Twisted arms and late-night deals: how Trump's sweeping policy bill was passed

The Guardian

2 days ago

Just a few months ago, analysts predicted that Republicans in Congress – with their narrow majorities and fractured internal dynamics – would not be able to pass Donald Trump's landmark legislation.
On Thursday, the president's commanding influence over his party was apparent once again: the bill passed just in time for Trump's Fourth of July deadline.
But while the GOP may call the budget bill big and beautiful, the road to passing the final legislation has been particularly ugly. Arm-twisting from Trump and last-minute benefits targeting specific states cajoled holdouts, despite conservative misgivings over transformative cuts to Medicaid and the ballooning deficit.
Here's the journey of the sprawling tax-and-spending bill.
The initial version of the mega-bill passed by the House in May extended tax cuts from 2017.
It also increased the debt limit by about $4tn, and added billions in spending on immigration enforcement while adding work requirements to Medicaid and requiring states to contribute more to Snap nutrition assistance. The Budget Lab at Yale estimated the House bill would add $2.4tn to the debt over the 2025-34 period.
Several conservative Republicans balked at several aspects of the bill during long debate sessions. Mike Lawler, a congressman representing New York, wanted a larger Salt deduction – which concerns offsetting state and local taxes – while the California congressman David Valadao was concerned about the Medicaid cuts, which his district heavily relies on for healthcare.
Then Trump traveled to Capitol Hill in late May to help assuage the holdouts. At his meeting with lawmakers, 'he was emphatic [that] we need to quit screwing around. That was the clear message. You all have tinkered enough – it is time to land the plane,' the South Dakota congressman Dusty Johnson told reporters.
'Ninety-eight per cent of that conference is ready to go. They were enthused. They were pumped up by the president, and I think with the holdouts, he did move them. I don't know that we are there yet, but that was a hugely impactful meeting.'
In the end, there were only two House Republicans who voted against the bill: Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, both of whom are fiscal hawks concerned about the federal deficit. The bill moved on to the Senate.
The Senate version of the budget bill passed on a 50-50 vote with JD Vance, the vice-president, breaking the tie. Until the final stages, however, all eyes were on the Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, both noted moderates, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky, both noted fiscal conservatives.
The bill's authors added tax provisions to benefit Alaska's whaling industry to win the support of Murkowski. They also tried to add provisions protecting rural hospitals from Medicaid cuts in 'non-contiguous states', but the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the amendments would violate restrictions on what the bill could contain without triggering the 60-vote filibuster.
Murkowski acquiesced after winning new tax revenues from oil and gas drilling leases for Alaska, provisions protecting clean energy tax credits, and delays on Snap changes.
'Do I like this bill? No,' Murkowski said as she stared down an NBC reporter who had just relayed a comment by the Kentucky Republican Rand Paul describing her vote as 'a bailout for Alaska at the expense of the rest of the country'.
Other changes to the Senate bill were made in the final days of negotiations, including the striking of a 10-year federal ban on state regulation of AI. A record number of amendments were proposed.
Tillis, who announced he would not run again in his politically competitive state, gave a rousing speech about the perils of Medicaid cuts and voted against the bill. Collins and Paul remained in opposition.
With few other options, Democrats tried to delay the vote by requiring the entire bill to be read out loud on the floor the night before the vote.
But in the end, with Murkowski's vote, the Senate had a tie, allowing Vance to cast the deciding vote.
Given the total opposition of Democrats to the bill's passage, Republicans in the House could lose no more than three of their own to get the bill to the finish line.
On Wednesday, the last push still felt dubious. Even the procedural vote that is required to move to an actual vote was delayed for hours, as some Republicans considering holding their vote.
Ralph Norman of South Carolina told C-Span after voting against the bill in committee that he opposed the Senate version's inclusion of tax credits for renewable energy and its failure to restrict Chinese investment in American property.
'We have one chance, one moment to curb the spending that has plagued this country and will take this country down if we don't get it under control,' he said. 'What I see right now, I don't like.'
Victoria Spartz of Indiana had withheld support over concerns about increases in the federal debt.
'I'll vote for the bill, since we need to make it happen for our economy & there are some good provisions in it. However, I will vote against the rule due to broken commitments by Speaker Johnson to his own members,' she wrote on X on Wednesday. 'I'm on Plan C now to deal with the looming fiscal catastrophe.'
Spartz referred to a promise Johnson made to fiscal conservatives that he would not bring a budget bill to a vote if it increased the debt beyond a certain amount. Spartz said this bill exceeded the agreed-upon amount by about $500bn.
Shortly before midnight there were five Republicans voting no on the procedural rule. But deals were still being made – executive orders promised and other negotiations done on the floor.
Once again Trump stepped in, joining the speaker, Mike Johnson, in coaxing the party members to cast their final approval. The president called several House members and posted on his Truth Social account. 'What are the Republicans waiting for??? What are you trying to prove??? MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT'S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!' he wrote early on Thursday morning.
Johnson held the vote open for seven hours, the longest vote recorded. And it worked. On Thursday morning, Norman voted yes to advance the bill.
So did Andrew Clyde of Georgia, a notable second amendment rights activist in Congress, who failed in his push for an amendment to the bill to remove the registration requirement for firearms suppressors, short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns from the National Firearms Act, creating a path for legal civilian use without registration and paying a federal tax.
The holdouts fell into line, and the House voted early on Thursday morning 219-213 in a procedural vote to move forward.
There was still a way to go. Johnson had expected to open the vote at 8am. But the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, commandeered the dais for more than eight hours – setting a record previously held by the Republican Kevin McCarthy – in a marathon stemwinder of a speech attacking the perils of the legislation and delaying the vote.
But Johnson remained confident after a night of promises and threats.
Massie remained the face of conservative holdouts on the bill. He has faced withering personal attacks from Trump on social media, the creation of a Super Pac to fund a primary challenge and local advertisements attacking his stance on the bill.
In the end it was only Massie and Brian Fitzpatrick, a congressman in Pennsylvania who voted for Kamala Harris last year, who voted against a bill that will now rewrite the American political landscape.