STORY: President Donald Trump 's tax-cut legislation cleared its final hurdle in the U.S. Congress on Thursday (July 3) as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved a massive package that would fund his domestic agenda and push millions of Americans off health insurance

The 218-214 vote amounts to a significant victory for the Republican president that will fund his immigration crackdown, make his 2017 tax cuts permanent and deliver new tax breaks that he promised during his 2024 campaign.

It also cuts health and food safety net programs and zeroes out dozens of green energy incentives. It would add $3.4 trillion to the nation's $36.2 trillion debt, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Despite concerns within Trump's party over the 869-page bill's price tag and its hit to healthcare programs, in the end just two of the House's 220 Republicans voting against it, following an overnight standoff. The bill has already cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by the narrowest possible margin.

The White House said Trump will sign it into law at 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT) on Friday, the July 4 Independence Day holiday.

Republicans said the legislation will lower taxes for Americans across the income spectrum and spur economic growth.

Every Democrat in Congress voted against it, blasting the bill as a giveaway to the wealthy that would leave millions uninsured.

Trump kept up the pressure throughout, cajoling and threatening lawmakers as he pressed them to finish the job.

Though roughly a dozen House Republicans threatened to vote against the bill, only two ended up doing so: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a centrist, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a conservative who said it did not cut spending enough.

Republicans raced to meet Trump's July 4 deadline, working through last weekend and holding all-night debates in the House and the Senate. The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday in a 51-50 vote in that saw Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote.

According to the CBO, the bill would lower tax revenues by $4.5 trillion over 10 years and cut spending by $1.1 trillion.

Those spending cuts largely come from Medicaid, the health program that covers 71 million low-income Americans. The bill would tighten enrollment standards, institute a work requirement and clamp down on a funding mechanism used by states to boost federal payments - changes that would leave nearly 12 million people uninsured, according to the CBO.

Republicans added $50 billion for rural health providers to address concerns that those cutbacks would force them out of business.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

VIDEO SHOWS: HOUSE SPEAKER, MIKE JOHNSON, SIGNING TAX-CUT AND SPENDING BILL/ SOUNDBITES FROM JOHNSON AND OTHER LAWMAKERS AFTER THE BILL'S PASSING

RESENDING WITH COMPLETE SCRIPT

SHOWS: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (JULY 3, 2025) (HOUSE TV – Access all)

1. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, MIKE JOHNSON, WALKING UP TO LECTERN, GREETING FELLOW REPUBLICANS

2. WHITE FLASH

3. (SOUNDBITE)(English) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, MIKE JOHNSON, SAYING:

"This is the the vote tally card. We're going to frame this one. Okay, 218 - 214."

4. WHITE FLASH

5. (SOUNDBITE)(English) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, MIKE JOHNSON, SAYING:

"I would sum it up with one word. It's belief. Okay. We had a vision for what we wanted to do as a group. We believed in the election cycle last fall that we were going to be given this great blessing of unified government, that we would have the White House and the Senate and the House aligned, in alignment, unified government.

And we did not want to waste that opportunity because we understand the history that comes along with it, the opportunity that we can do for the country. And we believe that we would have that chance. And then I believed in the people that are standing here behind me. I believe in this group, every single one of them individually.

Some of them are more fun to deal with and others, you know, I mean that with the greatest level of respect. I love every single one of my colleagues, you know, even the ones I got to spend the more time with, right? Because everybody's here. Their motive is right. Their heart is right. They're trying to do right for their constituents. They're trying to serve the greatest nation in the history of the world that we're going to celebrate tomorrow. We don't take that lightly."

