President Donald Trump is open to the Senate making “fairly significant” changes to his “big, beautiful bill” despite Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) warning that an overhaul risks unraveling the delicate compromise reached in the House.
“I want the Senate and the senators to make the changes they want. It will go back to the House, and we’ll see if we can get them. In some cases, the changes may be something I’d agree with, to be honest,” the president told reporters in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday evening.
“I think they are going to have changes,” Trump added. “Some will be minor, some will be fairly significant.”
The House passed the bill by a single vote on Thursday, a victory the speaker followed up by urging the Senate to avoid making large changes to the text. Yet Senate Republicans have already indicated they will make their mark on the legislation, which sweeps Trump’s tax priorities together with money for the border and defense.
It took a coordinated effort from Trump and Johnson to secure GOP votes in the House, with the deal reached representing a compromise between fiscal hawks and Republican centrists. Trump had to visit the Capitol on Tuesday and later hosted the Freedom Caucus at the White House, while Johnson spoke with Senate Republicans “from the heart about how difficult” it was to cobble together a majority coalition.
The speaker has repeatedly likened the negotiations to “crossing over the Grand Canyon on a piece of dental floss,” adding in an interview with Punchbowl News, “My hope and my encouragement to them is – fine-tune this product as little as possible.”
SENATE PROMISES TO UPEND TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL’ HOUSE COMPROMISE
Some of the House language that Senate Republicans want to review includes Medicaid reforms, an accelerated rollback of Biden-era green energy tax credits, and the sale of spectrum licenses.
Thune declined to specify a timeline for the upper chamber to pass its version of the bill, though he and other party leaders have set July 4, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s requested date, as an aspirational deadline.
