The Briefing with Jen Psaki
'Big, brutal setback': How GOP infighting sent Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' off the rails
Sat, 17 May 2025
The budget bill Donald Trump was hoping to come home to following his trip to the Middle East has not come to fruition and the longer it takes to work out, the more skittish Republicans will be about attaching their name to a bill that is so full of unpopular policies with an election on the horizon.
Chapter 1: What happened to Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'?
Today, Donald Trump was on his way back from his big trip to the Middle East. And after several days where he was definitely showered with lavish gifts and a whole lot of praise from foreign leaders, he's coming back to quite a mess here at home. I mean, he got a big smackdown from the Supreme Court today.
Former US Attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara, is going to join me here in a minute to talk all about that. Trump's big, beautiful bill, as he called it, also had a major setback today in Congress. The ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, who was in the room for all that drama, will also join me here a little bit later.
But before all that happened, before he had kind of a downer, a pretty big downer, I should say, of a Friday, Donald Trump started the day in his comfort zone, watching Fox News on his plane. At least, that's what we think happened, because
Chapter 2: What were Trump's comments about Taylor Swift?
Early this morning, the president's social media feed started lighting up with live and almost constant commentary about some of the pressing issues Fox News was covering this morning. I mean, early this morning, Fox ran this segment about human remains found near Taylor Swift's New England estate. Around that same time, Trump posted to his social media feed this.
Has anyone noticed that since I said I hate Taylor Swift, she's no longer hot, question mark, which is a key pivotal part of this. Why is there a question mark? Now, Taylor is obviously still hot by basically any metric. I think anyone would agree to that. And more importantly, that's an insane thing for the President of the United States to ask the American public.
See the key question mark there? Also, what is he even trying to say there? I mean, it's a Friday. So, I mean, if you read it literally, does he think his words somehow put a curse on Taylor Swift that changed her level of hotness? Maybe he does. Who knows?
But apparently that wasn't even the only Fox News segment Trump was watching this morning, because later in the morning, there was one about Bruce Springsteen criticizing Trump during his UK tour, which appeared to prompt yet another missive from America's pageant judge in chief, who posted a long, unhinged screen, you can see it on the screen there, about Springsteen.
Trump called him a dried-out prune of a rocker and said, his skin is all atrophied. Now, I'm not sure, just as a side note, that word means what he thinks it means, but there it is. And not for nothing. But have you seen the guy over my shoulder lately? I mean, honestly.
Trump did manage to focus on work just long enough to send another post imploring Republicans in Congress to unite behind his one big, beautiful bill, which is shorter, I believe, in words than the one about Bruce Springsteen, but that aside. Now, here's the thing, though.
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Chapter 3: Why did Trump's bill fail in committee?
If he was still watching Fox News a couple of hours later, and we don't know because he didn't tweet about it then, he would have seen this.
So we have some breaking news. The Budget Committee on the Hill in the House failed to report the big, beautiful bill out favorably. The vote was 16 to 21.
Chef's kiss, by the way, on Kayleigh being the one to deliver that piece of news. But she's right, because Trump's big, beautiful bill failed a key committee vote after four Republicans voted against it, with a fifth Republican switching his vote to no at the last minute as this procedural maneuver so that Republicans can bring it up again.
So it turns out it takes, though, more than just an errant tweet during celebrity gossip hour to keep your caucus in line. That's one thing maybe Trump learned today. I mean, remember, he can only afford to lose three Republican votes in the entire House if he wants to pass this bill. Just three. And today he lost four votes in just one committee.
And there are even more House Republicans saying they cannot get behind this bill as it stands. Now, a number of the things Trump wants to do in that big, beautiful bill are super unpopular. That's probably one of the big factors here. Most Americans don't want to extend tax cuts for rich people.
In fact, a Pew poll from earlier this year found that Americans actually support raising taxes on the rich by an 18-point margin. And Republicans plan to pay for those tax cuts, remember, with cuts to Medicaid. And that poll's even worse. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found Americans opposed cuts to Medicaid by a 52-point margin.
