The House of Representatives was at a standstill on Wednesday as Republican leaders continued to try to rally holdouts against Donald Trump’s megabill, with speaker Mike Johnson saying “very positive” progress had been made toward passing it.
The House stalled for hours on a procedural vote while Johnson and the White House worked to pressure a handful of Republicans to ensure they would vote to approve the sweeping tax-and-spending bill amid a razor-thin Republican majority and get it to Trump to sign in time for his self-imposed 4 July deadline.
CBS parent company Paramount, meanwhile, agreed to pay $16m to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over a broadcast interview, in what is likely to be seen as a further example of capitulation by media companies hoping to smooth relations with the president.
Here are the day’s key US politics stories at a glance:
Donald Trump’s signature tax-and-spending bill was hanging in the balance as Republicans struggled to muster sufficient votes in the US House of Representatives. A five-minute procedural vote remained open and tied on Wednesday, as Republican leaders told members they could leave the floor, suggesting they still did not have the numbers they needed.
If passed, the bill would vastly expand the federal government’s immigration enforcement machinery and supercharge the president’s plan to carry out what he has vowed will be the largest deportation campaign in US history.
Trump, vice-president JD Vance and speaker Mike Johnson spent much of the day trying to pressure conservatives to support the bill in the face of changes made by the Senate.
CBS parent company Paramount settled a lawsuit filed by Trump over a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris last October, in the latest concession by a media company to the US president, who has targeted outlets over what he describes as false or misleading coverage. Paramount said it would pay $16m to settle the suit, with the money allocated to Trump’s future presidential library and not paid to Trump “directly or indirectly”.
The ill-fated bromance between the US president and the world’s richest man, which once raised questions about American oligarchy, is now being pored over by social media users in China, many of whom are Team Elon Musk.
On Wednesday, the hashtag #MuskWantsToBuildAnAmericaParty went viral on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform similar to Musk’s X, receiving more than 37m views.
The US government has tried for the second time to deport a stateless Palestinian woman – according to court documents – despite a judge’s order barring her removal.
Ward Sakeik, a 22-year-old newlywed, was detained in February on her way home from her honeymoon in the US Virgin Islands. Last month, the government attempted to deport her without informing her where she was being sent, according to her husband, Taahir Shaikh. An officer eventually told her she would be sent to the Israel border – just hours before Israel launched airstrikes on Iran.
The Pentagon has collected intelligence material that suggests Iran’s nuclear program was set back roughly one to two years as a result of the US strikes on three key facilities last month, the chief spokesperson at the defence department said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 1 July 2025.
