John Fetterman was pissed off.
Then again he started out that way, far before there was a hint that watching Republicans get to 51 votes on President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful” spending bill would take an over-24-hour marathon session in the Senate chamber.
The Democratic Pennsylvania senator, who had lamented on camera a day earlier about not being able to join his family at the beach, had just heard his aide tell him eight more amendments remained.
“Eight f***in’ more?” he exclaimed. “You’re kidding.”
Because Fetterman wore his trademark Carhartt shirt and shorts rather than a suit and tie, he could not be on the Senate floor at that moment, very late Monday, er, make that early Tuesday. Time of day/night had become a blur by that point.
That’s a shame, I thought, because typically watching the floor activity is the one joy of the so-called vote-a-rama session where senators haggle over various provisions of a budget bill being passed under reconciliation.
For someone who likes C-SPAN as much as I unashamedly admit I do, viewing such a wonky spectacle from the gallery is like a live concert. And that makes a vote-a-rama the legislative equivalent of the Eras Tour.
That is if Taylor Swift played for nearly 27 hours.
For those who have never covered a vote-a-rama, they are near equal parts consequential debate and kabuki theater. Republicans planned to pass the bill via budget reconciliation, which allows legislation to pass with a simple majority as long as it relates to spending.
This leads to rapid fire introduction of amendments by either side. Republicans can push for amendments that otherwise could not pass in committee, while Democrats can try to introduce poison pill legislation to kill the bill.
As senators filed in Monday morning, I caught Sen. Lisa Murkowski — hours before she would become the center of the rebellion against the bill’s passage — to ask her about renewable energy efforts that are targeted for destruction in this bill.
But the Alaska Republican was already in no mood to chat.
“I haven’t decided whether to share comments with reporters this morning or not,” she said. “You’re the first one to ask me a question this morning, so you win the bonu round.”
Anyone who has covered Murkowski recently can tell that the senior senator is fed up with having to answer for every little thing Trump says or does.
If she had her druthers, she would focus on Native-Alaskan affairs, working on the budget and on energy policy. Just last week, Murkowski released her memoir in which she touted her independent streak. Oftentimes, she will try to avoid reporters or joke with them to avoid them asking hard questions. But after some thought, Murkowski gave a semi-substantive answer.
“I don’t want to see us backslide on clean energy,” she told The Independent.
Then the vote-a-rama kicked off.
Early in the evening, Democrats felt that they might have a shot to sink the bill. Early-morning or late-night votes can often be dramatic. Look no further than the thumbs-down the late John McCain delivered that saved the Affordable Care Act during the first Trump administration.
Democrats kept saying Republicans didn’t have the votes or that the GOP was too divided. They also hoped to exploit some of those fissures as they offered amendment after amendment — all of which naturally failed — until they seemed to run out of steam.
Then, Democrats switched to offering motions to recommit, a motion which would cause the legislation to be referred back the Senate committee of its jurisdiction.
Eventually, Sen. John Kennedy, who despite being a graduate of Oxford often puts on a heavily affected Louisiana Cajun accent, complained about his Republican colleagues allowing Democrats to offer these motions, which were a futile effort because no number of Republicans would even think of sending these bills back to committee.
“We might as well have been standing around, sucking on our teeth.” he said.
Kennedy wasn’t wrong. But Republicans faced a bind. For one, they had to find a way to appease Murkowski and her fellow moderate Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. In 2017, both joined McCain in his opposition to repeal the Affordable Care Act and they have considerable leverage.
Collins had particular issue with the fact the bill put a cap on the amount that states could levy on provider taxes to raise money to receive matching Medicaid dollars. Rural hospitals could go under as a result since many of them rely on Medicaid recipients.
To try and make up for that deficit to the hospitals, the bill created a $25 billion rural hospital fund. But Collins had an amendment to raise that amount to $50 billion. It didn’t go well. Only 22 senators voted for it, and a majority of her Republican colleagues opposed it.
One of the only Republicans who joined her was Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who had spent the past month wringing his hands about Medicaid cuts but ultimately decided to vote for the bill.
