Jeffries holds the floor for six hours
Jeffries is still speaking, passing the six-hour mark. The Democratic leader just indicated that he plans to keep going for at least several more hours, drawling chuckles as he said he might enter into the record the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on 4 July 1776, “later on today”.
Jeffries has spent much of his time reading testimonials from Americans – parents, veterans, business owners – all of whom say they would be harmed by a bill Democrats says would “explode our nation’s debt” and “devastate our social safety net”.
At one point, he quoted Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who voted in favor of the legislation despite expressing grave concerns about its impact on constituents: “This was one of the hardest votes I have taken during my time in the Senate.”
“This should not be a hard vote, Senator Murkowski,” Jeffries said. “This should be a ‘hell no’ vote on behalf of the people you were sent to Washington to represent. It’s a ‘hell no’ vote for us.”
Key events
Nina Lakhani
Trump’s assault on knowledge and diversity is eroding the quality of fundamental research funded at the National Science Foundation (NSF), the premier federal investor in basic science and engineering, which threatens the future of innovation and economic growth in the US, according to a new Guardian investigation.
The gold standard peer-reviewed process used by the NSF to support cutting-edge, high-impact science is being undermined by the chaotic cuts to staff, programs and grants, as well as meddling by the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge), according to multiple current and former NSF employees.
“Before Trump, the review process was based on merit and impact. Now, it’s like rolling the dice because a Doge person has the final say,” said one current NSF program officer. “There has never in the history of NSF been anything like this. It’s disgusting what we’re being instructed to do.”
Among the biggest concerns is the inevitable brain drain – and what this means for solving urgent problems facing the US and the rest of the world. A generation of scientific talent is at the brink of being lost to overseas competitors by the Trump administration’s dismantling of the NSF – and other research agencies such as the US Geological Survey (USGS), the research arm of the Interior department, and NOAA – which threatens to derail advances in tackling existential threats to food, water, biodiversity and climate change.
Trump’s big, beautiful budget bill calls for a 56% cut to the current $9bn NSF budget, as well as a 73% reduction in staff and fellowships – with graduate students among the hardest hit. Yet the NSF student pipeline provides experts for the oil and gas, mining, chemical, big tech and other industries which support Trump, in addition to academic and government-funded agencies. The NSF, founded in 1950, has contributed to major breakthroughs in organ transplants, gene technology, AI, smartphones and the internet, extreme weather and other hazard warning systems, American sign language, cybersecurity and even the language app Duolingo.
Trump’s monstrous budget bill also cuts the USGS budget by 39% including entirely slashing the agency’s ecosystems mission area (EMA), which leads federal research on species & ecosystems and houses the climate adaptation science centers.
Read more
Jeffries has also denounced the “deportation machine” that will put “on steroids” by this bill. He said Democrats believe in border security and immigration reform – but decried the devastating impact it has had on immigrant communities and American families.
He told the story of Narciso Barranco, a landscaper and father of three US Marines who was beaten and arrested by immigration agents at his landscaping job. Barranco’s sons – including two who are active duty – say they were working to adjust his immigration status after living in the US for decades without documentation before he was violently detained.
“This is what has been unleashed on the American people,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries also demanded that agents stop wearing masks to conceal their identity –DHS has said they do for their safety.
“These masks need to come down,” Jeffries declared to applause from Democrats. “These agents should just be held to the same set of standards as every other law enforcement office in the United States of America.”
Jeffries holds the floor for six hours
Jeffries is still speaking, passing the six-hour mark. The Democratic leader just indicated that he plans to keep going for at least several more hours, drawling chuckles as he said he might enter into the record the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on 4 July 1776, “later on today”.
Jeffries has spent much of his time reading testimonials from Americans – parents, veterans, business owners – all of whom say they would be harmed by a bill Democrats says would “explode our nation’s debt” and “devastate our social safety net”.
At one point, he quoted Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who voted in favor of the legislation despite expressing grave concerns about its impact on constituents: “This was one of the hardest votes I have taken during my time in the Senate.”
