How the Big Beautiful Bill became law: Trump the closer

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent smiled when recalling how President Donald Trump convinced a slew of congressional Republicans to vote yes on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“It’s the president at his best” when he has to deal with lawmakers who want something for their yes votes, Bessent said.

Trump would dial up legislators on the fence from the Oval Office on multiple occasions. And they knew who was calling, Bessent added, because it “comes up all zeros” on their phones.

He told the Washington Examiner, “A lot of people get weak-kneed when the president calls, and he usually has completed the transaction within a couple of minutes.”

HOW THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL BECAME LAW: READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER’S 10-PART SERIES

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said Trump “was our best closer.” 

John McLaughlin, a Trump pollster, said getting the bill done by Independence Day was an ambitious goal and the president “willed” it to happen.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) said Trump was engaged throughout the bill’s ups and downs: “I can’t tell you how many times the president called me.”

Republicans interviewed for this series said Trump understood the politics of extending the 2017 tax cuts he signed into law during his first term. If the reductions weren’t renewed, Republicans said people and the economy would suffer because taxes would go up roughly $4 trillion over 10 years. But Trump was well aware that just extending the tax reductions wouldn’t be enough to get the 2025 measure over the finish line, especially with Republicans having small majorities in the House and Senate.

The scope of the big beautiful bill was enormous, addressing school choice, the border, the military, spectrum, Medicaid, and many other items. Scalise told the Washington Examiner that 11 committee chairmen worked on the legislation.

But the meat and potatoes of the legislation was taxes, and Trump realized there needed to be some new bells and whistles.

At a 2024 campaign stop in Nevada, home to many service workers, Trump rattled Kamala Harris’s campaign by promising no taxes on tips if elected. A couple months later, Harris endorsed the idea and Trump called her a “copycat.”

Trump doubled down by promising no taxes on overtime and Social Security, and those concepts were subsequently put in the big beautiful bill. 

There were other new ideas, such as the “Trump Accounts,” 401(k)-like retirement savings program for children, which Bessent and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) pushed for. Cruz has called the creation of the accounts “Trump’s New Deal” and said the accounts will be transformative for decades to come.

Still, passing the behemoth measure was never going to be easy.

Trump wields his endorsement power

The biggest weapon Trump wielded to get the votes was his coveted endorsements in primaries. If you crossed Trump, there was a significant risk he would endorse, or recruit, a GOP challenger. While a few have survived Republican primaries against a Trump-backed opponent, such cases are rare.

Trump and Republican leaders could only afford a few GOP defections in both the House and the Senate. And there was a lot of squawking from a couple dozen GOP and conservatives. The centrists were wary of the bill’s Medicaid spending reforms, while Freedom Caucus members insisted on massive deficit reduction.

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After the Senate barely passed the big beautiful bill, Trump turned his attention to the always unpredictable House. After countless conversations in person and on the phone, Trump ended up getting all but two House Republicans to vote for the bill.

One no vote was Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a frequent target of Trump’s ire. Massie had survived prior primary challenges, but Trumpworld this cycle went all in and recruited a strong candidate to take him on in 2026.

Massie, a libertarian lawmaker who has served in Congress since 2012, regularly bucked the White House, and Trump wanted him gone — especially after he rejected the president’s top legislative priority. Massie, who relishes taking on the GOP establishment, reportedly got tired of Trump’s incessant public attacks.

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Toward the end of the debate last summer, the Wall Street Journal reported that Massie agreed to vote for a pivotal procedural measure that allowed the final version of the big beautiful bill to advance under the condition that Trump would ease up on him. Trump later renewed his criticisms of Massie, who in May lost to Trump’s endorsed candidate, Ed Gallrein.

The other no vote was Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), a former FBI agent who represents a battleground district. Unlike Massie, Fitzpatrick is usually a reliable vote for GOP leaders and doesn’t engage in skirmishes with the president. He rejected the final bill because of its Medicaid and energy tax provisions.

Asked what he was feeling when he cast his vote, Fitzpatrick told the Washington Examiner, “Standing by my district, that’s a good feeling, it’s not a bad feeling. If you fear people in this town, then yes, it’s anxiety-provoking. I don’t work for anybody here.”

Fitzpatrick had voted for the initial House bill, but said the Senate made the measure worse.

At last week’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Trump said nice things about Fitzpatrick at one point during his speech. But he did note he’d like a “couple more votes… That’s okay. On occasion, he chose a little independence.”

President refs fights between House and Senate

There were many intraparty fights among Republicans on Capitol Hill about the big beautiful bill. The House and Senate clashed on state and local taxes, energy tax credits, and the price tag of the legislation.

But one of the most significant battles, and the first out of the gate, was whether Republicans should pass Trump’s 2025 legislative wish list in one or two pieces of legislation.

