Maddow Blog-JD Vance on Republican megabill: ICE funding matters, 'everything else' is 'immaterial' [View all]

[LetMyPeopleVote]

To hear the vice president tell it, ICE funding is more important than health care, the national debt and feeding the hungry. It's a tough sell.

JD Vance is preparing the Republican base:

Yes, our megabill will leave you and your family worse off, the VP is effectively arguing, but that won’t matter because ICE will be *huge*. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-07-01T13:55:09.524Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/jd-vance-republican-megabill-ice-funding-matters-everything-else-immat-rcna216181

As it turns out, JD Vance has his own opinion about the legislation he might help advance. This was part of the thread the vice president published to social media late Monday night:

The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass. Everything else — the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy — is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.

To be sure, as a factual matter, Vance isn’t wrong about the impact the far-right legislation would have on ICE’s budget. As NBC News reported, the Republicans’ reconciliation package sets aside $150 billion for immigration enforcement, and about $30 billion of that total would go toward Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

This would represent a dramatic increase over the status quo — ICE’s budget would nearly quadruple — and ensure that ICE is far better funded than other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.

But the vice president’s sales pitch still needs some work.

Right off the bat, it’s important to emphasize that ICE’s hyper-aggressive tactics have generated considerable public attention, and some recent polling suggests most Americans disapprove of the agency’s recent efforts. Asking the public, “Wouldn’t it be great if ICE were nearly four times larger, making it possible for heavy-handed raids in communities nationwide?” might lead to a whole lot of people responding, “No, actually, it wouldn’t.”....

And the vice president apparently wants the Americans who will be worse off to believe all of these consequences should be seen as “immaterial.” ICE raids matter, the Ohio Republican effectively argued, and nothing else does.

I suppose it’s possible that there will be some folks who really do say to themselves, “Republicans left my family far worse off, but there are some more immigrants at ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ so I guess it’s all worth it.” But if Vance is counting on a lot of Americans thinking this way, he’s likely to be disappointed.