“This should not be a hard vote, Senator Murkowski,” Jeffries said. “This should be a ‘hell no’ vote on behalf of the people you were sent to Washington to represent. It’s a ‘hell no’ vote for us.”
The White House is confident the House will deliver Trump an Independence Day victory.
Punchbowl News, a Washington-based outlet that reports exhaustively on Congress, said a signing ceremony is being prepared for tomorrow evening – though the timing will probably depend on how long Jeffries keeps speaking.
US supreme court to weigh transgender student sports bans
The US supreme court announced on Thursday that it will hear arguments next term in a legal battle over state laws banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public sector schools.
The high court took up two cases involving transgender student athletes who had challenged bans on their participation on school sports teams in West Virginia and Idaho. The states petitioned for the supreme court to take up the matter after lower court rulings in favor of the athletes.
The decision means the court is prepared to take up another civil rights challenge to Republican-backed restrictions on transgender people.
The supreme court is expected to hear arguments in the matter during its next term, which begins in October.
Trump confirms call with Putin
Trump is taking a break from pressuring holdout Republicans to back his “big, beautiful” domestic policy bill to speak to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“Will be speaking to President Putin of Russia at 10:00 A.M. Thank you!” Trump declared in a social media post shortly before the announced time.
The call comes after the Pentagon said earlier this week that it was pausing shipment of some weapons to Ukraine amid concerns that US stockpiles were running too low – prompting alarm in Kyiv.
Follow our international blog for more:
Jeffries holds the floor for more than five hours – and is still going
Jeffries has just passed the five-hour mark and has no intention of stopping: “We still got some ground to cover.”
“We are going to continue as Democrats to take our sweet time on behalf of the American people because the issues are too significant to ever walk away from,” Jeffries said, to cheers from the Democrats in the chamber.
Hakeem Jeffries has been speaking for five hours now — since 4:53 a.m. — as Democrats stall the final passage of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
The record for the longest House floor speech is 8 hours, 32 minutes, set by Kevin McCarthy in 2021. pic.twitter.com/kbBk0lfGNP
— The Recount (@therecount) July 3, 2025
The Democrat began speaking shortly before 5am Washington time.
“Join us! Join us!” Jeffries said, appealing to Republicans who have expressed concerns with the bill. “Just four, y’all. We welcome you.”
Explainer: Why can Jeffries talk for hours on the House floor?
After a marathon night of arm-twisting, cajoling and pressure by tweet, House Republicans say they’re finally read to vote on Trump’s $4.5tn tax and spending package – a colossal piece of legislation the president wants passed by Friday, the Independence Day holiday.
Final debate on the 887-page megabill began in the predawn hours of Thursday morning. But the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has been holding the floor for hours railing against the legislation he and Democrats have warned will slash social safety net programs that millions of American families and children rely on.
Democrats are united against what they have renamed the “big ugly” bill, leaving the speaker scrambling to quell concerns within the Republican ranks from more centrist members worried about the cuts to Medicaid and fiscal hawks furious about the debt.
Hours earlier, the House cleared the way for debate with a 219-to-213 vote, suggesting Johnson and the president had quelled the revolt and secured the necessary number of Republicans needed to pass the bill.
But when that happens may depend on Jeffries, who is using his so-called “magic minute” – a tradition that allows House leaders to speak for as long as they want during a floor debate.
In 2021, then House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy spoke for a record-setting eight hours and 32 minutes, in protest of Joe Biden’s signature domestic policy legislation, which ultimately passed when he ceded the floor.
“I’m still here to take my sweet time”
Hakeem Jeffries continues to hold the House floor, joking about the fact that he has unlimited time to speak because of his role as Democratic leader.
“The American people do not deserve to die as a result of the Republican cruelty that’s in this legislation,” he said.
Democratic minority leader passes fourth hour of speaking on House floor
Hakeem Jeffries, now passing four hours on the House floor, said the tax and spending bill takes a “chainsaw” to Medicare, Medicaid, nutritional assistance for hungry children, and vulnerable Americans. But, he said, Democrats are “here to make clear, Mr Speaker, we’re determined to take a chainsaw to Project 2025”.
