July 2, 2025

Thunderstorms, Tax Cuts, and “Freak Offs”: Congress and Diddy Both Face Judgment Day

Show Notes
Transcript

House Republicans are trying to pass the “One Big Beautiful Bill” before the July 4th deadline—except Mother Nature has other plans. Thunderstorms have grounded flights and turned Capitol Hill into a carpool lane of desperate lawmakers speeding through the rain to cast trillion-dollar votes. Meanwhile, Sean “Diddy” Combs gets emotional as jurors deadlock on the racketeering charge but deliver verdicts on four others in his sex trafficking trial. It’s like if Fast & Furious and Eyes Wide Shut merged into a civics class.

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Callaroga Shark Media from Washington, d C. Where your flight

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is delayed. This is valid, that's right. It's as if

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the Lord himself doesn't want this thing passed. Let's hit

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this good morning. I'm Patrick Guttfield, and mother nature is

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apparently not a fan of Trump's legislative agenda. A thunderstorm

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in Washington is threatening to derail the House vote on

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what Republicans are calling the One Big Beautiful Bill, and

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lawmakers are literally driving through the night to make sure

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they can vote. Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to

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lose three Republicans on the procedural vote, assuming Democrats all

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vote against it. But with flights canceled up and down

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the East Coast, nobody knows who's actually going to show

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up Wednesday morning. Johnson told reporters, We're monitoring the weather closely.

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We have to figure that out, which is not exactly

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the kind of confident leadership you want when you're trying

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to pass historic legislation. This Dedicated Politician award goes to

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Representative Russell Fry from South Carolina, who posted a video

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from his car explaining that he's driving all night from

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Myrtle Beach to Washington. The moment is too important to

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sit around and wait in an airport, he said, I'm

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getting in the car right now and we're going to

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drive all the way through until we get to Washington,

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d C. He called it one big, beautiful road trip

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to vote for the one big beautiful bill, which is

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either inspiring dedication or a sign that our political system

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has completely lost its mind. This guy is driving six

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hours through a thunderstorm to vote on a bill that

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adds three trillion dollars to the deficit. Representative Nancy Mace,

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also from South Carolina, had two flights canceled and he

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was scrambling to find a way to get to DC

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in time. Meanwhile, Democrats are also making the drive. Representative

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Raja Krishna Morphy from Illinois and Representative Mark Pokin from

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Wisconsin are both road tripping to Washington to vote against

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the bill. Poken posted his own video from the matt airport.

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My flight just got canceled due to thunderstorms, so I'm

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driving to Chicago, hoping to get one of the first

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flights at six am tomorrow. This is part of the

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glamorous life of Congress. I guess going to get back

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though to vote no for sure. This is like the

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world's most boring action movie, Fast and Furious. Congressional addition,

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the irony here is perfect. Republicans spent months crafting this

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massive bill, set an arbitrary July fourth deadline, and now

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a summer thunderstorm might torpedo the whole thing. You can

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plan for political opposition, but apparently nobody thought to check

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the weather channel. This thing is enormous. It extends Trump's

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tax cuts, funds his border wall, and pays for it

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all by cutting programs that help people afford food and healthcare.

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The Congressional Budget Office says it'll add three point three

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trillion dollars to the deficit over the next decade. But

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apparently fiscal responsibility only matters when Democrats are in charge.

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Down who gets helped and who gets hurt by this bill.

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Every American baby born between now and twenty twenty eight

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gets a thousand dollars nest egg from the government. They're

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calling them Trump accounts, which is better than the original

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name Maga accounts. Nothing says fiscal conservatism like giving every

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newborn a government savings account. Parents get a bigger child

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tax credit twenty two hundred dollars per kid instead of

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two thousand, and seniors get a six thousand dollars boost

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to their tax deduction through twenty twenty eight, which is

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Trump's way of not eliminating taxes on Social Security like

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he promised. If you buy tips or work overtime, you

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get tax breaks. If you buy an American made car,

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you can deduct up to ten thousand dollars in loan interest,

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though if you were planning to buy an electric vehicle,

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those tax credits disappear in September. Apparently saving the planet

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is no longer a priority. Nearly twelve million more people

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will be uninsured by twenty and thirty four, mostly because

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of cuts to Medicaid. The bill requires people on Medicaid

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to work eighty hours a month or lose coverage, which

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includes parents with kids fourteen and older. Because nothing says

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family values like making parents choose between caring for their

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teenagers and keeping their health insurance. Food stamp recipients also

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face new work requirements, and states will have to start

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paying part of the cost for the first time. Hospitals

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are warning that Medicaid cuts could force rural hospitals to close,

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which would affect everyone, not just people on government programs.

