Senate likely to change House-passed megabill advancing Trump's agenda
House Republicans approved the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" encompassing President Donald Trump's legislative agenda early Thursday. But clearing the House is just the first hurdle for the bill, which will also have to pass muster with a Senate Republican conference that is already telegraphing that changes to it are coming.
Trump is pushing for swift action on his megabill, urging senators in a post on X to act "as soon as possible" after the narrow victory in the House.
"We can celebrate this pass in the House for a couple of hours, but now it's time for the Senate to get to work," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during Thursday's White House press briefing. "The president has great relationship with ... Senate Majority Leader [John] Thune, and of course, so many friends on the Senate side of the Hill. And he's expecting them to get busy on this bill and send it to his desk as soon as possible."
MORE: Republican-led House passes Trump agenda bill by a single vote
Senate Republicans say they're clear-eyed about wanting to pass Trump's legislative agenda into law as swiftly as they can, but have every intention of modifying the bill to leave their own distinct mark on the package and working to change things they object to.
Majority Leader Thune said Wednesday that "there are things that we need to adjust or modify or change," adding that Speaker Mike Johnson "fully understands and accepts that."
Chief among the issues GOP senators have raised about the bill is that it adds trillions of dollars to the national debt.
"[The] House bill is going to add about $4 trillion to the debt ceiling. The Senate bill adds $5 trillion. There's nothing fiscally conservative about expanding the debt ceiling more than we've ever done it before," Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday. "This will be the greatest increase in the debt ceiling ever, and the GOP owns this now … the deficit this year will be $2.2 trillion the GOP owns that now too."
Some Senate Republicans are calling for steeper spending cuts so that raising the debt limit would not be part of this bill.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, a notable fiscal hawk, has also signaled strongly that he would not support the bill in its current form, given that it raises the deficit.
"It's so far off the mark. It's so bad. I've been trying to interject reality. I've been trying to interject facts and figures," Ron Johnson told reporters on Wednesday afternoon at the Capitol, as the House was still advancing the bill through the Rules Committee.
"Currently the fiscal situation is not even in the conversation in the House debate. We're missing the forest talking about twigs and leaves. Medicaid, that's, that's a tree. That's a big enough issue. But all this, all this, all these little tweaks they're trying to make to get the deal completely ignores the elf in the room.. which says, on average, I mean, current [Congressional Budget Office] estimate, on average, we'll have a $2.2 trillion deficit, per year," Sen. Johnson added.
A few GOP Senators seemed more supportive of the bill, but noted there was significant work needed to be done in order to pass through the upper chamber.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said "a lot of it looks pretty good," adding that it's a "good start."
"Still, I think there's some opportunities for more efficiency, some more savings, and we have to look at the specifics of some of the renewable investment tax credits and production tax credits, and I think that even if we're going to revise them, we've got to make sure that businesses who believe the government was setting this as a priority don't have a lot of stranded costs," he added.
If the bill is retooled by the Senate, it risks a complicated path for the speaker down the road when the bill goes back to the House. Republicans have set a Fourth of July deadline for both chambers to pass the bill and get it to Trump's desk.
Passing this massive package through the Senate is also no cakewalk for Thune, who will only be able to afford to lose three of his members if it comes up for a vote on the Senate floor.
MORE: What is SALT and why does it threaten Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill?'
The House-passed bill includes new tax cuts, cuts to social safety net programs and changes to the food assistance program, SNAP -- all of which have led Democrats to lambaste the legislation for creating benefits for some of the richest Americans and cuts for some of the poorest.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slammed the bill in a post on X Thursday morning.
"This is not one big, beautiful bill. It's ugly," Schumer said. "There's nothing beautiful about stripping away people's healthcare, forcing kids to go hungry, denying communities the resources they need, and increasing poverty."
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray called the bill a "scam" in a post on X, urging all Republicans to vote no.
"House Republicans don't want you to know they just passed a bill that makes health care MORE expensive and kicks MILLIONS off Medicaid, all to pass tax cuts for billionaires & giant corporations," Murray wrote. "We need to make sure America knows. And we need to kill this bill in the Senate."
Leavitt criticized Democrats as being "out of touch" with Americans.
"Every single Democrat in the House of Representatives who voted against all of these common sense and massively popular policies," Leavitt said during Thursday's White House press briefing. "The Democrat Party has never been more radical and out of touch with the needs of the American people."
The Senate will also have to contend with the rules governing what can be included in such a package. Making sure that the bill passes muster with the Senate parliamentarian could lead to additional changes to the bill that Mike Johnson will eventually have to sell to his conference in the House.
As Trump now prepares to negotiate with Senators, Leavitt told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce that she was not aware if those conversations had started already.
Speaker Johnson had to work with his right flank to get the megabill passed in the House, which he managed to do by one vote. So what changed to get those more than a dozen holdouts on board?
Not much, several hard-liners told ABC News.
MORE: Trump urges House Republicans not to mess with Medicaid amid push to pass bill advancing his agenda: Sources
After laboring for days to push for steeper spending cuts and repeatedly railing against the spending that added to the bloated national deficit, many of the holdouts caved.
"The Freedom Caucus was instrumental, and we held it out as long as we could to get the cuts, as long as we could. We couldn't do it any longer. We live to fight another day," Republican Rep. Ralph Norman, a key holdout, told reporters.
Norman says there was no specific deal struck between Trump, the speaker and the hard-line holdouts -- even after a high-stakes, last-ditch meeting at the White House Wednesday.
Chair of the House Freedom Caucus, Andy Harris, wouldn't give the bill his vote. He voted "present."
Republican Rep. Keith Self, another hard-liner, told ABC News that he waited until the last minute to vote yes on the bill. He didn't fully support the bill, but didn't want to be the one to tank it.
"We got something … I would have preferred to go further too, to be honest with you, but we did what we could, and we fought the good fight," Self said.
That number of "more than a dozen" holdouts also included Republicans from states like New York and California, pushing for a higher cap on the state and local tax deduction. Speaker Johnson raised that cap from its proposed $30,000 to $40,000, and increasing 1% a year thereafter. That was enough to get their support.
But, for the spending hawks, it's unclear how they can characterize this as a win.
Leavitt said Thursday that she believes that Trump would want to see the two Republican representatives who voted no on the bill -- Reps. Thomas Massie and Warren Davidson -- should be primaried.
"I don't think he likes to see grandstanders in Congress. What's the alternative? I would ask those members of Congress. Did they want to see a tax hike? Did they want to see our country go bankrupt? That's the alternative by them trying to vote no," Leavitt said.
ABC News' Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
Senate likely to change House-passed megabill advancing Trump's agenda originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
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