6. JOHNSON TAKING SEAT TO SIGN TAX-CUT AND SPENDING BILL

7. JOHNSON SIGNING TAX BILL

8. JOHNSON AND LAWMAKERS POSING WITH THUMBS UP AFTER SIGNING BILL

9. (SOUNDBITE)(English) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, MIKE JOHNSON, SAYING:

"But when it went to the Senate, of course, as the other chambers have to do, they made some some changes. They sent it over to us. We didn't have it for a lot of time. And so some members wanted to go really deep in the weeds on the changes and they wanted to fully understand what those amendments were and how they would interact with the rest of the bill and how the administration would administer the new laws. And so there was a process there for a couple of days where we allowed that time for them to explore all that, to talk with leaders in the administration. President Trump was so generous with his time answering questions himself. Vice President JD Vance was directly engaged. We had Cabinet secretaries at a number of different federal agencies answering questions from members."

10. WHITE FLASH

11. (SOUNDBITE)(English) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, MIKE JOHNSON, SAYING:

"I think a lot of the estimations about what this legislation would do in a negative manner to communities in my state or any other are far overblown. I can tell you that this bill is going to be a great thing for everybody around the country. My constituents, especially. What's good for Louisiana, is good for America. We've got great tax policy here. I think they're going to feel this pretty quickly. Wages will rise. I think the household income will go up. I think the job participation rate will will increase dramatically. I think unemployment will be low. We're going to duplicate what we did in the first Trump administration. Remember, at the first two years, you'll have heard me say a thousand times, it's objectively true, we had one of the greatest comedies in the history of the world, and we're going to do that again, except this time much more comprehensively."

12. JOHNSON POSING FOR PHOTOS

WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (JULY 3, 2025) (REUTERS – Access all)

13. (SOUNDBITE)(English) DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, JAMES CLYBURN, SAYING:

"There will be monthly job reports. We'll see what happens with inflation. We'll see what happens with homeownership, job stocks. If cutting a trillion dollars out of Medicaid is what we call progress, I'd like to see what failure is, because that is what we have just seen happen. And for anybody to say the impact it's going to be minuscule you must know how much a trillion dollars is."

14. (SOUNDBITE)(English) DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW YORK, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, SAYING:

"There has to be consequences to these votes. And we have to decide if this is just a joke, or just for TV or if this is our real lives. And I hope people vote like it's our real lives."

15. (SOUNDBITE)(English) REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE FROM TENNESSEE, TIM BURCHETT, SAYING:

"No, I think when America understands that, that things like if you're able to work, you ought to work. And and we need to clear up some of the fraudulent behavior so that it provides for those single moms with two kids that are maybe just getting by and it doesn't collapse the system. The least amongst us, is a biblical reference that Jesus made and I kind of dig it."

16. (SOUNDBITE)(English) DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVES FROM TEXAS, MARC VEASEY, SAYING:

"If you think about like who sort of helped them get to where they are right now, we think about MAGA, you think about the majority that they have. They represent a lot of lower income people. I see them all the time in the DFW area. They live in Fort Worth, in Dallas, a lot of them live in the surrounding counties and they're going to be destitute and they're not going to be able to have their Medicaid. They're also not going to be able to have some of the benefits that the Affordable Care Act was able to bring to their families. And so to me, they have pulled the rug from up under some of the very same people that wear these MAGA hat out to take those damn MAGA hats and throw them in the dumpster because they are going to be in a much tougher situation than they're in right now."

17. (SOUNDBITE)(English) REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE FROM MARYLAND, ANDREW HARRIS, SAYING:

"Winning is caving? Well, if winning is caving, then I guess we caved."

JOURNALIST ASKING (OFF CAMERA): "Can you tell us what kind of deal, what kind of concessions were made?"

HARRIS: "No, just that when you when you put them all together into the package, it was a much better package than the Senate package alone or what would have come back from the Senate if we had sent it over to the Senate. And remember, this process has been going on since January. When we started what was on the table was 300 billion dollars in spending reduction. We, by holding to what the Freedom Caucus has done for the last ten years which is make deficit reduction a primary motive, we achieved 1.5 trillion dollars and that doesn't include the agreements we came to last night that will further reduce spending outside the framework of the bill."

18. STEPS OF CONGRESS