Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) took to the airwaves Thursday to complain on Newsmax’s The National Report about he and his Republican colleagues potentially missing their flights back home amid House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ efforts to stall on President Donald Trump’s megabill.
“The congressman from Tennessee, Tim Burchett, he's also not too happy about Hakeem Jeffries' lengthy floor speech,” said Newsmax Host Shaun Kraisman, before cutting away to an interview with Burchett from the nation’s capitol.
“Hakeem's going for the record, everybody knows it, he'll finish up after 1 p.m. or 1:30 p.m., we might make our flights,” Burchett said.
“It's always amazing to me, leadership always does this stuff and they never take into consideration the rest of us because we don't live here, they do, a lot of the Democrats live here in this town. They need to get home to their districts.”
As of early Thursday afternoon, Jeffries is more than seven hours into his filibuster on Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the budget reconciliation package with corporate tax cut extensions and cuts to social safety net programs like Medicaid. Jeffries seems well positioned to break the previous record for the longest House floor speech of about eight and a half hours, set by then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in 2021.
Jeffries is exploiting a loophole in House floor rules sometimes referred to as the “magic minute,” allowing for him to speak for as long as he wants. With the House having already passed a measure to advance the bill to a final vote, once Jeffries ends his filibuster, the OBBBA may be minutes away from final passage and, if passed, sent off to Trump’s desk for final approval.
While questions remained as recently as Thursday morning whether enough Republicans would vote in support of the OBBBA for it to pass, those questions have largely dissipated as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) appeared to have swayed enough of his party’s dissenters to vote in favor of moving the bill forward.
Jeffries’ marathon filibuster may also be strengthening Republican unity around the bill, as was suggested by Vice President JD Vance Thursday morning, who shared a text from a GOP lawmaker who switched their no vote to a yes due to the drawn-out discussion.