When that failed, it looked like Collins would certainly join Tillis and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in opposing the bill. She later lamented that the Senate should have done two reconciliation bills instead of “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which Trump requested it be called.
“I think that would have been a better approach,” Collins told me as pulled a roll-around suitcase back to the Senate floor.
That meant that everything hinged on Murkowski.
Republicans had loaded up the bill with pork for her, including a way to shield Alaska from a provision that would require that the state shoulder the cost of SNAP and another that would prevent it from being hit by cuts to Medicaid.
This led to Senate leadership frequently — and literally — cornering and badgering Murkowski. At one point, Thune, former majority leader McConnell, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo and fellow Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan had her cornered on the Senate floor.
This led to a series of back-and-forths where Thune and reporters would zip back to his office. They lifted up their phones to get audio of the lanky beanpole Thune’s soft-spoken tone as kept saying Republicans were close.
Of course, doing a long-haul vote-a-rama calls for sustenance.
At one point, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent socialist who caucuses with the Democrats, was seen munching a bag of snacks, while Democrat Ruben Gallego of Arizona went to go see if the tacos his party ordered for catering were any good. (Note: As a Mexican-American who lives in D.C., I can tell you they will not be as good as anything found in Arizona).
Gallego also was not buying that Republicans had a deal.
“If you have to stall this long, it means you have a shit bill,” he told me.
Unsurprisingly, the longer senators went on, the more exhausted they got and the more caffeine was required. Shortly after my third or fourth caffeinated beverage, I ran into Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican former Auburn University head football coach, who told me, “I’m braindead brother” as he sipped on some coffee.
When Sen. Mike Lee of Utah proposed a rollback of renewable energy credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota had her arms folded in her fleece — not just because she helped craft those parts of the bill to combat climate change, but because Lee had spread disgusting conspiracy theories about the killing of her fellow Minnesotan, former statehouse speaker Melissa Hortman.
Meanwhile, Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican who had clashed with Trump about the bill and then said he would not run for re-election, walked around like a man who had given his two weeks’ notice and even spent time with progressive Democrats like Elizabeth Warren. The night into day also saw Warren and her former presidential rival Amy Klobuchar occasionally chatting.
At one point, Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner of Virginia made their way to hang out with Republican Sens. Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Kennedy.
But, alas, all good things must come to an end. Well, things anyway.
Around the time some senators and reporters went to watch the sunrise, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas ordered his Republican colleagues breakfast from McDonald’s, one of Trump’s favorite fast food choices, according to HuffPost’s Igor Bobic.
No word if Trump made the fries himself.
At that point, around 7 am, I was simultaneously crabby, too excited to go to sleep if I’d gone home anyway, tired, but also jittery from all the caffeine I ingested, so my editor sent me home.
Unfortunately, just as I was leaving, Vice President J.D. Vance was arriving. As soon as that happened, I knew the GOP had the votes. Why bother the vice president to come break a tie otherwise?
In the end, Collins, Tillis and Paul voted alone against the bill — but what I’d taken to calling the Denali Deal for Murkowski had galvanized the agreement for a 50-50 vote with Vance giving the 51st vote.
Some may remark on why Murkowski joined leadership this time but it is fairly clear that she did not want to be remembered as another McCain, let alone another Mitt Romney and certainly not another Liz Cheney.
Like the latter two, she is the child of a prominent Republican leader. But at her core, Murkowski wants to be remembered for looking out for Alaska’s interests. And in her mind, that likely meant shielding her state from the bill’s worst excesses.
But her actions reveal the hollowness of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which now must be passed with the new amendments, by the House once again.
Very few people on the Republican side can defend the cuts to safety-net programs, since it still balloons the deficit. Rather, they tout the items they pay for, even when it is still unpopular.
For now, Republicans are speed-running through breaking all of the typical decorum rules of the world’s supposedly greatest deliberative body in service of Trump. And it will take longer than a so-called Byrd Bath to wash out the stains from their parliamentary sins.
Then again, maybe I’m just tired.
