Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said Wednesday that Republican senators who advanced the latest iteration of President Trump’s domestic policy plan made it worse than the version he voted against when it passed the House in May.
“I think the Senate accomplished a near impossible task: They took an ugly bill, and they made it even uglier,” Doggett told CNN “News Central” anchor John Berman. “We’re going to do all we can to influence and to expose the dangers of this bill and to call out Republican colleagues on this.”
The GOP-controlled Senate passed the bill with a tiebreaking vote from Vice President Vance on Tuesday after a marathon debate over the proposal, which would extend the tax breaks from Trump’s first term as president and cut spending on social safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps.
The House returned to the Capitol on Wednesday to address differences between the versions ahead of a self-imposed Friday deadline for final passage.
Doggett acknowledged that some of the changes, including the Senate’s addition of Trump’s campaign promise to eliminate taxes on tipped earnings, may be popular with Americans but said they don’t make up for more drastic measures in the proposal or its increase to the federal debt.
“These little flourishes that were added, like no tax on tips, are issues that are designed to cover the horrible job that they’re doing,” he said. “There is a way to address these concerns, not see Americans lose their health care, not engage in this fiscal irresponsibility that has been condemned by so many observers.”
Trump again pushed back Wednesday on arguments that the bill would exacerbate the federal debt, arguing that it will promote job growth that will help Americans adjust to other measures.
“THE ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL DEAL IS ALL ABOUT GROWTH. IF PASSED, AMERICA WILL HAVE AN ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE LIKE NEVER BEFORE,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING, JUST IN ANTICIPATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL BILL. DEFICIT CUT IN HALF, RECORD INVESTMENT — CASH, FACTORIES, JOBS POURING INTO THE USA. MAGA!!!”
Doggett, responding to that post from the president on CNN, rejected Trump’s claim.
“Of course, there had been some people that have talked about growth, and they’ve said we’ll get practically none,” he said.
Democrats are hoping for more Republican defectors, like Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), whom Trump bashed for opposing the legislation. The president had voiced support for challengers to Tillis in the senator’s reelection bid next fall, but Tillis announced Sunday that he would not seek a third Senate term.
“[Tillis] was courageous enough to put his own job on the line in order to speak out against the injustice of this bill,” Doggett said. “I think that the first people in the country who were intimidated by Donald Trump were not immigrants or poor people; they were my Republican colleagues.”
“They are fearful … but we have to appeal to their better side and hope that they will do the right thing here,” he added.
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