Only Two Republicans Were Brave Enough to Vote Against Medicaid Cuts

House Republicans passed Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending bill by just one vote early Thursday morning.

After hours of deliberation, the bill passed 215–214, an incredibly slim margin that highlights the lack of political cohesion within the GOP. Two Republican representatives—Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio—voted with the Democrats.

The bill will include even more funding for the military and more funding for Trump’s border crackdown, while slashing crucial programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and also repealing clean energy credits put in place by the Biden administration. Up to 15 million Americans will be uninsured by 2034 due to the bill’s cuts, and 7.6 million will be at risk of losing Medicaid, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

“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.… To put it simply, this bill gets Americans back to winning again, and it’s been a long time coming,” Speaker Mike Johnson said, in a floor speech prior to the vote.

Democrats are accusing the GOP of pushing the anti-working-class bill “under the cover of darkness.”

“Here’s what it will mean for the American people,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, prior to the vote. “Children will get hurt. Women will get hurt. Older Americans who rely on Medicaid for nursing home care and for home care will get hurt. People with disabilities who rely on Medicaid to survive, will get hurt. Hospitals in your districts will close. Nursing homes will shut down. And people will die.”

This story has been updated.

Elon Musk’s shouting match with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent might have been the final nail in the coffin for the tech billionaire’s four-month stint in the White House, but it came after months of bubbling frustration at Musk’s “chain-saw” approach to dismantling the federal government.

Musk and Bessent exploded at each other in April when Musk attempted to force through his pick to lead the IRS—Gary Shapley—behind Bessent’s back. (Musk eventually lost this battle—Shapley lasted less than 72 hours before Bessent tapped Michael Faulkender to replace him.)

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” a typically mild-mannered Bessent was heard shouting after Musk as they charged down the halls of the West Wing.

“The fight had started outside the Oval Office; it continued past the Roosevelt Room and toward the chief of staff’s office, and then barreled around the corner to the national security adviser’s warren,” The Atlantic reported Wednesday.

But the gossip-worthy feud was just one of many that occurred between Musk and Trumpworld 2.0’s prominent members.

In March, Musk walked into what he understood to be an ambush, facing heated backlash from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Donald Trump had arranged the volatile meeting: “Bring them all in here, and we’ll have at it,” Trump said, according to The Atlantic. The advisers were frustrated with what they felt was Musk overstepping into their agencies.

Musk’s tenure wasn’t a total failure, according to former federal employees. He had managed to force out some of the federal workforce and shutter agencies (while “traumatizing the employees who remain,” The Atlantic reported). But ultimately, his Department of Government Efficiency’s Silicon Valley, hacking-and-slashing approach to reshaping the government failed to make bureaucracy more efficient. And some of his haphazardly introduced policies, such as requiring federal employees to submit weekly bullet-pointed progress reports, have quietly fallen by the wayside.

“He had some missteps in all of these agencies, which would have been fine because everyone acknowledges that when you’re moving fast and breaking things, not everything is going to go right. But it’s different when you do that and you don’t even have the buy-in of the agency you’re setting on fire,” one outside Trump adviser told The Atlantic.

Another adviser was a little more blunt. “How many people were fired because they didn’t send in their three things a week or whatever the fuck it was?” the adviser said anonymously. “I think that everyone is ready to move on from this part of the administration.”

And even those still on Musk’s side now see that a different approach would have been more effective at advancing the administration’s goals.

“In retrospect,” Matt Calkins, the CEO of Appian, a Virginia-based company that provides software for the federal government, told The Atlantic, “it wasn’t nearly as much as we needed, and we probably didn’t need the chain saw. We needed the chisel.”

Musk’s unceremonious exit from government followed widespread reports that several senior Trump officials practically hated the tech billionaire, finding him abrasive, unfunny, and pompous—with some describing Musk as the “most irritating person” they’d “ever had to deal with.”

