President Donald Trump’s "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" may be in trouble.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told CNN on Friday that Republican lawmakers are increasingly “nervous” over the potential political fallout from supporting the megabill — and are scurrying to their home states for the weekend.
“Right now, as you and I are talking, a small sort of tea leaves in the Congress measure has just occurred, (and) today’s vote has been moved forward from 6 p.m. to 4 p.m.,” Whitehouse told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “That may seem like nothing, but it means that the Republicans are responding to the desire of their members to get to the airport today and get their flights home.”
Trump has imposed a strict July 4 deadline for lawmakers to approve his megabill, stuffed with tax cuts for wealthy Americans and cuts to social safety programs, writing in a social media post Wednesday, “no one goes on vacation” until the bill is sent to his desk.
Apparently, Republicans are already budging on that order.
“So this is no longer defcon one, stick around the Capitol, we’re going to get this done, they have collapsed back to a very regular schedule of everybody going home for the weekend while they try to figure it out,” Whitehouse said. “That’s a big step back.”
Keilar asked Whitehouse whether, due to the growing concerns among Republican lawmakers regarding “how vulnerable that bill could be for them politically,” if Democrats would seize the opportunity as a means to perform better next election cycle. Whitehouse concurred that the bill would pose a significant threat to Republicans’ prospects next election, and suggested Democrats could potentially reclaim a majority of both chambers of Congress over the political fallout.
“The effects of this bill on the American public are predictably a body blow for the Republican Party, and as it gets closer to game day and they’ve got to actually pull the trigger on this, they’re seeing that more and more and getting more and more nervous,” he said.