All of that makes this a really tough pill to swallow for any Republican who's remotely in a swing district. And on the other side of it is hardline Republicans, like the ones who voted no today, because they want Trump's bill to go even further. Some of them are even trying to do damage control on that first front by spinning their Medicaid cuts as reforms, as they're calling it.
But their message discipline has been, well, not exactly disciplined.
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Chapter 4: What do Republicans think about Medicaid cuts?
And then you can look at Medicaid cuts, Medicaid reforms, I should say.
Did I say cuts? I meant reforms. That's what we'll call them. We're going to reform down a whole forest of Medicaid. Just you wait. It's going to be great. Even if Trump somehow manages to force this bill through the House, he's facing the exact same problems in the Senate, where Republicans are already declaring this bill dead on arrival for the same diametrically opposed reasons, right?
Moderates and ones on the right who want more. Take, for instance, Republican Senator Ron Johnson. You can see him right there, who says the cuts in this bill don't go far enough.
I refuse to vote for something that's going to actually increase the deficits. Decisions were made to do one big, beautiful bill. It's not beautiful. I'm sorry. It's not a big, beautiful bill.
Just to go back to the earlier posts from Trump, for those of you at Homekeeping Square, I mean, Taylor Swift, still beautiful. Trump's big bill, not so much, according to Ron Johnson. But while senators like Ron Johnson want deeper cuts, other Republicans are already tugging at their collars over how these already deep cuts will affect their constituents. Of course they are.
Like Senator Josh Hawley, who represents a state, by the way, where more than one in six people is currently on Medicaid, or its equivalent program for kids.
I'm not going to support this bill from the House in this form. I think that's clear. It's got to change before it can pass the Senate. And I continue to stand by my line in the sand, which is no Medicaid benefit cuts.
It really doesn't seem like it's going to be easy to resolve all of this in the House or Senate to state perhaps the complete obvious. And keep in mind this. Trump is kind of running out of time, because it's almost June, and at some point, vulnerable Republicans will start gearing up for next year's campaigns. I'm not talking about tomorrow, but he doesn't have years here.
And when they start gearing up for campaigns, it becomes harder for them to stick their necks out for something this unpopular, and harder for anyone to get them to. I mean, for what it's worth, this is why presidents always push big legislation in the very first month or two.
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Chapter 5: How does the Supreme Court ruling affect Trump's agenda?
It's a Friday night. You be you.
We can do that another time. We can do that another time. He is, like the Constitution, all enduring. Anyway, he can defend himself. Look, I think it's important what you said in the opening segment about the makeup of the Supreme Court. And just to reiterate that and remind people for a moment, you'd be hard-pressed to design a more conservative Supreme Court.
You'd be hard-pressed to put together a group of individuals who are more pliant to the conservative view. It'd be really difficult to put together a Supreme Court that is more warm and welcoming to the idea of expansive executive power. This is the Supreme Court.
These nine personnel, in a divided opinion, are the ones who gave a massive amount of immunity to a president of the United States in a case involving this man, this president of the United States himself. So it's not a small thing when they decide to say, basically, literally, not so fast, right? They are open to and approving of executive power.
But even this Supreme Court, lopsided as it is on the conservative side, said there are certain things like due process and constitutional principles that Trump policy preferences. And what's interesting to me also is, you know, with respect to anything that the Trump administration does,
You could maybe make some defense out about it, but if you take the things together and you understand that what they're trying to accomplish is a program of intimidation of various branches of government, of other institutions of American public life, and that they all work together, you understand that they are not to be given the benefit of the doubt. And the Supreme Court is the same way.
You mentioned the other case of Borrego Garcia, the person who has basically disappeared to El Salvador. The court says in deciding that, look, due process is the most important thing, and 24 hours notice is not sufficient before you deport someone without having some kind of a hearing to a foreign country. One of the reasons they say that's true is basically we're on to your M.O.,
Your M.O., this administration's M.O., is in the Abrego Garcia case to quickly and hastily send someone somewhere else. And then when someone tries to undo that because there was not due process, they say, oops, now you don't have jurisdiction. So it's literally the thing that they did in another case.
The Supreme Court is saying in this case, essentially, we don't give you the benefit of the doubt. So I think that's very significant. And I think the Trump administration has hurt themselves in their overall program by playing fast and loose, literally fast and loose, in other cases as well.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of due process in deportations?
