Gathered on the Senate floor after a 26-hour, record-breaking vote-a-rama series, senators voted hastily on two final Republican-led amendments before getting to the main event: final passage of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
Vice President JD Vance was presiding over the chamber after breaking a tie on a previously considered wraparound amendment to the bill. It was assumed that he would soon break another tie on the bill’s final passage, with a number of Republican holdouts remaining to make the vote math still uncertain.
It was just a matter of who would be the third “no” vote Republicans could afford to lose and still pass the bill. Sens. Thom Tillis and Rand Paul had already committed to voting it down.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski was widely thought to be the last opponent, with a temporary SNAP carveout for her state of Alaska hanging in the balance down until the last minute.
Sen. Susan Collins walks from the chamber to the office of Majority Leader John Thune at the Capitol in Washington, July 1, 2025.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
When the final vote started, Murkowski was seated in the second row near the middle of the chamber. Next to her was Mississippi GOP Sen. Roger Wicker and next to him was another moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who eventually proved to be the third and final GOP “no” vote.
Collins, dressed in a hot-pink pantsuit, votes near the top of the alphabet. But she left near the beginning of the vote’s final passage to go to the cloakroom. She missed her chance to vote when her name was called, coming out shortly after and walking directly to Murkowski. Collins put her arm around Murkowski, and then went up to the clerk and put her thumb down: no. She then left the chamber.
Focus was then squarely on Murkowski, whose vote could have tanked the entire bill. But former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell came up to sit next to her. The two talked quietly and then shook hands. When her name was called, Murkowski quietly said “Aye.”
Senators had added additional sweeteners for her state, including a provision aimed at insulating Alaska from some of the bill’s harshest impacts on SNAP.
Senator Lisa Murkowski walks after the Senate passes U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax bill, on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 1, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
She then started to leave the chamber, shaking hands with GOP Sens. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana before exiting.
Afterward, Murkowski told ABC News’ she “struggled mightily with the [bill’s] impact on the most vulnerable in this country.”
“I needed help, and I worked to get that every single day. And did I get everything that I wanted? Absolutely not,” she added.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune didn’t speak to either woman after their votes. He was seated in his chair in the front of the chamber.
Collins later explained her vote in a statement: “My vote against this bill stems primarily from the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural health care providers like our hospitals and nursing homes.”
She also said she had problems with cuts to energy tax credits and that the rural hospital relief fund that was created to try to get Republican holdouts to vote for the bill was insufficient.
The drama wasn’t over after the final vote — Murkowski appeared exasperated when asked about Paul’s criticism over her vote and what deals Alaska might have benefitted from.
When asked by an NBC reporter about Paul saying Alaska had gotten a bailout for her vote at the expense of the country, Murkowski replied, “Oh my God.”
Murkowski stared the reporter down before he finally said, “I didn’t say it, ma’am, I’m just asking for your response.”
“My response is I have an obligation to the people of the state of Alaska, and I live up to that every single day. I fight for my state’s interests, and I make sure that Alaskans are understood. I work hard to take care of a state that has more unique situations, more unique people, and it’s just different,” she said.
“And so when people suggest that federal dollars go to one of our 50 states in a, quote, “bailout,” I find that offensive,” she went on. “I advocated my state’s interests. I will continue to do that, and I will make no excuses for doing that.”
“Do I like this bill? No. But I tried to take care of Alaska’s interests,” she said. “But I know, I know that in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don’t like that.”
Murkowski then blasted the “artificial” deadline placed on the bill in order to get it done for Trump, who has repeatedly said he wants it on his desk by Friday — the Fourth of July.
“I don’t like the fact that we moved through an artificial deadline, an artificial timeline, to produce something to meet a deadline, rather than to actually try to produce the best bill for the country. But when I saw the direction that this is going, you can — you can either say ‘I don’t like it,’ not try to help my state, or you can roll up your sleeves,” she concluded.
ABC News’ John Parkinson and Lauren Peller contributed to this report.
