Jeffries Takes Advantage of Last Chance to Oppose Policy Bill Before Final House Vote

Live Updates from the Trump Administration: Jeffries Takes Advantage of Last Chance to Oppose Policy Bill Before Final House Vote

To bring President Trump's comprehensive domestic policy measure to the House floor, Republicans overcame conservative skeptics. The law still requires a final vote to be approved.

Speaker Mike Johnson at the Capitol on Thursday, as Republican support for their domestic policy bill appeared to coalesce ahead of a final vote.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times

Here’s the latest.

Republicans quelled a conservative holdout revolt that threatened to stall President Trump's flagship domestic policy plan, bringing the House closer to a final vote early Thursday.

 Shortly before noon, Speaker Mike Johnson announced that he believed he had the votes to pass the bill, following a day and night of negotiations and uncertainty at the Capitol.  He made progress in overcoming resistance within his party when the House voted 219 to 213 to allow the bill to be discussed.

Until the Democratic leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, concludes his hours-long floor speech, the chamber remains in a holding pattern. Speaking for more than eight hours and thirty-three minutes on Thursday, Mr. Jeffries surpassed the record for the longest speech in the chamber, which had been set in 2021. Mr. Johnson can conclude the discussion and call for a vote on the final passage after he surrender.

Using his leadership privilege, Mr. Jeffries spoke for much longer than the one minute he had been given, criticizing the plan as a "disgusting atrocity" that will harm Americans. Speaking before 5 a.m. Eastern time, Mr. Jeffries devoted a large portion of his time to reading testimonies from Americans who expressed their reliance on Medicaid and their concern that program cuts would completely disrupt their lives.

With narrow House majorities, Mr. Johnson could only afford a few defections on the bill, which would reduce food assistance for the poor, raise military and border security spending, cut around $1 trillion from Medicaid, and cut taxes by a total of $4.5 trillion. After four other Republicans first voted against the bill and many others reserved their votes, only Pennsylvania moderate Representative Brian Fitzpatrick joined Democrats in opposing the effort to advance the bill.

A few Republicans opposed bringing up the measure, and more withheld their votes entirely, causing chaos on the House floor into the early hours of Thursday morning before the vote. This left Mr. Johnson scrambling to find a way to push through the comprehensive legislation in the face of unified Democratic opposition.

Speaker Mike Johnson can afford only a few Republican defections on President Trump’s signature domestic policy bill.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

While Mr. Trump called some of the holdouts to the White House to coerce them, Mr. Johnson had been at the Capitol all day Wednesday trying to persuade them. However, by early Thursday morning, they still lacked the necessary votes to proceed, especially from a group of conservative Republicans who were horrified by the bill's price and were calling for revisions that would completely destroy it.

How long are the Republicans going to wait? What are you attempting to demonstrate? Evidently dissatisfied with the way the evening was playing out, Mr. Trump posted on social media. "MAGA IS NOT HAPPY AND YOU ARE LOSING VOTES AS A RESULT!!!"

The uprising revealed the fundamental divisions that have hampered the law's passage through Congress for months, but hours before daybreak, some of the defectors declared they had changed their views and were prepared to vote in support of the plan. Given their scathing criticisms of the measure in recent days, it was unclear what had convinced them to change their minds.

No pledges were made to win votes, Mr. Johnson claimed. Mr. Johnson informed reporters, "We don't make deals around here because you open Pandora's box." He maintained that the holdouts had only required further time and clarification regarding the Senate's modifications to the bill in order to support it.

These divisions were made worse by the Senate's version of the bill, which was approved by a single vote on Tuesday following an equally intense round of G.O.P. squabbling. While politicians whose seats are up for grabs in next year's midterm elections have opposed the largest cutbacks to well-known government programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, fiscal conservatives have been calling for even more drastic cuts to control budgets.

The Senate's addition of measures that raised the cost of the legislation and its impact on the national debt infuriated members of the anti-spending group, notably those in the loud House Freedom Caucus.

"The Senate does not have the last word in every matter. Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a Freedom Caucus member, stated, "We need to figure this out." Although the vote on Wednesday night suggested they would not insist on doing so, he stated on Wednesday morning that there were enough Republicans "right now" who wanted to reopen the measure and were prepared to go through the July 4 recess to do so. Mr. Roy voted to introduce the bill after he had threatened not to.

There are more moderate Republicans who are against the Senate's more drastic Medicaid cuts than the House's in May, many of whom are preparing for challenging reelection campaigns in swing districts.

Nevertheless, conservatives have consistently resisted supporting significant legislation before caving in to pressure from Mr. Trump. The vote on the comprehensive domestic policy bill on Wednesday night indicated that they were getting ready to do so once more.

Democratic representatives assailed the Republican bill on the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday before raising a number of procedural roadblocks on the House floor.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

In order to express their opposition to the proposal and impede its advancement, Democrats have brought up a variety of procedural obstacles.

Representative Seth Magaziner, a Democrat from Rhode Island, stated, "This is what we mean when we say the Republican Party has become a cult." "Because Donald Trump wants a bill signing picture op by the Fourth of July, our Republican colleagues are pushing a bill that would put their citizens under the bus and goes against everything they say they stand for."

Democrats have made it a point to present a unified front as they criticize the plan and increase pressure on vulnerable Republicans, emboldened by the G.O.P. schism.