The Latest: House leaders rush toward a final vote as Democrats hold the floor

House Republicans are ready to vote on President Donald Trump’s $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill early Thursday after staying up all night with GOP leaders and the president himself working to persuade skeptical holdouts to drop their opposition by his Fourth of July deadline.

Final debates began in the predawn hours after another chaotic day and night at the Capitol following a series of closed-door meetings.

Putting the bill on Trump's desk would be a milestone for the president and his party as Republicans have the votes to overcome Democratic opposition to a long list of GOP priorities. Trump's “one big beautiful bill,” an 800-plus page package, is a defining measure of his return to the White House. Read what’s in the full bill for yourself.

Here's the latest:

Small business owners get a shout out in Jeffries’ speech
 

The House Minority Leader is shifting from veterans to small business owners, continuing to highlight groups of voters that Republicans often claim are theirs.

“Small business represents the heart and soul of the American economy,” Jeffries said, pointing to entrepreneurs who could see their insurance access compromised.

The 2010 Affordable Care Act created exchanges that fostered entrepreneurship by freeing Americans from dependence on employer-based insurance. The Trump-GOP bill adds bureaucratic barriers to health care through the exchanges.

Jeffries says the GOP is pushing a “lie … that the everyday Americans who are participating in, have access to programs like the Affordable Care Act aren’t worthy.”

Freedom Caucus still tight-lipped about how they got to ‘yes’
 

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, says he and other conservatives got some “last-minute things” as they withheld support for Trump’s big tax bill. But he’s not ready, yet, to spill any detail.

“We can talk about it after the final vote,” he said.

“We’ve got to get thru a few of these last minute things out of deference to the entire team. We got some significant things that we feel pretty good about. Nothing is perfect but — All along this way we get to ‘yes,’” Roy said.

Jeffries reads comments from veterans as he continues marathon floor speech
 

Jeffries says the GOP tax and policy bill’s effects is “an all-out assault” on veterans.

He’s quoting from veterans who he said sent lawmakers their stories of pending benefit cuts. One man, he says, is recovering from injury and “needs help … from the American people” only as a bridge to get back to work.

“I have had your backs,” Jeffries says in the veteran’s voice. It’s time for the country “to cover my back.”

▶ Read more about Democrats making veterans the face of their opposition to Trump’s budget agenda

How Ukraine can cope with the US pause on crucial battlefield weapons
 

The pause on some weapons shipments to Ukraine has come at a tough time for Kyiv: Russia’s bigger army is making a concerted battlefront push and intensifying long-range drone and missile attacks against civilians in Ukrainian cities.

Washington has been Ukraine’s biggest military backer since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, but the Trump administration has been disengaging from the war and there’s no end to the fighting in sight despite recent direct peace talks.

Ukraine has raced to build up its domestic defense industry, producing increasingly sophisticated drones, and amid fraught relations with Trump, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has enlisted more European help in weapons manufacturing.

But some high-tech U.S. weapons are irreplaceable. Patriot air defense missiles are needed to fend off Russia’s frequent ballistic missile attacks, but cost $4 million each.

▶ Read more on how Ukraine is responding to the weapons pause

Trump to speak with Putin on Friday morning
 

The president said in a social media post that he’ll speak with Putin at 10 a.m. Eastern time.

The call comes after the Pentagon confirmed earlier this week that it’s pausing shipment of some weapons to Ukraine amid a global review of U.S. military stockpiles.

Among the weaponry being held up for Ukraine are some air defense missiles, precision-guided artillery and other weapons. The details on the weapons in some of the paused deliveries were confirmed by a U.S. official and former national security official familiar with the matter. They both requested anonymity to discuss what is are being held up as the Pentagon has yet to provide details.

▶ Read more about the Pentagon’s pause on some weapons for Ukraine

Massachusetts advocates say Trump’s bill unravels health safety net
 

In the state that served as the model for Obamacare, advocates and health care workers fear the Trump administration will dismantle piece-by-piece a popular program providing insurance, preventive care and life-saving medication to hundreds of thousands of people.

Provisions contained in both the Senate and House versions of the massive tax and spending cuts bill could strip health insurance from up to a quarter of the roughly 400,000 people enrolled in the Massachusetts Health Connector, according to state estimates.

Trump and Republicans in Congress say new documentation requirements and limitations on who can apply for tax credits to help pay for insurance are necessary to root out fraud, waste and abuse.

The changes to the Affordable Care Act and massive cuts to Medicaid and other programs would eliminate roughly $1.1 trillion in health care spending nationwide over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

▶ Read more about how the bill affects Massachusetts’ model health care system

Supreme Court to consider which school sports teams transgender students can join
 

Just two weeks after upholding a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, the Supreme Court said Thursday that justices will hear arguments in the fall about lower court rulings in favor of transgender athletes in Idaho and West Virginia.

More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some have been blocked in court as Republicans leverage the issue as a fight for athletic fairness. The Trump administration meanwhile has filed lawsuits and launched investigations over policies allowing transgender athletes to compete freely.

This week, the University of Pennsylvania modified a trio of school records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and said it would apologize to female athletes “disadvantaged” by her participation on the women’s swimming team, part of a resolution of a federal civil rights case.

Billions to fund the military within the United States
 

The budget bill includes a hefty investment, some $350 billion, in national security and Trump’s deportation agenda and to help develop the “Golden Dome” defensive system over the U.S.

