House at standstill as Republican leaders continue to try to rally holdouts, delaying rule vote – US politics live
By Guardian - Robert Mackey/Lucy Campbell/Marina Dunbar/Tom Ambrose - Wed 2 Jul 2025 22.19 BST
Democrats criticize tax-and-spending bill as House Republicans scramble to get legislation passed by Trump-imposed deadline. What’s in Trump’s major tax bill?
LIVE Updated 5m ago
'We can't make everyone 100% happy,' says Johnson as it remains unclear if he has the numbers to pass bill
Speaker Mike Johnson has said “very positive” progress has been made toward passing Donald Trump’s megabill, but acknowledged that “we can’t make everyone 100% happy” with the final package, CNN reports.
CNN quotes Johnson as telling reporters:
When you have a piece of legislation that is this comprehensive and with so many agenda items involved, you’re going to have lots of different priorities and preferences among people because they represent different districts and they have different interests.
But we can’t make everyone 100% happy. It’s impossible. This is a deliberative body. It’s a legislative process. By definition, all of us have to give up on our personal preferences. [I’m] never going to ask anybody to compromise core principles, but preferences must be yielded for the greater good, and that’s what I think people are recognizing and come to grips with.
It remains unclear if he has the numbers needed to pass the bill as the House prepares to take a key procedural vote to get the bill closer to final passage.
Johnson said he – and Trump – have been speaking to conservative hardliners and swing-district Republicans all day about their concerns, adding that “there’s more conversations to be held”.
We’ve had lots of great conversations. I’ve met with individuals and groups all day long, as has the president - who’s fully engaged as well - trying to convince everybody this is the very best product that we can produce. There’s more conversations to be held.
Representative Victoria Spartz, a Ukrainian-born Indiana Republican, has taken one of the oddest possible positions by saying that she intends to vote for the bill, praising its tax cuts and spending on immigration enforcement, but will vote against the rule, which has to pass for a vote on the bill to actually take place.
Spartz explained in a radio interview on Tuesday that the version of the bill passed by the Senate exceeds by roughly half a trillion dollars a fiscal framework she and 30 other Republicans in the House support, which set a maximum amount of unfunded commitments. According to Spartz, the speaker, Mike Johnson, broke a promise to not bring any bill up for a vote that added more to the debt than the framework permits.
Here’s what Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell thinks of the slowdown in voting on the tax and spending bill, which has been credited to discontent among rightwing Republican lawmakers.
“We aren’t delayed because moderates whose constituents will be completely screwed are holding out. We are delayed because the most extreme members who want to hurt MORE people are holding out,” he wrote on X.
Democrats do not have the numbers to stop the bill from passing the House, and Republican infighting is what is keeping it from advancing
A CIA review released on Wednesday found flaws in the production of a 2016 US intelligence assessment that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, “aspired” to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in that year’s presidential election, but it did not contest that conclusion.
The declassified, eight-page review “does not dispute the quality and credibility” of a highly classified CIA report that the assessment’s authors relied on to reach that conclusion, it said.
But the review questioned the “high confidence” level that the CIA and FBI assigned the conclusion. It should have instead been given the “moderate confidence” rating reached by the National Security Agency, the review said.
After a November 2017 meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Trump publicly rejected that US intelligence assessment, which had been made public in an unclassified version in January 2017, and said he accepted Putin’s denial that Russia had interfered in the election.
“President Putin said it’s not Russia,” Trump told reporters in Helsinki. “Let me just say, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
At the same news conference in Helsinki, Putin was asked whether he had wanted Trump to win the 2016 election, and if he had directed any of his officials to help him do that. “Yes, I did,” Putin replied to the first part of the question, saying that he had hoped Trump would repair US-Russia ties. He avoided the second part of the question, about whether he directed anyone to help make that happen.
The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, a former representative who served as the director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term, ordered the review and its “lessons learned” section “to promote analytic objectivity and transparency”, said a CIA press release.
