How ‘Big and Beautiful’ is Trump’s Bill? (with Jamelle Bouie of NYT)

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2025

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From the opinion pages of The New York Times to his popular TikTok feed, Jamelle Bouie is a leading voice in American politics.

This week, Bouie helps us sift through the inner workings of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” (4:38): its promise of prosperity for the middle class (8:44), the “moral economy” guiding the legislation (13:00), the projected losses in healthcare coverage across the country (18:07), particularly in right-leaning, rural communities (23:50), the GOP’s vision for the future (33:30), and how strict reporting requirements will put SNAP benefits at risk for millions (36:46).

On the back-half, Bouie reflects on the ghost of Democrats past (43:35), campaign lessons from Zohran Mamdani’s bid for New York City mayor (46:18), the recent ICE raids sweeping Los Angeles (1:03:54), and the historical antecedents that help put this moment in American life in perspective (1:08:08).

This episode was recorded at Spotify Studios. Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected].

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Lemonada
0:02.0	Lemonada
0:04.0	This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam for Goso. Welcome to the show.
0:41.0	Today, journalist Jamel Bowie.
0:45.8	Bowie joined the opinion pages of the New York Times back in 2019.
0:50.9	Since then, he's carved out a pretty unique place for himself at the paper of record,
0:56.0	publishing thoughtful, clear-headed columns in which he offers historical context for present-day events. He's also recently become an unlikely star on TikTok, at over 250,000
1:05.1	followers recording from his home in Charlottesville, Virginia. Bowie is one of the few old-school newspaper journalists
1:12.1	who has figured out how to translate his work into this new medium.
1:16.8	And most remarkably, he's kind of done this without compromising
1:20.2	what he does so well on the page.
1:22.7	In a media ecosystem that I think is full of brash personalities
1:27.1	that favor style over substance.
1:30.3	Bowie's voice, which is steeped in history, backed by rigorous research, has become increasingly
1:37.4	refreshing. He's one of the few people I keep turning to in this moment, for this moment. And so this week, I invited him on the show to
1:46.8	talk about the opening act of Trump's first year back in office, namely this big, beautiful
1:53.9	bill, which he signed into law on the 4th of July. Now, I'm sure many of you have seen or read
2:00.7	some of the reports and numbers that have
2:03.0	come from this bill, including from the Budget Lab at Yale, which projects a decrease of financial
2:10.0	resources for households in the bottom 20% of the income distribution by about $700 a year. Meanwhile, it will, quote, increase the resources of
2:20.5	household in the top 0.1% by more than $100,000 annually. A reverse Robin Hood, as many on the left,
2:29.8	have been calling it. But what does that actually look like? How did Yale's Budget Lab or the Congressional
	...

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