'It All Falls Apart': GOP Senate Lacks Majority To Pass Trump's Big Ugly Bill
In a rare admission of uncertainty, Republican senators are privately conceding that President Donald Trump’s "Big, Beautiful Bill" may “fall apart” before the self-imposed July 4 deadline, Semafor reported Thursday.
Trump is reportedly banking on his signature hardball tactics in trying to secure passage of the legislation by Independence Day. However, GOP lawmakers say that strategy is faltering in the Senate amid mounting procedural hurdles and internal dissent, per the report.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Semafor: “I like the president, I respect him, I certainly respect how difficult his job is. I don’t want to make it more difficult. But we can’t keep mortgaging our kids’ future. And he understands that about me."
Sen. Johnson is currently against the bill and is said to have banded with two fellow conservative senators as a bloc: “We all have to be a yes before any of us are a yes," he said.
According to the report, the bill is not only short of sufficient support right now, but is also boasting a hefty amount of blank space for now. That’s because Republicans are still hustling to win approval for provisions that their nonpartisan rules referee deemed ineligible for protection from a Democratic filibuster.
Since it’s difficult to estimate the costs or effects of passage anymore, senators are trying to slow the rush to finish a bill that will affect almost every American in some way.
Meanwhile, as lawmakers prepared to scrap their weekend and recess plans, Trump invited some Republicans to a Thursday event that amounted to what one called a “mass arm-twisting," per Semafor.
One person close to the White House, who was not identified in the report, told Semafor that the president needs to change the deadline.
“He has to shift the deadline, or it all falls apart,” the source said, per the report. “Procedurally, how would it get on his desk by July 4? They don’t have the votes and a bunch of it the parliamentarian gutted," they added.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
