless the 88-year-old woman who could stay up all night because I fell asleep.
But I watched the vote, so God bless her.
Yeah, I have been a long time registered Democrat.
I did vote for Trump in this last election.
With respect to your recent caller, Rolena, I strongly disagree with her comments regarding the Trump administration and what he is doing.
He is literally putting Americans first, and he is resetting the world stage.
And with that, tariffs are helping to reset that world stage because other countries have been taking advantage of us for way too long.
And so I strongly disagree with that.
Her comment about, which I believe was about the South African president yesterday who was in the Oval Office, which I watched, you know, the fact is, you know, he pointed out exactly what's going on.
And my reasoning for voting for Trump, I did not vote for him in the first term.
I did vote for Biden.
But my reasoning for voting for Trump was not only watching his rallies, but when I saw that, now I was a legacy media watcher all my life, CNN, MSNBC, you know, the whole group there, NBC, et cetera.
I started to watch Newsmax last year.
And when I saw Biden go on stage for that presidential debate, and I saw how bad he looked, and I kept following Newsmax, and I could tell there was something wrong with him.
And I have to question now who really was running our country the past four years and who was the autopen.
Well, Mona, this is from Jake Sherman, who covers Capitol Hill, a veteran reporter and co-founder of Punch Bowl News, saying he has a quote here from Gabarino.
After sitting through proceedings all night, the congressman briefly stepped out and inadvertently missed the vote.
He was present throughout the lead up to the legislation's consideration and fully intended to vote yes.
And he goes on to write, This is why you should not legislate in the dead of night.
We'll go to Jeffrey in Burbank, Illinois, Independent.
So, you know, I'm, you know, I'm watching the debates and I see the Democrats doing all these theatrics and shaking their fist at the sky.
And, oh, the Republicans are going to do this and that.
And you know what?
I remember years ago, everybody was saying, you know what, we're going to run out of money for Medicaid and Medicare.
We're going to be broke.
There's too much going on.
There's too much going out.
I didn't see them lift a finger when 11 million, 15 million, 16 million people were pouring over the border, and they were putting those people on those same programs.
I didn't see them do a single thing about that.
They weren't worried about it then when they thought they were bringing in 20 million new Democratic voters.
And now, all of a sudden, when somebody, I don't care if it was Trump or a Democrat or Bernie Sanders, somebody's going to make a change and a real change to the system.
And now, oh, it's the end of the world.
Everybody's, you know, it's the end of the world.
He's a Nazi.
But we needed this because it was doomed no matter what.
It was doomed.
It was too much.
So they had to make the changes.
And the one other point I wanted to make: you know, I hear, you know, these people are calling in and saying, oh, Trump is mistreating our allies, our friends.
Quick little story.
When I was a youngster, I worked all the time.
Always had money.
I had a lot of friends.
They used to come over all the time, drink my booze, eat my food, as long as I had money.
I was the only one with a car.
Took them all over the place.
They always came to me.
I got injured on the job.
No more money.
And you know what happened to all those friends?
All those friends that I had?
They stopped coming over.
They never called.
They never even checked on me.
They never did a single thing to help me.
And that reminds me of what America is going through right now with all these other countries that come here with their hand out.
Mexico, our ally, they allowed hundreds of thousands of tons of fentanyl, kill half a million people.
Canada got their hand in our pocket.
And a guy from South Africa is one of the leading human rights violators, second only to China.
Jeffrey there in Burbank, Illinois, with his thoughts about this legislation getting approved over the finish line after an all-nighter in the House of Representatives.
They brought the thousand-page plus bill to the floor around 1 a.m. Eastern time.
And nearly six hours later, final passage occurred, 2:15 to 2:14 with one voting present.
We're getting your reaction here this morning on the Washington Journal: a conversation with all of you about what you think about lawmakers approving this bill and what happens next.
The Senate has to take it up.
They will likely make changes and then it has to go back to the House again.
Republicans want the president to sign this into law by the 4th of July weekend.
You heard the caller talk about Democrats and the arguments that they made on the floor.
I rise in opposition to this bill and in support of America's working families, families who are trying to provide health care to feed their children to secure their future.
My Republican colleagues continue hiding under the cover of darkness as we sit here at almost 5 a.m. in the morning wrapping up.
The largest cut ever to Medicaid, 14 million losing health care, the largest cut ever to fighting child hunger, adding $5 trillion to the nation's debt, all to line the pockets of Trump's super-rich family and friends.
Just yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office assessed that the bottom 10% of taxpayers will be poorer because of this bill, while the top 10% will get richer.
Not only that, the CBO determined that the Republican plan to explode the deficit will trigger mandatory cuts to Medicare totaling $500 billion.
My Republican colleagues are attempting to hide the truth of this bill because they know the pain it will inflict on American families.
This is not one beautiful bill.
It's one awful deal for the country.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill.
Stand up for your constituents who will be worse off if this bill passes.
Brad Schneider, Democrat of Illinois, talking this morning around 5 a.m. Eastern Time before that final vote took place.
More from the Republicans.
Kevin Hearn, who is in Republican leadership, heads up the Republican Study Committee.
He too came to the floor and argued in favor of the bill.
unidentified
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this one big, beautiful bill.
The American people have heard a lot of lies about this bill.
The left and their friends in the media have settled for demagoguing and fear-mongering to try to stop President Trump from delivering on his promises to the American people.
Fortunately for all of us, the bill that they conjured up just simply doesn't exist.
What does exist is a bill that champions working-class families, it strengthens the middle class and provides much-needed support to small businesses.
