The House gives final approval to Trump's big tax bill in a milestone for his second-term agenda

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans propelled President Donald Trump’s big multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts bill to final passage Thursday in Congress, overcoming multiple setbacks to approve his signature second-term policy package before a Fourth of July deadline.

The tight roll call, 218-214, came at a potentially high political cost, with two Republicans joining all Democrats opposed. GOP leaders worked overnight and the president himself leaned on a handful of skeptics to drop their opposition. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York delayed voting for more than eight hours by seizing control of the floor with a record-breaking speech against the bill.

Trump celebrated his political victory in Iowa, where he attended the kickoff for a year of events marking the country's upcoming 250th anniversary.

“I want to thank Republican congressmen and women, because what they did is incredible,” he said. The president complained that Democrats voted against the bill because “they hate Trump — but I hate them too.”

Trump said he plans to sign the legislation on Friday at the White House.

The outcome delivers a milestone for the president and for his party. It was a long-shot effort to compile a lengthy list of GOP priorities into what they called his “one big beautiful bill,” at nearly 900 pages. With Democrats unified in opposition, the bill will become a defining measure of Trump’s return to the White House, aided by Republican control of Congress.

“You get tired of winning yet?” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., invoking Trump as he called the vote.

“With one big beautiful bill we are going to make this country stronger, safer and more prosperous than ever before,” he said.

Republicans celebrated with a rendition of the Village People's “Y.M.C.A.,” a song the president often plays at his rallies, during a ceremony afterward.

At its core, the package's priority is $4.5 trillion in tax breaks enacted in 2017 during Trump's first term that would expire if Congress failed to act, along with new ones. This includes allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay, and a $6,000 deduction for most older adults earning less than $75,000 a year.

There's also 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 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 major rollback of green energy tax credits.

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.

“This was a generational opportunity to deliver the most comprehensive and consequential set of conservative reforms in modern history, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the House Budget Committee chairman.

Democrats unified against the bill as a tax giveaway to the rich paid for on the backs of the working class and most vulnerable in society, what they called “trickle down cruelty.”

Jeffries began the speech at 4:53 a.m. EDT and finished at 1:37 p.m. EDT, 8 hours, 44 minutes later, a record, as he argued against what he called Trump’s “big ugly bill.”

“We’re better than this,” said Jeffries, who used a leader's prerogative for unlimited debate, and read letter after letter from Americans writing about their reliance of the health care programs.

“I never thought that I’d be on the House floor saying that this is a crime scene,” Jeffries said. “It’s a crime scene, going after the health, and the safety, and the well-being of the American people.”

And as Democrats, he said, “We want no part of it.”

Tensions ran high. As fellow Democrats chanted Jeffries' name, a top Republican, Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, called his speech “a bunch of hogwash.”

Hauling the package through the Congress has been difficult from the start. Republicans have struggled mightily with the bill nearly every step of the way, quarreling in the House and Senate, and often succeeding only by the narrowest of margins: just one vote.

The Senate passed the package days earlier with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie vote. The slim majority in the House left Republicans little room for defections.

“It wasn’t beautiful enough for me to vote for it,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. Also voting no was Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who said he was concerned about cuts to Medicaid.

Once Johnson gaveled the tally, Republicans cheered “USA!” and flashed Trump-style thumbs-up to the cameras.

Despite their discomfort with various aspects of the sprawling package, in some ways it became too big to fail — in part because Republicans found it difficult to buck Trump.

As Wednesday's stalled floor action dragged overnight, Trump railed against the delays.

“What are the Republicans waiting for???” the president said in a midnight-hour post.

Johnson relied heavily on White House Cabinet secretaries, lawyers and others to satisfy skeptical GOP holdouts. Moderate Republicans worried about the severity of cuts while conservatives pressed for steeper reductions. Lawmakers said they were being told the administration could provide executive actions, projects or other provisions in their districts back home.

The alternative was clear. Republicans who staked out opposition to the bill, including Massie of Kentucky and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, were being warned by Trump’s well-funded political operation. Tillis soon after announced he would not seek reelection.

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.

Democrats have described the bill in dire terms, warning that cuts to Medicaid, which some 80 million Americans rely on, would result in lives lost. Food stamps that help feed more than 40 million people would “rip food from the mouths of hungry children, hungry veterans and hungry seniors,” Jeffries said.

Republicans say the tax breaks will prevent a tax hike on households and grow the economy. They maintain they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse.

The Tax Policy Center, which provides nonpartisan analysis of tax and budget policy, projected the bill would result next year in a $150 tax break for the lowest quintile of Americans, a $1,750 tax cut for the middle quintile and a $10,950 tax cut for the top quintile. That's compared with what they would face if the 2017 tax cuts expired.

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Joey Cappelletti and Chris Megerian contributed to this report.

