Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said Monday that lawmakers in his chamber will remain in Washington, DC, until they pass President Donald J. Trump’s one big, beautiful bill saying “Senators return to Washington today and we will remain here until this bill is passed.” The comments are a sign of the increasing pressure Leader Thune faces to win over Republican holdouts who still oppose the mega bill, ahead of a self-imposed July 4th deadline. But as the deadline nears, Thune is still drawing pushback from his conference, including a group of fiscal hawks who are concerned the package will explode the national debt. This is causing Senate Republicans to rewrite major parts of their “big, beautiful bill” in deference to key holdouts and the chamber’s parliamentarian as the clock ticks on a self-imposed deadline. GOP leaders are aiming to start voting Thursday, but senators emerged from a closed-door briefing on the status of the mega bill Monday night saying that some of their biggest sticking points — ranging from key tax decisions to a deal on Medicaid to state and local tax deductions — remain completely unresolved. Most crucially, it could be Wednesday night or later before Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough finishes ruling on whether major tax provisions, including some measures at the very heart of the domestic policy bill, pass muster under the budget rules GOP lawmakers want to use to pass their bill on party lines. Once the package passes the Senate, it will need to be passed again by the House and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) told GOP lawmakers at Tuesday’s conference meeting to remain “flexible” if the House needs to stay in session through the weekend and possibly through all of next week, to be available when Senate Republicans clear their version of the bill.
For today, the Senate is expected to take up Confirmation of Executive Calendar #138, Daniel Zimmerman, of North Carolina, to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense as well as a Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #140, Paul Dabbar, of New York, to be Deputy Secretary of Commerce.
The House is expected to take up H. Res. __ – Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3944) making appropriations for military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 275) to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to publish on a monthly basis the number of special interest aliens encountered attempting to unlawfully enter the United States, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 875) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed an offense for driving while intoxicated or impaired are inadmissible and deportable; and providing for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 516) condemning the violent June 2025 riots in Los Angeles, California.
