Like Oscar the Grouch, Chip Roy seems to delight in garbage, based on how he voted Thursday.
Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
Few creatures love garbage more than Oscar the Grouch. Except maybe Austin-San Antonio U.S. Rep. Chip Roy.

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-New Mexico, said in an Instagram video that she observed Roy, a Republican, high-fiving colleagues after voting yes on President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” a measure he had called “garbage” just two days prior.

This celebratory outburst is a far cry from the Chip we saw just two days ago, who had some of the harshest words in his own party for the version of the budget bill that had just passed the Senate. During a Tuesday hearing of the House Rules Committee, Roy was one of two Republican holdouts on the legislation. The other was U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina. 
In a Politico interview afteward, Roy called the proposal “garbage” and said its chances of passing before Trump’s arbitrary July 4 deadline are “a hell of a lot lower than they were even 48 hours ago.” “My colleagues in the Senate failed us,” Roy said. In an interview with FOX News program The Faulkner Focus, he called the measure a “travesty.”

“I think this is a travesty that the Senate is going to risk the ability of us to deliver for the American people,” he said.
Like his usual tough talk, though, it ended up being sound and fury, signifying nothing.

By Wednesday, the Big, Bad Baldie was already signaling that he’d changed his mind.

“I will note that I have now gotten a little bit more information on some of the Medicaid stuff that I feel like it’s a little bit better than I originally anticipated, but I still have concerns,” Roy said during his Wednesday appearance on Fox News’s The Will Cain Show.

By Thursday, Roy had completed his transformation into simpering eunuch, falling in line with all but two Republican colleagues to vote yes for the devastating bill.

Despite being an initial holdout, neither Roy nor Norman ended up being a “no” in the final vote. The only two Republicans who broke rank were Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

If Roy and Norman had retained their spines, the measure would have been back to square one in the House.
Can you really call someone like Roy a “hardliner” when they just end up being a soft simp for Trump, capitulating on something they’d previously called “garbage”? Of course, it’s possible Roy got some other backroom deal, but he ended up passing the “garbage” Senate bill as-is, including the provisions he had taken issue with just two days earlier.

Despite calling for a budget that reduces the deficit, Roy voted for a package that would add $3.3 trillion, requiring the United States to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.

So much for being “fiscally conservative.”

Adding to the steaming pile of rotten detritus, Roy said the Senate version of the bill violates the House’s budget framework, which required it to pay for its tax cuts and spending on national security with cuts on social safety nets like Medicaid and SNAP, or “food stamps.” An estimated 1.6 million Texans will now lose healthcare coverage thanks to Oscar the Grouch’s hairless cousin, Roy.

Bow down to the Garbage King.

Subscribe to SA Current newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed

Related Stories

This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 9, 2025.

Stephanie Koithan is the Digital Content Editor of the San Antonio Current. In her role, she writes about politics, music, art, culture and food. Send her a tip at skoithan@sacurrent.com.