Jeffries’ ‘magic minute’ speech passes the eight-hour mark
The minority leader’s marathon floor speech has stretched into its eighth hour. Jeffries began speaking shortly before 5am Washington time. If he speaks for roughly another half-hour, he will have set the record for the longest House floor speech.
Key events
Late last night, Trump’s bill seemed to be in peril. But over the course of hours, the president and the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, were able to persuade a group of so-called budget hawks concerned with the fiscal impact of the legislation – the most expensive in a generation that is projected to add at least $3.3tn to the nation’s debt over the next 10 years – to drop their objections.
“We held out as long as we could,” Representative Ralph Norman said on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday morning. The conservative said the president warned him that changing the bill, which would require another vote in the Senate, would only make it worse.
He said Trump offered assurances that his administration would enforce rules for wind or solar projects to qualify for the tax credits under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.
“What he’s going to do is use his powers as chief executive to make sure that the companies that apply for solar credits, as an example, he’s going to make sure that they’re doing what they say when they say they’ve started construction,” he said. “He’s going to make sure they’ve done that.”
But the bill the House is voting on is the bill that was sent to them by the Senate – the very one these conservatives railed against – and are now poised to vote for this afternoon.
JD Vance has said an undecided Republican congressman texted to him to say Jeffries’ marathon speech drove him to a “firm yes” on Trump’s domestic policy bill.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shot back on X:
Hmm! Was it @RepGarbarino?
After all, he “fell asleep” and conveniently missed the first vote on this bill.
Did he just wake up and decide to throw Long Island families off their healthcare? Because a speech by a Democrat made him sad? ☹️ https://t.co/I7YHT7DCyB
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 3, 2025
During his speech, Jeffries has been appealing to House Republicans with concerns about the legislation to vote against it, naming several who have publicly expressed concern with some of the provisions. Republicans can only afford three defections, with all Democrats opposed.
Closing in on McCarthy’s record, Jeffries said he’s “still got a little more” to say.
“Donald Trump’s deadline may be Independence Day. That ain’t my deadline,” Jeffries said, referring to the president’s demand that Republicans send him his “big, beautiful” bill by Friday. “You know why, Mr Speaker? We don’t work for Donald Trump. We work for the American people.”
Democrats on the floor erupted in applause.
Jeffries is skipping through some of the proposals offered by Democrats, all of which were dismissed or voted down by the Republican majority. Some sought to shield children or low-income Americans from losing healthcare or other benefits under the Republican bill. Another would have nullified Trump’s executive order seeking to strip babies born to undocumented parents of US citizenship.
“Amendment after amendment after amendment that Democrats have introduced to try to relieve the pain that is being visited upon the American people by this one big, ugly bill,” Jeffries said, previewing what will form the crux of Democrats’ case against Republicans in next year’s midterm elections.
Jeffries holds the floor for seven hours
Jeffries’s marathon speech is closing in on the all-time record, set by the former House speaker Kevin McCarthy. After seven hours, the minority leader has indicated that he’s ready to go well into the afternoon to prolong debate on what he is decrying as “reverse Robinhood” legislation.
Floor speeches can be a lonely spectacle. So often, House members are speaking to a sea of empty chairs, their words echoing across the chamber.
But today, Democrats are not only in attendance, but paying rapt attention. Democrats, who are uniformly opposed to the bill, are rotating into the seats behind the lectern where Jeffries is speaking. They are clapping and cheering him on as his nears hour seven of his speech.
He also spoke personally – speaking about his mother and late father, an Air Force veteran whose nickname was “Puddin”. Jeffries said he regrets never asking his father the origins of the moniker. When he mentioned his mother was from Connecticut, the state’s Democratic representatives hooted loudly.
At one point, Jeffries mentioned he might not have time to tell his grandmother’s story.
“You got time!” Democrats chanted. “Take your time!”
“I’ve got so many stories I feel like I’m in a hip-hop studio right now,” Jeffries, the Brooklyn-born representative with a penchant for speaking with hip-hop lyricism, said.
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 and biodiversity, and addressing the climate crisis.
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, which leads federal research on species and ecosystems and houses the climate-adaptation science centers.
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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 as he was working outside of an Ihop in Santa Ana, California. 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 during the Trump administration’s stepped up raids across southern California. This incident was captured on video.
“This is not the way that anyone in the United States should be treated,” Jeffries said, “particularly not the father of three patriotic marines.”
He also demanded that agents stop wearing masks to conceal their identity –the Department of Homeland Security 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.
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