Donald Trump signs his XXL budget bill for the national holiday

US President Donald Trump signed his budget bill into law on Friday with fanfare, marking the national holiday, during a ceremony marked by an aerial parade of B-2 stealth bombers, the aircraft used in the raids on Iran. "We are entering the golden age of America," Donald Trump said during a twenty-minute address at the White House before signing his "great and beautiful law," as he called it, surrounded by Republican elected officials whose support was crucial in securing a vote on the bill in Congress.

He had pushed for it to happen before July 4, the 249th anniversary of US independence from the British Crown. The bill was finally passed on Thursday, just in time, a success the 79-year-old Republican president called his "greatest victory" since he took office on January 20.

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He nevertheless recounted with evident satisfaction his series of political successes in recent weeks, including a ceasefire between Iran and Israel following US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, an agreement on NATO spending, and a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the executive branch over the judiciary. Two B-2s, the type of aircraft that bombed Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22, and fighter jets flew over the White House for the occasion, while some pilots who participated in the operation attended the ceremony, which was to conclude in the evening with fireworks.

The adoption of this law also confirms Donald Trump's hold on the Republican Party and, for the time being, on American politics in general, despite doubts within his camp and the noisy opposition of his former ally, the multi-billionaire Elon Musk . After the Senate, which had narrowly approved it on Tuesday, the House of Representatives definitively adopted this text by 218 votes to 214, a very close vote, preceded by multiple pressures and negotiations.

The sprawling budget bill fulfills many of Donald Trump's campaign promises: increased military spending, funding a mass migrant deportation campaign, and a $4.5 trillion commitment to extend tax credits granted during his first term. To offset the worsening national debt, the new law will reduce the federal food assistance program and impose significant cuts to Medicaid , the health insurance program for low-income Americans, the largest since its inception in the 1960s.

According to some estimates, as many as 17 million people could lose their health insurance coverage, and dozens of rural hospitals could close. "There are special funds to ensure rural health coverage," the president's top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, told Fox News, saying the budget bill would help combat "waste, fraud, and abuse" in the Medicaid system.

Democrats hope that the discontent sparked by the budget bill's fallout will help them win a majority in the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. They will need to show that it represents a massive redistribution of wealth from the poorest to the richest Americans.