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    Elon Musk calls Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ tax bill a ‘disgusting abomination’

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    Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur, has opened a new rift with Donald Trump by denouncing the US president’s tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.Musk’s online outburst could embolden fiscally conservative Republican senators – some of whom have already spoken out – to defy Trump as they continue crucial negotiations on Capitol Hill over the so-called “one big, beautiful bill”.“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote on his X social media platform on Tuesday. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”Musk, who had previously voiced criticism of the proposed legislation, quipping that it could be big or beautiful but not both, added on X: “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”He continued: “Congress is making America bankrupt.”A top donor to Trump during last year’s election campaign, Musk departed the White House last week after steering its so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) with the stated mission of slashing fraud and abuse within federal departments. He has argued that the Republican bill will undermine Doge’s work and drive the US further into debt.On Tuesday, Musk drew immediate support from Thomas Massie, one of only two Republicans who last month voted against the bill in the House of Representatives. “He’s right,” Massie responded on X.But there was a rebuke from Mike Johnson, the House speaker, who said he had spoken with Musk by phone on Monday for more than 20 minutes, making the case that the bill achieved campaign promises while making permanent massive tax and spending cuts.Johnson told reporters: “With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the One Big Beautiful bill. It’s a very important first start. Elon is missing it … I just deeply regret he’s made this mistake.”John Thune, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, was more diplomatic, saying: “So we have a difference of opinion. He’s entitled to that opinion. We’re going to proceed full speed ahead.”Having narrowly passed the House, the bill is now under consideration in the Senate, which is aiming to pass a revised version by 4 July. Some Republican fiscal conservatives, such as senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, share Musk’s concerns about the need for significant spending cuts.Johnson told CNN: “We have enough [holdouts] to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”Trump has previously dismissed Republican dissenters as “grandstanders” and urged them to get onboard. His influence proved decisive in quelling a potential rebellion in the House. On Monday he wrote on his Truth Social platform: “So many false statements are being made about ‘THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’.”The White House acknowledged Musk’s stance but said it has not changed its position on the bill. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn’t change the president’s opinion: this is one big, beautiful bill and he is sticking to it.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe bill extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and includes new spending for border security and the military. Republicans aimed to offset these costs with cuts to programmmes such as Medicaid, food stamps and green-energy tax credits.Projections from the Congressional Budget Office and independent analysts indicate that the bill would add between $2.3tn and $5tn to the deficit over the next 10 years. White House officials contend that the economic growth generated by tax cuts will offset the increased spending.Russ Vought, director of the office of management and budget, told CNN: “This bill doesn’t increase the deficit or hurt the debt. In fact, it lowers it by $1.4tn.”But Democrats have warned that the budget would raise the cost of healthcare for millions of people, and cause millions to lose coverage, in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. A new analysis by Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania found that it could lead to more than 51,000 preventable deaths.Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said in a floor speech on Tuesday: “Donald Trump and his so-called ‘big, beautiful bill’ is ugly to its very core. Behind the smoke and mirrors lies a cruel and draconian truth: tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy paid for by gutting healthcare for millions of Americans.”Later, responding to Musk’s intervention, Schumer commented on X: “I didn’t think it was imaginable but … I AGREE WITH ELON MUSK.”Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, added in a post: “Musk is right: this bill IS a ‘disgusting abomination’. We shouldn’t give $664 billion in tax breaks to the 1%. We shouldn’t throw 13.7 million people off of Medicaid. We shouldn’t cut $290 billion from programs to feed the hungry. Let’s defeat this disgusting abomination.” More

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      Philadelphia paper warns Fetterman to take Senate job seriously – ‘or step away’

