WASHINGTON — An increasing number of congressional Republicans are nervous that President Donald Trump is forcing them to walk the proverbial plank and pass his “Big Beautiful Bill” — even if that means losing their seat. With the expansive measure stalled in the House, Democrats sense fear in the air.
“I think my colleagues across the aisle are scared,” Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) told Raw Story.
“They know there's a lot of pain. They know it's gonna be tough, but they're even more afraid of Trump.”
Even so, the Trump card isn’t working as Republican leaders hoped. The president spent Wednesday trying to persuade GOP holdouts to pass the bill as overhauled by their Senate colleagues.
While the president is promising carrots, he’s also wielding a stick.
Trump’s made multi-million-dollar moves to oust one Republican who has rejected the measure from day one, libertarian-leaning Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). Other fencesitters are now weighing limited options: Cross Trump or cross their constituents by, say, booting millions off health insurance.
Threats haven’t worked yet, as members of the far-right Freedom Caucus demand more drastic budget cuts and the last remaining more moderate members fight for mortgage deductions for their upper-middle-class constituents.
Analysts and Democrats say the “Big Beautiful Bill” will have a devastating effect on millions of Americans who rely on programs including Medicaid and food stamps, while also damaging U.S. renewable energy production and loading tax cuts in favor of the wealthy.
The bill’s a MAGA wishlist, including billions of dollars for masked ICE agents and tens of billions of dollars more in military spending.
Polling shows clear majorities of Americans don’t like the bill.
Regardless, Republican leaders are attempting to ram it through the House and have it on Trump’s White House desk by Friday, Independence Day.
On Wednesday, rank-and-file Republicans ground the bill to a halt, and Democrats claimed a mini-victory.
“Obviously, there's a message to be had. It speaks for itself. The largest transfer of wealth from ordinary people to rich people. That's real simple,” said Garcia, a member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.
“The pain … it's real. Real people are affected by this.”
But real people aren’t a part of the debate — politicians are. Trump, Garcia charged, is thereby guilty of a “huge betrayal” of the 77 million Americans who voted for him over Joe Biden last year.
“How long will people go for this, once they start to see the impact on regular people,” Garcia said. “That’s the question.”
The Senate passed Trump’s bill on Tuesday by the barest margin, 51-50, Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaker after three Republicans defected.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), an independent-minded Republican, faces continued ire from progressives for voting in favor of the tax and spending package despite saying she did not like it and hoped the House would change it.
So far, SpeakerJohnson’s been working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep the Senate measure intact. Otherwise, Senate Republicans will have to pass the measure again.
In the House, with the Fourth of July recess canceled, members from both sides of the aisle faced challenges just getting to Washington to vote.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), a senior voice in his party, told Raw Story he abandoned a vacation in France to fly back to the Capitol. While he didn’t stop to shave, the former Goldman Sachs executive was miffed that he had to buy a second round ticket, so he could vote against the “Big Beautiful Bill” before rejoining his family.
As Wednesday evening drew on, Himes took to social media to vent and goad the GOP.
“The House is totally frozen right now,” he wrote.
“Even Republicans know that adding $4 trillion to the national debt while kicking 17 million people off health insurance just to give tax breaks to rich people is A BAD IDEA.”
After campaigning on soaring promises to ‘Read the Bill,’ some Republicans were shrugging off pesky questions about how much of the more-than-900-page bill they had read. Many admitted they hadn’t read it, which had Democrats smarting.
“I read it all night long,” Rep. Diana Degette (D-CO) drily joked to Raw Story: “I decided not to support it.”
“I decided not to support it when Chuck Schumer stripped the title out,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) quipped back.
That was a reference to the Democratic Senate minority leader’s gambit on Tuesday, when he had the bill’s title removed moments before it passed the Senate.
"This is not a ‘big, beautiful bill’ at all,” the New Yorker told reporters. “That's why I moved down the floor to strike the title. It is now called ‘the act.’ That's what it's called. But it is really the ‘big ugly betrayal,’ and the American people know it.
"This vote will haunt our Republican colleagues for years to come. Because of this bill, tens of millions will lose health insurance. Millions of jobs will disappear. People will get sick and die, kids will go hungry and the debt will explode to levels we have never seen.”
Schumer’s move did not meet with universal applause, many observers saying stunts were less effective than action. Nor, on Wednesday, did House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-NY) decision to pose with a baseball bat, to illustrate his determination to oppose Trump’s bill.
Rank-and-file Democrats said such antics were a distraction.
“You know, this is the most consequential bill for hard-working Americans in our lifetime, and not in a good way,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) told Raw Story.
“You’d think that because these are such radical changes, that we would be given the time and courtesy to be able to read through all of this. We know, of course, the broad strokes and they're horrible, but there are probably innumerable details in there that are just as bad or even worse that we haven't even gotten to.”