‘Music to my ears’: Trump welcomes Senate passage of ‘big, beautiful bill’
Donald Trump said the Senate’s passage of his tax and spending bill was “music to my ears”.
While holding a roundtable discussion at the highly controversial new migrant detention facility in Florida dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, a reporter broke the news to the president. He replied.
Wow, music to my ears.
I was also wondering how we’re doing, because I know this is primetime, it shows that I care about you.
Trump also commended his vice-president, JD Vance, who cast the tie-breaking vote.
He’s doing a good job.
Asked what was his message to GOP holdouts in the House who aren’t satisfied with the Senate’s changes to the measure, Trump said:
It tells you there’s something for everyone. … It’s a great bill. There is something for everyone, and I think it’s going to go very nicely in the House. Actually, I think it will be easier in the House than it was in the Senate.
Key events
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Collins cites Medicaid cuts as ‘primary’ reason for her no vote
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‘Music to my ears’: Trump welcomes Senate passage of ‘big, beautiful bill’
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‘Your kids, your job, and your elderly relatives don’t matter’: DNC chair slams GOP passage of Trump’s bill
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House GOP leaders reaffirm commitment to pass Trump’s bill by 4 July
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Bill heads to back to House where GOP wafer-thin majority faces high-stakes vote
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Senate narrowly passes ‘big, beautiful bill’ after JD Vance casts tie-breaking vote
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‘Anybody would be better than Jay Powell,’ says Trump as he keeps up attacks on Fed chair over interest rates
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First detainees at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ expected tomorrow, says DeSantis
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Trump again implies Doge should ‘look at Musk’ and says former buddy ‘should not play that game with me’
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‘Alligator Alcatraz’ will encourage people to ‘deport on their own’, says DeSantis, as he urges other states to create similar facilities
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Trump praises ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in Florida Everglades
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Trump wavers on 4 July deadline for tax and spending bill
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Trump says ‘Doge is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon’
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‘Vote-a-rama’ sets new record for longest in Senate history after 45 consecutive votes
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Stanford University will cut $140m from its budget, citing ‘federal policy changes’
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AI regulation ban struck from bill with 99-1 vote
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US Senate strikes AI regulation ban from Trump megabill
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Trump officials create searchable national citizenship database
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Musk vows to unseat lawmakers who support Trump’s bill and threatens forming an ‘America Party’ if it passes
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What are some key elements contained within the budget bill?
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Democrats vow to bring ‘amendment after amendment to the floor’
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US Senate votes on amendments to Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’
What’s in Trump’s big, beautiful bill? My colleague Chris Stein has this helpful explainer on the GOP’s sweeping legislation that will boost the wealthy, fund Trump’s border wall and risk an added $3tn to the national deficit:
Collins cites Medicaid cuts as ‘primary’ reason for her no vote
Republican senator Susan Collins, one of the three dissenters, has said that she voted against the bill “primarily” because of her concerns about cuts to Medicaid.
Collins, of Maine, said the Medicaid cuts would threaten her constituents’ access to health care and that the bill had “additional problems”, including the phasing out of energy tax credits.
In a length statement posted on X, she said:
While I continue to support the tax relief I voted for in 2017, I could not support these Medicaid changes and other issues.
She said a provision creating a fund to help rural hospitals was not “sufficient” to counterbalance other changes to the Medicaid program.
I strongly support extending the tax relief for families and small businesses. My vote against this bill stems primarily from the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural healthcare providers like our hospitals and nursing homes.
I am pleased that the bill contains a special fund that I proposed to provide some assistance to our rural hospitals, but it is not sufficient to offset the other changes in the Medicaid system.
She continued:
This bill has additional problems. The tax credits that energy entrepreneurs have relied on should have been gradually phased out so as not to waste the work that has already been put into these innovative new projects and prevent them from being completed. The bill should have also retained incentives for Maine families who choose to install heat pumps and residential solar panels.
‘Music to my ears’: Trump welcomes Senate passage of ‘big, beautiful bill’
Donald Trump said the Senate’s passage of his tax and spending bill was “music to my ears”.
While holding a roundtable discussion at the highly controversial new migrant detention facility in Florida dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, a reporter broke the news to the president. He replied.
Wow, music to my ears.
I was also wondering how we’re doing, because I know this is primetime, it shows that I care about you.
Trump also commended his vice-president, JD Vance, who cast the tie-breaking vote.
He’s doing a good job.
Asked what was his message to GOP holdouts in the House who aren’t satisfied with the Senate’s changes to the measure, Trump said:
It tells you there’s something for everyone. … It’s a great bill. There is something for everyone, and I think it’s going to go very nicely in the House. Actually, I think it will be easier in the House than it was in the Senate.
