Democrats in Washington, D.C., are misrepresenting major criticisms of President Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ with incorrect facts, according to an expert who spoke to Fox News Digital this week as Trump’s budget reconciliation package is debated in Congress. 

‘The bill doesn’t cut benefits for anyone who has income below the poverty line, anyone who is working at least 20 hours a week and not caring for a child, and people who are Americans,’ Jim Agresti, president and cofounder of Just Facts, told Fox News Digital in response to criticisms from Democrats and a handful of Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley, that Trump’s bill will cut Medicaid and disproportionately hurt the poor. 

‘In other words, it cuts out illegal immigrants who are not Americans and fraudsters. So that narrative has no basis in reality. See, what’s been going on since the Medicaid program was started? Is that it’s been expanded and expanded and extended. You know, it got its start in 1966. And since that time, the poverty rate has stayed roughly level around 11% to 15%. While the portion of people in the United States on Medicaid has skyrocketed from 3% to 29%. Right now, 2.5 times more people are on Medicaid than are in poverty.’

Medicaid cuts and reform have been a major sticking point with Democrats, who have merged data from two new reports from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to back up claims that nearly 14 million would lose coverage. The White House and Republicans have objected, as not all the policy proposals evaluated were actually included in Republicans’ legislation, and far fewer people would actually face insurance loss. 

Instead, Republicans argue that their proposed reforms to implement work requirements, strengthen eligibility checks and crack down on Medicaid for illegal immigrants preserve the program for those who really need it. 

‘I agree,’ Dem. Rep. Jasmine Crockett said in response to a claim on CNN that Republicans ‘want poor people to die’ with Medicaid cuts. 

Agresti told Fox News Digital that the Medicaid cuts are aimed at bringing people out of poverty and waste. 

‘It’s putting some criteria down to say, ‘Hey, if you want this, and you’re not in poverty, you need to work,” Agresti said. ‘You need to do something to better your situation, which is what these programs are supposed to be, lifting people out of poverty, not sticking them there for eternity. So the whole idea is to get people working, give them an incentive. Hey, if you want to do better in life, and you want this Medicaid coverage, then you have to earn it.’

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders has claimed the bill is a ‘death sentence for the working class,’ because it raises health insurance ‘copayments for poor people.’

Agresti called that claim ‘outlandish.’

‘First of all, the Big Beautiful Bill does not raise copayments on anyone who’s below the poverty line,’ he explained. ‘Now, for people who are above the poverty line, it requires states to at least charge some sort of copayment, and it also reduces, actually, the max copayment from $100 per visit to $35 per visit.’

Agresti went on to explain that under the current system, ‘people have basically free rein to just go to a doctor or an emergency room or any other place without any co-payment, and they’re not in poverty.’

‘What ends up happening is they waste a ton of money,’ Agresti said. ‘This has been proven through randomized control trials, which are the gold standard for social science analysis, where you have people in a lottery system, some people get the benefit, and some people don’t, and what you end up seeing is that people who don’t have to have skin in the game, abuse emergency rooms, they go there for a stuffy nose, rack up all this money, and it does nothing to improve their health. It’s just wasteful.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Sanders Communications Director Anna Bahr said, ‘Mr. Agresti’s facts here are simply incorrect.’

Sanders’ office added that ‘nearly half of all enrollees on the ACA exchanges are Republicans’ and pointed to the House-passed reconciliation bill that Sanders’ office argues ‘says that if a worker can’t navigate the maze of paperwork that the bill creates for Medicaid enrollees, they are barred from receiving ACA tax credits as well.’

‘But workers must earn at least $15,650 per year to qualify for tax credits on the ACA marketplaces – approximately equal to the annual income for a full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage.’

Sanders’ office also pointed to ‘CBO estimates that 16 million people will lose insurance as a result of the House-passed bill and the Republicans ending the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits.’

Sanders’ office also reiterated that the House-passed bill makes a ‘fundamental change’ to copay for Medicaid beneficiaries, shifting from optional to mandatory.

‘While claiming that I’m ‘incorrect,’ Sanders’ staff fails to provide a single fact that shows the BBB cuts health care for poor working Americans,’ Agresti responded. 

‘It’s especially laughable that they cite expanded Obamacare subsidies in this context, because people in poverty aren’t even eligible for them,’ Agresti continued. ‘After this ‘temporary’ Covid-era handout expires, people with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty level — or $150,600 for a family of five — will still be eligible for this welfare program, although they will receive less.’