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      The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board has issued a sharp rebuke of Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman in a new opinion piece, urging him to take his job “seriously” and writing that “it’s time for Fetterman to serve Pennsylvanians, or step away.”In a strongly worded piece published on Sunday, the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which endorsed Fetterman during his 2022 Senate campaign, said the first-term Democrat “has missed more votes than nearly every other senator in the past two years” and “regularly skips committee hearings, cancels meetings, avoids the daily caucus lunches with colleagues, and rarely goes on the Senate floor”.The editorial board also wrote that six former Fetterman staffers told an Inquirer reporter that Fetterman was frequently absent or spent hours alone in his office, avoiding colleagues and meetings.“Being an elected official comes with public scrutiny,” the board wrote. “If Fetterman can’t handle the attention or perform his job, then in the best interest of the country and the nearly 13 million residents of Pennsylvania he represents, he should step aside.”“Being an elected representative is a privilege, not an entitlement,” it added. “Being a US senator is a serious job that requires full-time engagement.”Fetterman responded to the piece and allegations on Monday during a Fox News debate with Republican senator David McCormick.“For me, it’s very clear, it’s just part of like this weird – this weird smear,” Fetterman said. “The more kinds of, left kind of media continues to have these kinds of an attack, and it’s just part of a smear and that’s just not … it’s just not accurate.”He continued: “I’ve always been there, and for me, if I miss some of those votes, I’ve made 90% of them, and we all know those votes that I’ve missed were on Monday. Those are travel days and I have three young kids and … those are throwaway procedural votes that … they were never determined if they were important. That’s a choice that I made.”Fetterman also reportedly claimed senators Bernie Sanders and Patty Murray had missed more votes than he has.“Why aren’t the left media yelling and demanding them and claiming they’re not doing their job?” Fetterman said.In response, a spokesperson for Murray told Politico that most of her missed votes occurred during a vote-a-rama when her husband was hospitalized.A spokesperson for Sanders did not immediately respond to request for comment from Politico, but the outlet pointed out that according to data from GovTrack.us, a government transparency site, Sanders has missed 836 of 6,226 rollcall votes since 1991, or about 13.4%. Murray has missed 290 of 11,106 rollcall votes since 1993, or roughly 2.6%.By comparison, Politico reported that Fetterman has missed 174 of 961 rollcall votes, approximately 18.1%, in his first term, according to GovTrack.us.The editorial on Sunday comes as last month, New York magazine published an article on Fetterman which quoted several former and current Fetterman staffers who expressed concerns about the Senator’s mental and physical health, and his behavior.In response, Fetterman dismissed the piece, calling it “a one-source story, with a couple anonymous sources” and labeling it a “hit piece from a very left publication”. More

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      Republican senator criticized for mock apology after saying ‘we all are going to die’

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      Senator Joni Ernst triggered fierce criticism after making light of voters’ fears that Republican Medicaid cuts could prove fatal, telling a town hall audience “we all are going to die” and then filming a mocking response video over the weekend.The Iowa Republican, who is facing a possibly challenging re-election battle in 2026, was explaining at a Friday town hall how the Republican immigration and tax package would affect Medicaid eligibility when an audience member shouted that people could die if they lost coverage through the proposed cuts.“Well, we all are going to die,” Ernst responded as the crowd groaned. “So, for heaven’s sakes. For heaven’s sakes, folks.”Rather than clarify or apologize, Ernst channeled Trump-era defiance in her response on Saturday with an Instagram video that appeared to be filmed in a graveyard.“I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,” she said. “So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”She concluded by telling viewers: “For those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.”The controversy comes as Senate Republicans prepare to tackle the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill”, which passed the House and would slash social safety net spending by more than $1tn over a decade. Congressional Budget Office projections suggest the measure could strip Medicaid coverage from 8.7 million people and leave 7.6 million more Americans uninsured.On Monday afternoon, the White House defended the legislation with a “mythbuster” statement dismissing claims that the bill would cause deaths as “one of Democrats’ most disgusting lies”.The White House argued the bill would actually “strengthen and protect the social safety net” by removing what it claimed were 1.4 million undocumented people from Medicaid rolls and implementing work requirements for able-bodied adults.“By removing at least 1.4 million illegal immigrants from the program, ending taxpayer-funded gender mutilation surgeries for minors, and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, the One Big Beautiful Bill will ensure Medicaid better serves the American people,” the statement read.Senate Republicans acknowledge the House-passed bill will undergo significant revisions, with several Republican senators seeking changes to the Medicaid provisions. Ernst’s comments have also provided Democrats with potent ammunition for their argument that Republicans prioritize tax cuts for wealthy Americans over healthcare for ordinary citizens.Iowa Democratic state senator JD Scholten told Politico on Monday he is launching a campaign to unseat Ernst, saying the senator “disrespected” its residents.The Democratic National Committee chairperson, Ken Martin, said Ernst had “said the quiet part out loud”, arguing Republicans don’t care “whether their own constituents live or die as long as the richest few get richer”.Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut told CNN on Sunday that the Republican bill “is about life and death”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Everybody in that audience knows that they’re going to die. They would just rather die in old age, at 85 or 90, instead of dying at 40,” Murphy said. “And the reality is that, when you lose your healthcare, you are much more at risk of early death.”In Iowa, the stakes are notably high, with roughly one in five residents relying on Medicaid coverage, including half of all nursing home residents, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.Ernst attempted damage control during Friday’s town hall, insisting Republicans would “focus on those that are most vulnerable” and protect people who meet Medicaid eligibility requirements.The senator faces several primary challengers as she seeks a third term, with the Medicaid controversy potentially complicating her political positioning in a state where healthcare access remains a key voter concern. In December, she was attacked from her right flank for being a “Rino” after initially hesitating on confirming the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth.When asked for comment, her office stayed the path.“There’s only two certainties in life: death and taxes,” a spokesperson for Ernst said, “and she’s working to ease the burden of both by fighting to keep more of Iowans’ hard-earned tax dollars in their own pockets and ensuring their benefits are protected from waste, fraud and abuse.” More

