CNN
By Sarah Ferris, Manu Raju, Lauren Fox, Annie Grayer, Ted Barrett and Kaanita Iyer, CNN
(CNN) — Senate Republicans took a major step toward delivering President Donald Trump his “big, beautiful bill” late Saturday, though the fate of the giant tax cuts and spending measure is still in question as other hurdles remain.
After an hourslong push by Senate GOP leaders Saturday, the bill cleared a key procedural vote, 51-49. Republican leaders must now satisfy numerous holdouts still demanding changes to the bill. Trump’s multitrillion-dollar bill would lower federal taxes and infuse more money into the Pentagon and border security agencies, while downsizing government safety-net programs including Medicaid.
The timeline is extremely tight: Trump has demanded to sign the bill on the Fourth of July, but the measure must still go back to the House if it passes the Senate. Saturday’s vote allows the Senate to begin debating Trump’s bill, teeing up a final passage vote in that chamber as soon as Monday.
In a late-night post on social media, Trump declared a “GREAT VICTORY” after the bill cleared the Senate, offering praise to four key senators who shifted their votes to get the procedural bill over the finish line.
“Tonight we saw a GREAT VICTORY in the Senate with the ‘GREAT, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,’ but, it wouldn’t have happened without the Fantastic Work of Senator Rick Scott, Senator Mike Lee, Senator Ron Johnson, and Senator Cynthia Lummis. They, along with all of the other Republican Patriots who voted for the Bill, are people who truly love our Country!” the president said on his Truth Social platform.
Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and Rand Paul voted against the measure.
Vice President JD Vance traveled to the Capitol on Saturday evening to help Senate Majority Leader John Thune convince remaining holdouts, including the handful of GOP hardliners who demanded more changes to the bill. As president of the Senate, Vance was also on hand in case he needed to break a tie.
Thune and Vance huddled in the leadership suite with Johnson, Lee, Scott and Lummis ahead of the final vote, before all four eventually voted to advance the measure.
Earlier Saturday, GOP leaders managed to win over one key skeptic — Sen. Lisa Murkowski. As they sought Murkowski’s vote, a few provisions in the latest version of the bill were added that specifically benefited her state of Alaska. One of those expanded how much a special group of whalers could deduct in whaling supplies, a source told CNN.
“VERY PROUD OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TONIGHT,” Trump said in his Truth Social post.
Senate Democrats are now forcing a major delay tactic to slow the chamber’s passage of Trump’s agenda, forcing clerks to spend an estimated 10 to 15 hours reading aloud the entire bill. After the reading, there would be debate on the bill, followed by a “vote-a-rama” before a vote on final passage.
Thune and his team had been fiercely lobbying their members to get in line behind the measure, with Trump and White House officials also leaning heavily on the GOP holdouts.
Trump met with Scott and Johnson on Saturday, just hours before GOP leaders hoped to hold the vote, according to those two senators’ close colleague, Lee of Utah. Trump also spoke to other critical senators, such as Josh Hawley of Missouri, who earlier Saturday declared his support for the bill. Sen. Paul of Kentucky, another critic of the bill, golfed with the president Saturday morning, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
After the vote, Johnson told reporters that deficit hawks had worked out a deal with leadership on an amendment vote to cap enrollment in Medicaid expansion, which they argue will accrue significant savings. However, Johnson would not say whether he’ll back the final bill if the amendment is not adopted.
Scott would not get into the details of what was worked out with leadership but told reporters: “Every one of us wants to support the president’s agenda. … We all wanted to get to yes, and so we’re all working together to make sure that happens.”
Earlier Saturday, Trump took to Truth Social to attack Tillis and Paul for their votes against advancing the measure. He said that Tillis “is making a BIG MISTAKE” and that he will meet with those looking to mount primary challenges against the North Carolina senator “over the coming weeks.”
“What’s wrong with this guy???” Trump posted of Paul.
House Republicans, meanwhile, held a 15-minute call on Saturday, during which Speaker Mike Johnson sought to rally his troops behind the bill and tamp down on any public consternation from his own members. A frustrated Johnson urged his members to keep their powder dry and refrain from weighing in publicly on the Senate’s version of the bill, as so much of it is in flux — which means no posts on X, three sources said.
At least one Republican, Rep. David Valadao of California, posted publicly that he opposed the Senate bill because of changes to Medicaid. And another Republican who is closely watching the Medicaid provisions, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, told CNN: “I don’t like it. We had hit a sweet spot with our bill.”
Now that the Senate has cleared the first procedural hurdle on the bill, Thune faces an entirely different headache.
After the bill’s reading and debate over the measure, senators will move to a marathon session known as a vote-a-rama. The open-ended, hourslong series of votes on amendments — some political, some substantive — will be offered mostly by Democrats and put Republicans on the spot. The votes are likely to provide fodder for campaign ads down the line.
But this vote-a-rama could be more than just politically painful for Republicans: At least one Republican holdout has signaled she will offer her own amendments to the bill in an unusual move for a GOP bill.
Key Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she wants changes to the bill made through the amendment process or she might vote against it in the end. Her negotiations throughout the session will be critical.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Nicky Robertson and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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