Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Clears Key Vote, but a Third Republican Defects
“Trump is committed to keeping his promises, and failure to pass this bill would be the ultimate betrayal.”
After numerous delays and considerable drama, Senate Republicans succeeded in advancing President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” on Saturday night by a narrow 51–49 margin. This critical procedural vote now brings the legislation to the Senate floor for full debate.
All Senate Democrats voted against advancing the measure. With the exception of Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Rand Paul (R-KY), every Republican senator voted in favor of moving it forward.
Trump: Tonight we saw a GREAT VICTORY in the Senate with the “GREAT, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” but, it wouldn’t have happened without the Fantastic Work of Senator Rick Scott, Senator Mike Lee, Senator Ron Johnson, and Senator Cynthia Lummis. They, along with all of the other…
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 29, 2025
The bad news is that Tillis announced on Saturday afternoon he would vote no on the final bill. This poses a serious problem, as the bill needs at least 51 votes to pass. Before Tillis’s announcement, GOP Sens. Paul and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin had already declared their opposition.
With these three defections, Republicans are now at the limit of how many votes they can afford to lose — if they lose even one more, the bill will fail. This razor-thin margin gives other GOP senators significant leverage to demand concessions or secure special provisions for their own states.
In a statement, Tillis claimed that passage of the measure:
[W]ould result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina, including our hospitals and rural communities. This will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population, and even reducing critical services for those in the traditional Medicaid population.
The “expansion population” refers to adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level who became eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, according to health policy research site KFF. Since its inception in 2014, 41 states (including the District of Columbia) have adopted and implemented this program.
GOP NC Sen Tillis on Big, Beautiful Bill:
I will always do what is in the best interest of North Carolina, even when that puts me at odds with my own party. When Senate leaders of my party presented this bill, I did what every American should expect from their U.S. Senator: I…
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 28, 2025
Needless to say, Trump was not pleased with Tillis’s grandstanding. In a post on Truth Social, he wrote:
“Looks like Senator Thom Tillis, as usual, wants to tell the Nation that he’s giving them a 68% Tax Increase, as opposed to the Big Beautiful Bill – Biggest Tax Cut in American History! Thom Tillis is making a BIG MISTAKE for America, and the Wonderful People of North Carolina!”
President Trump just announced on RINO: "Looks like Senator Thom Tillis, as usual, wants to tell the Nation that he’s giving them a 68% Tax Increase, as opposed to the Big Beautiful Bill – Biggest Tax Cut in American History! Thom Tillis is making a BIG MISTAKE for America, and… pic.twitter.com/2B7q36T5pA
— AJ Huber (@Huberton) June 29, 2025
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made Trump’s position clear in a social media post: “Trump is committed to keeping his promises, and failure to pass this bill would be the ultimate betrayal.”
🇺🇸 WHITE HOUSE: NOT PASSING TRUMP’S MEGABILL = “ULTIMATE BETRAYAL”
The Trump admin just issued a full-caps emotional ultimatum to Congress:
Pass the megabill – or stab the base in the back.White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt:
“ Trump is committed to keeping his… https://t.co/m7zDvBWP0X pic.twitter.com/nmgmG2FjXl
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 28, 2025
The drama on the first vote leads to Q: What will it take to pass final bill?
Collins isn't a yes yet on final (wants less Medicaid cuts)
Without her vote, they need to flip Tillis (wants House Medicaid approach), Rand (remove debt ceiling), or RonJohn (more deficit reduction
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) June 29, 2025
Although Sen. Susan Collins of Maine voted to advance the bill, she has indicated that she wants to see certain changes before she is willing to support its final passage. Collins told Fox News, “If the bill is not further changed, I will be leaning against the bill, but I do believe this procedural vote to get on the bill so that people can offer amendments and debate it is appropriate.”
On a more positive note, Sen. Josh Hawley who had previously withheld his support over the cuts to Medicaid in his state now supports the bill.
