Exclusive: Thune vs. the polls on the "big, beautiful bill"

Senate Majority Leader John Thune admits Democrats "have done a good job out-demagoguing" President Trump's "big, beautiful bill," he told Axios in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.Why it matters: Republicans know they are down at halftime, with the polls looking ugly on the overall package. But parts of it are very popular, and Thune (R-S.D.) thinks they can run up the score after the final bill is passed."Congress doesn't do comprehensive well," Thune told Axios.Democratic arguments about "slashing Medicaid" or "letting billionaires have tax cuts" are just "the early arguments that people are hearing," Thune said.He called it hard to effectively talk about a bill this big.🥵 Some Senate Republicans are feeling the heat: Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) warned Tuesday that changes to Medicaid could earn the GOP a level of backlash that Democrats felt on Obamacare, Punchbowl News reported.But Thune thinks the GOP will be fine, once there is a final law to talk about. "You're going to be talking about all the individual components of this that are incredibly popular — and they are," he told Axios.What to watch: Thune is betting most Americans do not have a good idea of what is in the bill. (To be fair, Congress is still figuring out the details.)He predicts specific measures — border or national security or energy or tax related — will surprise voters, in a good way."People say, 'Oh, oh, I didn't realize that. I really like that. This is in there? I didn't know that.' And I think you're gonna hear a lot of that," he said.Zoom in: Some of these potentially, popular details are still being worked on, with Trump feeling free to publicly weigh in.Trump said he hates the provisions that would more slowly roll back some of the energy tax credits, calling it a "SCAM" on Truth Social on Saturday.Thune said he talked to Trump about the concerns on Sunday. "He was really, really — This is something he feels passionate about," Thune said."Our number and the House number will be very close," Thune said of the energy tax credit parts of the bill.Zoom out: Thune is sticking to the July 4 deadline, even as House and Senate Republicans publicly fight over the details and pieces of the bill get struck down by Senate rules."Absent deadlines, things drag," Thune said of his commitment to July 4.Thune is optimistic about pending decisions on whether the tax and Medicaid policies are allowed in the package, saying they had "pre-vetted" most of it with the parliamentarian and so were "80- 90% there."

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