Agresti argued that the claim a ‘max $35 copay (for people who are not poor) ‘hurts working families’’ is not supported by research ‘which makes generalizations and merely cites ‘associations.”

‘As commonly taught in high school math, association doesn’t prove causation,’ Agresti said. 

Sanders’ office told Fox News Digital, ‘Mr. Agresti seems to believe that a working family of four earning only $32,150 per year doesn’t deserve help affording their health care. Health care in the United States is more expensive than anywhere in the world. Terminating health care coverage for 16 million Americans and increasing health care costs for millions will make it harder for working people to afford the health care they need, even if Mr. Agresti doesn’t agree.’

Agresti also took issue with the narrative that cuts cannot be made to Medicaid without cutting benefits to people who are entitled to them.

‘The Government Accountability Office has put out figures that are astonishing, hundreds of billions of dollars a year are going to waste,’ Agresti said. ‘So, yeah, some criteria to make sure that doesn’t happen is a wise idea. Unfortunately, there is a ton of white-collar crime in this country, and this kind of crime is a white-collar crime. It’s not committed with a gun, or by robbing or punching someone, it’s committed by fraud, and there’s an enormous amount of it. 

‘And the big, beautiful bill, again, seeks to rein that in by putting a criteria to make sure we’re checking people’s income, we’re checking their assets. A lot of these federal programs, government health care programs, they’ve stopped checking assets. So you could be a lottery winner sitting on $3 million in cash and have very little income. And still get children’s health insurance program benefits for your kids.’

Hawley said on Monday that he did not have a problem with some of the marquee changes to Medicaid that his House Republican counterparts wanted, including stricter work requirements, booting illegal immigrants from benefit rolls and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the program that serves tens of millions of Americans.

However, he noted that about 1.3 million Missourians rely on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and contended that most were working.

‘These are not people who are sitting around, these are people who are working,’ he said. ‘They’re on Medicaid because they cannot afford private health insurance, and they don’t get it on the job.’

‘And I just think it’s wrong to go to those people and say, ‘Well, you know, we know you’re doing the best, we know that you’re working hard, but we’re going to take away your health care access,’’ he continued. 

Fox News Digital’s Diana Stancy and Alex Miller contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump came back into office promising no new wars. So far, he’s kept that promise. But he’s also left much of Washington — and many of America’s allies — confused by a series of rapid, unexpected moves across the Middle East. 

In just a few months, Trump has reopened backchannels with Iran, then turned around and threatened its regime with collapse. He’s kept Israel at arm’s length — skipping it on his regional tour — before signaling support once again. He lifted U.S. sanctions on Syria’s Islamist leader, a figure long treated as untouchable in Washington. And he made headlines by hosting Pakistan’s top general at the White House, even as India publicly objected. 

For those watching closely, it’s been hard to pin down a clear doctrine. Critics see improvisation — sometimes even contradiction. But step back, and a pattern begins to emerge. It’s not about ideology, democracy promotion, or traditional alliances. It’s about access. Geography. Trade. 

More specifically, it may be about restarting a long-stalled infrastructure project meant to bypass China — and put the United States back at the center of a strategic economic corridor stretching from India to Europe. 

The project is called the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor, or IMEC. Most Americans have never heard of it. It was launched in 2023 at the G20 summit in New Delhi, as a joint initiative among the U.S., India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the European Union. Its goal? To build a modern infrastructure link connecting South Asia to Europe — without passing through Chinese territory or relying on Chinese capital. 

IMEC’s vision is bold but simple: Indian goods would travel west via rail and ports through the Gulf, across Israel, and on to European markets. Along the way, the corridor would connect not just trade routes, but energy pipelines, digital cables, and logistics hubs. It would be the first serious alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative — a way for the U.S. and its partners to build influence without boots on the ground. 

But before construction could begin, war broke out in Gaza. 

The October 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel’s military response sent the region into crisis. Normalization talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel fell apart. The Red Sea became a warzone for shipping. And Gulf capital flows paused. The corridor — and the broader idea of using infrastructure to tie the region together — was quietly shelved.

That’s the backdrop for Trump’s current moves. Taken individually, they seem scattered. Taken together, they align with the logic of clearing obstacles to infrastructure. Trump may not be drawing maps in the Situation Room. But his instincts — for leverage, dealmaking and unpredictability — are removing the very roadblocks that halted IMEC in the first place. 

