WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had hoped the House would quickly act after the Senate passed Republicans’ big bill cutting taxes and Medicaid, but progress slowed on Wednesday.
Republicans got bogged down on procedural votes before they could get to an eventual final roll call on the bill itself. After holdouts came around on one so-called “rule” vote, Republicans got stuck down on another rule vote that dragged into the late hours.
As Wednesday turned into Thursday, what appeared to be a delay in passing the bill started looking like a more serious setback. But then, after 3 a.m., Republican holdouts flipped, the rule passed, and Republicans appeared on the brink of passing the tax bill and sending it to President Donald Trump’s desk.
Several House Republicans had voiced concerns about the Senate version of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Johnson had essentially tried to call their bluff by making them return to Washington and daring them to defy Trump and vote against the legislation.
Members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus and moderates resisted, even though there’s no way to change the bill without blowing Trump’s arbitrary July 4 deadline to pass it.
“Ultimately, this is an issue of morality,” Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) said online. “Abiding by our word is the only thing we have; therefore, as the bill currently stands, I voted against the rule.”
Self initially voted against the rule alongside four other Republicans: Reps. Victoria Spartz (Ind.), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), a moderate. Given their slim majority, with full attendance, four ‘no’ votes is all it would take to block the rule from being adopted, essentially preventing the House from moving to a vote on the bill itself. To make matters worse for Johnson, for hours, eight members of his party refused to vote on the rule at all.
Johnson held the vote open in hopes of changing someone’s mind.
“I might keep it open for a little while,” Johnson said in a phone interview with Fox News before midnight. “Among those no votes, I’ve got a couple of folks that are actually off-site right now, had to attend family affairs or events this evening, so some of them are on the way back.”
Meanwhile, Trump appeared to be losing patience. ”FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!” Trump said on Truth Social at 12:45 a.m.
Still, Johnson did make progress as the standoff dragged on. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) wouldn’t commit to supporting the bill in the afternoon, then had changed his mind by nighttime as a result of conversations with Trump and other White House officials.
“We found out that things that were going to happen which will affect the whole country in a good way,” Norman told reporters.
Republicans have rushed crazily to meet Trump’s Independence Day deadline, and those who’ve opposed the bill have faced furious public statements from the president and been threatened with Republican primary opponents.
The bill pairs $4.5 trillion in tax cuts with $1 trillion in spending cuts, mainly to Medicaid, which conservatives like Norman consider insufficient, considering the bill would add more than $3 trillion to the national debt.
Moderates and members of the House Freedom Caucus have withheld support from major legislation multiple times in the past year only to cave and go along in the end. But Massie, one of the only reliable “no” votes against party priorities, suggested this time might be different.
“They seem to mean it more than usual,” Massie told HuffPost.
Ultimately, however, they didn’t mean it.
