Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers invoked the ongoing disaster in Texas on Sunday in order to make his political point regarding the passage of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” by Congress, which he called “shameful” and an embarrassment on the July 4 weekend.

Speaking with George Stephanopoulos on the latest This Week from ABC News, Summers railed against the Republican-controlled congress and President Donald Trump for the bill, which he said is a “huge risk to the economy.”

Summers, who served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, directly addressed the position of White House Council of Economic Advisors Chair Stephen Miran, who was up next on the show, rising to near-fury as he did so.

Stephanopoulos began by asking Summers about his editorial at The New York Times last week, prior to the bill’s passage, which he co-wrote with fellow Clinton administration alum Robert Rubin, who was also Treasury Secretary.

Asked about the risks the two wrote about, Summers replied, “George, just to start with, what your people have been describing is the biggest cut in the American safety net in history.”

“The Yale Budget Lab estimates that it will kill, over 10 years, 100,000 people,” Summers said. “That is 2,000 days of death like we’ve seen in Texas this weekend.”

He then added, “I’ve never been as embarrassed for my country on July 4th.”

When Stephanopoulos brought up Miran and the Economic Council putting out a report “projecting $11 trillion in deficit reduction from growth, higher tax revenue and savings on debt payments,” Summers called it “nonsense.”

“There is no economist anywhere, without a strong political agenda, who is saying that this bill is a positive for the economy,” he said. “And the overwhelming view is that it is probably going to make the economy worse.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: In “The New York Times” this week, you and Robert Rubin, who also served as president — as Treasury secretary, called this bill dangerous, said it “posed a huge risk to the economy.”

What are those risks?

SUMMERS: George, just to start with, what your people have been describing is the biggest cut in the American safety net in history. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that it will kill, over 10 years, 100,000 people. That is 2,000 days of death like we’ve seen in Texas this weekend. In my 70 years, I’ve never been as embarrassed for my country on July 4th.

These higher interest rates, these cutbacks in subsidies to electricity, these reductions in the availability of housing, the fact that hospitals are going to have to take care of these people and pass on the costs to everybody else, and that’s going to mean more inflation, more risk that the Fed has to raise interest rates and run the risk of recession, more stagflation, that’s the risk facing every middle-class family in our country because of this bill.

And for what? A million dollars over 10 years to the top tenth of a percent of our population. Is that the highest priority use of federal money right now? I don’t think so. This is a shameful act by our Congress and by our president that is going to set our country back.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Part of the president’s argument is that economic growth sparked by the bill will alleviate the dangers that you talk about here. The chair of the Council of Economic Advisers is up next, and his council issued a report this week projecting $11 trillion in deficit reduction from growth, higher tax revenue and savings on debt payments.

How do you respond to that?

SUMMERS: It is respectfully nonsense. None of us can forecast what’s going to happen to economic growth. What we can forecast is that when people have to hold government debt instead of being able to invest it in new capital goods, new machinery, new buildings, that makes the economy less productive.

What we can forecast is that when we’re investing less in research and development, investing less in our schools, that there is a negative impact on economic growth. There is no economist anywhere, without a strong political agenda, who is saying that this bill is a positive for the economy. And the overwhelming view is that it is probably going to make the economy worse.

Watch the clip above via ABC News.

The post ‘2,000 Days of Death!’ Larry Summers Rips Trump Signing Big Beautiful Bill as July 4 Deadly and ‘Shameful Act’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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