The Republican-led Senate is working toward a July 4th deadline to pass President Trump’s budget bill, which in part proposes $1T in cuts to Medicaid and is getting zero support across party lines. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) joins “The Weekend: Primetime” to discuss why he has called the bill a “horrific” piece of legislation and weighs in on Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) announcing he will not run for reelection after voting against advancing Trump’s bill.
TSenate REJECTS Medicaid Cut for Undocumented Immigrants Amid GOP’s Trump-Backed Budget Battle
In a dramatic showdown on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans faced a major setback this weekend as their Trump-backed budget bill—featuring over $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and CHIP—failed to garner the votes needed to pass. With two Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Rand Paul, joining all Democrats in opposition, the bill’s most controversial provision—slashing Medicaid access for undocumented immigrants—was officially rejected.
The bill, largely seen as an extension of Donald Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul, proposed sweeping changes that would have gutted essential safety net programs, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). According to a nonpartisan analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the GOP’s legislation would add $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, while revenues would plummet by $4.5 trillion and spending reductions would amount to only $1.2 trillion.
In his floor speech, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) condemned the legislation as “probably the worst piece of legislation in modern history,” and warned that it amounted to “a death sentence for tens of thousands of Americans” due to the health care coverage losses it would create. A study by Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania projected that stripping Medicaid from 16 million people would lead to approximately 50,000 preventable deaths annually.
“This bill is a grotesque transfer of wealth from working people and the poor to the richest people in America,” Sanders said. “What we are witnessing is payback to the billionaires who funded Trump’s campaigns—and who are now getting everything they paid for.”
While the bill never mentioned undocumented immigrants by name, policy analysts say the proposed eligibility rollbacks and state verification mandates would have disproportionately affected non-citizens and immigrants living in poverty. The GOP argued that this was necessary to “protect taxpayers,” but critics, including Sanders, called it a cruel political maneuver targeting vulnerable communities to appease the Trump base.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who shocked his party by opposing the bill, announced he would not seek re-election. In his exit statement, he criticized the current state of political leadership, writing, “Too many elected officials are motivated by raw politics and don’t give a damn about the people they promised to represent.”
Sanders interpreted Tillis’s move as a reflection of the Republican Party’s growing intolerance for dissent. “The GOP has become a right-wing cult of personality,” he said. “If you question Trump, you’re out.”
Even as millions of Americans face the threat of losing essential benefits, scenes of opulence unfolded overseas. Jeff Bezos’s extravagant wedding in Venice—featuring celebrities, billionaires, and a reported $25 million price tag—served as an ironic contrast to the suffering these budget cuts could cause.
“Greed is their religion,” Sanders remarked. “While they party in Venice, families here face hunger and bankruptcy. If that’s not obscene, I don’t know what is.”
Despite the defeat, Democrats and progressive allies say the fight is far from over. Sanders emphasized the urgent need to educate the public about what’s at stake.
“One of the most frustrating challenges is that people don’t believe it,” he said. “They hear that the GOP wants to give billionaires tax breaks while cutting health care for children and think, ‘That can’t be true.’ But it is.”
With public pressure mounting, and growing awareness of the bill’s devastating implications, Democrats hope to rally the country against what they describe as a calculated attempt to dismantle the social safety net under the guise of fiscal responsibility.
For now, the bill’s failure marks a significant defeat for Trump’s legislative agenda and signals that even within the Republican Party, there are limits to how far lawmakers are willing to go.
Whether this is a turning point—or simply a pause before another attempt—remains to be seen.