Explainer: What’s in Trump’s major tax bill?
My colleague Chris Stein has a helpful explainer on what’s in the bill, from extensions of major tax cuts to $45bn for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to build new detention facilities and more benefits for the rich than the poor.
As Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries continues to delay a vote with his now three-hour-plus floor speech, Republicans remain confident they have the slim margin they need to pass the bill.
Appearing on Fox News Thursday morning, the House majority leader, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, said he expects the bill to move to Donald Trump’s desk in “the next two hours”.
That would mean a vote would need to occur by 10am in Washington.
Tom Ambrose
With a narrow 220-212 majority, Republicans can afford no more than three defections to get a final bill to Donald Trump’s desk.
Democrats are united in opposition to the bill, saying that its tax breaks disproportionately benefit the wealthy while cutting services that lower- and middle-income Americans rely on. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that almost 12 million people could lose health insurance as a result of the bill.
“This bill is catastrophic. It is not policy, it is punishment,” Democratic representative Jim McGovern said in debate on the House floor.
Republicans in Congress have struggled to stay united in recent years, but they also have not defied Trump since he returned to the White House in January.
Any changes made by the House would require another Senate vote, which would make it all but impossible to meet the 4 July deadline.
The legislation contains most of Trump’s top domestic priorities, from tax cuts to immigration enforcement. The bill would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, cut health and food safety net programs, fund Trump’s immigration crackdown, and zero out many green-energy incentives. It also includes a $5tn increase in the nation’s debt ceiling, which lawmakers must address in the coming months or risk a devastating default.
The Medicaid cuts have also raised concerns among some Republicans, prompting the Senate to set aside more money for rural hospitals.
Jeffries continues floor speech opposing bill, passing three hours
The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has now been speaking for more than three hours on the House floor, highlighting the stories of Americans across the country who will be hurt by the bill.
“This is a crime scene and House Democrats want no part of it,” Jeffries said shortly after 8am in Washington. “And Mr Speaker, this is why we want no part of it.”
A final debate on the floor began shortly before 4am ET after the House passed a procedural vote. You can livestream the latest at the top of the blog.
A final House vote on the bill should follow this debate.
Bill an ‘abomination’ that will ‘reward billionaires’, says Jeffries
Tom Ambrose
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has spoken in “strong opposition of Donald Trump’s one big ugly bill”. Jeffries argued that the bill, that he described as an “abomination”, would gut Medicaid and “rip food from the mouth of children, seniors and veterans”. Instead, he said, it would “reward billionaires with massive tax breaks”.
Jeffries continued:
Every single Democrat stands in strong opposition to this bill because we are standing up for the American people.
He questioned why, if the Republicans were so proud of the bill, the debate had begun in the early hours. Many of his comments were followed by applause.
Jeffries said the bill would “hurt everyday Americans” and “people in America will die unncessary deaths”. He added:
That is outrageous, that is disgusting. That is not what we should be doing here in the United States House of Representatives.
House debates Trump’s tax-and-spending bill after overnight advancement
Good morning and welcome to our blog covering US politics.
The House has moved toward a final vote on Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-and-spending bill after hours of wrangling. The procedural vote had been initially delayed by the blocking of a rule that allows the debate to begin. But eventually, the House voted 219-213 to move forward at about 3.30AM ET.
The debate lasted much longer than expected also, mainly due to a marathon session by Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who labelled the legislation a “one big ugly bill” and read out many letters from Americans saying what Medicaid means to them.
Jeffries is still speaking on the House floor, saying in the early hours of Thursday morning that he would take his “sweet time” telling the stories of Americans whose lives will be upended by the legislation if it passes.
Meanwhile, House speaker Mike Johnson was optimistic Wednesday night and said lawmakers had a “long, productive day” discussing the issues, Reuters reported. He also praised Trump for making phone calls to the holdouts through the early hours of Thursday morning.
“There couldn’t be a more engaged and involved president,” the speaker told reporters.
Stick with us today as we break down the events of the day.