It's thanks to President Trump's leadership on this big, beautiful bill that we have something we can all be proud of.
I'd like to thank all of the committees and the chairs who worked on this legislation, but in particular, our chairman of the Ways and Means, Jason Smith, who knew two years ago that this might happen, this might occur.
And we've been exactly in this position, and he spent those years ensuring our committee was prepared, educated, and empowered to be ambassadors for the president's tax policies.
I urge my colleagues to vote yes, and I yield back.
Oklahoma Republican Kevin Hearn on the floor from earlier today.
Shirley, in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, a Republican.
Shirley, what do you think of your party?
unidentified
Oh, I am 100% Republican, and I'm proud of them.
But this morning, and I want to thank you for taking my call as well.
The thing about this is, you know, President Ronald Reagan, President Ronald Reagan was very, very good as our president, and everybody looks at him as the best one we ever had.
But I know Trump is going to come right there with him because of what all he's been able to do.
Now, the only thing I want to say is this: Trump promised, and I'm out there at those polls, I'm committee here in Lawrence County with the Republican Party, and I'm at those polls 11 and 12-hour days for the candidate of my choice, and it's always Trump when he's running.
But I just want to say this: he promised no tax for tips overtime and no tax for Social Security.
Now, I did not hear that.
I'm upset because I'm 86 years old and I live on $1,642 a month.
I want to know what are they going to do for the senior citizens.
President Trump, I love you.
I know you're doing a good job.
You're doing a wonderful job.
But you need to remember that the senior citizens in this country need help.
She's wondering about the no tax for Social Security.
If that was, the President had promised that, if that's included in this final bill that was approved earlier this morning here in Washington in the House of Representatives.
She also spoke about no tax on tips.
The President on the campaign trail spoke about that frequently and promised that.
Steve Scalise, who is the Republican from Louisiana and the majority leader in the House, he was on the floor earlier today talking about how that was included in this final version.
You know, one of the great new provisions of this bill that President Trump campaigned on, that Chairman Smith made sure to deliver on, was no tax on tips.
Now, the last time I checked, Elon Musk does not get paid in tips.
But you know who does?
A lot of hardworking people across this country.
Any restaurant you go to, talk to the waiters and waitresses.
Ask them about their hopes and dreams.
Ask them about their families and what would they do with just a little bit more money in their paycheck.
Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that big provision that every Democrat is going to vote against, the average tip worker makes $32,000 a year.
And every Democrat will vote no on that benefit while they hide behind the lie of the millionaires and the billionaires.
Because they know that's not the case, but they also know if they're going to vote against every hardworking waiter and waitress who averages $32,000 a year.
How do they get away with it?
They've got to create some fake boogeyman that they can point to and say, gee whiz, looking there over there.
As if class warfare dividing Americans is their way to try to get more power in Washington.
How about we give people in America more power, take it away from Washington, empower the people in this country who have been struggling for too long.
If you want to live the American dream, it can still exist.
For a lot of people, they thought it was going away.
President Trump ran and said, I will renew that promise.
Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, there on the no tax on tips promise from President Trump delivering that, he says, in this so-called big beautiful bill that was approved by the House earlier this morning.
From Huffington Post, this is from Tuesday.
Trump is already reneging on his no tax on Social Security promise.
He also said that on the campaign trail from their reporting, and we will learn more as this bill was just passed, it says that President Trump and his congressional allies are offering Social Security recipients a mere fraction of the financial benefit they have been promising since last year.
Instead of making Social Security benefits tax-free, House Republicans have now included in their spending and tax plan a new $4,000 tax deduction for seniors, which translates into an actual cash benefit of less than $500 for most retirees.
We'll look for more news coverage on that this morning here in the Washington Journal as we continue with a conversation with all of you.
Your reaction to House Republicans approving the president's tax and spending cuts bill, Dave and Lynchburg, Virginia and Independent.
Dave, what do you think?
unidentified
I think I'm disappointed but not surprised.
You know, President Bankruptcy always made his money on the backs of others, always complained about illegal immigrants, but employed them in his businesses so he can make more money for him.
I, too, am a former New Yorker.
I've known of Trump since the early days, years and years and years ago.
He's always been, you know, just this side of being a criminal.
And now we've got him as president.
And we have people who are leading this country who go into pray in the back room to make sure that our president does the right thing.
I just, I don't know our country anymore.
I'm very, very concerned for our grandchildren and who's going to pay off this debt.
All right, Dave and Independent, Lynchburg, Virginia, with his thoughts.
We'll go back to calls here in just a minute, but joining us from Capitol Hill this morning, Jim Costa is a Democrat of California, member of the Agriculture Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee as well.
Congressman, all the Democrats united in opposition to this bill.
Well, I think that's just a monstrosity of a bill that, frankly, doesn't play to the needs of hardworking Americans who pay their taxes and live paycheck to paycheck.
It doesn't do anything about inflation.
In fact, I think will drive inflation up, grocery prices, the cost of housing, purchasing of automobiles.
You know, the consumers of America are going to be faced with further debt, up to $4 trillion plus.
And so, well, you know, and finally, I mean, it reflects the problems with this broken budget process that we have here.
We should be working together in a bipartisan effort on what the priorities of Americans, I think, have clearly made their views heard.
I represent one of the most productive agricultural regions in the entire country, but we have a significant amount of my constituents that are food insecure.
And so when you look at the cuts in Medicaid and Medi-Cal, and you look at the cuts in SNAP for people who are food insecure, it I think is going to really be very, very difficult for a lot of people that are just, this is their safety net, and it's going to undermine it, I think, to a large degree.
And I'm very concerned.