His approach to Iran is a prime example. In April, backchannels were reopened on the nuclear front. In May, a Yemen truce was brokered — reducing attacks on Gulf shipping. In June, after Israeli strikes inside Iran, Trump escalated rhetorically, calling for Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender.’ That combination of engagement and pressure may sound erratic. But it mirrors the approach that cleared a diplomatic path with North Korea: soften the edges, then apply public pressure. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s temporary distancing from Israel is harder to miss. He skipped it on his regional tour and avoided aligning with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s continued hard-line approach to Gaza. Instead, he praised Qatar — a U.S. military partner and quiet mediator in the Gaza talks — and signaled support for Gulf-led reconstruction plans. The message: if Israel refuses to engage in regional stabilization, it won’t control the map. 

Trump also made the unexpected decision to lift U.S. sanctions on Syria’s new leader, President Ahmad al-Sharaa — a figure with a past in Islamist groups, now leading a transitional government backed by the UAE. Critics saw the move as legitimizing extremism. But in practice, it unlocked regional financing and access to transit corridors once blocked by U.S. policy. 

Even the outreach to Pakistan — which angered India — fits a broader infrastructure lens. Pakistan borders Iran, influences Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and maintains ties with Gulf militaries. Welcoming Pakistan’s military chief was less about loyalty, and more about leverage. In corridor politics, geography often trumps alliances. 

None of this means Trump has a master plan. There’s no confirmed strategy memo that links these moves to IMEC. And the region remains volatile. Iran’s internal stability is far from guaranteed. The Gaza conflict could reignite. Saudi and Qatari interests don’t always align. But there’s a growing logic underneath the diplomacy: de-escalate just enough conflict to make capital flow again — and make corridors investable. 

That logic may not be ideologically pure. It certainly isn’t about spreading democracy. But it reflects a real shift in U.S. foreign policy. Call it infrastructure-first geopolitics — where trade routes, ports and pipelines matter more than treaties and summits. 

To be clear, the United States isn’t the only player thinking this way. China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been advancing the same model for over a decade. Turkey, Iran and Russia are also exploring new logistics and energy corridors. But what sets IMEC apart — and what makes Trump’s recent moves notable — is that it offers an opening for the U.S. to compete without large-scale military deployments or decades-long aid packages. 

Even the outreach to Pakistan — which angered India — fits a broader infrastructure lens. Pakistan borders Iran, influences Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and maintains ties with Gulf militaries.

For all his unpredictability, Trump has always had a sense for economic leverage. That may be what we’re seeing here: less a doctrine than a direction. Less about grand visions, and more about unlocking chokepoints. 

There’s no guarantee it will work. The region could turn on a dime. And the corridor could remain, as it is now, a partially built concept waiting on political will. But Trump’s moves suggest he’s trying to build the conditions for it to restart — not by talking about peace, but by making peace a condition for investment. 

In a region long shaped by wars over ideology and territory, that may be its own kind of strategy. 

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a conservative fiscal hawk who refused to sign onto President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ is building an unlikely bipartisan coalition of lawmakers resisting the United States’ involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran. 

‘This is not our war. But if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution,’ Massie said in a social media post announcing the War Powers Resolution that he introduced with Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California on Tuesday. 

Massie, whom Trump threatened to primary during the House GOP megabill negotiations, invited ‘all members of Congress to cosponsor this resolution.’ By Tuesday night, the bipartisan bill had picked up 27 cosponsors, including progressive ‘Squad’ members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.

Across the political aisle, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., signaled her support, writing that Americans want an affordable cost of living, safe communities and quality education ‘not going into another foreign war.’

The bill’s original co-sponsors also include progressive Democrat Reps.Pramila Jayapal, Summer Lee, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, who called it unconstitutional for ‘Trump to go to war without a vote in Congress.’

The War Powers Resolution would ‘remove United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic State of Iran’ and direct Trump to ‘terminate’ the deployment of American troops against Iran without an ‘authorized declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military forces against Iran.’

Lawmakers who oppose the United States’ joining the escalating conflict in the Middle East have sounded off on the unconstitutionality of Trump striking Iran without congressional approval. Congress has the sole power to declare war under Article I of the Constitution. 

‘The American people do not want to be dragged into another disastrous conflict in the Middle East. I’m proud to lead this bipartisan War Powers Resolution with Rep. Massie to reassert that any military action against Iran must be authorized by Congress,’ Khanna said. 

The president told reporters on Wednesday morning that he is weighing whether to sign off on military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

‘Yes, I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,’ Trump said. 

