| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| All right, thank you everyone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Have a great day. | |
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks for your patience. | ||
| Can't be anything on the rips. | ||
| No. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Today, the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals hears oral argument on procedures the Trump administration must follow to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. | |
| You can watch live coverage of that at 3 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Welcome back to the Washington Journal. | ||
| We continue here this morning on the program talking about the so-called Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| The Senate is in the final stretch here. | ||
| After a weekend session here in Washington, they are preparing for a final vote that could come later today or Tuesday. | ||
| After the Senate passes it, if they have the votes, it goes over to the House for another round of voting before it can get to the President's desk. | ||
| The President Republicans have set a 4th of July deadline. | ||
| This morning, we turn to all of you and continue getting your thoughts on the budget bill. | ||
| Should it be approved in the Senate? | ||
| Should it go to the President's desk? | ||
| Do you support or oppose it? | ||
| Marie in Morgantown, North Carolina, Independent Marie, the Senate will gavel in here in less than 30 minutes. | ||
| What do you say to these senators? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I say no. | |
| I want to know what are they doing to the poor people in the United States. | ||
| We can't survive as it is. | ||
| I have two small children, and it's all I could do to make food for them to eat. | ||
| And they want to cut our food stamps. | ||
| What is wrong with the president? | ||
| Marie, you're on food stamps? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| And you're concerned that yours would get cut. | ||
| Why do you think possibly yours would get cut? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because I've already got a notice what's going to be cut. | |
| And I also have a friend that got a notice that's on Social Security. | ||
| And she has cancer, and they shut her Social Security off. | ||
| They told her she could get a job. | ||
| Marie, what does your warning say that yours could get cut? | ||
| What does it say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What is the reason? | |
| Because of my income, I get $1,025 a month for three of us to live on, plus pay my bills. | ||
| What does a president think we're going to live on? | ||
| And where does that income come from, Marie? | ||
|
unidentified
|
On my Social Security. | |
| I'm 72 years old and I am raising two great-granddaughters, six and nine years old. | ||
| And is there any exception for somebody like yourself who is raising grandchildren? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I got my two great-grandchildren. | |
| I've had them for six years. | ||
| Great-grandchildren. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because the father, yes, because the father and mother don't even come around. | |
| So you then apply for food stamps for them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| All right, Marie Darren. | ||
| And Marie, what did you make of your senator, Tom Tillis, saying, because of exactly what you're talking about, he's opposing this bill? | ||
|
unidentified
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I support him 100%. | |
| And what was your reaction when you heard he's not going to run again because of this legislation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
To be honest with you, I just wonder if all of them are going to, if they cross Trump, if he's going to make it rough on all of them. | |
| All right. | ||
| Marie in Morgantown, North Carolina, and Independent. | ||
| Senator Tom Tillis, Republican, North Carolina, voted no on moving forward on the bill on Saturday. | ||
| He was joined by Senator Ram Paul, Republican of Kentucky, and the two of them, and that they are still a no vote on this legislation. | ||
| We are also watching three other Republican senators to see what they will do when the Senate convenes here shortly and when they go to final passage. | ||
| Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine. | ||
| Those three Republican senators are ones to watch when the debate and the amendments begin and then when they get to final passage. | ||
| Will they buck their party and go against President Trump and vote no, or will they be united behind Republicans' push to get this legislative victory for President Trump? | ||
| Michelle and Louisiana, Independent, good morning to you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I was thinking if what if he took money like he did for you know the Easter party or the parade, you know, and he had the commercials and everything for that in the background. | ||
| What if he took donations for the wall like he did for that and have to take all the money for the out of Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security? | ||