And let me say one other thing.
Part of that health care system that we have here is dependent upon having hospitals, rural hospitals, and health care clinics in which people get their health care.
I represent the second largest hospital in California.
61% of their patients are on Medicaid and Medi-Cal.
And at Venice Health, our very large health care provider in my district, and they're looking at significant cuts that they will have to make if this measure becomes law.
So, you know, those are my concerns.
And then driving the deficit up, when the president was last in office, he increased the deficit by 25% of the current debt that we're in.
You're seeing the reaction to the bond markets today and to the stock market where people have their investments and retirement systems.
And I think, you know, signs are by leading economists that this is going to increase inflation and drive this solid economy off the road into the ditch.
When I was going to university and preparing for my exams at Fresno State, go Bulldogs.
And also, I'm a third generation farmer and still farm in the San Joaquin Valley.
And my family had a dairy, and those cows have to be milked twice a day, 365 days a year.
So I did a lot of the night shifts over the years in my formative years.
So I'm not unaccustomed to this, but it's not the way we should not be passing legislation in the middle of the night.
I mean, we could have easily brought this up this morning, and the American people could have listened to the debate.
It's part of this broken process that we have today, and we need to fix it so that we have total transparency and Americans can see exactly what the work product is, not from 1 o'clock in the morning till 5.30 in the middle of the night.
We had several viewers this morning, Congressman, tell us they stayed up all night long watching here on C-SPAN because they wanted to hear it for themselves, the debate.
Again, when you do a reconciliation process that is totally partisan, you know, you relegate the other party to the sidelines and you don't get the sort of balanced approach and the compromises on some of these difficult issues.
The Senate, I will guarantee you, will make changes.
They will be significant changes.
And whether or not they're able to do that during the month of June and get this over back to the House in July, many of the senators have talked about wanting to change the Medicaid, the health care cuts that are being made.
They also, let me give you this factory.
I mean, the amount of money that we pay in this budget for the interest on our debt is far higher than the amount that is set aside for national defense spending or Social Security.
And the debt is a real problem.
And, you know, the last time we really addressed it properly was during the Clinton administration when Republicans and Democrats worked together.
And we decreased the deficit for four years consecutively.
And that's what we've got to do here.
Republicans and Democrats need to work together.
But if that doesn't happen in the reconciliation process, I think we're going to see whatever changes the Senate decides to make will be very different, I think, than the bill that passed the House this morning.
And then we'll see whether or not the efforts that Speaker Johnson made to try to thread the needle, which by one vote, whether or not that he's able to keep that support together with the changes that the Senate makes, and they will make changes.
Congressman Jim Costa, Democrat of California, we thank you after an all-nighter in the House of Representatives for joining us this morning to give us your perspective.
We are here live in Washington on the Washington Journal this morning, hours after the House of Representatives approved President Trump's tax and spending cuts bill.
As you heard from the congressman, a narrow vote, 215 to 214 with one present.
All the Democrats voted no, along with two Republicans.
The one present vote was by Andy Harris, who heads up the Conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Two other Republicans who say they would have voted yes.
They missed the vote.
One fell asleep and one was just seconds late from putting his voting card into the machine on the floor of the House.
You saw it all here on C-SPAN as we were gabble-to-gavel with the debate and the vote.
It started on Wednesday morning at 1 a.m. Eastern Time with House rules.
C-SPAN cameras were there too for their 21 hours of work.
You can find all of this debate and the vote on our website, online, on demand at c-span.org or our free video mobile app.
Here on the Washington Journal, we are taking your calls, getting your reaction to action by House Republicans to push forward on the so-called big beautiful bill.
The congressman there noted the bond markets, the headlines.
Yesterday, bond market warns Trump Congress on dangers of swelling deficit.
They write on Wednesday, they drove yields on benchmark 30-year treasuries to as high as 5.1%, leaving them just shy of a two-decade high and sparking declines in stocks and the dollar as administration officials met with Republican leaders to hammer out a deal to enact the cuts.
And a deal was made.
A manager's amendment was attached to what the rules committee was debating and voting on.
It had several changes, concessions to holdouts from the Republican Party.
The president was able to win the day after threatening a no vote would be the ultimate betrayal.
Only two Republicans did so: Thomas Massey of Kentucky, David Warrantson of Ohio, they voted no.
And again, along with Andy Harris of Maryland, he voted present.
Let's get back to calls.
Gary in Moorefield, West Virginia, Democratic caller.
Good morning to you.
Hi, Gary.
unidentified
Very good morning to you.
Yeah, this was expected.
I mean, come on.
Yeah, I don't know why anybody thought that it wouldn't go through because the Dawn put his kibosh on the whole deal.
And if anybody thinks they're not going to be hurt by it, and I heard the 88-year-old woman talk about staying up, well, you know, all you had to do was just listen to one side from the Republicans anyway.
You already knew what was going to happen when they tried to get everything all together before they brought it to the floor.
So, I mean, you know, there's nothing different.
Congressional Conflicts Over Healthcare00:13:15
unidentified
And everybody's praising the guy in the White House about, you know, taking a $400 million aircraft and going to put it in his pocket and all those little Bitcoin things.
So they're making millions of dollars so he can meet with Chinese people in the White House for a dinner and everything else.
So, I mean, you know, there's nothing new about Trump.
I'm a New Yorker myself.
I live in West Virginia now.
I don't know why.
It's a damn Republican state, but it is what it is.
And because I've got 41 grandchildren, and I feel sorry for every one of them coming up behind all of this.
My wife and I are retired.
I've got children that are on disability and that.
