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Senate lawmakers are debating President Trump's 940-page so-called big, beautiful bill as Republicans race to meet a Trump-imposed July 4 deadline and are set to vote on key amendments. Senate Republicans have deepened the cuts to Medicaid while cutting taxes for the wealthy and increasing the national deficit. "Basically, you have Republicans taking food and medicine and other things away from vulnerable people in order to finance tax cuts for the rich," says David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect.
Dr. Adam Gaffney, a critical care physician and professor at Harvard Medical School, co-authored a report that found the bill could lead to 1.3 million Americans going without medications, 1.2 million Americans being saddled with medical debt, 380,000 women going without mammograms, and over 16,500 deaths annually. "I work in the ICU. I see patients with life-threatening complications of untreated illness because they didn't get care because they couldn't afford it. What happens when we add to that number massively?" says Gaffney.
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We go to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, where activists are shining a light on Morocco's brutal occupation of Western Sahara and its Indigenous people, the Sahrawi. The Sahrawi journalist and activist Asria Mohamed speaks with Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman about "Jaimitna," an art installation that evokes the tents of Sahrawi people living in refugee camps. The installation features various melhfas, traditional clothing worn by Sahrawi women, and includes their stories. "These women, they spent years and years in prison. They have been tortured. They have been beaten up. They have been raped," Mohamed says. We also speak with María Carrión, executive director of FiSahara, the Sahara International Film Festival, who says the story of the Sahrawi must be better known. Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community. The first Trump administration recognized Moroccan sovereignty in 2020 as part of a larger effort to normalize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
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