US Senate votes on amendments to Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the second Trump administration.
The US Senate is holding a marathon vote on a sprawling budget that is vital to Donald Trump’s agenda and would see sweeping tax breaks and cuts to healthcare and food programmes if passed.
Senators have convened at the Capitol for a process known as “vote-a-rama”, in which lawmakers will propose amendments to the legislation over what is expected to be many hours.
Democrats say the bill’s tax cuts would disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of social programs for lower-income Americans.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (yes, it is formally called this) is expected to add an estimated $3.3tn to the national debt over the next decade. Republicans are rushing to pass the bill Trump’s self-imposed deadline of 4 July.
Republicans – who control both chambers of Congress and are generally loyal to Trump – are heavily divided over how deep welfare cuts should be in order to extend tax breaks in the legislation.
It is about 2.30am in Washington and it has been over 16 hours since voting began. We are expecting a result in around two and a half/ three hours time. Stay with us for all the latest developments.
In other news:
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Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars in support of Trump’s candidacy, has pledged to found a new political party he called the “America Party” and support candidates who did not back the budget bill in future elections.
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The Senate parliamentarian found that Republicans can include a provision that would block Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood in the “big, beautiful bill”.
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Trump signed an executive order overturning sanctions on Syria today and issued a memorandum on US policy toward Cuba.
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The Trump administration sued the city of Los Angeles over policies limiting city cooperation with federal immigration authorities, continuing a confrontation over Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts in the largely Democratic city.
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The Trump administration informed Harvard University that its investigation found that the university violated federal civil rights law over its treatment of Jewish and Israeli students, putting its federal funding further at risk.
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Trump will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on 7 July.
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Trump wrote to Fed chair Jerome Powell again urging him to lower interest rates.
Key events
US Senate strikes AI regulation ban from Trump megabill
The Republican-led US Senate has voted overwhelmingly to remove a 10-year federal ban on state regulation of AI from Trump’s mega bill, Reuters is reporting. More details soon…
Trump officials create searchable national citizenship database
Johana Bhuiyan
Johana Bhuiyan is a senior tech reporter and editor for Guardian US, based in San Francisco
The US Department of Homeland Security has for the first time built a national citizenship database that combines information from immigration agencies and the social security administration.
The database was created in collaboration with the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) in an effort to bridge the gaps between disparate information sources to make it easier to determine whether someone is a citizen, according to NPR, which first reported the details of the database.
The database is the result of an expansion of the systematic alien verification for entitlements (Save) program, made up of smaller databases within the homeland security department, and an integration with information from the Social Security Administration.
The centralized repository is searchable and can be accessed by state and local election officials to look up the names of anyone trying to vote to determine if they are citizens, according to NPR. Until now, election officials had to ask potential voters for documents verifying their citizenship or rely on a hard-to-navigate patchwork of databases.
You can read the full story here:
Some more news from the US senate now, where Republicans are – for the most part – still trying to pass Trump’s mega-bill.
Maine’s Republican senator Susan Collins has blamed Democrats for tanking her amendment to increase the bill’s rural hospital relief fund, saying they are “hypocrites” for championing themselves as protectors of Medicaid but then opposing her efforts to reduce the impacts of the legislation on rural hospitals.
“I was surprised at the hypocrisy of the Democrats on it, had they voted for it would have passed easily,” ABC News quoted Collins as having told reporters this morning.
Only two Democrats out of 22 senators supported Collins’ amendment, which would have seen the creation of a new top marginal tax rate used to double the size of the proposed rural hospital relief fund from $25bn to $50bn.
Collins added:
They complained repeatedly about the distribution in this bill of Medicaid cuts, hurting individuals in rural hospitals and tax cuts being extended for people who are wealthy. And yet, when we tried to fix both those problems, they took a very hypocritical approach.
Rural and smaller hospitals are at risk of bankruptcy because of the steep Medicaid cuts being proposed in the budget bill.
Musk vows to unseat lawmakers who support Trump’s bill and threatens forming an ‘America Party’ if it passes
Elon Musk has vowed to unseat lawmakers who support Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill, which he has criticized because it would increase the country’s deficit by $3.3tn.
Musk wrote on his social media platform, X:
Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!
And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.