And, you know, they're going to get hurt by all this, unfortunately.
All right, Patrick, Patrick, noting that Speaker Mike Johnson did pray.
He said after the vote when he went before cameras that throughout these tense negotiations that he spearheaded behind closed doors with holdouts from the Republican Party, that throughout all of this, he did kneel at, quote, the little chapel, he said, up here on Capitol Hill.
And Virginia Fox, his colleague, saying that she would nominate him for sainthood because he pulled off some miracles.
That's what political observers are saying.
This is a major victory for Speaker Mike Johnson and President Trump.
It's not over, though.
The Senate gets their turn to debate and vote on the president's tax and spending cuts bill.
That will happen next.
And of course, C-SPAN will be there for gabble-to-gabble coverage on C-SPAN 2 when they bring that legislation up.
For now, though, the House of Representatives, they have left town, gabbled out, and they are back.
They are on their way back home after pulling a couple of all-nighters, starting with House rules, at 1 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, 1 a.m. today here in Washington.
The bill came to the floor and they began debate.
The vote happened close to 7 a.m. Eastern Time, and it was 2.15 to 2.14.
One present.
Speaker Johnson says it should have been 2.17 to 214.
Two Republicans missed their opportunity to vote.
Andrew Gabbarino apparently fell asleep, according to the Speaker, and David Schweikard was just seconds too late for his yes vote.
So he wants the history record records, the books to show an asterisk next to that vote that it should have been 217 to 214.
Two Republicans opposed the president and Speaker Mike Johnson.
That was David Warrenson of Ohio and Thomas Massey of Kentucky and Andy Harris voted present.
Speaking of those GOP holdouts, some of them were Republicans from upstate New York, the so-called SALT caucus.
Those were the folks that were advocating to increase the mortgage deduction cap that was put in place during the first Trump administration.
It was capped then at 10,000.
They didn't like it then.
They didn't like it now.
They wanted it to go up.
They were successful in doing so.
Mike Lawler was one of those New York Republicans who was negotiating with the Speaker.
Here's what he had to say on the House floor earlier this morning.
Mr. Speaker, when I ran for Congress, I said I would never support a tax bill that did not adequately lift the cap on salt.
This bill does that.
It increases the cap on salt by 300%.
And I would remind my Democratic colleagues when they had full control in Washington, they lifted the cap on salt by exactly $0.
Zilch, Zip, Nada.
Not $1 of increase in tax relief for hardworking New Yorkers.
So to all my New York colleagues on the other side of the aisle, before you speak out and say that you don't support a 300% increase on the cap on salt, the fact is that this bill adequately, adequately addresses the cap on salt and provides tax relief to hardworking middle-class families.
I'm glad you explained, you elaborated more on that SALT bill because, you know, I'm a mortgage.
I have a mortgage, and it seems like the taxes just keep going up.
So that's good.
But I'm calling in because I'm really worried about the senior citizens in this company because I am a senior citizen.
I will be 67 years old in July.
But, you know, I have friends that are 10, 12 years older, and we get together every month and we talk about these issues.
It never really occurred to me when I was younger, but I'm seeing it.
I go to the nursing homes, retirement centers, and they're all just worried.
So if this bill, you know, is going to help senior citizens, then they cannot, they should not tax Medicare, right?
I mean, it just makes sense.
They should tax the rich.
I mean, how much more money can the rich be, you know, help with?
I mean, what do the, on both sides of the aisle, I was a longtime registered Democrat, but I became an independent because I'm seeing it on both sides of the aisle.
Why do the congressional members and all these people up on the hill, why do they make so much?
Why?
It doesn't make sense.
Maybe the idea, and many of them are talking about this, on both sides of that, we have friends of Republicans and Democrats, and they're asking, why take away from the poor, the disabled?
Why?
Why keep taxing us?
You know, you probably are not going to tax them.
In the middle of the night, they make these deals, you know.
And so it's like, it's no different from what Trump has done.
He's, you know, now they're scamming the senior citizens even more.
For months, President Trump and congressional Republicans have been promising that they would not cut Medicaid or Medicare.
The reality is that Republicans are cutting both Medicaid and Medicare in this bill.
They're essentially repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act, and this bill will destroy the health care system of this country.
And it keeps getting worse with each GOP amendment.
The GOP tax scam takes health care away from at least 13.7 million Americans so they can give giant tax breaks to billionaires and big corporate interests.
It's a shameful reverse Robinhood scheme.
They're stealing from you to give to the rich.
And Republicans are stripping health care away from people by putting all sorts of burdensome and time-consuming roadblocks in the way of people just trying to get by.
The vast majority of people on Medicaid are already working.
This is not about work.
It's about burying people in so much paperwork that they fall behind and lose their health coverage.
And if someone loses their health coverage through Medicaid, this GOP tax scam also bans them from getting coverage through the ACA marketplace.
It's just one of the cruel ways that this bill sends, basically repeals the ACA and makes it more difficult for people to get affordable health insurance.
Now, I just want to say the Republican bill also makes it more difficult for states to finance their share of Medicaid costs by preventing them from implementing new provider taxes.
This will be catastrophic for states as their health care needs change over time and will force them to either increase taxes on their residents or cut health care services.
And for those of you who say it doesn't impact Medicare, the GOP tax scam will also cut Medicare.
I repeat, Medicare.
And basically, a $500 billion cut to Medicare because of the sequestration under the PAYGO.
And the Medicare cuts will lead to reduced access to care for seniors, longer wait times for appointments, and increased costs.
Mr. Speaker, the GOP tax scam destroys American health care system by cutting over a trillion dollars.
