Senate passes Trump budget bill

All right, happening right now, we want to give you a live look at the Senate floor there. They are voting on passing the Senate reconciliation bill. It comes after a nearly 24-hour "vote-o-rama" for the final amendments to that budget bill. So let's listen in. All right, looks like they just finished roll call there. We're going to bring in CBSNews congressional correspondent, Caitlin Huey-Burns. She is live at the Capitol. We spoke to her earlier today. Caitlin, we are nearing the end here. Obviously, it seems like senators are already voting. What is happening on the floor right now. Can you help us make sense of what we just saw? Yeah, Mugo, I've been watching the floor on my phone as well. They are voting right now on final passage, and it appears that they do have enough votes to pass this bill through. And you will see on your screen as well that Vice President JD Vance is in the chamber ready to break a tie. We understand that there are going to be likely three no votes against this. That is as much as they can handle, and they may need some assist from Vice President Vance there. I should say that they have been up for at least 25, 26, 27 hours now. They started this "vote-o-rama," voting on all of these amendments yesterday at 9:00 AM Eastern time. And now we are at noon. So do the math there. Basically, they did not have the votes until just recently here. They have spent all morning trying to wrangle the vote of Lisa Murkowski, a Republican senator from Alaska, one of the most moderate Senate Republicans up here on Capitol Hill. And so we're waiting to see what exactly moved her across the finish line. She had deep reservations about the cuts to Medicaid. And you're seeing JD Vance right there on your screen reading the final tally.

Yeah, and right now, it's looking like it's tied so far because we see a yay 50 and also a nay 50 as well. So is this when JD Vance would then come in and break that tie? Yes, so this has now officially passed because JD Vance is the tie breaker on that vote. So you are watching Senate procedure live and in real time, Mugo, and our audience as well. So this is a big, big hurdle reached for the president. They had been wrangling members at the last minute. As you see, 50/50 vote with JD Vance having to break that tie, that is very, very significant for the president's agenda. Now, the big question is, how does the House respond? This has gone through the Senate. Now, it has to go back over to the House. Because there have been changes made to the Senate version of this bill, the House has to approve it. And then if they do, which is a big if, it goes to the president's desk for him to sign. Now, on the House side, you already have Republicans raising concerns about some of the changes in this bill. Conservatives saying these cuts don't go far enough. And moderates saying that some of these Medicaid cuts are now going too far. So we'll have to wait and see how the House is able to finalize this and how many votes they can afford to lose at this point. But the House Speaker has been adamant that he wants to fulfill the president's pledge to get this passed by July 4th. And so they are going to now start working overtime to do that on the House side.

Oh yeah, definitely. And right now, we're seeing a prayer by the Senate chaplain. I have to ask though, because we spent a good amount of time talking about how getting this to the finish line, July 4, and the president's desk was a pretty rough go. But it does seem right now the Senate, it seemed like they wouldn't get the votes. We said only three. They can only afford to lose three votes, but clearly they made it through obviously very tight 50/50. And then JD Vance obviously breaking the tie there. But today is Tuesday and you've got Friday coming up. What are the chances that the House will actually come together to agree, not assuming, but knowing the Senate has made some changes to the bill, what are the chances the House is going to agree on something and actually get that bill to the president's desk come Friday?

Yeah, I mean, it is the question that everybody is asking here on Capitol Hill, including the president himself, who is in Florida, as you were just reporting earlier. Remember, this July 4th deadline is completely arbitrary. It was set by the president. He wanted this on his desk by July 4, calling it a patriotic deadline. So he is the one that set that deadline. But lawmakers, as you well know, need a deadline to get anything done. So that was what was forcing them around on this. This is essentially the president's agenda in legislative form. This is extending the Trump tax cuts, the ones that were originally passed in 2017, extending those. Creating new tax cuts, no federal tax on tips, no federal tax on overtime pay, those are new provisions. Also increasing money for immigration enforcement, another key priority from the president. That's also in this bill. But those cuts had to come from somewhere. And those cuts have been made to various entitlement programs, including to Medicaid. In this bill, there is a new work requirement for Medicaid recipients. There is also a change to the tax structure that states use to be able to pay to help pay for Medicaid in their states, and changing the federal response in terms of payments to Medicaid as well. So that's a big issue for some of these more moderate House Republicans. There's also a change in the Senate bill. I know you and I have talked months ago about the state and local tax deduction. That's something that blue state senators, blue state lawmakers, I should say, Republicans, were concerned about, the amount that you can deduct from your taxes. That's a big deal for those in high tax states. So that threshold was lowered, actually, in the Senate version. So you're going to hear some alarm from Republicans on the other side of the Capitol. So a lot of those details to work through. And that's what we're all wondering, whether they can corral those votes again, whether the House, in fact, decides that these changes aren't, in fact, too much for them to handle remains to be seen. And we know that House Speaker Mike Johnson has called his members back. They are meeting this afternoon to start working through some of this new text.

Oh yeah. Now it really gets serious. And, Caitlin, there's also something in this bill that has Elon Musk very unhappy. Can you tell us more about that, because obviously he was posting overnight so, so many things on social media and calling out senators too who vote in favor of the bill. That's right. He's not only opposing this bill, but he's threatening to fund primary challenges to any Republican who supported it. So we'll see whether he's able to put his money where his mouth is on that. We'll see what comes from that. But his opposition to this bill is really twofold. I mean underlying all of this, he obviously runs an electric vehicle company. There is a phasing out of tax credits for electric vehicles in this. There's also a phasing out of incentives for renewable energy. And there's actually a new tax levied on renewable energy companies if they use materials that were manufactured in China. That has gotten the renewable energy industry up in arms about all of this. So we'll see whether they fix that somehow in the House version. But that is kind of underlying all of this. Of course, Elon Musk was tasked to run DOGE at the beginning of this administration. His issue is that he was looking for ways to cut government spending. And this bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, adds a $3 trillion dollar price tag to the deficit, adds $3 trillion to the deficit, saying the government's going to be spending more than it's taking in in revenue. So that is something that he's been upset about. But the president, he has been trading those barbs with Elon Musk right back at him saying that, in his words, DOGE should come back and eat Elon Musk, focus on Elon Musk's contracts and programs and the amount of federal money that his companies have been receiving. So it is getting personal. It is getting nastier. It is getting more elevated in that feud. Bottom line, though, Mugo, Elon Musk's threats were not enough to derail this bill on the Senate side. And I can tell you from my own reporting, talking to Republicans, they're much more beholden to the president and his base of support than they are to Elon Musk, at least at this point.

At least at this point. OK, Caitlin Huey-Burns, thank you so much for joining us as we got that breaking news as the show started this hour. Thank you for your time. We really appreciate it.