Marathon Senate vote on Trump's big bill drags out as Republicans struggle to find path to passage

The Republican-controlled Senate began voting on amendments to President Donald Trump's massive tax cut and spending bill, with the goal of passing it later in the day.
WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled Senate held a marathon voting session that stretched into Tuesday morning on President Donald Trump’s massive tax cut and spending bill without a clear path to an endgame.
The Senate has been locked in a “vote-a-rama” process, in which senators can offer unlimited amendments, for 24 hours as GOP leaders struggled to secure the simple-majority support needed for final passage.
The 940-page legislation, which the Senate advanced on a 51-49 vote late Saturday, was still taking shape even as the amendments came to the floor, with GOP leaders hoping to use the session to satisfy concerns from wavering factions. But that path remained elusive.
Major issues like Medicaid cuts and clean energy funding rollbacks remained unresolved. Existing agreements like prohibiting state regulations around artificial intelligence were falling apart. And numerous Republican senators told NBC News they didn't know how a provision to tax wind and solar energy made it into the bill.
Republican leaders need to hold 50 of their 53 senators to pass the bill. And they've already lost the votes of Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who complained that it would add too much to the national debt, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who blasted the Medicaid cuts as damaging to his home state. Tillis announced Sunday that he won’t run for re-election in 2026 after having clashed with Trump over his opposition.
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