On Saturday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that once the Republicans voted to advance the legislation, he would force the Senate clerk to read the entire 940-page bill on the Senate floor before debate could begin, an exercise that would delay the process by about 12 hours. Although it’s petty, Sen. Johnson forced the clerks to read former President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID bill aloud on the Senate floor in March 2021.
The last time the Senate Clerks were required to verbally read an entire bill was Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in 2021. Johnson required the Senate clerks to verbally read all 628 pages of a $1.9 trillion COVID bill in early March 2021.
It took 10 hours and 43 minutes.
Late Sen.…
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 28, 2025
Much of this drama is business as usual in the final stages of passing legislation in Congress, which is why the process is often compared to watching “sausage being made.” It is messy, contentious, and unpredictable. In the end, it falls to leadership to negotiate with holdouts and make compromises and concessions to secure enough votes to pass the bill.
Because this bill represents Trump’s entire domestic agenda, he has been and will continue to exert tremendous pressure on the holdouts. Trump has remained in Washington this weekend to help Senate Majority Leader John Thune advance this legislation.
A Senate vote on the final bill could come as early as Monday. And then the measure heads back to the House where even more negotiations will take place.
On Friday, as progress on the bill appeared to be stalling, Trump signaled some flexibility on the July 4 deadline. During a White House press conference, he said, “It’s important. It’s not the end-all. But we’d like to get it done in that time, if possible.”
As chaotic as this process is, I believe it will ultimately pass.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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Comments
A good.case for why certain territories (or Canada) will never become states when the margins are this close.
Welcome to 4 trillion dollars in new national debt.
It’s funny watching you pretend to care about debt.
“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country! Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.” — Elon Musk
So all of a sudden the failed fake-Conservative lawyer from Iowa is a Musk fan?
What a loser.
“Industries of the future” now means, from his mouth, more subsidized wind and solar.
I have far more confidence in Musk than in Obama’s Solyndra. But on the other hand, now it’s clearer that wind and solar have intractable problems, problems that even our best technologists like Musk have been unable to solve, having surely tried.
it even funnier watching him think that he can calculate the national debt
We should not subsidize wind and solar. If we stop subsidizing new tech maybe it or alternate energy sources will be developed more completely and quickly rather than being put into mass production prematurely.
We’ve always cared about the debt. We know RINOs like Trump never did.
Give us liberty from your line of bullshit, Pat.
Jerk-off Retard, I don’t recall you expressing a scintilla of opprobrium when dotard-crime boss, Biden, was running up the national debt.
Your claimed/feigned advocacy for fiscal prudence and thrift is as hypocritical, insincere and theatrical as all your other stances.
I have always been a Rand Paul supporter on budget issues.
We now know for sure that Trump and his supporters are lying when they say they are fiscal conservatives who want to cut spending, balance the budget, and reduce the deficit.
Shall we wait for your reaction once Rand Paul is primaried along with Tillis?
Our reaction will be that Republicans love to attack good conservatives instead of bad Republicans.
This bill is full of liberal dreams instead of being a solid conservative bill. That’s our problem. You love liberal policies I guess, but we knew that once you said you wanted to primary Rand Paul.
“I have always been a Rand Paul supporter on budget issues.”
This is a lie.
“We now know for sure that Trump and his supporters are lying when they say they are fiscal conservatives who want to cut spending, balance the budget, and reduce the deficit.”
This is another lie.
But, is the issue JR changing position? No. The real issue is more and more spending from the president that ran on a ticket of cutting spending.
And before you jump up and down on me, I voted for the man three times. We had no other choice.
It’s tough because the Senate Parliamentarian cut out a lot of the things that would have mitigated the additional spending.
Still, there are important things in this bill that are heavy lifts, and we should try to get it done.
This is not a budget bill. The 4T includes a tax cut already in existance. It does not take into account growth, lower interest rates or revenue from tarrifs that are significant. There should be reconciliation bills for spending cuts.. I don’t thing we can right the whole ship with one BBB.
Bingo. Trump was supposed to fight for spending cuts and now rewarding liberals with SALT increases.