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      Trump’s tax bill helps the rich, hurts the poor and adds trillions to the deficit | Katrina vanden Heuvel

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      The blush is off the rose, or, rather, the orange. The erstwhile “First Buddy” and born-again fiscal hawk Elon Musk recently said he was “disappointed” by Donald Trump’s spendthrift budget currently under debate in the US Senate. Squeaking through the House of Representatives thanks to the capitulation of several Republican deficit hardliners, this “big, beautiful bill” certainly increases the federal debt bigly – by nearly $4tn over the next decade.Equally disappointed are those who have been busy burnishing Trump’s populist veneer. Steve Bannon had repeatedly promised higher taxes for millionaires, but he has confessed he’s “very upset”. That’s because the bill would cut taxes by over $600bn for the top 1% of wage-earners, also known as millionaires. It amounts to the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.Yet this double betrayal will do nothing to impede the sundry Maga apparatchiks’ breathless support for their dear leader. Musk has already tweeted his gratitude to the president for the opportunity to lead Doge (that is, slash funding for cancer research). So this bill has once again proven Republicans’ willingness to relinquish their convictions as long as they can keep their grasp on power. And for Trump, it has reaffirmed that his pledged golden age is really just a windfall for the uber-wealthy like him. Now there can be no mistaking that Republicans’ governing philosophy is neither conservatism nor populism but unabashed hypocrisy.Expecting the self-proclaimed King of Debt to balance the budget – or hoping workers would be protected by the billionaire whose personal motto is “You’re fired” – was always imaginative thinking at best. In his first term, Trump added $8tn to the national deficit. Even excluding Covid relief spending, that’s twice as much debt as Joe Biden racked up during his four years in the White House. Almost $2tn of that tab came from Trump’s vaunted tax cut, which delivered three times more wealth to the top 5% of wage earners than it did to the bottom 60%. Nor did its benefits trickle down, with incomes remaining flat for workers who earn less than $114,000.Trump’s disingenuousness on the deficit continues a hallowed Republican tradition. All four Republican presidents since 1980 have increased the federal debt. By combining reckless militarism with rampant corporatism, George W Bush managed to balloon it by 1,204%. When Bush’s treasury secretary Paul O’Neill expressed concern about that spending, Dick Cheney, the then-vice president, reportedly retorted: “Deficits don’t matter.”Except, of course, when a Democrat occupies the Oval Office. During his campaign for the US Senate in 2022, JD Vance derided Biden’s signature $1tn infrastructure package as a “huge mistake” that would waste money on “really crazy stuff”. Like improving almost 200,000 miles of roads and repairing over 11,000 bridges across the country.Apparently less crazy, but certainly more callous, are the vertiginous cuts to the social safety net proposed in Trump’s current budget bill. Its $1tn evisceration of Medicaid and Snap would leave 8 million Americans uninsured and potentially end food assistance for 11 million people, including 4 million children. When the Democratic Representative Ro Khanna introduced an amendment to maintain coverage for the 38 million kids who receive their healthcare through Medicaid, Republicans blocked it from even receiving a vote.But for all the budget’s austerity, it also provides $20bn in tax credits to establish a national school voucher program. And equally outrageous are its provisions that have nothing to do with the pecuniary, from easing regulations on gun silencers to hamstringing the power of courts to enforce injunctions.Perhaps most breathtaking of all, though, is how shamelessly the bill enriches the already mega-rich. In its first year, its tax breaks will grace Americans in the top 0.1% of the income bracket with an additional $400,000, while decreasing the earnings of people in the bottom 25% by $1,000. In other words, those who can least afford it are financing relief for those who least need it.When the 50% of working class Americans who broke for Trump in last year’s election realize they voted for a pay cut, they might begin to feel a bit disillusioned with the crypto trader-in-chief. They might even feel pulled to the authentically populist vision outlined by the progressives Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on their nationwide Fighting Oligarchy Tour.In the meantime, it is almost an inevitability that Republican senators will wring their hands before pressing the green button to vote “yea.” Josh Hawley has called the budget bill “morally wrong and politically suicidal”, criticism which Trump has previously mocked as “grandstanding”. The insult contains a typically Trumpian flash of psychological insight, because Hawley and his colleagues will no doubt do exactly what their counterparts in the House have already done – cave.Once Trump has scribbled his oversized signature onto the bill, his vision for the US will have become unmistakable. Try as they might, not even the spinmeisters at Fox News will be able to deny that he runs this country the way he ran his Atlantic City casinos, leading working Americans to financial ruin while he emerges all the richer for it.

      Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a contributor to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times More

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      US budget chief calls fears that cuts to benefits will lead to deaths ‘totally ridiculous’

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      The White House budget director Russ Vought on Sunday dismissed as “totally ridiculous” fears expressed by voters that cuts to benefits in the huge spending bill passed by the House will lead to premature deaths in America.Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill act, now awaiting debate in the US Senate, will slash two major federal safety net programs, Medicaid, which provides healthcare to poor and disabled Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps people afford groceries, which will affect millions of people if it becomes law.Vought, director of the office of management and budget (OMB) and a key figure in Project 2025, the rightwing manifesto created to guide a second Trump term, defended the bill in an appearance on CNN on Sunday morning, also defending the lacerations to the federal workforce under Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).Vought was asked about a town hall meeting in Iowa last week hosted by the senator Joni Ernst where, when fielding questions about proposed cuts to Medicaid, a constituent yelled out that as a result people were going to die.Ernst responded, to jeers: “People are not – well, we all are going to die. For heaven’s sakes, folks.”Then, after the exchange went viral online, she posted a sarcastic non-apology video on Saturday, saying: “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth. So I apologize. And I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”When Vought responded on CNN’s State of the Union politics show about such concerns over cuts to health insurance and grocery subsidies leading to premature deaths, he said: “It’s totally ridiculous. This is ‘astroturf’. This bill will preserve and protect the programs, the social safety net, but it will make it much more commonsense.”Astroturfing is slang for pretending criticism is coming from the grassroots when, in fact, it is being orchestrated by interested parties.Some advocacy groups have said loss of Medicaid insurance and food stamps will cause great hardship.“These cuts won’t just hurt – they will kill,” the head of the Ohio Nurses Association said, while the American Academy of Pediatrics said the bill would result in “hungry kids” and impossible choices for many families. The American Hospital Association has warned that rural hospitals could close.On the same CNN show on Sunday, the senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, condemned Vought’s and Ernst’s remarks, saying: “Everyone would rather die in old age than at 40.” Murphy said people losing health insurance in order to continue tax cuts for the richest would lead to more deaths and that the bill is “an absolute disaster” and will add to the US deficit.“It’s just unreal the amount of gaslighting this administration is doing,” he said.Fellow Democrat and Georgia senator Raphael Warnock told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he is in favor of work but that a work-reporting requirement in the bill, as a condition of Medicaid, “is very good at kicking people off their healthcare coverage, it’s not good at incentivizing people to work”. He added that if passed, the legislation would result in “a workforce that’s sicker and poorer” and damage to the US economy.The House speaker, Mike Johnson, who got the bill through the chamber last month but faces a greater challenge from some fellow Republicans in the Senate, told NBC that the bill does not include cuts to Medicaid but instead would strengthen the system and result in reductions in “fraud, waste and abuse”.The House minority leader and New York Democratic representative Hakeem Jeffries predicted that the bill would not pass the Republican-controlled Senate.“Hospitals will close, nursing homes will shut down and people will literally die,” he warned. More

