Trump and Putin Discuss Iran and Ukraine in Phone Call

The legislation extends tax cuts enacted in 2017 that had been scheduled to expire at the end of the year, while adding new ones Mr. Trump promised during this campaign, on some tips and overtime pay, at a total cost of $4.5 trillion. It also increases funding for defense and border security and cuts nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, with more reductions to food assistance for the poor and other government aid. And it phases out clean-energy tax credits passed under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that Mr. Trump and conservative Republicans have long decried.

Also included is a $5 trillion increase in the debt limit, a measure that Republicans are typically unwilling to support but that was necessary to avert a federal default later this year.

The bill’s final passage was a major victory for congressional Republicans and Mr. Trump, who is expected to swiftly sign what he has frequently referred to as his “big, beautiful bill.” G.O.P. lawmakers who had feuded bitterly over the legislation united almost unanimously behind it, fearing the political consequences of allowing a tax increase and of crossing a president who demands unflagging loyalty and was pressuring them to fall into line.

“If you’re for a secure border, safer communities and a strong military, this bill is for you,” Mr. Johnson said, extolling the bill ahead of the final vote. “If you’re for common-sense fiscal responsibility and reducing the deficit, this bill is for you. If you’re for fairer and lower taxes, bigger paychecks, affordable gas and groceries and restoring dignity to hard work, this is the bill for you.”

But it also was a major political gamble for the party that will leave vulnerable lawmakers open to sharp attacks ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Many economists have estimated that its greatest benefits would go to the wealthiest Americans, who would see the most generous tax cuts. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently predicted that cuts to Medicaid, including the imposition of a strict work requirement, could leave 11.8 million more people without health insurance by 2034.

The office, studying earlier versions of the bill, had also warned of large benefit losses in food stamps, which will also have new work requirements, threatening to leave millions without benefits. At the same time, contrary to Republican claims that it cut deficits, the budget office reported the measure would swell the already soaring national debt by at least $3.4 trillion over a decade.

Polls show that the bill is deeply unpopular, and Democrats have roundly denounced it as a move to slash critical government programs to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. They have repeatedly accused Republicans of being so much in Mr. Trump’s thrall that they embraced a bill that would harm their own constituents.

In an impassioned closing speech on the House floor that stretched for more than eight and a half hours, breaking the chamber’s record and delaying a final vote well into the afternoon, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, assailed the measure as a “disgusting abomination” that would hurt Americans.

In what amounted to a last gasp of Democratic opposition to the bill, Mr. Jeffries spent much of his time reading testimonials from Americans who said they relied on Medicaid, SNAP nutrition assistance and other government help and worried that cuts would upend their lives. He made a point of highlighting that several of the letters came from people who live in Republican congressional districts that are among the Democrats’ top targets for the midterm elections.

“This bill is an all-out assault on the health care of the people of the United States of America, hardworking American taxpayers,” Mr. Jeffries said. “These are the people we should be standing up, to work hard to lift up. But instead, they’re victims of this legislation.”

In the messy, monthslong process of pushing through a bill that divided their party, Republicans in both the House and Senate made it clear that they, too, were uncomfortable with parts of it, criticizing its flaws before most of them ultimately banded together to pass it.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who cast the deciding vote for the bill in her chamber after cutting a series of deals to insulate her constituents from its harshest cuts, said just moments after she had backed the bill that she did not like it.

“This has been an awful process — a frantic rush to meet an artificial deadline that has tested every limit of this institution,” Ms. Murkowski said in a statement earlier this week, in which she urged the House to reopen and improve it.

As if to underscore the political risks of the bill — and the intense pressure Republicans faced from Mr. Trump to embrace it — Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced during Senate debate on it that he would not seek re-election next year. He went on to savage the bill as a disaster for Medicaid that would betray the president’s promises to protect the program. The announcement from Mr. Tillis, whom Mr. Trump had threatened with a primary challenge after he expressed opposition to the bill, was a harsh reminder for Republicans of the consequences of crossing the president on the measure.

Because of the slim Republican majorities in both chambers, ideological rifts within the party were frequently magnified as Mr. Johnson and Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, tried to muscle the legislation through the House and Senate. They succeeded only after protracted negotiations, several seemingly insurmountable setbacks and parliamentary gymnastics.

The House devolved into paralysis on Wednesday and into Thursday morning in the hours before the final action, as a handful of Republicans withheld their votes to bring up the measure.

