'Get them so afraid': Dems applying pressure to 16 GOP senators to weaken Trump's big bill

The version of H.R. 1 ("The One Big Beautiful Bill Act) that passed the House of Representatives by one vote is highly unlikely to pass the Senate in its current form, and now the top Senate Democrat is hoping to get a critical number of Republicans to strip the legislation of its teeth before the chamber votes on its passage.

That's according to a Monday article in Punchbowl News, which reported that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (R-N.Y.) is targeting 16 of his Republican counterparts who represent states that could be disproportionately impacted by the worst parts of the legislation. Those senators have not yet been publicly named, but Schumer said he's focusing on calling attention to three major provisions of the bill that he believes could scare Republicans into voting no.

"“We get them so afraid — and this is happening already — that they go to [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune and say we have to modify Medicaid, we have to modify SNAP, we have to modify the clean-energy provisions,” the New York Democrat told Punchbowl. “The more we show Americans what’s in this bill, the more they have to change it.”

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As Schumer mentioned, the most controversial portion of the bill may be its language cutting federal support for Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va) has publicly expressed concern over how the Medicaid cuts would impact rural hospitals in West Virginia, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)is warning that he won't vote for any bill that cuts Medicaid benefits.

Additionally, Schumer may be reaching out to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who announced in late May that he was running in next year's Republican gubernatorial primary in the Yellowhammer State. The Alabama senator has already indicated he's hesitant about voting for the bill due to a section in which states would be required to fund part of the cost of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for the first time in history.

Other Republicans could stand to see clean energy development projects – which were made possible by former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — get axed should the current bill become law, which may result in thousands of their constituents losing good-paying jobs. However, if the Senate even changes one word of the legislation, it would need to be reconsidered in the House of Representatives. And many House Republicans have already said they wouldn't back the bill if it included any IRA-funded clean energy subsidies or if it failed to cut enough from Medicaid and SNAP.

T"here’s such a vulnerability — the impacts are so deep and devastating — and that’s one of the reasons I’m pushing it," Schumer said of the IRA subsidies.

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Click here to read Punchbowl's full report.