Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with the media after the House Republican Conference meeting on a plan to fund the government and avert a shutdown in the U.S. Capitol on Friday, December 20, 2024.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
The U.S. House on Thursday began a final debate on President Donald Trump’s megabill, after a dramatic night of voting that was nearly derailed by Republican defections.
The House voted 219-213 to move the bill forward.
The vote to begin final debate marks a win for Republican leadership seeking to deliver on Trump’s second term policy agenda.
After hours of stalemates and maneuvering, they finally managed to corral their razor-thin majorities and quash enough of the opposition from within their own ranks to move forward.
The vote to begin debate in the divided House was not without drama, rife with back-room deals, evolving alliances and negotiations until the very end.
Ultimately, House Speaker Mike Johnson was able to push the bill forward, losing just a handful of members in a vote that fell along party lines.
The debate will be followed by a vote on the final bill, which extends the 2017 tax cuts and commits more money for border security while slashing health insurance and nutrition programs for the poor.
Once the bill passes the House one more time, it goes to Trump’s desk, where he has long wanted to sign the package into law.
The House received the revised bill from the Senate late Tuesday, after the package just squeaked by in the upper chamber with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.
The Senate implemented substantial changes to its version of the megabill, including deeper cuts to Medicaid and a $5 trillion debt limit hike, much higher than the $4 trillion increase the House proposed in its version of the bill.
These changes were among the provisions that made many House Republicans wary.
But leadership refused to introduce new tweaks to the megabill and stretch its timeline out further.
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