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      Republican senator Tommy Tuberville launches run for Alabama governor

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      Republican US senator Tommy Tuberville has officially entered the race for governor of Alabama, revealing a campaign website on Tuesday to launch his candidacy.If the campaign is successful, Tuberville could become Alabama’s governor-elect by the end of 2026. He aims to succeed Republican governor Kay Ivey, who is finishing her second term and is barred from running again due to term limits.His announcement was the next anticipated step following Tuberville’s transition from college football coach to politician. In 2016, he was coaching at the University of Cincinnati, having earlier led Auburn University’s football team. By 2020, he had made his political debut, winning a US Senate seat representing Alabama.Tuberville built upon his reputation from the football world to enter politics, often referring to himself as “Coach”. His celebrity status in Alabama gave him a strong base of support, which he further bolstered by aligning himself closely with Donald Trump.The US president previously endorsed Tuberville over former US attorney general Jeff Sessions in the 2020 Republican primary. Sessions, once a senator from Alabama, had fallen out of favor with Trump, who appointed and later dismissed him as attorney general.Tuberville went on to defeat Democratic incumbent Doug Jones in the general election. Jones had briefly flipped the seat in a 2017 special election after Republicans nominated Roy Moore, whose campaign was derailed by allegations of sexual misconduct.Since entering the Senate, Tuberville has cultivated strong ties with conservative organizations such as the Club for Growth, which recently endorsed his campaign. He has also drawn national attention for his months-long blockade of military promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion-related policies under Joe Biden.Tuberville, known for his strongly conservative beliefs, says that he believes that “men are men and women are women” and that “allowing men to compete in women’s sports is wrong” on his new campaign website.He also mentions “poisonous ideologies” such as “Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), which teach our kids to hate each other”. He adds that “zero taxpayer dollars should go towards abortions” in his view.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe senator also faces scrutiny over allegations that he was not a full-time Alabama resident, charges he has denied. Tuberville is now the second sitting US senator to announce a gubernatorial campaign this year. More

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      Top Republicans threaten to block Trump’s spending bill if national debt is not reduced

