The reality behind this week’s One Big Beautiful Bill spectacle

Well, there it is. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is on its way to President Donald Trump’s desk for a big, beautiful Independence Day signing.

It took many sleepless nights and hard days to get here, and it wasn’t remotely a sure thing when it all began a few months ago. Much has changed since then. And for the past few weeks, you could bet big that the bill would cross the finish line. The last few days have been nothing but faux brinkmanship and political theater.

Think of the process as a game of musical chairs.

Passing the administration’s ambitious agenda — tax cuts, border security, and gang deportations — took serious effort. The president held dozens of meetings and made hundreds of calls to push Congress across the finish line. He was backed by a sharp legislative affairs team, including Stephen Miller, the media point man; James Blair, the relentless deputy chief; and James Braid, the director one senior White House official called “the man on the wall.” These were the point men guiding the bill through months of legislative gridlock, fielding reporters’ questions, and driving the message to the public.

Then there were the chamber’s leaders as well as the committee chairmen and all their staff, who fought, negotiated, sweet-talked, and fine-tuned the bill. The expression in Washington is “herding cats.” It’s criminally overused, but it’s not wrong.

The parameters were set by the House of Representatives before dawn on May 22. Over the next five weeks, the Senate tinkered, toyed, and went about the basic work of the U.S. Senate: making House bills worse. There were serious setbacks, social media calls to break down the minority-protecting filibuster in the name of this cut or that pet project, and a lot of angry tweets from the senators themselves.

But the game was on.

When it came time to vote in the Senate last weekend, there were wins and losses, but from the start, the result was clear. The bill would pass and head back to the House for agreement, a little less pretty than it had once been.

Think of the process like a game of musical chairs: When it comes time to vote, maybe three Republicans can make a scene and vote no — but not four. That’s how it works when something actually matters. Few lawmakers are willing to do what the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) did: tank a major, party-defining bill out of personal or political animus.

What you see instead are protest votes — safe gestures of opposition, where members cross their arms, cast a defiant “no,” and sit down, confident that they won’t derail the outcome.

That’s not to say the brinkmanship doesn’t matter. In the House, factions like the blue-state SALT Caucus and the conservative Freedom Caucus shaped the bill early on. In the Senate, serious negotiations and amendments made the legislation better — or worse, depending on your view. But that phase wraps up long before the final vote.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), king of libertarian banner-waving, secured himself a seat in the game. He basically squats in that chair, telling anyone who still cares that he’s just waiting for the perfect bill that fulfills all his dreams and desires before he can get to yes.

Then you invariably have Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a blue-state Republican and a red-state bargainer, respectively, plus whatever wild cards the Senate typically hides.

This bill’s wild card was Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who decided to self-immolate and retire to a high-paying corporate gig instead of continuing the charade of getting along with his colleagues or the president. He took the second “no” seat and was not moving, so Collins and Murkowski would have to figure out between them who got the last one.

Collins’ state went for Kamala Harris by eight points, so she really wanted it. Murkowski floated a couple of wild ideas, like “Can you make it so that X rule applies to every state but mine?” and “How about we start this whole thing over and do it different?” but settled for money for tribes and fisheries. She is deeply transactional.

There were certainly a couple of senators upset that they didn't get to vote no. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) had written about a hundred mean tweets about the bill since it all started and even wavered throughout the final hours, but it was too late. That was that! No more chairs. So he voted yes, Vice President JD Vance came down and broke the tie, and off it went to the House of Representatives.

The House was heap big mad too. The moderates were worried about the cuts. The conservatives were angry about the spending. Mean tweets abounded! But again: There are only so many chairs. Sure, they could change the bill and send it back to the Senate again. Sure, they could delay. Members of both chambers pointed out the president’s July 4 deadline was “arbitrary,” but the reality is that it’s only as arbitrary as the deadline set by the most powerful man on the planet, the most popular politician in Washington, and the head of Republican Party. So it wasn’t arbitrary at all.

Once again, only three seats were available for House Republicans who wanted to vote no. And as expected, not a single Democrat crossed the aisle. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) filled over eight hours with rhymes and rambling about bipartisanship and illegal immigrants. It was mildly entertaining — if only in a D.C. inside-baseball kind of way — but accomplished nothing beyond setting a new nerdy record and keeping his colleagues awake on camera. When he finally stopped talking, his fellow Democrats clapped and hugged him like he had delivered something more than a filibustered footnote.

By the time the House reconvened Wednesday morning, the bill was already a runaway train — no brakes, just spectacle. Now that it’s passed, small businesses can make tax plans for 2026, waiters and hourly workers can finally catch a break, tax cuts are locked in for the rest of us, and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have the tools and funding to keep doing their jobs.

It’ll be a good day at the White House. And an excellent Independence Day.

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