“I have been in the same room with Elon, and he always tries to be funny. And he’s not funny. Like, at all,” a senior Trump official told Rolling Stone last month. “He makes these jokes and little asides and smiles and then looks almost hurt if you don’t lap up his humor. I keep using the word ‘annoying’; a lot of people who have to deal with him do. But the word doesn’t do the situation justice. Elon just thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the room and acts like it, even when it’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Donald Trump’s many deals during his trip to the Middle East last week have rankled one of his closest allies on the right.

Tucker Carlson called out the president’s “corruption” on his podcast Tuesday while speaking with his guest on the program, fellow right-wing influencer Shawn Ryan. The pair were discussing their thoughts on the Trump administration, and while Ryan was happy with certain things from the president, such as his immigration crackdown and his war on diversity, equity, and inclusion, Trump’s Middle East trip gave him pause.

“F--- it, I’m gonna get blasted for this,” Ryan said, “but I see all these negotiations going on in the Middle East, and then I don’t know when these buildings were approved or when these deals got done, but then I also see like, ‘Oh, there’s a brand-new hotel going up in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. And another one going up in Doha.’”

“I’m like, ‘Did these just get done also with the deals that just happened over there, or was this earlier?’” Ryan continued, before telling Carlson, “You would probably know.”

Carlson denied knowing about Trump’s dealings, and Ryan said he thought the pundit was “a lot more on the inside than I am,” adding about Trump’s deals, “That stuff kind of worries me.”

“Well, it seems like corruption, yeah,” Carlson said.

It’s surprising to see Carlson offering criticism of the president, considering how close he is to Trump. He even spoke at a Trump campaign rally in late October, just days before the election.

Trump’s Middle East trip came with several announcements from his businesses in the region, as well as a $2 billion investment in his family’s cryptocurrency business from a firm backed by the United Arab Emirates government.

But the worst of it was the “gift” of a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar to Trump, ostensibly to replace Air Force One, which drew criticism even from Republicans, such as Senator Rand Paul, Ben Shapiro, and Laura Loomer. Now it seems even Carlson has some misgivings about Trump’s dealings. Does this mean that there are cracks in Trump’s base, or will all of these personalities forget Trump’s corruption the next time he panders to them?

A federal judge slammed the Department of Justice Wednesday for its “hasty arrest” of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and agreed to dismiss the ridiculous trespassing charge against the Democratic mayor.

U.S. Judge Andre Espionosa questioned why federal prosecutors would arrest Baraka only to retract the charges days later.

“An arrest, particularly of a public figure, is not a preliminary investigative tool. It is a severe action, carrying significant reputational and personal consequences, and it should only be undertaken after a thorough, dispassionate evaluation of credible evidence,” Espionosa said, in a nearly 10-minute tirade against the DOJ’s attorneys.

Earlier this month, Baraka was arrested by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and charged with trespassing after visiting Delaney Hall, a newly reopened detention facility where he had previously been denied entry. It marked the first immigration-related arrest of a sitting U.S. mayor by the Trump administration and yet another indication that the White House will try to take down just about anybody who gets in the way of its unlawful attack on immigrants. Last month, the FBI arrested a federal judge in Milwaukee for “obstructing” an attempted deportation.

Alina Habba, the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey and Donald Trump’s former lawyer, announced the Democratic mayor’s arrest on X. “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW,” she wrote, an absurd proclamation given her former client Donald Trump’s criminal history.

Just 13 days later, however, Habba announced her office would drop the misdemeanor charge against Baraka—though in the same announcement she revealed new charges against Representative LaMonica McIver, who accompanied Baraka on his visit to Delaney Hall.

Espinosa scolded Habba’s “worrisome misstep” in Baraka’s “hasty arrest,” calling the retraction of charges “embarrassing.” He dismissed the charge with prejudice.

“Federal prosecutors serve a single paramount client: justice itself. Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas,” Espinosa said. “Your allegiance is to the impartial application of the law, to the pursuit of truth, and to the upholding of due process for all.”

Despite Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attestations against the use of fluoride, his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda is apparently going easy on one of the root causes of fluorosis (the only known side effect of over-fluoridated water): pesticides.

