From Washington: The One “Big Beautiful Bill” Faces it’s Biggest Roadblock Yet
29:31 Share

The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority is using Google AI to create smarter tolling systems and improve traffic flow for Texans. This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at g.co slash American innovation. Test, test, check one, two. You know you need unique New York. You know you need unique New York.

Does that sound all right? Ah, that's better. You can always tell something's missing when you get isolated results. Like AI that's only right for one of your systems. Get AI that can work across your data and applications. Learn more at IBM.com. The AI built for business. IBM.

Saturday, June 28, 2025. I'm Ryan Schmelz. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act gets hit with one big ugly roadblock. Can Republicans in Congress pass it before President Trump's 4th of July deadline? You have a lot of House conservatives. They're pretty upset about this and they're not going to take a take it or leave it proposition from the Senate essentially getting jammed because they like the bill that passed the House.

And they did that with one vote back in May, but threading that needle once again through the House with the final Senate product, that's still sight unseen. That's going to be a doozy. And a GOP senator goes on a ride-along with ICE agents and says Congress needs to act. The individuals that they are surveilling are individuals who have criminal records or orders of deportation against them.

And ICE agents can't just go knock on the door and say, hey, I'm here. Time to go. This is the Fox News Rundown from Washington. D.C. insiders knew the Senate parliamentarian would take a hatchet to some provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act because of the Byrd Rule, which says all provisions in the budget reconciliation process have to be fiscal or budgetary in nature. So it was no shock when legislation like an effort to

overhauled the ability of district court judges to issue nationwide injunctions was chopped out. But instead of a hatchet, parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough took a chainsaw to the bill, knocking out key health care provisions that were responsible for paying for the massive tax and spending package. Senator Ron Johnson, who's been on the fence about supporting the bill over the estimated impact on the deficit. What the parliamentarian did kind of was a little bit of a hand grenade, but I've been

encouraged by what we heard in lunch. I think we can maybe, I don't want to certainly sour anything with the parliamentarian, but it sounds like we can overcome some of those objections and

land in the right place here. Even if the Senate gets across the finish line, there's still the House of Representatives, where Republican Nicole Malliotakis is cautioning what could happen if there's too many changes. You know, if they try to jam it through and, you know, the House does, and they go too far in changing what the House did, it runs the risk of it failing here. That's the reality. And so,

I think, again, we have to make sure that whatever is going to pass the Senate will have the votes here before they do that, or else we're going to have to go to conference and it will be delayed further. And that will be up to the members to stand their ground if they're not happy. PAUL SOLMAN: Can Republicans get the bill done before the Fourth of July? Fox's senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram: CHAD PERGRAM, Fox News: Remember, there was a thought that the Senate might try to get this done on Friday or Saturday night. Well, that did not happen.

We're trying to see if they can finish this in the Senate, and this is the Senate only, by Monday morning. The holdup is that they kept having the Senate parliamentarian, who's kind of the referee here, nixing provisions because they did not apply to this special budget process that they're using to get this through the Senate and avoid a filibuster.

It has to be fiscal in nature, and so there were issues about firearms and other issues that got lopped out. Surprisingly, though, there was a provision on AI, a prohibition of kind of freezing state laws for a decade on AI, and that was deemed to be okay to put in the bill. So, okay, read into that what you will. But the problem here is that the Senate Republicans weren't willing to go ahead yet and start debate because the bill was not finished.

Now, you think they've got problems in the Senate. How about the House? Yeah, because if the Senate passes this bill, say Sunday, Monday, maybe even beyond that, the House is going to give their members 48 hours from when the Senate closes its vote to get back to Washington. Remember that President Trump wants this done by July 4th. You see the crash course that they're on here. And there's a lot of House members who aren't pleased with this. Nicole Malliotakis, who is a moderate from New York, from Staten Island,

She indicates that we just can't say, "Okay, here's the bill and take it." She said, "I'm willing to take a few days, weeks, go to a conference committee where they sit down and merge the bills, the House version, the Senate version, maybe send it back. That gets you past that 4th of July deadline." The other thing here is that you have a lot of House conservatives who think the bill doesn't save as much money as they thought. Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, said a couple of days ago to me, he said, "Oh, we've actually saved money here."

But most House conservatives disagree. And so they're pretty upset about this. And they're not going to take a take it or leave it proposition from the Senate, essentially getting jammed because they like the bill that passed the House. And they did that with one vote back in May, but threading that needle once again through the House with the final Senate product that's still sight unseen. That's going to be a doozy.

And, Serge, actually before we came on here, I was going through our archive and found a report that you did a couple years ago on the Senate parliamentarian and the idea of some of these things that get put in reconciliation, how they can get stripped out. So you've covered this before, but have you ever seen a situation where the Senate parliamentarian really took a chainsaw to a bill to this extent where it changed this much about it and the future of it, too?

