Big Ugly Bill hastens demise of GOP

June 30, 2025

Last week was tough, and this week will be, too, because Trump will be braying like a donkey about forcing the Big Ugly Bill on the GOP and the American people. I will circle back to the events of last week later in this newsletter, but it is important to recognize that the Big Ugly Bill is the high-water mark of MAGA extremism.

The fact that congressional Republicans are backing a historically unpopular bill that breaks the most basic promises that GOP candidates made in 2024 is a sign of desperation. They understand this is their last chance ever to gut health and social benefits. If it costs them control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency, they are willing to swallow that bitter pill.

No need to believe me. According to those few Republicans willing to speak the truth about the bill, including Trump's former “Best Friend Forever,” Elon Musk, the reconciliation bill is “an act of political suicide.” See Newsweek, Elon Musk calls Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill "political suicide".

Musk’s posts are linked to recent polling by a leading Republican polling firm (The Tarrance Group) that found that the reconciliation bill was wildly unpopular with Republican voters.

Musk had other choice words for the bill, including “utterly insane and destructive.”

A Fox “News” poll (conducted a week ago) found that the bill is even more unpopular among all voters. See Fox News, Fox News poll spells bad news for Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill"

Only 38 percent favored the bill, while 59 percent opposed it, a 21-point gap against the bill. About half of all voters believed the legislation would be detrimental to their families, and just a quarter thought it would deliver any benefit.

However, the bill has worsened since the Fox News poll. Over the weekend, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report estimating that the Senate version of the reconciliation bill will add $3.3 trillion to the deficit and result in 12 million people losing Medicaid coverage over the next decade. See Axios, Senate's "big, beautiful bill" would add $3.3 trillion in new debt: CBO.

And, as a cascading effect of the Big Ugly Bill’s increase in deficits, another statute will force cuts to Medicare of approximately $500 billion. See House Committee on Budget / Democrats, House-Passed FY25 Reconciliation Bill Triggers $535 Billion in Medicare Cuts.

Trump has muscled the bill through the Senate by threatening to mount primary challenges against any Senator who voted against the bill. On Sunday, GOP Senator Thom Tillis voted against a procedural motion to advance the bill. Trump posted on social media that he would find a primary challenger against Senator Tillis, who immediately announced that he would not run for reelection in 2026—and then took the Senate floor to speak the truth about the damage that will be caused by the bill. See Bloomberg, Trump Tax Bill Advances in Senate as GOP Scrounges for Votes.

Per Bloomberg,

Trump, who had been monitoring the Senate action this weekend from the Oval Office, swiftly threatened to find a GOP challenger to North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, one of the two Republicans to oppose opening debate on the bill. Rand Paul of Kentucky also voted against the motion.

The moment Senator Tillis was free of Trump (by announcing his retirement), Tillis took the Senate floor to acknowledge that the bill breaks Trump's promise not to reduce Medicaid. See The Hill, Tillis: Senate bill breaks Trump’s promise on Medicaid.

Senator Tillis said,

What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there anymore, guys? I think the people in the White House… advising the president are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise,

Now Republicans are about to make a mistake on health care and betraying a promise, It is inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office or in the cabinet room, when I was there with finance, where he said, we can go after waste, fraud, and abuse on any programs

I am telling the president that you have been misinformed. You supporting the Senate [bill] will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid.

Notwithstanding the opposition of Senators Tillis and Rand Paul, the bill will pass because Senator Susan Collins has once again allowed herself to be bullied by Donald Trump. She is a coward who has betrayed the people of Maine on too many occasions to count.

So, too, with Senator Josh Hawley, who went through the preening motions of opposing the bill, only to back Trump as he always does. It’s another “fist pump” to the insurrectionists on January 6, except this time MAGA extremists are coming for grandma and grandpa’s healthcare and retirement.

Democrats will take Senator Tillis’s seat—because his Trump-endorsed replacement must publicly state that they would have voted for the Big Ugly Bill. And Susan Collins’ political future is over. She currently has a favorable rating of 14% and an unfavorable rating of 57% in Maine. See Teagan Goddard’s Political Wire (6/27/25), Maine Voters Don’t Like Susan Collins.

With Tillis gone and Collins historically unpopular, Democrats have a shot at flipping the Senate. I know, I know—every political pundit and rating book says Republicans have the advantage in the Senate in 2026 because their spreadsheets and backward-looking models can’t model an election following passage of the Big Ugly Bill.

