Congress

The GOP’s big problem in selling the ‘big, beautiful bill’

Published

1 year ago

August 21, 2025

Republicans are facing a major obstacle as they try to tout the potential benefits of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill:” They need voters to take their word on it for now.

GOP lawmakers and top administration officials are using August to make a country-wide sales pitch for their crowning legislative achievement — a massive tax, spending and domestic policy package.

The party sees this month as crucial for gaining ground in the messaging war with Democrats over the new law, which pairs an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts with some of his campaign promises like “no tax on tips,” plus more funding for immigration enforcement and the military.

The White House is dispatching Vice President JD Vance to Georgia on Thursday, where he’ll talk about the megabill’s “working family tax cuts,” according to his spokesperson.

Republicans want to be the ones to define their megabill with voters ahead of next year’s midterms, where the GOP’s unified control of Congress is at stake. They saw Democrats try to shop their signature climate law in 2022 — only for most Americans to say they either never heard of it, or were swayed by Republicans’ counterargument it was a “green new scam.”

But the GOP megabill is less than two months old, and many of its purported boons — like new and expanded tax cuts and savings accounts for children under 18 — won’t be fully felt by voters until 2026, making it harder for Republicans to reinforce what they see as the law’s advantages.

At the same time, Republicans are going up against Democrats embarking on their own nationwide tour to denigrate what they call the “big, ugly bill” and its dire shortcomings.

“It’s hard for people to realize anything that they haven’t seen yet — all they are doing is hearing it. And we all want to go out … and say ‘this is the positive from this, this is what’s happened,’” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said this week. “There’s going to be a lot of substance to this, it just all has to go into effect.”

At the same time, Tuberville acknowledged that his own state would “pay a little bit of a price” because of changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which will force the state to cover more of the program’s cost.

Asked if he was worried selling the bill would be harder than expected, Tuberville hedged. “No — well again, you don’t know until the end of the day, how this bill is going to be reacted to.” He predicted the next six months would determine the law’s reception.

Yet the GOP’s efforts to preview the megabill’s forthcoming perks come as Democrats are also using August to flood the zone — including visiting red states and typically safe GOP districts — to warn about the law’s impending cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

“House Republicans have betrayed their constituents in passing the Big, Ugly Law which benefits the wealthiest few and leaves everyday families behind,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene said in a statement Wednesday.

Republicans are well aware that they are facing a tidal wave of Democratic criticism heading into a midterm election cycle, when the party in power typically loses seats. While Republicans still have an edge in the Senate map, Democrats have managed to score major recruiting wins in key races and are cautiously optimistic about their chances of flipping the House in 2026.

One House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said in a recent interview that the party has a good case to make on the GOP megabill but they need to hammer it harder.

“We have to do better,” the Republican said. “We have to pound that over and over again: Constituents are going to feel it.”

The House GOP’s campaign arm circulated a memo late last month with guidance for how to message about the law, calling the congressional August recess a “critical opportunity to continue to define how this legislation will help every voter and push back on Democrat fearmongering.”

Since then, House and Senate Republicans have, indeed, fanned out across the country to tout state-specific benefits from their megabill they pledge will come soon. Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, for instance, visited three Iowa manufacturers as part of a tour to highlight funding for workforce and trade school training.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has blanketed his home state of South Dakota to talk up the legislation — where he also promised, in a local TV interview this week, that its impact “will be more fully, you know, realized over time.” The most “immediate” win for voters, Thune said, is that the megabill will prevent a tax hike come 2026 since it extended dozens of soon-to-expire tax cuts the party enacted in 2017.

In the meantime, Republicans are still fine tuning their messaging.

At an industrial refrigeration manufacturing facility in Georgia on Thursday, Vance is expected to pitch the tax breaks in the megabill as a gift to working families. And a senior White House official, granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy, said part of the party’s broader megabill rebrand will focus on reminding voters of the specific policy promises on which Trump campaigned and then followed through.

“Step one is, you make them trust you and the way you make them trust you is by doing what you campaigned on,” said the official. “With the big, beautiful bill having passed, we fulfilled most of our signature promises from the campaign that people elected us for: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime pay, no tax on Social Security.”

Vance will also use the Georgia trip to hammer Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, with Republicans viewing the incumbent’s seat as a top pick-up opportunity next year.

William Martin, Vance’s communications director, called it an “absolute disgrace” that Ossoff voted against the bill and “that’s something Vice President Vance will be sure to emphasize during his visit to Peachtree City.”

Ossoff is already offering a pre-buttal of his own: “JD promised the new GOP would fight for working families,” he said in a statement. “Instead he’s defunding hospitals, nursing homes, and Medicaid to cut taxes for the wealthy.”

While CBO found that middle-income households will see their resources grow as a result of the megabill, it’s the wealthiest 10 percent that will get the biggest bump.

Another hurdle for Republicans? They are trying to get voters to focus on the yet-to-be-fully-seen wins of the megabill while voters are distracted by other, more tangible issues: the fight over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, recent developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and a move by at least two states to redraw their congressional maps mid-decade.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the few Republicans from a district won by former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, said he’s also getting an earful about efforts by the Office of Management and Budget to freeze federal funding for widely-used government programs.

Bacon suggested Trump’s new domestic policy law is taking a backseat at home these days: “I hear more about all the grant money that is frozen by OMB,” he said.

Mia McCarthy and Jake Traylor contributed reporting.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

10 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

10 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

15 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday released text of legislation intended to ban the use of Flock surveillance cameras and other license plate readers.

Flock has faced severe public backlash against the surveillance technology following reports that police officers misused the technology to track women, and it has the largest network of license plate readers across the U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) hosted a hearing last month probing its potential misuses, although the company’s CEO Garrett Langley did not appear.

The latest bill, unveiled Friday and named the Ban Flock Act, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from the technology and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use automated license plate readers.

“At a time of growing concern about the unchecked power of artificial intelligence, Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” Sanders, who has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI technology, said in a statement. “We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly condemned the surveillance capabilities of the technology and said the bill would “enforce our constitutional right to privacy and protect Americans from both corporate and government surveillance.”

“No one should have this unchecked surveillance power at their fingertips,” Merkley added.

Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches.

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.