PBS News Hour

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Congress may be out this week, but lawmakers will likely hear from constituents about President Trump's big domestic policy bill passed by House Republicans.

It now heads to the Senate, where it's already facing an uphill battle.

Joining me to discuss this and more of the day's political news is Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Jasmine Wright of NOTUS.

Thank you so much, both of you, for joining us today.

So let's first dive into the big reconciliation party-line bill.

We have seen Senate Republicans already raising some concerns about this package, which the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates will cost the U.S. more than $3 trillion.

Here's Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): I think the cuts currently in the bill are wimpy and anemic, but I still would support the bill even with wimpy and anemic cuts if they weren't going to explode the debt.

The problem is, the math doesn't add up.

There's got to be someone left in Washington who thinks debt is wrong and deficits are wrong.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Jasmine, you have been reporting on this for NOTUS, you have been talking to Senate Republicans, what are you hearing from them, especially about the Medicaid and SNAP parts of the package?

JASMINE WRIGHT, NOTUS: Yes.

Well, I think, fundamentally, they're going to be concerned about the top line.

Yes, there are specific factions of the Republican Party over on the Senate who want to see less cuts for Medicaid, Medicare.

They want to see more for some others.

But fundamentally it's going to be about reducing the deficit.

Does this bill go far enough?

Does it make too many cuts or does it make not enough?

Rand Paul is not alone in his beliefs.

With him is Senator Ron Johnson, partially Senator Josh Hawley, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

There are multiple senators.

Remember, they can only lose three votes, really.

There are multiple senators who feel like this bill does not do enough to reduce the deficit and in fact adds to the deficit.

So they're going to talk about those more minute changes that have to happen in Social Security and Medicaid when it comes to differentiating themselves from that original bill.

But, fundamentally, Laura, this is about the top line and a lot of Republican senators do not like what they have been given.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes, so the cost of the bill could ultimately be what tanks it in the Senate or means that they have to make significant changes.

But, Amy, Democrats seem to think they have a potential winning message on the Medicaid element of the bill.

Tell me, do you see that potentially working when they're talking to constituents?

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Well, this is the real challenge that Republicans have right now.

They have the internal challenges, keeping the party together, not just in the Senate and getting a bill through the Senate.

But, remember, it then has to come back to the House for final passage if there are changes, which it sounds very much like we will see changes on the Senate side, so keeping that internal coalition together.

But then they have to message to an external audience, to, of course, voters about what's in this bill.

Democrats pretty much have one message, and it is this is going to cut Medicaid and health care for millions of people who need it.

What Republicans are saying is, no, it won't, it's going to make sure -- we make sure to take care of those who are the neediest; the only people who will lose Medicaid are people who are either on it fraudulently, they're here illegally and getting these benefits or they haven't worked enough and so that we're requiring them a certain number of work hours in order to be able to get this.

Both sides are going to show you polling that says their message is really resonating with voters.

As I said, we will see once voters get this message from both of them, but I think what Democrats have going for them is the fact that they just get to repeat this over and over again, while Republicans are trapped right now trying to appease their own members and then at the same time trying to sell this message.

JASMINE WRIGHT: Also trying to appease Donald Trump, right?

AMY WALTER: Well... (CROSSTALK) JASMINE WRIGHT: Because we know it's always the audience of one, a little bit different when it comes to the Senate than versus the House.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

JASMINE WRIGHT: But, still, audience of one.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: I want to talk about the president's continued attacks on the judiciary.

And he specifically was -- as threats have been increasing to judges, which The Wall Street Journal is reporting, and they're considering potentially their own security details due to these threats.

Just this morning on TRUTH Social, the president in a post, as he was saying happy Memorial Day, again was attacking judges, calling them "USA-hating judges who suffer from an ideology that is sick."

And the president was attacking judges specifically who say that he is going too far in potentially weakening due process rights, Amy.

I know that the president still has his base on immigration, on his agenda items there, but could he potentially be losing some voters, could Republicans lose some voters and hear from them when they go back home on the issue of threats to due process rights?

AMY WALTER: They may.

Here's the thing.

Many of those judges that he's criticizing were appointed by Republican presidents, so this isn't just simply liberals going against this president.

I think the challenge right now that Donald Trump has with those voters who supported him in this last election, but maybe aren't fully bought in, is they see Donald Trump in a transactional way.

He said he was going to make my life a little bit better, he was going to lower costs for me, there are things he does that I don't really like, but I'm willing to accept those for the change in my own economic certainty.

That has yet to come either.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And, as Republicans are fighting internally over their big reconciliation package, we also want to talk about what is happening with Democrats.

The Democratic Party is still figuring out how to meet this moment.

And we spoke to three Democrats, all launching first-time bids for national office in 2026 about what they think their party needs to do to win.

STATE SEN. MALLORY MCMORROW (D-MI): I'm Mallory McMorrow.

