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Hi, this is Kristen in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where my two-year-old and I are taking a walk along the Gettysburg battlefield, starting and ending at the Eternal Peacelight Memorial.

This podcast was recorded at 107 p.m. on Thursday, July 3rd, 2025.

Things may have changed by the time you've listened, but we will be drinking

ice cold water on our drive home. Enjoy the show, and happy 4th of July. Yes, happy 4th of

July, everybody. Stay cool out there. And Domenico's not going to say it. Nope. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Tamara Keith. I also cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, we're trying to make sense of a busy week in Washington. Tam, let's start off with Congress. There's been a lot of grumbling, but despite that, Republicans are on a path to deliver President Trump's tax cut and spending bill. And this, as we know, is a massive bill that will extend Trump's tax cuts from the first term, add new spending for immigration and the

military. These are all campaign promises by the president. So what do you anticipate the president

will have next on his domestic agenda? Always be selling. He is going to be selling this package.

He is going to tell the American people exactly what he is giving them. And if he

doesn't, he risks people forgetting about it because the news cycle is so relentless. And in the

case of this bill, it's an extension of an existing tax cut, which means truly a lot of people

may not notice the benefits side of it. I will say that as we

are taping, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is in the midst of a marathon of holding the

House floor, talking about the bill, talking in specifics about how many people might be kicked

off of Medicaid in the districts of

moderate Republicans and Republicans who they are hoping to unseat in the midterms.

So this is a very live and active political moment.

It's really difficult to argue a negative in politics, right?

I mean, they're saying, you know, hey, this bill passed and you're not getting a tax increase is a lot different than saying, hey, I just cut your taxes. It's hard to run on something that's like everything stays the same.

Yes. And the remarkable thing, though, is that even historically when there have been tax cuts, think about the Bush tax cuts where they literally sent checks to people.

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