Be a fighter and install proper conservative policies.
Shut up, you idiot.
I suspect that some sort of comprise will be reached to pass ‘a bill’ out of the Senate; it will not be the same as the HoR approved bill… not even close, heck the version the Senate is currently debating isn’t the same. In conference between HoR and Senate negotiators to find a comprise between the two different bills there’s gonna be more horse trading/sausage making and back room bs. I predict that will make the final compromise even less recognizable from the original stated goals/purposes.
It’s already much different from the House bill, because of so much good stuff that the Senate Parliamentarian could not be included. It’s a much worse budget buster. I thought Thune should have replaced the Parliamentarian, to get better rulings, but only Dems are really willing to play hardball like that.
Indeed the Parliamentarian did…as some predicted before the bill left the HoR ….and got castigated for it. All the talk of future cuts seem very dubious b/c Congress always seems to find a reason not to follow through. Whether power flips to d/prog or some ’emergency’ or some other ‘reason’ it doesn’t happen.
It really should not be that difficult to cut spending. If we go back to FY’19 spending as the ‘cap’ we spend $4.4 trillion. That wasn’t the dark ages it was six years ago. IMO that should have been the goal of POTUS from jump. Sure interest costs went up since and eat more of the budget, crowding out other programs….but not making current year spending cuts just adds to the National debt, making the problem worse.
Tillis is once again grandstanding. The people he acts concerned about are people who will rarely vote for him. Meanwhile he is infuriating the base of people who will. He is very vulnerable this time but events of the moment are bigger than he is.
Tillis needs to be sent packing.
It may very well happen. If he can’t hold the base then he is gone.
It’s a state that can’t even elect a Republican governor. It’s essentially a swing state, and Tillis pays a lot less when he hurts conservatives than if he were to hurt liberals.
Our candidate for Gov last year was so unfit for the job that he took down part of the council of state with him. We elected him as a maverick Lt. Gov and it should have stopped there.
Your candidates for almost everything are abhorrent. Embarrassing for a people as purportedly conservative as North Carolinians. More like: Vaginians.
The GOP-controlled Senate is showcasing its take on drama as it attempts to vote on and pass a budget bill. Some version of the House and Senate bills will eventually be approved, but Congress will likely or, more accurately, intentionally miss the July 4th deadline.
With the smallest of margins, the final bill may very well look like a status quo ante bill. Republicans are rarely conservative deficit hawks unless it is during town hall meetings in front of nodding approval from constituents who are seated there. Talk about it but don’t vote that way or you are gone. If you must cut spending then do it where we aren’t touched by it.
I was very disappointed that Josh Hawley was complaining about the Medicaid stuff. He doesn’t even have to run again til 2030.
The bill could have been a lot better without the blatant political interference of the unelected senate parliamentarian objecting to the repeal of many of the same measures that were perfectly unobjectionable to her under democrat reconciliation packages. She serves at the pleasure of the majority leader. She should be fired.
They’re arguable points and she was appointed by a Dem. I think this would have been the time to replace her, and I think Thune could have done it, but it’s very rare for Reps to actually play hardball. That’s why we lose, because Dems play hardball, “by any means necessary”, while we’re looking for fairness, for the tie. We get let down over and over.
But other countries seem to be even worse.
its easy
give everyone back THEIR OWN SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY
no more robbing from one group to make reparations for others
then people can vote locally if they want to pay a “neighbors tax” for healthcare etc etc and at the least then have the ability to track the money
The problem is from what ‘pot’ of $? The SSA trust fund has IOU (non negotiable Treasury bonds) not cash. Step one would be for the Fed Reserve to ‘create’ the cash with their magic money printer. They’d take the bonds from SSA and give SSA newly created additional cash to hand back aka massive inflation by decreasing the value of existing cash.
Those funds would go not to the bulk of current retirees on SSA but to the current working age population and a very few retirees who’ve been drawing SSA less than 5 years. The fact is 80% of retirees get back 100% of their SSA taxes paid in the first couple years, almost all by 5 years and all but the top 1% of earners by the ten year mark.