Mr. Trump, who had met with recalcitrant Republicans throughout the day Wednesday to pressure them to support the measure, weighed in with angry posts on social media, threatening any defectors.

“MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT’S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!” he wrote.

In the end, Mr. Johnson pulled off a victory, the latest in a series of instances in which he has faced resistance in his own party to a major legislative priority — only to pull out a narrow win with the help of considerable pressure from Mr. Trump.

The bill squeaked through the Senate by the narrowest of margins on Tuesday. But the changes that senators made to cobble together support for it exacerbated party divides that have plagued G.O.P. efforts to advance Mr. Trump’s agenda since the beginning. Fiscal conservatives demanded even deeper cuts to rein in the deficit, while more mainstream lawmakers whose seats are at risk were wary of the biggest cuts to popular government programs.

One member of each faction voted against the bill on Thursday: Representative Thomas Massie, a fiscal hawk from a deep-red district in Kentucky who had railed against the high cost of the bill, and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate from a battleground district in suburban Pennsylvania that Democrats won in the 2024 presidential election, who had expressed concern about the Medicaid, SNAP and other safety net cuts.

Mr. Trump and party leaders refused to reopen the bill for changes, a time-consuming process that would have blown through the president’s chosen timetable and prolonged negotiations on the package for weeks or months, potentially killing the entire enterprise.

Ultimately, the fiscal conservatives who had railed the most strongly against the bill followed a familiar pattern of caving and supporting it. Conservatives have repeatedly refused to back major legislation because of its potential impact on federal deficits, only to back down under pressure from Mr. Trump.

Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, one such holdout, alluded to deals that he and others cut with Mr. Trump. Mr. Harris, the chairman of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, said that lawmakers were swayed by talk of “executive actions” and other steps he and his administration could take to change the way the law would be carried out.

“We came to significant agreements with the administration that changed the entire package, both inside and outside the bill, significantly.” Mr. Harris said after the final vote. (Once enacted, the legislation itself cannot be changed except by an act of Congress.)

Moments after the bill passed, some Freedom Caucus members were already raising the possibility of trying to push through another big policy bill later in the year under special rules that shield fiscal measures from a filibuster, allowing them to pass by a simple majority vote.

Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a Freedom Caucus member and one of the Republican holdouts who ultimately voted to pass the bill, said Mr. Trump and White House officials assured him on Wednesday they could use “another reconciliation package or two,” and executive orders, “to fix some of the broken appropriations process,” including additional changes to Medicaid, as well as to Medicare.

“I got comfortable with what the administration can do to ameliorate those areas where it got worse,” after the bill was passed by the Senate, Mr. Roy added.

Emboldened by the G.O.P. rifts, Democrats have made a point of projecting a united front while they railed against the bill and ramped up pressure on vulnerable Republicans. They condemned Republicans who had warned that many of their constituents rely on Medicaid and cautioned their party’s leaders not to try to balance the federal budget at the expense of the much-needed health care program.

“We cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations,” wrote Representative David Valadao of California, one of the most endangered Republicans, and 12 other G.O.P. lawmakers in an April letter to Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Jeffries highlighted such statements during his remarks, appealing to Republicans to reject the bill.

“Join us, join us, join us!” he shouted at one point, turning to the G.O.P. side of the chamber. “All we need are four,” he added, alluding to the number of Republican defections that would defeat the measure. But as the Democratic leader well knew, the Republicans who had spoken out had flipped their positions on the bill overnight.

When the final vote came, every signatory to the letter voted yes.

Catie Edmondson, Tony Romm and Andrew Duehren contributed reporting.

Representative Chip Roy, Republican of Texas and one of the most vocal fiscal hawks in Congress, fired off a series of posts outlining what he said were the seemingly endless list of problems with the bill.

“Increases deficits and violates the terms of the budget deal,” he wrote.

Representative Keith Self of Texas called it “morally and fiscally bankrupt.”

In the end, all of them voted for the bill, after an hourslong revolt that stretched from Wednesday night into early Thursday morning and ground the House floor to a halt. The legislation was unchanged, and while those who switched their positions to embrace it alluded to deals they had cut with Mr. Trump to address their concerns, it was not clear what, if any, commitments had been made or whether any would be fulfilled.

Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said that he and other conservative holdouts were swayed after discussions with Mr. Trump about “executive actions” and other steps he and his administration could take to change the way the law would be implemented.