Indeed, the prognosticators are part of the problem because they engender “learned helplessness.” They tell us that history determines our fate. Not true! We are not electrons forming pixels on a spreadsheet. We are American citizens with the power to decide our future.

Below is a list of the Republican seats up for election in 2026. We need to flip five seats to be confident of a one-seat majority (and creating a cushion for vulnerable Democrats in red states).

• Thom Tillis (not seeking reelection)

• Susan Collins (Maine) (Same favorability ratings as disgraced Rep. George Santos before his resignation from House.)

• Joni Ernst (Iowa) (Public Policy Polling (6/4/25), Joni Ernst Unpopular, May Face Tough Reelection.)

• Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) (Newsweek (6/5/25), Lindsey Graham Gets Bad Polling News Ahead of Reelection Campaign)

• John Cornyn (Texas) (Houston Public Media, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn rebukes report that he’s considering dropping out of 2026 race.)

• Roger Marshall (Kansas) (Was roundly booed and jeered at during his only town-hall meeting; he blamed “outside agitators” because the truth hurts.)

• Bill Cassidy (Louisiana) (Will likely face a GOP primary because he voted to convict Trump in the second impeachment; Cassidy was censured by Louisiana GOP.)

• Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) (Retiring to run for governor.)

• Ashley Moody (Florida) (Special election to replace Marco Rubio)

• Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) (Retiring)

• Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia)

• Tom Cotton (Arkansas)

• Steve Daines (Montana)

• Bill Hagerty (Tennessee)

• Cindy Hyde-Smith (Mississippi)

• Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming)

• Dan Sullivan (Alaska)

• Jim Risch (Idaho)

• Pete Ricketts (Nebraska) (Replaced Ben Sasse; now seeking full term.)

• John Husted (Ohio) (Seeking full term to replace JD Vance)

• Markwayne Mullin (Oklahoma)

• Mike Rounds (South Dakota)

Frankly, I wouldn’t take anyone off the list as being vulnerable. The massive cuts in the Big Ugly Bill will become the default target of blame for every denial of Medicaid, Medicare, Affordable Care Act coverage, and lost job, illness, or injury due to the war on green energy, cuts to FEMA, NOAA, NIH, FDA, and more.

None of the above will take the sting out of the reconciliation bill if it passes. (There is still time to call your Senators and Representatives! Use 5 Calls!) The bill will cause suffering, financial hardship, food insecurity, and lack of access to medical care for tens of millions of Americans. And our children and grandchildren will be forced to pay for the tax savings of billionaires and millionaires in the short term.

However, as we face another difficult week, we must not conflate the immediate loss with its broader implications. Republicans are willing to trash their prospects in the House, Senate, and the 2028 presidential election for a single bill. No one makes that kind of bargain unless they believe they have no future. And that is what Republicans rightly believe.

Democrats in Congress must join the grassroots resistance in raising the volume so high that no one in America will be mistaken about the cruel consequences of the Big Ugly Bill.

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Looking back at last week.

Last week was tough. I heard from many readers—by email, posts in the Comment section, and in person—that they felt like they had reached a tipping point of disappointment and despair. The repeated gut punches from the Supreme Court proved too much for many to bear.

There isn’t any way to put a positive spin on what has happened to the Supreme Court. It is beyond redemption and must be rebuilt from the ground up. The easiest path to do so is to expand the Court significantly and all at once. That takes only a majority vote in both chambers of Congress and the signature of the president.

How large should it be? Large! In 1789, there were 4 million people in the US and 6 justices on the Supreme Court. Today, there are roughly 100 times as many people in the US, but the Court has added only three justices. If the Court had grown proportionately to population, it would have 600 justices. That is obviously too many. But a Court of 29 justices is perfectly reasonable—the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has 29 active judges. It is able to operate in a business-like and efficient manner.

I raise the issue of enlargement of the Court because it is a remedy that could be available to us in three years—if only we are bold enough. We have been caught flat-footed as Republicans have nearly broken the Constitution by taking actions that no one believed would be possible or tolerated only six months ago.

For many readers, their sense of despair arises from the belief that undoing the damage of Trump's second term will take half a century or more—beyond their lifetimes. Not true! If we are as aggressive with our control of Congress as Republicans have been, we can make great strides in repairing the damage. Again, we simply need to put aside “institutionalist, incremental, steady as she goes” thinking that has constrained us to this point.

If ever there was a moment in American history that demanded bold action from pro-democracy forces, this it.

