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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom. I'm filling in for Brian for a few days this week while he takes a well-earned vacation. Coming up on today's show, city comptroller and recent mayoral candidate Brad Lander will be my guest. His alliance with Zohran Mamdani and against Andrew Cuomo was a big factor in the race. The comptroller will reflect on the race and will weigh in on the city's new budget, which Mayor Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced on Friday.

Plus, later in the show, the profound effect siblings can have on each other. My guest will argue that sibling influence is underappreciated. We'll wrap up today's show with a conversation on what's become a really popular way to make big or even small purchases. Buy now, pay later. If you use one of those services, it will now be reflected in your credit report. Maybe that's a good thing, or maybe it's not. We'll talk about it with Wall Street Journal's personal economics reporter.

First, the Republican-controlled Senate is voting this morning to pass President Donald Trump's tax and spending bill that would lower federal taxes, increase border security, and pull the money from federal safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP, commonly known as food stamps. Over the weekend, the Senate held a marathon session marked by political drama. Democrats worked to slow the vote by asking Senate clerks to read the entire 940-page One Big Beautiful Bill Act that took about 16 hours, according to Newsweek. The bill narrowly cleared a key procedural vote, 51-49.

Republican Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against the measure. Senator Tillis announced he will not be seeking reelection in 2026. The nonpartisan US Congressional Budget Office updated its estimated price tag of the spending bill on Sunday, saying it would now add $3.3 trillion to the nation's debt over the next decade. If the Senate approves the bill, the House will begin voting on it on July 2nd. That's Wednesday. President Trump has set a deadline for Congress to send him the bill by July 4th, Friday. Joining me now to explain the latest is Nicholas Wu, congressional reporter at Politico, with a focus on the House of Representatives. Nicholas, welcome back to WNYC.

Nicholas Wu: Thanks so much for having me.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we want to know how you are watching these developments out of Washington. Are you a provider who relies on federal funds to provide services in the community? Are you someone who is on Medicaid or receives SNAP benefits? How are you coping with these proposed cuts? Help us report the impact of this story. Tell us what you think about this legislation. The number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can call or text. Also, perhaps you have a procedural question for my guest, Politico's Nicholas Wu. Again, that number, 212-433-9692.

Okay, Nicholas, so, let's start with what happened over the weekend. There was a procedural vote, which we'll just unpack a little bit. This morning, Congress entered the so-called vote-a-rama. Before we get into the political drama, just explain to us vote-a-rama. What is happening now? What does that mean?

Nicholas Wu: This is the Senate process by which both parties can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the bill. Really, it turns into a test of wills between both parties to see who can outlast each other and, frankly, stay awake longer, but the tricky thing with this process now is that there could actually be very substantive changes to the bill that could happen in this process. On all sides of the negotiations over the Big Beautiful Bill, there are parties who want to change things. There's the fiscal conservatives who want to make deeper cuts to federal spending, including Medicaid.

There's the moderates in the Senate, who actually want to see different sorts of changes to Medicaid or want to ward off deeper cuts to Medicaid. You have others like Susan Collins of Maine, who are saying that they want to introduce an amendment that could raise income taxes on the wealthiest Americans. We'll see how this goes. This is at least a day-long affair, if not longer. It just started about an hour ago. We'll be very closely watching the Senate floor throughout this whole process to see what could change with the bill, because if it changes too much, it might not pass.

Brigid Bergin: Nicholas, Republicans narrowly cleared that procedural vote over the weekend, 51-49, as I mentioned, because there were holdouts within their own party. Two key opponents were Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis. Here's Senator Tillis yesterday.

Senator Thom Tillis: Republicans are about to make a mistake on health care and betraying a promise. It is inescapable that this bill in its current form will betray the very promise that Donald J. Trump made in the Oval Office or in the Cabinet Room when I was there with Finance, where he said we can go after waste, fraud, and abuse on any programs. Now, those amateurs that are advising him, not Dr. Oz, I'm talking about White House healthcare experts, refused to tell him that those instructions that were to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, all of a sudden, eliminates a government program that's called the "provider tax."