Well, yes. In short, I mean, there were certain provisions they were trying to get into Obamacare in 2009, 2010. Granted, that was a big bill, but this bill is even bigger. And I think because there are so many different things, practically the entire Republican agenda that they're trying to stuff into this piece of legislation, that that's why a lot of things are getting lopped out. And you say, well, why don't we just do them, you know, not put them in this bill? Well, guess what? Then they would be subject to a filibuster.

See, that's the trick. You write it in a creative way that you're able to get it in there and it passes muster from the parliamentarians. So yes, we've seen this before. I might be hard pressed to say that we've seen it quite at this level. It was pretty intense under Obamacare, a few other things that we've seen over the years, even the 2017 tax cut bill that the Republicans put through. Yes. So we have seen this before.

But this is a little bit different just because of the size and scope of this bill. Never mind that, you know, a lot of conservatives who you talk to, they said we were going to do single issue bills. Hardy har har. This is anything but.

Yeah, it does not apply in this situation. But one thing you did mention, Chad, I think we need to touch on is you're starting to hear a lot of lawmakers say this, which is we need to potentially go to conference. What does the process of going to conference entail here?

That means that you have to put together what they call conferees, representatives from the House and the Senate, who will go and meet in a room and they will merge, blend the bills together, and then you produce a conference report.

and a conference report is essentially just a new version of the bill, but you still have the same problem. The House and Senate then have to pass that version, and you'll have a step in the middle there calling, it's called a motion to instruct. A motion to instruct conferees to do this to the bill or do that to the bill. These are actual votes they'll take on the House or Senate floor. These are not necessarily binding that it has to be in there, but it's a strong suggestion, as they might say.

that they would say, yeah, we want that. The House is taking a position. The Senate is taking a position to say we really want this in the bill, although everybody kind of knows what they want in the bill. You see, and that's that's the tough thing about this is that you walk around and you talk to, you know, the speaker's people and others are like, yeah, this is 85 percent the same bill.

Right. No taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, those types of things. That's really important. But the nitty gritty is really problematic here. And also how much savings. Just the idea that you have to be deficit neutral when doing something through budget reconciliation. And therein lies the problem.

And there's some calls to potentially remove the Senate parliamentarian. You're hearing it a lot on the House. You've had a couple senators like Tommy Tuberville float the idea as well, actually demand for the Senate parliamentarian to be fired. What is the likelihood of that happening? Why would that be difficult? You know, there's a line in the Broadway musical Damn Yankees. You're blind, don't you're blind, don't you must be out of your mind up.

Yeah, guess what? Same thing here. You know, the idea that, oh, they can't stand the umpire here because when they get rulings that they oppose. The same way as they embrace the parliamentarian when they get rulings that they like. Okay, fine. Probably low. We have had a Senate parliamentarian fired before. That happened back in the 1980s, Bob Dove. He was brought back by Bob Dole, in fact, the late and legendary Senate majority leader. But just because you fire the parliamentarian

doesn't mean you get a better ruling. And then the other thing that you could have happen is that you could say, well, we'll try to override the parliamentarian. Maybe what they could do conceivably is, you know, if you could get 60 votes, and guess what? There's only 53 Republican votes in the Senate. You can then waive the Budget Act. The Budget Act applies here. And if you get 60 votes, you can bypass that and say, yeah, okay, we think this is fine. Probably can't do that. And a lot of people think that would set a very bad precedent

A lot of people think that that would just be a big fat problem here. The other thing that you could do, and this gets a little trickier, when we talk about the parliamentarian making her ruling, she's doing this off stage. And so they're determining what's in the bill and out of the bill. So that's legislative text. There was a scenario some years ago, and you could conceivably do this, where the parliamentarian gives the chair in live real debate on the Senate floor,

advice and say, okay, you know, this is the rule of the Senate. This is what you say. Where the chair does not actually take the advice of the parliamentarian and rules another way. I mean, the parliamentarian can just, you know, if it's a baseball game, they do have authority. Yes, they're going to say, no, you did not tag up. That's the final call. You're out or whatever the deal was. This is different. The chair is

who is a Republican senator or Vice President Vance, the president of the Senate presiding, you could have a ruling that flies in the face of the parliamentarian that way. That doesn't happen very often, but that would be something to watch for. And if we could touch on Iran real quick, Chad.

What do you think was the main takeaway from the briefings that were on Capitol Hill and how lawmakers are reacting to the situation? Because it sounds like to me, there's acknowledgement that it was a successful mission, but the extent of the success is depending on who you talk to.

