House Republicans on Thursday approved a massive package of President Trump’s domestic priorities, ending months of fierce debate and internal GOP clashes to deliver a huge victory to the president just before the holiday weekend.
The legislation delivers virtually all the key promises of Trump’s 2024 campaign, including an extension and expansion of his 2017 tax cuts, a crackdown on immigration, a boost in Pentagon spending, and an expansion of fossil fuel production.
To help offset the cost of those multi-trillion-dollar provisions, the legislation also features sharp cuts to low-income health and nutrition programs, which are expected to reduce federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars but also leave roughly 17 million people without health coverage. Those figures fueled the unanimous opposition from Democrats, who are vowing to use the bill as a centerpiece of their midterm campaign message.
Here are five takeaways from the week’s extraordinary debate.
Trump has never had more control over GOP
At numerous junctions over the course of the debate, the Republican bill appeared dead in the water.
From the right, conservatives attacked the legislation for doing too little to cut spending and rein in deficits. From the center, moderate Republicans howled over cuts to Medicaid and a roll-back of green energy subsidies. In New York, another group of centrists demanded changes to a controversial state and local tax deduction. And each group threatened to sink the entire package if they didn’t get their way, raising real questions about whether GOP leaders could thread the needle to satisfy all camps.
At every turn, Trump swept in, and through some combination of closed-door meetings, private phone calls, unveiled threats and very public pressure tactics on his Truth Social network, the president was able to bring all but the most recalcitrant Republicans to put aside their concerns and get to “yes.”
That dynamic was on full display before the House passed its initial version of the “big, beautiful bill” in May, when Trump stormed into the Capitol, huddled with the Republican conference and almost immediately convinced some of the holdouts to get on board. (The bill passed 215 to 214).
It was front-and-center on Tuesday, when Senate conservatives dropped their demands for steeper Medicaid cuts to help party leaders squeak the bill through the upper chamber. (The vote was 51 to 50, with Vice President Vance breaking a tie).
And Trump’s influence was glaring again when the Senate bill faced strong opposition from conservatives and centrists upon its return to the House. Some of those lawmakers warned that they could never support the package without substantive changes. Instead, Trump met with some, phoned in to others — and helped convince them to swallow the package as is. (The vote was 218-214).
The debate has highlighted Trump’s immense grip on his party in his second term. Part of that sway is the result of his unique powers of persuasion. Part is due to a lingering fear that the famously retributive president will go after defectors with public attacks or endorsements of primary challengers. But few would dispute his relevance in getting the “big, beautiful bill” across the finish line.
“It would have never happened without Donald Trump,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said.
Johnson keeps defying the odds
Johnson could be considered a magician after pulling so many rabbits out of his hat.
First, in January, he clinched the Speakership on the first ballot after flipping two opponents to supporters at the last minute. Then in February, he muscled a budget resolution through the chamber after canceling a vote for lack of support, only to reverse course minutes later to ram it through. Later in April, he oversaw the adoption of a compromise budget resolution after a delay.
Finally, his latest, and arguably biggest, work of art came this week, when the Speaker successfully cajoled scores of Republicans — from hardliners incensed about the deficits to moderates worried about Medicaid cuts — to support the megabill despite their deep concerns.
In perhaps one of the most impressive aspects of it all, Johnson delivered the legislation to Trump’s desk with a day to spare before his self-imposed July 4 deadline — a timeline that lawmakers in both chambers had privately — and sometimes publicly — panned as unrealistic.
Trump, to be sure, played a large role in getting the sprawling package and other priorities over the finish line, convincing holdouts to get on board shortly before — or in some cases, during — the vote. But Johnson was no minor character in the drama, racing tirelessly for months to win over holdouts and ultimately rally the overwhelming support of his ideologically diverse conference.
“The question was how did we get the holdouts to yes? So my leadership style is that I try to be a servant leader and as I mentioned earlier, I know what every member of this body, every member of this conference, brings to the table," Johnson said. "And the leader’s job is to bring out everybody's best and get them to their highest and best use, and that takes some time.”
Conservatives are prone to cave
From the start of the debate in February, conservatives in both chambers had drawn a series of red lines in the sand. But they crossed virtually all of them in helping send the package to Trump’s desk.