Brigid Bergin: All right, Nicholas, Senator Tillis is railing against the cut to what's called the "provider tax." Can you remind listeners what that is and why both Democrats and some Republicans are against getting rid of it?

Nicholas Wu: This is basically a tax that states implemented to, to make a very, very long story short, boost the amount of money they received from the federal government when the federal government and states split the cost of Medicaid payments. What a lot of states have done is use the money that they've received through these taxes, these so-called provider taxes, to fund a lot of health care in rural parts of states.

The issue with the Big Beautiful Bill is that in both the House and the Senate versions, that tax is limited, and the Senate version actually caps it even further. States and hospital associations have been warning for some time now that hospitals might have to close. Procedures would be shortchanged. This would be a real problem for a lot of Americans who depend on Medicaid. Politically, that's how you get to folks like Senator Tillis. Of course, these are the sorts of things that a senator will say when they're no longer running for reelection and perhaps will speak more candidly.

Even now, even before this is moved down to the Senate, there's a block of maybe a dozen, maybe more House Republicans who are threatening to vote against the Big Beautiful Bill when it comes back. If the Medicaid changes, the changes to that provider tax don't look more like what they originally passed out of the House, the caps of this provider tax instead of cutting it further. This is causing a real math problem for both House and Senate Republicans as it moves forward.

Brigid Bergin: Nicholas, in that clip, you hear Tillis referring to amateurs that are advising Trump, saying that this is waste, fraud, and abuse. Are you familiar with who Tillis is referring to there? Who has the President's ear on this?

Nicholas Wu: I'm not entirely sure who specifically he's referring to. This is a pretty common refrain from a lot of Hill Republicans who don't necessarily want to directly criticize Trump, but are of the belief that they can criticize his advisors. It's not necessarily a problem with the President per se. He's receiving poor advice. He's receiving poor information. That's why Senator Tillis has been talking about all of these outside estimates that he's gotten on Medicaid and outside spending as opposed to the internal estimates that come out of the White House, which are perhaps a little rosier.

Brigid Bergin: I know you mentioned that Tillis is not running for reelection. He was really a target of President Trump's over the weekend after he announced he would not support the bill. Tillis then said he would not seek reelection in 2026. North Carolina is really a battleground state. You're reporting that there were already a few known lawmakers and maybe even Trump family members eyeing the open Senate seat. What can you tell us about that at this point?

Nicholas Wu: What we're seeing with Tillis's retirement announcement that was really a surprise to quite a few folks on both sides of the aisle is that it opens the door for some pretty heavyweight competitors on both sides. Even before he announced this, there were rumblings of a GOP primary. On the Democratic side, there was a former congressman, Wiley Nickel, who was running. All eyes now are on perhaps bigger entrance.

Former Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina remains very popular in the state. He's been very non-committal on his post-gubernatorial plans but has hinted at making a decision on a Senate run this summer. If he were to enter, he would obviously be the most prominent Democrat in that race and would be very much a front-runner. On the Republican side, there's a number of different members of the state's House delegation who've already been floated as potential Senate candidates. People like Pat Harrigan of North Carolina, a first-term lawmaker.

The elephant in the room, perhaps, might be an in-law of the Trump family, Lara Trump, who had been previously floated as a primary challenger to Tillis. There'd even been some polling around it that showed she could beat Tillis in a primary preliminary polling. We reported last night that people around Trump see her as having the right of first refusal in that race. Obviously, if she were to enter, this would be a test in many ways of the Trump family's appeal down-ballot. He's able to bring out a very diverse, not as frequent electorate at the top of the ballot. The question is whether a member of the extended Trump family might have the same appeal.

Brigid Bergin: That's interesting. Lots of politics surrounding this policy. If you're just joining us, I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian for a few days. We're talking about this debate in Washington over the federal tax and spending bill. We've just entered vote-a-rama season. Nicholas Wu from Politico is here to answer your questions and mine. We're going to go to the phones. Let's go to Sam in Ridgewood. Sam, thanks so much for calling this morning.