Yeah, the question here from the Democrats is whether or not they've thoroughly taken care of the Iran nuclear threat. The short answer is not all the way. Yes, they can go back and rebuild, as Senator Chris Murphy, the Democrat from Connecticut, indicated. He said, look, there are ways that they still have people who have these aspirations. They still have scientists who can do this. So, yes, that's possible. But for now, the threat is off. And this is where some Republicans thought the Democrats were being very unfair about

in their criticism of President Trump. Also, there's this question of war powers where they were

trying to make sure that, hey, Congress is getting information. Maybe Congress should be the ultimate arbiter in this process and say, OK, yeah, you can't move into hostilities in Iran without our blessing. This is in the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8, Republicans believe that President Trump's on rather firm ground as commander in chief to do this. So that's kind of where they are. But I was struck by the fact that

Mike Quigley, who's a Democrat from Illinois, said that he thought that this was a better briefing than what they've gotten before. And he's served on intelligence and other panels dealing with national security for years. So this is just not a partisan issue here. But generally, Democrats are not 100% pleased with how this has gone in terms of the information they've gotten and also maybe what the policy is.

And it just seems like there's this push to kind of rein in the Trump administration's war powers, but it's very unlikely these go anywhere. Yeah, I mean, the question is, how much longer does this go? Do they have to have another strike? Do they have to intervene again? Does Iran somehow hit back? I mean, things have calmed down for now, but that could change at any time, frankly.

All right. Thanks, Chad. Have a good one. Thank you, guys. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority is using Google AI to create smarter tolling systems and improve traffic flow for Texans. This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at g.co slash American innovation.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act contains over $100 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security as part of President Trump's effort to rein in those accused of violent crimes in the country illegally. It's arguably the portion of the massive tax and spending package that has the most agreement among Republicans.

as a number of other issues will be key in determining if the bill can pass or not by the 4th of July. Republicans in Congress also have a number of bills they're proposing to expedite deportations of those illegally in the country. This week, the House passed a bill with dozens of Democrats voting with all Republicans that would deport illegal immigrants who've been convicted of drunk driving. Senator Marsha Blackburn went on a ride-along recently with ICE agents. Now, when I joined the

agents for the ride-along, they were targeting a criminal illegal alien who had been convicted of child sexual abuse. The agents could see a child on the individual's property, but they could not enter the home because they are not given a warrant. Instead,

They have to wait until the criminal comes outside or is in a public space and then they're able to apprehend him. That's why it is so important that local law enforcement work with

our ICE agents. And as a member of the Senate GOP whip team responsible for helping get enough Republicans on board to pass the final spending package, the Tennessee lawmaker spoke with us this week on the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition about the experience. Riding along with ICE is so

It is just so eye-opening. I would encourage everybody to ride along with ICE and see what it is that they're actually incurring as they are surveilling and watching people, preparing to apprehend them and move them to deportation. Now, the individuals that they are surveilling are individuals who have criminal records or orders of deportation against them.

And ICE agents can't just go knock on the door and say, hey, I'm here, time to go. What they have to do, since they can't get a warrant,

is they have to wait for the individual to move into a public space. And that is where they're able to apprehend them. Also, it's important for us to realize how the local and state officials working with ICE makes their job much easier because

Taking someone into custody who is in a jail is a much easier process than apprehending them when they are out and about in the community. Also, I had the opportunity to meet with the team of agents that are there in Nashville and express my gratitude and my thanks to them.

And so you touched on kind of what you learned from the experience, though. Did you get an idea of what can be done to further make this process smoother or if there's any legislative changes that need to be made here?

Well, yes, and a couple of things we've already have legislation filed. The Remove Act is legislation I've worked on with the White House, and it would reduce the time period for deporting these criminal illegal aliens from a 90-day time period down to 15 days.

and being able to go ahead and move these individuals out of the company to free up the beds in those holding facilities so that you are able to push them through within 15 days rather than 90 days. That speeds up the process. When it comes to safety of the agents and investigators, the Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxing Act,

This is legislation that I developed after our Nashville mayor and his team made public and doxxed the names of the HSI, the investigators, and also the ICE agents, and also their operations where they were working. And we realized at that point that the U.S. code that covers

revealing information of certain individuals did not include law enforcement or immigration officials and that for law enforcement you had to be working undercover. So we are adding law enforcement and immigration officials to the code in order to help protect them.

And, you know, speaking of the national mayor, since you just touched on this, obviously, Andy Ogles has introduced some legislation trying to crack down on him, I believe. And, you know, what's kind of been your experience with the national mayor and if there's any action that needs to be taken with either their cooperation or lack thereof cooperation? And I applaud Congressman Ogles and the work he's doing with an investigation on the House side. We've called on DOJ.

to do an investigation, which we think is the right thing to do. And also the pieces of legislation that I mentioned to you. And any of those pieces of legislation you think on track to be passed at some point this Congress? I think you will see both the protecting law enforcement and also the remove act pass. You have buy-in from some enough Democrats to get that across the finish line, you think?