That was Frank Pallone, who is the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee there, arguing on the floor earlier this morning.
Debate began at 1 a.m. Eastern Time on the floor of the House of Representatives, and C-SPAN covered the debate and vote throughout the night here on C-SPAN and c-span.org.
You also could watch along with our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW.
Many of you we heard from this morning saying you stayed up all night long, pulled an all-nighter with these members of Congress to watch so that you could hear word for word without interruption, without analysis, here on C-SPAN.
And that's what we do: cover the debate and the votes and the decision makers here in Washington.
Now, here on the Washington Journal, we turn the conversation over to you and get your reaction to the House approving Trump's tax and spending cut bill.
Let's go to Lewis in Tucson, Arizona, Independent.
Good morning to you.
unidentified
Good morning.
First of all, congratulations to those folks that refused to vote for the bill.
The two that voted no and the one that voted present.
All right, Lewis in Tucson, Arizona, an independent there.
The president did warn that any Republican who voted against this in the House would perform the ultimate betrayal, he said, a no vote.
And David Warrenson and Thomas Massey, two Republicans, they voted no.
They were opposed to the bill.
And Andy Harris of Maryland, who heads up the Freedom Caucus, he voted present.
What does this legislation do?
From the Washington Post, extends the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
They are tax cuts for individuals of nearly all income levels, concentrating most of the benefits among the wealthiest earners and corporations.
The business tax cuts are permanent, but the individual portions expire at the end of the year, meaning that if Congress doesn't act, taxes rates will go up on most households.
The Republican bill would extend the lower rates for individuals.
It increases the standard deduction.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doubled the standard deduction.
The baseline amount of income filers can collect tax-free.
This legislation would preserve that policy and add to it for the next four years, increasing the deduction by up to $2,000 for married couples filing jointly and $1,000 for single-filers to $32,000 for couples and $16,000 for individuals.
To meet budget goals, Republican plan to cut Medicaid spending.
It could strip coverage from 8.7 million people and lead to 7.6 million more uninsured people over 10 years.
The legislation calls for new work requirements for beneficiaries, including co-pays for those above 100% of the federal poverty level and work requirements for many able-bodied, childless adults.
Those are some of the provisions in this 1,000-plus page bill.
Dennis in Horn Lake, Mississippi, Republican.
Dennis, let's hear from you.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yes, ma'am.
I just want to say there's such hate in the Democrat Party and even in the Independents.
They have hate.
But in the name of Jesus, I believe in the power of the living God.
I called my best friend and we had prayer that God would approve this bill.
And he answered my prayer.
And I wanted to say, praise God, praise God, praise God for all that Mr. Trump is doing.
The transparency that he is involved in is so incredible.
I love this president.
I love this world in this Republican belief in the name of Jesus.
They just, Brent, you mean early this morning because it started at 1 a.m. Thursday.
unidentified
Yes, I mean early this morning.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
And one of my points was going to be about the increase in the bonds, which you already covered pretty well.
But I would remind everybody, say, well, Republicans, that you need to check your facts because actually, every time the debt and the deficit has gone up in this country, it's been when Republicans were in control.
Every time the economy got better in this country, it's when we had a president that was a Democrat.
So, can I ask you, Brent, because you were going to talk about the bonds.
Are you watching the markets here?
We're about 11 minutes away, less than that, nine minutes away from 11 minutes.
unidentified
From what I've seen so far, it looks like they're going to be significantly dropping.
But, you know, it's not good when the bond market goes up.
But back to my point about the debt and the deficit, you know, when, like I said, when Republicans aren't in power and Democrats are actually trying to do legislation that will help people, they get in the way and they scream and they don't want to do anything.
They want to investigate this, investigate that.
But then when they get in power, you know, they want to increase the debt, increase the deficit, and, you know, and then they want to put it on the backs of poor people.
Like, oh my God, look at this debt.
Look at this deficit.
What do we got to do?
Well, we've got to charge people on Social Security.
We've got to charge people on Medicaid.
We've got to charge people on Medicare.
But never can they say, well, you know, we've got to maybe increase the taxes on the wealthy just a little bit.
And one more thing: all these stupid executive orders are not legislation.
So I hope the next president that comes through, which will be a Democrat, comes up there in the White House long with a big old wood chipper and throws all those stupid, sharp signature things into the wood chipper for all the public to see.
Brent, there, starting out talking about the markets and how they reacted to yesterday to the potential passage of the president's tax and spending cuts bill.
You saw what the bond markets did.
We are 10 minutes away from the markets opening up today.
We'll bring you the news of how the markets are going to react when that happens.
While we continue to talk to all of you across America this morning after the House Republicans jumped over their first hurdle to get President Trump's tax and spending cuts bill passed.
Now it heads to the Senate where they need a simple majority.
That means 51 votes.
They don't need the 60-vote filibuster threshold because they are using so-called reconciliation to get this domestic agenda of the presidents through Congress, and they want it on the president's desk by 4th of July.
Linda in Iowa, a Republican.
Good morning to you.
unidentified
Good morning.
Brent, take a chill pill.
Democrats, stop listening to yourself.
I am so glad to stay up and watch that whole thing.
The Democrats are such an evil party that they can't stop the hate that they spew out of their mouth.
Why do they want to keep poor people poor?
I was a Democrat for over 45 years.
Thank God I finally seen the light.
The Republicans need to get together and keep going at what they're doing.
And I would say Trump does deserve another four years because of what the Democrats did to him in his first four years.
But he is old.
So let's get a Republican, maybe Vance, and get this party going again.
