Mike Pence Praises Big Beautiful Bill For Extending 'All Of The Trump-Pence' Tax Cuts

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Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke about the Big Beautiful Bill during an interview on CNN Thursday.

Transcript

00:00As I said in the last segment, seeing the president reaffirm that commitment to American leadership on the world stage,

00:09seeing him sign last week a bill that extended all the Trump-Pence tax cuts

00:15when some of the populist voices were literally talking about raising the top marginal rate,

00:20which would have been the largest tax increase in American history.

00:25So you think the Mike Pence lane still exists in the Republican Party?

00:29I mean, it does appear that the Mike Pence lane, the tried and true conservative, traditional conservative that we know of,

00:38definitely does not have the loudest, most powerful voice in the party right now.

00:44Yeah, well, I wouldn't be presumptuous to call it the Mike Pence lane.

00:48I'm calling it that.

00:49This is a conservative party and has been a conservative party since the days of Barry Goldwater,

00:57since the day of Ronald Reagan.

01:00It also has some tried and true conservatives.

01:01That's why they are so upset about that tax and spending bill, because it adds $3 trillion to the deficit and debt.

01:07Like, you've got...

01:08But that's what, you know, that's an area where I would respectfully disagree with Senator Tillis.

01:13I would have had no problem voting for the one big beautiful bill,

01:18because it extended all of the Trump-Pence tax cuts.

01:21It introduced significant Medicaid reform.

01:25It defunded Planned Parenthood for the first time in history.

01:29And all of those things speak to that conservative agenda in the Republican Party.

01:35And I think it's alive and well.

01:38And I think it's important that Republicans offer the American people a choice, not an echo.

01:45I mean, when I see the populist right saying that we need to pull back on the world stage,

01:53we need to embrace big government programs, price controls,

01:56that we're against reforming entitlements, that we don't want to talk about the right to life,

02:01that sounds like the agenda of the Democratic Party.

02:05And I expect that you're going to continue to see the Republican Party stay on that track of conservatism

02:14in the days ahead, and whatever the future holds for me, I'm going to be a voice for that.

02:19Part of that bill is the Medicaid cuts.

02:23In Indiana, the state you and I love so much, 26% of people there are on Medicaid.

02:28A dozen rural hospitals are at risk of closing.

02:31And Tom Tillis says the real-life consequences of the Medicaid cuts are going to be politically devastating,

02:38pushing people off of Medicaid.

02:41Do you agree?

02:42I don't.

02:43I don't.

02:44And, in fact, in our four years in the administration,

02:47we pushed hard at HHS to create work requirements in Medicaid.

02:54And now it is in the law and in the federal budget.

02:58And I give the president and his team all the credit in the world for doing that.

03:03When I was governor of Indiana, where we're both from and proud,

03:07I actually introduced health savings accounts into Medicaid.

03:12We got the very first waiver ever to create consumer-directed aspects of Medicaid.

03:20The key is we've got to reform these programs.

03:23We certainly don't want people who are in this country illegally to be receiving Medicaid benefits.

03:28We want those resources to go to people who really need them.

03:31And I think that's what Congress did.

03:32When he says it's politically devastating, going to be for Republicans,

03:36if you don't agree with him, when you look at the landscape now,

03:39what do you think poses the biggest risk to Republicans in the midterms?

03:44Well, I think now having passed the one big, beautiful bill,

03:50which may turn out to be the one big bill they do,

03:54because they did it all together, I think they've got to tell their story.

03:59You know, I was the third-ranking Republican during my time in the Congress.

04:03I was not only led the conservative caucus, but I was the conference chairman.

04:08And I understand that if you can't communicate, you can't govern.

04:11And I think it's absolutely essential, and I'd say to every one of my former friends

04:16or former colleagues and my friends in Congress,

04:19is get out across America, talk about what you did here.

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