U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) speaks at a press conference following the U.S. Senate Republicans’ weekly policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 10, 2025.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” cleared a key procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate late Saturday night, pushing the massive spending package one step closer to the president’s desk.
The vote on a motion to proceed to final debate on the bill passed with 51 yeas and 49 nays. Every Democrat and two Republicans, Sens. Thom Tillis, N.C., and Rand Paul, Ky., voted against it.
The actual voting took hours and the measure only passed after three Republican holdouts — Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida and Cynthia Lummus of Wyoming — folded and voted yes.
Sen. Ron Johnson, Wis., an outspoken critic of the bill, ultimately changed his vote from a “no” to a “yes.” That additional Republican vote gave the bill 51 yeas, so Vice President JD Vance did not need to cast a vote to break a tie.
The ultimate passage was a victory for Republican Majority Leader John Thune, S.D., who has pledged to get the bill to Trump for his signature by July 4.
But the hours of uncertainty and last-minute wrangling underscore the tricky path ahead for the controversial package.
Saturday’s procedural vote tees up a final Senate vote on the megabill that will likely happen sometime Sunday or Monday.
Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, are forcing the 940-page bill to be read out loud once it heads to full debate on the Senate floor Sunday.
“We will be here all night if that’s what it takes to read it,” Schumer wrote Saturday on X.
While the package cannot officially pass the upper chamber until the final vote, the procedural vote was considered a big test for Thune.
The vote comes after weeks of turmoil and tension over the massive package that exposed bitter policy disputes and emboldened some firm Republican holdouts.
The sweeping domestic policy package will also have to be passed again in the House, which just narrowly passed its own version of the bill last month.
Some House Republicans have already expressed opposition to key elements of the Senate version of the bill — most notably deep cuts to Medicaid — likely foreshadowing a close vote in the lower chamber.
Both Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson hold narrow majorities in their respective chambers, meaning they can only afford to lose the support of a small number of Republican lawmakers to pass the package in a party-line vote.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to urge lawmakers to get the package passed before Republicans’ self-imposed July 4 deadline.
“President Trump is committed to keeping his promises, and failure to pass this bill would be the ultimate betrayal,” the White House said in a statement of administration policy on Saturday.
