Senate Republicans advance Trump’s tax and spending cuts bill after dramatic late-night vote

WASHINGTON AP Senate Republicans voting in a dramatic late Saturday session narrowly cleared a key procedural step as they race to advance President Donald Trump s package of tax breaks spending cuts and bolstered deportation funds by his July Fourth deadline The tally - came after a tumultuous night with Vice President JD Vance at the Capitol to break a anticipated tie Tense scenes played out in the chamber as voting came to a standstill dragging for more than three hours as holdout senators huddled for negotiations and took private meetings off the floor In the end two Republicans opposed the motion to proceed joining all Democrats There s still a long weekend of work to come Republicans are using their majorities in Congress to push aside Democratic opposition but they have run into a series of political and framework setbacks Not all GOP lawmakers are on board with proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid food stamps and other programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending particular trillion in Trump tax breaks It s time to get this regulation across the finish line disclosed Senate Majority Leader John Thune R-S D Ahead of roll call the White House issued a comment of administrative approach saying it strongly supports passage of the bill Trump himself was at his golf subject in Virginia on Saturday with GOP senators posting about the visit on social media But by nightfall Trump was lashing out against holdouts threatening to campaign against one Republican Sen Thom Tillis of North Carolina who had broadcasted he could not backing the bill because of grave Medicaid cuts that he worried would leave plenty of without physical condition care in his state Tillis and Sen Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against The president was working the phones from the Oval Office late Saturday night according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity Pressure was mounting from all sides billionaire Elon Musk criticized the package as utterly insane and destructive The -page One Big Beautiful Bill Act was issued shortly before midnight Friday and senators are expected to grind through all-night debate and amendments in the days ahead If the Senate is able to pass it the bill would go back to the House for a final round of votes before it could reach the White House With the narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate leaders need almost every lawmaker on board A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office commented the Senate bill would increase by million the number of people without robustness insurance in Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York disclosed Republicans unveiled the bill in the dead of night and are rushing to finish the bill before the society fully knows what s in it He promptly forced a full reading of the text late Saturday in the Senate which would take hours Make-or-break moment for GOP The weekend session could be a make-or-break moment for Trump s party which has invested much of its political capital on his signature domestic procedures plan Trump is pushing Congress to wrap it up and has admonished the grandstanders among GOP holdouts to fall in line The act is an ambitious but complicated series of GOP priorities At its core it would make permanent several of the tax breaks from Trump s first term that would otherwise expire by year s end if Congress fails to act resulting in a feasible tax increase on Americans The bill would add new breaks including no taxes on tips and commit billion to national assurance including for Trump s mass deportation agenda But the cutbacks to Medicaid food stamps and green capacity investments which a top Democrat Sen Ron Wyden of Oregon announced would be a death sentence for America s wind and solar industries are also causing dissent within GOP ranks The Republicans are relying on the reductions to offset the lost tax revenues but several lawmakers say the cuts go too far particularly for people receiving medical care through Medicaid Meanwhile conservatives worried about the nation s debt are pushing for steeper cuts Tillis mentioned he spoke with Trump late Friday explaining his concerns Paul of Kentucky had been opposed to the bill s provision to raise the nation s debt limit by trillion And GOP Sen Ron Johnson of Wisconsin who initially voted no switched hours later after private talks to agree to advance the bill As the roll call teetered attention turned to Sen Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who was surrounded by GOP leaders in intense conversation She voted to proceed A short time later Thune drew conservative holdouts Sen Rick Scott of Florida Mike Lee of Utah and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming to his office with Vance and Johnson also joining Talks dragged on Then swiftly Vance led them all back in to vote Later Scott noted he had met with the president adding We all want to get to yes Lee disclosed the group had an internal discussion about the strategy to achieve more savings and more deficit reduction and I feel good about the direction where this is going and more to come After setbacks Republicans revise several proposals The release of the bill s draft had been delayed as the Senate parliamentarian reviewed the measure to ensure it complied with the chamber s strict Byrd Rule named for the late Sen Robert C Byrd D-W Va It largely bars framework matters from inclusion in budget bills unless a provision can get votes to overcome objections That would be a tall order in a Senate with a - GOP edge and Democrats unified against Trump s bill Republicans suffered a series of setbacks after several proposals including shifting food stamp costs from the federal governing body to the states or gutting the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were deemed out of compliance with the rules But over the past days Republicans have speedily revised those proposals and reinstated them The final text includes a proposal for cuts to the Medicaid provider tax that had run into parliamentary hurdles and objections from several senators worried about the fate of rural hospitals The new version extends the start date for those cuts and establishes a billion fund to aid rural hospitals and providers The CBO had noted that under the House-passed version of the bill specific million more people would go without physical condition care and at least million fewer would qualify for food aid The budget office has started releasing initial assessments of the Senate draft which proposes steeper reductions Top income-earners would see about a tax cut under the House bill while the package would cost the poorest Americans the CBO commented SALT dispute shakes things up The Senate included a compromise over the so-called SALT provision a deduction for state and local taxes that has been a top priority of lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states but the issue remains unsettled The current SALT cap is a year and a handful of Republicans demanded to boost it to a year The final draft includes a cap but limits it for five years Multiple Republican senators say that is still too generous but House Republicans are not fully satisfied either House Speaker Mike Johnson sent his colleagues home for the weekend with plans to be on call to return to Washington Associated Press writers Ali Swenson Fatima Hussein Michelle L Price and Matthew Daly contributed to this overview