Sam: Hi, Brigid, and hi, Nicholas. Thank you so much for taking my call. Happy Monday to you all. I just wanted to state that I am a freelance video editor. Obviously, within the past two years, with all the strikes with the writers of IATSE and stuff like that, my work, it's been much more difficult to obtain. I've had to rely on the essential plan offered through the state of New York, as does my partner.

I also have epilepsy, which is well-managed. I have not had an incident in about six or seven years. When I did have those seizures, I went pretty much, a year, maybe a year and a half, without having steady work or work that wasn't seasonal. That was pretty much like having a disability, but I wasn't able to get on disability anyway. I am truly terrified of what might happen if we lose our coverage. My neurology visits, that cost is going to go through the roof.

I'm on several medications. Those are going to go through the roof. I've already paid out of pocket for them before. What can be $18 a month for a three-month supply can rocket up to $300, $400 easily. I just simply cannot afford that right now. It's just an absolutely terrifying prospect for me and so many other people who have it much, much harder for me. I think it is just terrible what might happen. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Brigid Bergin: Sam, thank you so much for calling, for sharing that story. Nicholas, a lot going on there, the consequences of a potential implementation of this legislation being felt very personally by one of our listeners. I'm curious. That kind of concern, that kind of pushback from voters, are lawmakers getting a lot of those kinds of calls to their offices that you're aware of?

Nicholas Wu: This is something that we've seen play out really across the country in the months since Republicans have started debating this legislation. We've seen protests at town halls. We've seen reports of offices being deluged and letters and phone calls. Some of these protests are perhaps organized by Democratic-aligned groups, but there does seem to be some real momentum behind the concerns being raised by voters.

The question is whether or not this is something that affects how Republicans will vote on this legislation. I think that's why we're seeing quite so much of a back-and-forth right now between the House and Senate and between different blocs of Republicans over the fate of the Medicaid provisions in this legislation. Senator Tillis was on the Senate floor last night, saying that President Trump would break a promise about Medicaid if hundreds of thousands of people were cast off the rules.

Republicans would break their promise to voters. We're going to see some very intense haggling between lawmakers over the next few days as they try to wrap up this legislation, because if they change it to cut Medicaid even further, they'll lose moderate votes. At the same time, you have fiscal conservatives who do want to cut more from Medicaid. It's a real puzzle for them.

Brigid Bergin: I want to share a few more of the texts that we're getting from listeners, including a question for you at the end, Nicholas. One listener writes, "Our father desperately needs to move into an assisted living facility. His Medicaid application has been pending since the President started threatening Medicaid. I believe New Jersey is delaying things until this settles."

Another listener writes, "My family and I have been on Obamacare at an affordable rate with a subsidy for years. It's been great. I work 50 hours a week, and none of my jobs offer health care. It's horrible to think that these people running our government who get health care paid for by taxpayers don't think the rest of us also deserve the same benefits." Then finally for you, Nicholas, a listener writes, "One of my problems with the bill is that much of it doesn't kick in until after the midterms. It should start as soon as possible so people know what they voted for before they vote again." Nicholas, can you talk a little bit about the timing of this legislation if it is passed?

Nicholas Wu: The tricky thing with a legislation like this is the way in which things come into effect, because that, in many ways, affects the way that the total cost of the bill appears. That's why we see different implementation dates and expiration dates for parts of the legislation. Something, of course, that's very much of interest to folks in East Coast, for example, is the fate of the state and local tax deduction, which the House and Senate are both proposing to hike. The Senate would sunset that after, I believe, five years, whereas the House would go for longer.

These are things that are done when drafting a legislation like this to reduce the total cost over time. Other parts may come into effect even sooner. The proposed changes to green tax credits, for example, would come into effect very soon. Those would require projects to phase in or be fully completed much sooner, which would potentially stifle a lot of development in things like wind and solar. This is a 900-something-page piece of legislation. If it passes, it will take some time to figure out how quickly things will start to roll out.

Brigid Bergin: Nicholas, we've already started talking about how much Medicaid is really a sticking point in this conversation. This bill, in addition to adding to the national deficit, the Congressional Budget Office says, now, 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if it became law. Republicans, as I understand, are still looking at a work requirement and more stringent signup eligibility requirements. Do you know what the latest version of that is in this bill?

