Speaker Mike Johnson is potentially just a couple of hours away from sending Donald Trump his “big, beautiful bill,” defying expectations that he could meet the president’s arbitrary but unwavering deadline.

After it appeared to be derailed late Wednesday by hard-right holdouts, Republicans advanced the bill around 3:30 a.m. and are set to vote on final passage around 6 a.m.

During the all-nighter, GOP leaders kept the procedural vote open for almost six hours as they worked to flip 12 votes. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick was the lone Republican to vote “no” at the end.

Things looked dire until around the 2 a.m. hour, when Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise returned to the House floor saying they had the votes. Not long after, the speaker was seen talking, laughing and what appeared to be praying with some of the House Freedom Caucus holdouts.

How did they get there? Per Meredith Lee Hill, holdouts say they’ve secured commitments from the White House on a variety of topics, especially on how the megabill is implemented. But House Republicans described the hours of talks as more of a venting session for the hard-liners.

“It was more just expression of concerns and priorities that are shared by the administration,” said one person granted anonymity to relay the conversations.

The holdouts said earlier Wednesday they were discussing future legislative opportunities, including a second reconciliation package, and the possibility of executive branch moves to address aspects of the bill they don’t think go far enough.

There was some tough love, too. Several MAGA-world figures including long-time Trump aide Jason Miller and Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita threatened the Republican holdouts on social media. Trump, who’d been privately helping Johnson press them all day, piled on pressure in a series of increasingly irritated missives. “RIDICULOUS!!!” he fired off at 12:45 a.m. as the bill was in limbo.

The mood among House Republicans is that they’re likely to pass the bill later this morning.

“I do so deeply desire to have just [a] normal Congress, but it doesn’t happen anymore,” Johnson said around 1:30 a.m. “I don’t want to make history, but we’re forced into these situations.”

What else we’re watching:

— New E&C subcommittee chair: Rep. Morgan Griffith is in line to be announced today as the next chair of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, according three people granted anonymity to discuss the plan. “There’s a good possibility,” E&C Chair Brett Guthrie said Wednesday when asked if Griffith would get the post. “We’re announcing tomorrow though.”

— Race for DHS chair: Rep. Carlos Gimenez has entered the race to lead the House Homeland Security Committee. After Rep. Mark Green announced his retirement, Gimenez sent a letter to the GOP Steering Committee on Tuesday notifying his intent to run for the seat.

David Lim, Bethany Irvine and Ali Bianco contributed to this report.

Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” is one vote away from President Donald Trump’s desk after clearing a key procedural hurdle that sets up a floor vote early Thursday morning.

Pulling an all-nighter two days after senators did the same, House Republicans were finally able to unite on the test vote around 3:30 a.m. Thursday — closing out a six-hour voting window that might have been extraordinary if the previous vote hadn’t been held open nine hours for similar reasons.

The discord inside the House GOP centered on Senate changes to the megabill, which first passed the House in May. Senators piled on more tax cuts and toughed some changes to safety-net programs, creating a two-front hassle for House whips that began early Wednesday morning and stretched overnight.

But the 219-213 vote on the “rule” — the procedural measure setting up final floor debate on the megabill — bodes well for Speaker Mike Johnson as he seeks to keep a promise to send the bill holding the lion’s share of the Republican legislative agenda to Trump’s desk by July 4.

“It’s been a good day — we’re in a good place right now,” Johnson said last Wednesday after the earlier, nine-hour procedural vote. “This is the legislative process. This is exactly how I think the framers intended for it to work.”

The breakthrough came after hours of meetings between GOP leadership and holdouts, exploring what executive actions or other promises could assuage hard-line fiscal hawks who were incensed about the Senate-passed bill’s budget deficits.

Action was nudged along by a Truth Social post from the president, just minutes after members of the House Freedom Caucus told reporters they didn’t want to vote Wednesday night.

“It looks like the House is ready to vote tonight. We had GREAT conversations all day, and the Republican House Majority is UNITED, for the Good of our Country, delivering the Biggest Tax Cuts in History and MASSIVE Growth. Let’s go Republicans, and everyone else – MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote on his social media platform.

Within minutes of Trump’s call for a vote, House leaders locked in the schedule and called the vote. The move was essentially a dare to the Freedom Caucus holdouts to vote against the legislation that is the cornerstone of Trump’s agenda. But many more hours of talks ensued.

Later Trump shared the exasperation many on Capitol Hill shared: “FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!”

In the end, only one Republican, moderate Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, joined Democrats in voting against the rule for floor consideration of the Senate-passed bill

Cassandra Dumay and David Lim contributed to this report. 

House Republican leaders said early Thursday morning they have made a breakthrough with the megabill holdouts and are preparing to advance the legislation in the coming hours.

Speaker Mike Johnson, heading onto the House floor around 2 a.m., said he had secured the votes to proceed and that final passage of the GOP’s domestic policy bill will follow later in the morning. A vote on the procedural measure setting up final consideration remains open after several hours of voting. “Hopefully in the next hour we get that done,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said of completing that vote.

Once the House approves the procedural measure, it will debate the bill before moving to a final vote, which could take multiple hours.

Earlier Thursday morning, Johnson said, “This is going to end well.”

“We’re going to meet our July 4 deadline, which everybody made fun of me for saying,” he added, holding a can of Celsius energy drink after a full-day blitz of discussions with the skeptical lawmakers that he said involved the help of the attorneys, Cabinet secretaries, and President Donald Trump himself.

The negotiations were not aimed at cutting a deal with the holdouts “because then you open Pandora’s box,” Johnson said. “We just deal with everybody in truth, and we find out where the red lines are, and we try to navigate around them and get a product that everybody can buy into.”