Trump Signs Bill to Kick Millions Off Health Care Into Law

The president signed his disastrous legislative agenda at a Fourth of July ceremony at the White House

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” — Donald Trump and the GOP’s sprawling legislative package that will cut taxes on the rich, supercharge the administration’s immigration raids and arrests, and gut green-energy initiatives while kicking millions of Americans off their health care and other social services — is now law.

The president signed the devastating legislative package in a Fourth of July ceremony at the White House.

A slew of preppy-looking accomplices waited for President Trump to make his address while the corniest parade music you could imagine blasted. When Donald and Melania Trump finally took to a balcony for the President’s speech, there was a long, awkward silence before a performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was muffled by a noisy military flyover. Trump previously announced, “We’re going to have B-2s and F-22s and F-35s flying right over the White House… so we’ll be signing with those beautiful planes flying right over our heads.”

Trump then went on to make a litany of hyperbolic claims, taking credit for “the most successful military strike in all of history, Operation Midnight Hammer” and military enlistment being at a “all time-record.” He also claimed “jobs” and the “stock market” are on the rise. In his rambling remarks, Trump relived his electoral victory and attempted to dunk on former President Joe Biden before finally addressing the bill at hand.

“It’s the most popular bill ever signed in the history of our country,” he claimed. “Whether you’re military or anybody else, this is the single most popular bill ever signed.” Still, a variety of recent polls contradict him.

Republicans in Congress passed the legislation on Thursday after months of internal hand-wringing. Several members of the party were not comfortable, to say the least, with the $4 trillion the bill is expected to add to the national deficit. Others, like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) made a public show of opposing its cuts to Medicaid, but ultimately caved and supported them. In the end, Republicans were faithful not to the United States, to their constituents, or to any semblance of human dignity — but to Trump. As House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) put it to reporters this week, “All of us have to give up on our personal preferences.”

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The bill Trump signed into law on Friday is actually unpopular among the American public, and for good reason. It will cut over $1 trillion from Medicaid, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the cuts, along with changes to individual health insurance marketplaces, will cause around 17 million people to lose their coverage. The cuts to Medicaid are also expected to wreak havoc on rural hospitals, nursing homes, and more.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) teed off on the cuts during a marathon speech ahead of the bill’s passage on Thursday, sharing stories of Americans who will stand to lose Medicaid coverage because of the bill. “People will die,” he said, calling the House floor where the bill would soon be passed a “crime scene.” In his remarks, Trump mocked Jeffries. “You saw that guy standing up for hours yesterday, didn’t know what he was even doing there,“ he said as he lambasted the Democrats’ advocacy against the bill as a “con job.” “He had a towel. He’s wiping his face. That’s not too elegant.”

The law also rolls back a litany of Biden-era environmental provisions, dealing a catastrophic blow to the effort to hold polluters accountable; stuffs even more cash into an already bloated Pentagon budget; sends tens of billions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as it carries out the Trump administration’s increasingly cruel deportation agenda; imposes steep cuts on federal food assistance; and gives tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations while making the poorest Americans pay more.

As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) recently wrote of the bill: “We are watching oligarchy in real time.”