US Senate pushes Trump’s ‘big beautiful Bill’

Capping a tumultuous night, the Republican-controlled Senate advanced President Donald Trump’s package of tax breaks, spending cuts and increased deportation money, with more weekend work ahead as Congress races to meet his Fourth of July deadline for passage.

Advertisement

By a 51-49 tally and with Vice President JD Vance at the Capitol to break a potential tie, the Senate cleared a key procedural step Saturday as midnight approached.

Voting had come to a standstill, dragging for more than three hours, with holdout senators huddling for negotiations and taking private meetings off the Senate floor. In the end, two Republicans opposed the motion to move ahead on Trump’s signature domestic policy plan, joining all 47 Democrats.

“Tonight we saw a great victory in the Senate,” Trump said.

Republicans are using their majorities in Congress to push aside Democratic opposition, but they have run into a series of political and policy setbacks. Not all GOP lawmakers are on board with proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid, food stamps and other programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8 trillion in Trump tax breaks.

A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the Senate version of the Bill would increase by 11.8 million the number of people without health insurance in 2034.

Ahead for senators now will be an all-night debate and amendments. If they are able to pass it, the Bill would return to the House for a final round of votes before it could reach the White House. With the narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate, leaders need almost every lawmaker on board.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Republicans released the Bill “in the dead of night” on Friday and were rushing through before the public fully knew what was in it. He forced a full reading of the text that began late Saturday and continued into Sunday morning.

At its core, the legislation would make permanent many of the tax breaks from Trump’s first term that would otherwise expire by year’s end if Congress fails to act, resulting in a potential tax increase on Americans. The Bill would add new breaks, including no taxes on tips, and commit $350 billion to national security, including for Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

But the cutbacks to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments are also causing dissent within GOP ranks.

Musk raises head again

Elon Musk on Saturday doubled down on his distaste for Trump’s sprawling tax and spending cuts Bill, arguing the legislation that Republican senators are scrambling to pass would kill jobs and bog down burgeoning industries.

“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country,” Musk wrote on X. “It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, whose birthday is also Saturday, later posted that the bill would be “political suicide for the Republican Party”.