I'm from Royal Oak, Michigan, and I'm running for United States Senate.

JAKE RAKOV (D), California Congressional Candidate: My name is Jake Rakov.

I am -- live in Studio City, and I'm running for the 32nd Congressional District in California.

KAT ABUGHAZALEH (D), Illinois Congressional Candidate: I'm Kat Abughazaleh.

I'm from Chicago, and I'm running for Congress in the 9th District of Illinois.

MALLORY MCMORROW: It is not enough to say Democrats are not in power right now, but just vote for us hard enough in the midterms.

People want to see that you feel what they're feeling, that you feel the fear and anxiety and frustration and anger.

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: Every single authoritarian movement thrives when the opposition party refuses to actually stand up to them.

Anyone that's taken a middle school history class knows that appeasement isn't effective.

JAKE RAKOV: My opponent, Brad Sherman, has been in office for almost 30 years.

He's in his 15th term.

He was elected in 1996, when I was 8 years old.

I think people who have been in power for that long and have so checked out of the district as he has is why we got Trump twice.

And so I'm running against him to bring a new generation to Congress to actually show those people who left our party that we are still a party of progress and still a party that's going to work for them.

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: A lot of Congress didn't grow up with school shooting drills.

They don't worry about out-of-pocket expenses.

They probably own their homes.

And that's not the case for most of Gen Z. MALLORY MCMORROW: The idea that you can't afford to buy a house, that you don't have job security, that you may not have health care, that you may not be able to afford the things that came easier to our parents is a reality for me.

That means that I respond very differently than perhaps some members of my party who have been in office for many more years, who have come up in a very different time.

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: And that the strategy is to stand back, hands off until 2026 and hope enough people get hurt that they will vote Democrat in the midterms, that's not only morally repugnant.

You are banking on people being hurt by this administration.

But it's also stupid, because you're letting Trump dismantle this country.

JAKE RAKOV: We all knew he was going to be a chaotic, he was going to be unstable, he was going to do power grabs.

And to see how slowly they were to respond in the first few months, I think, upset a lot of our base and a lot of other Democratic voters who looked around and said, what are you doing?

Do something.

Do anything.

MALLORY MCMORROW: This is about approach.

Are you somebody who fights or are you somebody who sits back?

Are you active or are you passive?

Do you have the ability to break through, meet people where they are and talk to people in a real, human way?

And that is my lane.

I know how to break through.

I know how to communicate with people.

JAKE RAKOV: We have to have these conversations in our safest districts.

We have to be able to fight amongst ourselves and have this discussion as Democrats where we know we're going to talk to our base and be strongest before we can even go into a swing district and hope of converting people and bringing back in people into the party that left us.

KAT ABUGHAZALEH: Democrats need to stop reacting to Republicans and just get back to basic humanity.

We should all be agreeing, both parties, that the baseline is housing, groceries and health care with money left over.

It's just common sense that, in the richest country in the world, in what many consider the greatest country in the world, that we should be taking care of our citizens.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Jasmine, you just heard one of the Democrats running saying Democrats need to be active, not passive.

Are Democrats meeting the demands that their voters are placing on them when it comes to confronting President Trump?

JASMINE WRIGHT: I mean, every Democratic voter I have talked to for the last three months would tell you no, quite frankly.

A lot of times, they call them feckless.

A lot of times, they say that they're not meeting this moment, which to them requires a really strong Democratic Party pushing back against what Donald Trump is doing.

Now, I think that the reality is that there's not a lot basically that Democrats can do because they are not in the majority on both chambers, but still voters want them to feel like they are doing something.

I think what I noticed in that video one is that all of those people were very young.

I mean, I'm young, but they were young too, right?

And I think it's a reflection of this conversation that's going on in Washington and beyond about the age of some of these Democratic leaders, particularly the ones that have been passing away in office.

But also it's trying to harness this energy that's saying that these Democrats in office are not doing enough for you.

I will do something for you.

But the reality is, is that the waiting -- the game right now for Democrats is about waiting to see what happens with Donald Trump.

And even though that young politician said that that was immoral...

I think that is quite honestly the Democratic playbook right now.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Amy, with 30 seconds left, what did you make of those?

AMY WALTER: Yes.

The get caught trying is what you hear a lot from Democratic base voters.

I know, I get the intellectual argument that we can't pass anything as Democrats because we're in the minority.

But that doesn't mean that you can't show that you are actively finding ways to push back against the administration.

And, look, I think Mallory McMorrow put it very well.

She said that the split in the party now, it's no longer ideological.

It's really about who's a fighter and who's more passive.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Amy Wright -- sorry.

(LAUGHTER) LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Amy Walter, Jasmine Wright... AMY WALTER: Wait.

I love that.

We could work really well together.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Thank you so much for your reporting and insights.

JASMINE WRIGHT: You're welcome.