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🎧 Moderates in the House were opposed to the Senate’s changes to the bill, which include steeper cuts to Medicaid. At the same time, fiscal hawks said the cuts aren’t deep enough. Some of the holdouts wanted material changes to the bill, but Republican leaders argued it was too late in the process for those adjustments. NPR’s Claudia Grisales tells Up First that it is possible that promises on future legislation were made to help sway holdouts. Democrats will likely make this bill a centerpiece of their push to win back Congress in the next year. 

🎧 The plan isn’t the direction the government should be going in, and “every fiscal warning sign is blinking red right now,” Maya MacGuineas, who heads the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, tells NPR's Scott Horsley. Most of the individual tax cuts will benefit the wealthiest taxpayers, while families earning less than $55,000 a year will, on average, be worse off. Horsley says this is because any tax savings that these families receive will be overshadowed by cuts to programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.

🎧 NPR’s Anastasia Tsioulcas, who was in court for many days, says the whole trial has been a circus. The main courtroom and overflow rooms were packed with fans, tourists, families with small children and social media influencers. Yesterday, when the verdict was announced, Tsioulcas says she could hear gasps and cheers. Combs was also down on the ground, kneeling in gratitude. Combs will remain in custody until his sentencing hearing.