(WASHINGTON) — After a marathon three days of debate and drama, Senate Republicans on Tuesday wrangled just enough votes to pass President Donald Trump’s major tax and immigration bill.
The Senate deadlocked 50-50 before Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote.
“Wow,” Trump said as he learned of the news in real time while touring a new migrant detention center in Florida dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” He said he would return to Washington soon to celebrate.
Senate Democrats, though, managed to deal a final symbolic blow just ahead of final passage by having the title of his signature “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” stricken as violating reconciliation rules.
Headwinds likely in House
The legislation now heads back to the House for final approval — but it’s likely to face some headwinds there.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is operating with a razor-thin Republican majority. He can afford only three defections if all members are voting and present.
Already, some GOP fiscal hawks are expressing dismay at Senate changes to the bill that previously passed the House by a single vote.
Overall, the Senate version includes roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts, new funding for border security and fulfills some of Trump’s campaign pledges such as no taxes on tips and overtime.
It also guts Biden-era clean energy initiatives; slashes entitlement health programs like Medicaid and SNAP, which are intended to help the nation’s most vulnerable Americans; and includes a plan to lift the cap on the state and local tax deduction, currently set at $10,000, to $40,000.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the Senate bill would add roughly $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years — roughly $1 trillion more than the version passed by the House back in May.
The CBO also found that 11.8 million people could go uninsured over the next decade due to cuts in Medicaid, which emerged as a critical issue among several of the Senate Republican holdouts.
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy said he is “not inclined to vote” for the legislation as amended, though Roy has repeatedly threatened to withhold support on previous critical vote only to ultimately side with the president.
Roy said “the overall deficit number is not good” in the bill the Senate passed, suggesting it violates the House’s budget framework.
“It’s front-loaded versus back-loaded, as we all know. I think it got worse. I think SALT got worse. It got more expensive,” he added.
House leaders, though, are vowing to plow ahead to take up the bill as expeditiously as possible to meet the president’s self-imposed July 4 deadline.
“This bill is President Trump’s agenda, and we are making it law. House Republicans are ready to finish the job,” Johnson and other GOP leaders said in a statement just after Senate passage.
Next steps and possible timing
The first step will be to have the House Rules Committee convene early Tuesday afternoon to markup the bill and set parameters for floor debate and consideration of the bill.
Once the bill clears the Rules Committee, it will head to the House floor for a debate and a vote on the rule, which could occur as early as Wednesday morning.
Finally, the House will then move to a vote on final passage. It remains unclear when the House will hold a final vote, though it would be the last step before the bill is sent to President Trump’s desk.
Republican Rep. Andy Harris, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News on Tuesday that the Senate bill is “not ready for prime time.”
“We’ll get there eventually, but I don’t think it’s going to be in the next couple days,” Harris said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, celebrating after ushering the bill through his own divided conference, noted the difficulty House Republicans might have in passing the package as it now heads their way, but said he delivered them a “strong product.”
“I think we took what they sent us and strengthened and improved upon it. And so I’m hopeful that now, when it gets sent over there, as they deliberate about how they want to handle it, they’ll find the goals that are necessary to pass it,” Thune told reporters at the Capitol.
Trump told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce he believed the legislation would have an “easier” time in the House.
“There is something for everyone,” the president said when asked for his message to Republican holdouts. “And I think it’s going to go very nicely in the House. Actually, I think it will be easier in the House than it was in the Senate.”
ABC News’ Isabella Murray, Mariam Khan and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
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