Numerous members of the House Freedom Caucus said at the outset that they couldn’t support any legislation that added to the national debt. But almost all of them voted in May for a bill that did just that — by trillions of dollars.
When that bill went over to the Senate, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) warned senators that “they can't unwind what we achieved [in the House]. And those are going to be red lines." But after the Senate piled even more deficit spending into their bill, he voted for it on Thursday.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, had voted “present” on the initial House bill. But he also warned that he would be a “no” if the Senate bill was not altered to lessen its impact on the debt, and was panning the measure as recently as Wednesday morning. He, too, voted for the bill this week without the changes he sought.
In the Senate, a small handful of hardliners — Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — had decried their leadership’s bill and demanded an amendment to rein in Medicaid spending. Their amendment didn’t come up for a vote after they failed to clinch the needed support, but they voted for the final bill, nonetheless.
And Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), another Freedom Caucus member, left for the White House Wednesday morning saying he wouldn’t support the Senate bill without substantive changes. Unwritten promises, he warned, simply wouldn’t do.
"I'm done with promises," Norman said. "The best thing is to send the bill back [to the Senate]."
He was bringing a three-point plan to indicate “this is what it will take to get a yes,” he said.
Hours later he was singing a different tune, saying the meeting with Trump had revealed “a lot of information” about the bill “that we did not know.”
He threw his support behind the package shortly afterwards, though no part of the three-point plan was adopted in the bill.
Fight now shifts from DC to the campaign trail
The “big, beautiful bill” is going to hit the campaign trail — for both parties.
Republicans, electrified by their marquee bill, are planning to storm the airwaves to talk about favored provisions in the package as they work to convince voters that they deserve another two years in office. That short list features a sweeping extension of tax cuts, the creation of new tax breaks on tips and overtime, and additional funding to crack down on illegal immigration.
Many of the provisions in the bill — particularly the tax language — were campaign promises made by Trump during the 2024 cycle, vows that Republicans believe helped propel the GOP to its trifecta of power in Washington.
Democrats, meanwhile, have made it clear that they plan to center their 2026 messaging around the legislation — which they have dubbed the “big, ugly bill” — zeroing in on the cuts to Medicaid and food assistance and the rollback of green energy tax credits.
In a sneak peek of that effort, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — during his marathon speech in the chamber — called out scores of vulnerable House Republicans and outlined the impact the bill will have on constituents in their districts.
“People will die,” he warned of the Medicaid cuts.
Jeffries seizes the moment
The 118th Congress was known for its history-making events — headlined by the first protracted Speaker’s race in a century and the first-ever successful ouster of a Speaker. The 119th, however, is giving its predecessor a run for its money.
The House made history twice this week: First, Republican leaders left a procedural vote for the megabill open for 7 hours and 23 minutes — from 2:08 p.m. until 9:31 p.m. — setting a record for the longest vote in the history of the House, according to Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). The referendum topped the previous record of just over 7 hours, set in November of 2021 during a debate over President Biden’s Build Back Better bill.
The next day, Jeffries took to the House chamber and spoke on the floor for 8 hours and 44 minutes, utilizing his “magic minute” to surpass then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) previous record of 8 hours and 32 minutes. That speech was delivered in 2021, as McCarthy sought to delay a vote on the Democrats’ social spending and climate package.
Jeffries’s record speech came as Democrats continue to pick up the pieces of their 2024 election losses, with voters and party elites pressing lawmakers to show more fight in opposing Trump as they look to fill their leadership void following his victory.
Sources initially said Jeffries planned to speak for one hour, but after arriving on the floor with thick binders of material in hand, he talked for more than eight hours, energizing dozens of Democrats who stood behind him in an attempt to rally the party against the GOP’s megabill.
Johnson — who rose to the top job following the historic events of the previous term — said he wants to leave the record books behind and instead preside over a conventional Congress.
“I do so deeply desire to have just a normal Congress, but it doesn’t happen anymore,” Johnson told reporters at around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, as the light began to emerge at the end of the tunnel. “I don’t want to make history but we’re forced into these situations.”
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