House Republicans are trying to move to the final vote to pass President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" to extend tax breaks for the wealthy and cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, food assistance, and green energy subsidies — but as of Wednesday afternoon, they're stuck trying to wrangle the votes.
According to Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman in an update on X, "HOUSE REPUBLICANS are stuck at the moment."
"They don't have the votes for the rule right now. The floor has been open for nearly 2 hours as the leadership tries to find their way out," he wrote.
The key issue is that House Republicans not only lack the votes for final passage, they don't even have the votes to pass the rules that will allow them to debate the legislation as needed and bring it to the vote.
Things got off to a rocky start Tuesday as Republicans blundered by forgetting to "order the previous question" in drafting the rule language for the bill, a parliamentary procedure that is necessary to allow the GOP to properly control debate.
The Senate narrowly passed their version of the bill, with three Republicans and all Democrats voting against, and Vice President JD Vance forced to break the tie. House leaders hope to pass the bill as is so it can proceed to Trump's desk without a revote in the Senate.
But several GOP lawmakers in the House are unhappy about the final product, with the far-right Freedom Caucus insisting the bill doesn't contain as many spending cuts as promised, and some swing-district Republicans are still leery over the controversial cuts to Medicaid.