And to Brent, we just had a Democrat Party.
Remember, you lied about Biden.
Everything about Biden.
Who was running the country when Biden was sitting there like a lump?
This is ridiculous.
I am so glad that I am a Republican now.
I'm so glad that that bill passed the House.
I hope it passes the Senate.
And we are going to, we are just going to be happy people.
That happened at 1 a.m. Eastern Time here this morning.
And close to 7 a.m. is when they took that final vote and the gavel came down, 215 to 214.
What's in this bill?
More from the Washington Post.
Increase the child tax credit for some.
The child tax credit is a tax break for filers with children.
The Republican measure would increase the credit to $2,500 per child from 2000, but not every family can qualify.
The legislation limits eligibility to parents or guardians with Social Security numbers, especially requiring those people to be citizens.
That would mostly exclude non-citizen parents from claiming the credit on behalf of a child who is a citizen.
It also talks about border security.
The bill designates more than $140 billion for the Trump administration's border and immigration crackdown.
More than $50 billion of that total will go toward completing the wall along this U.S.-Mexico border, including maritime crossings.
Roughly $45 billion will go to the building and maintaining detention centers to house families of deportees, and $14 billion is marked for deportee transportation.
Those are some of the big provisions in this 1,000-page plus bill.
Jennifer Bendery, who reports on Capitol Hill, she this morning putting on X some provisions she says tucked into the bill.
One of them eliminates the $200 firearm registration fee for gun silencers.
That is what she reported this morning.
And then she also notes some other provision.
And here's the other provision that removes a requirement that people have to register their gun silencers at all.
More reporting will be done on what is in this piece of legislation as it comes in over 1,000 pages.
Erin in Upper Marlborough, Maryland, Independent.
Let's hear from you.
unidentified
Yeah, thanks for taking my call.
I'd like to base my comment on Donald Trump's last $2 trillion tax package, where the top 1% got $1.7 trillion, and then the other 99% got $300 billion.
If you look at it as a math problem, if you had that 1%, that one person spent $1,000 a day, it would take them $4,600,000 years to burn through that $1.7 trillion.
If the other 99% got $300 billion and spent at $1,000 a day, they would burn through in about 8,000 years.
$4.6 million versus $8,000.
If you flip the numbers where the 1% only got $300 billion, their burn rate would drop down to $860,000 years, where the other 99% would go up to 47,000 years.
That's still about a 10-to-1 ratio.
Well, you can do the math on that.
I think that's a little closer to being fair.
And to quote a couple Americans, Albert Einstein said, all you needed to know is where the nearest library is.
We see what the MAGA people are doing to libraries.
Donald Trump said, I love uneducated people.
See what he's doing to institutions of higher education.
Mr. T said, I pity the fools.
My father said, start using your head for more than just a hat rack.
There's no lesson to be learned from the second kick of a mule.
Washington Post, new taxes on colleges and universities.
The legislation aggressively taxes income generated by the endowments of colleges and universities.
Current law imposes a 1.4% tax on those institutions.
The bill creates a new system that would set varying tax rates depending on the size of the endowment per enrolled student.
We are approaching the bottom of the hour here on the Washington Journal all morning, getting your reaction to House Republicans pushing the president's tax and spending cuts bill over the finish line, pulling a marathon session here in Washington.
The two leaders of the parties, Speaker Mike Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries, they closed out the debate earlier this morning before that final vote took place.
Listen to what Speaker Mike Johnson told his colleagues.
After that very long and wandering speech, my friend, and after a long week and a long night and countless hours of work over the past year, a lot of prayer and a lot of teamwork, my friends, it quite literally is again morning in America, isn't it?
And after four long years of President Biden's failures, President Trump's America First Agenda is finally here, and we are advancing that today.
What we're going to do here this morning is truly historic, and it will make all the difference in the daily lives of hardworking Americans.
The Dallas waitress pulling overtime, the Detroit mom counting bills late at night, the Kentucky coal miner waiting on his second chance.
These are the forgotten men and women of our country that we are all called here to serve.
And the One Big Beautiful bill will deliver for those people.
It revives our economy.
It will deliver historic tax relief.
It will make the largest investment in our border security in a generation.
It will unleash affordable American energy again, restore common sense to government, secure generational savings, and strengthen our national defense, while it also strengthens our essential programs like Medicaid for the people who need it the most.
That's what we're doing with the One Big Beautiful Bill.
To put it simply, this bill gets Americans back to winning again, and it's been a long time coming.
This One Big Beautiful Bill is the most consequential legislation that any party has ever passed, certainly under a majority this thin.
Legislation of this magnitude is truly nation-shaping and life-changing.
It's the kind of transformational change that future generations will study one day.
They'll look back, they'll look back at this day as a turning point in American history.
And it's exactly what we were sent here to do.
Let the record show that when the House Democrats vote in a few moments, this is what they'll be voting for.
Their vote will show that they are apparently for the largest tax increase in the history of our country.
They will be voting for, when they vote against this bill, waste, fraud, and abuse.
They will be voting against safer communities, American energy dominance, and American strength on the world stage.
And today wouldn't be possible without the leadership of arguably the most powerful and the most successful and the most respected president in the modern era of United States.
Our Democrat colleagues mock the objective truth of We were delivered unified government, my friends, in November.
The White House, the Senate, and the House were delivered to the party on this side of the aisle.
Congress, according to James Madison, at its best, would serve as a rival to the executive branch.
But unfortunately, our House Republican colleagues haven't followed the vision of this Madisonian version of democracy because you have consistently proven to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for Donald Trump's extreme agenda.