Nicholas Wu: The work requirements and many of those changes, they are in the Senate bill, but there are parts that are very much in flux because of the vote-a-rama process, not to mention the fact that Senate Republicans, at the very end of this amendment process, will introduce what's called a "manager's amendment" to try to align themselves more closely with the House bill to fix typos, make corrections and so on, and to clean up any remaining political issues on their end. For now, I think a lot of that is there, but the details of that could change. There was an earlier provision that had sought to exempt Alaska and Hawaii, for example, from some of the Medicaid changes, but the Senate parliamentarian ruled that that could not remain in the final bill.

Brigid Bergin: Nicholas, we need to take a short break. We're going to be back with more questions for you and comments from our listeners, Nicholas, who is a congressional reporter at Politico. Stay with us.

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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, filling in for Brian today. My guest is Nicholas Wu, congressional reporter at Politico. We are talking about the ongoing debate in Washington over President Trump's tax and spending legislation. We're taking your calls. Let's go to Eli in Brooklyn. Eli, thanks for calling WNYC.

Eli: Thanks so much. I love the show. My question is strategic for people who are looking to try to stop this bill before it does the damage that it can do to so many aspects of American life. Who are the most vulnerable Republicans who might be persuaded to vote against this, and what particular issues might they respond to in a phone call or mail?

Brigid Bergin: Eli, thanks for that call. Nicholas, any thoughts on Republicans who are vulnerable in this moment?

Nicholas Wu: I will caveat this by saying that most senators, members of Congress do not necessarily-- they prioritize constituents from their own states and districts over other constituent feedback that they get. All eyes in this process are really on some of the swing-state senators like Susan Collins of Maine, for example, who have voiced concerns about Medicaid changes in this legislation.

She's told reporters that she wants substantial changes to it in order to earn her vote. Senator Tillis, who's retiring, has already said he's a no on the bill. Previously, he'd been perhaps one of the most endangered Republican incumbents. Even beyond that, senators from more rural states are the ones who have been more vocal about their concerns about changes to Medicaid. Those are the folks that we'll be watching as we go through this whole amendment process, where things in theory could pass on a simple majority.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to Ross in Brooklyn, who has a question about student loans. Ross, thanks for calling.

Ross: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I just graduated law school. I have six figures in debt, and I'm planning to go into public defense. I've kind of planned my next 10 years, my finances, my career around public service loan forgiveness being available and certain loan repayment plans being available. What's the status of the student loan provisions in the bill? How can they get away with just pulling out the rug on millions of borrowers in terms of increasing our monthly payments so much with this bill? Thank you.

Brigid Bergin: Ross, thanks for that question. Nicholas, have you looked at the student loan provisions within this bill yet?

Nicholas Wu: Yes, that's a good question. Of course, none of this is final yet. This could still change as the Senate amends this bill. At least as of now, the changes to student loans are still in there. It would create two new forms of loan repayment changed from how things were under the Biden administration. These would be very substantial changes to the way the student loan repayment process works.

Brigid Bergin: Yes, we have a little information that one of my producers flagged from NPR about some of the changes. It said the House-passed bill, like the House passed with the Senate plan, would scrap several of the existing repayment options, including the Biden-era SAVE program that based payments on income and household size. It replaces it with a new standard repayment plan and an income-based plan that Republicans call their repayment assistance plan. The bill would also cap the amount that parents and graduate students can take out in federal loans each year.

One of the difference between the two bills concerns the Pell Grant program for low-income students. The House proposed increasing the credit hours required for full-time and part-time students in order to receive those Pell Grants, but the Senate has left current enrollment rules intact. The Senate bill does bar students from qualifying for a Pell Grant if they've received a full scholarship through other sources of aid. Just a little bit more information there for Ross and other listeners concerned about the student loan dimension of this particular conversation.

