Republicans are forcing Trump to touch the third rail

Considering that the country is in political crisis unseen in any of our lifetimes, it seems a little strange that the top issue being discussed among many in the media is a rehash of the story that people around former President Biden allegedly covered up that he aged demonstrably in office since we all saw that with our own eyes. Seeing as this issue will almost certainly never happen again and has no relevance for the future, it is odd that we are spending so much bandwidth discussing what feels like ancient history amid an overwhelming tsunami of critical political news.

I'm not particularly interested in the story, but for those who are, enjoy. However, I have been hearing a lot of the people who are obsessing over it repeat a devastating quote from the first debate, one which may have sealed Biden's fate. In his closing argument, Biden stumbled and inexplicably said, "We beat Medicare!" It was obviously bizarre, but in context, it was clear that he meant "we beat Pharma."

I thought of that when I heard our almost 79-year-old current president say this on his recent overseas trip:

Coincidentally, that weird comment actually referred to Big Pharma as well. It seems to be a common glitch among geriatric presidents. As it happens, both men were right — but in Trump's case, not in the way he thought he was.

Biden was referring to the provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that allowed Medicare, for the first time, to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies to lower prices for some of the most commonly prescribed medications. They succeeded in substantially lowering the price of some commonly prescribed drugs for diabetes and heart disease and were going forward with others. So far, Trump has left that in place — but he did roll back a number of other initiatives that had just started to roll out as soon as he took office.

In that speech in Saudi Arabia, for example, he was boasted about his executive order directing the big international pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices to those paid by other countries or else. His order, as with everything else he's doing, will be met with a flood of litigation that could take years to work out. Who knows if anything will ever come of it.

But Trump saying "we've cut our healthcare by 50-90%" may actually be true, although as usual, he fudged the numbers. If the provisions in the so-called one big beautiful bill Republicans in the House just passed actually make it to his desk, Trump will have gone a long way toward cutting the healthcare of many millions of Americans. And this is despite his specific, repeated promises that he would not do it. He even went up to Congress earlier this week as they were marking it up and said "don't f**k around with Medicaid."

They did. And it's going to kick millions of people off their health insurance and potentially devastate hospitals and other health care providers.

This one huge hideous bill is a monstrous attack on the poor, most of them working poor, which he plans to sell as a big gift to the Real Americans by repealing the tax on tips and offering up a $1,000 "investment account" for newborns called "Trump Accounts" (the name changed at the last minute from "MAGA Accounts" no doubt to please Dear Leader.) Meanwhile, it slashes home heating assistance that will literally leave people out in the cold, features an almost 30% cut in food assistance, reduces the subsidies for Obamacare and implements the largest cuts to Medicaid in its history. And just to really make sure people can't get ahead, they're taking away $350 billion in aid for working-class families who want to send their kids to college.

And why are they doing this? Well, they say we just have to cut spending because the budget deficit is out of control. Except they are also cutting taxes and their cuts, as usual, will benefit the wealthy much more than the pittance they throw at the feet of the poor and the middle class. They are literally robbing the poor to give to the rich.

Economist Steven Rattner explains how that shakes out in this appearance on MSNBC:

They are also exploding the deficit beyond anything we might have imagined, adding at least $3.1 trillion. The alleged deficit hawks in the House grumbled, but they went along. After all, this is a tax cut bill and they're Republicans. They may not ever get much of anything done, but if there's one thing they always do, no matter the circumstances, it is cut taxes for their rich benefactors. It's as predictable as Donald Trump winning the championship at his golf course every year. And, as former Vice President Dick Cheney famously said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." It's always been just a talking point.

They usually talk big about cuts like this and then come back to Earth when they realize that many of their constituents and donors will be hit. But this time, they apparently are either resigned to losing their majority next year and want to pass as much of their sadistic policy wish list as possible before they are in the wilderness or they believe that Donald Trump really is so all-powerful that he will sweep in and save them. Or maybe they just figure they'll be able to get rich[er] and retire from all their insider trading on the financial market gyrations caused by Trump's erratic tariff policies. But their determination to turn America so toxic that the bond market is becoming very shaky and investors are starting to pull out could have some very serious unintended consequences. All that new debt they're creating is going to get mighty expensive.

Trump, for his part, has obviously given in on the Medicaid cuts. It's not like he ever really cared about any of his "populist" promises not to touch the "entitlements." They were just campaign slogans to appeal to the rubes. But it turns out that he might just be touching the real third rail. The Republicans are raising the deficit so high that it may trigger sequestration under the PAYGO act, which would require mandatory cuts to Medicare in the vicinity of half a trillion dollars.

It's possible that they'll finesse their way out of it somehow. They're just tossing aside norms and changing the rules willy nilly now whenever they need to. But if the Democrats are smart, they will make sure that the public is aware that this is now an issue because Republicans made it one with their over-the-top, budget-busting "Big Butt-Ugly Bill."

We are constantly hearing from Democrats that you have to talk about "kitchen table issues" in order to appeal to the voters. Well, the Republicans just threw a huge pile of issues, including the kitchen sink, right in the middle of the table for them to take to the country. The midterm campaign has begun.