Long Senate debate proceeds on Trump’s 940-page bill, read aloud in full, with a vote expected this week

WASHINGTON — Hours before a tumultuous nearing-midnight vote on President Trump’s package of tax breaks, spending cuts and increased deportation money, a Republican senator stood on the chamber floor and implored the plan’s critics, “Read the bill.”

After the dramatic 51-49 roll call on a key procedural vote that advanced the bill late Saturday, Senate Democrats did exactly that.

Seemingly unable to stop the march toward passage of the 940-page bill by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline, the minority party in Congress is using the tools at its disposal to delay and drag out the process.

The Saturday night vote came after a tumultuous session, dragging on for hours as holdout senators huddled for negotiations. In the end, two Republicans opposed the motion to proceed to debate, joining all Democrats and independents.

“If Senate Republicans won’t tell the American people what’s in this bill, then Democrats are going to force this chamber to read it from start to finish,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York declared Sunday.

By Sunday midafternoon some 16 hours later, the clerk’s reading of the nearly foot-high bill was done.

And within moments the Senate launched into debate, expected to stretch late into Sunday night with at least 10 hours of speeches. The slow-walking tactic points to difficult days ahead.

“It’s taken awhile to get here,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the Senate Budget Committee chairman, “but we’ll have a debate worthy of this great country.”

Republicans, who control the House and Senate, are closer to passing Trump’s signature domestic policy package, yet there is political unease. Democrats immediately launched fresh challenges against it, decrying the way they say Republicans are hiding the true costs by using unusual budgeting.

A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Sunday estimates the Senate bill would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034, a nearly $1-trillion increase over the House-passed bill. It also found that 11.8 million more Americans would lose their healthcare insurance by 2034 if the bill became law, more than with the House’s approach.

The bill aims to cut more than $1 trillion in social spending, which some independent analyses say would amount to the biggest reduction in the federal safety net in three decades or more.

Republicans remain reluctant to give their votes, and their leaders have almost no room to spare, given their narrow majorities. Essentially, they can afford three dissenters in the Senate, with its 53-47 GOP edge, and about as many in the House, if all members are present and voting. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had sent his colleagues home for the weekend.

Trump, who has at times allowed wiggle room on his deadline, kept the pressure on lawmakers to finish. But the tense scene emerged as voting came to a standstill for more than three hours to let the internal discord play out in public.

In the end, Republicans Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky opposed the motion to move ahead, joining all 47 Democrats and independents. Trump noticed.

He threatened to campaign against Tillis, who expressed worry that Medicaid cuts in the bill would leave many without healthcare in his state. Trump badgered Tillis again on Sunday morning, saying the senator “has hurt the great people of North Carolina.”

Hours later, Tillis announced he would not seek reelection in 2026.

Republicans are using their majorities to push aside Democratic opposition, but have run into a series of political and policy 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 about $3.8 trillion in Trump tax breaks.

Renewed pressure to oppose the bill came from Elon Musk, a key Trump advisor for the first months of the administration, who criticized it — as he often has previously — as “utterly insane and destructive.”

“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” Musk said in a post Saturday on his social media platform, X.

If the Senate is able to pass the package in the days ahead, the bill would return to the House for a final round of votes before it could reach the White House. GOP leaders will need almost every one of their members on board.

Tax breaks and core GOP priorities

At its core, the legislation would make permanent many 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 potential tax increase on Americans. The bill would add new breaks, including no taxes on tips, and commit $350 billion to national security, including for Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

But the cutbacks to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments are also causing dissent within GOP ranks. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the environmental rollbacks would amount to a “death sentence” for America’s wind and solar industries.

The Republicans are relying on the reductions to offset the lost tax revenues, but some lawmakers say the cuts go too far, particularly for people receiving healthcare through Medicaid. Meanwhile, conservatives, voicing worry about the nation’s debt, are pushing for steeper cuts.

Democrats can’t filibuster, but can stall

Using a congressional process called budget reconciliation, the Republicans can muscle the bill through on a simple majority vote in the Senate, rather than the typical 60-vote threshold needed to overcome objections.

Without the filibuster, Democrats in the minority have to latch on to other tools to mount their objections.

One is the full reading of the bill text, which has been done in past situations. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) forced a full reading of a COVID-19 relief package in 2021.

Other strategies the Democrats plan to use include using their full 10 hours of available debate time, expected to launch later Sunday.

And then the Democrats are prepared to propose dozens of amendments to the package that would be considered in an all-night voting session — or all day, depending on the hour.

A roll call full of drama

As Saturday’s vote tally teetered, attention turned to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who was surrounded by GOP leaders in intense conversation. She voted “yes.”

Several provisions in the package are designed for her state.

A short time later, Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) summed holdout Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming to his office. Vice President JD Vance, who was on hand in case he needed to cast a tiebreaking vote, joined in. The talks dragged on.

Then Vance led them all back in to vote.

Later, Scott said he had met with Trump, adding, “We all want to get to yes.”

Lee said 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.”

Trump’s party has invested much of its political capital on his signature domestic policy plan. The president is pushing Congress to wrap it up and has admonished the GOP holdouts, whom he derided as “grandstanders,” to fall in line.

Tillis, who said he spoke with Trump late Friday explaining his concerns, announced Saturday he cannot support the package as is, largely because he said the healthcare changes would force his state to “make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands.”

The release of that draft had been delayed as the Senate parliamentarian reviewed the bill 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 policy matters from inclusion in budget bills unless a provision can get 60 votes to overcome objections. That would be a tall order in a Senate with a 53-47 Republican 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 government 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 last few days, Republicans have quickly 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 delays the start date for those cuts and establishes a $25-billion fund to aid rural hospitals and providers. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who had opposed the cuts, vowed “to do everything I can” to make sure the reductions never go into effect.

The Senate revise of the House bill 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 California, New York and other high-tax states, but the issue remains unsettled.

The current SALT cap is $10,000 a year, and a few Republicans wanted to boost it to $40,000 a year. The final draft includes a $40,000 cap but limits it to five years.

Many Republican senators say that is still too generous. At least one House GOP holdout, Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, has said that would be insufficient.

As the Senate draft was revealed, House GOP support was uncertain. One Republican in a Central Valley swing district of California, Rep. David Valadao of Hanford, said he was opposed.

For now, Republican leaders expressed confidence at the weekend’s progress in the Senate.

“It’s time to get this legislation across the finish line,” Thune said.

Mascaro, Freking and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press. AP writers Ali Swenson, Matthew Daly, Fatima Hussein and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.