After a scramble in the Senate, Republicans voted on Saturday to advance Trump’s signature “big, beautiful” bill, with a 51-49 vote.
Republicans had been divided over the controversial bill, with some rejecting the proposal to cut welfare programmes in order to cover tax breaks, and others demanding deeper cuts.
The key procedural hurdle was cleared hours after the debate opened, with two Republicans, senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky, voting with Democrats to block consideration of the measure.
Meanwhile, the tech billionaire Elon Musk again voiced criticism of bill, describing it as “utterly insane and destructive”.
Here are the key stories at a glance:
Senate Republicans advance Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ bill
The Republican-controlled US Senate advanced president Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill in a key procedural vote on Saturday, raising the odds that lawmakers will be able to pass the legislation in coming days.
Musk calls Trump’s big bill ‘utterly insane and destructive’
The billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk on Saturday criticized the latest version of Donald Trump’s sprawling tax and spending bill, calling it “utterly insane and destructive”.
“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!” Musk wrote on Saturday.
Biden and Harris attend funeral of slain Minnesota lawmaker
The Democratic former Minnesota state house speaker Melissa Hortman was honored for her legislative accomplishments and her humanity during a funeral on Saturday that was attended by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The former president and vice-president were joined by more than 1,000 other mourners.
Eric Trump suggests he could run for US president
Eric Trump has hinted that he or another of the Trump family could run for president when his father’s second term in the White House comes to an end.
Eric, who is co-executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said, the road to the White House “would be an easy one” if he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Spate of arrests of civilians impersonating Ice officers
Police in southern California arrested a man suspected of posing as a federal immigration officer this week, the latest in a series of such arrests, as masked, plainclothes immigration agents are deployed nationwide to meet the Trump administration’s mass deportation targets.
Ice arrests of US military veterans and relatives on the rise
The son of an American citizen and military veteran – but who has no citizenship to any country – was deported from the US to Jamaica in late May.
Jermaine Thomas’s deportation, recently reported on by the Austin Chronicle, is one of a growing number of immigration cases involving military service members’ relatives or even veterans themselves who have been ensnared in the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.
What else happened today:
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 27 June 2025.
