Democrats Call Out Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ at Town Halls

Senate Democrats fanned out to their states this month to host town halls armed with attack lines against President Donald Trump’s signature legislative achievement.

Democrats can’t seem to shake the “big, beautiful bill” title bestowed by Trump, but they’ve set out to argue it is anything but, saying it will cut Medicaid, benefit the rich and make middle-class life more expensive.

“Medicaid, which is going to be gutted here because of the president’s big, I hate saying beautiful, but that’s what they call it,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said at a town hall to groans from the crowd. “Big bummer, I like bummer, big bummer of a bill.”

Republicans spent months laboring to pass the massive tax and spending law solely along party lines after several marathon voting sessions. Although Senate Democrats successfully used the chamber’s rules to delete that official title of the bill from the legislation’s text before it passed, the language stuck.

Now, senators on both sides of the aisle are in a messaging war this month to try to convince voters of what will come from Trump’s marquee legislative accomplishment ahead of midterm elections next year — and whether the term beautiful is sarcastic or serious. Democrats are holding town halls to paint the consequences of the bill as raising costs and losing healthcare, while Republicans try to counteract the narrative by selling the legislation and talking up the tax breaks.

“It could fall off voters’ radars,” said Isaac Hale, a politics professor at Occidental College. “I think that’s one of the reasons why in this recess and in so many of their media appearances right now, Democrats are trying to highlight the act and the impacts of it on voters because they want to keep it at the front of people’s minds.”

Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are among the senators that hosted town halls this month, where they said the legislation will lead to lost healthcare insurance, increased costs, food stamp changes, rural health clinics closing and more deaths.

“Every American is either at risk of losing their health insurance or having the price of your insurance go up,” Slotkin said at a town hall in Michigan.

Competing Sales Pitches

Bennet said the last few months have been “consumed by this fighting, fighting, fighting against the big, beautiful bill,” adding Medicaid cuts would be tough for rural Colorado to absorb while the wealthy benefit. He made the comments at a town hall where he batted away concerns that his clout on Capitol Hill would shrink because he’s running for governor.

Republicans are still finding ways to sell the legislation and improve its perception. Sen. Bernie Moreno (Ohio) made stops around his state last week, including a restaurant to talk up the bill’s no tax on overtime or tips. Other Republicans including Sen. Jon Husted (Ohio) are writing op-eds this month to explain the benefits.

A memo from the National Republican Congressional Committee detailed Republicans’ need to go on the offensive with messages about preventing tax increases, protecting Medicaid and investing in the border.

The GOP has faced an uphill climb selling the benefits of the package that also included more money for border enforcement. Most American adults think the law will help the wealthy and hurt the middle-class and poor, according to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.) faced a fiery crowd at a town hall last week, where he worked to convince angry constituents that Republicans protected Medicaid but extracted savings by requiring adult beneficiaries to work.

Democrats are holding more town halls than Republicans across the country after House GOP members faced protests at events earlier this year. But Democrats have heard their own fair share of pushback at town halls this month, with crowds aggressively criticizing their response to the war in Gaza and pushing them to fight harder. Town hall attendees raised questions about the Senate not doing enough to stand up to Trump.

“We can all do better and we should be doing better,” Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) said at a town hall in his state.

On and off the floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) dubbed the legislation the “big, ugly bill,” the “big, ugly betrayal” and the “big, beautiful betrayal,” testing out different names that haven’t garnered widespread pickup in the branding battle against Trump.

“Big betrayal is how I’ll refer to it tonight,” Luján said.