Politicus Pod

If you find our work to be essential and of value, please consider supporting The Daily by becoming a subscriber.The other shoes are beginning to drop, and it looks like House Republicans are looking for an off-ramp from the unpopular Medicaid cuts in the reconciliation bill.Recently, Politico reported:For instance, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) — who ultimately voted for the sweeping domestic policy package — pledged to ensure that cuts to state taxes that fund Medicaid would never take effect.Sixteen House moderates similarly urged Speaker Mike Johnson in a letter in June to revert the Senate’s language. They all ended up voting for the bill, but at least some were also thinking that there was an opportunity to revisit the deep cuts in the future.“Any of the changes in the provider tax don’t go into effect until ’28, so he’s right, there’s time,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) said about Hawley’s comments, though he added that the system does “have to be reformed” and that “we’re on the right track.”Then, Speaker Mike Johnson announced during an appearance on Fox News Sunday that he wants to do two more reconciliation bills, one in the fall and one in the spring.The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. After this announcement, it all started to make sense. House and Senate Republicans are going to try to claim credit for cutting Medicaid among their base, but they will also attempt to roll back those cuts before they take effect in 2028. Republicans are trying to have it both ways, but they are already on record as voting to take healthcare away from 17 million Americans, and the American people aren’t going to forget.The battle to prevent health insurance from being taken away from millions isn’t over. It has at least two more rounds to go.What do you think about Republicans trying to get out of the Medicaid cuts that they voted for? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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The Daily is outside the Beltway journalism for the people. Please consider supporting our work by becoming a subscriber.Donald Trump’s allies before he returned to the White House promised a campaign of shock and awe, but we are almost six months into the second Trump presidency and what has been playing out is a tug of war where Trump pretends that his victory against American democracy is a foregone conclusion while the people fight back.Sarah Jones talked about this dynamic on Monday’s Chew’s Views and said: I'm so impressed by the people who continue to get out and protest, who call their representatives and their senators the states that are standing up. That's another way, we have all these ways of fighting that they didn't have in Nazi Germany.And I just wanna make that clear. There's so much fear and I share that fear. I'm not going to whitewash that I'm not gonna pretend it's not there. It is there and it's real. But there are also differences in comparison what was going on in Nazi Germany, and that's important. We have state-controlled elections here.We have governors in some blue states who are willing to stand up and do things to protect their people. And yes, these are all going to be fights, it isn't oh, they're gonna stand up and that he's going to give in. That's not going to happen. It's going to be a battle for sure, but it's really important to have people willing to stand up.And so when I saw this initiative, I thought that's what people need. They need to know that they're not alone. When you see somebody else speaking up, and I'm sure everybody has this example in their personal life, when somebody, or you've read someone or you listen to someone speaking up, it emboldens you and it gives you the sense when you know you're not alone in a fight, it helps you rise to the moment.And so we all have to remember constantly that we are not alone. And I think, when we look at presidents who've really roused the American people and help remind them of who they are and what they can do, the two that come to mind for me at the moment, there's many of them, but I would say at the moment, JFK and Barack Obama.And both of them got into the whole thing about standing up and about. Barack Obama? Yes, we can. You just, he would always say, it's not about me, it's about you. And that was to empower each of us. We are the power of this country, and that is very true. It's baked into our system.He's (Trump) trying to take that away. He and the Republican Party and their, and this, I would say corrupt Supreme Court are trying to take that away from people. And it's interesting. That doesn't mean that, oh, go ahead. No, you were gonna say that doesn't mean it doesn't mean that it's gonna work. And I think that's how I ended this piece.It 's a battle. They want win this battle, but we are fighting back. This conclusion to this fight is not, it's not a foregone conclusion. The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Trump isn’t taking power as much as he is hoping that people and institutions voluntarily surrender their power to him. We have seen law firms, media companies, and some universities cave to intimidation tactics and surrender power.The vast majority of Americans have refused to surrender the power. Trump sent troops to Los Angeles to intimidate, but Californians battled back and didn’t give up their power.The beauty of the American system is that the power of the people is built into it, and no president can remove it.It will be a long battle, but as long as the American people continue to fight, Trump’s intimidation tactics will fail.What do you think about the fight the American people are demonstrating? