Vice President JD Vance arrived at the Capitol early Tuesday as Senate Republican leaders had still not locked down the 50 votes needed to pass President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” after more than 21 hours of voting.
The deadlock in the Senate GOP conference is raising serious questions about whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) will have to pull the bill from the floor, something that would be an embarrassing setback for Republicans.
Senators say that the final text of the legislation, which has been undergoing changes throughout the night, has yet to be circulated, leaving them in a state of limbo that stretched for hours into the night and then past dawn.
Vance played a key role in helping to muster enough votes to pass a motion to proceed to the bill on Saturday and he has had success throughout the first several months of Trump's second term persuading GOP senators to take tough votes, such as on the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The GOP leadership’s lobbying efforts have focused on Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), who has held out for hours over concerns that deep cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will hit her home state hard.
A remarkable scene played out on the Senate floor shortly after 5 a.m., when Thune, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) huddled around Murkowski along the back wall of the chamber, having an animated conversation about her concerns over the bill.
GOP leaders suffered a serious setback when Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected two provisions aimed at softening the impact of Medicaid and SNAP cuts on Alaska.
GOP negotiators worked past midnight Tuesday to rewrite those provisions to meet the parliamentarian’s approval but with limited success.
A source familiar with the parliamentary discussions said MacDonough has accepted a reworked version of the language to delay the implementation of SNAP cuts to Alaska as long as the state shows it is making progress in reducing its error rate in delivering food assistance benefits.
But an effort to rewrite language to deliver an enhanced federal Medicaid funding match — also known as an enhanced Federal Medical Assistance Percentage — for Alaska had not yet received the parliamentarian’s approval as of 6 a.m. Tuesday.
Thune desperately needs Murkowski’s vote because there are already three likely Republican “no” votes on the legislation.
Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) say they are hard “no’s” on the legislation as it’s now written and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who faces a tough reelection race next year, said she’s leaning against voting for the bill.
Collins offered an amendment to the bill to double the size of the rural hospital relief fund in the bill from $25 billion to $50 billion, but it was voted down, 22 to 78.
GOP leaders have had a tough time locking down Murkowski’s vote, despite hours of entreaties Monday night and Tuesday morning.
Thune met with her in his office shortly before 4 a.m. and were spotted walking in the hall together. Thune said they were “just chatting.”
When asked, Thune rejected the prospect of having to pull the bill off the floor, telling a reporter for the Associated Press that it was an option he didn’t want to worry about.
That prompted Thune to have a conversation early Tuesday with Paul, who says he would support the bill if the language to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion is stripped out. Paul is instead proposing that the bill increase the debt-ceiling by only $500 billion, which he hopes could force Republicans to advance another reconciliation package with deeper spending cuts tied to another debt-limit increase later in the year.
One Democratic senator, who requested anonymity, expressed exasperation over the deadlock on the Senate floor and the failure to produce final legislative text, even more than 21 hours into voting.
“There’s still no text, as of today there is still no text,” the senator said. “I think they don’t have the votes.
“Have you seen what’s going on, on the floor, I’ve never seen anything like that,” the lawmaker said, referring to efforts to lobby Murkowski to vote for the legislation after hours and hours of voting on amendments.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Republicans of slow-walking the bill to buy more time to scrounge up Republican support.
“They’re slowing things down because right now, they’re one big mess. They’ve made a lot of promises, contradictory promises to different parts of their caucus,” he told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.
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