How Trump got his One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed

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0:39Dan Merica:So the median age in Congress is 57, which is a bit older than me. And I definitely cannot pull an all-nighter. Like, I go to bed at 930. Like, could you guys, I mean, I guess, Theo, you have, but like, how do these Congress people stay up all night? Sleep has played a large role in this bill's passage with it almost not passing the House because of somebody falling asleep off of the House floor. Is that true? Yes, you're referring to back when it first passed the House. Yes. In May, when Congressman Andrew Garbarino, a Republican of New York, fell asleep and missed the vote. No. The bill passed anyway.

1:20I saw that James Blair, who's the top White House aide, tweeted a few hours ago that Congressman Garbarino was awake this time around.

1:34Dan Merica:From the newsroom of The Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Cole Biekowitz, politics reporter and host of Post Reports Weekly Politics Roundtables. It's Thursday, July 3rd. I'm joined this week by Theo Meyer, who covers the Senate for The Post. Hey, Theo. Hello. And we're here with Dan Merica, politics reporter and co-anchor of the Early Brief newsletter. Hey, Dan. Thank you for having me. So we're talking about the push this week to pass President Donald Trump's signature tax and spending bill through Congress. We've talked about it a lot on this show. And just as a reminder, this is a bill that would lock in tax cuts, reduce benefits for low-income Americans, add to the national debt, and put more money towards Trump's signature issue, which is increasing deportations.

2:22Dan Merica:Today, we're going to get into all the drama, the deals that were cut to try to get it across the finish line, and the political repercussions of this bill. Here's where things stand. We're talking at almost 10 in the morning on Thursday. The bill eked through the Senate on Tuesday, and now it's back in the House. And many will remember, as we talked about earlier, the House already passed this bill back in May. But for it to get to the president's desk, the House has to pass it again because the text changed so significantly in the Senate. The House pulled an all-nighter, and several of our colleagues were up there with them.

2:54Dan Merica:So this morning we got an update from congressional economics reporter at The Post, Jacob Bogage, about when the action started to heat up. You know, I'm sitting here in Congress, and it's 11 p.m., and nothing's happening. And it's midnight and nothing's happening. And it's 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. and, you know, nothing's happening. And finally, at 3 a.m., we get some action. They vote on the rule. They pass the rule. By the skin of their teeth, they do it. So passing the rule for debate, it's procedural congressional jargon, but ultimately it means that the bill itself is likely to pass now. So there are enough Republicans on board.

3:34Dan Merica:Are you guys surprised at how quickly it's moved through the House? I thought it could have gone a little bit slower, but I'm not surprised that it's passing by July 4th. You're not. No, I mean, I think this really highlights how the Republican Party is now molded, shaped into the party of Donald Trump. I mean, you look back at his first term, there were so many people in both the House and Senate who were anti-Trump for one reason or another, or at least were willing to stand up to him. Yeah. Eight years later, whatever we're at now, it's completely different. I mean, you have people who are quote-unquote holdouts who have issues with the bill, who express those issues on social media and get some attention for it.

4:14But in the end, they mostly folded. And it's because, in large measure, of the threat of Donald Trump and what his kind of MAGA movement could do in a Republican primary.

4:26Dan Merica:Yeah, what do we know about what happened overnight? Do we know kind of what was happening behind the scenes? We don't know exactly what was happening behind the scenes. That is part of what we and our colleagues will be trying to figure out today. But there was sort of a gradual process over the course of yesterday. There were several actually sort of preliminary votes that people were holding out on. And at first, it was a group of maybe two dozen people, a mix of moderate House Republicans who had concerns about parts of the bill, especially the deeper Medicaid funding cuts included in the Senate version.

5:05and then a group of hardline conservatives, most of whom are members of the House Freedom Caucus, who wanted this bill to cut further, were upset about some changes the Senate made that they thought made the bill less conservative and were really angry that it added to the deficit as much as it does. I think what was really interesting yesterday is you could see the messaging change over time. You know, in the morning and afternoon hours, it was all, I mean, I think the president even posted something like this. We're united. It was all very positive and this is going to happen. But as the afternoon turned to night, turned to post midnight, you saw a lot of people around Trump begin to basically threaten members who were holding out.

5:48Jason Miller is a longtime advisor, basically said, this is a binary choice. You're with us or against us. It really highlights how, okay, the Trump side of the party is willing to have people who are holdouts, who have questions, who need to go to the White House to meet with the president and have their arm twisted a little bit. And that's what happened yesterday. But in the end, they made very clear that if you were not with Republicans on this, you were against Donald Trump. And that has major repercussions in midterm races, which all of these House members will face. And we saw in the first term how that can play out.

6:23There were a number of people who stood up to the president in one way or another, and eventually either didn't run for re-election or lost.

