Trump’s $5 trillion bill advanced in the Senate after a 51-49 procedural vote

President Donald Trump’s $5 trillion “big, beautiful bill” cleared its first official vote in the Senate, surviving a brutal round of GOP infighting, arm-twisting, and last-minute flips that gave the bill just enough support to proceed.

The vote passed narrowly at 51 to 49, with every Democrat and two Republicans, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky, voting no.

The hours-long vote dragged late into the night and only crossed the finish line when three Republican holdouts, Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida, and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, gave in and voted yes.

Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who had slammed the bill for days, also flipped to yes after prolonged negotiations. His last-minute reversal gave Republicans a clean 51, making it unnecessary for Vice President JD Vance to break a tie.

Trump calls, flips, and threatens as deadline pressure grows

Inside the Capitol and the White House, the pressure cooker boiled. Trump, now fully back in the White House, spent Friday and Saturday working the phones. He called Tillis directly on Friday night to try to lock in his vote.

Tillis wasn’t swayed and told reporters later, “I told the president I couldn’t support this because of the Medicaid language.” By Saturday morning, Trump had taken the gloves off, going online to publicly call for Tillis to face a primary challenge.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Scott were seen at the White House ahead of the Senate vote, locked in talks with Vance, Lee, Lummis, and John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader. The group came out just after 11 p.m., having struck enough of a deal to push the bill forward.

Trump’s main goal is to sign the bill before July 4, the deadline Republicans gave themselves. Johnson later said, “The president’s pretty confident that whatever we pass here in the Senate, he’ll be able to convince people in the House to pass as well.”

Still, that’s no guarantee. The bill now heads to a final vote in the Senate, expected late Sunday or early Monday. After that, it will return to the House, which barely passed its earlier version last month. Several House Republicans have already raised alarms over the updated Senate version, especially deep Medicaid cuts. Their votes will be critical in a chamber where Johnson can only afford to lose a few Republicans.

Democrats drag debate with all-night bill reading

On the Democratic side, the opposition strategy is to slow everything down. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer confirmed on Saturday that Democrats will force the entire 940-page bill to be read out loud on the Senate floor. “We will be here all night if that’s what it takes to read it,” Schumer posted on X.

The reading, expected to last around 15 hours, is the first step. Then comes 20 hours of official debate, followed by an all-night amendment vote marathon known as vote-a-rama. Democrats aim to peel back the most controversial parts of the ‘big, beautiful bill‘: changes to energy tax credits, food assistance, and most of all, Medicaid.

“Senate Republicans are scrambling to pass a radical bill, released to the public in the dead of night, praying the American people don’t realize what’s in it,” Schumer said on Saturday. “If Senate Republicans won’t tell the American people what’s in this bill, then Democrats are going to force this chamber to read it from start to finish.”

The bill’s biggest landmine is Medicaid. A late-night revision Friday included a delay to the new cap on provider taxes, a rule that affects how states fund their Medicaid programs. The new language also increased a rural hospital assistance fund from $15 billion to $25 billion, a change that finally got Josh Hawley of Missouri on board.

But others still weren’t sold. Collins of Maine said she would vote to begin debate but was “leaning against” final passage unless the Medicaid language changed. “It is the majority leader’s prerogative to determine which bills to bring to the floor,” Collins said. “That does not mean in any way that I’m satisfied with the provisions in this bill.” She plans to offer amendments in the next round.

Tillis remained a hard no. “It would result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina,” he said. “This will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population.”

Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, and Rick Scott have been slamming the bill over spending for weeks. Paul’s biggest problem is the $5 trillion debt ceiling hike buried in the bill, something he’s refused to support from day one.

And the list of complaints doesn’t stop at healthcare. The Senate version of the bill also rewrites clean energy rules to win over House Republicans. That includes phasing out Biden-era clean energy tax credits, which sparked new backlash Saturday. Elon Musk, who once backed Trump, went online to call the bill “utter madness” and “political suicide for the Republican Party.”

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