“We came to significant agreements with the administration that changed the entire package, both inside and outside the bill, significantly.” Mr. Harris said after the final vote.

(Once enacted, the legislation itself cannot be changed except by an act of Congress.)

Mr. Roy wrote on social media that the Freedom Caucus had “successfully delivered substantive wins,” hinting that more would be revealed. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters at the Capitol that the holdouts had not “caved,” but instead had made a “thoughtful and informed decision.”

It was the reprise of a routine that has become common at the Capitol. Spending hawks in the House declare their irrevocable opposition to the fiscal legislation Mr. Johnson is trying to advance. Then, after publicly airing their grievances and picking a legislative brawl that threatens to kill it, they come around and back it.

They weren’t the only ones. A bloc of more moderate House Republicans from politically competitive districts, many of whom had warned that the bill’s Medicaid cuts could hurt their constituents and suggested they could not stomach the legislation, ultimately voted “yes.” They included Representative David Valadao of California, who just last weekend warned that he could not embrace the “harmful cuts to Medicaid” the Senate had included in its version of the bill.

Nor were members of the House alone in their abrupt turnabouts on the bill. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who cast the decisive vote for the bill in the Senate after holding out for special exemptions for her state from its harshest cuts, continued to criticize it even after it had passed.

“Do I like this bill? No,” she said.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, had been blunt about his concerns about the Medicaid cuts, warning his colleagues: “We cannot be a working-class party if you are taking away health care for working-class people.” Still, he voted yes.

In the case of the final holdouts in the House, their opposition ran headfirst into a bill that ultimately became too big to fail. If their leaders had opened the legislation to changes, a torrent of other lawmakers would have demanded the inclusion of their pet issues, too. That would have risked alienating Senate Republicans, many of whom already had their own deep reservations with the legislation and passed it by only the narrowest of margins. And it would have prompted a back and forth to work out differences between the two chambers that could have dragged on for weeks or months, potentially killing the enterprise altogether.

Several House Republicans who tried to win the support of the right-wing holdouts had argued behind closed doors that any compromise they tried to strike with the Senate risked making the bill less conservative, not more. They pointed to the extreme lengths to which Senate G.O.P. leaders had gone to win the vote of Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, which involved lavishing costly benefits on her state and others.

Mr. Trump himself helped to make the case, privately speaking to the holdouts on the phone as they blocked the bill from coming to the floor overnight on Wednesday and publicly urging them to relent.

“What are the Republicans waiting for???” he wrote on social media. “What are you trying to prove???”

In the end, the holdouts withdrew their opposition and allowed the bill to move, returning to the House floor to cast their “aye’s.” As the procedural vote closed, many of them gathered around Mr. Johnson and smiled for a picture.

When it came to the final vote on Thursday, they again voted yes, just before Republicans celebrated the bill’s passage with chants of “USA!”

Megan Mineiro and Michael Gold contributed reporting.

The change will cut into the government’s savings from the negotiation program by nearly $5 billion over a decade, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

“This is essentially giving $5 billion back to the pharmaceutical industry,” said Dr. Benjamin Rome, a health policy researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “It’s done in a way that is designed, on its face, to solve the problem of some misaligned incentives, but I don’t think it solves those problems.”

Under existing law, costly drugs are exempt from price negotiations if they are approved to treat a single rare disease — one that affects fewer than 200,000 Americans. Drugmakers have complained that this policy discourages them from running studies and seeking approval to treat a second rare disease, and that it ultimately deprives patients of new treatments.

In response, the new bill spares drugs that are approved to treat multiple rare diseases. They can still be subject to price negotiations later if they are approved for larger groups of patients, though the change delays those lower prices.

This is the most significant change to the Medicare negotiation program since it was created in 2022 by Democrats in Congress. In signing the new bill, Mr. Trump will weaken the program at a time when he is calling for even more drastic cuts to align drug prices in the United States with those in other wealthy countries. Mr. Trump has put forward no real policy for achieving that goal.

Lower prices will go into effect next year for drugs that were part of the first round of negotiations. The Trump administration is now overseeing the second round, for price cuts that will take effect in 2027. Among the drugs picked for negotiation is the blockbuster weight-loss medication sold as Ozempic and Wegovy.

The new exemptions will apply to the third round, affecting prices starting in 2028. Had the new rules been in place earlier, several drugs that are currently up for price cuts would have been spared, including Imbruvica and Pomalyst, which treat rare forms of cancer.

