Trump's crowning moment is ammo for Dems in '26

• It's also a stinging defeat for Democrats — but has given them fodder for the 2026 midterms.
• With the stroke of his signature, Trump will undo the solar, wind and electric vehicles tax cuts that were at the core of President Biden's signature Inflation Reduction Act.
• Trump will sign into law some long-term GOP goals, like making business tax credits permanent, changing how Congress counts tax cuts, pouring billions into border security, and slowing the growth of Medicaid and SNAP spending.
• The big tax cuts will apply this year. Most of the spending cuts will hit after the midterms.
• "It's going to make this country into a rocket ship," Trump said.

Zoom out: The country will little note, nor long remember how Congress passed this bill: the all-nighters, the nail-biters and the GOP false fighters, who ultimately tapped out for Trump.

• But Democrats will make it their mission to ensure that voters don't forget what Trump and congressional Republicans did in the bill.
• The tax cuts, they say, will benefit the already-wealthy the most — and the Medicaid cuts that target the poor could devastate health care options for millions.

Democrats will concede they lost on policy, but convinced they'll win — eventually — on the politics.

• For eight hours and 45 minutes Thursday, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries held up the GOP-led chamber's vote in favor of Trump's big bill, energizing his party (and his donors) by previewing attack lines certain to be distilled to 30-second TV ads for the 2026 campaign.
• "This is a crime scene," he thundered from the House floor.

The intrigue: Democrats will mischievously borrow some Republican lines that were dropped along the way amid GOP anxiety over the bill's impacts.

• "The Medicaid stuff in here is bad," said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
• "Garbage," declared Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) earlier this week. "It's a good bill overall," he said after voting for it.
• Expect those comments — along with Sen. Joni Ernst's "we are all going to die" shrug when the Iowa Republican was asked about Medicaid cuts — to be featured on local TV stations.

By the numbers: In all, the tax cuts total $4.5 trillion over a decade, leading to $3.3 trillion in deficit spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

• Republicans will say the real winners are the 83% of households that would have been hit with a tax increase if Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had expired at the end of the year.
• Democrats will focus on the more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, which is projected to put nearly 12 million Americans at risk of losing their health care and threaten rural hospitals across the country.
• Trump is giving his MAGA faithful $170 billion in border and immigration funds and $150 billion for defense spending.
• The oil and gas industry got many of its priorities.
• Also tucked into the bill: a rise in the nation's debt ceiling by $5 trillion.

Then there are the Trumpian touches to the bill, such as no taxes on tips, a suggestion he got from a Las Vegas waitress.

• And for babies lucky enough to be born during Trump's second reign, there are $1,000 checks, to be placed in "Trump accounts."
• But Trump quietly gave up on his plans to tax carried interest as regular income, a major win for the private equity industry.

The bottom line: Four score and seven days ago, the S&P 500 closed at its lowest point of Trump's presidency.

• Yesterday it closed at a new record high, its seventh this year.
• The economy — for now — appears to be shrugging off his tariffs, with the Labor Department reporting 147,000 new jobs in June, defying expectations.