Separately, I was surprised by reader reaction to the 128 Democrats who voted against Al Greene’s impeachment resolution over Trump's unconstitutional war against Iran. Reactions ranged from “It’s futile” (“p***ing into the wind), “It’s “a distraction,” and “It will unify Trump's base to rally in support.”

The problem with each of those responses is that they are a form of “learned helplessness.” Trump is acting in violation of the Constitution, and we rationalize reasons not to object. That is exactly how Trump wants us to react—we give up because we have “learned” that resistance is futile.

See The New Republic, quoting Professor of International Law Oona Hathaway of Yale, Congress Won’t Act on the Iran Strikes. That Doesn’t Make Them Legal.

“We end up with this learned helplessness in the sense that Congress chooses to stop trying, because what’s the point?” said Hathaway. “The president has learned that [he] can use military force without seeking authorities from Congress without consequence.”

Trump's illegal impoundment of funds is a perfect example. Refusing to spend funds appropriated by Congress violates the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution (and the 1974 Impoundment Control Act).

Consider this sequence of events:

• Congress appropriates funds. Trump refuses to spend them. Congress does nothing.

• Congress appropriates funds. Trump refuses to spend them. Congress does nothing.

• Congress appropriates funds. Trump refuses to spend them. Congress does nothing.

The only rational conclusion for Trump to take from the above line of events is that he can refuse to spend funds in violation of the Constitution and Congress will do nothing about it. In fact, that is precisely what has happened. (And shame on our complacent Democratic legislators for acting like violating the Constitution is not worthy of a response by them!)

But what if there were an impeachment resolution every time that he refused to spend appropriated funds? Well, as one reader noted, it may feel like “P***ing into the wind.” The impeachment resolutions will fail, and fail, and fail . . . until one finally passes.

If we apply the “Let’s not do something that is futile” standard, then we wouldn’t do anything—ever. Trump hasn’t changed his agenda because of our pro-democracy rallies. Does that mean we should quit? No!

Under the “It’s futile, so let’s not do it” rationale, Rosa Parks should have given up her seat and walked to the back of the bus. She likely expected that she would be arrested and convicted like the dozens of other Black Americans who protested segregated public transportation for more than a century before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat.

The civil rights activists before Rosa Parks failed, and failed, and failed . . . until Rosa Parks’ action sparked a flame of resistance that helped to bring about a Supreme Court decision declaring that segregation in public transportation was unconstitutional.

Why did Rosa Parks succeed when dozens of others before her failed? We don’t know. But her actions were a tipping point that would not have happened but for the unsuccessful but necessary actions that preceded her.

We cannot know when our pro-democracy rallies will be large enough, loud enough, or frequent enough to finally break the stranglehold Trump has on Congress. But if we stop holding those rallies because “they are futile,” we will never reach the tipping point!

So, although it may seem futile to stand in front of a Tesla dealership for the fifteenth Saturday in a row, those protests are quietly building a foundation of resistance and resolve that will suddenly harden into an immovable object when we least expect it.

Just as importantly, refusing to surrender to “learned helplessness” is essential to maintaining our will to resist. And in our refusing to surrender, we inspire others.

So, to the 128 Democrats who thought it wasn’t worth the effort to impeach Trump over an action that violated the Constitution on its face, shame on you for surrendering in advance—especially when your constituents are out in the streets on a weekly basis, defending the democracy that you swore to defend.

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Concluding Thoughts.

I hope the above was helpful rather than argumentative. We must fight. It is the right thing to do—and there is no alternative.

I spoke at the Network NOVA’s 9^th Annual Women’s Summit over the weekend. I wish you all could have been there, not because of my speech, but because of the overwhelming sense of determination and tenacity that infused every aspect of the summit, including every attendee, speaker, volunteer, program, and activity.

Based on what I saw and experienced at the NOVA conference, we are going to crush Trump's enablers in 2026. It was inspiring. I left the conference more determined and hopeful than ever.

Even better, there are grassroots organizations across America that are just as enthusiastic, determined, and organized as the women at the NOVA conference. I don’t have to tell readers that fact—you know because you belong to those organizations. There are millions of grassroots activists across America who are laying the foundation for victory in 2026 and 2028. They are heroes of democracy—including you! Keep up the good work!

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Daily Dose of Perspective

Once again, I present a comparison between a photo taken by the newly commissioned Vera C. Rubin Observatory (first) and one taken by me (second), this time of the Trifid Nebula.