| All right, Michelle Robert, Newark, Ohio Republican. | ||
| Robert, share your thoughts with us this morning. | ||
| What do you want these senators to do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's like Burger Boy versus UAW and Burger Boy wins. | |
| And eat, drink, and be merry and take those smurf pills. | ||
| And happy's play though. | ||
| Eat, drink, and be merry and take a little smurf pills. | ||
| That's what's crazy. | ||
| All right, Linda and Orange, Connecticut, Democratic caller. | ||
| Linda, we're talking about the president's budget bill, the tax and spending cuts proposal. | ||
| What's your message to the lawmakers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, I don't, we have a record high amount of Americans insured right now, and that's about to be eliminated, which we fought so hard to get. | |
| But another thing that no one is even talking about, no one, I mean like representatives or anyone, is that when we take away taxes on tips and overtime pay, we're defunding Social Security. | ||
| Now, instead of taking away taxes, why don't we just raise the minimum wage? | ||
| This isn't even being discussed when we all know the minimum wages are pitiful for workers and for waitresses and people who get tipped. | ||
| So there's a lot of things we're not discussing. | ||
| And as for representing your party, I think these people ought to stop representing their party and stop representing their constituents. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Never mind. | ||
| Linda, there, a Democrat in Orange, Connecticut, the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan analysis government agency here in Washington that advises Congress about legislation, said that this bill would increase the deficit, the Senate version, more than the House version did. | ||
| There is also the prediction by the CBO that 12 million people would lose Medicaid and 2 million people would lose food stamps. | ||
| There is also this from the Wall Street Journal this morning. | ||
| GOP declares tax cut extensions are free. | ||
| Republicans are waving a $3.8 trillion magic wand over their tax and spending mega bill, declaring that their extensions of the expiring tax cuts have no effect on the federal budget. | ||
| The unprecedented maneuver is a crucial part of the GOP plan to squeeze permanent tax cuts through Congress on a simple majority vote in the coming days. | ||
| Republicans are expected to endorse the accounting move in a procedural vote early today. | ||
| Again, we're about 20 minutes away from the Senate, the upper chamber, gaveling in today's session. | ||
| And according to the Wall Street Journal, this procedural vote on their budget could take place this morning. | ||
| So tune in to our gavel-to-gavel coverage on C-SPAN 2 starting at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| We can show you some of that debate here on C-SPAN. | ||
| And in the meantime, we want to hear from you and your message to these senators about how you want them to vote. | ||
| Now, on this budget gimmick, here is the Senate budget chair, Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, on the floor Sunday afternoon, armed with a handwritten sign touting a new Congressional Budget Office score, projecting the GOP mega bill would save about a half a trillion dollars, assuming his budget gimmick that the current tax cuts are extended indefinitely and they don't count towards the deficit. | ||
| If you do what I have decided to do, make the tax cuts permanent and you implement these reforms to Medicaid in other areas, you will, over the next 10 years, reduce the deficit by $507 billion. | ||
| That's CBO, not me. | ||
| Now, how do you do that? | ||
| You grow the economy and you begin to control spending in a common sense way. | ||
| Most people can relate to that because they do it all the time. | ||
| People at home sometimes have to work extra to meet the needs of their family and they have to tighten their belt. | ||
| So what have we achieved here in the one big beautiful bill? | ||
| We're going to make your border as secure as it possibly can be and never go back to open borders. | ||
| We're going to put in place border security measures to keep it secure. | ||
| We're going to make the tax cuts permanent so your taxes do not go up in December of this year, and we're going to add additional pro-growth policies to help our economy. | ||
| That was Senator Lindsey Graham, the chair of the budget committee. | ||
| He's steering this legislation on the Senate floor, talking about how this bill, if you don't count the current tax cuts that are already in place against the deficit, it actually lowers the deficit. | ||
| Hours later, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the leader of the party in the Senate, responded with his own chart on the floor. | ||
| Earlier today, my colleague from South Carolina came to the floor with a pretty interesting looking floor chart where he claimed that his bill somehow reduced the debt by $500 billion. | ||
| What a joke. | ||
| The budget chair respectfully needs to check his math because somehow Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the budget committee, said that his bill reduces the debt by $500 billion. | ||
