On the Fourth of July, President Donald Trump signed into law a bill that constitutes one of the largest transfers of wealth in history — taking money away from working people and giving it to the nation’s elite.
The bill is the culmination of years of giveaways that have allowed corporations and billionaires to tighten their grip on the government. The law triples the budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, slashes taxes for the most wealthy, and pays for it all by cutting health care for as many as 20 million people and gutting funding for public education and meals for school children.
This week on The Intercept Briefing, Lee speaks to host Akela Lacy about what Democrats are doing to meet the moment and how they can break through Republican messaging on the bill.
“ Democrats are screaming into a void,” Lee says. “The reality is that we have been talking about Medicaid, and it’s very hard to break through in a 24-hour news cycle and this big bubble where we are in a sea of red coverage, conservative media, conservative narratives, disinformation, misinformation. And to break through in that moment takes more than just us.”
“Why can’t people be housed in the communities that they call home without spending over half of their salary? Why can’t we raise the minimum wage? Why can’t we correct course on the climate crisis? Why can’t we do any of those things? If you go back and peel even just one layer back on all of those questions, the answer is the same each time. It is money in politics,” Lee says. “So if money in politics is not your number one issue, it ought to be.”