Under Donald Trump’s helm, the Health Department secretary has sworn to remove fluoride from all public water systems. Last month, Kennedy said he was assembling a task force on the issue, with plans to tell the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to end its fluoridation program for good.

But a forthcoming report from Kennedy, expected to be released Thursday, will apparently not label two popular pesticides used by U.S. farmers as “unsafe,” reported The Wall Street Journal. They include atrazine, a herbicide used on grasses and corn, and glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup.

Bayer and Monsanto (which transferred ownership of Roundup to Bayer in 2018) have jointly paid nearly $11 billion to settle multiple lawsuits and class actions related to accusations that Roundup’s use is behind a host of cancer cases, including lymphoma and leukemia. Approximately 165,000 Roundup lawsuits had been filed against the companies as of January 2024, according to the law firm Simmons Hanly Conroy, which represented some of the victims.

Well water, fed by groundwater, is one of the most common sources of over-fluoridated water. But why that water is exposed to high concentrations of the naturally occurring mineral is largely related to local industries and agrobusiness operations “that increase the risk of heavy metals, pesticides, nitrates, radon and fluoride in the water,” according to a 2023 study that extracted data from 15 fluoride-related studies conducted around the world.

Fluoride was first introduced to U.S. water in 1945 as part of a public health decision to reduce cavities and tooth decay in adults and children. It was remarkably successful, lowering the cavity and decay rate in both groups by as much as 25 percent, according to the American Dental Association. In 1999, the CDC listed water fluoridation as one of the 10 greatest public health achievements in the twentieth century, for that reason.

Furthermore, fluoride levels in public water are lower than they’ve been in decades. In 2015, the Obama administration dropped the maximum level of fluoride per liter of water to 0.7 milligrams from the previous guidance issued in 1962, which allowed levels to range between 0.7 and 1.2 milligrams per liter, in an effort to further waylay instances of dental fluorosis (discoloration and poor mineralization of the tooth).

“The benefits of fluoride for oral health considerably outweigh the risks,” Rodrigo Lacruz, a professor at New York University’s College of Dentistry, said in 2020, after he published a study on the effects of high fluoride ingestion.

Kennedy’s report will reportedly promise to question pesticide use. But falling short of actually enacting policy around it, all while duplicating and repeating research already conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency, is making ag industry experts further question whether the Trump administration is actually focused on efficiency, as they claim.

“If the administration’s goal is to bring more efficiency to government, then why is the MAHA Commission duplicating efforts by raising questions about pesticides that have been answered repeatedly through research and reviews by the Environmental Protection Agency?” Illinois farmer and National Corn Growers Association President Kenneth Hartman Jr. told the Journal.

Kennedy’s report will reportedly take actual aim at childhood vaccines (a popular topic for Kennedy) and ultraprocessed foods.

There was “mayhem” outside an immigration court in Phoenix Tuesday, as federal agents arrested several people, including one person whose case had just been dismissed.

Immigration attorney Issac Ortega told the Arizona Mirror that several masked agents, who refused to identify themselves as officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arrested his client after his first immigration hearing.

Ortega’s client, a Venezuelan man in his mid-twenties who had entered the United States last fall using the CBP One app, had been told during his hearing that ICE had agreed to close his immigration case. Shortly after, federal agents moved to detain him and others outside the courthouse. Similar to other immigration arrests, the agents provided no identification or warrant.

Ortega told the Mirror that he believes ICE agreed to close his client’s case so that the Trump administration could more easily expedite his deportation. The sick part is, the Trump administration appears to be using compliance with the law to trap immigrants it wishes to deport.

“They always want people to enter the right way, to follow the process, but how are people supposed to do that when the rules are getting changed?” Ortega said.

Several people were swept up in the arrests Tuesday in a scene one attorney described to Ortega as “mayhem.” But that wasn’t the only city that saw mass arrests at courthouses.

Lindsay Toczylowski, the president and co-founder of Immigration Defenders, posted on X that there had been similar reports of people being detained after having their cases dismissed at immigration courtrooms across Los Angeles. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, posted that he’d heard similar stories from San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Seattle, suggesting the arrests in Phoenix were part of a larger sweep.