6:30Dan Merica:And Theo, I know we're still reporting out kind of the details of those negotiations overnight, but as far as I can tell, those holdouts didn't really didn't get anything. I don't know what was promised them, but. It's a very different situation than in the Senate when Senate Majority Leader John Thune was trying to put together 50 Republican votes to pass this bill in the Senate early Tuesday morning. He was negotiating with them over the bill text, was making changes that Lisa Murkowski wanted. Of Alaska. At least, yes, Senator Lisa Murkowski, the independent-minded, moderate Republican senator from Alaska.

7:09Thune was making changes to, you know, try to win her over, was trying to win over, you know, other senators as well. The challenge for House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, is that he couldn't really offer them anything. He had decided it's the Senate bill that's the only way to send this to the president's desk by July 4th. We don't want to have to try to get this through the Senate again if we make changes. So we're not going to change this bill. We can't really offer our members anything other than, one, assurances that we'll try to cut spending or do whatever else you want at some date in the future, which seems possible.

7:50But it's always easier to say you'll do something in the future than do it immediately. And two, you know, pledging that Trump will issue executive orders or, you know, enforce certain things in ways that members want.

8:03Dan Merica:Theo, I'm glad you brought up the Senate because there were three notable no votes in the Senate, three senators they couldn't get on board. Tell me about them and kind of what their holdups were. Yes, that's right. There were three. The first was Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. It had been known for weeks, if not months, that he was almost certainly going to be a no on this bill. His objection was pretty simple. One thing this bill does is raise the debt limit by$5 trillion. It doesn't accumulate any debt itself. It's just to authorize the United States borrowing more money to keep everything going.

8:45So Paul's concern was the debt limit. He said he would vote to raise the debt limit by$500 billion, which would last a few months, but not$5 trillion, which would likely last a few years. And Republicans really wanted to do a big number so they didn't have to do this again. Paul was very against it and said he wouldn't vote for the bill if it included that. And he held out. The second senator was Senator Susan Collins of Maine. probably the most moderate Republican in the Senate. She is the only Republican in the Senate to represent a state that Kamala Harris won in November. She is up for reelection next year.

9:33I think she tried to get to yes, but it's not surprising that she ended up voting no. The third Republican who was against it was more of a surprise, Senator Tom Tillis, also up for reelection next year.

9:48Dan Merica:In North Carolina. In North Carolina, yes. Republican of North Carolina. You know, a swing state, a state that Donald Trump won narrowly. Tillis, I think most people thought was going to get to yes. But he said late last week that he was going to vote no, at least on starting debate on the bill. And then he did vote no. Trump attacked him on social media, threatened to recruit a primary challenger against him. And in a very surprising move, the next day, on Sunday, Tillis came out and said, I'm done. I'm not running for reelection. I'm voting no on this bill. That's it. It's wild. I mean, Tillis, as far as I remember, has always been considered a pretty conservative Republican, right?

10:32Dan Merica:So for him to come out and say that he had all these concerns about the loss of Medicaid coverage for his constituents was pretty surprising. I mean, I think it gets to a policy issue in this bill that is going to turn into a political issue in this bill as time goes on. And many of these Republicans represent states where there are a number of rural hospitals that serve tens of thousands of people. Those hospitals will be directly impacted by the cuts to Medicaid. Rural hospitals more so than other hospitals rely on Medicaid reimbursement to basically keep the doors open because it is so expensive to provide medical care in rural areas.

11:07And that was a big reason that he had an issue. It's a reason that many Democrats, probably the biggest reason that some Democrats had with this bill. It's a huge reason that some Republicans in the House had an issue with this bill, but then eventually went along and voted to move it along. It is the issue that Murkowski said she had with this bill, but then she won over some concessions that helped Alaska in that department.

11:31Dan Merica:Dan, I'm glad you brought up Murkowski because the concessions that she got in order to vote for this bill have gotten a lot of criticism. She spoke to our colleague, congressional reporter Mariana Sotomayor in the hallways right after she voted yes. So let's take a listen to that. Kill it and the provisions that are going to be very helpful for economic development in my state would no longer be available. Kill It and the provisions that we got to soften the impact on Medicaid recipients, on our hospitals, particularly our small community hospitals, that would all be gone. And so this is probably the most difficult and agonizing legislative 24-hour period that I have encountered.

12:25And I've been here quite a while.

12:26Dan Merica:So Theo, what exactly did she get for Alaska that got her to yes? So Lisa Murkowski was faced with a choice. Republicans were going to find a way to pass this bill. Like if she had voted no on Tuesday, perhaps it could have derailed it for a little bit. But this bill contains most of President Trump's agenda for his second term. It's his top priority. There was just no way that they weren't going to pass this bill eventually. So she faced a choice of voting for a bill that she had a lot of concerns about, but that included some stuff that she and other senators had fought really hard to get in that would help her state.

13:12or voting no, having Republican senators cater to a different senator to win over a 50th vote and risk having all of the stuff that she thought was good about the bill stripped out. The biggest thing was a$50 billion rural hospital fund. This was something that multiple Republican senators had demanded because of the concerns that the cuts to Medicaid in this bill would hurt rural hospitals in their state. So the idea that they came up with was a special fund to help rural hospitals that were hurt by the other policies in this bill.

