Transcript: Trump Turns Hard on Musk as GOP Bill Hit by Harsh New Data
Deiseroth: Only if they flat out lie, which we see that they’re already doing about certain government reports. This is where it starts to get incredibly scary in terms of what the Trump White House is doing. If they’re straight-up lying to the American people about what this bill will do—which again, they already are in terms of how Karoline Leavitt has been describing the different Medicaid cuts…. They’re going to keep parroting their lies. And it’s really up to the Democrats to uplift this nonpartisan analysis from the CBO to remind Americans of what the objective truth is. And who knows, maybe we’ll see more fiscal conservatives finally step up and put their foot down. I’m not really holding my breath for that to happen because we saw how quickly House Republicans fell in line with the vote. But now that it’s going through the more serious chamber of the Senate, maybe we’ll see some more deficit hawks really being vocal. Although that could just mean more cuts and more bad things that they want to see.
Sargent: Right, absolutely. Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky who’s been probably the most vocal on the deficit explosion that this bill would bring, is often dismissed as a crank and a goof and all that. But I think to low-information voters and independents and moderates, what they hear is Republican turning against Republicans saying this thing will blow up the deficit. And I think that breaks through with those types of demographics a bit more, no matter what a buffoon Rand Paul really is. The voters get Republican-on-Republican action, I think.
Deiseroth: I think that they might. And look, this is not the Republican Party that my dad and my grandparents grew up with where the Republican Party was associated, at least nominally, with fiscal restraint and fiscal responsibility. If Republicans are fighting amongst themselves with some saying that this is an irresponsible use of America’s taxpayer funding—when there’s infighting amongst the party, I know sometimes it can be perceived as Beltway chatter, but any fights are what the media is going to gravitate toward, right? And that’s what’s going to, I think, be shown on people’s nightly news or what they’re hearing, seeing, and reading. And again, the conflict is what I think really helps put a spotlight on these things. When it’s just business as usual in Washington, of course nobody’s going to be paying attention, right?