Trump called for Iran’s ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!’ on Truth Social on Tuesday, and said the United States won’t strike Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ‘at least not for now,’ but signaled America’s ‘patience is wearing thin.’ 

On the sixth consecutive night of strikes between Israel and Iran, Iran warned that the United States joining forces with Israel would mean an ‘all-out war,’ as Israel bombarded sites overnight it says would have allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium, as well as attack Israeli forces.

Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leaders last week, which the Islamic Republic considered a ‘declaration of war’ and has since launched its own strikes against Israel. 

Thousands of American troops are based in nearby countries within range of Iran’s weapons, but Trump said on Wednesday that ‘we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.’

The Jewish State targeted Iran’s nuclear capabilities after months of failed negotiations in the region and heightened concern over Iran developing nuclear weapons. 

But Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador to Geneva, said Iran ‘will continue to produce the enriched uranium as far as we need for peaceful purposes,’ as Israel continues to target Iran’s nuclear capabilities. 

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the bill. 

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report. 

Vice President JD Vance insists Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is still an essential team member in Trump’s ‘coalition’ after President Donald Trump said he ‘didn’t care’ what she’d previously told lawmakers about Iran’s nuclear threat. 

‘DNI Gabbard is a veteran, a patriot, a loyal supporter of President Trump and a critical part of the coalition he built in 2024,’ Vance said in a statement Wednesday to Fox News Digital. 

‘She is an essential member of our team, and we’re grateful for her tireless work to keep America safe from foreign threats.’

Vance and Gabbard have both historically been outspoken leaders of the non-interventionist camp making up the Trump administration. Both historically have backeda foreign policy doctrine that supports minimal interference with other nations’ affairs. 

By comparison, other, more hawkish members of Trump’s Cabinet, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have historically backed military intervention in foreign conflicts. 

Vance has publicly supported Trump as the administration contemplates next steps to address Iran, though. Vance said Tuesday that while those worried about foreign intervention are right to be concerned, Trump has ‘earned some trust on this issue.’ 

‘And having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people’s goals,’ Vance said in a Truth Social post Tuesday. ‘Whatever he does, that is his focus.’

Vance’s statement of support for Gabbard comes after Trump appeared to discount Gabbard’s March Senate Intelligence Committee statements, when she said she believed Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon. 

Gabbard told lawmakers in March the intelligence community assessed that Iran was ‘not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,’ she said. 

She did add that ‘Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.’

‘Iran will likely continue efforts to counter Israel and press for U.S. military withdrawal from the region by aiding, arming and helping to reconstitute its loose consortium of like-minded terrorist actors, which it refers to as its axis of resistance,’ she said during the March hearing. 

Additionally, Gabbard released a video June 10 in which she stated the world was ‘on the brink of nuclear annihilation.’ Politico reportedthat Trump told associates at the White House that Gabbard was out of line and believed the video was an attempt to prevent him from endorsing Israel attacking Iran.

Alexa Henning, Gabbard’s deputy chief of staff, said in a post on X Tuesday that Politico’s story was ‘total clickbait.’ 

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Monday he believed Iran was ‘very close’ to obtaining a nuclear weapon. When asked specifically about Gabbard’s March testimony, Trump stood firm in his assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. 

‘I don’t care what she said,’ Trump said. ‘I think they were very close to having one.’

Still, an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement to Fox News Digital Wednesday that Gabbard and the president are aligned on Iran. 

‘Just because Iran is not building a nuclear weapon right now doesn’t mean they aren’t ‘very close’ as President Trump said on Air Force One,’ the official said. ‘POTUS and DNI Gabbard’s statements are congruent.’ 

Gabbard wasn’t invited to Camp David in Maryland to convene with other military officials and Cabinet members in June. However, she was in the White House’s Situation Room Tuesday as Trump kept an eye on updates in the Middle East.  

A White House official told Fox News Digital Tuesday that Trump and Gabbard’s views and statements on the matter are consistent with one another, noting that Gabbard said in March that she believed Iran had the capability to build a nuclear weapon. 

Trump told reporters Wednesday at the White House he hadn’t decided yet whether he would engage the U.S. in strikes targeting Iran but said that the coming days or the ‘next week is going to be very big.’ 

‘Yes, I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate,’ Trump told reporters Wednesday. ‘And I said, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction? Why didn’t you go?’ I said to people, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country.’ It’s very sad to watch this.’

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.