There’s gonna be a short fall in funds available to pay to the working age population and the very few retirees who haven’t yet gotten back 100% of their SSA taxes paid. The fairest way to even out the generational shortfall is to claw back enough funds from those current retirees who’ve received SSA funds in excess of their contributions. I suspect there won’t be much political support for such an action. Raiding grandma’s piggy bank and forcing a home sale to free up the equity in the home so she can pay back every cent of SSA $ she received in excess of the SSA taxes she paid to hand over to current working age population and a few retired 1% is gonna be very unpopular.
Then there would be no money to pay the younger participants. It’s damned near impossible to unwind social security now, because it started with a generation that got retirement payments but never contributed. (They called themselves the “Greatest Generation”, modestly.)
Are we now willing to have a generation that contributed but will get nothing?
Tillis is right. The cuts to Medicaid should be removed from the bill. It would then pass easily.
Via Perplexity.ai, “did president trump say that he would not cut medicaid”
Yes, President Trump has repeatedly said that he would not cut Medicaid. Throughout both his 2016 and 2024 campaigns, and during his presidency, Trump publicly stated that he would “save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts”. He has often emphasized that any changes to Medicaid would focus solely on eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse,” and that benefits for recipients would not be reduced.
For example, in a May 2025 appearance on “Meet the Press,” Trump said he would veto any bill that included cuts to Medicaid, stating, “We’re not cutting Medicaid, we’re not cutting Medicare, and we’re not cutting Social Security”. He has also said, “We’re not going to touch it. Now, we are going to look for fraud,” and, “We’re going to love and cherish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. We’re not going to do anything with that, other than if we can find some abuse or waste, we’ll do something, but the people won’t be affected. It will only be more effective and better”.
However, these statements stand in contrast to the actual legislation supported by Trump and House Republicans. The current House-approved bill, which Trump has promoted as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” would make significant changes to Medicaid, including work requirements and eligibility restrictions, and would reduce federal funding by hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade. The Congressional Budget Office estimates these changes could result in millions of people losing coverage.
Multiple fact-checks and policy analyses have found that the majority of these proposed Medicaid changes are not limited to targeting fraud or abuse, but represent substantial policy shifts and funding cuts. Despite Trump’s public assurances, the legislation he supports would, in practice, cut Medicaid spending and reduce coverage for many Americans.
In summary:
Trump has repeatedly said he would not cut Medicaid and would only target “waste, fraud, and abuse”.
The legislation he supports would, in reality, cut Medicaid funding and reduce coverage, despite his public claims.
I think perplexity.ai is perplexed. Or intentionally biased, hoping that nobody can remember stuff. But like Pepperidge Farm, I remember.
Trump promised to save Social Security retirement and Medicare. He did not promise to save Medicaid.
the only cuts are eliminating illegals and scammers from the program
So federal funding for Medicaid Expansion will not be changed? I think you are mistaken.
The distinction is in your own description.
Medicare, the traditional program, is NOT being cut. The work requirements are not a ‘cut’ but rather a change in eligibility requirements.
The ‘expansion’ portion of Medicaid, which is less than two decades old and a result of Obama care wrangling, isn’t part of traditional Medicare. It literally expanded eligibility to those with incomes well over the ‘poverty line’ which significantly altered the entire character of the Medicare program.
Changing eligibility requirements and reverting to traditional Medicare guardrail on the target beneficiaries aka those unable to work via significant disability isn’t a ‘cut’. Nobody who could be classified as part of the ‘virtuous poor’ is gonna lose eligibility.
I would suggest that a vast majority of the voting public would agree that able bodied adults without young children under 14 being required to work, volunteer, attend school 20 hours a week is not a high hurdle to retain eligibility.
CommoChief, Thanks for your thoughtful response.
The Medicaid income limit for a single woman in Florida is $4,224 per year (32% of FPL). In California, it’s $20,784 (138% of FPL).