ICE has not posted a press release about the arrests on its website. These latest arrests represent a growing trend of immigration enforcement at courthouses, considered to be protected areas where ICE has not previously pursued arrests. New Trump administration policy has empowered immigration officers to detain individuals at these locations, as well as schools and places of worship.

ICE declined to comment on the arrests to the Mirror. The New Republic reached out to ICE for information about these arrests, but the agency had not responded by time of publication.

Amid one of Donald Trump’s most obvious corruption scandals, foreign leaders are now apologizing to the American president for not providing him with a multimillion-dollar bribe.

“I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told Trump with a chuckle in a press conference Wednesday.

“I wish you did, I’d take it,” Trump responded without cracking a smile. “If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it.”

“OK,” Ramaphosa said, likely surprised by the president’s seemingly serious response.

The two leaders met in the Oval Office Wednesday afternoon to discuss Trump’s recent unbacked claims that South Africa is experiencing a “white genocide.” Throughout the contentious meeting, Trump relentlessly argued that white South Africans are being killed at record rates, and even made him sit through an uncomfortably long video explaining the supposed mass murder of white Afrikaner farmers.

The press conference fell on the same day the Department of Defense announced it has officially accepted the $400 million jumbo jet as a gift from Qatar, which will be outfitted for Trump’s use to replace Air Force One.

“The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” Sean Parnel, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said Wednesday. “The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the president of the United States.”

The “gift” has been heavily scrutinized by lawmakers on both sides for its blatant corruption.

Trump said last week the Boeing 747 would go directly to his personal library once he leaves office, a clear violation of a 1966 law preventing presidents from keeping personal gifts worth more than $480.

Ramaphosa’s apology— joke or not—is a terrifying indication that accepting bribes from foreign leaders could soon become the norm, or even the expectation, for the Trump administration going forward.

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated a court order by sending immigrants to South Sudan who aren’t from that country.

“It was impossible for these people to have a meaningful opportunity to object to their transfer to South Sudan,” U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy said in his ruling Wednesday, adding that the administration provided “plainly insufficient” notice to the immigrants.

“The Department’s actions in this case are unquestionably violative of this court’s order,” Murphy continued. On Tuesday, Murphy warned the government that those who took part in the flights could be subject to criminal penalties, and those could come in further court proceedings.

Murphy called for an emergency hearing only one day after learning in court from immigration attorneys that the Trump administration had sent two immigrants, one Vietnamese and the other Burmese, to South Sudan without any justification, and without giving them the chance to contest their deportation out of concern for their own safety. South Sudan is in the midst of violence and political unrest, with the State Department warning Americans not to visit.

Despite the Department of Homeland Security releasing the names and photographs of many of the people on the deportation flights before the hearing, the government still told Murphy that information about them was too sensitive to disclose in open court.

The Trump administration has routinely flouted court orders over its immigration policies, even when the Supreme Court ordered the government to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom even administration lawyers admitted was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

The White House continues to send immigrants to countries they don’t come from, such as Rwanda, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama and openly refuses to respond to any judicial oversight. Administration officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio even scoff at court orders that rebuke the administration. Will contempt charges cause the administration to follow the law?

This story has been updated.

Republican Representative Jim Jordan was called out so much over his party’s budget bill that he had to consult lawyers to see if the bill was upending federal law.

At a House Rules Committee meeting Wednesday morning, Democratic Representative Joe Neguse pointed out that language in the bill seeking to curtail federal judges from enforcing nationwide injunctions doesn’t just apply to immigration cases currently being litigated against the Trump administration, as Republicans want, but also to any federal case, retroactively.

“This is all cases! This is not immigration cases! The plain language of this statute that you have written applies to every conceivable case brought in a federal court, period,” Neguse said, tapping his desk for emphasis. “IRS cases. Patent cases. Immigration cases. If you have a constituent that sues the ATF, this provision applies to them.

“This is the point. And you can visit with your lawyers, and maybe they can provide you with the clarity, but it is unquestionably the case that this provision applies to every plaintiff,” Neguse continued, as Jordan actually consulted with attorneys seated next to him.

