Republicans advance Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' in unusual late-night vote

Republican deficit hawks allowed President Trump’s bill of legislative priorities to advance out of the House Budget Committee in an unusual late-night vote on Sunday, marking a key hurdle cleared for House GOP leaders and a sign of progress for warring Republican factions 

After gaveling in after 10 p.m. on Sunday, the committee voted 17-16-4 to advance the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which would extend Trump’s tax cuts and boost his border funding priorities while reforming Medicaid and food assistance programs.

The vote comes after four hardline conservatives on the committee tanked a vote on the legislation Friday, saying the cost-cutting measures in the bill did not go far enough. 

Those four conservatives – Reps. Ralph Norman (S.C.), Chip Roy (Texas), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), and Josh Brecheen (Okla.) — voted present on Sunday to allow the bill to go forward.

“In an effort to move this bill forward, and I’m excited about the changes we’ve made, I vote present,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), one of the four holdouts who had tanked the vote on Friday.

Democrats on the other side of the room exclaimed: “What changes?” 

In a sign of the high-stakes nature of the vote, the Speaker as well as White House Legislative Affairs Director James Braid made appearances at the late night Budget Committee affair.

The next stop is the House Rules Committee, which is set to take up the legislation later this week and make last-minute changes to the bill to reflect any compromises and demands between deficit hawks and moderates in high-tax states.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Sunday expressed optimism about the bill’s prospects.

“I think what is about to happen here is that every Republican member will give a vote that allows us to proceed forward, and we count that as a big win tonight," Johnson said just before the vote. "There's a lot more work to do, we’ve always acknowledged that towards the end there will be more details to iron out, we have several more to take care of."

He added, "But I'm looking forward to very thoughtful discussions, very productive discussions over the next few days, and I am absolutely convinced we're going to get this in final form and pass it in accordance with our original deadline, and that was to do it before Memorial Day."

While the broad swaths of the legislation had been approved by other committees earlier this month, warring factions of the party are at odds over key sticking points in the legislation that they say must be addressed before they will support the bill. 

A group of fiscal hawks — to include Norman and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) — said new Medicaid work requirements on “able-bodied” single adults and repeal of green energy incentives do not kick in soon enough, causing them to worry that the savings that are back-loaded on the overall 10-year cost of the package will not actually be realized.

But on the other end of the Republican conference, moderates in high-tax states are demanding an increase to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, currently written as $30,000 — a figure that amounts to three times the current level, but that moderates says is not acceptable to win their votes for the sprawling package. Making changes to appease those members will require tweaks to the bill elsewhere.

Updated at 10:49 p.m.