inflation reduction act after a republican amendment in the vote-a-rama past with democrats like kristen sinema, voting in favor of it. this is making the legislative marathon even longer as republicans continue to try to make this process as painful as possible. democrats are painting the eventual expected passage of the bill as a major victory, hailing what is in it for the american people. vote after vote after vote we have done this with no sleep 11 hours straight. why? because we know this bill is finally going to do something about climate change. lift the ban on negotiating less expensive drugs under medicare. and then as the name of the bill says, bring inflation down by 305 billion dollars a deficit reduction. oil need 50 votes. we don t need 60 we don t need any republican votes to do something significant for working families in this country. unfortunately, for fairly well
amendment to change it. but they finally landed this plane just about 40 minutes ago. vice president, kamala harris, stepped in to cast the tie breaking vote for passage. the yays are 50, the nays are 50. senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative and the bill, as amended, is passed! i am simone sanders towns, you are watching some. hour to get right into. it let s go to nbc news congressional reporter, julie tsirkin, who s been on capitol hill. julie, it s been a long process. i ve been watching you all day. walk us through what has been happening in the last hour as the bill finally passed. one senate democrat told me she was worried, she got nervous in the last couple of minutes there as they were shaking out some of the changes they wanted made. you brought up the one
republicans like john mccain a decade ago. so, democrats should go out and say you know what, democrats, republicans are both on the record on these issues, it s a democratic party that s on your side, the democratic party that wants to provide you really. bob, are you expecting issues in the house when this goes back to them on friday for a final vote before heading to the presidents desk? not with nancy pelosi being speaker of the house, absolutely not. [laughs] i m not saying it s gonna be unanimous, there could be one or two democrats that vote no. but this is gonna pass. i think it s worth noting, it s very important that democrats opted to pass the obama care subsidies through 2024. that would not be hanging in the presidential election year. they can use it as a bit of a weapon to say, okay, nominee republican would you continue those subsidies are will, are you seeking the outright repeal. policy wise and politically
floor. we are awaiting the official passage in the senate of the inflation reduction act, in which case it will then go back to the house where they will reconvene on friday for their vote. after that, it will go to the presidents desk for final passage. we want to bring in nbc s julie tsirkin who s on capitol hill and editor in chief of the hill, bob cusack. guys, let s talk through some of the nitty-gritty of all of this, as we re watching this vote finally take place on the senate floor. it s something we ve been holding out for for quite some time. after this marathon of work they ve been doing. julie, let s start with the day of all of. it we had hit a little bit of a snag, which we thought was going to throw everything off course. it seems like it didn t necessarily. how did we get here so quickly, even with the and prove all of the amendment from republican senator, john tehran? look, it represents two major changes.
and whether or not we re gonna be hearing from him today, as he left the white house earlier, going to delaware. yasmin, we ve been talking for weeks about how the inflation production act is really pared down version of the presidents build back better plan. the key elements coming out of it is something that the white house been touting to tackle inflation. they re really looking forward to this act that could bring down the deficit by 300 billion dollars really helping with inflation. this is all added to the winds that we ve seen intermittent of dropping gas prices, job numbers in recent weeks. we haven t heard official announcement from the white house whether the president will address the vote here, especially as the vice president is set to take that high breaking vote. we learned yesterday that the vote on the hill saturday that she has done the most tie breaking votes of any vice president since the early 1800s, which is really telling to show how difficult it has been for