I think that there are going to be some Democrats that will say this makes sense. Okay. And, you know, if we could kind of address, yeah, because I think, you know, what you're dealing with right now with ICE and Homeland Security in general kind of ties into what's going on with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act because, you know, the legislation has a significant amount of funding for law enforcement, especially when it comes to DHS in there. You know, when this was first being talked about, I remember, you know,

Senator Graham bringing Tom Homan in and some others to the GOP lunch and how they talked about how stretched thin right now Homeland Security is when it comes to immigration enforcement and border protection in general. Do you get the sense that this is a must pass piece of legislation because that money is needed and urgent?

The Big Beautiful Bill is a must-pass piece of legislation on a lot of fronts. Number one, it will prohibit the largest tax hike in history, and passing the Big Beautiful Bill will provide the American people with the largest tax cut ever.

in history. The average family is going to see somewhere between a $3,000 and $5,000 a year savings by passing this bill. When it comes to DHS and border enforcement, there is money to actually construct that barrier on the southern border. Some of it is fencing, some of it is technology.

There is money to actually expand the deportations. And that is why the Remove Act is important to speed these up so that we can more efficiently and effectively use those dollars that are appropriated. And when we talk about where this bill goes right now, do you think this is still on track to pass by the end of this week? Leader Thun is expressing you think it's on track.

Yeah, we have had some good whips on this. We are united in passing President Trump's agenda. And we've got a lot of people that still have questions, but they are trying to get to a yes. And how many do you think are still out there, would you say? And what do you think is the biggest sticking point with getting them to a yes?

There are some that want to be able to cut, reduce some more spending. Of course, we are making more spending reductions than the House made in their bill. And I'll say this, when it comes to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, there's a lot of rumor mill out there. It's important to note what we are doing is removing freeloaders,

felons, illegal aliens from any benefits that are there for the American people, whether it is Medicaid that goes to those that deserve it or it is Medicare and Social Security for people that have paid into those funds all their working life.

And do you think with this legislation that, you know, I think the big concern that we hear is about these rural hospitals. And, you know, Leader Thune says that you're working on ways in which you can sure up those and make sure that this does not become an issue if the bill passes. Do you think that this is on track to make sure that there are assurances? We are. We're working a couple of provisions there. In Tennessee, protecting our rural hospitals is very important to us.

And we have -- we've lost 11 rural hospitals to date. So whether it is beefing up the state-directed payments for the rural hospitals or doing a fund that is a set-aside for rural health care, we do have our eyes on that and are working toward a resolution on that.

I think if we touch back on the illegal immigration aspect of this, because, you know, you have a number of Iranian people who are in the country illegally who've been arrested in the last week or so that could pose a potential threat. You know, what do you make of that? And are you confident how DHS is handling that? And does that kind of bring the importance of this legislation passing back to the forefront as well?

Well, it does indeed. When you look at the strong leadership of President Trump and the way he has handled the situation with Israel and Iran and the way he's made certain that Iran is never going to have a nuclear weapon.

That is a very good thing. And having the money to modernize our military, that is something that is vitally important. That is in the bill, making certain that we have money for a gold dome to protect us. People have watched the Iron Dome work and they realize how important it would be to have such protections for the U.S.,

So money for that military is there. People have been very pleased with how President Trump has been firm. Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. Our military needs to be modernized. We have the best fighting force on the face of the earth.

And we want to continue to provide them with what they need to innovate and to meet the mission that they are called on to deliver. And what do you make of some of the frustration from Democrats about the and this is the last question, the frustration you hear from Democrats about the postponement of this hearing today?

I think that the Democrats were anxious to have the briefing because they disagree with the strikes being carried out. But it is imperative to note President Donald Trump.

under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution is given the authority to take the actions to protect the United States and our people.

And in the past, when Democrat presidents have exercised this authority, the Democrats said absolutely nothing about it. But because it is President Donald Trump, they are now trying to say something about it. I will tell you this. With Tennesseans, they are overwhelmingly supportive of the actions of President Donald Trump.

All right. We got to leave it there. Senator Marsha Blackburn from the great state of Tennessee, thank you for joining us. Thank you. Why does the United States pay higher drug prices than other countries? Because America is the only country in the world where 340B hospitals mark up drug prices and PBM middlemen charge billions in hidden fees. Meanwhile, Americans subsidize the research and development for new cures. Other countries benefit, but don't pay their fair share.

Crack down on the middlemen. End the free-riding. Lower drug prices. Go to balancethescales.org to learn more. Paid for by Pharma.

That would do it for this edition of the Fox News Rundown from Washington. Tomorrow, Jared Halpern speaks with former CENTCOM commander Joseph Votel about the years of planning that went into the strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. For now, I'm Ryan Schmelz. Thank you for listening to the Fox News Rundown from Washington.

Stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon Music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to foxnews.com.

Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Gowdy Podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com.