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      Donald Trump has been warned by fiscal hawks within his own party in the US Senate that he must “get serious” about cutting government spending and reducing the national debt or else they will block the passage of his signature tax-cutting legislation known as the “big, beautiful bill”.Ron Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin who rose to prominence as a fiscal hardliner with the Tea Party movement, issued the warning to the president on Sunday. Asked by CNN’s State of the Union whether his faction had the numbers to halt the bill, he replied: “I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”Trump has invested a large portion of his political capital in the massive package. It extends the 2017 tax cuts from his first administration in return for about $1tn in benefits cuts including reductions in the health insurance scheme for low-income families, Medicaid, and to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) food stamps.The bill squeaked through US House by just one vote on Thursday. It now faces a perilous welcome in the upper legislative chamber.Sunday’s admonitions from prominent senators angered by the failure to address the budget deficit bodes ill for Trump’s agenda given the tightness of the Republicans’ congressional majorities. The Senate majority leader, John Thune, can afford to lose only three votes from among his party’s 53.Thune has indicated that changes to the bill might be needed to bring refuseniks on side. That in turn could present the House speaker, Mike Johnson, with a headache.The House will have to approve any changes made in the Senate under the process of budget reconciliation, which allows spending packages to be fast-tracked through Congress avoiding a Senate filibuster of 60 votes. The final contents of the bill will need to be blessed by both chambers, with Democrats almost certain to vote unanimously in opposition.The House speaker renewed his plea to his Senate colleagues on Sunday to go lightly with him. He encouraged them on CBS News’s Face the Nation “to make as few modifications as possible, remembering that I have a very delicate balance on our very diverse Republican caucus over in the House”.But Senate budget hawks do not appear to be in the mood for compromise. Ron Johnson estimated that the bill would add up to $4tn to the federal deficit, a calculation that is broadly in line with the latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).Johnson added a rare note of personal criticism of Trump from a congressional Republican. He said that while Trump might not be worried about the national debt, “I’m extremely worried about that.”He added: “We are mortgaging our children’s future. It’s wrong. It’s immoral. It has to stop.”Another key Tea Party senator, Rand Paul from Kentucky, has also been vocal over the deficit. He laid into the spending cuts contained in the big beautiful bill, telling Fox News Sunday that in his view they were “wimpy and anemic” and would “explode the debt”.Other influential Republican senators have been expressing concern about the number of Americans who would lose access to health coverage as a result of the legislation’s cuts to Medicaid. According to the CBO, almost 8 million people would be thrown off the benefit.Speaker Johnson tried to dismiss the concern, telling CBS News that 1.4 million of those vulnerable people were “illegal aliens receiving benefits” – and a further 4.8 million were able-bodied individuals choosing not to work and “gaming the system”.An analysis by the non-partisan FactCheck.org found that the claim that 1.4 million undocumented migrants were on Medicaid was false. People living in the US without immigration papers are not eligible for the federal program other than to receive emergency medical treatment.More than 1 million undocumented immigrants are in danger of losing health benefits as a result of Trump’s cuts – but this assistance is provided by states and has nothing to do with Medicaid.Any reduction in Medicaid would be politically awkward for Trump, who promised repeatedly on the campaign trail last year that he would not touch basic safety nets such as Medicaid, Medicare and social security. The president’s loyal supporters in the Maga (“Make America great again”) movement have cautioned against the move.Steve Bannon, who served as chief White House strategist in Trump’s first administration and remains a persuasive voice within the movement, recently told listeners to his War Room podcast: “You got to be careful, because a lot of Maga is on Medicaid.”Josh Hawley, the Republican US senator from Missouri, recently said that “slashing health insurance for the working poor” would be “politically suicidal”. More

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      Trump’s acceptance of Qatar jet gift is ‘definition of corruption’, senator says