13:53Dan Merica:And is that just in Alaska or is that across the country? It's across the country. Republicans have tried to say, though, that this bill does not impact Medicaid and does not hurt rural hospitals. But the mere existence of a fund, a$50 billion fund to help rural hospitals is sort of like a billboard saying that this bill actually does hurt rural hospitals and here's what we're doing to help them. It is interesting that that is what got Lisa Murkowski over the line. I think when we talk about the politics of this bill, though, that sort of deal undermines the messaging that Republicans have had on this bill throughout the entire process.

14:29Dan Merica:And she also said, this to another reporter, I think, that she was voting for it, hoping that the House would change it. So she was voting for something she didn't like, crossing her fingers that the House would change it. Obviously, now we're seeing that the House has not changed it. Pork Works is probably a good bumper sticker for getting Murkowski on board here. She would bristle at the idea that it is pork because it is going to help her state and the people that she represents. But I mean, pork is effectively anything that is added to a bill as a bit of a sweetener, trying to get someone on side.

15:02But, you know, this is why it's interesting that, you know, Donald Trump kind of ran against being the status quo. He ran against changing politics, draining the swamp. A big part of, in the eyes of many Trump voters, a big reason that the swamp is the swamp is because of pork-filled bills that just dole out cash taxpayers' money to do X, Y, and Z that doesn't end up, you know, matching the focus of the bill. But now here we are, you know, a decade into kind of Trump's political time. And pork still works. It still works. It still gets people on side, including on side of a bill that Donald Trump really wants to pass and sign before July 4th.

15:43Dan Merica:We're going to get to the politics of this. We've talked about some of the bargains struck in the Senate. And after the break, we're going to go a bit deeper on the fallout from this bill and why it's making Democrats a little bit more optimistic about the 2026 midterms. We'll be right back.

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17:19So we talked about this a little bit, and Dan, you made some great points on this.

17:23Dan Merica:But, you know, one big change between the Senate version of this bill compared to that earlier House version is that the Senate's version made even deeper cuts to Medicaid. Obviously, that's the government health insurance for low-income Americans. More than 11 million people could lose health care. And Tom Tillis, the North Carolina senator, in his speech condemning the bill, warned Republicans not to repeat the mistakes they made with the Affordable Care Act during the Obama administration. Dan, what was he talking about? So Democrats suffered significant losses in the midterms immediately after the passage of the Affordable Care Act because in many respects voters were frustrated with the way that the bill was rolled out.

18:02They had also seen the process, seen the bill pass, but had yet to feel the impacts of the bill. And that damaged Democrats at the time. And so that's what Tom Tillis of North Carolina was warning Republicans of. I think the other interesting aspect of this is the 2018 midterms, which was the first midterms under Donald Trump. They attempted to repeal Obamacare. They failed to do that. But it was still the main Democratic attack during the midterms that saw the party sweep into the House pretty convincingly. So there are a lot of Democrats right now who look at this bill, they think it's an abomination, but they also think it's a political winner for them.

18:44You could see an ad very easily in a few months that says, you know, Republicans passed this bill, gave tax breaks to wealthy earners and took away health care for lower income Americans. And that's what their priority was.

18:58Dan Merica:And Democrats, you know, we mentioned earlier that Tillis, he's not running for reelection now in North Carolina. North Carolina has been a state that Democrats have hoped to win back for several cycles now. Theo, how are Democrats feeling about that specific turn of events? Do they feel like North Carolina is now in play? Well, North Carolina and Maine, where Susan Collins is up for re-election, were already the two states that Democrats were targeting. Every other Republican, you know, running for re-election or Republican-held seat that is up is a state that Donald Trump won by more than 10 points.

19:37These are places that are increasingly forbidding terrain for Democrats like Iowa, you know, places like Texas, places like Ohio. These are states that are not easy for Democrats to win anymore. So there was always going to be a huge focus on North Carolina next year. But certainly having an open seat is, you know, probably easier for Democrats to win. than running against Tillis, who has won tough races before. I think Democrats came into this cycle very worried about any path in the Senate. And I think if you ask them right now, I think some of the smart Democrats would say they don't think they're the favorites to win back the Senate, but that they can see a clearer path to how they could do it.

20:24It's still incredibly difficult, and I think it's probably unlikely that Democrats sweep into power in the Senate. But the path is clearer than it was a few months ago.

20:33Dan Merica:Another political wrinkle for Republicans is Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the former Trump advisor who has been against this bill from the start. And he was back on his social media platform X this week bashing it. To say he doesn't like it obviously is to put it mildly. He's continuing his threats of creating a third party. He said if it's his last thing he does on earth, he's going to primary any Republican who votes for this bill. What do you make of this? Yes, Musk has been a little hot and cold on this bill. He didn't like it as it was coming together in the House. But after it passed the House and after he left the White House, he came out really hard against it, caused a huge sort of spat with Trump about a month ago, and then kind of shut up for a little bit.