President Donald Trump on Friday signed his mammoth domestic policy and tax bill into law, securing a major legislative win by the July Fourth target date he’d set for Republicans to send it to his desk.
Trump put pen to paper on the 940-page measure, dubbed the “one big beautiful bill,” after a string of favorable developments, including a solid June jobs report, successful U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, negotiating a ceasefire between Israel and Tehran, wins before the Supreme Court, a dramatic decrease in southern border crossings and the opening of a high-profile detention facility in his home state of Florida for undocumented migrants.
Trump was in a celebratory mood Friday as he spoke from the Truman Balcony at a White House picnic for military families, as part of the July Fourth celebrations.
“What we’ve done is put everything into one bill. It’s never happened before. It’s the biggest bill of its type in history,” the president, flanked by first lady Melania Trump, said under a sun-soaked blue sky in the nation’s capital.
He name-checked Vice President JD Vance and several House and Senate leaders who helped secure the votes to get the sprawling legislation to his desk, including Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, whom he encouraged to run for Minnesota governor.
“This bill will fuel massive economic growth,” Trump predicted. “You have the biggest tax cut, the biggest spending cut, the largest border security investment in American history.”
After speaking, Trump and the first lady descended a curved staircase, and the president, surrounded by GOP lawmakers, then signed the measure at a table set up on a stage on the South Lawn driveway.
Johnson presented Trump with the gavel he used Friday after announcing that the bill had passed the chamber. The president banged it several times on the table as the audience cheered.
The White House’s South Portico was decked out in red, white and blue bunting for July Fourth. Invited guests moved to a rope line at the driveway’s edge before Trump appeared, some fanning themselves in casual attire and sunglasses. American flags lined the drive and a military band greeted Trump with “Hail to the Chief” after playing patriotic tunes.
A B-2 bomber, like the ones used in the recent U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, flew over, escorted by two F-35 fighter jets, as a military singer belted out “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
On Thursday, Trump’s team had painted the passage of the legislation as “historic.”
“It’s rare that a president gets to enact basically the vast majority of their major campaign promises in a single piece of legislation,” a senior administration official said during a briefing with reporters Thursday. “The president achieved the most significant and historic piece of conservative … legislation in decades.”
The sprawling package contains a smorgasbord of long-sought Republican policy, tax and spending objectives that Democratic members contend would drive up health care costs, force hospitals to close, strip millions of Americans of assistance on which they depend and cost many Americans jobs.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an influential voice among Democrats’ progressive wing, slammed the measure in a Wednesday floor speech as a “scam” and a “deal with the devil.”
“President Trump, you’re either being lied to or you are lying to the American people because this bill represents … the largest and greatest loss of health care in American history. Seventeen million Americans will lose their health care on this bill,” he said. “It explodes our national debt. It militarizes our entire economy, and it strips away health care and basic dignity of the American people — for what? To give Elon Musk a tax break and billionaires, the greedy, taking of our nation.”
After huddling Wednesday at the White House with House conservatives and moderates and working the phones all night, Trump sold the measure as the opposite. He described it in a Thursday social media post as “One of the most consequential Bills ever.”
As they celebrated Friday, Trump and Republican lawmakers, all of whom in the House must face reelection next year, now have to sell it to the American people. Polls, so far, have shown that the measure remains unpopular with voters, overall, and it’s likely to be a focus for both sides in next year’s midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their narrow majorities in Congress.
A June 22-24 Quinnipiac University survey found 55 percent of registered voters saying they opposed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” while 29 percent supported it. An earlier Fox News poll put opposition to the measure at 59 percent, while 38 percent were in favor.
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