Badlands Daily: July 2, 2025 – Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, USAID Fallout, and the Elon Showdown

In this marathon pre–Fourth of July broadcast, CannCon and Chris Paul break down the Senate’s passage of Trump’s massive “One Big Beautiful Bill,” exploring whether the legislation is a genuine America First achievement or an elaborate setup to expose the unit party. They debate potential moves like line-item vetoes, impoundments, and rescissions, and how these could reshape executive power and funding battles.

The hosts also cover the end of USAID as a standalone agency, with foreign aid shifting under the State Department and igniting media panic over “14 million projected deaths.” They tackle Elon Musk’s threats to launch the America Party, the political theater around CBS paying Trump a massive settlement, and arguments over free speech after CNN promoted an app tracking ICE agents. Other highlights include John Diddy Combs’s partial conviction, Ukraine weapons cuts, and Luhansk’s final integration into Russia. The episode wraps with Trump’s vow to claw back funding from Ivy League schools pushing transgender athletes, reflections on the Smith-Mundt Act’s propaganda legacy, and an epic tangent about the broken two-party system.