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House Holds Razor-thin Final Vote on Trump's Megabill; Two GOP Representatives Vote Against Trump Megabill; House on Track to Pass Trump's Megabill. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 03, 2025 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:00]

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- You know, there was a lot of concern that perhaps they wouldn't be able to get it done, even among Republicans in their own party. There were also some very skeptical Republican Senators who didn't think getting this all wrapped by the July 4th deadline was going to be possible either. Given the fact that it is July 3rd, that it is about two o'clock in the afternoon and we are probably just minutes away from this vote unfolding on the floor.

I think that that is part of the reason you see Johnson so, so jubilant on the floor as he's giving these final remarks. He also said that he has not slept for many, many, many hours. Obviously, he has been trying to wrangle members over the course of the last 48 hours. So, he's tired and he's ready to vote. And I think a lot of members who are eager to get home for the 4th of July are feeling the same way.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": He's doing pretty well considering how tired he is there. Lauren Fox, thank you so much. Let's talk about some of the math of this bill. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says President Trump's so- called Big Beautiful Bill will result in nearly 12 million Americans losing their health insurance and will add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. That was the CBO's latest estimate before the Senate made some changes to the bill and voted on it without waiting for a new CBO score.

Now, with all eyes on the House, as we were awaiting a final vote on this bill, many Republicans have been criticizing that CBO-estimated price tag, including Congressman Tim Burchett, who embraced CBO estimates before he detested them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So, you're taking issue with the CBO estimate here?

REP. TIM BURCHETT, (R-TN): Yes, ma'am. I do have an issue with it. The office is very partisan. I mean, 85 percent of the people in their healthcare division identify as a Democrat or they've contributed to Democrats or they are registered Democrats. Their leading -- I believe, their leading economist is that. We ought to do away with these organizations because we use them when we like them. We don't use them when we don't like them. And you've got a bunch of bureaucrats in here that are on a lifetime gravy train. And frankly, we've got independent agencies that can do that. We have people up here with accounting degrees that can do the math. So, I feel like that is a waste of taxpayers' money.

KEILAR: So in January 2024, there was a Republican who trusted the CBO so much that they reintroduced a resolution to require the House clerk to read the CBO estimate of any bill. I believe that was you, sir. The third time you introduced that resolution. Is that right?

BURCHETT: That's correct, ma'am. Of course, and that proves just what I said.

KEILAR: But you don't like the CBO now?

BURCHETT: When it serves us -- Ma'am?

KEILAR: But you don't like the CBO now? You introduced that resolution over multiple years, but now, you're dissing the CBO?

BURCHETT: Did the bill pass?

KEILAR: Your resolution?

BURCHETT: Yes, ma'am.

KEILAR: You introduced it, sir. It's irrelevant --

BURCHETT: It didn't pass. They never passed because nobody wants any verification. It proves my point. When it serves us well --

KEILAR: The point you took a stance and you are --

BURCHETT: When it serves us well, we are for it, but when it doesn't, we don't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Truer words never spoken. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO Director, who also worked on the Council of Economic Advisors during both Bush presidencies says, people don't like CBO because they don't get the answer they want and they blame it on partisan grounds. But that's not what's going on. They're just disappointed.

So, let's look at what the CBO is. It is truly nonpartisan by law and Holtz-Eakin notes by DNA. Both Republicans and Democrats get a say in who leads the organization. And despite what Burchett alleged there, the economist who heads the CBO actually has conservative bonafides on his resume, a stint at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, public policy think tank, and time in former President George W. Bush's treasury department.

The CBO cost estimates, they're just estimates. The agency doesn't make policy recommendations, that's up to lawmakers. And the CBO isn't perfect, of course, because it can't predict the future, no one can. But there is something that you can take to the bank on this bill. According to Holtz-Eakin, it is indeed big. There's no way around that. It will add to the deficit significantly. It will bump millions of Americans off of healthcare and that can't be explained away.

We're joined now by CNN Political Analyst and Washington Bureau Chief for The Boston Globe, Jackie Kucinich and White House Reporter for Politico, Eli Stokols is with us as well. And Jackie, Republicans, they are trying to explain away that price tag and the things in this bill that are not polling very well with Americans. I wonder how worried they are behind the rhetoric that passing this bill, as we await for them to have their vote, is going to be politically really tough for them.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE BOSTON GLOBE: I mean, I think the bill more broadly isn't polling well, it's not just some of things in it, but also more broadly. I think all you need to do is look at how long this took to get to this point. There was a seven-hour procedural vote and then the second seven-hour procedural vote where they were twisting arms and trying to get some of the holdouts to finally vote to even make this thing go forward. Now, they had some assurances from the White House, but you also had some of these moderate members.

