Big Beautiful Bill Advances With a Big Beautiful Surprise Wrapped Up Inside

Following hours of high drama and more tiresome RINO grandstanding by North Carolina Senator Mitt Romne…er, Thom Tillis, Majority Leader John Thune finally managed to cobble together 51 Republican votes to barely advance the latest Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill to a floor debate late Saturday night. The debate will commence later today, though the timing is uncertain as of this writing.

Vice President JD Vance, who had been viewing the proceedings from the White House with President Donald Trump, traveled up Pennsylvania Ave. to the Capital at around 10 p.m. ET when it seemed that 3 GOP holdouts - Tillis, libertarian gadfly Rand Paul, and normally reliable Ron Johnson - would vote to halt the bill’s progress for various reasons. Vance’s tie-breaking vote ultimately was not needed when he convinced Sen. Johnson, who had initially voted “no” on the resolution to advance, to change his vote.