ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump's massive tax and policy bill is now set for him to sign into law. House Republicans won over internal opposition from both moderates and fiscal conservatives to rally enough votes to overcome Democratic opposition. The final vote was this afternoon. The package is basically the president's entire domestic agenda. It makes Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent and also adds spending for immigration enforcement and defense. That would be partly financed by cuts to Medicaid and clean energy, among other programs, though the package is expected to add trillions to the federal debt over the next decades - the federal deficit, rather.
Our correspondents are following what happened in Congress and the White House and what it would mean for Americans. Let's begin with NPR's Deirdre Walsh, who covers Congress. Deirdre, it was unclear until today whether the House would pass the latest version of this package. How did they get there?
DEIRDRE WALSH, BYLINE: President Trump was really the closer. You know, there were as many as a couple dozen House Republicans who threatened to vote no on this after the Senate passed the bill earlier this week unless they got changes. Conservatives complained it added to the deficit. Moderates warned that there were steeper Medicaid cuts in it that would harm their constituents. But Speaker Johnson said earlier today that Trump worked the phones. He had many members over to the White House. He got Cabinet secretaries involved. But in the end, none of these members got any changes to the bill that passed. They voted for the same bill they spent days railing against.
Some suggested the president could use executive actions to tweak how the bill is implemented, but the speaker admitted he didn't really know how that would work. You know, these Republicans made a political calculation after a ton of political pressure from both the White House and the Republican base to get in line with Trump, and they did with the exception of two Republicans who voted no - Tom Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
SHAPIRO: So that's the view from Congress. Now let's turn to White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram. Deepa, this is clearly a win for President Trump. What can you tell us about his influence on the process?
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Yeah, well, according to the White House, the president was deeply involved in the process. He was holding calls with lawmakers, like Deirdre said, who were on the fence about this. And they described, you know, Trump's relationships with lawmakers that he's built since being in office as helping a, quote, "cascade" of support come together in the end. And, you know, Deirdre had also just mentioned Representative Tom Massie. That's kind of a good example here of someone who didn't really get in line with Trump and behind Trump on this bill. He said that he wasn't going to vote for the legislation, and ever since then, the president has been posting about Massie on Truth Social, which is his social media platform, saying he's going to support a primary challenger for that seat in Kentucky.
And so, you know, whether it was online, through the phones, there was definitely just a lot of influence from the president in this process. Even yesterday, he was posting online, saying to Republican members, quote, "it should be an easy vote." So a very heavy-handed Trump in this process.
SHAPIRO: Some of the reservations from members of Congress come from the fact that a lot of voters and constituents have reservations about it. How does President Trump plan to overcome that?
SHIVARAM: Well, the interesting thing about Trump in that regard is that he's not running for reelection, right? So he doesn't really have to answer to voters here. So answering those concerns might fall more on Republican members who have to go back to their home districts, face their constituents about some of these issues. And the big one there, Ari, is changes to Medicaid, which is the health insurance program for lower-income Americans, the elderly, the disabled. And the fact that there are changes being made to that program in the first place is a violation of a campaign promise that Trump made, which is that he wouldn't touch Medicaid at all. And now, under this bill, nearly 12 million people are expected to lose their coverage in the next decade.
SHAPIRO: Well, let's talk more about the impact this is going to have on Americans. And for that, I want to bring in NPR chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley. Scott, are Americans going to feel immediate differences once the president signs this bill into law?
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: This is not going to feel like a windfall to most people because this bill just keeps the 2017 tax cuts in place. Most people's take-home pay is not going to change very much. Taxes that would have gone up will instead stay the same. Now, for those at the top of the income ladder, they will avoid what would have been a pretty sizable tax hit. According to the Tax Policy Center, about 60% of the tax savings in this bill go to the top 20% of earners, that is, people making more than about $217,000 a year. Middle-income families will see a smaller tax break, and those at the bottom of the income ladder may actually wind up worse off because for them, the cuts to safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps will, on average, outweigh any of their tax savings.
SHAPIRO: When you put all this together, what are some of the longer-term economic impacts?
HORSLEY: Well, you mentioned the bill adds several trillion dollars to the federal debt over the next decade. Another thing it does is put a lot more money into immigration enforcement. So we are likely to see more deportations. The administration has also been closing off legal pathways for people to come into the country. Forecasters at the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute say we are likely to see a net outflow of immigrants this year and next. That's the first time that's happened in at least six decades. We've already started to see a drop in the foreign-born workforce. Over time, that outflow means there will be fewer workers, fewer people spending money and overall, a smaller economy than we otherwise would have had.
SHAPIRO: There was strong resistance throughout the entire process about some of the issues that Scott has just described. So Deirdre, when you look at both Democrats and members of the Republican Party who resisted this strongly, what does it say about opposition to this legislation that it eked out and passed in the end?
WALSH: I mean, for Republicans, it just shows you the shift in the party under Trump. You know, conservatives in Congress, many of them campaigned on promises to slash the deficit. But we've already talked about how this adds more than 3 trillion to the deficit in the next decade. The fiscal conservative wing of the party just has less power. There are members who tried to warn about the economic fallout of deficits. But the bill also adds 5 trillion more to increase the country's borrowing authority. You know, Republicans used to call for any kind of, you know, reforms to do anything like that.
You know, Democrats were very united on this bill and were very focused on the Medicaid cuts. But in terms of Republicans, this debate shows you what happens to Republicans who break with Trump. Those who thought about voting no saw what happened to North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis. He voted against this in the Senate on Saturday. He was attacked by Trump. By Sunday, he announced he wasn't running for reelection.
SHIVARAM: Yeah, and speaking of reelection, I mean, this is all now about the next election - right? - the midterms, 2026. Trump has to sell this agenda and this bill to the American people. And there are now potentially plans for Trump to travel around the country and take a victory lap of sorts to celebrate his agenda getting passed. And, you know, the White House said today they don't have any plans laid out yet, but he'll sign the bill later tomorrow at 5 p.m. on July Fourth, Independence Day, which meets that self-imposed deadline that he wanted.
SHAPIRO: And so, as this bill starts to take effect across the country, what are you all going to be looking out for over the next year or so?
WALSH: I mean, I think the Democrats are really banking on making this issue the central issue in the 2026 midterms. You heard that from Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader who broke the record for the longest floor speech today, with the big applause line. He said Project 2026 starts today. But it is worth noting that some of these key provisions affecting Medicaid don't kick in until after the 2026 midterms.
SHIVARAM: There's a couple other things, I think, to watch with Trump. I mean, this bill has more funding for immigration enforcement, right? But how the administration goes about doing that work - if immigration raids ramp up, for example - it may not play out as well politically. There's already been some pullback from voters on how the administration has handled immigration crackdown. And also, while this bill focuses so much on Trump's domestic agenda and campaign promises, he's still dealing with a lot of issues on the world stage, right? - the Middle East, Russia's war in Ukraine, these recent strikes in Iran. So I'm also kind of curious to see how much of that might overshadow some of Trump's abilities to tout this really big domestic win.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Deepa Shivaram, Deirdre Walsh and Scott Horsley. Thank you.
WALSH: Thank you.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
SHIVARAM: Thanks for having us. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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