Most dramatic congress passes The Big Beautiful Bill | Daily Livestream Highlights - Foresight Jingyuan Tang

Let's continue discussing the Trump vs. Biden showdown 2.0 that's been drawing attention across America these past two days. At the root of it all is this so-called big and beautiful bill. This bill, which has had a long and bumpy road, went through an incredibly tough and dramatic tug-of-war in the House of Representatives just yesterday. But at the very beginning, at least five Republican members defected. They suddenly turned against the bill. Their votes meant the bill couldn't pass at that time, until Speaker Johnson started repeatedly trying to persuade them. Even Trump himself came out and kept posting publicly to put pressure on them, all the way into the early hours of today. The House at that time held a procedural vote, with 219 in favor and 213 against. This wasn't the final vote, just a procedural one to move forward with this, ah, big and beautiful bill. So what does this mean for the bill? It means the bill has now officially entered the stage of formal debate and the final official vote. So why were there Republican members who opposed it earlier? Actually, there are many reasons for the opposition. For example, some people opposed it because they support Musk's point of view, believing that this bill could significantly increase the government's deficit. But there are also people who oppose the bill because it cuts a lot of welfare benefits. Some lawmakers have said directly that the welfare cuts in their own districts would affect at least 10,000 people. So they say, I'm representing the interests of the people, so I can't vote in favor of this bill. There are also lawmakers who are more supportive of Ukraine, and they have linked this bill to Trump's military aid to Ukraine. For example, some say, as long as Trump promises not to cut military aid to Ukraine, then I'll vote in favor of this bill, and so on. Basically, different people have their own considerations. Fortunately, under Speaker Johnson's tireless persuasion, things moved forward. Basically, all these troubles were settled. But the final resistance, in a very dramatic turn, came from the leader of the House Democrats, Hakeem Jeffries. In order to block this bill, he started giving a speech at 3.55 a.m. today. Then he kept speaking nonstop, for a full 8 hours and 44 minutes. This was unprecedented and broke the previous record for similar speeches, right? It was 12 minutes longer than before, so you could say he set a brand new record. Why did this happen? Because we all know that the U.S. Senate has always had a very unique system called the filibuster. This filibuster system allows senators to speak for as long as they want. You can just keep talking there. As long as you can hold out, you can use this method to delay, or even block a vote on a bill. Basically, you can keep going until you really can't hold out any longer. Now, the House of Representatives actually doesn't have this system. However, in the House, they do allow the minority party leader to give a speech without any time limit. Just that one person, right? And it has to be the minority party leader. There's no time limit, so it's kind of like the House's version of a filibuster. That's the relationship. But because of this rule, it can only be the minority party leader who gives the speech, right? No one else can do it in their place. So in reality, it's pretty much impossible to keep it going for very long. So today, as you saw, Jeffrey started speaking at around 3 in the morning and talked for almost 9 hours, right? He really couldn't keep talking anymore. He was completely exhausted. And then Speaker Johnson? He was sitting there with his legs crossed, right? Smiling, just waiting for this moment, waiting for Jeffries to finally get in and step down. Then, as soon as that happened, he immediately went up and started the full House vote. Of course, when he went up there, he even cracked a joke, right? He brought up this really thick folder and set it down. And everyone thought, wow, are you going to give a long speech too? Then he made a joke. He said, actually, I don't plan to say much. I won't be like them, you know, just poking a bit of fun. In the end, the full House vote was 218 to 214. The bill, known as the Big Beautiful Bill, or the Big and Beautiful Bill, passed smoothly. Afterwards, President Trump announced that he would officially sign the bill at 5pm the next day, because tomorrow is July 4th, America's Independence Day, right? It's the U.S. national holiday. Of course, this bill, actually, if you asked me, is extremely significant for both Trump and the Republican Party, because it's not just an ordinary budget and spending bill in the usual sense. Essentially, you could say this is a strategic bill that fully implements almost all of Trump's major domestic policies. It's basically the general outline for how Trump would govern. You could put it that way. It covers a wide range of issues that are closely tied to the interests of Americans, including the economy, taxes, spending, border security, national defense, social welfare, energy, education, and so on. Trump has always hoped to use this comprehensive piece of legislation, which is over a thousand pages long, to achieve his core domestic policy goals in one fell swoop, to get his domestic agenda done. And one of the most central elements of this bill is to stimulate the economy through large-scale tax cuts. As we all know, this is something Trump is especially good at, right? He did this during his first term, and it really did produce very positive results. At the same time, in this bill, Trump plans to make significant cuts to programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, which everyone commonly refers to as food stamps, right? All of these are set to be drastically reduced. His goal, of course, is to decrease people's reliance on government welfare. In addition, there are also major measures to strengthen border control and national defense, as well as moves like abolishing the Green New Deal in the energy sector, which is considered extremely left-wing. It's especially extreme in its push for a complete opening up, like fully allowing the extraction of traditional energy sources such as oil and gas in the U.S., and so on and so forth. In short, this is basically what Trump calls the common-sense revolution. This bill is essentially a comprehensive set of policies that concretizes his ideas in every aspect. Basically, that's what this is all about. Now, the main focus of the