Jeffries delays Big Beautiful Bill vote after all-night session

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Thursday morning held up the chamber’s vote on the revised One Big Beautiful Bill Act with a speech over four hours long. Jeffries began his speech around 5 a.m., declaring his intention to take his time after being yielded one minute by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., according to a live feed from the House Clerk. The House’s magic minute rule allows party leaders unlimited time to speak after the debate concludes. He began his remarks by calling the bill an abomination and a tax scam. He decried its cuts to Medicaid.

House members were waiting to vote on the bill after an all-night session of negotiations and debate, which wrapped up in the early hours of Thursday. The chamber earlier broke a record for the longest procedural vote in modern history, waiting over seven hours to gather representatives’ final approval for a rule, according to Roll Call.

What happened in procedural vote overnight? The House after 3 a.m. voted 219-213 to allow the bill to advance into debate. Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick was the lone Republican to vote against the rule, joining all Democrats. Four other Republican holdouts, including Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., flipped their votes to yes in the early hours of Thursday after meetings with colleagues including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., according to CBS.

Johnson has touted the bill as delivering on tax cuts and border security.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s story on the Senate passage of the bill.