US Senators have spent more than 24 hours negotiating amendments to a mega-bill on tax and spending that appears to have stalled without enough votes to pass.
Four Republicans in the Senate have said they cannot support the nearly 1,000 page legislation as it stands, but with a slim margin of control the party needs to win over only one senator.
Once the bill passes the Senate, it will need to return to the House of Representatives where it faces another tough battle as Republicans control the chamber by only a few votes.
While President Donald Trump previously told Congress he wanted the legislation on his desk by 4 July, on Tuesday he conceded it would be “very hard” to meet that deadline.
By mid-morning on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune was pacing up and down the centre aisle of the Senate floor, alone, arms crossed, chewing gum.
The bill’s ultimate success, or failure, largely falls on his shoulders. Republican leadership appeared increasingly confident of having the numbers to pass it, and scheduled final votes to take place before 11:00 EST (16:00 BST).
Republicans appear to have, for now, lost the support of four Republicans: Maine’s Susan Collins, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Kentucky’s Rand Paul.
As they can only have three defectors, Vice-President JD Vance arrived on Capitol Hill just after 6:00 EST (12:00 GMT) to cast tie-breaking votes.
He helped push one amendment over a tight margin, and is expected to play a key role in the bill’s fate.
The amendments process is wrapping up and Republican Senate leadership are conversing and negotiating with their dissenters to get the necessary number of votes. Leadership will not bring the bill to a final vote until they have the numbers they need. It’s unclear when that could happen.
The bill – essential to Trump’s second-term agenda – would extend large tax cuts the president put in place during his first term.
To make up for that loss of revenue, Republicans want to cut spending from a variety of programmes, including healthcare for lower-income Americans and food subsidies. But within the Senate, Republicans disagree on where those cuts should come from.
Trump previously requested that the Republican-controlled Congress send him a final version of the bill to sign into law by Friday.
But following more than 24 hours of debate over amendments to the bill, called a vote-a-rama, which underscores clear divisions over the bill, he softened his tone on the 4 July deadline.
“I’d love to do July 4th but I think it’s very hard to do July 4th…. I would say maybe July 4th or somewhere around there,” Trump told reporters as he was departing the White House.
In May, the House of Representatives passed their version of a budget bill by a one-vote margin. When the legislation arrived in the Senate, Republicans made numerous changes to it.
So when the bill does pass the Senate, it will need to go back to the House of Representatives for another vote, where Republicans are expected another uphill battle.
Democrats in both chambers do not support the bill and in the Senate they have attempted to throw some obstacles in the way of its passage.
