Trump 'weak and on the rocks' as critical senator rejects reconciliation bill

Talking Points Memo reports President Donald Trump is ‘weak and on the rocks,’ and this is why critical Republican senators are peeling off from the GOP enclave necessary to pass Trump’s controversial reconciliation bill currently roiling the House.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis) announced he won’t be supporting the reconciliation bill devised by House Republicans because the senator demands a minimum $5 trillion in budget cuts to make the bill debt neutral. The House Freedom Caucus, arguably the most cut-happy of Republicans scouring the budget for elimination, is demanding only between $1.5 or $2 trillion in cuts, indicating how far away they are from pleasing Johnson.

“This is part of what we mean when we say that public opinion matters,” writes TPM reporter Josh Marshall. “If Trump were at 55% support or even 50% there is zero chance Johnson would be doing this. But they see him as currently weak and on the rocks. So, someone like Johnson is happy to say, ‘You’re weak, so I’ll come forward and inflate my cred with hard right-wingers at your expense.’”

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While Johnson pushes for even more painful cuts, other GOP members are reportedly nervous about how their constituents will react to razing a government program as popular as Medicaid. Members of Trump’s own circle are also worried about deficit hawks’ determination, arguing that cuts could eat away at Trump’s base.

“The House Republicans who are obsessed with cutting Medicaid are in danger of unwittingly breaking up the coalition Trump created,” one Trumpworld source told NOTUS. “The Republican Party has lost a portion of its college-educated supporters and has increased greatly with voters without a college education who rely more on entitlements.”

House Republicans are ultimately itching to pitch Medicaid cuts as a means to pay for Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. However, Trump never campaigned on cutting Medicaid last year and observers say campaigning on cannibalizing the program to pay for his 2017 tax cuts would likely have undermined his 2024 win.

“[There’s a] lot of MAGAs on Medicaid,” Trump ally Steve Bannon said on his podcast earlier this year. “If you don’t think so, you are dead wrong. You can’t just take a meat axe to it.”

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Today, Trump is still promising not to cut social health programs on the White House website and calling reporters "liars" for claiming otherwise. However, House Republicans are discussing a proposal to cut federal spending for Medicaid, and make states pick up the tab.

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