The "Big, Beautiful Bill" Is Massively Unpopular and Democrats Plan to Keep It That Way

TIME

In the end, Democrats were unable to stop Republicans from getting their tax-cuts-and-spending plan across the finish line on Tuesday. But, in conversations with strategists close to the Democratic leaders, they had a pretty clever consolation spin: this bill is the most hated piece of major legislation since at least 1990, and Republicans have no plan to fix that. GOP strategists seemed to understand the buzzkilling buzzsaw they were marching toward with a grim sense of inevitability. Even then, there was still no guarantee the House would accept the Senate’s rewrite of their work.

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00:00the so-called one big beautiful bill is the most hated piece of major legislation in decades and

00:08republicans seemingly have no plan to fix that the list of haters is long fiscal conservatives

00:15hate the mass of spending here centrist republicans and all democrats despise the deep cuts to programs

00:24that help the poor and the elderly and pragmatists are watching and worrying the gop's biggest donor

00:30elon musk has threatened everyone who voted for the bill with a primary challenge and he's

00:36threatening to throw money toward a new third party we might have to put those on elon but still the

00:43longest list of haters may be the majority of the american public polling shows most folks don't

00:48want anything to do with this so-called one big beautiful bill the level of opposition is truly

00:55historic poli-sci professor chris warshaw at gw has studied the clunker bills over decades and

01:03the dad shows obamacare and the auto bailout were just slightly more unpopular than popular when

01:10they were passed bill clinton's failed healthcare efforts were in similar territory call congress

01:15tell him you want what they have trump's first attempt to repeal obamacare was a total dud in

01:21the polls but also a non-starting reality but trump's one big beautiful bill is more unpopular than not

01:29to the tune of 24 points democrats have made sure their colleagues across the aisle feel the burn

01:36and it's going to be how the 2026 campaign plays out house democrats official campaign arm is

01:42circulating a strategy memo about the 2026 midterms outlining a plan to keep the consequences of this

01:50bill in the headlines for the next 16 months among the republican strategists there's no clear answer

01:57on how to make any of this popular or explain this vote before the senate vote i asked one republican

02:04strategist how do you get through this and his answer was i'm all ears if you have an idea

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