WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled Senate narrowly passed President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package Tuesday morning, bringing it one step closer to his desk.
The 51-50 vote followed a marathon overnight session that spanned more than 24 hours, during which senators voted on dozens of proposed changes to the legislation and GOP leaders dragged out many of the votes as they frantically worked to win over holdouts. They ultimately secured enough votes with a catch-all amendment that was approved by a vote of 51-50 with Vice President JD Vance voting to break the tie.
Voting against the final bill, alongside all 47 Democrats, were Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine.
Tuesday’s vote puts Trump on the cusp of a major legislative victory and hands Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., the biggest win of his first six months on the job.
Dubbed by Trump as the “big, beautiful bill,” the revised bill now heads back to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will be forced to scramble to pass it before Trump’s July 4 deadline.
“We’re going to pass this bill one way or the other,” Johnson told reporters Monday.
The bill contains an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and provisions to temporarily nix taxes on tips and overtime pay. It includes a surge of new funding for the military and to carry out Trump’s immigration enforcement and mass deportation plans. It aims to pay for some of that with cuts to Medicaid, the food-aid program known as SNAP, and clean energy funding. And it would raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.
To pass their bill, Republicans voted along party lines to set an aggressive new precedent that will have a lasting impact on the Senate. They used a trick known as “current policy baseline” to obscure the cost of extending 2017 tax cuts, essentially lowering the sticker price by $3.8 trillion. That tactic, backed by all 53 Republicans, hasn’t been used in the filibuster-proof process before, and weakens the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
“This is the nuclear option,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., while warning that it will “cut both ways” when the majority flips.
Ahead of the final revisions, the Senate bill was projected to increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion over a decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which said it would reduce revenues by $4.5 trillion and cut spending by $1.2 trillion. In addition, 11.8 million people are projected to lose their health insurance by 2034 if it becomes law, CBO said.
Vote-a-rama
The Senate’s “vote-a-rama” session, in which members can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the legislation they are debating, dragged through the night into Tuesday morning. In total, senators cast votes on more than 45 amendments — a new record.
One of the more notable ones was a lopsided 99-1 vote to kill a provision in the package — authored by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the chair of the Commerce Committee — to establish a 10-year moratorium on state and local artificial intelligence regulations. The vote came after GOP governors objected to the proposal and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., backed out of a compromise deal with Cruz on a five-year temporary ban on the regulations.
Democrats, meanwhile, used the vote-a-rama to force a bevy of messaging votes to highlight how Republicans were protecting the super wealthy. They introduced four motions to let the 2017 tax cuts expire for people making $10 million, $100 million, $500 million and $1 billion a year, but each of those failed by voice vote.
“We’re just pushing forward amendment after amendment,” Schumer told reporters during the vote series. Republicans “don’t like these amendments. The public is on our side in almost every amendment we do.”
Hurdles in the House
Senators struggled to keep themselves occupied during the all-night session.
Republicans noshed on pizza in their cloakroom just off the floor. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, read a book on his Kindle. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, did a Trump impression to GOP colleagues as he discussed Elon Musk’s social media posts bashing the bill.
In the frigid chamber, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., wrapped herself in a blanket embroidered with the words, “Wild Wonderful West Virginia.” And Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., recorded social media videos around the Capitol of things you won’t see on a normal tour.
The legislation faces hurdles in the House, where Republicans can similarly only spare three votes. An earlier version of the bill passed by a one-vote margin, and the Senate changes have drawn criticism from some GOP lawmakers.
That includes the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, which is rebelling against the lack of spending cuts to pay for the bill. Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., came out against the scaled-back state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap in the bill; it increases the limit to $40,000 for five years, then cuts it back down to $10,000. And Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., who represents a swing district, slammed the Senate bill’s more aggressive Medicaid funding cuts.
“I’ve been clear from the start that I will not support a final reconciliation bill that makes harmful cuts to Medicaid, puts critical funding at risk, or threatens the stability of healthcare providers across CA-22,” Valadao wrote on X over the weekend.
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