Thune Says He Asked Trump to Lobby Senators for ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ — Expects Grueling ‘Vote-a-Rama’ Through Weekend

AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told senators to buckle up for a long weekend of votes on the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Act — and has enlisted the help of President Donald Trump to lobby Republicans to get on board with the controversial legislation.

Thune, who has served as the Senate GOP leader since January after his predecessor, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stepped down, has served in the Senate since 2005, and before that, served three terms in South Dakota’s sole seat in the House of Representatives. He spoke to Axios reporter Stef W. Kight on Tuesday to give an update on the bill’s progress and how he anticipated the next few days would go.

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” is facing some fierce headwinds and is polling poorly across the board. It passed the House and was put forward under the reconciliation process to avoid getting blockaded by a filibuster in the Senate, but is still struggling to get the support of enough senators to pass. Even with Trump’s loud urging, Republicans have a narrow majority in the Senate and with Democrats expected to vote against the bill, it would only take a few GOP holdouts to block it from passing and kick it back to the House for revisions.

Besides the expected strong opposition from Congressional Democrats, the bill and several of its provisions have spawned spirited objections from Republicans, including some who are normally some of Trump’s staunchest allies. Earlier this month, the bill instigated a public and bitter spat between the president and Elon Musk. Even Trump himself has railed against some of the provisions in the various versions wending their way through the House and Senate.

Thune told Axios he had met with his counterpart in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), earlier in the day, and believes they would be able to kick off voting on Friday. This means, reported Kight, that the votes will continue “into the weekend” and “upend the House’s recess next week.” Accordingly, Johnson has told House Republicans “not to leave town” in case the Senate does pass their version of the bill.

“I think we get on it, and then we will plow through, and we’ll get into vote-a-rama and grind it out until — until whenever,” said Thune. “It’s just the nature of the beast at the end.”

The issues still in dispute between House and Senate include Medicaid, impact on the national debt, AI provisions, and changes to the SALT deductions on federal income tax returns. Besides the spat with Musk, these debates have been cantankerous, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) declaring she would have voted against the bill if she had seen the AI regulations and Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) vocal attacks on the bill enraging Trump so much he launched a PAC to support a primary challenge to the Kentucky congressman.

Thune shrugged off the discontent among Republican ranks, and said he had asked Trump to help persuade his fellow GOP senators.

“Right now, everybody’s unhappy on both sides, which tells you we’re probably close,” he said. “Nobody wants to give up leverage until you have to finally vote on it.”

Trump had been calling GOP senate holdouts on the phone, said Thune, and having meetings, both individually and in small groups.

“I feel pretty confident that come the end of the week, the sense of urgency around this that [Trump has] conveyed to a lot of our members is going to be the compelling force that gets on his desk,” Thune added.