[14:05:00]

In fact, Brian Fitzpatrick, I think was the only one who ended up voting no on the roll, because he is in one of these on-the-bubble blue or purple districts, and there's going to be others. So they can -- they can do this. But once these -- once some of these cuts start hitting these districts, particularly those with high Medicaid participants, that they're going to have a lot more explaining to do.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And as Jackie describes it, the arm twisting and the wrangling, Eli, a lot of it just has to do with pressure from the White House that if they don't support this, they're going to get primaried.

ELI STOKOLS, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, POLITICO: That's about the story.

KUCINICH: Yeah.

STOKOLS: I mean, there are a lot of -- you can argue about the CBO and whether it's partisan or not, but the concerns about the deficit impact of this legislation, concerns about what this means for Medicaid recipients, those are bipartisan concerns. A lot of Republicans expressed the same concerns that you heard Minority Leader Jefferies talking about for several hours this morning and afternoon. And at the end of the day, almost all of those Republicans swallowed the pill and took the vote. And the reason is the pressure coming from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

KUCINICH: Absolutely.

STOKOLS: This is Donald Trump's Republican Party. The mavericks are gone, and they all know or fear, they believe that if they cross him and they are somehow the singular impediment to this bill, getting to his desk, his signature legislative achievement of this first year, they will feel his wrath, the wrath of his political operation, the wrath of his social media posts. And it does not seem like any of them really want that.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. You already saw the announcement by Senator Thom Tillis that he's retiring. We'll see what Thomas Massie does. Jackie, I wonder on the other side, how significant was that speech from Jeffries showing that Democrats have some at least symbolic fight?

KUCINICH: One thing you hear a lot from just, rank and file Democrats, not that -- not that our, -- I'm sorry, not rank and file, but like Democratic base, they want to see them do something. So, this is something that I think he had to do. I mean, the magic minute is something that we know is something that is a leaders and things get, whether it breaks through, whether it resonates, we'll have to see. But I mean, even showing life, I think right now, the Democratic base is worth something, because there is so little that Democrats can functionally do because they're in the minority.

KEILAR: Yeah. Democrats loved Cory Booker on the Senate floor and this, I think even the setup of the House sort of lent itself to some theatrics that maybe the Senate floor didn't. We just want to note that Speaker Johnson has yielded back. So, we are watching the House floor as we await this move towards the final vote on Trump's megabill here.

But Eli, J.D. Vance tweeted that a GOP Congressman just texted me. I was undecided on the bill, but then I watch Hakeem Jeffries' performance and now I'm a firm yes. We should note all -- Jeffries was, I mean, he did go on for a long time and I'm sure no one watched it in its entirety, but he was calling out certain Republicans by name, right? So I mean, he was like calling them out by district here. Do you think this is something that was felt by a lot of Republicans? What do you make of this tweet from J.D. Vance?

STOKOLS: I'm not --

KEILAR: The vote officially underway. Sorry, Eli. I just want to know, the vote is now open and officially underway, so we're going to keep an eye on that. Eli, sorry.

STOKOLS: I wouldn't suggest that, I have no reason to suggest that what J.D. Vance is putting on social media is somehow a fabrication or not true. I'm sure he is having lots of text conversations with a lots of members about this. And it's obviously in this hyper-partisan environment, not beyond the imagination to think that Hakeem Jeffries giving a pretty pointed speech would not sit well with most of the Republicans, certainly not the ones that he called out by name.

But again, it's because of this hyper-partisan environment that this is a zero-sum game, right? And so, it's now a messaging war. It's a messaging war that Democrats are -- they're up against Donald Trump, one of the best political messengers we've seen in generations, who's already planning the signing ceremony, even though the ink is not -- the vote has not been finalized, but they're already planning the ceremony. They have the talking points. They're going to communicate this in broad strokes. He's a very effective communicator. And I think we've already seen Republicans focusing on the top lines, talking about tax cuts. Democrats have a challenge. They believe this is a political opportunity for them, but the midterms are still more than a year away. And so, to get voters to understand what happened, to connect the dots between something that a vote today and something that they may experience over the next several months, that is going to be a challenge for Democrats because Republicans are going to keep talking about this.