The CIA’s directorate of analysis, which conducted the review, “identified multiple procedural anomalies” in how the December 2016 classified assessment of Russian election interference was prepared.
They included “a highly compressed timeline ... and excessive involvement of agency heads” and “led to departures from standard practices in the drafting, coordination, and reviewing” of the report, it said.
“These departures impeded efforts to apply rigorous tradecraft, particularly to the assessment’s most contentious judgment,” it continued.
The review, however, did not overturn the judgment that Putin employed a disinformation and cyber-campaign to sway the 2016 vote to Trump over his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. A 2018 bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report reached the same conclusion.
Updated at 22.19 BST
There’s been some slight movement in the stalled procedural vote that is holding up the House’s consideration of Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill.
To recap, House Republicans managed to prevail earlier this afternoon in a different preliminary vote, but have stalled on a second one, which they only needed to hold because of an error the House rules committee made when it drafted the rule governing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA).
For more than an hour, the vote count was tied at 212 in favor and 212 against. Over the past few minutes, two more yes votes came in, bringing the total to 214 in favor — enough for passage.
Nonetheless, the vote has not closed, and the House chamber is mostly empty, perhaps a sign that Mike Johnson and other GOP leaders don’t want to move forward to the next step, which is voting on the rule itself, because they have not swayed enough holdout votes.
The Congressional Black Caucus, which is composed entirely of Democrats, just held a press conference to blast the tax-and-spending policies Republicans are seeking to pass through Congress, saying they would be devastating for African Americans.
“This bill is cruel and evil. It was ugly when it first passed the House, and then the Senate Republicans made it worse. The big, ugly bill will cost people their lives,” said Illinois representative Robin Kelly.
“We know who will be most impacted: Black people: 13.3 million Black people rely on Medicaid. That includes 5.7 million children. And if that isn’t bad enough, the consequences of this bill go beyond the individual person. It will impact hospitals, which in turn affect everyone, even if you aren’t covered by Medicaid.”
Updated at 22.12 BST
Chris Stein
Russ Vought, the director of the White House office of management and budget, was spotted entering the Capitol as Republican leaders seek to persuade holdouts in their party to support Donald Trump’s tax-and-spending bill.
Updated at 22.11 BST
CNN is reporting that the White House has informed House GOP leaders that Trump got the hardliner holdouts to a better place, citing a person familiar with the discussions. As we’ve been reporting, some of those members have suggested they are closer to a yes after a “productive” meeting with the president, though some details are still being ironed out.
As intense behind-the-scenes negotiations drag on and the House remains frozen, NBC News reports that GOP leaders are also telling members that at least two Republicans who are expected to support the bill have not arrived at the Capitol yet, and that is part of the reason why a vote on an amendment is being held open. One thing is for certain, though: the leadership are furiously working to get the holdouts on-side, as losing the rule vote would be a major embarrassment for the president.
Updated at 21.00 BST
House at standstill as GOP leaders continue to try to rally holdouts, delaying rule vote
Lawmakers have been told they can leave the House floor as delays have led to a five-minute procedural vote remaining open for over an hour while GOP leaders frantically try to rally Republican holdouts to get behind the bill.
Johnson left the floor and went back to his office on the phone, according to NBC News, while the Hill reports that many of the deficit hawks in the Freedom caucus and beyond, who have threatened to tank the bill, are still in a meeting in his ceremonial office off the House floor.
With the House at a standstill, the all-important rule vote has also been delayed and we have no timing on when it might happen.
Updated at 20.31 BST
US judge blocks Trump asylum ban at US-Mexico border, saying he exceeded his authority
A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump’s asylum ban at the US-Mexico border, saying the president exceeded his authority when he issued a proclamation declaring illegal immigration an emergency and setting aside existing legal processes.
The US district judge Randolph Moss said in a 128-page opinion that Trump’s 20 January proclamation blocking all immigrants “engaged in the invasion across the southern border” from claiming asylum or other humanitarian protections went beyond his executive power.