House Republicans strongly favored one, while the Senate GOP was partial to two. Republican senators made the case for passing one reconciliation bill focused on border security and then moving on to the more complicated issue of extending the tax cuts. Trump initially went back and forth as congressional leaders lobbied him.

Bessent said some Republicans on Capitol Hill were advocating for three or four reconciliation bills. 

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) repeatedly said the two-bill approach wouldn’t work. He said he told Scalise, “No way… I won’t stand for it.”

Scalise warned Bessent that unless there was one big bill, the chances of passing the second were less than 50%. 

Grover Norquist, head of the Americans for Tax Reform, said that “all the grownups wanted one.”

Their rationale was simple: There were going to be enticements that lawmakers liked, as well as controversial spending reductions. The candy and the spinach had to go together. Moreover, House Republican leaders wanted as much time as possible for people to feel the benefits of the legislation — and that meant one bill cleared by the summer of 2025.

Senators countered that it would be better to put points on the board and deal with the tax component later. After all, they said, the tax cuts weren’t going to expire until the end of 2025.

The House ended up winning over the president.

In an interview, Senate Majority Leader John Thune recounted how Trump relayed his ultimate decision. The South Dakota Republican said Trump sent him a long text explaining why one was better than two.

“It will be glamorous,” Thune quoted Trump’s text, adding the president used a lot of capital letters and exclamation marks in his message.

The White House team mobilizes

When James Braid needs a boost, he goes straight to the Marlboro Reds. And he burned them by the packful during last summer to flip members of Congress into voting yes for Trump’s big beautiful bill.

Braid, the White House director of legislative affairs, White House deputy chief of staff James Blair, and Vice President JD Vance formed the tip of the spear with Trump, the hand that drove it home.

During the final week of the debate, “The Jameses” practically lived on Capitol Hill, strategizing with Vance in his ceremonial Senate office, working the phones, and, when necessary, catching a few minutes of sleep on the floor of House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino’s (R-NY) Capitol Hill hideaway office.

On June 29, the pair traveled out to Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, for a private meeting with the president, Sens. Katie Britt (R-AL) and Eric Schmitt (R-MO), both champions of the bill, as well as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Rick Scott (R-FL), who were skeptical of it. The sitdown lasted several hours, taking place in a room on the club’s second floor, “looking out onto the president’s golf course,” focused solely on cutting an “agreement” for a motion to proceed, according to White House insiders.

Trump played golf before the meeting, personally lobbying Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Paul had criticized the bill over federal debt concerns and agreed to discuss his opposition over a round with the president at the request of the late South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Hours later, the Senate passed the motion to proceed, allowing the bill to move to the floor for official debate, at which point things got even tougher.

“In the early part of that week, there was a lot of controversy and frustration in the Senate Republican conference,” Braid told the Washington Examiner. “The effort had secured the support of most everybody but certain holdouts and defeated a bunch of amendments that would have struck out portions of that agreement.”

Tuesday night, July 1, was “touch and go.” The entire White House Office of Legislative Affairs Senate team, joined by Blair and Braid, faced a major problem: the Senate was still one vote shy of passage in Vance’s Senate office.

Even though Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) had voted yes on the motion to proceed, she was still a hard no on the overall bill alongside Paul, and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). 

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was waving red flags over changes to Medicaid funding, leading Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Blair, and Braid to broker a deal that offered generous Medicaid funding for the state of Alaska. The trio got the green light from Trump and managed to bring Murkowski on board.

Later that day, the Senate passed the bill, with Vance casting the tiebreaking vote. 

Braid recalled heading home, taking a shower, and immediately heading back to the House, where some Republicans were up in arms over the Senate’s changes.

White House legislative affairs staffers were able to earn the support of most Republicans but identified some two-dozen House Freedom Caucus members who would require the president’s personal touch to vote yes. The president has referred to that group as the “3 o’clock caucus” because he had to call them in the middle of the night to sway them.

“President Trump didn’t sleep for those two days,” Braid recounted. “He was checking in every half hour to 45 minutes, getting updates and talking to people and moving guys.”

Trump’s quandary on Planned Parenthood

Trump faced a dilemma: Anti-abortion groups and lawmakers wanted the big beautiful bill to include a ban on Medicaid dollars for groups such as Planned Parenthood.

The issue was on the agenda at a White House meeting with Trump, chief of staff Susie Wiles, Blair, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and Thune.

Polling showed that adding language that “defunded Planned Parenthood” was a poison pill, according to a person familiar. The fear was that Democrats would use the issue during the 2026 midterm cycle to hammer vulnerable Republicans in House districts that the GOP needed to win, similar to their success during the 2022 midterm cycle after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Trump, who indirectly helped the fall of Roe by getting three conservative justices to the Supreme Court in his first term, thought abortion was a political loser for his party. But if Republicans didn’t address the matter, conservatives could withhold their support and torpedo the overall bill.

