President Donald Trump got his "one big beautiful bill" passed into law, but he admits he lost the messaging war to Democrats.
The president told a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the moniker was "good for getting it approved," but he conceded the law already needed a rebrand, which panelists on "CNN This Morning" agreed was a major political loss for Republicans.
"I actually think that the Democrats finally did something really well," said Meghan Hays, who served as Joe Biden's director of message planning. "They messaged around this very well. They made sure that everybody knew that they were cutting Medicare, they were cutting children's food benefits for kids. So the Democrats really coalesced together and really marketed this very well to their constituents. Then [Republicans] passed it right before August recess, where all these members had to go to their districts and have town halls, and they are all getting when they have the town halls, people are showing up and really holding Republicans' and Democrats' feet to the fire on this."
Democrats stuck together on their messaging, and host Audie Cornish said the episode showed how Trump can be forced to admit defeat.
"What can Republicans learn from that experience, right?" Cornish said. "They had the experience of messaging around something and making sure it takes the hit. Now you've got to promote something, and I feel like whenever Trump comments like this, like he earlier in the week [was] talking about not being a dictator, it's because he's like, heard the criticism – it has reached his desk."
Republican strategist Melik Abdul said the backdown reflected how limited the appeal of MAGA messaging was across the broader political spectrum.
"This is part of the larger problem with the Trump administration, because many times when it comes to their messaging, their messaging to MAGA, when it came to this bill, what you heard from the administration is the things that they wanted to take away," Abdul said. "It is not easy, anyone who's done messaging can tell you it is much easier to message what you're going to do for someone, as opposed to what you're going to take away. So they were trying to split the baby and say, 'Well, no, this is only for people who, you know, are able-bodied and can work.' That's not a message that actually resonates with people, and I think what the what Trump is saying himself is that they need to do something else, because when many people, that's why I feel a little bit validated here when I was saying, talk about the tax cuts, talk about the child tax credit, these are the things that you need to talk about."
Axios correspondent Sara Fischer reminded panelists not to overlook Elon Musk's role in turning the public against the GOP bill.
"The Elon Musk fight really, really screwed them on this because Elon Musk came out swinging very hard and he has a huge platform, saying, 'You're doing so many corporate tax cuts for the rich that you're actually not going to lower the debt the way that I want you to,'" Fischer said. "The message that that signaled loud and clear was that this is not for the middle class, that this is for wealthy people to benefit, so now they're seeing the take that this is having in the polls, and they're trying to reframe this for the middle class. But that's a hard thing to do when you've had months and months and months of the world's richest person saying that even this was too beneficial to the rich."