‘Your kids, your job, and your elderly relatives don’t matter’: DNC chair slams GOP passage of Trump’s bill
Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin has slammed the Republicans’ passage of their bill for Trump’s agenda, calling it “a massive scheme to steal from working folks, struggling families and even from nursing homes – all to enrich the already rich with a tax giveaway”.
Here are some extracts from Martin’s statement:
Donald Trump and Senate Republicans have sent a clear message to the American people: Your kids, your job, and your elderly relatives don’t matter.
This is one of the worst bills in the history of Congress. It’s a massive scheme to steal from working folks, struggling families, and hell, even from nursing homes – all to enrich the already rich with a tax giveaway.
The families who will be devastated by this billionaire budget scam aren’t just numbers, they are constituents that Republicans promised to represent – 17 million Americans who will lose their healthcare and more than 5 million Americans who will be at risk of losing their food assistance.
Billionaires don’t need more help, working families do. Democrats will stand shoulder to shoulder with working families to kick these Republicans out of their seats in 2026.
House GOP leaders reaffirm commitment to pass Trump’s bill by 4 July
House GOP leaders said they will “immediately” consider the Senate’s reconciliation bill, adding they’ll send it to the president by the self-imposed 4 July deadline.
“The House will work quickly to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill that enacts President Trump’s full America First agenda by the Fourth of July,” said the statement from speaker Mike Johnson, majority leader Steve Scalise, majority whip Tom Emmer and conference chair Lisa McClain. “The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay.”
Bill heads to back to House where GOP wafer-thin majority faces high-stakes vote
With the battle in the House to come next, several Republicans in that chamber have already said they don’t support the version that has emerged from the Senate, which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will add $800bn more to the national debt than the House’s version.
As I reported yesterday, the House Freedom Caucus, a group of hardline conservatives who repeatedly threatened to withhold their support for the tax bill, is pushing for deeper spending cuts than what the Senate has offered.
“The Senate’s version adds $651bn to the deficit – and that’s before interest costs, which nearly double the total,” the caucus posted online yesterday. “That’s not fiscal responsibility. It’s not what we agreed to.”
On the other side of the GOP divide, a group of more moderate House Republicans, especially those who represent lower-income areas, object to the steeper Medicaid cuts in the Senate’s plan, fearing that a crackdown on a funding mechanism for the health program could lead to service cutbacks in rural areas.
“I will not support a final bill that eliminates vital funding streams our hospitals rely on,” representative David Valadao, a California Republican, said during the weekend debate.
They have also struggled to agree on a tax break for state and local tax (Salt) payments that is a top priority for a handful of House Republicans from high-tax states including New York, New Jersey and California.
Still, House Republicans are likely to face enormous pressure to fall in line from Trump in the days to come. And so far, his party has largely toed the line, with few willing to defy the president.
As we’ve reported, only three of the Senate’s 53 Republicans joined with Democrats to vote against the package, which passed 51-50 after vice-president JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote.
Three was the maximum number of votes the GOP could afford to lose in order to get the bill through the chamber.
The high-stakes vote in the House, where Republicans also hold a razor-thin 220-212 majority, is likely to be close as well. When the bill first passed through the lower chamber in May, it did so by only a single vote.
The bill, which would enshrine many of Trump’s top priorities into law while adding $3.3tn to the national debt, will now head back to the House for final approval.
Trump earlier indicated some flexibility on his 4 July deadline for the bill to land on his desk.
Senate narrowly passes ‘big, beautiful bill’ after JD Vance casts tie-breaking vote
Chris Stein
The Senate has just passed Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill after more than 24 hours of negotiations.
The vote was 50-50 and vice-president JD Vance was in the chamber to cast the tie-breaking vote. Republicans Thom Tillis, Rand Paul and Susan Collins voted no, along with all Democrats.
Donald Trump is now holding a press conference on “Alligator Alcatraz”. I’ll bring you all the key lines here.
‘Anybody would be better than Jay Powell,’ says Trump as he keeps up attacks on Fed chair over interest rates
Asked if he intends to announce his pick for the next Fed chair, Trump gestures to Ron DeSantis and Kristi Noem to imply they would both be good candidates, before adding:
Anybody would be better than Jay Powell.
He’s costing us a fortune because he keeps the rate way up.
Trump has repeatedly personally attacked and called on Jerome Powell to lower interest rates, to which the Fed has said it takes independent economic decisions.
First detainees at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ expected tomorrow, says DeSantis
After touring the detention facility, Trump is asked by a reporter when the first person will be “checking in to their room” (it is not a hotel and there are no rooms), DeSantis replies: “Tomorrow.”
Noem adds, “hopefully within the next 24 hours”.
DeSantis says there will be a security sweep first and then the facility will be “ready to receive” people, gesturing towards Noem whom he says “has people in the queue”.
