Why 3 senators voted against Trump’s megabill

Three Republican senators voted against President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill Tuesday morning, citing concerns with reforms to Medicaid and the deficit impact of the bill.

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Susan Collins of Maine joined Senate Democrats in opposing the president’s sweeping tax relief and immigration-focused legislation. Their “no” votes follow Trump urging all Republican senators to back his landmark bill and the White House arguing that failure to get behind the package would constitute “the ultimate betrayal.”

Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to send the legislation to the House for consideration following Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski — a holdout throughout the marathon voting session — deciding to support the president’s bill. Thune could afford to lose just three votes, making Murkowski’s support critical for the budget package to clear the upper chamber.

Tillis, a moderate GOP senator who announced his retirement from politics just hours after crossing Trump during a vote against an initial procedural vote Saturday, cited the bill’s Medicaid reforms to Medicaid as his rationale for yanking his support from Trump’s signature piece of legislation.

“It is inescapable this bill will betray the promise Donald Trump made … where he said we can go after waste, fraud, and abuse on any programs,” Tillis said during an animated speech on the Senate floor Sunday. “I’m telling the president that you have been misinformed. You supporting the Senate mark will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid.”

The North Carolina Republican voted “no” on a procedural vote to advance the president’s landmark bill Saturday.

“North Carolina will not allow one of their Senators to GRANDSTAND in order to get some publicity for himself, for a possible, but very difficult Re-Election,” Trump wrote on the social media platform Truth Social Saturday, the day prior to Tillis’ announcement that he would not seek a third Senate term. “America wants Reduced Taxes, including NO TAX ON TIPS, NO TAX ON OVERTIME, AND NO TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY … Thom Tillis is making a BIG MISTAKE for America, and the Wonderful People of North Carolina!”

Collins, another Senate GOP moderate, also voted “no” on the president’s domestic policy bill, citing her concerns about the budget package’s ambitious reforms to Medicaid.

The Maine Republican indicated her opposition to the bill during the overnight voting session when she told reporters she would have preferred the Senate’s initial two-bill approach of passing the tax and spending portions as separate pieces of legislation. Trump has been adamant about passing a “one big, beautiful” bill since he endorsed the House’s single-bill approach in February.

Collins notably offered an amendment to boost funding for a rural hospital fund to $50 billion, but the Senate overwhelmingly rejected the measure during a vote of 22 to 78 Tuesday morning after 1 a.m. The provision would have also let the top tax rate revert back to 39.6% for individuals earning more than $25 million annually.

The Maine Republican is up for reelection in 2026, but has not yet announced if she will seek a sixth Senate term.

Senate GOP leadership also lost Paul’s vote. The Kentucky Republican, who frequently bucks his party on fiscal matters, vigorously opposed the Senate bill’s inclusion of a $5 trillion hike in the debt limit. He repeatedly stated that he would have supported the bill without the accompanying debt ceiling hike, but a slimmed-down version of the budget package appeared to be a nonstarter for most Senate Republicans.

Thune still met with Paul in the early morning hours in a sign that Senate GOP leadership was scrambling to find enough votes to back the measure.

Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski ultimately supported the package after emerging as a holdout during the final hours of the overnight voting session.

Murkowski characterized the 24 hours of deliberations during which she ultimately came to support the bill as “agonizing.” She also added that she hoped the House would continue to amend the bill to her liking. However, House GOP leadership is likely to resist further changes to the text as they race to pass the bill by Trump’s floated deadline of July 4.

“I want to make sure that we’re able to keep in place the tax cuts from the 2017 Jobs Act. That was important to me,” Murkowski told reporters following the vote. “But it also is important in terms of how they are paid for, and I struggled mightily with the impact on the most vulnerable in this country.”

“And did I get everything that I wanted? Absolutely not,” Murkowski continued. “And so I had to look on balance. I had to look on balance because people in the state are the ones that I first [think about].”

Thune told reporters following the successful vote — the most consequential in his tenure as majority leader thus far — that he was thankful that Murkowski chose to supply the critical vote to pass the president’s landmark bill.

“I’m just grateful that at the end of the day she concluded what the rest of us did, or at least most of the rest of us did,” Thune said while flanked by members of his leadership team. “And that is that this was the right direction for the future, not only for people today, but for future generations, as we set the stage for strong growth in our economy through the tax policies, and then hopefully a more sustainable fiscal future for our children and grandchildren.”

Vance and Trump pushed back on concerns from several GOP senators that the legislation’s reforms to Medicaid would jeopardize some of their constituents’ access to the entitlement program.

“We’re not going to be playing with Medicaid — Only waste, fraud, and abuse,” Trump said Tuesday morning in Florida. “The Democrats have it wrong … They will blow Medicare and Medicaid because they have no idea what they’re doing.”