Republican members of Congress reach to shake hands with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., center bottom, after Johnson signed President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, Thursday, July 3, 2025, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., prepares to gavel in the House chamber for final passage of President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., surrounded by Republican members of Congress, signs President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, Thursday, July 3, 2025, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., prepares to gavel in the House chamber for final passage of President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, waits on the marble stairway outside the House chamber before the vote on President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Early morning light filters through the fluted columns of the House of Representatives as lawmakers await final passage of President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House staffers carry American flags through a corridor outside the House chamber which will be used for a ceremony with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., after final passage of President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., pauses to speak to reporters as he enters the chamber to prepare for final passage of President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., left, speaks in the House chamber prior to the final vote for President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

President Donald Trump waves as he arrives at Joint Base Andrews, Md., after visiting a migrant detention center in Ochopee, Fla., Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., left, speaks in the House chamber as House Democrats stand to applaud him, prior to the final vote for President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., center, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., walks behind his security detail through a crowd of reporters as he tries to push President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts across the finish line even as conservative and moderate GOP holdouts slow that effort, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, July 2, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Glenn Hall, a Hockey Hall of Famer whose ironman streak of 502 starts as a goaltender remains an NHL record, has died. He was 94.

Nicknamed “Mr. Goalie,” Hall worked to stop pucks at a time when players at his position were bare-faced, before masks of any kind became commonplace. He did it as well as just about anyone of his generation, which stretched from the days of the Original Six into the expansion era.

A spokesperson for the Chicago Blackhawks confirmed the team received word of Hall’s death from his family. A league historian in touch with Hall’s son, Pat, said Hall died at a hospital in Stony Plain, Alberta, on Wednesday.

A pioneer of the butterfly style of goaltending of dropping to his knees, Hall backstopped Chicago to the Stanley Cup in 1961. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the playoffs in 1968 with St. Louis when the Blues reached the final before losing to Montreal. He was the second of just six Conn Smythe winners from a team that did not hoist the Cup.

His run of more than 500 games in net is one of the most untouchable records in sports, given how the position has changed in the decades since. Second in history is Alec Connell with 257 from 1924-30.

“Glenn was sturdy, dependable and a spectacular talent in net,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “That record, set from 1955-56 to 1962-63, still stands, probably always will, and is almost unfathomable — especially when you consider he did it all without a mask.”

Counting the postseason, Hall started 552 games in a row.

Hall won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 1956 when playing for the Detroit Red Wings. After two seasons, he was sent to the Black Hawks along with legendary forward Ted Lindsay.

Hall earned two of his three Vezina Trophy honors as the league's top goalie with Chicago, in 1963 and '67. The Blues took him in the expansion draft when the NHL doubled from six teams to 12, and he helped them reach the final in each of their first three years of existence, while winning the Vezina again at age 37.

Hall was in net when Boston's Bobby Orr scored in overtime to win the Cup for the Bruins in 1970, a goal that's among the most famous in hockey history because of the flying through the air celebration that followed. He played one more season with St. Louis before retiring in 1971.

“His influence extended far beyond the crease," Blues chairman Tom Stillman said. “From the very beginning, he brought credibility, excellence, and heart to a new team and a new NHL market.”

A native of Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Hall was a seven-time first-team NHL All-Star who had 407 wins and 84 shutouts in 906 regular-season games. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1975, and his No. 1 was retired by Chicago in 1988.

Hall was chosen as one of the top 100 players in the league's first 100 years.

Blackhawks chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz called Hall an innovator and “one of the greatest and most influential goaltenders in the history of our sport and a cornerstone of our franchise.”

“We are grateful for his extraordinary contributions to hockey and to our club, and we will honor his memory today and always,” Wirtz said.

The Blackhawks paid tribute to Hall and former coach and general manager Bob Pulford with a moment of silence before Wednesday night’s game against St. Louis. Pulford died Monday.

A Hall highlight video was shown on the center-ice videoboard. The lights were turned off for the moment of silence, except for a spotlight on the No. 1 banner for Hall that hangs in the rafters at the United Center.

Fellow Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur, the league's leader in wins with 691 and games played with 1,266, posted a photo of the last time he saw Hall along with a remembrance of him.

“Glenn Hall was a legend, and I was a big fan of his,” Brodeur said on social media. “He set the standard for every goaltender who followed. His toughness and consistency defined what it meant to play.”

AP Sports Writer Jay Cohen in Chicago contributed to this report.

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

FILE - Glenn Hall, second from left, stands with fellow former Chicago Blackhawks players Stan Mikita, former general manager Tommy Ivan, Bobby Hull, Bill Wirtz and Tony Esposito during a pre-game ceremony at the Chicago Stadium in Chicago, Ill., April 14, 1994. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell, File)

FILE - St. Louis Blues goalie Glenn Hall, top right, is pinned to his net waiting to make a save on a Montreal Canadians shot as Blues' Noel Picard (4) tries to block the puck while Canadiens' John Ferguson (22) and Ralph Backstorm wait for a rebound in the third period of their NHL hockey Stanley Cup game, May 5, 1968. (AP Photo/Fred Waters, File)