A week of congressional fits and starts before the big beautiful bill finally made it over the linepublished at 23:00 British Summer Time 3 July
Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Capitol Hill
It's been a rollercoaster ride of a week here on Capitol Hill.
But it ended at least a day sooner than many had expected, a reflection of the unpredictable twists and turns of passing this Republican spending bill.
President Donald Trump skipped a trip to his golf course last weekend, staying in Washington to lobby members of Congress to support his "big, beautiful bill" and get it passed by his preferred deadline - the Fourth of July Independence Day holiday.
On Monday, the task seemed nearly impossible: The sprawling 904-page bill - initially approved by the House in May - was packed with a number of issues that sowed divisions among Trump’s Republican Party, including cuts to social programmes and an increased national deficit.
But on Tuesday the bill cleared the Senate, though only after Vice-President JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote and not before the addition of several amendments.
Given those amendments, the text had to be sent back to the House - and the bill again seemed in dire straits as Republicans in that chamber called the Senate's changes everything from a "non-starter" to a "travesty".
Given their narrow majority against Democrats, House Republicans could only afford three "no" votes, and by midday Wednesday - despite cajoling from President Trump - one houldout Ralph Norman said he and roughly two dozen others were still against the bill.
Republicans were effectively held hostage at the Capitol overnight into Thursday morning until House Speaker Mike Johnson rallied enough votes for a last procedural hurdle so the bill could finally be brought for a full vote.
Then, nearly 24 hours later after they were gavelled into session, Republicans' progress was stalled further by Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries when he gave a historic eight-hour-plus floor speech to delay the inevitable.
Less than an hour after Jeffries' speech concluded Thursday afternoon, Republicans knew they had the support they needed, and Johnson called the final vote.
It passed 218-214 - with former holdout Norman casting the final "yea".
We are ending our live coverage of the passage of the big beautiful bill, but you can read my colleague Anthony Zurcher's analysis on the whole episode here: Trump gets major win - but debate over his mega-bill is just beginning