President Donald Trump appeared to get fed up in the middle of the night as his spending bill remained stalled in the House.
The House moved Wednesday night to vote on advancing Trump’s massive domestic policy bill to a debate. If the measure clears the procedural hurdle, it moves closer to final passage. The vote also serves as a litmus test of sorts to prove that House Speaker Mike Johnson has the numbers to deliver the president’s signature legislation by the July 4 deadline.
Earlier on Wednesday night, Trump had insisted that House Republicans were united behind his “big, beautiful bill,” even as defectors slowly surfaced during the procedural vote that dragged on through the night.
But he seemed to lose patience as the clock ticked past midnight.
“What are the Republicans waiting for??? What are you trying to prove??? MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT’S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!” he wrote on X just after midnight.
“FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!” he added soon afterwards.
As of 2:30 on Thursday morning, the procedural vote stood at 217 nays—212 Democrats joined by five Republicans—and 207 GOP ayes. Eight conservative lawmakers had yet to cast their vote.
Trump spoke on the phone with some of the holdouts at around 1 a.m. and tried to bring the lawmakers around, The Hill reported.
One of them, Rep. Thomas Massie, reportedly suggested he would support the procedural vote if Trump would stop attacking him. Trump has viciously targeted the Kentucky Republican for opposing the bill and his allies are actively working to oust Massie in next year’s primary.
Soon afterwards, Johnson told reporters he thinks the holdouts are “going to come on board.” He said he and his team were also wrapping up conversations with the handful of Republicans who had not yet voted, and expects to get the rule vote “done” soon.
The plan is to move on to final passage immediately after that, he said.
“We had GREAT conversations all day, and the Republican House Majority is UNITED, for the Good of our Country, delivering the Biggest Tax Cuts in History and MASSIVE Growth,” Trump had written in a separate Truth Social post earlier in the evening.
“The USA is on track to break every record on GROWTH,” he added. “Go Republicans, beat the Crooked Democrats tonight! PRO-GROWTH Tax Cuts never fail.”
Trump and Johnson spent much of Wednesday working the phones to muster support for the so-called “big, beautiful bill.” Because of razor-thin margins in the House, the GOP can only afford three “no” votes as Democrats united along party lines.
Though the House was expected to be in for another all-nighter, there were early signs that the bill was in trouble. As of midnight, five GOP representatives had voted “no” on the resolution: Reps. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Keith Self of Philadelphia, and Massie.
In a lengthy X post, Self explained that he voted against the resolution because “the Senate broke the House framework.” Senators voted 51-50 to pass their version of the bill on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance stepping in as the tiebreaker.
“House leadership wants to cram this broken bill down our throats by rushing it to the floor while in the middle of discussions, completely disregarding their promises,” Self said. “Ultimately, this is an issue of morality. Abiding by our word is the only thing we have; therefore, as the bill currently stands, I voted against the rule.”
Johnson told reporters that he felt “very good” about the outcome even as he worked to flip the Republican “no” votes.
“We feel very good about where we are and we’re moving forward,” he said. “So we’re going to deliver the Big, Beautiful Bill, the president’s America First agenda, and we’re going to do right by the American people. This is going to be a great thing for the country.”
In a later interview with Fox News, Johnson said he and Trump had been speaking to GOP holdouts.
“I think they’re open for conversation,” he said of the “nay” voters. “Everybody’s here in good faith. Everybody wants to get to yes. Everybody wants to deliver this agenda for the people, and we’re going to give them every opportunity to do that.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett said he spent two hours at the White House in a meeting with Trump and Vance.
“The president answered all our questions, was very informative,” he said in a video posted on X. “We’ll hopefully get this worked out.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have raised alarm over the bill’s steep cuts to Medicaid, which could see 11 million Americans lose their health insurance, as well as add $3 trillion to the debt.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries vowed to put up a fight.
“House Republicans are once again trying to pass their dangerous budget in the middle of the night,” he said on X. “We will keep the pressure on. And continue to do all we can to stop these extremists from gutting your healthcare.”
