“Former Jan. 6 defendants are the new draw at local Republican fundraisers, helping to fill seats at normally sleepy events while getting a platform to tell their version of the Capitol riot,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Sam Stein: “Is Donald Trump a stronger and more skilled politician than he was eight years ago—or are the guardrails that once hindered him just weaker?”

“That question has come up often over the last six months as Trump has enjoyed a series of successes that eluded him during his first term in office. Clearly, he has used the power of the presidency in ways neither he nor any prior president has before. He hasn’t just changed the shape and direction of the executive branch and moved his agenda through Congress, but reshaped entire sectors of American society—from academia, to entertainment, to the law itself.”

“Yet what has stood out along the way is not how far Trump has pushed the envelope but how little resistance he’s encountered.”

Punchbowl News: “Trump and GOP congressional leaders got the big spectacle they wanted on July 4. A White House signing ceremony for the One Big Beautiful Bill, lots of flags, fireworks, even a B-2 bomber flyover. Speaker Mike Johnson gave Trump the gavel he used to close out the House vote.”

“But now comes the reality — and the headlines back home. Medicaid cuts of nearly $1 trillion. No extension of Obamacare subsidies. Tens of billions of dollars in SNAP cuts. Governors may be forced to call special legislative sessions to deal with gaping holes in their own budgets.”

“While the biggest federal cuts won’t come until after the midterm elections, the negatives for the GOP reconciliation megabill may overwhelm any political boost that Trump and Republicans get from extending and expanding the 2017 Trump tax cuts, at least in the short term. That means vulnerable GOP lawmakers get hit now, with the worst coming later. Republicans will need to turn around public perception of the OBBB, even in their own party.”

“Republicans had a hard time persuading some of their own lawmakers to support the party’s big tax-cutting and domestic-policy bill. They might have an even harder time selling it to the public,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Polls show that the bill is unpopular. Opposition outweighed support by more than 20 percentage points in recent Fox News and Quinnipiac University polls. Some Republican lawmakers facing tough races next year represent the most Medicaid-reliant districts. They will have to defend the big cuts in the bill to Medicaid, the health-insurance program for low-income and disabled people, as well as to rural hospitals and to nutrition assistance, once known as food stamps. Those cuts help fund tax cuts in the bill that President Trump called for during the 2024 campaign.”

Politico: “The Republican base now includes more working-class and low-income people, many of whom receive their health insurance through Medicaid.”

“But the traditional sentiment of many Republican lawmakers toward the social safety-net program — that it provides handouts on taxpayers’ dime — has largely remained the same.”

“History and dismal public polling suggest President Donald Trump’s $3.3 trillion tax bill, approved by Congress on Thursday, could help Democrats win back the House in the 2026 midterm elections,” the Washington Post reports.

“The bill is deeply unpopular — with nearly 2-to-1 opposition, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted in June. But Republicans still have an opportunity to shape public perception of the bill because more than a third of Americans had no opinion of it and two-thirds said they had heard either little or nothing about it.”

“So both parties are racing to define it. Republicans are touting new tax breaks for seniors and service workers. Democrats are attacking the bill as a giveaway to the rich that will lead to millions of low-income Americans losing their health care.”

Dan Pfeiffer: “This is the least popular piece of major legislation passed since the advent of polling nearly a century ago. But how does this vote impact Republican chances in the midterms? It certainly doesn’t help! It’s impossible to imagine that passing a total piece of shit bill that no one wants (and even most Republicans are ambivalent about) won’t hurt them. Earlier this week, I speculated that it could cost them the Senate despite a very pro-Republican map.”

“However, this bill could be a much bigger deal than just one election. It has the potential to break Trump’s coalition and reshape the electorate to benefit Democrats for several elections to come.”

“The Big Ugly Bill could be a vote that Republicans come to regret for a generation.”

Wall Street Journal: “America’s two political parties have traded places economically. Where Americans once referred to upper-income ‘country club Republicans’ and blue-collar ‘lunchpail Democrats,’ they now see a working-class GOP and, in many ways, a professional-class Democratic Party.”

“That is good news for Republicans, because working-class voters—often defined as those without a four-year college degree—are one of the biggest blocs in the electorate. But with that success comes a problem: The GOP now represents more constituents who rely on social safety-net programs, such as Medicaid.”

Tara Palmeri: “It’s not just a bill — it’s President Trump’s entire legislative agenda wrapped into one. The only major piece of legislation this Congress will pass. And, some argue, the very reason many of these Republicans were elected in the first place.”

“It’s border policy. It’s defense spending. It’s tax cuts. It’s health care. Trump is handling everything else unilaterally — even the real wars and the trade wars — so this bill is it.”

“But behind closed doors, there’s real anxiety. Especially around the Medicaid cuts. They know it could come back to bite them in the midterms.”

Said one Republican lawmaker: “The Democrats are rooting for us to fuck ourselves on Medicaid.”

Jonathan Chait: “In their heedless rush to enact a deficit-exploding tax bill so massive that they barely understand it, Senate Republicans call to mind a scene in The Sopranos. A group of young aspiring gangsters decides to stick up a Mafia card game in hopes of gaining the mobsters’ respect and being brought into the crew. At the last moment, the guys briefly reconsider, before one of them supplies the decisive argument in favor of proceeding: ‘Let’s do it before the crank wears off.’ After that, things go as you might expect.”

“Like the Mafia wannabes, congressional Republicans have talked themselves into a plan so incomprehensibly reckless that to describe it is to question its authors’ sanity. As of today’s 50–50 Senate vote, with Vice President J. D. Vance breaking the tie, the House and Senate have passed their own versions of the bill. The final details still have to be negotiated, but the foundational elements are clear enough. Congress is about to impose immense harm on tens of millions of Americans—taking away their health insurance, reducing welfare benefits, raising energy costs, and more—in order to benefit a handful of other Americans who least need the help. The bill almost seems designed to generate a political backlash.”

“Given that President Donald Trump and the GOP, unlike the morons in The Sopranos, are not collectively under the influence of crystal meth, the question naturally arises: Why are they doing this?”

“Ten years after Donald Trump hijacked the GOP with a promise to burn down the establishment, his own movement is warning him not to go soft,” Axios reports.

“On two core articles of faith — no foreign wars and no protections for unauthorized immigrants — the Trump administration is facing a rare MAGA purity test.”

Axios: “The populist paradox at the heart of MAGA — a movement fueled by economic grievance and championed by a New York billionaire — has never been more pronounced.”

“Trump’s blue-collar base remains fiercely loyal, energized by his hardline stances on immigration, trade and culture — and patient that his economic “Golden Age” will materialize.”

“But so far, the clearest financial rewards of Trump’s tenure are flowing upward — to wealthy donors, family members, insiders and the president himself.”

Politico: “It’s not Musk’s ownership of one of the most influential social media platforms that should give the president pause. Nor is it the billionaire tech mogul’s status as the world’s richest man, with a recent history of bankrolling Republican causes.”

“It’s Musk’s stratospheric popularity with the Republican base, as revealed in the polls.”

“Musk is not about to overtake Trump himself as the dominant figure in the party, to be clear. But the jilted former “special government employee” is uniquely suited to become a chaos agent who could terrorize the GOP — potentially wreaking havoc on Trump’s legislative agenda and the party’s midterm election plans.”

“For weeks, White House officials and Republican operatives weren’t quite sure when, or if, Elon Musk would actually be leaving the government,” Wired reports.

“Now, many Republicans are already looking to distance themselves from Musk’s team entirely.”