The Senate Republicans will try to draw a way forward for the “law of a Big Big Beautiful Bill” during a series of meetings on Wednesday, including one in which President Donald Trump will work to underpin the support of the Megabill who advances his legislative agenda.
Republican members of the powerful Senate Finance Committee met with Trump in the White House on Wednesday afternoon and arose saying that Republicans are unified to try to approve the legislation.
“This is a team effort, and everyone will row in the same direction to carry this through the finish line,” said the leader of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, after the meeting.
While Elon Musk was fighting a total war in Bill in X, within the Capitol, where the creation of sausages has begun seriously, there were much less fireworks.
The Republicans gathered behind Wednesday for a complete meeting of the conference to discuss the bill. It was the first of several of these meetings scheduled to give the committee presidents the opportunity to describe their visions for specific modifications to the respective bill to their individual committees.
At this point, it is still not clear exactly how the Senate intends to advance in the mass package before the deadline of Julio 4 of Trump.
The conference is beginning to work through specific questions related to the bill. In their meeting on Wednesday, the senators said they heard from the presidents of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee on proposals in the package that affect both.
“I think the Republicans in the Senate support the approval of the bill, but what makes it better than the camera did,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said abandoning the meeting. “We are not yet close to the final bill.”
The meeting between the Republicans of the Senate occurred moments before several Republicans of the Senate Finance Committee got into a white bus and traveled to the White House for their meeting with Trump.
The Finance Committee is responsible for writing the components of the fiscal policy of the bill, including the extension of Trump 2017 tax cuts, a key priority for the package.
The legislation approved by the house also increases spending for military and border security, while some cuts to Medicaid, Snap and other assistance programs. You could also add $ 2.4 billion to the deficit during the next decade, according to a new analysis on Wednesday of the Budget Office of the Non -Party Congress.
President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference with Elon Musk (not in the photo) at the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington, DC, USA, May 30, 2025.
EVAN VUCCI/AP
Republican senator Ron Johnson, who disagrees with the White House and is pressing for closer cuts than those of the bill that the Chamber sent them, was also expected to be at the meeting as a member of the Committee.
ABC News Live appearing on Wednesday, Johnson attacked the bill, saying that “he does not meet the moment.”
Until now, Thune has not made clear what his strategy will be to move the package through the upper chamber. As things are currently, you can afford to lose only three of its members of the Republican party to pass the package, and at this time, it has more members than that express serious doubts about the bill.
“We will do it, one way or another, and it will not be easy,” Thune told journalists after the meeting with Trump.
Trump’s meeting with the Committee was an opportunity for the president to try to influence those senators who have concerns about the bill. Earlier this week, Trump worked on the phones and met with many of those senators, including the republican sensations Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, Rick Scott and Johnson.
Trump also met with Thune to talk when transferred the bill supported by the Chamber through the Senate in the most expeditious way possible.
“We are going to do everything we can here in the Senate and the Chamber to obtain that agenda in the finish line and yes, there will be people out there who are going to be detractors and different points of opinions and opinions and that is all fine and good. But in the Senate, there are 51 votes. In the Chamber, it is 218 218 to obtain a bill that we can present in the desk of the president that will transform this country, according to the Senate, are vote in the senate.
A view of the United States Capitol, May 7, 2025, in Washington.
Oliver Contreras/AFP through Getty Images
Thune has carefully maneuvered in recent days, closely coordinating with Trump while the Senate navigates this bill.
“The president is closer and, ultimately, he will depend on him to help take some of these votes home,” said Thune.
Trump works to calm the concerns of the senators at the same time that Musk attacks the project online, qualifying it as “unpleasant abomination” in a position on Tuesday X. Musk even punished those who supported the bill.
Musk’s criticisms of the president’s expenses bill have provided political coverage for Senate Republicans who have concerns. But for others, it also caused frustration.
Republican senator Thom Tillis had a blunt message for Musk: “Give us some productive comments in which we can operate.”
“I mean, is this someone who has a lot of information about the United States government in the last six months. Give us some productive comments in which we can operate. I cannot operate with topics or I cannot answer,” said Tillis, who will attend the meeting in the White House.
Republican senator Tommy Tuberville suggested that “does not believe” Musk’s position would have a great impact on senators trying to approve the bill, but he agreed with the billionaire in his criticisms of federal expenditure.
“You know, he looks at him in a different way from what we have to look, because again we are the ones who have to vote for it and we are the ones who also have to look at the good along with the bad. Nothing is perfect,” Tuberbille said about Musk.
Republican senator John Kennedy supported Musk says he is “frustrated” that “we are quickly becoming debt slaves.”
“I wish I simply say what he, what he thinks. Look, I think Mr. Musk, I am a great Musk fan. I think he is really intelligent. I think he has the right to his opinion,” he said. “He is frustrated. I think he believes, in my opinion, correctly, that we are quickly becoming a debt slaves, that Congress needs to re -assemble the magical curative power of ‘no’ and I agree with that. That said, I am not ready to throw in the towel in this bill.”
Thune acknowledged that the way ahead will be difficult.
“The wheels are moving on this,” he said. “As I said before, failure is not an option. We will do this in one way or another, and it will not be easy.”
-ABC News’ Mary Bruce, Molly Nagle and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
