The sprawling bill to enact President Trump’s “big, beautiful” agenda is losing momentum in the Senate in the face of blistering attacks from Elon Musk and outspoken opposition from conservatives.
Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) warned colleagues at a special conference meeting Wednesday afternoon that there are two likely “no” votes against the bill within the Senate GOP conference, which means just one more defection would derail the legislation, according to a senator who attended the meeting.
“Crapo just said I think of us are two of us who are pretty definite ‘no’s’ which means we can’t lose anybody else,” the source said.
Crapo did not name names but colleagues assumed he was talking about conservative Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
Paul says he will vote against the bill because it includes language to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, extending the federal government’s borrowing authority past the 2026 midterm election.
Johnson, meanwhile, has called for Senate GOP colleagues to scrap the House-passed bill and move a smaller measure that would focus on extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, securing the border and banking on the spending cuts identified by House committee chairs.
“What I am rock solid on is that I can’t accept this as the new normal,” he said of projections that the annual federal deficit will reach $2.2 trillion in 2025 and grow to $2.7 trillion by 2035.
“We have our chance to reverse this,” he said of growing deficits. “I will not be responsible for continuing this.”
Paul and Johnson are stepping up their criticism of the bill just as Musk is urging lawmakers to “KILL” the legislation, warning it will blow up the deficit.
“Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL,” Musk posted on social platform X.
The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday projected that the 1,116-page House passed bill will add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.
Trump has set a July 4 deadline for Congress to get the bill to his desk. But some GOP lawmakers say that’s looking increasingly unlikely because of a battle between Republican senators over cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the repeal of renewable energy tax incentives.
“It won’t happen,” Johnson said.
“The sooner President Trump recognizes the reality of the situation, the sooner we can work on a smaller version of the bill, do the things that have to be done: Extend current tax law, increase the debt ceiling, provide border funding,” he said.
He said the package could include spending cuts already passed by the House, such as a proposal to reduce federal subsidies to Medicaid by $698 billion and reduce SNAP spending by $267 billion.
The expectation that Paul and Johnson will vote against the bill could give more leverage to Republicans who want to make other changes, further delaying the effort. Those moderates include Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who are warning against Medicaid spending cuts that would affect benefits.
Senate Republican control 53 seats which means they could only afford three defections and still pass the bill.
Collins, Murkowski, Hawley and Moran say they are closely following the proposed reforms to Medicaid.
“I am evaluating those provisions,” Collins said of the changes Medicaid.
She said it’s difficult to fully assess the bill until the Senate parliamentarian weighs in on what policy changes can remain in the legislation and which need to be stripped out for it to qualify for fast-track consideration on the floor.
She said some of the most controversial provisions “may fall out.”
“We still don’t know exactly what we’re looking at,” she said.
Collins, who is up for re-election in a state that former Vice President Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 election, said she’s concerned about changes to the SNAP program that would require Maine to shoulder more of its costs.
She said the bill “switches a lot of the administrative costs” for SNAP “onto the state.”
Murkowski said it will be “hard” to meet Trump’s deadline of passing the bill by July 4, noting that even after Republican senators reach a deal, many of the provisions will need to be vetted by the Senate parliamentarian.
Moran said he’s “waiting for where we end up in the Ag Committee” on reforms to SNAP.
“What we do will be different from the House. I’m analyzing and participating in the discussion,” he said.
He said the negotiations over nutrition program for low-income Americans are “taking time.”
Republicans at a special meeting Wednesday afternoon discussed expanding their search for savings to Medicaid, despite Trump’s warning to House lawmakers last month not to “f— with Medicaid.”
And, notably, they raised the possibility of changes to Medicare.
“There’s a legitimate debate about, ‘Can we do more with Medicaid? Are we doing too much with Medicaid? How much waste, fraud and abuse is there in Medicare? Why don’t we go after that?’ I think we should,” Cramer said after meeting with colleagues to discuss the bill.
Cramer said senators talked about also examining waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare to further reduce future deficits.
“There was a lot of presentation and then debate, people throwing out other ideas, like, ‘What about waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare?’” he said.
But tackling waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare would be a time-consuming task and likely generate a lot of anxiety among GOP senators who are balking at cuts to Medicaid that they worry could impact benefits.
“Some people are making that case, other people are wringing their hands,” Cramer said of the internal debate.
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