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- House Republicans Pass Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'</p>
<p>Nik PopliJuly 3, 2025 at 11:56 PM</p>
<p>House Republicans handed President Donald Trump his first legislative victory of his second term Thursday after overcoming resistance from a handful of members, passing a sweeping $3.4 trillion tax-and-spending package known as the "Big Beautiful Bill" that extends his 2017 tax cuts, provides a large funding boost for his immigration policies, and imposes deep cuts to Medicaid and other safety-net programs.</p>
<p>The bill passed 218 to 214, with Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie of Kentucky as the only two Republicans to join all Democrats in opposition, sending the measure to Trump's desk a day before his self-imposed July 4 deadline.</p>
<p>The final vote was hard-fought, as GOP leaders and the President himself worked overnight to persuade skeptical holdouts to drop their opposition to the bill over its cuts to Medicaid and increase in budget deficits, which stalled the legislation for hours. House Speaker Mike Johnson could only afford to lose three Republican votes given his party's slim majority in the chamber, and by Wednesday evening it appeared he would fall just short: At least five of his members were planning to vote against a procedural "rule" vote, effectively blocking the party from proceeding to final passage.</p>
<p>Read more: The Budget Bill's Big Consequences</p>
<p>"What are the Republicans waiting for???," Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after midnight. He followed up in an all-caps message: "For Republicans, this should be an easy yes vote. Ridiculous!!!"</p>
<p>About an hour later, Johnson emerged from a series of closed-door meetings telling reporters that Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance had productive conversations with the holdouts overnight. "Our way is to plow through and get it done," he said, predicting that House Republicans would meet Trump's deadline.</p>
<p>Johsnon kept the rule vote open for more than six hours—well past customary limits—while talks continued. Four of the Republican holdouts—Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Keith Self of Texas, and Victoria Spartz of Indiana—finally changed their votes on the procedural measure at about 3 a.m. to bring the legislation to the floor for final passage later on Thursday.</p>
<p>Several hours passed before the House ultimately voted on the measure, as Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries put up one final attempt to delay the vote. For nearly nine hours, starting at 4:52 a.m., he read stories of voters in Republican districts who he said could be harmed by the bill, breaking the record for longest speech on the House floor. "How can you prepare to celebrate legislation that will undermine the quality of life of everyday Americans?" he said, potentially previewing the Democrats' message ahead of the 2026 midterms.</p>
<p>Read more: Hakeem Jeffries Breaks Record For Longest House Speech in Marathon Protest of Trump's Bill</p>
<p>The package's eventual passage marked a significant milestone for the Trump Administration, which had worked with Congress for months to compile a long list of GOP priorities that could form the most defining measure of Trump's return to the White House.</p>
<p>The legislation, which just barely passed the Senate on Tuesday with a tie-breaking vote from Vance before heading back to the House, would broadly fund many of the President's biggest campaign promises: extending his 2017 tax cuts that critics say confer their greatest benefits on the wealthy; eliminating taxes on tips and overtime; and providing roughly $170 billion for immigration and border-related operations—which would make Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the government.</p>
<p>To offset some of those costs, the bill also includes deep spending cuts to Medicaid and nutrition assistance, which the Trump Administration has tried to sell to the public by arguing that many of the people who would lose health insurance under the measure are undocumented immigrants. "Not importing millions of illegal immigrants and giving them benefits is the only way to save the country—and its finances," Vance wrote on X on Tuesday. "That policy is far more important than any other provision of this bill."</p>
<p>The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the bill would increase the deficit by $3.4 trillion and leave about 12 million people without insurance by 2034.</p>
<p>Polls show that Americans largely disapprove of Trump's bill, signaling that Republicans in swing districts who voted in favor of the measure could face backlash from wary voters in future elections. Trump and White House officials on Wednesday appeared to downplay the bill's effects on Medicaid and food assistance and instead focus their public messaging on how the bill would provide a large funding boost for their immigration and border policies. "America's Borders are Safe and Secure, and the entire World knows it. All we need to do is keep it this way, which is exactly why Republicans need to pass 'THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,'" Trump posted on Wednesday evening.</p>
<p>Read more: The GOP Budget Will Balloon the National Debt. Here's What Trump Could do to Fix it</p>
<p>Johnson had spent the day behind closed doors with about a dozen wavering lawmakers after several of his members relayed their concerns directly with Trump at the White House on Wednesday morning. Fiscal hawks warned that the Senate's version of the sweeping tax and spending bill adds too much to the national debt, while more centrist Republicans expressed concern about steep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps that would harm their constituents.</p>
<p>As Republicans have worked to bring wavering members in line, Democrats have remained united in opposition to the legislation, arguing that the bill's cuts to Medicaid and other safety-net programs for lower-income people would be used to lower tax for the wealthy.</p>
<p>In the end, only two Republicans voted against the bill. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a deficit hawk who has frequently clashed with Trump, has argued that the legislation explodes the national debt and fails to rein in spending. The other was Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, one of three GOP lawmakers in the House who represents a district that Trump lost in 2024. Earlier this week, he had criticized the Trump Administration over reports that it was withholding defense equipment for Ukraine.</p>
<p>Read more: Who Is Thomas Massie? Trump Seeks to Oust Republican Congressman</p>
<p>Other holdouts appeared to have a change of heart in the middle of the night. Some deficit hawks from the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which includes a few of the lawmakers who initially voted against the procedural measure Wednesday night, previously said that they would block the bill if changes weren't made. The group released a memo earlier Wednesday that tore into what it called the "failures" of the Senate's version of the bill, taking aim at its deficit increase and a carveout that helped swing Alaska's Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski by delaying food stamp cuts in states with high error rates, among other new provisions.</p>
<p>In the end, they fell in line after Trump got directly involved. Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican and Freedom Caucus member who previously said he would vote against the rule and bill, voted in favor of both. Asked what changed, Norman said that Trump had promised hardline fiscal hawks he would use his executive authorities to vigorously enforce certain phaseout provisions for green energy tax credits. "He did a masterful job of laying out how we could improve it, how he could use his chief executive office, use things to make the bill better," Norman said on CNBC.</p>
<p>Read more: I'm an Economist. The GOP Budget Takes From the Poor and Gives to the Rich</p>
<p>Write to Nik Popli at [email protected].</p>
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