US Politics
Why Marjorie Taylor Greene now plans to vote no on Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’
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Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, has announced that she will no longer support President Donald Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, and it all comes down to two pages in the more than 1,000-page document.
The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ would extend the president’s 2017 tax cuts and create more military funding, including for border security, while making cuts to Biden-era energy credits and reforming Medicaid.
Trump has faced challenges getting the bill through Congress. It narrowly passed in the House in May, and The Hill reported Thursday that it is “losing momentum” in the Senate. If the Senate makes any changes to the House-passed bill, as expected, the House will need to vote again on the legislation.
Now some House members who voted in support of the bill are sharing their regrets, including Greene, a staunch Trump supporter.
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On Tuesday, Greene admitted in an X post that she didn’t read the full text of the bill, missing a section that “strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years.”
“I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there,” she wrote, adding, “This needs to be stripped out in the Senate.”
Greene went even further with her opposition to the bill on Thursday, saying she will not support it when it comes back to the House for another vote.
“When it comes to AI and regulation, when we get to vote on this bill again, I will be voting no because of this clause,” she said during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, The Hill reported Thursday.
Greene explained why she was so opposed to the AI part of the bill in Tuesday’s X post.
“We should be reducing federal power and preserving state power. Not the other way around. Especially with rapidly developing AI that even the experts warn they have no idea what it may be capable of,” she wrote.
But before the bill can even get back to the House, it needs to be passed by the Senate.
Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, said in a special conference meeting on Wednesday there are two GOP Senators who will likely not support the bill, The Hill reported, citing a senator who was in the meeting.
“Crapo just said, ‘I think [there] are two of us who are pretty definite no’s,’ which means we can’t lose anybody else,” the unnamed senator said.
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To make matters worse for Trump, tech billionaire Elon Musk, who previously headed the president’s Department of Government Efficiency, wrote on X on Tuesday: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it. “
In response to Musk’s harsh critiques of the bill, Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday: “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. “
Over the course of a few hours, two of the world’s most powerful men traded blows from their respective social media platforms – Truth Social and X – as their partnership came to an abrupt and extremely public end.