Exclusive – Minority Democrats are warning that House GOP leaders will move forward with President Donald Trump's so-called “big, beautiful bill” towards this week's floor vote.
“We're going to be held responsible for Republicans,” Washington Rep. Susan Delben, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, pointed out next year's midterm elections in a digital interview with Fox News.
Republicans now have a very razor-thin majority in their rooms, with Democrats simply needing a three-seat pickup to regain the House majority in the 2026 election.
Additionally, they are looking at cleaning and controversial GOP contrast measures with Trump's second term priorities on tax cuts, immigration, defense, energy and debt.
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President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), will speak with reporters after the House Republican Conference on the Budget Settlement Bill held in Capitolville on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, Getty Images)
“This is a terrible legislation,” Delvene argued.
Democrats from across the party are highlighting the restructuring of Medicaid's Republican restructuring, a nearly 60-year federal program that provides health insurance to around 71 million adults and children with limited incomes.
“Let's be clear, Republicans are now how many people and how quickly they take out healthcare. They've cut Medicaid a lot, 14 million people have lost healthcare across the country, and they're talking about how fast it can be,” Delvene charged Tuesday.
She argued that House Republicans “all are going to chase the president blindly and chase him blindly off the cliff.”
Rep. Ted Liu, another member of the House Democratic leader, of California, argued when a reporter asked the bill “is the largest medical care in US history.”
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The Medicaid cuts have been drafted in part as an offset for payments to extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts law, which expires later this year, and include numerous new rules and regulatory requirements for those seeking compensation. Among them is a new set of work requirements for many people seeking coverage.
“When you go all over the country and talk to people, people get mad and they're scared. They're scared of cutting healthcare. Not only are they cutting 14 million people out of healthcare, they're raising costs beyond things like rural hospital closures,” Delben argued. “This will have a devastating impact across the country. This is a policy Republicans are fighting for, a policy that cuts nutritional health programs so that families don't even have healthy foods.”
House Republicans oppose Democrats' attacks and say what they're doing is to put an end to waste, fraud and abuse now in the Medicaid system, so the program can generally function in the way it intended.
They call it “lied” about cutting help to mothers, children, people with disabilities and the elderly.
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Delben said, “We haven't bought the discussion because what we saw on the committee, what we wrote down on paper is a massive cut in health care and paying tax credits for the wealthiest people in our country. This is not a bill about helping working families.”
But her counterparty, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Fox News Digital in a statement that “Republicans are ending Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse, so the most vulnerable people get the care they need.”
Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, was interviewed by Fox News Digital on April 7, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Fox News – Paulsteinhauser)
Furthermore, Hudson argued that “Democrats are lying to protect the broken status quo that prevents billions of illegal immigrants from sucking up in America. They are strengthening future generations of Medicaid by protecting taxpayers and restoring integrity.”
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Back in the presidential election last year, Trump vowed not to touch Medicaid. On Tuesday, he set up a rare stop on Capitol Hill and the message to financially conservative lawmakers seeking to cut Medicaid even further to meet behind closed doors with House Republicans to strengthen support for the bill was “not with Medicaid.”
There is a ratio between Republicans over Medicaid and two key parties over the long-standing qualification program, but there is one agreement. This issue continues to boil down in some way on the campaign trail for a long time in the legislative battle at Capitol Hill.
