Trump Signs Cruel Tax And Spending Bill With Major Cuts To Medicaid

President Donald Trump signed his so-called “big, beautiful bill” into law on Friday, crystallizing a major legislative victory for his administration that will devastate millions of Americans nationwide.

“This is a triumph of democracy on the birthday of democracy, and I have to say, the people are happy,” Trump said Friday from the White House balcony during the annual White House Fourth of July picnic.

He called it the “most popular bill ever signed in the history” of the United States, adding that America is “winning, winning, winning like never before.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) managed to deliver the legislation to the president’s desk ahead of his self-imposed July 4 deadline as almost every GOP lawmaker who had expressed reservations about the giant bill fell in line.

The president celebrated its passage in the House Thursday, declaring that “the people of the United States of America will be Richer, Safer, and Prouder than ever before,” in a post on his Truth Social platform.

The controversial 900-page document, though, extends the tax cuts Trump passed during his first term in office for wealthier households which were due to expire this year, in part by making over $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid that are expected to result in about 12 millions of Americans losing their health insurance by 2034, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The legislation will slash food assistance for low-income people and children by $285 billion and put both nursing homes and rural hospitals at serious risk. It will also make it harder for people to qualify for federal student loans.

Trump is set to get more money to execute his cruel immigration policy, with immigration authorities set to receive $150 billion, including $45 billion for new detention centers and $29 billion for new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The president’s sweeping domestic policy bill is expected to increase the national debt by over $3.3 trillion in the next decade, the CBO said, exposing the GOP’s hypocrisy on fiscal responsibility concerns.

Democrats believe some of the unpopular elements of the bill could help their performance in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections, seizing the opportunity to create a contrast with the GOP, as a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed just 29% of Americans support the legislation. But Republicans appeared to realize the political risk at hand and made sure the Medicaid cuts won’t take effect until late 2026.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who broke the record for the longest speech on the lower chamber’s floor ahead of the vote, warned that “people will die” as a result of the bill, decrying it as an “all-out Republican assault on health care.”

Despite Jeffries’ calls on Republicans to join Democrats in opposing the legislation, only two GOP members, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.), ended up opposing the bill in the final House vote on Thursday. Just three Senate Republicans, Thom Tillis (N.C.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Rand Paul (Ky.), voted “no” in the upper chamber’s vote earlier this week.

Before he spoke about the bill, Trump rambled about how great America’s military is, claiming it’s at its highest enlistment numbers, and how his last six months in office have been “the most successful six months” for a president ever.

“Our country is more proud right now than it has been in many, many years,” Trump said. “We have pride, we have dignity.”

Paige Skinner contributed reporting.

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