Gov. Tim Walz Urges Democrats To Get “Meaner” as Republicans Prepare To Kick Millions off Medicaid

Newsletter originally on published June 4, 2025 — Download as PDF

Photo of Governor Walz by Gage Skidmore on Flickr

While delivering a keynote speech in South Carolina, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz advised his party on how to win back working-class Americans: it’s time to take the gloves off and start bullying the bullies.

“We didn't just lose the working class. We lost the working class to a billionaire who gives tax cuts to other billionaires,” Walz said as he reflected on his 2024 election loss. “Maybe it’s time for us to be a little meaner, maybe it’s time for us to be a little more fierce.”

“The thing that bothers a teacher the most is to watch a bully and to stop it,” he added. “When it's a child, you talk to them, and you tell them why bullying is wrong. but when it's an adult like [Trump], you bully the s—t out of him back.”

“At heart, this is a weak, cruel man.”

According to a Pew Research study, an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters do not believe their leaders are pushing back hard enough against Trump’s policies.

Photo by Lorie Shaull on Wikimedia Commons

Bernie Sanders: Trump’s Bill Will Cause an Additional 51,000 Preventable Deaths Every Year

As Senate Republicans consider passing Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders issued a word of warning to his colleagues.

Citing new research published by the Yale School of Public Health and the University of Pennsylvania, Sanders forecasts that Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act will cause an additional 51,000 Americans to die every year — in addition to leaving an estimated 13.7 million people without health insurance.

According to the study, these deaths will come from four primary sources:

• 11,300 working Americans will die after losing access to Medicaid and the ACA;

• 18,200 low-income seniors will die from being unable to afford prescription drugs;

• 13,000 more Americans will die because of the elimination of safe staffing requirements in nursing homes; and

• 8,811 more Americans will die from the failure to extend ACA tax credits.

“The Republican reconciliation bill, which makes massive cuts to Medicaid in order to pay for huge tax breaks for billionaires, is not just bad public policy. It is not just immoral. It is a death sentence for struggling Americans,” Sanders said. “In the wealthiest country in the world, we should be guaranteeing health care to all as a human right, not taking health care away from millions of seniors and working families to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.”

Meanwhile, even as Trump’s reckless budget threatens to kill many of his own supporters, some Republicans have turned to mockery to downplay Democrats’ concerns.

And although it might sound like satire, some have even gone so far as to say the quiet part out loud.

“Well, we are all going to die,” GOP Rep. Joni Ernst reassured voters during a combative town hall event in Parkersburg, Iowa.

Doubling down on this cruel message, Ernst later filmed a sarcastic apology video within a cemetery. “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth,” she added. “I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”

Photo by Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia Commons

MAGA Infighting Erupts as Elon Musk Calls Trump’s Tax Bill a “Disgusting Abomination”

Following his recent departure from the Trump administration, billionaire tech oligarch Elon Musk criticized Republicans for not going far enough in their spending cuts to balance the budget.

Despite the GOP bill making dangerous cuts to healthcare, food assistance, and climate change mitigation efforts, the Congressional Budget Office still expects it to increase the federal deficit by several trillion dollars, imperiling DOGE’s stated mission to eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” Musk posted to Twitter. “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

“I think a bill can be big, or it could be beautiful,” he added in a CBS Sunday Morning interview. “I don’t know if it could be both.”

Although GOP senators should be more concerned by the human toll of their legislation, Musk’s opposition has helped prompt a series of Republican defections in Congress, making the bill less likely to pass before Trump’s July 4 deadline.

“I agree with Elon. We have both seen the massive waste in government spending, and we know another $5 trillion in debt is a huge mistake,” replied Republican Senator Rand Paul on Twitter. “We can and must do better.”

Predictably, Donald Trump has not taken kindly to the news of Republicans’ growing opposition to his tax bill.

“Rand Paul has very little understanding of the [Big, Beautiful Bill], especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He loves voting 'NO' on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not.”

In addition to Rand Paul, Trump will need to find a way to sway other holdouts, such as Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Josh Hawley of Missouri, who are worried about how the cuts to Medicaid will harm their re-election prospects. Likewise, an additional three conservatives — Lisa Murkowski, John Curtis, and Thom Tillis — have voiced concerns regarding the loss of Biden-era renewable energy tax credits.

U.S. Navy Photo by LaShawn Sykes on Wikimedia Commons

Pete Hegseth Orders the Navy to Rename Ship Honoring Gay Rights Icon Harvey Milk

In a shocking case of LGBTQ+ erasure, Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly ordered the Navy to rename a ship honoring Harvey Milk, an LGBTQ+ rights trailblazer and former Navy sailor who was assassinated in 1978.

Among other accomplishments, Milk became one of the first openly gay public officials elected to office in the United States, joining San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in 1978. Later that year, he was shot and killed by a disgruntled former city supervisor, cementing his legacy as a civil rights martyr.

Likewise, before joining politics, Milk served in the Navy and obtained the rank of lieutenant aboard submarine rescue ships during the Korean War. By 1954, he was forced to resign to avoid a potential court martial and dishonorable discharge for his sexual orientation.

To honor his memory, the Navy gave his namesake to a 50,000-ton John Lewis-class fleet replenishment oiler in 2016, a classification of ship named after prominent civil rights leaders.

Harvey Milk in 1978 — Photo by Daniel Nicoletta

According to a Military.com report, the timing of Hegseth’s order to rename the USNS Harvey Milk during Pride Month in June was not a coincidence. Rather, it was a purposeful erasure of the service of LGBTQ+ veterans.

“The reported decision by the Trump Administration to change the names of the USNS Harvey Milk and other ships in the John Lewis-class is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream,” reacted San Francisco Rep. and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.

Likewise, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Hegseth’s decision “an utter abomination.”