Nicholas, I want to turn back to you for a moment in terms of the process here. We know we're in the middle of vote-a-rama. Things could change. Senators could introduce amendments that may then need to be tweaked. If the Senate approves this bill and the House begins voting on it on July 2nd, you cover the House for Politico, does Speaker Johnson have the votes he needs to pass this bill and get it to the President's desk by this self-imposed July 4th deadline?

Nicholas Wu: Short answer is we don't know yet. There have been different groups of House Republicans who have been threatening to vote against this bill when it comes back. The hardline Freedom Caucus has signaled that the Senate has not cut enough spending, moved too far away from their original framework. You have the Republicans from generally swingier congressional districts who represent large numbers of Medicaid enrollees, who are upset about the changes to Medicaid.

You have folks like Congressman Nick LaLota of New York, who is signaled he could vote against this bill because of the state and local tax deduction provisions. At the same time, we're expecting every single Democrat to vote against this. Republicans can only lose a small handful of votes on this. Speaker Johnson basically has to get almost every Republican on board, which is going to be no small feat.

Brigid Bergin: Let's talk about a few of the other priorities in this bill. The AP is reporting that the Senate bill includes some $4 trillion in tax cuts, making permanent Trump's 2017 tax rates. Who does this benefit?

Nicholas Wu: It would benefit all people who pay income taxes, but because upper-income earners pay more as a nominal amount and because they do pay a higher percentage of income tax, the majority of those tax savings would go towards upper-income earners. This is a point that we've seen Democrats hammer over and over with this bill. Then in many ways, it echoes the same case they made against the tax cuts in 2017 that Republicans implemented that are largely being extended now.

Brigid Bergin: Then this bill would also fulfill a Trump campaign promise of eliminating taxes on tips. What can you tell us about that piece of the legislation?

Nicholas Wu: That piece of the legislation is somewhat in flux between the House and the Senate. The long and short of it is that the Big Beautiful Bill would allow for no taxes on tips below a certain amount, and then would phase out above that. This was a big Trump campaign promise, but it is also something that increased the overall cost of the bill, which is bringing Republicans to part of their sticky situation now, where they are trying to find ways to pay for these relatively expensive tax provisions that are causing all these political hang-ups.

Brigid Bergin: Nicholas, not surprisingly, several of our callers have some pretty passionate views on this legislation and a lot of concerns, and I think are looking for some details about what they can do. Let's go to Jonas in Mamaroneck. Jonas, thanks for calling WNYC.

Jonas: Hi, thanks for having me on. Longtime listener. My question isn't about anything specifically involved with me, but I'm wondering why did we as Democrats keep hopping to the Republican agenda? They're framing everything, and then we're reacting to it. We're reacting to the cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and so on, which are all legitimate. There must be billions and billions of dollars of waste in our government spending in other places. How come none of that's coming to the surface? We're not proactively going to say, "Well, instead of cutting Medicaid, how about we cut X amount from these subsidies to oil companies?" I don't know. I'm not an expert on any of this, but that's my question, and I'll take the answer offline.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. Jonas, thanks for that question. Nicholas, is there a space for Democrats to come up with some alternative proposals? Is that something we're going to hear in vote-a-rama, their proposals for things that could be cut, as opposed to the legislation that Republicans have proposed?

Nicholas Wu: It's something that has always been a problem for the minority party, how to break through on legislation, especially when it goes through the process that the Big Beautiful Bill is going through. The problem for Democrats with the Big Beautiful Bill is that it's being passed through this budget reconciliation process, which only requires a simple majority in the Senate and won't require any Democratic votes in either the House or Senate. The opportunity for Democrats to offer input on the bill is minimal.

However, you're right. With this vote-a-rama process, this is where we'll see Democrats very likely file dozens of amendments that will make somewhat of an alternative case against the legislation. That is where we might see, yes, perhaps amendments that could-- We've seen progressives talk about how they could cut defense spending instead of cutting Medicaid. We've seen other Democrats talk about introducing amendments to protect SNAP, also known as food stamps. This is all going to play out over the next 24, 48 hours.