“I just want to say that the situation we’re trying to address is what’s been happening around the country,” Jordan responded, flustered, saying that one federal judge can “issue a decision that applies nationwide to all immigrants during that situation.”

“Why didn’t you put ‘nationwide’ in this language?” Neguse replied, waving the bill in the air.

“Well, we can look at the language—” Jordan stammered before Neguse interjected.

“It’s 6 a.m.! You’re voting on this thing in like 10 hours! What are we talking about?” said the Colorado Democrat.

This exchange between leading a House Democrat and Republican illustrates a major problem with Republicans’ so-called “big, beautiful bill”—it’s being put together quickly and broadly to accomplish many of Trump and the GOP’s priorities at once, from immigration to big budget cuts.

As a result, massive cuts have been proposed to essential programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and Trump’s desire to rein in federal courts that strike down his egregious immigration policies could severely upend the way the federal judicial system works. As Jordan demonstrated Wednesday, Trump and the GOP have a big wish list but have no idea what they’re doing.

Two years after they led an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden on allegations that the forty-sixth president benefited from his son’s business dealings in Ukraine and China, MAGA Republicans have decided that conflicts of interest are no longer worth mentioning—at least with regard to Donald Trump.

Testifying before Congress Wednesday, state secretary turned joint national security adviser Marco Rubio claimed that the Trump family’s business in the Middle East wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for a sitting president, despite the fact that Trump and his relatives appear to be making money hand over fist, thanks to Trump’s power over the White House.

“I don’t think this is a complicated question. President Trump is personally profiting from a deal with a foreign government while selling weapons to that same government who’s enabling a genocide,” said California Representative Sara Jacobs, referring to the United Arab Emirates’ “complicity” in the genocide of the Masalit community in West Darfur. “Policy aside, do you really think this isn’t a conflict of interest?”

“No you’re making claims—the president’s family owns a business, and they can conduct business anywhere in the world they want,” Rubio said. “The president never once raised business deals in UAE  when talking about—any president would have to have a relationship with the UAE.”

But Jacobs pointed out that Trump’s business dealings in the Middle East are not passive, as the forty-seventh president has “retained his ownership” of the companies. He has also continued to intertwine his image with his brands: On his cryptocurrency World Liberty Financial’s website, Trump’s image is plastered alongside text urging investors to “shape a new era of finance.”

“It literally says on the website that Mr. Trump and his family members own a 60 percent stake in this company. That’s silly,” Jacobs said. “I’m asking you a very simple question: Do you believe it’s a conflict of interest to have a president personally profiting from a deal with a foreign government while selling weapons to that same government who’s enabling a genocide?”

“I don’t accept the premise of your question,” Rubio replied. “I think this has nothing to do with personally benefiting from anything. This has to do with the fact that in order to conduct foreign policy in the Middle East, you have to deal with the UAE.”

Trump and his businesses have a huge financial stake in the Middle East, especially the UAE. Some of his real estate plans include a Trump-branded golf course in Qatar (as part of a $5.5 billion development project) and a $1 billion Trump hotel and residence in Dubai. Other investments include a $2 billion cryptocurrency stake by an Abu Dhabi firm in World Liberty Financial Coin. 

The family also revealed in December that it would be expanding its presence in Saudi Arabia, announcing Trump Tower Jeddah. The price tag for the building has not been made public, but one of the developers on the project, Dar Global, compared it to another $530 million Trump Tower in the city, reported Reuters.

The president has also come under intense recent scrutiny for accepting a super luxury jumbo jet from Qatari leadership, in an act that was widely interpreted as a foreign bribe, including by longtime supporters of the president’s agenda, such as far-right influencers Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer. It was one of the most lavish gifts ever bestowed on a U.S. president.

Accepting gifts from foreign governments is a blatant violation of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, so in an effort to circumvent that, Trump has claimed that the plane is instead a donation to the Department of Defense. But his reported plans to shift ownership of the aircraft to his presidential library shortly before exiting office would effectively make that excuse null and void.