And the American people are paying attention.
The American people are paying attention.
So I think that when the story is told of the 119th Congress, when the votes are ultimately cast on that first Tuesday in November next year, that this day may very well turn out to be the day that House Republicans lost control of the United States House of Representatives.
Kenneth, noting what's in this for seniors, let me go to the Washington Post.
Trump promised last year to end taxes on Social Security benefits.
The bill doesn't include that provision, but it would add an extra $4,000 to the standard deduction for people over 65 years old.
The policy would be in place for four years and would taper off as recipients' income increased.
Also in the bill, billions for defense, including the president's golden dome.
There's roughly $150 billion in the bill for the Defense Department, spread over a number of priorities: $34 billion for the munition and defense supply chain, $33.6 billion for shipbuilding, $20 billion for missile defense and space capabilities.
That's partially for Trump's Golden Dome Continental Missile Defense System.
The spending could increase when the measure gets to the Senate.
The upper chamber aims to spend more on defense than the House.
In my mind, I don't understand that between the House and the Senate, that every time there's a vote on no matter what subject it is, normally there's a few Republicans that will go the other way.
And on the Democrat, they're always 100%, with the exception of Federalman, which is a blue state, but where he came from is red, like me, where I'm at.
And you ask him why he voted, he said he follows his constituents.
And then you look at just what happened with the Democrats, over 200 of them, and not even one of them went the other way every time, all the time.
And it's like, do they follow their party or do they follow their constituents?
Chuck, let me ask you: what do you think of those two Republicans who voted against the president and the speaker?
unidentified
Well, I think that I wanted to believe that they were following their constituents.
You know, and I can't think of any other thing other than like the one doesn't like Trump no matter what, and he ain't going to vote anything that Trump wants done.
And Chuck, just in case our viewers missed it, those two Republicans are Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massey of Kentucky.
They voted no.
Andy Harris from Maryland, he's a conservative Republican.
He's the chair of the House Freedom Caucus.
He voted present.
Two Republicans missed the vote.
Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier this morning that Andrew Gabarino, a Republican of New York, who was in those negotiations over the mortgage tax deduction, he fell asleep, is what the speaker said, and missed the vote.
A 40-year-old congressman from upstate New York, he missed that vote along with David Schweikert, who missed it by just seconds.
He went to put his card, his voting card into the machine on the House floor, and the vote was closed.
And so both of them would have voted yes.
So Speaker Mike Johnson says the history books need to note the vote would have been 217 to 214.
Let's hear from Beth, who's in Wisconsin, Independent.
unidentified
Good morning.
I have two thoughts.
One is President Trump said he would cut spending.
Income Tax Fallout00:15:47
unidentified
And this bill, to me, is not a cut.
He has rearranged its priorities.
But just the whole idea of using the word trillion and billion just hides what they're spending the money on.
How is it fair to give a tax cut to wait staff when eating out in a restaurant is a luxury?
Why not give the tax cut to the workers at the grocery store that are selling groceries that are necessary?
That just speaks of President Trump's mindset.
He thinks everyone can afford to eat out.
And the other thing is, the last time I researched, the child care credits or the child credits were temporary, expiring in 2028.
I think that the economy is very stricken, very stricken with inflation, as well as with tax abatements in such a negative way.
And I think that Mr. Trump has the insight, Mr. President has the insight to look inside of the economy in such a way that he will invaigate the company or the economy.
And I think that his tax bill will not only elucidate a levy of a sort, as well as somewhat cushion tariffs, but it will also provide extra income or extra employment to the border, making the border at ease to enter,
not necessarily to enter on the demand of immigration or being illegal.
It will nationalize particular citizens who wish to cross over the border such that it will still remain and sustain an economic health.
So, Tim, what do you think about what happened in the House?
unidentified
Well, I think there's going to be a significant political fallback this next election, particularly against Republicans, because even though there were a lot of senior citizens who voted for Trump, I think once they see this result on the Social Security tax issue, they're not going to be very happy.
I'm 80, and I'm not happy.
This $4,000 deduction, it's important to keep in mind that most senior citizens use the standard deduction.
And so, an itemized deduction of $4,000 is not going to be that beneficial.
And even for those who do, it's a declining deduction over a period of time.
That's not what Trump campaigned on.
He made a big deal in his speeches that this was going to take away income tax from Social Security income.
And as my wife and I both get Social Security, the income tax is a big issue.
Yeah, so Tim, the one calculation that we read from the Huffington Post is that this, for most seniors, this added tax deduction, the $4,000 that you mentioned, would be a cash benefit of only around $500, they said, $500.
unidentified
Exactly.
So that's that's that's that's five hundred dollars.
Some may say, well, wow, $500.
That's a month's groceries.
Maybe, maybe it is.
And for them, I'm happy.
But for most of the 30 million senior citizens out there, when they've been told one thing, that they were not going to have to pay income tax every single month, when that Thursday rolls around and they get their Social Security payment every month, and now it turns out to be that it's $500 for an entire year, I'm sorry, but that is not going to be received very thankfully.
And so you're going to see a tsunami of discontent against the Republicans.
They're not going to blame the Democrats for that.
All right, so Tim, did you and your wife calculate how much you would save if you didn't have to pay taxes on your Social Security benefits?
And if so, what was that number?
What was that number?
unidentified
Over, over $4,000 a year.
Over $4,000.
A year.
Over.
Much more than that, in fact.
Not much more.
Let me take that back because I also have a pension.
But for the Social Security income, more than $4,000.
But I'm not including income tax here in the state.
You said Illinois, and I appreciate that because my zip code, I mean, I'm sorry, my telephone code.