They're going to talk about it in very simple terms. They're going to talk about tax cuts. They're going to talk about growth. They're going to talk about the immigration reform and the deportation program that is going to be supercharged as a result of this bill in terms of ICE having so much more funding, more funding than a lot of countries' militaries. So, that is going to be -- these are things that the Republicans ran on. Democrats are going to -- we'll see how effective they are at messaging and getting voters to understand what happened.

[14:10:00]

KUCINICH: But they made it clear that is where they're putting -- they're putting the eggs in that basket. They've been doing it through the run up to this bill. And today, you heard -- that's how Hakeem Jeffries signed off.

STOKOLS: Yeah, right.

KEILAR: As we are watching this vote, I just want to note, so we see the one no for Republicans, which is Thomas Massie. But at one point, it clicked to two and then it went right back down to one.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: So I -- how does that work, Jackie? Did someone press the wrong button or --

KUCINICH: Yeah, I don't know, I want to see. When you're in the House chamber, actually there's a board that you can't see in this picture that lights up and it has all the members' names, so you can actually see it live who is voting how. So, I would be curious. I wish I was in the room right now to see that -- to see the lights.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: Imagine how they felt. I just have to say, yeah.

SANCHEZ: A slip of the finger maybe. I am curious to Eli's point about some hyperbole on social media at times. Elon Musk, formerly of DOGE, threatening Republicans who support this with primaries. Is that a concern for them? He's got a lot of money.

STOKOLS: He does have a lot of money. But, I think that right now, if Republicans have to choose between who do they want to make mad? President Trump or Elon Musk? It's pretty clear choice. They're going to stick with Donald Trump. Elon Musk though does have a lot of money. We'll see what he does with it. This is also an Elon Musk that after his, let's say year long experience in politics, is leaving with his own brand and his corporate brands severely tarnished. And so, does he really have the stomach, if he's doing it alone, to go after some of these candidates? And I mean, he certainly has the money.

SANCHEZ: But we've seen folks with money before kind of flounder in politics.

STOKOLS: Yeah. So, we'll see. But I think that's factoring into the calculations that a lot of these lawmakers are making, and I think the pressure that they know that President Trump can apply is very real. They've seen it play out.

KUCINICH: Yep.

STOKOLS: -- over and over and over again in primaries. And they -- if they want to stay in Congress, they're going to stay on the team.

KEILAR: If we're -- as we're watching this vote, if this passes, I just wonder, as we look towards the summer, Jackie, what that may look like for Republicans, what they may be anticipating, what Democrats are looking to capitalize on. Do we have a sense of that?

KUCINICH: So you would imagine, when you -- all the members I've spoken to have said this bill in particular, they've heard a lot about it at home. People track them down in the grocery store and talk to them about this bill. So whether -- we'll have to see if that sort of enthusiasm continues as everybody heads home. We know that a lot of Republican members are not doing town halls in the way that we understand town halls to be.

Democratic members have been much more willing to do, sit down with their constituents and have those exchanges. We'll have to see how this plays out this summer, because I do think people are paying attention to what happened here.

SANCHEZ: Lauren Fox is certainly paying attention. She's been watching closely on Capitol Hill. And Lauren, there's something like about 60 -- I'm not great at math. There's almost 60 if not --

KEILAR: Don't -- don't count on air, math on air is just a bad gamble.

(LAUGH)

SANCHEZ: It's a minefield. But there are something like 37 plus 18, whatever that is, folks that haven't voted yet. Do we know why -- we're not anticipating any surprises, right?

FOX: Yeah. I mean, sometimes this just takes a little bit of time, right? To get through this vote. Members are maybe just finishing up conversations, getting to the floor, et cetera. So that's probably part of this. I've never seen them vote in like a minute and a half in the House. I certainly have never seen that in the Senate. So that's part of it. Now, there were a flurry of members who voted right at the top and then started to run out of the chamber, likely because many of them have flights that they want to catch back home. So, that is part of what is getting this all moving pretty quickly.

But again, Johnson has been very, very confident right now. We have seen just that one no in Thomas Massie, that was pretty widely expected. He voted against the first House proposal back in May. So that is not a big surprise here. I'm really interested to see what Representative Brian Fitzpatrick does, because he was a no on that procedural vote in the middle of the night. It's really interesting to see just so many of these holdouts that 24 hours ago, were telling us that they had major concerns, that they wanted to change the bill. Some of them wanted to send it back to the Senate.