Brigid Bergin: I suspect you will not get a lot of sleep in that time, Nicholas. I want to go back for a moment because you mentioned Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, Maine Senator Susan Collins. There have been several Republican holdouts who were won over this weekend by Vice President JD Vance. CNN reported that as they sought Murkowski's vote, a few provisions in the latest version of the bill were added that specifically benefited her state of Alaska. One of those expanded how much a special group of whalers could deduct in whaling supplies.

Now, Nicholas, I'm not sure how familiar you are with that story, but can you take us behind the scenes a little bit of what this process has looked like? What are those kinds of little things that maybe are getting stuck in the bill to try to win over some of these folks considered swing senators or even senators-- I know that we've seen texters asking about senators in rural areas who might be vulnerable, whose constituents may be vulnerable to what is included in the final version of this bill.

Nicholas Wu: With the margins so tight in both chambers, this really gives lawmakers a lot of leverage to insert things that will benefit their states, their districts, their own pet projects, let alone in something like this, which will perhaps be one of the only or one of the few major pieces of legislation to go through Congress this year. That's why we see things like what, apparently, the Alaskan senators had introduced into this legislation. Things like that provision benefiting whaling captains, allowing them to claim a larger deduction for their boats.

That's something that Alaskans have wanted. Senator Murkowski also had tried to introduce language in the bill that could exempt Alaska and Hawaii from some of the Medicaid provisions because, technically, under some of the Senate's budgetary rules, you can't have things that apply just to a single state. Adding Hawaii to the mix might have helped it pass muster.

On the House side, we saw things like House conservatives had wanted language inserted into the bill that would exempt gun silencers from excise taxes and remove them from a federal registry. This is why we see so much haggling with the Senate parliamentarian, the Senate's budget referee in a lot of ways, over what can be in the bill since you have these sorts of provisions.

A lot of them do, in fact, end up being ruled out of order because they violate the Senate's rules, but it remains to be seen how things will play out in the vote-a-rama. Senator Murkowski is signaling that she'll introduce her own amendments. Senator Collins, another vulnerable Republican, has said that she wanted to introduce more amendments to bring the bill more along the lines of what she would want to see. The question is whether they would be able to pass any of these and change the bill itself.

Brigid Bergin: Nicholas, another major priority for the Republicans is funding for border security and deportations. The AP reports the bill would provide an additional $350 billion infusion to those priorities now. Is this border wall funding, or is this something else?

Nicholas Wu: This is something that Democrats have been particularly concerned about. This would plus up the funding for border security, for states to be reimbursed, for providing security at the southern border, but would also plus up funding for ICE on deportations. This is something Democrats have warned could really beef up the President's deportation plans.

Brigid Bergin: Nicholas, I have to tell you that we have a lot of listeners who are texting with some frustration about just the name of this legislation that the President gave it, the Big Beautiful Bill, also referring to it as the federal tax and spending legislation. What is with this name? Is this just something that is a moniker the President gave it?

Nicholas Wu: It's very much a moniker the President gave it that has stuck. Some congressional watchers note the irony of it having the same acronym as President Biden's Build Back Better. Perhaps Congress can only do triple-B names.

Brigid Bergin: [laughs]

Nicholas Wu: This is something that the President started calling it, and then Hill Republicans very fully embraced and named the legislation after. We've seen Democrats try to give it their own name as well. Chuck Schumer has been calling it the Big Ugly Bill.

Brigid Bergin: Just to zoom out a bit, has there been any polling on this legislation one way or the other?

Nicholas Wu: There's been some polling on it. As a whole, it polls not terribly favorably among voters, and then when it's broken down into individual components. It depends on how the questions are phrased. That's always the tricky part with this kind of legislation. Sometimes these questions can lead to voters, but the Medicaid provisions in particular poll very poorly among voters. That is part of why we see so many concerns raised among Republicans about it. Before he announced his retirement, Senator Tillis was privately warning Republicans that he would lose his reelection if the Medicaid provisions were implemented.

Brigid Bergin: Wow. Well, we will leave it there for today, Nicholas. I know you have a very long day ahead of you. My guest has been Nicholas Wu, congressional reporter at Politico, who focuses on the House of Representatives. Nicholas, thanks so much for joining me today.

Nicholas Wu: Thank you so much for having me.

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