Does that seem reasonable to you?
This is simply false. Actually, it’s complexly false. Republicans are using a deception to decrease federal contributions to state expenses for regular Medicaid without requiring a two-thirds majority. This is the kind of thing Democrats do. It’s despicable.
Scott Adams had a lengthy rant about it yesterday.
I am reading conflicting descriptions of what the BBB is capable of doing. Many say that it is restricted in how much budget cutting it can do while still being able to pass with a simple majority. This is said to explain why many changes suggested by DOGE cannot be included, therefore resulting in little or no reduction in budget debt and the national debt.
The amount of dissembling on both sides of the aisle on this is disgusting.
It’s not dissembling. It’s understanding some things about how the Senate works. What you describe after “Many say” is correct. Read up on the Byrd Rule, Reconciliation and the role of the Senate Parliamentarian.
David Stockman, the only man who really understood the US federal budget, and who got in trouble with Ronald Regan for telling the truth, has a detailed article on “Washington’s Fiscal Doomsday.
https:// brownstone dot org/articles/washingtons-fiscal-doomsday/
Everyone should read this before they cheer Trump’s BBB. Stockman’s article is full of numbers, and most people hate numbers. Many people can’t even do simple fractions: 1/2 + 1/3 = ? Try asking family members or people you work with. This is fourth grade stuff. Stockman presents lots of trillion-dollar figures. How many people, especially politicians, understand how big a trillion is?
Stockman: “If Washington does nothing except leave current tax, spending, and structural deficit policies in place (i.e. baseline policy), the publicly-held debt will grow by $102 trillion over the next three decades, reaching a staggering 154% of what would be $85 trillion of GDP by 2054.”
“Stated differently, the underlying CBO projections presume that there will be no recession during the 34-year span from 2020 to 2054, and that, in fact, there will be perpetual full employment at about 4% from here on out.”
Of course most of our current pols won’t even be alive in 30 years. The future is someone else’s problem. What needs to be done now won’t be done. Democracy is a terrible system as New York City is about to find out. When they go broke, they will run to the feds for a bail out as they did in 1975. Who will bail out the US?
Considering that NYC is loaded with those that rely on tips, it should be amusing to watch Schumer justify his vote against no tax on tips
I don’t have a view on “no tax on tips”, on the one hand I can give somebody money taxfree, on the other hand if it’s their main source of income why shouldn’t it be taxed like anyone else’s.
But it’s good to remove that tax, because the reporting is a nightmare. Now they’re assuming a server gets 15% tips. What if they get less than that because customers hate them. Are they now required to pay income tax on more than they actually made? And all the records required to calculate that 15% are bad invasions of privacy too.
“Now they’re assuming a server gets 15% tips. What if they get less than that because customers hate them.”
That would be a feature, not a bug. Same as welfare for sluggards that even their own families can’t stand.
You want someone taxed on money they did not receive? That’s bizarre is the nicest thing I can say about it.
I don’t have a view on “no tax on tips”, on the one hand I can give somebody money taxfree, on the other hand if it’s their main source of income why shouldn’t it be taxed like anyone else’s.
Because IT’S A GIFT.
At least, it’s a gift in restaurants that don’t require it. In those the tax should fall on the restaurant owner–and that tax should be 200% of all income. Because they’re trying to DEMAND that gift……in lieu of paying their workers better.
It should never fall on the recipient because they don’t ask for it.
The government has no right to tax gifts.
I am just now reading that Tillis will now not run again next year.
So either (1) he’ll go out with a bang and there’s no way to get him to a “yes” on the bill or (2) he’s totally for sale at this point and let the bidding begin. Probably the latter.
….and the gullible redhat boogerpicks cheer as ‘THE MORON’ breaks his promise to cut the deficit and pay down the debt. The This conman has turned the GOP into a joke with no moral compass ( he IS a felon, BTW) and no intellectual center. He says the most moronic ,inane nonsense every day and they all just yawn.