The fact that so many of them, within just a short period of time, were able to be assuaged by multiple conversations with the president, with his staff, with ledge affairs, with other members of the administration, I think says a lot about the effort that was underway over the course of the last 24 hours. And it also says a lot about the power that Donald Trump has to convince people. I mean, I talked to Warren Davidson yesterday who said Donald Trump is the master of legislating. Warren Davidson was a no back in May. He is a yes on this proposal. I think that says a lot about just how much has evolved within the Republican Party in a pretty short period of time.

KEILAR: And Laura, we've gotten used to this rhythm, right? The Republicans who are on the fence, some of them even apparently using it to get a little face time with the president and then they just go ahead and vote for it.

[14:15:00]

Or maybe they need that face time to give themselves a little cover in their district because they know that is going to go far with voters. We've kind of gotten used to this, right? With the budget resolution, the CR, the first time this passed, the House version of this passed, was this really different though, this vote on the Senate version? Was this more of an arm twist?

FOX: Well, it's really interesting because, obviously, Speaker Johnson has not been in the job that long, but he's had a lot of success, especially since Donald Trump was re-elected and the two of them had been working hand in glove together. I do think that there were a lot of conversations with administration officials that were making clear that on the implementation side of this bill, that they could do a lot to satisfy some conservative concerns, especially when it came to some of those green energy tax credits.

There was concern that the Senate bill slowed down some of the phase out of those tax credits. This was a big, big thing for conservatives the first time around. It was a big deal to them the second time around, but there was really so many conversations that revolved around how can they implement this bill and what impact can they make on the administrative side. And that might sound like it's really in the weeds, but if you can't change a single word in the bill without getting it back to the Senate, that may be your only option, right? Is to promise things in the future on how the bill is implemented. I do think that that went a really long way, but there's also just a level of trust in Donald Trump. I've heard that from many members. They believe that this bill, if he says it's a good bill, it is going to be a good bill and that they're going to be able to sell it back home. But again, I am keeping a close eye on Representative Brian Fitzpatrick. I think that's going to be one of the most interesting votes that we see in the next few minutes.

SANCHEZ: And we'll be watching closely. Lauren, thank you for the update. Please stand by. The idea of promises for the future, Jackie, is really notable because we've been speaking to a number of Republican Congress people who have said that despite the fact that this bill is likely going to increase the deficit, at least temporarily, they believe that it could be addressed in the near future. But, you have the potential for Democrats to win at least one chamber of Congress in the midterms. How likely is that alleviation to the fiscal hawks? How likely is that?

KUCINICH: Well, we have to say, Republicans usually care about the deficit more when there's a Democratic president in the White House. That just seems to be a truism that spans a lot of different administrations. But the president is making a gamble, he wants this bill passed. He wants his tax cuts to be permanent. He wants the no taxes on tips, these very crucial campaign promises that he made. The rest are details in this bill.

So as long as that gets done, he's going to say what he needs to say to have that happen. Will it -- will he be able to make good on those promises? We'll have to see, because he is probably telling them, I'm going to help you win your races, which -- that's up to the voters ultimately.

KEILAR: Eli, why does the president think this is such a good bill if Americans, when you look at the polls, are saying they do not think it is?

STOKOLS: Well, he doesn't care about the polls. And he believes deeply in his own ability to convince people that this is a great bill. He believes in making the original Trump tax cuts permanent and he certainly believes in the massive budget increase for ICE and phasing out a lot of the Biden- and Obama-era tax credits for green energy. And he believes those things are going to sell with the Republican base. And based on the last election that, I mean as well as he did with voters in the middle, he thinks that, look, this is what we ran on. We're going to do it.

There's a lot in this bill. He's not going to engage, or at least hasn't so far on the particulars, a lot of the points that Democrats are making, he's talking about this in the aggregate. I think his response, if I'm reading between the lines, to the impact on the deficit is talking about growth and saying, look, this is going to make the economy -- we are the hottest country is what he likes to say -- and this is going to make the economy even more supercharged. And this is going to spur investment.

And you'll see -- we will see, we'll find out the impact of this bill. But, also to your point, this is, on deficit spending, yes, they obviously -- Republicans obviously care about that a whole lot more when a Democrat is in the White House. But Donald Trump over less than a decade, has completely obliterated the longstanding orthodoxies that used to sort of bind the Republican Party together. Right? This is a mostly isolationist president after decades of Republicans being hawks on trade. He's suddenly protectionist and sounding like Bernie Sanders more than your traditional Republican. And they're going along with that/

Why they would go along with this? It's no surprise, right? Donald Trump is for it. Donald Trump is for it. There's enough in here that they agree on, whether it's the immigration provisions, the tax cut provisions, those are traditional ideas.