The ruling is a setback for Trump, whose aggressive immigration crackdown has seen the number of people caught crossing illegally plummet to record low levels.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought the challenge to Trump’s asylum ban in February, arguing it violated US laws and international treaties.
Moss said he would stay the effective date of his order for 14 days to allow the Trump administration to appeal.
Updated at 20.32 BST
Key GOP holdout says he's 'a little closer' to voting yes after Trump-Vance meeting
Tim Burchett, of Tennessee, struck a positive note after a two-hour meeting he and other conservatives had with Donald Trump at the White House this afternoon, saying it was “very productive” and put him “a little closer” to voting yes on the president’s megabill.
He told CNN:
It puts me a little closer. We’re going to meet a little bit here and go over everything and make sure we got all our facts straight.
In a post on X, Burchett said JD Vance had also been present at the “very informative” meeting with the president and declared it was “a very good day”. He said:
The president was wonderful as always, informative, funny, told me he likes seeing me on TV, which is kind of cool.
Big day today, folks. Hopefully we get this thing worked out. The president answered all of our questions, was very informative. JD Vance was there. This was a very good day.
'We can't make everyone 100% happy,' says Johnson as it remains unclear if he has the numbers to pass bill
Speaker Mike Johnson has said “very positive” progress has been made toward passing Donald Trump’s megabill, but acknowledged that “we can’t make everyone 100% happy” with the final package, CNN reports.
CNN quotes Johnson as telling reporters:
When you have a piece of legislation that is this comprehensive and with so many agenda items involved, you’re going to have lots of different priorities and preferences among people because they represent different districts and they have different interests.
But we can’t make everyone 100% happy. It’s impossible. This is a deliberative body. It’s a legislative process. By definition, all of us have to give up on our personal preferences. [I’m] never going to ask anybody to compromise core principles, but preferences must be yielded for the greater good, and that’s what I think people are recognizing and come to grips with.
It remains unclear if he has the numbers needed to pass the bill as the House prepares to take a key procedural vote to get the bill closer to final passage.
Johnson said he – and Trump – have been speaking to conservative hardliners and swing-district Republicans all day about their concerns, adding that “there’s more conversations to be held”.
We’ve had lots of great conversations. I’ve met with individuals and groups all day long, as has the president - who’s fully engaged as well - trying to convince everybody this is the very best product that we can produce. There’s more conversations to be held.
Members of the House Freedom caucus and others are meeting in a ceremonial office off the House floor, and walking back and forth between there and the House floor, the Hill is reporting, moments before the chamber is set to vote on advancing the bill.
The Hill has this observation: “Ralph Norman, of South Carolina, and caucus chair Andy Harris, of Maryland, who had pledged to vote against the rule earlier today, are notably not answering now when asked if they’re still going to vote no.”
Updated at 20.37 BST
Preliminary motion on bill passes through House on party lines, but unclear whether GOP has numbers for later vote
Chris Stein
Back on the House floor, Republicans have just managed to get through the chamber a preliminary motion on the bill.
The motion, which was approved on party lines with 214 in favor and 212 against, sets the stage for another vote later in the afternoon to adopt the rule. If that is successful, the chamber will debate the bill, then vote on its final passage.
However, it remains unclear whether the GOP has the votes it needs to pass the rule.
Updated at 20.37 BST
Chris Stein
On their way into the Capitol, two conservative Republican lawmakers signaled optimism that the bill would get through the House.
“I think these votes will take a little, a little bit or a lot longer than usual. But that’s Washington. You guys are watching how the sausage is made, and that’s how business is run,” Nancy Mace told reporters.
Like several other lawmakers, she wound up driving from her South Carolina district to Washington DC after a flurry of thunderstorms yesterday prompted major flight delays and cancellations around the capital.
“There’s things in the bill I don’t like, but would I change the bill because I didn’t get what I wanted? I don’t think that would be good for America,” said Troy Nehls of Texas, as he smoked a cigar.
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