{"id":150996,"date":"2025-05-25T23:46:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T23:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/sen-ron-johnson-says-theres-enough-opposition-in-the-senate-to-hold-up-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T23:46:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T23:46:57","slug":"sen-ron-johnson-says-theres-enough-opposition-in-the-senate-to-hold-up-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/sen-ron-johnson-says-theres-enough-opposition-in-the-senate-to-hold-up-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Ron Johnson says there's enough opposition in the Senate to hold up Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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WASHINGTON \u2014 As the Senate prepares to consider the sprawling domestic package that House Republicans passed last week, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he thinks there are \u201cenough\u201d Republicans to \u201cstop the process\u201d in order to prioritize stronger reductions in spending and the national deficit.
The Wisconsin Republican has criticized the bill\u2019s impact on the deficit, characterizing outsize spending as \u201cmortgaging our children\u2019s future.\u201d The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office<\/a> has estimated that the bill would add $2.3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years.
Johnson said in an interview on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d that congressional Republicans should examine spending \u201cline by line, like DOGE has done\u201d to find areas to eliminate.
The senator\u2019s criticism comes as the Senate is gearing up to consider changes to the House bill, which passed by a single vote, setting up another fight over government deficit levels, funding for programs and attempts to rein in spending ahead of Republicans\u2019 goal to send a final version of the bill to President Donald Trump\u2019s desk by July 4.
Several Republicans in the Senate have expressed skepticism about aspects of the bill for what they view as inadequate spending cuts or shrinking Medicaid access and have promised to change it. Any changes to the bill would need to be approved by the House before it goes to Trump.
Trump told reporters on Sunday that he expected the Senate to make “fairly significant” changes to the funding package, but remained confident the bill would ultimately pass both chambers and reach his desk.
“I want the Senate and the senators to change, you know, to make the changes they want, and we\u2019ll go back to the House and we\u2019ll see if we can get them,” Trump said. “In some cases, those changes maybe are something I\u2019d agree with.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said in an interview on \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d <\/a>that the current spending cuts in the bill \u201care wimpy and anemic,\u201d adding that he \u201cstill would support the bill even with wimpy and anemic cuts if they weren\u2019t going to explode the debt.\u201d
\u201cThe problem is the math doesn\u2019t add up,\u201d Paul said, adding that \u201cthey\u2019re going to explode the debt.\u201d
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has also criticized potential Medicaid cuts. The bill, if passed in its current form, is expected to rescind health coverage for about 8.6 million people, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.<\/a>
Hawley told NBC News shortly after the House passed the bill that \u201cthe Senate will basically write its own version of this bill, and I just want to make sure that there are no Medicaid benefit cuts.\u201d
In an op-ed in The New York Times <\/a>earlier this month, Hawley accused a wing of the Republican Party of wanting \u201cRepublicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor.\u201d
\u201cBut that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal,\u201d Hawley said.
When asked during a Sunday interview on CBS News\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation\u201d to respond to Hawley\u2019s comments, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that \u201cwe are not cutting Medicaid\u201d but instead \u201cworking in the elements of fraud, waste and abuse.\u201d
The House speaker repeatedly defended the bill\u2019s impact on people who would lose Medicaid coverage, instead casting the bill as targeting waste, fraud and abuse among Medicaid users. He said in an interview on CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union\u201d that the Republican-led bill was not cutting Medicaid, arguing that \u201cthe numbers of Americans who are affected are those that are entwined in our work to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse.\u201d
The speaker pointed to \u201cillegal aliens on Medicaid,\u201d saying that \u201cMedicaid is not intended for non-U.S. citizens.\u201d Certain<\/a> non-U.S. citizens are allowed to enroll in government health care options.
Johnson also criticized \u201cyoung men, for example, who are on Medicaid and not working.\u201d He argued that people were committing \u201cfraud\u201d by \u201cchoosing not to work when they can.\u201d
Anchor Jake Tapper asked Johnson whether he believed that if any of his constituents were to lose benefits like Medicaid, it would be because they should not have received those benefits \u201cbecause they were committing waste, fraud or abuse.\u201d
\u201cYeah,\u201d Johnson answered. \u201cLook, my district, as every district in America, has people who are on the program who shouldn\u2019t.\u201d
Democrats have seized on potential Medicaid cuts, blasting Republicans\u2019 domestic policy bill and working to characterize the GOP as willing to cut health insurance options for poor people while increasing the wealth of Americans with higher incomes.<\/a>
NBC News previously reported<\/a> that during negotiations over the bill last week, Trump visited House Republicans and instructed them, \u201cDon\u2019t f— around with Medicaid,\u201d according to two lawmakers present.
The House speaker said during multiple Sunday-morning interviews that he has urged Senate Republicans to make as few changes to the bill as possible. The House and Senate will ultimately need to reconcile different versions of the bill before it heads to Trump\u2019s desk to be signed into law.
\u201cI had lunch with my Senate Republican colleagues on Tuesday, their weekly luncheon, and I encouraged them to remember that we are one team,\u201d Johnson said on CBS News. \u201cIt\u2019s the Senate and the House Republicans together that will deliver this ball over the goal line, so to speak. And I encouraged them to make as few modifications as possible, remembering that I have a very delicate balance.\u201d
The bill passed the House<\/a> 215-214, with two Republicans opposing the bill, one voting \u201cpresent\u201d and two missing the vote.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., criticized the bill last week, saying that \u201cTrump promised to love and cherish Medicaid.\u201d
\u201cInstead, his One Big Ugly Bill represents the largest healthcare cut in our country\u2019s history,\u201d Jeffries said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cMillions of people will lose their Medicaid coverage and hardworking American taxpayers will be forced to pay higher premiums, copays and deductibles.\u201d
Megan Lebowitz is a politics reporter for NBC News.
© 2025 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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Weekend Rundown: Here\u2019s the biggest news you missed this weekend ProfileSectionsLocaltvFeaturedMore From NBCFollow NBC News news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeWASHINGTON \u2014 As the Senate prepares to consider the sprawling domestic package that House Republicans passed last week, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he thinks there are \u201cenough\u201d Republicans to \u201cstop the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":150997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}