Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) late Monday said Republicans were “slowing things down” in the upper chamber as they worked to garner enough votes to pass the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act.
“They’re slowing things down because right now they’re one big mess,” Schumer said on MSNBC’s “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.”
“They’ve made a lot of promises, contradictory promises to different parts of their caucus,” he continued in the late-night interview. “A lot of people are squirming because they know how unpopular what Trump calls the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ — we call the ‘big, ugly betrayal’ — is. They’re squirming. They know the public doesn’t like it.”
His remarks came ahead of the all-nighter senators pulled struggling to get the necessary votes to pass the massive agenda-setting bill that President Trump aims to have on his desk by July 4.
After Senate passage, the House will need to vote again on the legislation, which has seen significant changes since the lower chamber narrowly passed its version in late May.
“I’d say a majority of senators, Republican senators, believe that this bill is very bad for their states, but they don’t have the guts to buck Trump. They’re afraid of Trump,” Schumer said Monday. “They’re in an uncomfortable position.”
“They’re fighting with each other, and they’re slowing everything down because they don’t have a bill yet,” he continued, adding “At this late hour, they still don’t have a bill.”
Amid the uncertainty, Vice President Vance traveled to the Capitol early Tuesday as the GOP remains short on the votes needed to push the reconciliation package forward. Vance may need to cast a tiebreaking vote.
The GOP leadership has set its eyes on Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a key holdout who for hours has voiced concerns about deep cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Republicans can lose only three votes — and so far, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have said they will vote against it.
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