A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
House Republicans have approved a massive bill at the heart of President Trump's domestic agenda. Here's House Speaker Mike Johnson ahead of the vote this morning.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKE JOHNSON: This is a historic moment that we will be talking to our children and our grandchildren about, and everyone will remember. America's back.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The bill would, among other things, extend President Trump's 2017 tax cuts before they expire at the end of the year and revamp immigration policy.
MARTÍNEZ: And NPR's congressional correspondent, Claudia Grisales, has been following this. Claudia, how do we get to this place? Because there have been long negotiations and debates that went through the night.
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: Exactly, all through the night, and they just passed this massive tax and spending plan. It's quite the turnaround from just a few hours ago. They overcame a series of hurdles overnight, from GOP holdouts to fierce objections from Democrats, pushing this plan out of a House rules committee hearing that lasted more than 20 hours and a key procedural floor vote before the final passage. President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson may have pulled off what we've seen several times this year, another one-two punch of GOP holdouts to get them back in line. These fiscal conservatives or members of the House Freedom Caucus flipped to yes after an hourslong White House meeting with President Trump and Johnson yesterday. And in the end, it passed by just one vote.
MARTÍNEZ: Wow, by a whisker. All right. So...
GRISALES: Yes.
MARTÍNEZ: ...After this meeting, yeah, Republican leaders released an updated version of this plan. What's different about it now?
GRISALES: Right. They made tweaks to this plan to address concerns from holdouts that it could raise the deficit. But we should know this - we should note this big bill kept a lot of its big provisions in place, such as extending the Trump tax plan, as we mentioned, major policy changes on immigration and energy, and campaign promises that Trump made, like no tax on tips. It also includes a major win for GOP supporters to raise the cap on state and local tax deductions. But those final tweaks to the bill to win over these holdouts included moving up new work requirements for Medicaid to next year and phasing out some energy tax credits. These changes, along with plans, Johnson said, would involve future presidential executive orders, got momentum back in leadership's favor.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, Democrats did try to delay the plan.
GRISALES: Right. Unlike House Freedom Caucus members, however, Democrats don't have much influence here. However, they slowed down the process as much as possible. That included leading a series of fiery arguments on the floor, raising concerns about plans to install these new Medicaid cuts that look to jeopardize coverage for millions of Americans.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, so Speaker Johnson wants to get this bill on track to the Senate by Memorial Day. What has to happen now?
GRISALES: So, right, this is a major step, but it is still a very long way to go to getting this to President Trump's desk, as Senate Republicans already have raised plenty of concerns about this bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is going to face a tough task threading the needle between this House plan and concerns from his own members that includes fiscal hawks in that chamber as well as moderates who have concerns about those Medicaid cuts. So they've already made clear they plan to make a lot of changes to this House bill.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Claudia Grisales. Thanks a lot.
GRISALES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
