It was a matter of who would be the third "no" vote Republicans could lose and still pass the "big, beautiful bill." It came down to Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.

Attention then shifted to Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, the closest things the Senate still has to moderate Republicans, and the two senators who with John McCain deep-sixed Trump’s first budget bill back in 2017,

House Republicans face intense scrutiny over Trump’s sweeping tax-and-spending bill amid Medicaid cut backlash.