Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melbert. You begin with the pressure that is actually working.

If you just big picture say, okay, we're in the second Trump term and some people have a very strong

feeling against him, some for him, others wondering how this was all going to go because they've

been pushing. Well, there have been a series of bruising setbacks that might partly just be because of reality,

meaning what the markets think about tariffs, what other countries think about these threats,

but some of them have to do with effective pushback.

In first term, they called that resistance.

Now, it's protesters that have been a part by Musk's own admission of driving him out of government.

Or take these law firms, if you look on your screen and you think about, what do the scales of

justice even mean? Well, usually they mean both sides fighting, not one side just giving up.

And the law firms who are fighting back, in some ways, are winning. And then you have voters

pushing back at town halls all around the country.

So that's kind of where we start tonight because Musk is exiting under pressure.

Republicans are facing pressure after their mega bill is finding a lot of criticism and concern,

both from Main Street, from Red districts, and from Wall Street.

You have Republican Senator Ernst.

She's in the homes, her home state is Iowa, which tends to go more conservative lately.

But the front page of the Des Moines Register shows her at the infamous town hall, where her defense

of the idea that Republicans are using this moment to slash your health care and funnel money

to multimillionaires is, quote, well, we are all going to die. That was how she defended the

health care cuts setting off this firestorm. They are not eligible, so they will be coming off.

So we people are not, well, we all are going to die.

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