President Donald Trump is ramping up his criticism of Republican senators who are threatening to complicate the passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which advances his legislative agenda.
On Tuesday, he railed against Sen. Rand Paul in a social media post after the Kentucky Republican publicly criticized the House-passed megabill.
Paul opposes the bill because of a debt ceiling increase in it that he said would “explode deficits.” Paul said at an event in Iowa last week that the cuts in the bill are “wimpy and anemic” and called for slashes to other entitlements, which Trump has made clear are a red line for him.
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“Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting ‘NO’ on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not,” Trump said in a post on his conservative social media platform Tuesday morning.
In a separate post, Trump said Paul “never has any practical or constructive ideas.” Over the weekend, Trump said that if Paul votes against the bill, “the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him!”
Paul responded to Trump’s attacks on Tuesday, telling ABC News that he has been “pretty consistent” about his position on the deficit.
“From the very beginning, I’ve been consistent about it,” Paul said. “I pointed it out when we have Republican presidents and we have Democrat presidents, so really, there is no change in this.”
Trump is working the phones and having meetings with senators to try to get his sweeping agenda passed by Congress. The legislation extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and boost spending for the military and border security — while making some cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other assistance programs. It will also add about $3.8 trillion to the federal government’s $36.2 trillion in debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House on Monday, according to a White House official. The meeting comes as Thune faces the Herculean task of moving this House-backed bill through the Senate as expeditiously as possible.
Thune has so far not made clear what his strategy will be for moving this package through the upper chamber. But as things currently stand, Thune can only afford to lose three of his GOP members to pass the package, and right now, he has more members than that expressing serious doubts about the bill.
The president’s outreach so far has targeted a number of senators who have publicly expressed a need to see substantive changes to the House-backed bill.
Paul told ABC News that he had a “lengthy discussion” with Trump this week where the president “did most of the talking.” Asked if Trump convinced him to change his mind, Paul quipped: “no.”
Trump also met with Republican Sen. Rick Scott on Monday to discuss the bill, sources confirmed to ABC News. Scott is among a group of Senate hardliners who wants to see larger cuts to government spending in this bill.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson — who also received a call from Trump on Monday, according to the White House — has also been vocal about his concerns that the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough to slash federal spending.
But anyone wishing to change the bill will have to balance the desire for spending cuts from hardliners against the calls from others in the conference who are insisting there be no cuts to Medicaid. Changes to Medicaid are one of the key ways the House bill slashes spending levels.
Trump seems to be targeting this part of the GOP conference as well, speaking with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley by phone, a White House official confirmed. Hawley, who has said he opposes potential cuts to Medicaid benefits, said in a post on X after that call, that Trump “said again, NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS.”
Trump put pressure on Republican senators to fall in line in a post on his social media site on Monday night, emphasizing that he wants the GOP tax megabill on his desk before the Fourth of July holiday.
“I call on all of my Republican friends in the Senate and House to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY,” Trump wrote.
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Echoing sentiments from Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday suggested that Republican senators who vote against Trump’s megabill will have a price to pay.
“Their voters will know about it. That is unacceptable to Republican voters and all voters across the country who elected this president in a Republican majority to get things done on Capitol Hill,” Leavitt told reporters.
Despite expressing some displeasures about the large tax bill last week, Leavitt said Trump was keen on keeping the bill largely in-tact.
“Those discussions are ongoing, but the president is not going to back down from those key priorities that he promised the American public, and they are expecting Capitol Hill to help him deliver,” Leavitt said.
