Donald Trump’s Agenda Will Hurt His Base. Will They Notice? Lawmakers voted for the BBB without reading it. Now, with nearly 12 million people at risk of losing health care coverage, the president wants voters to pay attention to his rhetoric and ignore the details.
By Molly Jong-Fast, July 9, 2025
Image may contain Donald Trump Tom Emmer Steve Scalise Roger Marshall Robert Greene Mike Crapo and Richard Hudson. Donald Trump signs H.R. 1: “One Big Beautiful Bill” from the South Lawn of the White House on Independence Day, July 4, 2025 in Washington.Tom Brenner / The Washington Post / Getty Images.WP AI image…
Republicans just did something wildly unpopular, but they’re counting on Americans being too checked out to notice—and thus, to blame them for it. The passage of last week’s Big, Beautiful Bill was “backloaded” with “a lot of the Medicaid and [Affordable Care Act] cuts,” as Larry Levitt, the executive vice president for health policy of the nonprofit health research group KFF, put it to Axios. Republicans added work requirements to Medicaid and did other creative math tactics in order to cut nearly $1 trillion from the program, which could lead to almost 12 million people losing coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But, Levitt noted, there “will be few tangible effects in health care from this bill before the midterms.”
How convenient! Cutting Obamacare has long been a GOP dream, something Donald Trump tried to do during his first term—and would have if it wasn’t for John McCain’s famous thumbs down, which saved the Affordable Care Act and enraged much of his party. This time, Trump managed to achieve his goal—without having to put the actual legislation to a vote. With everything tucked into the BBB, there just weren’t enough votes to sink Trump’s signature legislation. North Carolina senator Thom Tillis didn’t go along with the program, warning his fellow senators they were about to “make a mistake on health care and betray a promise” and that the legislation would “hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid.” A few days before the vote—which required a JD Vance tiebreaker—Tillis announced he wouldn’t seek reelection next year, exiting the stage like other Republicans who have dared to cross Trump.
