NATIONAL NEWS

The Latest: House leaders rush toward a final vote as Democrats hold the floor

Jul 3, 2025, 5:34 AM | Updated: 7:52 am

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., walks behind his security detail through a crowd of repor...

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., walks behind his security detail through a crowd of reporters as he tries to push President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts across the finish line even as conservative and moderate GOP holdouts slow that effort, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, July 2, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Republicans are ready to vote on President Donald Trump’s $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill early Thursday after staying up all night with GOP leaders and the president himself working to persuade skeptical holdouts to drop their opposition by his Fourth of July deadline.

Final debates began in the predawn hours after another chaotic day and night at the Capitol following a series of closed-door meetings.

Putting the bill on Trump’s desk would be a milestone for the president and his party as Republicans have the votes to overcome Democratic opposition to a long list of GOP priorities. Trump’s “one big beautiful bill,” an 800-plus page package, is a defining measure of his return to the White House. Read what’s in the full bill for yourself.

Here’s the latest:

What’s in the Big Beautiful Bill Act

At some 887 pages, the legislation includes tax breaks, spending cuts, a rollback of solar energy tax credits, new money for national defense and deportations. The bill does not eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits, despite what Trump says.

The bill rolls back past presidential agendas: In many ways, the package is a repudiation of the agendas of the last two Democratic presidents, a chiseling away at the Medicaid expansion from Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and a pullback of Joe Biden’s climate change strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Congressional Budget Office review: The nonpartisan CBO said Sunday the bill would pile nearly $3.3 trillion onto the nation’s debt load from 2025 to 2034, a nearly $1 trillion increase over the House-passed version of the bill. The analysis also found that 11.8 million Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill passed.

White House: The big bill is kind of like the solution to a bad hair day

With Trump’s spending and tax cut bill nearing passage, the White House is getting creative in pitching it to Americans who haven’t been closely following the debate over the legislation.

The White House late Wednesday dropped a tongue-in-cheek video on social media that includes before and after shots of women who transform flat hair to voluminous bouffants as a narrator ticks off aspects of the bill that she says will make Americans’ lives better.

“Are you tired of government promises falling flat? Do you go through an outrageous amount of stress just trying to get by?” the narrator intones as a woman screams in frustration over her bad hair day. “Then bump it up with ‘one big, beautiful bill’ and get that relief fast and easy.”

By the end of the short video, the screaming woman and others are sporting new hairdos that are markedly more voluminous.

Hakeem Jeffries has been talking for three hours and counting

Republican leadership spent much of the night and early morning persuading a handful of holdouts to support the Senate-approved tax cuts and spending bill. But now, House Speaker Mike Johnson appears to have the votes, and Democrats are standing in the way.

As the House wrapped up its debate over passing Trump’s agenda, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries used a tool known as the “magic minute” that allows leaders unlimited time to speak. He started his address just before 5 a.m. ET. And it’s still going.

“I’m going to take my time,” he said, before launching into a speech criticizing Republicans’ deference to Trump, reading through personal accounts of people concerned about losing their health care coverage, and recounting American history.

Eventually, Jeffries will end his speech, and Republicans will move to final passage of the bill.

National News

Associated Press

Democrat Cindy Holscher wins election for governor in Kansas

Democrat Cindy Holscher won election Thursday as governor of Kansas, defeating Republican Ty Masterson. Holscher’s win will keep the governor’s office under Democratic control after the departure of term-limited Gov. Laura Kelly. The victory also breaks a 60-year streak in Kansas of electing governors from the party opposite that of their immediate predecessors. Holscher, a […]

8 minutes ago

New York City Department of Buildings employees stand on a rooftop during their investigation of a ...

Associated Press

Witnesses who watched a Brooklyn building come crashing down felt helpless amid the chaos

NEW YORK (AP) — The loud popping sounds outside alarmed Dervie Mapp enough to make her bolt out of bed. She ran to the kitchen window of her Brooklyn apartment and looked out across the construction site next door. The 67-year-old retiree watched helplessly as a three-story building on the other side of the worksite […]

2 hours ago

Associated Press

Cargo ship strikes bridge between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, lawmaker says, causing major backups

PALMYRA, N.J. (AP) — A largo cargo ship struck a bridge across the Delaware River on Thursday, disrupting traffic between Palmyra, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, according to a Pennsylvania lawmaker. The collision left the 3,659-foot-long (1,115-meter-long) Tacony-Palmyra Bridge unable to close, causing a major backup on the Philadelphia side, state Rep. Ed Neilson said in […]

2 hours ago

U.S. Men's National Soccer Team head coach Mauricio Pochettino walks on the pitch during practice, ...

Associated Press

The coach who energized U.S. soccer at the World Cup is on the verge of leaving for a job in England

Mauricio Pochettino had the United States on a roll at the World Cup. The Americans plowed into the knockout stages with fun and furious soccer as rapturous crowds shook the stadiums with “Country Roads” sing-alongs in front of record television audiences. And Pochettino, a former Argentina player who had coached in some of Europe’s biggest […]

3 hours ago

FILE - Former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a candidate for Maine's second congressional House district, ...

Associated Press

Republicans suffered landslide losses in the midterms. Here’s one place in Maine where they did win

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — As Republicans dig out from under a midterm landslide, they can point to a single bright spot on the nationwide congressional map. That’s Maine’s 2nd congressional district, the only seat that went from blue to red without the help of redistricting. It was far from a resounding victory. Even though President […]

3 hours ago

Vice President JD Vance speaks at a midterm campaign rally at CHI Aviation in Howell, Mich., Tuesda...

Associated Press

Trump bluntly tells JD Vance to shift focus from Iran to targeting ‘corruption and crime’ at home

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday directed Vice President JD Vance to shift his focus away from the Iran war and instead devote himself to fighting what the president says is corruption and crime in Democratic-controlled cities and states. Vance, who served as the lead negotiator for a short-lived truce in the eight-month […]

3 hours ago

The Latest: House leaders rush toward a final vote as Democrats hold the floor