But we moved here two years ago to Virginia, so we're no longer in Illinois.
In Illinois, there's no income tax, state income tax, on pensions or on Social Security.
In Virginia, there is only a state income tax on a portion of Social Security.
So our status changed moving to Virginia.
We want to be closer to our grandkids.
But that's beside the point.
In any event, I'm telling you that the $500 will not placate the resentment that is going to be felt by Social Security recipients when this becomes law.
Tim there in Illinois, a Republican voter there, upset with President Trump and that campaign promise of no taxes on Social Security benefits.
Instead, it's a tax deduction benefit for Social Security recipients, increasing the deduction that they can take.
What's happening in Washington today as House lawmakers have finished their business, the Senate is still around, and senators on one of the appropriations subcommittees will hear this morning from the Labor Secretary.
She will be testifying about the President's budget request for her department.
That's at 10 a.m. Eastern time, and you can watch live coverage right here on C-SPAN, our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW, or online at c-span.org.
We're also going to hear from the White House today.
The press secretary will hold a briefing at 1 p.m. Eastern Time today, and you can watch live coverage of that also here on C-SPAN, C-SPANNOW, or C-SPAN.org.
Daniel in Vero Beach, Florida, an Independent.
Daniel, House has passed the President's tax and spending bill.
What do you think?
unidentified
I think one of the things they should have added to that was term limits because I think people in these like, I don't think a representative or a congressman or a congresswoman should be in there for over 30 years.
I think, you know, they should have term limits for Congress.
Marianne in Meriden, Connecticut, Democratic caller, your turn.
unidentified
Yes, hi.
So, first of all, Trump lies about everything.
And unfortunately, there's people out there that still will believe it.
I have a special needs who is on Medicaid.
And I have a bedridden person I'm taking care of.
He's also on Medicaid.
He worked literally all of his life just to end up being bedridden.
Now, there's supposed to be work requirements.
How the people who are disabled, who literally cannot work, how are they going to be able to keep their Medicaid without being disabled without being able to work?
That's my first question.
Second question is: how come it's always on the backs of the poor people that have to struggle every single time to try to put food on their table, to try to do what's right?
Trump is one for the books for history.
And I feel very, very sorry for the young people that are growing up in this country today.
It's supposed to be United States, not Republican against Democrats and so forth and so on.
We're not united anymore.
It's more now for the rich.
And to me, Trump is trying to weed out all the people who are sick, who are poor, just so we can make America great again.
It's supposed to be for everybody, and that's not right.
Debbie, the home state of the Speaker, Mike Johnson.
What do you think of this bill?
unidentified
I do not agree with the bill.
I don't agree with Speaker Johnson or Scalise.
I've called all my representatives several times, telling them, you know, I agree with the lady who just spoke.
This country is divided by left and right, and I blame President Trump and these representatives that we have in Congress, both the Senate and in the House of Representatives.
They stand on a guideline of party and not their constituents.
I'm devastated that we have a debt that is continually growing and growing.
How are we supposed to deal with the debt?
How are we supposed to deal with the fact that Social Security is dependent on by so many people?
Yet, in a number of years, Social Security is going to be cutting benefits to their people because we don't have enough going into it.
There's more coming out, especially with the baby boomers.
So many are retiring.
So many retired at young ages and have been on this system for 30 years.
Let's agree to look at the problems and stop the political fighting.
This is just outrageous to me.
I've pleaded with representatives: stop fighting against American people.
Another program note for you this morning on C-SPAN 3.
We're going to have live coverage of the new FDA commissioner testifying again before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee about the President's budget for the Food and Drug Administration.
That's his 2026 budget request to Congress, and that'll be on C-SPAN 3 this morning, 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
Our free video mobile app, C-SPANNO, and online at c-span.org.
He'll, of course, be asked about vaccines and the FDA's work.
He's the new commissioner of that agency, appointed by and approved by the Senate, appointed by the president and approved by the Senate.
Bernie in Louisville, Kentucky, Democratic caller.
Bernie, let's go to you.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thomas Massey.
You know, originally it seemed like there was eight or nine Republicans who were being, who had concerns.
They were probably going to vote for the bill anyway.
But they had concerns and they voiced their concerns.
Now, you know, if you can't voice your concerns, even against your own party, you know, why are you there?
You know, Thomas Massey, he stood up, which he's done in the past, and he voted against something he didn't agree with.
That takes a lot of guts.
You know, and here in Kentucky, I don't know if he would fare better in the Senate because there's some very good job openings coming up here in Kentucky, as you well know.
Well, Senator McConnell not running for another term.
So if Thomas Massey were to step in as a Republican and run for that seat, you as a Democrat, would you vote for him?
unidentified
I would definitely consider it.
I don't know him personally, but I do know people that know him very well, and he is the real deal.
He has the guts to speak his mind.
And I just feel like if you can't go out there and render your opinion, even if it's against your own party, I don't know why you would even be in Congress.
Disheartening Political Polarization00:03:53
unidentified
Plus, I had another thought, but it slipped down my mind.
I'm going to go on to Chandra, who's in Detroit, Michigan, independent.
Morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I watched the hearing, the debate yesterday.
It's really disheartening how many people are so uninformed and they are not thinking about American, about people, human beings, period.
It is so politicized.
And I know we're talking about politics, but at some point we have to realize that we're talking about human beings, people, and lives and how this is going to affect them.
Not only do I feel sorry for, you know, of course, my children, myself, but I hope everyone who voted the way they did get the data they deserve because this is utterly ridiculous and it's harmful for everyone.