[14:20:00]

But if they have concerns about the deficit or they have -- those concerns are just not going to stand up when we've already seen them completely shape-shift because Donald Trump says so, because they're following what Donald Trump is doing. And it's not ideological. It is kind of, as he would say, it's the weave. But, ideologically, it is a bit of a weave and they're going right along with it.

SANCHEZ: To your point on government spending, I mean, he's arguing for getting rid of the dead ceiling altogether, which has long been orthodoxy for fiscal hawks, something that they think we shouldn't pass and all that. Jackie, going over what Speaker Johnson said before this vote began, he's pointing out that for folks that support the president, it is quite the moment, given the passage of this bill, the success of the strikes in Iran, the Pentagon confirming that they believe Iran's nuclear program has been pushed back a year or two. This deal with Vietnam, supposedly more deals coming before that July 9th deadline that everybody's watching closely. So for his supporters, this president has delivered.

KUCINICH: And the Supreme Court wins, which has nothing to do with the president, but he also has that. I mean, it's been a pretty good week to be President Trump. And yes, I mean, that is why the campaign promises that people said they voted for him in order to enact are so important that this bill gets passed for the president. So yeah, if you're a Trump supporter, you're probably really happy that this is happening, which is another reason why some of these members that may have misgivings about certain parts of the bill are going to hit that yes, even though they don't necessarily think that it might work out in the end. They're -- they know that their constituents, a lot of them are watching President Trump, and they want them to do what he's telling them to do.

STOKOLS: He had a really good week last week. He went to Europe. He had a really successful NATO Summit and he got the other 31 countries to agree to the kind of increased spending that he's been talking about for years. So he is -- the White House definitely feels like they're on something of a roll right now. Again, how that holds up as people start to feel the impact of this bill and we'll see where things are six months or a year from now. But this is no doubt, there are a lot of things they want to celebrate. He's got a rally this evening in Iowa. And I think we're going to see a fairly ebullient Donald Trump at the rally and if there is a signing ceremony at the White House tomorrow, there as well.

KUCINICH: Many victory lap, for sure.

STOKOLS: Yeah.

KUCINICH: Complete with fireworks tomorrow.

STOKOLS: There may be.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: All right. And we are watching the vote right now. There on the House floor, two nays now, Congressman Fitzpatrick as well as Congressman Massie. So, and at this point, we're looking at six people who have not voted, five Republicans who have not voted. Three now, we see just three. This is getting very close as we continue. That time is going to go down to zero, but they can hold that open. So, we're just going to keep watching as these numbers continue to dwindle. Two Republicans who haven't voted. Who's holding out there to be the final vote to dramatically bring this to the end? I guess, we'll see who that is.

KUCINICH: We'll see.

STOKOLS: It looks like a party down there on the Republican side.

KEILAR: But, yeah. And they're probably going to have one. But to your point, Eli, yeah, big -- NATO. I mean, it's a list of wins he's put together and President Trump is preparing to put together a big scene at the White House for July 4th, to position himself to have a good weekend, maybe going into another good week. And that is quite the string, right? He's touting this Vietnam deal tomorrow. He's going to have the service members who are responsible for what was certainly a very successful military operation with the U.S. strike on Iran, even as there is a debate about how much Iran's program was set back, whether it was months or whether it was years. The point is it was set back and that was a well executed operation, and that is going to be a very big visible kind of party for him.

STOKOLS: Right. And again, this is a guy who -- I mean, this is the guy who yesterday went to Alligator Alcatraz, right? This is a guy who knows how to brand and how to reach people and how to have a simple message, how to capture the public's imagination. And he's going to be standing next to the troops and celebrating the troops who did that. He's going to be talking about a major legislative accomplishment for him and Republicans. And those are really significant things.

Again, down the road, we will see, right? A lot of the deportations and the immigration stuff, the ICE actions, those do are not polling as though they appear to be all that popular. So if ICE gets supercharged and we see a lot more of those and that's what's on voters' mind eight months from now, a year from now, we could be talking about a different story, right? You can celebrate anything at the bill signing. Joe Biden had a lot of celebrations for bill signings too. Didn't mean he was -- he ended up being able to, or the Democrats ended up being able to hold onto the White House. And here we are. So I think, give the administration, the White House, the Republican Party its due because they do appear like they're going to get this to the finish line. And it has been a string of wins, as they would say, over the last week or two.

