FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

July 3, 2025

MEDIA CONTACT: 

e: jessica.myers@mail.house.gov

c: 202.913.0126

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Representative Yvette D. Clarke (NY-09) issued the following statement on her vote against the Big Ugly Bill:

“Never before in the history of the United States has its Congress committed such violence against its people as with the passage of the Big Ugly Bill today. From its conception, Trump’s budget has not wavered from its core mission of tearing down the social safety nets millions of Americans depend on just to survive. It was written to create pain and ruin lives, all in service of giving tax breaks for billionaires and funding the president’s authoritarianism at home. And that is precisely what it will do starting the minute it reaches Donald Trump’s desk. 

“Make no mistake: the suffering the Big Ugly Bill delivers will not discriminate. Black or white, Republican or Democrat, this legislation is coming for Americans and their families. Contempt for working people is hardwired into the Republican Party’s DNA, and nowhere is that better reflected than within its budget.

“The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs. I fear these abuses are only scratching the surface, and we will soon find even more lurking in the margins of this 1000-page manifesto against American decency.

“The shameful charade we’ve witnessed over recent days is just more inarguable evidence of the dictatorial hold Donald Trump has over Congressional Republicans. They have allowed themselves to become nothing more than an extension of his will and his wants, having given him their full participation in Congress’ deterioration into an unequal, unworthy branch of government. These people believe in nothing. They stand for nothing. And that’s what fills their consciences — nothing at all. They have become mindless, fearful drones that live solely in anticipation of the next orders from Donald Trump. How many deaths would you like to see, Mr. President? How much pain would please you, Mr. President? My colleagues should prepare to shave off what little remains of their souls, because no amount of pain and death will ever be enough for this president.

“House Republicans best recognize that passing the Big Ugly Bill will be far from the last atrocity Donald Trump charges them to commit in his name. In the months and years to come, they will be asked to sever every principle, every conviction, every belief they once held to stay out of the meat grinder of MAGA’s rage that so terrifies them. And they will. They have condemned themselves to servitude, content to become the janitors of authoritarianism and evil. 

“Democrats stood with unanimity and moral clarity to stop this crime, but just four out of 220 could not muster the courage or moral fortitude to stand with us. And the shame of that failing will follow them beyond their last days. History may soon forget their names, but it will always remember their guilt.”

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