Washington — The Senate is debating President Trump’s massive tax bill Sunday ahead of what’s expected to be a marathon overnight session as the chamber efforts to pass the centerpiece legislation of Mr. Trump’s second term agenda.

The House narrowly passed the bill last month, and Senate Republicans have since been working to put their mark on the legislation, treading carefully so as not to throw off the delicate balance in the lower chamber. The House will need to approve the Senate’s changes to the bill before it can head to the president’s desk for his signature. And lawmakers are moving quickly, with a self-imposed July 4 deadline to get the measure signed.

The Senate has been working through the weekend as the GOP nears a final sprint on the legislation ahead of the deadline. Known as “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” the legislation includes increased spending for border security, defense and energy production, which are offset in part by cuts to healthcare and nutrition programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Sunday that the legislation would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the next decade.

Senate Republicans voted to advance the legislation late Saturday, with all but two Republicans voting in favor following hours of delay as the GOP worked to iron out last-minute details and dispel concern among holdouts. The vote on the motion to proceed stayed open for more than three hours as holdouts sought assurances from GOP leaders and even some tweaks were made to the bill before Republicans ultimately received enough votes to move forward.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks to reporters after leaving the Senate Chambers in the U.S. Capitol on June 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Senate Democrats further delayed the legislation’s path forward by forcing the bill to be read in its entirety, starting late Saturday. After nearly 16 hours, the Senate clerks concluded their reading of the bill on the floor, starting the clock on debate. Each side now has 10 hours for debate, of which Democrats are expected to use all of their time to rail against the legislation.

Senate Republicans have been pursuing the legislation through the budget reconciliation process, which allows the party in the majority to move ahead without support from across the aisle. With only a simple majority required to advance the legislation, rather than the 60-votes needed to move forward with most legislation, Senate Democrats have few mechanisms to combat the bill’s progress.

Following debate, the Senate is set to begin a “vote-a-rama,” in which senators could offer an unlimited number of amendments and force the chamber to cast vote after vote through the night. Democrats are expected to use the opportunity to put their GOP colleagues on the record on a number of controversial issues ahead of the midterm elections.

With a 53-seat majority, Senate GOP leaders can only afford to lose support from three Republicans — which would still require a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance. And although a number of senators who had expressed opposition to the measure ultimately decided to advance it Saturday, how they will vote on the measure in a final vote remains unclear.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Saturday that “it’s time to get this legislation across the finish line,” adding that “53 members will never agree on every detail of legislation.” But he urged that Republicans are “united in our commitment to what we’re doing in this bill.”

Vance was on hand to break a possible tie vote Saturday, though his vote ultimately wasn’t needed. Still, the vice president met with GOP holdouts in the majority leader’s office Saturday as the White House has put pressure on lawmakers to get the bill across the finish line.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, warned Sunday that the legislation would be a “political albatross” for Republicans, while suggesting that the bill could even lose support among the GOP, saying “it’s not over until it’s over.”

“I think many of my Republican friends know they’re walking the plank on this, and we’ll see if those who’ve expressed quiet consternation will actually have the courage of their conviction,” Warner said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

Senate Democrats’ delay tactic has finally come to a close, but Senate Republicans are still a ways out from voting on President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., forced clerks on the Senate floor to read aloud the entirety of the Senate GOP’s version of Trump’s megabill on Saturday. In all, reading the 940-page legislative behemoth bled well into Sunday and took nearly 16 hours.

Senate Republicans Ram Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Through Key Test Vote

Schumer announced that he would be forcing the clerks to read the bill ahead of the ultimately successful, albeit drama-filled, procedural vote. And after forcing the reading of the bill, he said on X, “Republicans are squirming.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer leaves the Democratic caucus lunch at the U.S. Capitol on March 13, 2025.

“I know damn well they haven’t read the bill, so we’re going to make them,” he said.

It’s an oft-unused strategy Schumer and Senate Democrats deployed as part of the pain campaign against Republicans, who have iced them out from having input on the president’s agenda.

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Schumer Forces Reading Of Trump’s Entire ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ As Senate Braces For All-nighter

Sen. Ron Johnson in the Hart Building on July 11, 2023.

The last time Senate clerks were forced to read the entirety of a bill on the floor was in 2021, when Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., similarly objected and demanded that former President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Act be read aloud.

Now with the reading dispensed, lawmakers will trudge onward with 20 hours of debate evenly divided between both Democrats and Republicans. Senate Democrats are expected to squeeze every second from their allotted time, while Senate Republicans will likely only use a couple of hours at most.

That time on the GOP side will be used by those already critical of the bill, like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. While his support for final passage is unlikely, he is not the only headache that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., may have to worry about.

Key Gop Senator Defects On Crucial Vote, Imperiling Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ In Narrow Majority

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is unlikely to change his mind and vote for final passage – despite Trump bashing him on social media and threatening a primary challenger – unless substantial changes are made to the Medicaid adjustments in the bill.

Tillis further steeled his resolve against the bill when he announced his retirement from Washington at the end of his term, opting against a likely grueling primary battle.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who supported the legislation through the first test, also wants to see real changes to the Medicaid provider tax rate.