[14:25:00]

But, there is a long way to go. I think we can get caught up in this town looking sort of right, this sort of myopia, this -- what's right in front of you. We'll see. We'll see where this goes. We'll see what the implications are, and we'll see if Democrats get it together and find any way to message against this. They certainly have a lot of fodder and probably will have more. But again, Donald Trump has proven pretty effective when it comes to messaging and telling a very simple story about something that people can digest and that generally works to his benefit.

SANCHEZ: Something like 14, 15 months until the midterm elections to the idea that Democrats have to sort of get their messaging together. What do you see as the path forward?

KUCINICH: So, as I said, I think you heard it throughout this process and they really are -- when -- they're looking back at 2018, which we know is a very successful midterm year and they used healthcare as a big part of that. And this is -- goes after a lot of folks healthcare and we know that a lot of people are going to be cut from that. So, I think, I would imagine they're going to very much like dust off that playbook and open it up because it was very successful for them in the past and it was motivating not only their own voters, but in those voters who are on the line, those voters who need these, access to these programs to get to the polls.

KEILAR: All right, let's head now to the Hill because we are getting very close here and our Lauren Fox is there. Lauren, just take us through the machinations of what we are watching here. We see two Republicans have voted nay, 217 have voted for this. There is one who has not voted. Can you give us an explanation of what may be going on there on the House floor?

FOX: Yeah, I mean, we're still waiting to see this play out. I can tell you who the two nos are. Obviously, Thomas Massie is a no. We expected that because of his concerns about the debt and deficit. We also know that Brian Fitzpatrick is a no. We were expecting that given the fact that he voted against that key procedural move last night. Our colleagues in the chamber a few minutes ago, told me that there were two Republicans who had not yet voted. John James as well as Ralph Norman. Ralph Norman, obviously a conservative who was really concerned about the phase out of those green energy tax credits. But he had voted for the rule.

I mean, I'm still kind of trying to keep my ear on the floor. I'm about 10 feet away or so, when we hear applause or yelling that -- or cheers that usually makes it clear that this is passing and that they're about to gavel it. But I have not heard any sign of that. I'm going to get back to our colleagues in the chamber to get a sense of where we are right now on this math because like you said, this is all playing out in real time and it's obviously really interesting to watch this all unfold, in part because Ralph Norman was one of the more difficult members to convince to vote on this rule. So I think that that is a key one to watch.

SANCHEZ: And I believe, our producer just mentioned it is likely Congressman Ralph Norman of South Carolina who had expressed some doubts about this bill previously. So, it seems he is still waiting to cast his vote -- his vote to finalize this and send it to President Trump's desk. Going back to what we were just discussing a moment ago about the midterms, if Democrats find a way to win a chamber of Congress and especially the House, things change considerably for President Trump toward the end of his second term. I mean, he could be facing a potential third impeachment vote if Democrats were leaning that way.

STOKOLS: I suppose so, but I think that Democrats have also impeached him twice and seen him re-elected and might come to the realization that their efforts could be better spent elsewhere. It's all also possible, I mean, this is not a president -- I mean this is -- if this passes, it looks like they've got the votes now. This is a big -- this is probably it for the legislative agenda. I mean, they've folded everything into this bill. So this is big, but this is not a president with like a huge legislative agenda who after this, wants to move on to anything else approaching this size or scope.

And so yeah, if Democrats win the midterms and we have seen over and over again, that the voters that turn out for Trump in a presidential year are not necessarily going to turn out for -- in those competitive races in the midterms. And so that is another reason why Democrats could be more optimistic about potentially winning back one or both chambers next fall. But, does that limit his ability to legislate? Sure. I just don't know how much Donald Trump wants to legislate. We've seen how many executive orders from him already. This is sort of like the one big legislative push because they have both chambers now.

We'll see if they do anything, next year leading up to the midterms. But, I think you're right, but I just -- I don't know how much folks in the White House are sitting there, biting their fingernails about that prospect.

KUCINICH: Well, he's expended so much political capital on this, right? Like all of -- all of the buttons he could press have been pressed for this particular bill. So, to your -- because to your point, a lot of it's in here, this is kind of a Turducken --

(LAUGH)

KUCINICH: -- of Trump --