What Next | Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many of the policy changes in Trump’s first 100 days have come from the White House—but now, it’s Congress’s turn. Republicans have roughly a month to pass a multi-trillion-dollar bill to advance the president’s domestic agenda. But will the bill’s combination of tax cuts and increases in spending on defense and border security render it unpassable for GOP budget hawks? Guest: Jim Newell, senior politics writer at Slate. Want more What Next? Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to What Next and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the What Next show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Ethan Oberman, Isabel Angell, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So, Jim, it's been a hundred days of President Trump again.
0:10.6	How you doing?
0:12.0	I can't wait for another hundred days.
0:16.3	Jim Newell covers Washington for Slate.
0:20.4	I think of this first hundred days is incredibly personal.
0:24.9	A lot of what's happening is happening at the executive level, the executive branch.
0:29.5	You know what I mean?
0:30.6	It's about Trump.
0:31.4	It's about the people at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
0:35.3	Not so much other folks.
0:37.7	He just wants to be the big boss who gets to press the buttons on any possible thing that comes.
0:43.3	You know, like there, he could try to do tariffs through Congress, but he just likes being
0:48.2	able to do it unilaterally.
0:50.2	Yeah, I mean, I was noticing there's only been five bills signed into law since Trump took office.
0:57.2	Is that unusual?
0:59.2	Yeah, that's pretty bad.
1:01.4	And he doesn't really care.
1:02.2	I don't think he doesn't, you know, it's not like he cares.
1:04.5	Like, oh, I haven't signed enough bills.
1:05.7	That's not how he measures his success.
1:07.6	Yeah, he wants to just talk about, you know, what little orders he signed every day.
1:15.7	So what happens now? That's the question Jim's been pondering recently. His specialty is covering
	...

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