A few hours later he added that if “insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day”.
With these threats, lobbed at lawmakers over social media, the tech billionaire has launched himself back into a rift with the US president he helped prop up.
Since taking leave from his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, Musk has sharply criticized Trump’s budget bill, which he has said will undermine his work at Doge by increasing spending.
You can read the full story by my colleague, Maanvi Singh, here:
What are some key elements contained within the budget bill?
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The Senate bill includes $4.5tn in tax cuts, according to the latest analysis from the congressional budget office, making permanent Trump’s 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act.
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The Senate package would roll back billions of dollars in green energy tax credits, which Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide.
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It would impose $1.2tn in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing stricter work requirements, making sign-up eligibility more stringent and changing federal reimbursements to states. Medicaid provides government-sponsored health care for low-income and disabled Americans.
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The bill would provide a $350bn infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants.
Democrats vow to bring ‘amendment after amendment to the floor’
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer says Democrats will bring “amendment after amendment after amendment to the floor, so Republicans can defend their billionaire tax cuts.”
He said Democrats would offer amendments to “see once and for all if Republicans really meant all those nice things they’ve been saying about ‘strengthening Medicaid’ and ‘protecting middle-class families’, or if they were just lying”.
As the marathon session grinds into the early hours of the morning, some lawmakers are finding ways to relax or vent away from the heat of the chamber.
GOP senators took breaks from the Senate floor as well.
Republican US senator Tommy Tuberville, of Alabama, smoked a cigar on the Capitol terrace at sunset while other GOP senators took calls and chatted in rooms near the Senate chamber.
This weekend’s dramatic senate session saw a narrow 51-49 passing of a procedural vote on Saturday night to advance the budget bill and a forced reading of the 940-page bill by Democrats, a political manoeuvre that was deployed to stall its progress.
Two Republicans sided with Democrats in voting against opening debate, wanting to change parts of the contentious legislation.
One of these Republicans was the North Carolina moderate Thom Tillis, who said the package was a betrayal of Donald Trump’s promise not to withdraw healthcare from people, something he fears could happen if rural hospitals close. The other was Rand Paul of Kentucky.
The bill must now clear a formal Senate vote and be returned to the lower House for approval – which Trump wants done before a self-imposed Fourth of July holiday deadline.
As my colleague Chris Stein explains in this story, after Tillis declined to vote for the bill, Trump attacked him and the senator announced he would not stand for re-election next year, potentially improving Democrats’ chances of picking up the purple state’s seat.
US Senate votes on amendments to Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the second Trump administration.
The US Senate is holding a marathon vote on a sprawling budget that is vital to Donald Trump’s agenda and would see sweeping tax breaks and cuts to healthcare and food programmes if passed.
Senators have convened at the Capitol for a process known as “vote-a-rama”, in which lawmakers will propose amendments to the legislation over what is expected to be many hours.
Democrats say the bill’s tax cuts would disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of social programs for lower-income Americans.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (yes, it is formally called this) is expected to add an estimated $3.3tn to the national debt over the next decade. Republicans are rushing to pass the bill Trump’s self-imposed deadline of 4 July.
Republicans – who control both chambers of Congress and are generally loyal to Trump – are heavily divided over how deep welfare cuts should be in order to extend tax breaks in the legislation.
It is about 2.30am in Washington and it has been over 16 hours since voting began. We are expecting a result in around two and a half/ three hours time. Stay with us for all the latest developments.
In other news:
-
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars in support of Trump’s candidacy, has pledged to found a new political party he called the “America Party” and support candidates who did not back the budget bill in future elections.
-
The Senate parliamentarian found that Republicans can include a provision that would block Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood in the “big, beautiful bill”.
-
Trump signed an executive order overturning sanctions on Syria today and issued a memorandum on US policy toward Cuba.
-
The Trump administration sued the city of Los Angeles over policies limiting city cooperation with federal immigration authorities, continuing a confrontation over Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts in the largely Democratic city.
-
The Trump administration informed Harvard University that its investigation found that the university violated federal civil rights law over its treatment of Jewish and Israeli students, putting its federal funding further at risk.
-
Trump will host Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on 7 July.
-
Trump wrote to Fed chair Jerome Powell again urging him to lower interest rates.