For years, the government has dangled incentives to encourage drugmakers to develop medications for rare diseases. This was meant to help offset the financial risk of investing in treatments for relatively few patients.

But rare diseases have become a gold mine for the pharmaceutical industry, and the Republican bill helps to preserve that. Many successful drugs, especially those for cancer, were initially approved for rare diseases before later becoming blockbusters that treat much larger groups of patients. And even treating rare diseases alone can be lucrative: One recent analysis found that such drugs accounted for one-fifth of the top-selling medications in the United States.

Russia underscored the need to resolve contentious issues regarding Iran and its nuclear program exclusively through diplomatic means, the Kremlin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters, according to a briefing released by Russian state news. Mr. Trump ordered the June 21 bombing of Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites in support of the Israeli bombing campaign that began on June 13.

The U.S. and Russian leaders agreed to continue contacts between their foreign ministries, defense ministries and presidential aides on the matter, Mr. Ushakov said.

The two leaders also discussed Ukraine, which is reeling from a Trump administration decision this week to pause some deliveries of U.S. weapons, including air defense interceptors, that are vital to fending off the Russian invasion that began in 2022. The Kremlin said the suspension was not discussed during the call, according to Russian state media.

“Donald Trump again raised the question of the quick end to the military action,” Mr. Ushakov said. “Vladimir Putin, for his part, answered that we are continuing to try to search for a politically negotiated solution to the conflict.”

At the same time, the Russian leader appeared to reiterate his unyielding position on negotiations over Ukraine, which has led many Western officials to question whether he is serious about peace talks. According to Mr. Ushakov, Mr. Putin told Mr. Trump that Russia would continue to press ahead to achieve its war aims and resolve the “root causes” of the conflict.

That phrase is often read as Kremlin shorthand for Moscow’s demands that Ukraine cede territory, embrace neutrality, be excluded from joining NATO or other military alliances and be subjected to limits on its military.

“Russia will not retreat from those goals,” Mr. Ushakov said, without describing them.

Mr. Trump announced on social media that he would be speaking with Mr. Putin before the call, but neither he nor the White House has commented since it concluded.

Mr. Putin informed Mr. Trump of the progress on humanitarian matters that Russia and Ukraine had made after the last round of talks in Istanbul, Mr. Ushakov said. That included exchanges of prisoners and the bodies of killed soldiers. The Russian leader added that Moscow stood ready to continue the talks, though a date for the next round has not been set, Mr. Ushakov said.

During the call, Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump confirmed their mutual interest in realizing a number of economic projects between Russia and the United States, including in the energy sector and space exploration, Mr. Ushakov said.

Before his discussion with Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin talked with Russian business executives, who articulated a desire to cooperate with the United States on film production to promote “traditional values close to us and the Trump administration,” Mr. Ushakov said. The U.S. president said he liked the idea, the Kremlin aide added.

“The conversation between the presidents, as always, was on the same wavelength, was frank, businesslike and specific,” Mr. Ushakov said. “The presidents, naturally, will continue their communication in the near future.”

Thursday’s speech was not a filibuster, the Senate tactic that allows a member to speechify for unlimited time, delaying action indefinitely. But Mr. Jeffries was making use of his prerogative as a leader to stretch his allotted 60 seconds of speaking time for far longer, in a House tradition known as a “magic minute.” In doing so, he was attempting to seize a pivotal moment for Democrats — who have toiled to find a cohesive strategy, message and messenger for countering Mr. Trump — to make a forceful case against the president and his agenda.

The speech was the final Democratic delay standing in the way of passing the G.O.P. bill to extend tax cuts and slash social safety net programs, which Mr. Trump has said he wants to sign by July 4.

But it was, in the end, a portrait of ineffectiveness. Because it was clear throughout that the often soaring oratory was only postponing a bracing reality: Republicans were poised to pass the bill and achieve their latest in a string of victories over Democrats, whose standing with voters has never been lower under the leadership of Mr. Jeffries and his counterparts.

Mocking the name Republicans have bestowed on the bill — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — Mr. Jeffries said, “Republicans are trying to jam this one, big, ugly bill down the throats of the American people,” and urged lawmakers to vote against it. The speech mainly focused on the ramifications of spending cuts to social safety programs, laying out stories of vulnerable Americans who might be hurt by its reductions to Medicaid and SNAP food assistance.