Then there are the fiscal hawks who held the vote hostage on Saturday night as they negotiated with Thune, with the help of Vice President JD Vance, to get an amendment to make changes to the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP), which is the amount that the federal government pays for Medicaid to each state.

Changes to FMAP are not popular among most Senate Republicans, save for fiscal hawks looking for steeper cuts in the colossal bill.

Original article source: Dem delay tactic ends, debate begins on Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’

The US Capitol building in Washington, DC on Saturday. Al Drago/Getty Images

The Senate version of President Donald Trump’s agenda bill would cost roughly $508 billion over the next decade, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate released late Saturday.

The figure, however, is based on an alternative scoring method known as the “current policy baseline,” which does not factor in the cost of extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which would add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit. The Senate package calls for permanently extending essentially all of the 2017 individual income tax breaks, which are set to expire at year’s end.

The CBO’s score reflects the cost of additional tax relief contained in the Senate bill, which includes Trump’s campaign promises of eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, as well as a boost to the child tax credit, an increase in the state and local tax deduction cap, and other measures.

These tax breaks would add nearly $700 billion to the deficit over the next decade, according to a Joint Committee on Taxation analysis released Saturday that uses the current policy baseline.

The CBO’s score also takes into account historic cuts to two of the nation’s key safety net programs, Medicaid and food stamps, as well as other funding cuts.

The CBO plans to publish an analysis of the Senate bill using the traditional “current law baseline,” which would reflect the expiration of the 2017 tax cuts. It’s expected to show that the bill would increase the deficit by far more than the current policy baseline score.

Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, announced on Sunday that he would not seek re-election next year, a day after President Trump threatened to back a primary challenger against him because Mr. Tillis had said he opposed the bill carrying Mr. Trump’s domestic agenda.

Mr. Tillis’s departure will set off a highly competitive race in North Carolina that could be pivotal in the battle for control of the closely divided Senate. It was the latest congressional retirement to underscore the rightward shift of the G.O.P. and the reality that there is little room for any Republican to break with Mr. Trump.

“In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Mr. Tillis said in a lengthy statement on his decision.

The announcement came as the Senate was wading into a debate over the large-scale tax cut and domestic policy bill that Mr. Trump has demanded be delivered to his desk by July 4. Mr. Tillis announced his decision the day after issuing a statement saying he could not in good conscience support the measure, which he said would lead to tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for his state, costing people Medicaid coverage and critical health services.

Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, on Sunday condemned what he described as an “outrageous” pressure campaign by the Trump administration amid a federal investigation into the University of Virginia, which led to the resignation of its president, Jim Ryan.

“This is the most outrageous action, I think, this crowd has taken on education,” Warner told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” “We have great public universities in Virginia. We have a very strong governance system, where we have an independent board of visitors appointed by the Governor. Jim Ryan had done a very good job; just completed a major capital campaign.”

Ryan announced Friday that he would be submitting his resignation. Sources familiar with the matter told CBS News that his resignation was submitted to resolve Trump administration demands related to a federal investigation into the school’s efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusions.

“For him to be threatened, and literally, there was indication that they received the letter that if he didn’t resign on a day last week, by five o’clock, all these cuts would take place,” Warner said Sunday.

When asked if the threat was explicit, Warner said, “It was that explicit.”

Warner described the pressure as personal rather than policy-driven.

“You’re shocked it’s coming- personal attacks are coming out of this administration?” he asked. “This federal D.O.E. and Department of Justice should get their nose out of University of Virginia. They are doing damage to our flagship university. And if they can do it here, they’ll do it elsewhere.”

In his resignation letter, Ryan warned of the potential risks of resisting the administration’s demands. “Hundreds of employees would lose jobs, researchers would lose funding, and hundreds of students could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld,” Ryan wrote.

His resignation came amid an investigation that targeted DEI efforts across multiple universities, with UVA’s president coming under intense scrutiny from the Department of Education and Department of Justice, according to CBS News reporting.

Warner acknowledged the difficult choice Ryan faced.

“At the end of the day, I understand that, with so many things at stake, that the idea, and I think Jim Ryan laid it out, that he was going to make his personal job more important than these cuts. But, boy, that shouldn’t have been the choice.”

Warner also warned that other public universities could face similar scrutiny.

The DOJ is also probing the University of California system’s hiring practices, investigating whether efforts to boost faculty diversity violate federal anti-discrimination laws.

“They want to take on public universities the way they have now taken on the Ivies,” Warner said. “This is going to hurt our universities. Chase away world-class talent. And frankly, if we don’t have some level of academic freedom, then what kind of country are we?”

Most prominent among the Ivy League schools targeted by the Trump administration has been Harvard University. In June, the Trump administration moved to block new international students from enrolling at Harvard, accusing the university of failing to report disciplinary records and calling it “no longer a trustworthy steward” of international programs. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order and later extended it, describing the administration’s actions as unconstitutional retaliation.

The administration also revoked Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification, froze research funding, and pressed the university on DEI policies and campus protests. Harvard has sued, calling the actions politically motivated and a threat to academic freedom.