That's correct. And so what they've done is they've upheld a status quo in which there are going to be no deportations until the lower court decides and gives substance to the principle that they elucidated today. and emphasize today, which is due process and sufficient notice is required to anyone who's being deported.
They cite a line of cases going back 100 years and more that you can't just send someone back to another country unless there's some kind of hearing. It doesn't have to be a full-blown trial, but some kind of hearing. But they left it to the lower court to decide what period of time is appropriate, but 24 hours, they've said, is not sufficient. So
The whole program to mass deport people on this basis and under this statute, at least, is paused indefinitely.
While you're here, I've got to ask you about a predecessor of yours at SDNY. It's not Bruce Springsteen, as you know. It's James Comey, of course, who in the last 24 hours, it's been a bit of a whirlwind. I mean, he's currently being investigated by the Trump administration for posting on social media an image of seashells. Everybody's seen it, I'm sure.
We have it on the screen there with the numbers 8647. 86 is, of course, a slang term that means get rid of. But Trump and many of his supporters are calling it an assassination threat, as I'm sure you've seen, I'm sure everybody's seen. And just in the last half hour, Kristi Noem confirmed he was interviewed by the Secret Service.
There's a whole lot to unpack here, but I guess, what is your reaction to this entire episode?
So, let me begin by saying one needs to be very careful how one talks about the President of the United States, whether you elect the President or you don't. I was a prosecutor for a long time and ran that prosecutor's office for a long time. And the Secret Service has very little tolerance for
and a low threshold for investigating even seemingly ambiguous comments that might threaten the life of the president. And certainly, people need to be very mindful of that and give a wide berth with respect to comments you might make, particularly in light of the fact that this president has been a victim of and a target of an assassination attempt.
So people should know better and be exceedingly careful. I will also say that I know Jim Comey very well. People have a lot of different opinions about him. And he may be many things, but he's not an advocate of violence. He's never advocated for violence. I don't think anybody thinks he does. He's also not a stupid man.
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Chapter 7: What latest news surrounds James Comey?
But when I got out there and I started talking to folks, I went to a UFC fight. I went to a college campus. I was surprised by how open and curious some of these conservatives were. And it begs a larger question as to, like, what is politics to them? What is the GOP? What is MAGA? But for the most part, the people I talked to were surprisingly open.
And you can point out the fact I'm surprised that they come and talk to me. They wanted to talk to me. They were open to talk to me. So we started at a good place with those conversations.
Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, this is sort of the question so many people are asking. There's so many theories out there, including on cable news, as I'm sure you've seen. Now, I'm old enough to remember when Democrats were the ones perceived as cool by young people, perhaps because I was one of them working on the Obama campaign, you know, back in the day. That was cool.
But now it feels like it's sort of flipped a little bit culturally. Why do you think that is, to the degree you have a theory on that?
I mean, it's strange out there. Free love used to be cool. Now, apparently, trad wives are in. I don't know. It makes me feel very old and yet young at the same time. I'm not I'm not sure. I went to a college campus and like what I did when I was on college campuses, I asked what was cool because I desperately wanted to know.
And quite frankly, it's not as if Donald Trump is cool to some people it. was these are people who are looking for identities. Now I think attention is cool. Turning Point came to Texas A&M and Charlie Kirk is famous and he has attention and people saw attention and they equated that with cool and so
I think when you have this younger generation that is pulled to the MAGA movement, first and foremost, what they're pulled to is what is getting attention online. It's not necessarily kids who wanted to grow up to become lawyers and doctors. These are kids who want to grow up to become influencers. And attention is the number one thing in the influencer economy. And they see that in the right.
And they see Donald Trump coming online. on podcasts they pay attention to. They see short clips of Charlie Kirk owning people online and they start to develop an identity around what seems to work in their minds.
I mean, the attention piece is such an interesting part of it. It's one that obviously Democrats are trying to capture. They're trying to capture that online. Some of the things they're doing are admittedly a little cringy, but at least they're trying. But one of the things that seems challenging to me, at least, is that the successful attention grabbers are often more aggressive.
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