Trump’s big bill keeps senators in tense, overnight session as July 4th deadline nears

The vote-a-rama spiraled into a marathon session as Republican leaders tried to find more support for Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
The Senate is slogging through a tense overnight session that has dragged into Tuesday, with Republican leaders searching for ways to secure support for President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts while fending off proposed amendments, mostly from Democrats trying to defeat the package.An endgame appeared to be taking shape. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota spent the night reaching for last-minute agreements between those in his party worried the bill’s reductions to Medicaid will leave millions without care and his most conservative flank, which wants even steeper cuts to hold down deficits ballooning with the tax cuts.Vice President JD Vance arrived at the Capitol, on hand to break a tie vote if needed.It’s a pivotal moment for the Republicans, who have control of Congress and are racing to wrap up work with just days to go before Trump’s holiday deadline Friday. The 940-page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as it’s formally titled, has consumed Congress as its shared priority with the president.At the same time House Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled more potential problems ahead, warning the Senate package could run into trouble when it is sent back to the House for a final round of voting, as skeptical lawmakers are being called back to Washington ahead of Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.In a midnight social media post urging them on, Trump called the bill “perhaps the greatest and most important of its kind.” Vice President JD Vance summed up his own series of posts, simply imploring senators to “Pass the bill.”What started as a routine, but laborious day of amendment voting, in a process called vote-a-rama, spiraled into an almost round-the-clock marathon as Republican leaders were buying time to shore up support.The droning roll calls in the chamber belied the frenzied action to steady the bill. Grim-faced scenes played out on and off the Senate floor, and tempers flared.The GOP leaders have no room to spare, with narrow majorities in both chambers. Thune can lose no more than three Republican senators, and already two—Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who warns people will lose access to Medicaid health care, and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who opposes raising the debt limit by $5 trillion—have indicated opposition.Attention quickly turned to key senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, who have also wroked to stem the the health care cuts, but also a loose coalition of four conservative GOP senators pushing for even steeper reductions.Murkowski in particular was the subject of the GOP leadership’s attention, as Thune and others sat beside her in conversation.Then all eyes were on Paul after he returned from a visit to Thune’s office with a stunning offer that could win his vote. He had suggested substantially lowering the debt ceiling, according to two people familiar with the private meeting and granted anonymity to discuss it.And on social media, billionaire Elon Musk was again lashing out at Republicans as “the PORKY PIG PARTY!!” for including the $5 trillion debt limit provision, which is needed to allow continued borrowing to pay the bills.Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said his side was working to show “how awful this is.”“Republicans are in shambles because they know the bill is so unpopular,” Schumer said as he walked the halls.A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law. The CBO said the package would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade.https://www.fastcompany.com/91361270/trumps-big-bill-keeps-senators-tense-overnight-session-july-4th-deadline-nears