“Leadership requires courage, conviction, compassion — and yet what we have seen from this administration and co-conspirators on the Republican side of the aisle is cruelty, chaos and corruption,” he said, adding that the bill was “an extraordinary assault on the health care of the American people.”

Mr. Jeffries, who spoke deliberately and frequently referred to a large binder of notes, addressed a mostly empty House chamber, though some Democratic colleagues clustered behind him and applauded at key points in a show of encouragement.

His speech drew heavily on the traditions of the Black church, with a deliberate cadence that echoed the rhythm of a Sunday sermon and borrowed from Scripture. The responses from his colleagues, including shouts of “Take your time!” and “Tell them, Mr. Leader!,” reinforced his role not just as a political figure but as a messenger speaking to something that Democrats see as a higher cause.

It was a sharp rebuke that, for many Black Americans, served as a reminder that politics and faith have always been intertwined tools in the struggle for justice, dignity and accountability.

As the hours ticked by, Mr. Jeffries touched on myriad topics beyond the legislation being debated, including the cuts to government programs exacted by Mr. Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, his immigration crackdown, and even the Declaration of Independence — whose principles he charged the president with violating. There were also moments of levity. Mr. Jeffries recalled saving his first paycheck as a teenager to buy new sneakers so he could “look fresh, like Run D.M.C.,” took a moment to tell his mother he loved her and playfully called out colleagues by name as he referred to their states and alma maters.

Speaker Mike Johnson was likely to address the chamber once Mr. Jeffries finished. He also has unlimited time, in theory, but he told reporters earlier on Thursday that he expected his speech would be significantly shorter than that of the Democratic leader. A vote on the bill was expected soon after Mr. Johnson’s remarks conclude.

Robert Jimison contributed reporting.

That effort will begin in earnest on Thursday night when Mr. Trump travels to Des Moines, Iowa, for the kickoff of America250, a yearlong series of events to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding. Mr. Trump planned to devote a significant amount of time to the legislation during his remarks there, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said.

He will continue his sales pitch when he signs the bill into law on Friday afternoon during a ceremony at the White House, Ms. Leavitt announced just after the House vote. “Today is a victorious day for the American people,” she said.

The president and his aides argued the legislation was critical to achieving his domestic agenda and fulfilling his campaign promises. They focused on the bill’s provisions that would slash taxes by about $4.5 trillion while increasing funding for the military and border security.

“THE ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL DEAL IS ALL ABOUT GROWTH,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday. “IF PASSED, AMERICA WILL HAVE AN ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE LIKE NEVER BEFORE.”

But the bill also cuts roughly $1 trillion from Medicaid, reduce food assistance and add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit — and Democrats plan to make that the centerpiece of their midterm elections campaign. Their effort will be aided by Republicans, many of whom spent weeks raising concerns about the legislation’s deep cuts and will surely feature in campaign ads in the coming months.

Democratic political groups have already announced plans to run ads against vulnerable House Republicans, highlighting their support for the bill. They will try to replicate a playbook from 2018, during Mr. Trump’s first term, when Democrats took control of the House on a platform that focused heavily on Republicans’ efforts to roll back the Affordable Care Act.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, spent more than eight hours on the House floor just before the vote assailing the legislation as he made his way through a thick binder of stories about Medicaid.

“This bill represents the largest cut to health care in American history,” Mr. Jeffries said. “It’s an all-out assault on the health care of the American people.”

Mr. Jeffries said the president promised “he was going to love and cherish Medicaid.”

“Nothing about this bill loves and cherishes Medicaid,” he said. “It guts Medicaid.”

Republicans tried to avoid immediate political backlash by delaying the new cuts and work requirements until after next year’s midterm elections. But Democrats will find some help in keeping those changes front and center: Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri who voted to support the legislation, said he planned to spend the next two years trying to undo the Medicaid provisions because he was so opposed to them.

Just 29 percent of voters support the bill, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll.

Roughly two-thirds of Republicans supported the bill, a relatively low figure compared with the support presidents typically receive from their own party for signature legislation.

And roughly half of all voters — including 20 percent of Republicans — say they expect the bill to hurt them and their families, according to a Fox News poll. Still, voters are not paying much attention. Only about 60 percent of voters said they understood what was in the bill, and just 17 percent said they understood its contents very well. The polling was conducted before the bill passed the Senate, though opinion about the legislation has been stable, even as the details of the bill have changed.

Ruth Igielnik contributed reporting.