The House has passed Trump’s $4 trillion domestic policy bill by a 218-214 vote

The US House of Representatives pushed through Trump’s massive legislative package early Thursday after nearly 24 hours of nonstop pressure, backroom deals, and public fighting.

The final 218-214 vote locked in Trump’s biggest policy win since returning to the White House. The bill, more than 887 pages long, now heads to the Oval Office, where Trump plans to sign it on July 4, just before military jets fly overhead.

According to reporting from Politico, Speaker Mike Johnson spent all Wednesday corralling votes from holdouts, holding meetings on the House floor, and gathering with different Republican factions at the White House to make sure the bill didn’t collapse.

One preliminary vote was held open for over nine hours, something Democrats said set a new House record. Then Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries used a second delay tactic, speaking for almost another nine hours, ripping apart the bill and slowing final action into the morning.

Jeffries delays final vote with record speech targeting the bill’s size and impact

The vote broke mostly along party lines. Only two Republicans, Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania and Thomas Massie from Kentucky, voted with Democrats. No one could say what the final holdouts, most of them from the House Freedom Caucus, got in return for voting yes.

They were mad over changes made in the Senate, but GOP leaders made it clear the bill wasn’t going back for more edits. That would mean more delay.

“We find out where the red lines are, and we try to navigate around them and get a product that everybody can buy into,” Mike said during a press briefing after the vote.

Brendan Boyle, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, said from the floor, “I have no idea what in the world the crowd that was holding out got for holding out. Does anyone know? It is a complete mystery to me and to the American people.”

The bill took over six months to build. Its main feature is an extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the key tax law passed in Trump’s first term. But Republicans didn’t stop there. They packed the bill with defense spending increases, tougher immigration policies, and deep cuts to safety-net programs, all aimed at balancing out the $4 trillion in tax relief.

Senate changes trigger revolt over Medicaid and energy rollbacks

Problems exploded after the Senate added steeper Medicaid cuts, faster rollbacks of wind and solar tax credits, and increased the deficit by hundreds of billions more than the original House bill. That split the party. Hardline conservatives didn’t like the spending, and moderates hated the Medicaid cuts. The bill cut Medicaid by roughly $1 trillion, and moderate Republicans from purple districts weren’t sure if the newly created $50 billion fund for rural hospitals would be enough to cover for it.

At the Capitol, White House Budget Director Russ Vought met with the holdouts to calm them down. They talked about possible executive actions from Trump to follow the bill and soften the blow. But no written promises were made.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill, before its final edits, would increase the number of people without health insurance by around 11.8 million by 2034. That added fuel to Democratic attacks.

Hakeem used his speech to call the legislation “one big, ugly bill,” accusing the Republicans of hiding the vote from the public. “I ask the question, if Republicans were so proud of this one big ugly bill, why did the debate begin at 3:28 a.m. in the morning?” he said, blasting them for trying to pass it “under the cover of darkness.”

He slammed the Medicaid cuts, reading stories from real Americans who depend on the program. He also mocked Trump’s past promise to “love and cherish” Medicaid. “Nothing about this bill ‘loves and cherishes’ Medicaid. It guts Medicaid.”

House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, a Republican from Texas, said Thursday morning the bill would bring the “largest tax cut in US history.” He promised new job growth, higher wages, and capital returning to the US, even though most of the tax policies already exist under current law.

Now that the House has passed the legislation, the only thing left is Trump’s signature. Mike told reporters it’ll probably happen on July 4 during Independence Day celebrations. “We’ll do that on July 4, potentially, maybe right before the B-2s fly. I mean you just can’t script this any better.”

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