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Millionaires can no longer collect unemployment benefits, which apparently was

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a thing that happened. Thousands of people making over a

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million dollars claimed unemployment in twenty twenty one and twenty

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twenty two. That's like finding out billionaires were using food stamps.

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Private universities with huge endowments will see their taxes jump

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from one point four percent to eight percent. Harvard, Yale,

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and Stanford are about to get very creative with their accounting.

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The wealthy definitely come out ahead. Sixty percent of the

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tax benefits go to people making over two hundred and

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seventeen thousand dollars a year. Meanwhile, the lowest income families

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get an average tax cut of one hundred and fifty dollars,

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which might cover their increased grocery costs for about a week.

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The bill also raises the debt ceiling by five trillion dollars,

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because apparently the thirty six trillion dollar national debt isn't

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big enough yet. The CBO says this will increase interest rates,

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making mortgages and car loans more expensive for everyone, but hey,

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at least Trump gets his forty six point five billion

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dollars for the border wall. Only took him eight years

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to figure out how to make Mexico pay for it

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by making American taxpayers foot the bill instead. The jury

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in Sean Diddycombe's sex trafficking trial has reached verdicts on

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four out of five charges, but can't agree on the

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big one, racketeering conspiracy. They sent a note to the

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judge saying they have unpersuadable opinions on both sides, which

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is legal speak for we're really arguing in there. Judge

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Aaron Supermanian told them to keep deliberating on the racketeering

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charge while keeping their verdicts on the other four counts

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under wraps. Those include two sex trafficking counts and two

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transportation for prostitution charges. If convicted on sex trafficking, Combs

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faces a mandatory fifteen years in prison and could get light.

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When the judge read the jury's note about being deadlocked,

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Combs got emotional, rubbing his eyes and resting his face

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in his palm while his lawyers huddled around him. That's

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not the body language you want to see from someone

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whose fate is being decided by twelve strangers. The trial

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has been going on for seven weeks, with prosecutors painting

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a picture of Combs using his business empire to force

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romantic partners into what they called freak ops, drug fueled

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days long sexual performances with male sex workers in hotel

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rooms while Comb's watched and sometimes filmed. It's like eyes

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wa shut, but with more bad boy records merchandise. Two

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of his former partners testified against him, including R and

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B singer Cassandra Cassie Ventura, saying he beat them and

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threatened to leak sex tapes if they didn't participate. Comb's

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lawyers acknowledged he was at times violent in relationships, but

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claimed everything was consensual, which is quite the legal strategy.

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The racketeering charge is the complicated one, because prosecutors have

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to prove Combs ran a criminal enterprise through his employees

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and associates. Jurors heard a testimony from his former personal assistants,

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who said their job duties included setting up hotel rooms

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for these events and buying drugs for their boss. That's

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quite the job description seeking personal assistant must be comfortable

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with felony procurement. A hotel security guard testified that Combs

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paid him one hundred thousand dollars for surveillance footage of

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him attacking Ventura and rapper Kid cut. He told the

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court that Combs was likely behind the arson of his

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car after comb found out he was dating Ventura. Nothing

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says successful music mogul like having someone's car torched over

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relationship drama. The defense argued that Combs was just a

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successful entrepreneur who used drugs recreationally but kept his professional

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and personal life separate. That's a tough sell when your

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personal assistants are testifying about buying drugs and setting up

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sex rooms as part of their professional duties. This whole

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situation has echoes of Harvey Weinstein's recent trial, which happened

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literally across the street from where Combs is being tried.

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That jury also had fractious deliberations and ended up convicting

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Weinstein on one count while deadlocking on rape charges. Apparently,

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Manhattan Federal Court has become the epicenter of high profile

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sexual assault cases involving powerful entertainment figures. Combs has been

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in federal lock up in Brooklyn since his arrest in September,

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which must be quite the adjustment for someone who used

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to throw lavish parties in the Hamptons and Saint Tropei,

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from hosting celebrities on yachts to sharing a cell block.

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That's what you call a career pivot. The jury will

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continue deliberating Wednesday, trying to figure out whether Combs was

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running a criminal enterprise or just had really inappropriate hobbies.

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Either way, this is not how anyone expected the Bad

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Boy Record story to end. You can keep up on

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the trial by listening to our sister podcast called Celebrity Trials. Man.

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The brain trust here at Calaroga must have worked for

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hours to come up with that one. Celebrity Trials anyway.

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Portions of today's show were made with the help of

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AI