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Please consider supporting The Daily by becoming a subscriber.Congressional majorities that sense their time in power might be fleeting all share a similar habit. They think that they can defeat the looming wrath of the voters by delaying the unpopular parts of major legislation. The cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in the “Big Beautiful Bill” are extremely unpopular, so Republicans delayed them until after the 2026 and 2028 elections.The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The problem for Republicans will come soon after the 2026 midterm election if Democrats take back control of the House. One of the first items on the House Democratic to-do list should be to roll back the Medicaid and ACA cuts, and it is something that could very easily happen in budget negotiations with Trump. If Trump is faced with a government shutdown or even a default because the debt limit increase is only for two years, he should be willing to negotiate away the Medicaid cuts, since he will be a lame-duck president who will only be focused on his legacy.In the immediate term, never discount the ability, some would even say likelihood that House Republicans will implode and enough of them will refuse to support the legislation to the point where it gets kicked back to the Senate.Never ever forget that the current House majority is one of the smallest and most dysfunctional in congressional history.Expecting the majority to do the expected action in a timely manner could be a fool’s errand.Republicans don’t govern like Democrats. They are inept at getting things done, and even if this bill passes and is signed into law, the fight will continue.The delayed implementation of cuts could give Democrats the opportunity to prevent them from becoming a reality.What do you think about how the BBB plays out? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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The Daily is journalism for the people, so please consider supporting us by becoming a subscriber.The pretense of destroying Iran’s nuclear capability has been exposed as a farce, as Donald Trump announced on his social media platform that a ceasefire has been reached between Israel and Iran.Trump posted:CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE! It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!), for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered, ENDED! Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World. During each CEASEFIRE, the other side will remain PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL. On the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, “THE 12 DAY WAR.” This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will! God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!DONALD J. TRUMP,PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICATrump trying to pin a name on the conflict because he thinks that is his ticket to a Nobel Peace Prize is both pathetic and funny. Here is the problem with the ceasefire. There is no verification that Iran’s nuclear capacity or enriched uranium has been destroyed. The whole point supposedly of the United States bombing Iran was to destroy Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon. No one knows what capacity Iran has, which means that Trump has already given up before his stated objective was verified as achieved. If Iran still has nuclear capabilities, they are the big winner here because it can race to develop a bomb while Trump is taking a victory lap.If the agreement that the Obama administration negotiated had been left in place by Trump, none of this would have been necessary, and the status of Iran’s nuclear program would be well known because it would be under wraps and heavily monitored. Instead, Trump dropped a few bombs, declared victory, and ran away. The whole episode was a laughable failure that may have ensured that Iran develops a nuclear weapon. What do you think of this “ceasefire?” Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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The Daily is outside the Beltway journalism about the issues that you care about the most, so please consider becoming a subscriber.For a decade, Trump has been claiming to be an anti-war candidate. For example, in 2019, Trump posted on Twitter, “Turkey has been planning to attack the Kurds for a long time. They have been fighting forever.. We have no soldiers or Military anywhere near the attack area. I am trying to end the ENDLESS WARS.”Trump has gotten a lot of mileage out of the idea that he is trying to end wars and not start new ones, but Trump has never been about peace.As Sarah Jones said on Chew’s Views: Why did he let, why did the media let Trump run as a peacemaker? When has he ever made peace? He doesn't make peace in his personal life.He's never made peace in his professional life. He operates like a warmonger on an individual level against women as a sexual assaulter against other people he's in business with and against all of the opposition. And anyone who comes up against him politically, he incites violence against them. He attacked the United States for God's sake.The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Why was he allowed to run as a peacemaker? It blows my mind. A peacemaker is somebody who sits down to listen to other people's what they need, what they want at the table. That is a peacemaker.Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize for adding the United States to the Israel/Iran war, but the president has never been about peace. Isolationism is not the same thing as peace. There is no such thing as using military force to achieve diplomacy. Republicans should have learned after Richard Nixon tried to bomb his way to diplomacy in Vietnam. In the wars that the United States won, military force was used to defeat an enemy, not as a tool to get to a diplomatic solution.Trump is a peacemaking fraud. He has never been about peace, and the one outcome from this bombing is that the American people now see the true face of Donald Trump.What do you think about Trump as a peacemaking fraud? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Please support The Daily by becoming a subscriber.There were millions of people across the country at the No Kings protests on Saturday. Here are some pictures and videos submitted by readers of the demonstrations they attended.Wilmington, NC:The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Sag Harbor, NYGuilford, CTSylva, NCPalm Springs, CA:Palm Springs, CAFargo, ND:Thank you to everyone for submitting their pictures and videos. Protest is your power, and it is a guardrail that Trump can’t dismantle. Keep using your voice, and democracy will prevail.What do you think of these pictures and videos? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Please consider supporting The Daily by becoming a subscriber.Donald Trump’s history is repeating itself. One of the big downward drivers of his approval rating during his first term in office, even before he bungled the pandemic, was his immigration cruelty.Most politicians would learn from failure and adjust. Donald Trump has doubled down on cruelty, and the result can be seen in his approval ratings on the issue.Here are some recent numbers from YouGov:Trump’s efforts to make an example out of Los Angeles and push his immigration agenda have an approval rating of just 36%.Just 25% of Americans think that the federal government should be leading the response on immigration protests:Trump’s actions in Los Angeles are hurting his overall approval rating on deportations:Those are not good numbers. The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Donald Trump sent the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles for political reasons. Trump is trying to make an example out of California. The order the president signed to federalize the National Guard was not limited to California. Los Angeles is the first step in what looks like a national campaign to use the military to help ICE carry out immigration raids. The problem for Trump is that he can only win if the people voluntarily surrender their power. The people have been refusing to surrender and have been fighting back, not with violence as Trump wanted in Los Angeles, but with protest. People are using their voices, and when the people have stood up and said no, this administration has backed down. The battle of Los Angeles is likely to end up being a historic point in Trump’s second term. It is the moment when Donald Trump tried to substitute military intimidation for popular opinion, and so far, he has been loudly rebuked by a solid majority of Americans. The corporate media voluntarily surrendered their power before Trump took office, so it is regular people who are leading this fight. A president who has no respect for democracy has run into a brick wall that was built by centuries of democratic principles.Donald Trump has already lost in Los Angeles.What do you think of Trump’s failure to bully in LA? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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The Daily is outside the Beltway, journalistic truth from the heartland of America. Please consider supporting us by becoming a subscriber.Donald Trump is a person obsessed with strength who is consumed by weakness. It has been one of the contradictions that will go down in history as defining Trump. The current president narrowly won two presidential campaigns by running on the promise of making America strong. Yet, both of his presidencies have been so far defined by weakness. Trump has been trying to shake down the corporate owners of CBS for months with a bogus $20 billion defamation lawsuit.In a recent filing, Trump’s lawyers argued that he has suffered mental anguish:Plaintiffs were foreseeably and actually misled by Defendants’ advertising of the Election Special as containing certain statements by Harris, when in fact the Election Special did not contain the statements represented to be included by Defendants, as well as because the Interview was deceptively edited in material ways to misrepresent significant portions of what Harris said throughout her conversations with Whitaker. ECF No. 36 ¶ 155. This led to widespread confusion and mental anguish of consumers, including Plaintiffs, regarding a household name of the legacy media apparently deceptively distorting its broadcasts, and then resisting attempts to clear the public record. Id. ¶ 187. Moreover, because they were misled by Defendants’ false advertising and tampering with the entirety of the Interview, viewers withheld attention from President Trump and Truth Social by directing their attention to Defendants’ media platforms.Do you know who else is feeling mental anguish right now? The fourteen million people who stand to lose their healthcare, and millions more who could lose their jobs due to Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. All the people trying to get help from the Social Security Administration who can’t reach anyone are feeling a great deal of anguish right now.Trump is a source of anguish for much of the country right now.The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.TACO Has Trump CrackingTrump is clearly and deeply bothered by the TACO trade, because it exposes him.Donald Trump puts on the show that he did in his reality show. He's playing strong man. But now he's been called out and this is an international humiliation. So he's humiliated here by the courts. He's humiliated. Trump always chickens out if anybody missed the TACO trade this is you can't come back from that to, to have world leaders know that.Economists say, Hey, don't even pay attention to his tariffs, because Trump always chickens out. Yeah. And that's right. He does, and that's why this bill is so important to him. Because he's competing with Joe Biden, he doesn't actually even care, except about the ways that he's shoveling money to his oligarchical entourage and to his own family and to himself. He doesn't care about legislation. This is all so he can puff up his ego and say he got something done that was bigger than Joe Biden. Never mind that. What Joe Biden did was actually to strengthen this country, to strengthen our alliances internationally with nations to push democracy, and to create jobs here, and to shore up our supply chains. It doesn't even matter to Trump. Trump is being revealed as a snowflake on all fronts. People shouldn’t buy or be afraid of the strongman image, because behind the bluster is a weak person who chickens out and claims mental anguish.What do you think about Trump’s chickening out and mental anguish? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Please support our outside-the-Beltway journalism by becoming a subscriber to The Daily.Jake Tapper, CNN, and the mainstream media had been pushing Jake Tapper’s book hard. They were ready to dominate the news and ignore what Trump is doing for an entire summer. The table was set. They were ready to go. This was going to be the summer of Biden scandal, and the corporate media and their billionaire oligarchs were going to hold Democrats “accountable” for a “cover-up.”Then Joe Biden announced that he has stage four prostate cancer, and what already felt like unnecessary piling on by the media against a man who is no longer relevant in politics became stomach-turning bad taste.The corporate press has already decided that Biden, not Trump’s lies about lowering inflation and prices, or Trump’s current corrupt presidency, will be the major issue for Democrats in 2026 and 2028, but Democrats aren’t playing along.When House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was asked about Biden during a press conference, he answered, “There are Republicans who are peddling conspiracy theories and want us to look backward, at a time when they actually are taking health care away from the American people. No. As House Democrats, we’re going to look forward.”The thing about media conspiracies like the one Tapper is selling is that they only work if Democrats play along. The press can ask the same stale Biden questions for the next three years, but if Democrats use the opportunity to keep talking about what people really care about, the Biden questions will go away. The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Yes, Jake Tapper, CNN, and Warner Brothers/Discovery have already sold a lot of books, and you better believe that there are plans in the works for an HBO miniseries or movie based on Tapper’s book. The book sales are only half of the story. The point of this drummed-up scandal, which is based on zero medical evidence, was to manufacture news and scandal while at the same time winning favor with Donald Trump.The manufactured scandal has bombed. The Biden book as a story was dead as soon as the ex-president announced his cancer diagnosis.The real story that no one is willing to discuss is why the mainstream media is willing to report on an ex-president while ignoring what the current president is doing. Trump is accepting a $400 million “bribe plane” from Qatar, but there are no tell-all books about that subject being breathlessly hyped on cable news. Remember, Tapper churned out his Biden book in less than six months, so the deals should have already been signed if the “bribe plane” books were in the works. There is a double standard. Trump can take bribes, but Joe Biden was not allowed to get old, or apparently sick. Jake Tapper’s book will soon be available at dollar stores everywhere, but the real “Original Sin” is the media’s sell-out to Donald Trump.What do you think about Jake Tapper’s “bombshell” withering away? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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The Daily is journalism for the people. Please consider supporting our work by becoming a subscriber.Today’s video and live chat, which you can watch above, focused on the House Republican markup of the tax cut bill. The markups are revealing just how bad this bill will be for the American people. The Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, Tom Barthold said that the committee’s analysis found that 2 million kids would be thrown off the child tax credit if the legislation passes.An exchange between Rep. Tom Souzzi (D-NY) and Barthold also revealed that none of Trump’s campaign promises are in the bill:Souzzi:  Okay on tips, the President said your tips will be a hundred percent yours. Does this tax bill continue the payroll tax on people's tips? Barthold: Yes. It, yes it does. Souzzi: On overtime, the president said your overtime will be tax-free. Does this bill continue the payroll tax on overtime?Barthold: It does not exempt overtime from the payroll tax.Souzzi: The president has said he is gonna remove taxes on Social Security. Does this bill remove taxes on Social Security benefits? The legislation provides an increased exemption amount for, but does it remove taxes on Social Security benefits is promised by the president?Barthold: It does not change Social Security taxes.The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The markup hearings are revealing that the legislation is a complete disaster for Republicans because they reveal what is in the legislation. Trump’s bogus promises that he made during the campaign about taxes on overtime, tips, and Social Security were bogus. Trump is going to continue to tax low-wage workers, seniors, and those who put in long hours. The tax cut bill is a scam that is designed to transfer assets from those who have the least to those who have the most. That’s the point of the legislation. The spending cuts will harm the people who need programs the most to reward those who need a tax cut the least. It is not complicated math. Democrats are using the platform of the committee markups to show the American people exactly what this legislation will do.Republicans are far from the finish line on this bill. They are putting the pieces together right now, and even if it gets through the House, the legislation will be dramatically changed in the Senate.What Republicans are revealing about their priorities and who they really are for is a disaster for them, and a boon for Democratic election hopes in 2026.What do you think about House tax cut legislation? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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