House Speaker Mike Johnson still believes July 4 is a realistic target for passing President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” as Republicans in the Senate weigh changes to a package that cleared the House by just a single vote in May.
But Johnson, while seated alongside Trump at a White House roundtable with business leaders on Monday, said he hopes the Senate uses a “light touch” in its modifications of the sweeping megabill.
“We certainly hope, I believe, we can still meet that,” Johnson said. “It’s up to the Senate, the bill’s in the Senate’s hands now. But I spoke with Leader Thune as recently as last night, he’s feeling very optimistic.”
The president chimed in, telling reporters “I think it’s gonna go pretty quickly.”
Johnson’s optimism comes even as the bill has faced major pushback from Elon Musk, the president’s one-time ally. Musk panned the package last week, calling it “a disgusting abomination” and imploring Republicans to “kill the bill.”
Work on the megabill is continuing this week, with Sens. John Boozman (R-Ark.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) set to brief colleagues on some of the trickiest pieces of the package on Wednesday.
Johnson cautioned the Senate against making too many changes to the House-passed version, lest it upset the delicate equilibrium in his caucus.
“I’ve encouraged my dear friends and colleagues over there, don’t modify it too much because we’ve got a very delicate balance that we reached,” he said. “And it took us a long time to get there. And we don’t want to upset that balance too much. So they’re putting their fingerprints on it.”
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