The battle to sway voters over Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ begins

For months, more than a dozen Hill Republicans have been sounding the alarm about the steep Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s sprawling agenda package, which is now just hours away from becoming law.

For months, more than a dozen Hill Republicans have been sounding the alarm about the steep Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s sprawling agenda package, which is now just hours away from becoming law. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis called cuts to Medicaid “inescapable.” Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley called Republicans’ targeting of Medicaid “a mistake.” Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, who once declared he wouldn’t support anything with over $500 billion in cuts, said he reluctantly supported the Senate’s nearly $1 trillion in cuts because of other tax breaks in the bill. Now, Democrats are turning those precise GOP warnings into the centerpiece of their strategy to seize control of Congress in the midterms next November. “It’s 2018 all over again,” said Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, a Democrat who holds one of his party’s toughest, most Trump-friendly swing seats. “I’m not gonna predict the future but I think today was a pretty bad vote for them,” Golden told CNN, adding that he did not consider voting for the GOP bill, despite billions for border security and military funding. “I would never vote for these Medicaid cuts. Never.” Recent polling so far shows Republicans have a tough sales job ahead of them, with 53 percent of voters opposing the bill in a Quinnipiac University poll from June. But the GOP plans to hit back, armed with their own argument that Democrats stood in the way of broadly popular tax breaks for many Americans, billions more for border security and additional support for American troops. They argue that Democrats are vastly exaggerating the cuts to Medicaid, most of which come from work requirements largely targeted at able-bodied adults without dependents who don’t work or attend school 80 hours a month.