opposition is that they believe this bill is trying to turn the U.S. government into a club for the rich. They argue that the tax cuts are mainly for the middle class and the wealthy, meaning the rich will just get richer. So, for the working class, it actually feels like a punishment, and it might even widen the gap between the rich and the poor, and so on, and could potentially deal a blow to vulnerable groups in society. This is one of the main points of focus for the opponents. As for the opposition represented by people like Musk, their main concern is that this bill could bring about the risk of a huge deficit, in other words, an increase in the national debt. The debt could increase significantly. In the short term, they also argue that this bill might have a negative impact on technological competition in areas like new energy and AI, potentially holding things back. Of course, the most representative example is electric vehicles, right? Things like AI robots, and so on. Of course, speaking for myself, right? Between these two opposing sides, whose argument is more reasonable? Personally, I lean more toward the former. I'm quite optimistic about the prospects of this bill. Because you see, the main content of this bill is actually that Trump is correcting a lot of socialist policies and practices that have come about under extreme leftist ideology, especially things like high welfare benefits, right? In fact, cutting back on high welfare might affect a lot of people's interests, and it will make many people feel uncomfortable. In the past, it was so easy to live off welfare, but now that's gone, and I might actually have to go out and find a job, right? But if you think about it, this kind of high welfare is really just a disguised form of socialist-style equal sharing of resources. This approach, this path, has long been proven to be actually harmful rather than beneficial to the development of society as a whole. Of course, when it comes to welfare, we shouldn't go to any extremes, right? Appropriate and necessary welfare can serve as emergency relief. But as people in China used to say, help in emergencies, not in poverty, right? In the end, the goal is still to encourage you to become self-reliant. By working hard, you earn everything you deserve. But excessive welfare can easily lead to fostering laziness. And once you start supporting idlers, it can actually allow the government to completely control many people without them even realizing it. Because your food, clothing, housing, transportation, everything you have comes from government handouts, you end up being controlled by the government and lose your true freedom. In fact, this is not beneficial for people themselves. Of course, Musk's concern isn't exactly this. He's mainly worried about the debt, right, ballooning rapidly. His starting point is for the sake of the country, not for personal gain. He's worried that the US government will go bankrupt. So you see him repeatedly warning everyone, saying things like, we're going to go bankrupt, and so on. But I think Musk's judgment here might not be entirely accurate. He may have underestimated the fact that large-scale tax cuts can actually bring a lot of tax benefits to the middle class and small businesses. Because once you cut taxes and stimulate the economy, when people start making money and small businesses grow, your tax revenue will naturally increase, right? That's one aspect. Another aspect is that he may have overlooked the impact of tariff revenue. Because actually, with Trump now waging this tariff war, there's a reason why he's being so tough. He's considering this. On one hand, he's drastically cutting taxes. But after all, government spending is right there in plain sight, right? They need to spend that much money. So what can they do? Of course, on one hand, they might need to borrow money in the short term. But on the other hand, they can also make up for it by increasing tariff revenue, right? To fill the gap, right? Of course, I think the real political difference between Musk and Trump is that Musk is clearly more in favor of letting technology lead everything. And he holds a rather radical view in this regard. He even believes that technology should lead politics. This is a very distinctive trait of Musk. If you pay attention, you'll notice this. When Musk talks about many of his political positions, they're actually all driven by a technological mindset behind the scenes, which is closely related to who he is. In contrast, Trump clearly prefers a more traditional way of political life. He's relatively more of a moderate. Musk, on the other hand, is quite radical when it comes to the idea of technology leading everything. At the end of the day, the core of the conflict between these two really comes down to what we've talked about before. The two major powers that Musk holds, technology and capital. And these have clashed with the greatest power that Trump holds, political authority. Musk's real intention is to govern and strengthen the country through technology. But that's not what Trump wants. If Musk were to truly stick to his own role, I think the two of them could actually become very complementary partners, and their relationship would develop in that direction. But if Musk insists on getting involved in politics, right? If he stops focusing on his companies and puts more of his energy into politics, if he really wants to establish that so-called America Party, the third party, then without a doubt, the conflict between Trump and Musk will only become more intense in the future. Of course, right now the United States has also reached a very critical turning point, hasn't it? Musk, don't underestimate his influence. It's actually quite significant. As for Musk himself, his personality is somewhat extreme, which many people have probably already noticed, right? People say he has Asperger's, some kind of syndrome. Basically, his personality tends to be a bit on the extreme side. But once he sets his mind to something, if he goes to the other extreme, and he feels that what Trump is doing is harming America, Musk, we have no doubt that he actually loves America, right? He acts for the country, not for his own personal gain. However, once this kind of emotion goes to the extreme, it can also potentially cause conflict between two people. That could lead to unpredictable consequences. So what will actually happen in the next midterm elections? It's really hard to say. All right, so now let's move on to today's next segment. It's time for our member interaction session, right?