Trump’s reluctance was relayed by Johnson to anti-abortion and pro-family groups. Their response was clear: not acceptable. Some members of the House Republican Conference were also uncomfortable with doing nothing.

Johnson, whom many anti-abortion groups have championed as a hero, subsequently told Trump that defunding Planned Parenthood had to be included in the legislation. The president listened.

Anti-abortion groups, however, weren’t leaving anything to chance. They pressured Republican lawmakers to follow through with defunding Planned Parenthood. It was a multi-pronged strategy that paid off, with a catch.

More than 150 anti-abortion groups, including Students for Life and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, rallied on Capitol Hill in late March 2025. They also sent letters to members of Congress connecting defunding “Big Abortion” to Elon Musk’s efforts through the Department of Government Efficiency to trim the federal budget.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser speaks during an anti-abortion rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, March 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

“We felt very strongly that, given the massive turnout of voters of faith that made the 2024 victory possible, that it was absolutely critical that we achieve some significant progress on the life issue in the first year of Trump’s second term,” said Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “And in the absence of a judicial vacancy or some other legislative vehicle that was going to have to be in the tax cut bill.”

“We were not reticent about making that view known to both the White House and congressional Republican leaders,” Reed added.

Anti-abortion groups also traveled to states and congressional districts to make their case in the spring of 2025.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America won a public victory when Johnson promised to make sure the bill would “redirect funds away from big abortion and to federally qualified health centers,” at its April gala. That was the first time, at least in public, that Republican leadership was explicit on their Planned Parenthood strategy.

The next month, the group targeted key House members with over 3,300 constituent calls to their D.C. and district offices, as well as organized more than 183 pro-life legislators in 49 states, to send a letter to Republican leaders to defund Planned Parenthood.

There were also regular coalition meetings between multiple anti-abortion groups, according to Susan B. Anthony’s political communications director, Kelsey Pritchard.

“I think it could have blown up at any time, especially at the beginning,” Pritchard said of the work the groups did. “It was never inevitable. It was never like for sure that we were going to be able to do this because it hadn’t been done before.”

Their efforts proved somewhat successful, fulfilling a goal decades in the making.

The legislation defunding Planned Parenthood would pass in the House on May 22, 2025. But in the Senate, anti-abortion leaders saw their victory stripped to a one-year funding ban amid concern that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough could toss the House language because it would violate budget reconciliation rules. 

On June 30, 2025, MacDonough allowed the one-year defunding provision to stay in the measure.

“The Senate, in our opinion, negotiated with itself,” said Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life of America. “In the past, the parliamentarian had liked or been amenable to the idea of one year. Well, the parliamentarian’s advice has been ignored in the past.”

Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America, said she was disappointed with the parliamentarian’s ruling and also confused about what it meant.

“If it were appropriate for one year, logically, I think it would also have been appropriate for 10 years, and because we don’t know what logic she used to arrive at the decision, we don’t exactly know how to go back at it again for budget reconciliation in the future,” said Nance.

Students for Life, like many other groups, made their displeasure clear to Thune’s office and pressured Senate Republicans to challenge the parliamentarian’s ruling. Eventually, they called for MacDonough to be removed.

But experts claimed the Senate operates on precedent. In 2017, the parliamentarian advised that language temporarily defunding abortion did not meet the so-called Byrd rule requirements, requiring a 60-vote majority to pass as Republicans attempted to repeal Obamacare. Republicans back then moved forward with defunding Planned Parenthood, but it did not meet the 60-vote threshold.

In 2025, Republicans met with the parliamentarian to propose a 10-year moratorium on Planned Parenthood receiving federal reimbursements.

“My understanding is that the vibes in the room from the questions the parliamentarian was asking could not be answered as to exactly the budgetary consequences,” said Bill Hoagland, the senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Republicans scaled down the timeline to one year, and the provisions expired earlier this month.

“That would not have the same impact on access to care that it would if it had been a 10-year depletion of funding,” said Hoagland. “And so this really was a decision by Republicans not to press the issue going forward.”

Although it wasn’t the exact time length they wanted, anti-abortion groups touted their victory.

“Of course, we wanted it to be 10 years,” Pritchard said. “At the same time, we knew we had to operate within the realities and processes of the Senate, and it had never been done before. And so, we kept up the enthusiasm and the energy to get one year.”

Lauren Green contributed to this story.

Members of the Washington Examiner’s staff who have worked on this series over the past several months are Haris Alic, Hailey Bullis, Bob Cusack, Christian Datoc, James A. Downs, Gabrielle M. Etzel, Lauren Green, Zach Halaschak, Chris Irvine, Joseph Lawler, Naomi Lim, Maydeen Merino, Callie Patteson, Mabinty Quarshie, Samantha-Jo Roth, David Sivak, and Ramsey Touchberry.

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