Donald Trump’s mammoth spending bill cleared the Senate by a hair, but now faces a Republican rebellion in the House.
The president wants the legislation on his desk by July 4, sending GOP leaders scrambling to wrangle their fractured caucus before the arbitrary deadline. The House could move to vote on the bill’s final passage as early as Wednesday, however the president faces new hurdles in his quest to get his “big, beautiful bill” approved. The changes made in the Senate aren’t sitting well with a number of their colleagues in the lower chamber.
Even some of his most loyal MAGA allies are pushing back. On Tuesday morning, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she largely supports the bill, but the timeline for House lawmakers was “not realistic.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“It is really a dire situation. We’re on a time clock that’s been really set on us, so we have a lot of pressure,” the Georgia congresswoman said on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast.
“It’s a s--tshow,” she added.
Meanwhile, members of the House Freedom Caucus threatened to tank the whole thing before debate even begins.
Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, chair of the hard-right group, and Rep. Ralph Norman, a member, said Tuesday they’d vote against a resolution to bring the bill to the floor. Others in their group were considering joining them, according to Harris. Assuming all Democrats vote no, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes to pass the procedural measure.
Norman, meanwhile, called the Senate version of the bill an “abomination.”
“What the Senate did, I’ll vote against it here and I’ll vote against it on the floor,” the South Carolina lawmaker said at a House Rules meeting.
Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee called the Senate bill a “dud.” Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona said it contains some “amazingly bad stuff” and he struggles to see how it could pass as is.
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said Senate Republicans had “failed us.”
“On the text chains, on the phone calls, everyone is complaining” about the Senate version, an unnamed moderate House Republican told The Hill earlier this week.
“How did it get so much f‑‑‑ing worse?” the lawmaker wondered.
Last month, House Republicans passed an earlier draft of the legislation by a single vote. Two broke ranks to vote against it, while several others expressed concerns about the package, which will add trillions to the national debt, slash social safety nets like Medicaid and pour billions into border security and defense.
Three Republican senators joined all Democrats in voting against it on Tuesday, but it passed with a tiebreaker from Vice President JD Vance.
Trump celebrated on Truth Social on Tuesday after the bill’s passage in the Senate, urging House Republicans to unite and ignore the “GRANDSTANDERS” among them to get it over the line.
“We are on schedule — Let’s keep it going, and be done before you and your family go on a July 4th vacation," he wrote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing to bring the bill to a House floor vote as early as Wednesday, but may face additional logistical hurdles. Many lawmakers had returned to their districts ahead of the July 4 holiday, and severe weather has prompted the cancellation of dozens of flights to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Appearing on Fox News’ Hannity on Tuesday night, Johnson nonetheless projected confidence, insisting “we are going to deliver it by July 4th.”