To help offset the costs of lost tax revenue, the package includes $1.2 trillion in cutbacks to the Medicaid health care and food stamps, largely by imposing new work requirements, including for some parents and older people, and a massive rollback of green energy investments.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the package will add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the decade and 11.8 million more people will go without health coverage.

House speaker: ‘We will meet our July 4th deadline’
 

“Our way is to plow through and get it done,” Mike Johnson said as he emerged in the middle of the night from a series of closed-door meetings on Trump’s signature domestic policy package.

The package’s priority is extending $4.5 trillion in tax breaks enacted in Trump’s first term, and adding some new ones, like allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay, and a $6,000 deduction for most older adults earning less than $75,000 a year. Democrats say these savings will be wiped out by higher costs for most Americans as safety net benefits are cut.

Wisconsin governor signs budget in early morning to secure Medicaid funds
 

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a new two-year budget in the early morning hours Thursday in a race against Congress to ensure the state gets a federal Medicaid match that it would lose under President Trump’s tax and spending cuts package.

In an extraordinarily rapid succession of events, Evers and Republican lawmakers unveiled a compromise budget deal on Tuesday, the Senate passed it Wednesday night and hours later just before 1 a.m. on Thursday the Assembly passed it. Evers signed it in his conference room minutes later.

Democrats who voted against the $111 billion spending bill said it didn’t go far enough in meeting their priorities of increasing funding for schools, child care and expanding Medicaid. But Evers, who hasn’t decided on whether he will seek a third term, hailed the compromise as the best deal that could be reached.

▶ Read more about Wisconsin’s Medicaid deal

Alaska Democrats dial up pressure on Murkowski
 

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego says Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski “folded like a cheap suit” on Trump’s big bill.

The newly elected Arizona senator spoke during a virtual town hall Wednesday night organized by the Alaska Democratic Party as it worked to dial up pressure on Murkowski, who faces re-election next year in a race crucial to Democrats in their difficult path to a Senate majority.

Gallego decried the Alaska carveouts Murkowski secured in exchange for her vote, calling the deal the “Kodiak kicker,” while Alaska’s other Republican senator, Dan Sullivan, “didn’t even attempt to fight.”

The bill hurts working class families nationwide, Gallego said, and Sullivan and Murkowski “screwed and rigged these working class people to benefit the Uber rich.”

US employers add a surprising 147,000 jobs despite uncertainty
 

The American labor market continues to show surprising resilience despite uncertainty over Trump’s economic policies. The unemployment rate ticked down 4.1% from 4.2% in May, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Hiring rose modestly from a revised 144,000 in May and beat economists expectations of fewer than 118,000 new jobs as Trump’s trade wars, the federal hiring freeze and immigration crackdown weigh on the American job market. U.S. applications for jobless aid fell to 233,000 last week as layoffs remain low.

A survey released Wednesday by the payroll processor ADP found that private companies cut 33,000 jobs last month, reflecting a hesitancy to hire and a reluctance to replace departing workers.

The president’s deportations, meanwhile, are driving immigrants out of the U.S. labor force. Those working and looking for work fell by 625,000 in May, the biggest drop in a year and a half.

What's in the Big Beautiful Bill Act
 

At some 887 pages, the legislation includes tax breaks, spending cuts, a rollback of solar energy tax credits, new money for national defense and deportations. The bill does not eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits, despite what Trump says.

The bill rolls back past presidential agendas: In many ways, the package is a repudiation of the agendas of the last two Democratic presidents, a chiseling away at the Medicaid expansion from Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and a pullback of Joe Biden’s climate change strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Congressional Budget Office review: The nonpartisan CBO said Sunday the bill would pile nearly $3.3 trillion onto the nation’s debt load from 2025 to 2034, a nearly $1 trillion increase over the House-passed version of the bill. The analysis also found that 11.8 million Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill passed.

White House: The big bill is kind of like the solution to a bad hair day
 

With Trump’s spending and tax cut bill nearing passage, the White House is getting creative in pitching it to Americans who haven’t been closely following the debate over the legislation.

The White House late Wednesday dropped a tongue-in-cheek video on social media that includes before and after shots of women who transform flat hair to voluminous bouffants as a narrator ticks off aspects of the bill that she says will make Americans’ lives better.

“Are you tired of government promises falling flat? Do you go through an outrageous amount of stress just trying to get by?” the narrator intones as a woman screams in frustration over her bad hair day. “Then bump it up with ‘one big, beautiful bill’ and get that relief fast and easy.”

By the end of the short video, the screaming woman and others are sporting new hairdos that are markedly more voluminous.

Hakeem Jeffries has been talking for three hours and counting
 

Republican leadership spent much of the night and early morning persuading a handful of holdouts to support the Senate-approved tax cuts and spending bill. But now, House Speaker Mike Johnson appears to have the votes, and Democrats are standing in the way.

As the House wrapped up its debate over passing Trump’s agenda, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries used a tool known as the “magic minute” that allows leaders unlimited time to speak. He started his address just before 5 a.m. ET. And it’s still going.

“I’m going to take my time,” he said, before launching into a speech criticizing Republicans’ deference to Trump, reading through personal accounts of people concerned about losing their health care coverage, and recounting American history.

Eventually, Jeffries will end his speech, and Republicans will move to final passage of the bill.