President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill cleared a critical hurdle in the early hours of Thursday morning as House GOP leaders push ahead to a full House floor vote, which is now on track to take place within hours.
The House voted 217 to 212 to clear a key procedural hurdle and bring the bill to the floor with one Republican voting in opposition: GOP Rep. Thomas Massie. GOP Rep. Chip Roy, who had been closely watched as a potential holdout, voted in favor.
A vote on final passage is expected around 5 a.m., though the timing could slip as Democrats have attempted to delay GOP leaders’ effort in protest over the legislation.
The push to pass the bill in the House has been a key test of Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson’s influence. Republican leaders have engaged in intensive negotiations over the bill, and Trump has made impassioned appeals to House Republicans to get on board in an effort to pave the way for passage.
GOP leaders have had to carefully thread the needle between competing demands from conservative hardliners and centrist members of their conference – a delicate balancing act as Speaker Johnson can only afford a handful of defections with his razor-thin majority.
If the House passes the bill, it would mark a major victory for the president and the speaker, but the legislation will still face challenges ahead. It would next head to the Senate, where Republicans in the chamber have signaled that they plan to make their own changes to the bill.
The legislative package includes measures that would deeply cut into two of the nation’s key safety net programs – Medicaid and food stamps – while making permanent essentially all of the trillions of dollars of individual income tax breaks contained in the GOP’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
House Republicans unveiled key changes to the bill on Wednesday evening in an effort to win over GOP holdouts. Those changes included speeding up work requirements for Medicaid to the end of 2026, from the start of 2029. Republicans also decided to phase out Biden-era energy tax credits sooner than planned, among other provisions.
CNN’s Tami Luhby and Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.
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