| The budget chair, respectfully, check your math, Chairman Graham, because not one hour ago, the JCT confirmed this bill does not reduce the debt. | ||
| It explodes it. | ||
| It explodes it. | ||
| That's what it does. | ||
| Here's what his chart should have looked like. | ||
| $45 trillion deficit explosion. | ||
| According to the JCT, the Republican bill explodes the debt by $4.5 trillion, as this chart, drawn slightly better than Lindsay's, shows. | ||
| For those keeping score at home, my colleague got his math wrong by a whopping $4 trillion. | ||
| All this, all this, just so billionaires are rewarded while millions lose their health care break. | ||
| $4.5 trillion deficit explosion. | ||
| Who do you agree with there, Senator Lindsey Graham or Senator Chuck Schumer on the impact of this big, beautiful bill on the nation's deficit? | ||
| Justin in Madison, Wisconsin, Independent, let's hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for taking my call. | |
| I was a longtime registered Republican, and I did not abandon the Republican Party. | ||
| They abandoned me. | ||
| And so my thoughts on this bill are an absolute disaster. | ||
| And I think both parties have got it wrong. | ||
| I don't agree with either one of them. | ||
| The fact that the Democrats are making the same claim that they've made for as long as I've been alive, my 35 years of life, always claimed that the Republicans are going to do tax breaks for billionaires. | ||
| Every time it's the same old talking point. | ||
| And meanwhile, the Republicans with their same talking points. | ||
| And I do live in Wisconsin and I'm represented by Senator Tammy Baldwin. | ||
| And so she obviously will be against the bill. | ||
| But I hope that Ron Johnson keeps his spine. | ||
| He voted for the bill to advance to the floor. | ||
| He has spoken out against the bill openly. | ||
| He went on a Tucker College and show and said he's not going to vote for it. | ||
| So I hope that he and a few others have enough spine to avoid voting for this disastrous bill. | ||
| There's a lot of things I like about it, but there's a lot of things I do not like about it. | ||
| And in closing, real quick. | ||
| What do you not like about it, Justin? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, obviously, debt. | |
| It wouldn't increase the deficit. | ||
| The CBO has said so, and they're nonpartisan, so they don't have a stake in the game. | ||
| And I know the CBO is not always correct, but in this case, I tend to agree with that. | ||
| And then my last quick point will be just: I get really irritated with the Democrats that are claiming and pretending to be the party that is fiscally responsible. | ||
| Neither party is responsible, and that's why we are where we at. | ||
| Thank you for your time. | ||
| Justin, real quick, before you go, what do you like about the bill? | ||
| Oh, we won't know. | ||
| That was Justin there. | ||
| This is from Pew Research, who did a poll recently about the so-called one big beautiful bill. | ||
| More Americans oppose than favor the GOP's sweeping tax and budget legislation. | ||
| 54% say that it will have a mostly negative effect on the country. | ||
| 12% say not much of an effect. | ||
| And 30% say mostly a positive effect on the country. | ||
| 51% of those polled said it would increase the budget deficit. | ||
| 18% said it would reduce the budget deficit. | ||
| And 27% say not have much of an effect on the budget deficit. | ||
| That's just one poll. | ||
| There's also polls by Quinnipiek and Washington Post showing that this bill is not popular overall with the American people. | ||
| It is popular, as we heard from Max Cohen with the Republican base. | ||
| Richard in Lynchburg, Virginia, Republican. | ||
| Richard, do you like this bill? | ||
| Richard in Lynchburg, Virginia, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you like this bill? | |
| All right. | ||
| Richard, one last try for you. | ||
| Okay, let me go to Glenn, who's in Detroit, Democratic caller. | ||
| Glenn? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| How are you? | ||
| And no, I don't like the big, beautiful blunder. | ||
| I think it's ridiculous. | ||
| It's going to really put a hardship on the seniors, young people, mental health, the whole gambit. | ||
| Because once you stop messing with Medicaid, Medicaid is a program that's for a teaching institution that helps residents, interns, and externs in hospitals. | ||
| And once you cut that, and then you don't have these doctors, these hospitals are going to close. | ||
| They're going to fold. | ||
| Trump is thinking on martial law because it takes three things for martial law. | ||
| War, which we're on the brink of. | ||
| Two, rebellion from the people in this country. | ||
| That's going to happen. | ||
| And that's going to happen. | ||
| And three, natural disaster. | ||
| Well, that's why these Trumpites, and I don't call them Republicans, because true Republicans would never vote on a bill that's going to raise the debt ceiling that high. | ||
| These Trumpites, they're not worried about the blue wave because once Trump calls that martial law, it's not going to be an election. | ||
| And that's what scares me most of all. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Glenn in Detroit, talking about the deficit. | ||
