Trump's budget bill is big – but is it beautiful enough?
Sidebar
The Washington Post
4.1 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode, The Washington Post's Libby Casey, Rhonda Colvin and James Hohmann break down President Trump's "big, beautiful bill" – the 1,100-page proposal for a measure that includes a whole of of the GOP's priorities, all in one package.
But does Trump have the support of his own caucus, or does he need to convince Republicans in both the House and the Senate to vote for it? The crew dives into what changes it would make to U.S. law, which tax cuts it would extend, and how Republicans have structured the bill to bypass Democrats' votes entirely.
Plus: The timing of former president Biden's announcement that he has cancer raises questions.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Look what happened. |
| 0:02.0 | Is this crazy? |
| 0:03.8 | We stand on the verge of the four greatest years in the history. |
| 0:08.5 | Make America great a game. |
| 0:11.6 | How can you be against it? |
| 0:17.0 | President Trump has managed to make a lot of changes to American government and the economy in this second term, but to really change laws and spending, you need Congress. |
| 0:26.5 | Enter what Trump calls the big, beautiful bill. |
| 0:29.7 | Welcome to Sidebar from the Washington Post. |
| 0:31.8 | Today, we'll talk about whether it's big. |
| 0:33.4 | The answer is clearly yes. |
| 0:35.1 | We'll talk about whether it's beautiful. |
| 0:37.0 | A lot of debate over that, even coming from Trump's own party. |
| 0:41.1 | I'm here with Rhonda Colvin and James Holman. |
| 0:43.9 | I'm Libby Casey, your host. |
| 0:45.7 | And there's so much on the line in this bill politically, as well as in terms of what American laws in life look like for the next decade plus. |
| 0:55.0 | So let's just dive right in to why Rhonda Republicans are trying to like make this one bill the answer to all of their goals. |
| 1:05.3 | Well, I look at it in two ways. |
| 1:07.0 | And yes, it is a very big bill. |
| 1:09.2 | I was looking through it last night in its current standing. |
| 1:12.2 | And it is over a thousand. Yes, I didn't even try to print it out. Yes, it is about 1100 pages. |
| 1:18.6 | It's her furniture, basically. And 1100 pages for one of those big congressional omnibus bills |
| 1:23.4 | is pretty short. Yeah, it is. But so I don't, I can't show everyone what it looks like because it is very big. |
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