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      Donald Trump’s acceptance of a $400m Boeing jet from Qatar is the “definition of corruption”, a leading Democrat said on Sunday, as several senior Republicans joined in a bipartisan fusillade of criticism and concern over the luxury gift.Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut, condemned the “flying grift” on NBC’s Meet the Press as he assailed the president’s trip to several Gulf states this week that included a stop in Qatar.“Why did he choose these three countries for his first major foreign trip? It’s not because these are our most important allies or the most important countries in the world,” he said of Trump’s visit to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.“It’s because these are the three countries willing to pay him off. Every single one of these countries is giving Trump money, the plane from Qatar, an investment in his cryptocurrency scam from the UAE, and they are asking for national security concessions in return.“This is the definition of corruption. Foreign governments putting money in the president’s pocket and then the US giving them national security concessions that hurt our own security.”Rand Paul, a Republican US senator for Kentucky, and chair of his chamber’s homeland security committee, told ABC’s This Week that the gift of the jet “at least gives the appearance of a conflict of interest”.And Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president during his first Oval Office term, said it was “inconsistent with our security” during an appearance on Meet the Press in which he pointed out Qatar had been previously accused of financing international terrorism.Trump has insisted he would be “stupid” to refuse Qatar’s offer of the jet, which would serve as the new Air Force One before being donated to his presidential library upon his retirement.But the proposal enraged even close allies of the president, some calling it the opposite of Trump’s promise to drain the swamp – and “a stain on the administration”.Trump lashed out at critics on his Truth Social network on Saturday, claiming the gift was to the US and not personally for him.Murphy told NBC that was not true. “The plane is not a gift to the American people,” he said. “It is going directly to Donald Trump.“That library will take a decade to build, and so once he leaves the White House, until the library is built, he gets to use that plane to fly around all of his billionaire friends while his policies result in millions of Americans losing their healthcare and having to pay higher costs.”Pence said Trump should turn down the offer.“Qatar has a long history of playing both sides. They support Hamas,” he said. “They supported Al-Qaida. Qatar has actually financed pro-Hamas protests on American campuses across the US, so the very idea that we would accept an Air Force One from Qatar I think is inconsistent with our security, with our intelligence needs.“There are profound issues, the potential for intelligence gathering, the need to ensure the president is safe and secure as he travels around the world, and of course there are very real constitutional issues. The constitution prohibits public officials from accepting a present from a foreign state.“It’s just a bad idea and my hope is the president will think better of it.”Paul said he could see a way in which the gift would be acceptable – but that Trump had handled the offer poorly.“My fear is that it detracts from a largely successful trip where the president is talking about opening up and doing more trade with the Middle East,” he said.“I’ve been part of vetoing or trying to veto arms [sales] to Qatar, as well as to Saudi Arabia, over human rights abuses. So could it color the perception of the administration if they have a $400m plane to be more in favor of these things. It at least gives the appearance of a conflict of interest. I don’t think it’s worth the headache.” More

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      ‘Just wildly illegal’: top Democrats push to censure Trump’s plan to accept Qatar jet

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      Top Democrats in the US Senate are pushing for a vote on the floor of the chamber censuring Donald Trump’s reported plan to accept a $400m luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar for use as Air Force One and later as a fixture in the Trump’s personal presidential library.Four Democratic members of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Monday that they would press for a vote later this week. They said that elected officials, including the president, were not allowed to accept large gifts from foreign governments unless authorized to do so by Congress.Cory Booker from New Jersey, Brian Schatz from Hawaii, Chris Coons from Delaware and Chris Murphy from Connecticut cast the reported gift of the Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a clear conflict of interest and a serious threat to national security.“Air Force Once is more than just a plane – it’s a symbol of the presidency and of the United States itself,” the senators said in a joint statement. “No one should use public service for personal gain through foreign gifts.”News of a possible gift of the luxury jet prompted immediate scathing criticism from senior Democrats. Though the Qatari government has stressed that no final decision has yet been made, Trump appeared to confirm it on Sunday when he commented on social media that the transfer was being made “in a very public and transparent transaction”.The plan appears to be for the 13-year-old plane to be fitted out by the US military for use as Air Force One and then, when Trump leaves the White House, for it to be put on display in his presidential library – in effect being handed to Trump for his own personal use.The reported arrangement comes as Trump sets off for a tour of the Middle East, including Qatar. Another of the countries on the tour, the United Arab Emirates, has also become embroiled in controversy over potential conflicts of interest involving Trump.Last week it was revealed that an investment firm based in Abu Dhabi had injected $2bn into a stablecoin venture launched by Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto company as an investment into the crypto exchange Binance.Senate Democrats are also gearing up to challenge Trump’s conflicts of interest under congressional rules governing the sale of military weapons to foreign countries.Murphy, the senator from Connecticut who has been at the forefront of sounding the alarm over conflicts of interest in the second Trump administration, has said he will use his powers to challenge arms sales as a way of forcing a full debate and Senate vote on both the Qatar plane and UAE stablecoin issues.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe said on social media that he would object to “any military deal with a nation that is paying off Trump personally – we can’t act like this is normal foreign policy”.He added: “UAE’s investment in Trump crypto and Qatar’s gifting of a plane is nuclear grade graft.”In an earlier post on Bluesky, Murphy described the idea of Qatar handing over the jet as being “just wildly illegal”.Trump has so far brushed aside the Democratic fury. He praised Qatar’s offer on Monday as a “great gesture” and said he would “never be one to turn down that kind of offer”. More