| You heard him at the end saying Republicans would vote to increase the deficit. | ||
| The House Freedom Caucus put out this on X yesterday in response to this Senate version saying the House bill added $72 billion to the deficit with interest costs included. | ||
| The Senate version adds $1.3 trillion to the deficit. | ||
| That's 1,705% more, even without interest costs. | ||
| It is a $651 billion over our agreed budget framework. | ||
| Now, House Freedom Caucus members, the conservative faction of the party in the House, were voicing these concerns when the House brought this legislation to the floor. | ||
| Ultimately, they all pretty much voted for it. | ||
| Only two voted present. | ||
| So Max Cohen, we learned from Punch Bowl News earlier, saying his prediction is that the House Freedom Caucus would fall in line. | ||
| If this legislation can get approved by the Senate later today, possibly Tuesday, the House will then call their members back to Washington and try to approve the legislation, getting the President's signature by the 4th of July holiday. | ||
| Kathy in Wisconsin Independent, Kathy, let's hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I have a question, a comment, and a challenge. | ||
| May I ask my question first? | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just out of curiosity, now this is going to seem silly to most of your viewers, but when you list the phone numbers to call to speak, why is it not listed numerically? | |
| And what's the point? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The point is, it's not in alphabetical order. | |
| It's not in numerical order. | ||
| Who chooses which number is the number you list first? | ||
| Okay, we switch it up. | ||
| We have Republicans first one month, and then we put Democrats first the next month. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much. | |
| I'll pay attention to that. | ||
| Now may I go to my challenge next? | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would like C-Stan, who I rely on 100%. | |
| You are the first person that I tune into every morning, and you are the last people that I listen to in my evening. | ||
| I would challenge you to find someone that you trust completely to be nonpartisan to look into what I want to comment on. | ||
| I think the biggest problem that we have in this country right now is we are afraid that the complexion of this nation is changing. | ||
| My understanding is if you overstay your visa, you are here illegally. | ||
| We don't hear about them hauling them out of their apartments in the middle of the night by masked people with guns on their backs because that makes them illegal. | ||
| I am not in favor of anyone entering this country illegally. | ||
| I don't think they should be allowed to stay here illegally. | ||
| All right, so Kathy, then do you support this big beautiful bill? | ||
| Because Republicans would say we're increasing the spending for border security, for the problem I have is the word border. | ||
|
unidentified
|
When you come here legally with the proper visa, you get on a plane from whatever country you're coming from, you're not coming across the southern border. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Understood, Kathy. | ||
| Understand your point. | ||
| Carrie in Milwaukee, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I have two things to say. | |
| The first is I absolutely agree with those primarily Republicans and some Democrats say it too or whatever, that I don't like the fact that this bill increases the deficit. | ||
| And I don't know what effect that I assume that also affects our long-term debt of whatever it is, $36, $37 trillion. | ||
| I don't know if people, I don't think people really realize the significance of that because things like Social Security, I mean, we will go broke. | ||
| I mean, we are $37 in debt or whatever, but there will be a point where we can't afford to pay the, well, we can't afford the interest now, but where we can't afford to literally pay Social Security or anything else. | ||
| So, I mean, that's very scary, but people don't realize that that's going to be the effect. | ||
| My main thing I wanted to be on while your guest was there still, because the biggest thing that the Democrats seem to get everybody riled up about are the cuts to Medicaid. | ||
| Now, from I follow like six different news sources on TV and primarily on TV and online as well. | ||
| The biggest thing is that they say that, you know, again, what, 12 million people will lose their health care coverage. | ||
| The main reason that so-called experts bring up why that is the case is because most people will not be able to comply with the more stringent reporting requirements. | ||
| Most other benefits that people get, social benefits, require very stringent reporting efforts. | ||
| So that goes to the education of our country. | ||
| Then we maybe should require people to get their high school diplomas or better yet, let's put some of the, we'll put some funding, maybe a million dollars for each state, so that just would be 50 million bucks, to help get volunteers like myself who would help people fill out the paperwork if they are truly going with the requirements. | ||
