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‘Pushed Up to the Edge of the Cliff’: GOP Proposals Would Kick Millions Off Health Care
The nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its report on five separate Republican proposed policies to slash federal spending on Medicaid, a program that currently serves about one in five Americans. The report finds that under the GOP proposals, millions of Americans would be kicked off and have no medical coverage.
The CBO report shows that 2.3 million and nearly nine million Americans would be kicked off Medicaid, based on the proposed Republican cuts to the critical safety net program. Those cuts would lead to no insurance for about half of the Americans removed from the program. The proposals would reduce the federal deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, but those savings are expected to be used to pay for the Trump administration’s tax cuts, which are largely expected to benefit wealthy Americans the most.
The President has called that legislation his “big, beautiful bill,” but the Congressional Black Caucus calls the proposals “the largest Medicaid cut in history.”
As far back as a decade ago, President Donald Trump vowed, “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican, and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.”
In March of this year, a White House “fact check” insisted, “The Trump Administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits. President Trump himself has said it (over and over and over again).”
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The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, finds that: “No matter how these tax cuts are financed, the result will hurt most working families, especially low-income households. The most damaging way to finance TCJA [Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] extensions would be with spending cuts for programs like SNAP or Medicaid.”
It’s unclear if the House would vote to enact one, several, or perhaps all of the proposals, although Politico reports House Speaker Mike Johnson has said a proposal that would kick 5.5 million off Medicaid is off the table.
“The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been tasked with reducing the deficit by $880 billion, and Republican leaders are eyeing changes to Medicaid to achieve a large portion of that total amount,” Politico adds. “Republicans are coalescing around work requirements for beneficiaries, more frequent eligibility checks in the program and cracking down on coverage for noncitizens. But as they look for more significant savings, divisions have only grown, with hardliners pushing for even steeper cuts and moderates increasingly wary.”
But about six in ten non-senior (19-64 year-old) Medicaid enrollees are already working. Of the 40 percent who are not, barriers include being in school, being a family caregiver, illness or disability, or being unable to find work, according to KFF.
Two top Democrats requested the CBO report: U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey.
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“Republicans continue to use smoke and mirrors to try to trick Americans into thinking they aren’t going to hurt anybody when they proceed with this reckless plan, but fighting reality is an uphill battle,” Senator Wyden said in a statement. “The bottom line is that the Republican bill is going to cut health care for kids, seniors, Americans with disabilities and working families, and Democrats are going to fight to stop it.”
One Republican who has been outspoken about limiting cuts to Medicaid to $500 billion, U.S. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, says he is open to increasing work requirements and stepping up eligibility checks—which are administrative costs—but blasted his colleagues who want to pass a bill with massive proposed reductions of up to nearly $900 billion, along with the way they are attempting to do it.
“Here’s the tactic they’ve been using: ‘Don’t worry about the Senate. They’ll fix it.’ And now we’re getting ready to take our third vote on this,” Bacon said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “We feel like we’re being pushed up to the edge of the cliff here.”
See an announcement by U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), below or at this link.
There it is: as Democrats have warned, new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirms that each GOP proposal to cut Medicaid will lead to millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage. pic.twitter.com/0DETEQ8J9U
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) May 7, 2025
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Image via Shutterstock
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
