AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Well, President Trump, by his own telling, is on a roll.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This was - had to be the best two weeks. Has anybody ever had a better two weeks than this?
CHANG: Today, he puts his signature on a mega bill that contains many of his campaign promises, including tax cuts and increased funding for border enforcement. It caps off a pivotal stretch in his presidency that also includes the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. NPR's senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith has been following all of this and joins us now. Hi, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, let's start with the One Big Beautiful Bill. The president got the win he was looking for. Now what?
KEITH: Now he needs to sell it to the American people, and that may end up being more difficult than getting Congress to pass it as quickly as they did. You know, President Trump has benefited from having an extremely compliant Republican majority. But Democrats have been quite united in branding this as a tax cut that will overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and big businesses, paid for by making life harder for the working class. They point to an independent analysis that found this bill could add trillions to the deficit and kick millions of people off their health coverage. White House officials point out that individual pieces of the bill are popular, even if public polling finds the broader package isn't. So with the midterms coming up next year, the president and his party are working to convince voters that this bill will make their lives better.
CHANG: OK. Well, obviously, a president's work is never done, so what is next on Trump's docket?
KEITH: Yeah, this has been a really busy period for him, in part of his own making. He set up a traffic jam of deadlines, and the next one comes early next week. You might remember back in April, when he imposed what he called reciprocal tariffs on more than a hundred countries.
CHANG: Oh, yeah, I remember that.
KEITH: And then - yeah - the markets freaked out, and he temporarily backed down.
CHANG: Temporarily.
KEITH: Well, that pause is supposed to come to an end early next week. And despite a lot of talk about President Trump being the ultimate dealmaker, there are only one-and-a-half deals done at this point, a signed trade agreement with the U.K. and a framework agreement with Vietnam. Reporters have been asking the president what comes next and whether the tariffs will snap back. And last night on Air Force One, he said he was going to start sending countries letters telling them what tariffs the U.S. would impose on their exports.
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TRUMP: We'll probably have 10 or 12 go out tomorrow. And over the next few days, I think by the 9th, they'll be fully covered. And they'll range in value from maybe 60- or 70% tariffs to 10- and 20% tariffs.
KEITH: When it comes to tariffs, Trump has really been all over the map and has changed deadlines and tariff rates repeatedly. So I caution, this could all change again.
CHANG: Right. It absolutely could. Why do you think President Trump seems so casual about tariffs?
KEITH: He is a practitioner of strategic ambiguity, but he also just seems to love tariffs as a tool. He boasts about how much money they'll bring into the U.S. treasury. And he isn't buying the argument from economists - all the way up to the chairman of the Federal Reserve - who say that tariffs are inflationary and will lead to American consumers paying more for the things they need. The view in Trump world is that the experts are wrong and Trump is right, and he even joked about it last night.
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TRUMP: And I have another hat back there. It says, Donald Trump was right about everything. And I said...
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TRUMP: ...No. I said, no, no, that sounds a little too conceited. But it happens to be true, I must say.
KEITH: It's become something of a mantra. Trump and his allies point to the solid jobs report the last three months, when many economists were predicting a slowdown, and the so-far tame inflation data, the Iran strikes that led to a ceasefire rather than a wider war, and the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill getting to his desk for a signature today, when everyone doubted it was possible on that timeline.
CHANG: That is NPR's Tamara Keith. Thank you so much, Tam, and happy Fourth of July.
KEITH: Happy Fourth to you and everyone listening, as well. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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