Our colleague Richard Rubin spent his Monday, and much of his Tuesday, at the U.S. Capitol.

He was watching as Republican senators tried to pass their version of President Trump's signature legislation, his big, beautiful bill.

And it was a nail-biter.

So they started at 9 a.m. on Monday and kept going.

You know, there were multiple things going on.

There were amendment votes and votes happening on the floor,

and there were also negotiations in the backrooms

where senators were, in the Republican side,

were trying to get the final votes

that they needed to pass this thing. So this thing dragged, right? So it went to late in the

evening, and then it went to midnight, and then it went to 3 a.m. Senators forged ahead,

fueled partly by energy drinks and carrot cake.

Some took turns huddling under a blanket in the chilly Senate chamber.

And then the sun came up,

and then they finally figured out a version maybe mid to late morning

that was going to work for the last holdup vote,

who's Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,

and she ended up voting for it,

and the thing passed just afternoon on Tuesday.

If you're keeping score, that's 27 hours where the Senate was fully in session working on this,

and it went from June to July in there, but the bill went from not past to past.

And how big of a victory is this for Republicans to have cleared this hurdle?

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