President Donald Trump is urging the small Republican majorities in Congress to pass a “big, beautiful bill” that will combine his legislative priorities — and he is hoping they will do it sooner rather than later. But GOP lawmakers are fighting over the specifics, including possible Medicaid cuts.
A group of House Republicans in swing districts are declaring that they won’t vote for any Medicaid cuts, which some budget hawks in the House Freedom Caucus are pushing for. Now, far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer is weighing in on the Medicaid debate, and The Bulwark’s Jonathan Cohn believes she may have an impact on this “fight for MAGA’s soul.”
In a Monday, May 5 post on X, formerly Twitter, Loomer wrote, “President Trump has repeatedly vowed to safeguard Medicaid, a promise that resonates with millions of hardworking Americans. Yet, so-called Republicans cozying up to this anti-Trump operative Brian Blase are risking it all…. Blasé’s insidious push to eliminate provider taxes would gut Medicaid funding, hitting Americans the hardest in rural red states like Texas, Florida, and Louisiana.”
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Cohn, in an article published by the conservative Bulwark on May 6, notes that “the internal Republican fight over potential Medicaid cuts has gotten so intense that even Laura Loomer is getting involved.”
Loomer is a very controversial figure in U.S. politics. Her attacks on then-Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential race, critics say, were so racist that even far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) was offended.
But Trump likes Loomer — which, Cohn notes in his article, means a lot in the MAGA movement.
“On Monday night,” Cohn explains, “the MAGA influencer known for white nationalist rhetoric and conspiracy theories posted more than 400 words on X defending Medicaid, the government insurance program that pays medical bills for more than 70 million mostly low-income Americans. Medicaid’s future has been a topic of debate for months, with Republican leaders in Congress proposing reductions to the program to offset the cost of tax cuts Trump wants to pass in his ‘big, beautiful bill’…. In prior times, Loomer’s opinions would not carry much weight with congressional Republicans, especially on social welfare programs. But she’s proven influential over the past few months, including when she evidently persuaded Trump to fire a half dozen National Security Council staffers last month.”
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Cohn continues, “And her decision to warn lawmakers against Medicaid cuts wasn’t just an attempt to distill and explain Trumpism’s appeal to voters. It was also a direct attack on a particular strand of conservative intellectualism — and a particular conservative intellectual named Brian Blase, who, as president of the right-wing Paragon Health Institute, has been making the case for big Medicaid cuts for years. In the tweet, Loomer called Blase a ‘RINO Saboteur’ and ‘covert Never-Trumper masquerading as a MAGA loyalist.'”
READ MORE: Why a far-right activist even condemned by Marjorie Taylor Greene has influence with Trump
Jonathan Cohn’s full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.
