House Republicans are ready to vote on President Donald Trump’s $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill early Thursday, up all night as GOP leaders and the president himself worked to persuade skeptical holdouts to drop their opposition by his Fourth of July deadline.
House Republicans, up all night, are ready to vote on President Donald Trump’s $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill after GOP leaders and the president worked to persuade skeptical holdouts to drop their opposition by his Fourth of July deadline. Not so fast, the top Democrat says.
Final debates began in the predawn hours Thursday after another chaotic day, and night, at the Capitol. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., insisted the House would meet the Friday deadline.
But for now, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York was holding the floor and doing the speaking.
Seizing a leader’s prerogative for unlimited debate, Jeffries did just that, starting early in the morning and continuing for some five hours, and counting.
He read letter after letter from Americans writing about their reliance of the health care programs and their worries of devastating cuts. He spoke of Republican colleagues who could stand up and oppose what he called the “big ugly bill.” Fellow Democrats filled the chairs around Jeffries, cheering at times.
“I never thought that I’d be on the House floor saying that this is a crime scene,” Jeffries said. “It’s a crime scene, going after the health, and the safety, and the well-being of the American people.”
And as Democrats, he said, “We want no part of it.”
He was a few hours away from the record for the longest House leaders speech, set in 2021.
Johnson promised his own speech would be short.
“Our way is to plow through and get it done,” Johnson said, emerging in the middle of the night from closed-door meetings. “We will meet our July 4th deadline.”
The outcome would be a milestone for the president and his party, compiling a long list of their priorities into what they call his “one big beautiful bill,” an 800-plus page package. With Democrats unified in opposition, the bill will become a defining measure of Trump’s return to the White House, with the sweep of Republican control of Congress.
