Morning all. Here’s the current home page of The Hill:
Trump has set a July 4 deadline for Congress to get the bill to his desk. But some GOP lawmakers say that’s looking increasingly unlikely because of a battle between Republican senators over cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the repeal of renewable energy tax incentives.
“It won’t happen,” Johnson said.
“The sooner President Trump recognizes the reality of the situation, the sooner we can work on a smaller version of the bill, do the things that have to be done: Extend current tax law, increase the debt ceiling, provide border funding,” he said.
He said the package could include spending cuts already passed by the House, such as a proposal to reduce federal subsidies to Medicaid by $698 billion and reduce SNAP spending by $267 billion.
The expectation that Paul and Johnson will vote against the bill could give more leverage to Republicans who want to make other changes, further delaying the effort. Those moderates include Sens. Susan Collins
(R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who are warning against Medicaid spending cuts that would affect benefits.
Elon Musk escalated his attacks on the bill yesterday, posting this (and many other Tweets too):
The thrust of my talk last night to Hopium paid subscribers (video and transcript above) was about the need for us all to go all in now and work to kill this bill (and keep working to roll back Trump’s tariffs). As I said last night, the reason this bill is in trouble is that it is a terrible bill, and Trump’s overall “more for me, less for all of you” economic agenda is the most destructive, anti-working/middle class agenda that we’ve seen in the modern era of American politics. The four pillars of this agenda - tariffs, reconciliation, mass deportation and the assault on the federal government and science, research and academia - will together leave America a far weaker and poorer country while also shifting the tax burden of what’s left of our government to working and middle class people. Under this agenda growth will slow; America will be less prosperous; deficits will explode and the fiscal integrity of the United States will be under threat; our alliances weakened, and America will be seen increasingly as a pariah nation; opportunities for working people will be curtailed; prices on all things will rise, interest rates will remain too high; our transition to a clean and cheap energy future undermined; health care will be more expensive, health insurance harder to get and our public health will be dramatically degraded; consumer protections weakened so people will be more subject to usurious and ruinous business practices; small businesses and rural communities will lose workers, lots of workers, and have a much harder time doing their thing; historic, mind-bending levels of corruption normalized.
This is not a drill, nor is any of this hyperbole. Trump’s current agenda is one of sabotage, betrayal and Putinesque, oligarchical plunder. Rather than offering a better life for every day Americans, he is putting the American Dream out of reach. He is literally stealing the futures of our kids and grandkids. He is making Russia and China great again, and breaking things, important things, will that be difficult, if not impossible, to repair.
And that is why we have to keep fighting with everything we got, my friends.
As I discussed last night we’ve gotten in a lot of polling and research on the bill this week and the bottom line is voters have already decided that it benefits the wealthy over them and they don’t like it. Rs have already lost the big argument with the public on the intent of the bill, which is why this thing could crash this summer - for it is unpopular, it does incredible harm to tens of millions of people, after Trump’s terrible tariffs have weakened the economy it is profoundly fiscally reckless, and it really does help wealthy people at the expense of all of us. Joni Ernst’s “we are all going to die” moment was a warning sign of the struggle they were already having selling this thing back home. And as they all know up on the Hill, at the end of the day Trump always chickens out (TACO man!!!!!!!!!).
In 2017 Trump’s first big legislative initiative, the rolling back of the ACA, failed. Presidents don’t always get their big legislative initiatives through. And what happened during that fight is that many Americans came to realize that Trump was not on their side. That realization fueled our big 2018 midterm success. We need to make the same happen again this summer.
Heads down, keep working it all. We have a very consequential summer of politics ahead of us.
David Jolly Jumps Into The Governors Race In Florida - As expected, our friend David Jolly has announced he is running for Governor of Florida!
I am headed to Florida to do an event with David with the Palm Beach Democrats on Monday night in Jupiter. You can learn more about the event and sign up here - looking forward to seeing members of the Hopium community in person!
To learn more about David watch my recent interview with him where we discuss the necessity of Democrats putting Florida back in play.
Tomorrow my good friend and former South Florida Democratic Congressman Joe Garcia will be joining us for a live discussion at 1215pm ET. I’ve asked Joe to come on and talk to us how South Florida is handling the Trump Administration’s stripping of legal status of almost 1 million Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, a move that disproportionately effects Florida and could become a powerful new dynamic in politics there.
To join us tomorrow click on this link at 1215pm and feel free free to invite others. Going to be a good one!
Now, Let’s Get To Work - In last Saturday’s post I offered up some initial ideas of what our summer was going to look like. Please check it out if you haven’t gotten to it yet.
Job 1 for us this summer is fighting Trump’s ruinous economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day. Those of you in states with Republican Senators have a particularly important role to play.
Here’s a possible script for contacting your offices. Use whatever works for you:
I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.
But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.
Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.
I know many of you are involved in the June 14th No Kings events, town halls, Telsa take downs and all the other in person activities that have taken off of late. Thank you, and do keep working it everyone. I am still encouraging our community to explore ideas for how we can Own The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly day for our mad wannabe king. Hopium Merch is coming soon, and be sure to check our robust Events schedule as new events are being added daily.
Please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire me and I am sure others to do more, fight harder.
There are three additional efforts we’re working on now:
1 - Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Simply, the Virginia elections are the most important elections we have this year, and we must win them. We have narrow majorities in both legislative chambers and while our candidate Abigail Spanberger has a modest lead in current polling, this is going to be a close election where our money and volunteer time can make a real difference. If you are to give to only one candidate or election this year it should be this one. Here’s a link to do so today……
To learn more about Abigail check out my new discussion with her, watch her new TV ad, or head over to her campaign website We have now raised over $120,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all! We need to keep working it everyone!
2 - Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Reps Derek Tran, Janelle Bynum, Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen and give to all 7 through a single donation on our ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.
We’ve already raised over $121,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - great work everyone!
We also have ongoing campaigns to raise money for the new DNC, support the North Carolina Democratic Party and to thank Senator Cory Booker for his spirited leadership in a time of enormous challenge.
3 - Growing Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 151,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day too!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
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