| Someone, you had a caller a little bit earlier who talked about the fact that she was already threatened to lose food stamps benefits for her great-grandchildren she was raising. | ||
| Well, if she can prove that they are dependents of hers, she's okay. | ||
| I mean, so I wanted to ask him how many, because I heard that the majority of that 12 million that will do it is because they won't be able to comply with the stringent paperwork requirements. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Understood. | ||
| Carrie there in Milwaukee with her thoughts. | ||
| If you are interested in what's in this legislation and you missed the 15 hours and 55 minutes of the Senate staff reading this bill over the weekend, Politico has a piece, fresh mega bill text overnight, what's in and what's out. | ||
| Here is what's new from this legislation. | ||
| Rural hospitals, Senate Republicans are planning to provide a $25 billion stabilization fund for rural hospitals over five years. | ||
| Senate Republicans are aiming to expand a Medicare drug price negotiation exemption for orphan drugs to include medicines that treat multiple rare diseases. | ||
| Physician fees, an effort to ban Medicaid spread pricing and a requirement that retail pharmacies complete a survey to help HHS understand national drug acquisition costs was knocked out of the bill. | ||
| But lawmakers added in a temporary one-year, 2.5% bump to the Medicaid physician fee schedule for 2026 to account for exceptional circumstances. | ||
| And SALT, the new Senate text keeps House Republicans planned to increase the deduction from $10,000 to $40,000, but it would snap back to current levels after 2029. | ||
| The change is expected to shave at least $100 billion from the approximately $350 billion price tag of the House plan. | ||
| Those are some of the provisions. | ||
| You can read more from Politico.com. | ||
| Gary in New Rochelle, New York, Independent. | ||
| Gary, let's hear from you. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| I'd like to start by talking about the greatest generation. | ||
| The people that had a lot of money were paying the taxes. | ||
| I remember Bob Hope all the time talking about, you know, taxes in his movies and stuff. | ||
| But let's think realistically here. | ||
| We got to get rid of the big money people getting all these tax breaks. | ||
| First of all, that would reduce what we're dealing with. | ||
| And then we got to really deal with the fact that one of the largest things that we pay for is the interest on the debt. | ||
| If we could get rid of the interest on the debt, we would have money to do all kinds of things. | ||
| But because the richest people don't want to pay their fair share, they don't want to pay the money that helps build the roads. | ||
| Remember, the greatest generation, they're the ones that put together the money to allow us to build interstate highway systems. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Gary there in New Rochelle, New York, and Independent. | ||
| The Senate about to convene any moment now. | ||
| Our coverage of gavel-to-gavel uninterrupted coverage over on C-SPAN 2 here at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| You can also follow along with our free video mobile app, C-SPAN Now, if you need to leave the House this morning or online at c-span.org. | ||
| The Senate slate is gone. | ||
| The lights are up. | ||
| We can see the chamber over on the Senate side. | ||
| You can see the staff is milling about over there. | ||
| We will bring you coverage of that here on C-SPAN as we continue to talk to all of you about your thoughts on the so-called big beautiful bill. | ||
| If we see some leadership come to the microphones, we'll dip in and hear what they have to say ahead of today's Voter Rama. | ||
| Amendments begin here at 9 a.m. Eastern Time, debate and votes. | ||
| And then final passage could happen later today, possibly Tuesday, depending on the number of amendments that are put forth by Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| Donna in Las Vegas, Republican. | ||
| Donna, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| We're listening. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I just want to make a comment on all these people saying that the billionaires aren't paying their fair taxes. | ||
| In response to that, that is so untrue. | ||
| Without billionaires, we would not have the innovative businesses that we do have. | ||
| They were great creators. | ||
| These people created millions and millions of jobs. | ||
| So why do we keep bashing billionaires? | ||
| They pay plenty of taxes all the time when they buy houses, when they buy yachts, when they do this, when they spend their money. | ||
| They're always paying taxes. | ||
| Donna, hold your thought. | ||
| Hold your thought one second. | ||
| Here is the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy in their analysis, they're nonpartisan, of the Senate bill. | ||
| They say under the Senate bill, 69% of the net tax cuts would go to the richest fifth of Americans in 2026. | ||
| Only 11% would go to the middle fifth of Americans, and less than 1% would go to the poorest fifth. |