Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) released his long-awaited report on deficit spending Wednesday as he digs in against President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

In the 31-page report, Johnson cites numbers and graphs to support his warning that he will oppose Trump’s tax bill without further spending reductions. In a press call ahead of its release, he concedes he is not an economist and that his figures could have flawed assumptions.

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Instead, Johnson described the report as an effort to spur debate. The analysis challenges many of the claims Republicans have been making about the megabill, particularly its fiscal impact.

He argued the United States will still run trillion-dollar deficits even with the rosiest of economic growth projections and questioned whether the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Republicans are now attempting to extend, paid for itself.

“If there’s one role I’m playing in this process, it’s forcing everybody to look at the reality,” Johnson said in the press call.

“You can argue about the twigs and leaves on the forest floor, but I’m forcing everybody to take a step back and look at the forest,” he told the Washington Examiner. “It’s blazing, and we got to put this forest fire out.”

Johnson reiterated that he will oppose the tax bill in the coming days, going so far as to predict his fellow fiscal hawks had the votes to tank it on the Senate floor next week.

Johnson, who wants to return spending to pre-pandemic levels, initially demanded a fiscal commission that goes line by line through the federal budget in exchange for his vote, but today he says his request is a “forcing mechanism” to revisit the deficit after the megabill passes.

“I don’t want to go through all the work, I don’t want to spend all the money, if we don’t have a forcing mechanism to make sure that we take whatever they find up and codify it,” he said, adding the Office of Management and Budget was sympathetic to his idea of a commission but too “busy” to execute it.

Johnson showed signs of softening his resistance following conversations with Trump and then Vice President JD Vance earlier this month, with the latter meeting focused on using a second reconciliation bill to give fiscal conservatives another “bite at the apple.”

But Johnson stood firm as a holdout following a Monday meeting in which the Republican conference was briefed on the tax portion of the legislation.

He plans to share his findings with the rest of the conference and sought to get feedback from Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett ahead of its release.

“I’m asking Kevin Hassett, I’m asking the administration, I’m asking other Ph.D. economists — take a look at this, show me where I’m wrong,” Johnson said.

Johnson, who is notorious for carrying around charts and graphs, cited a constructive working relationship with his Senate colleagues, describing “good faith” negotiations over the spending reductions.

But his report is an implicit rebuke of GOP leadership as Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) insists the Congressional Budget Office is wrong for projecting an additional $2.8 trillion in deficits due to the megabill.

In particular, Johnson’s report criticizes the assumption that using a “current policy baseline” to score the bill, a tactic that lets Republicans treat tax extensions as cost-free, makes the additional deficits “magically disappear.”

He also calls the White House’s projection that it will raise trillions in tariff revenue “highly problematic” given the legal challenges over Trump’s authority to impose them.

In the press call, Johnson appeared to compare Thune to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) due to the accelerated timeline. Senate Republicans hope to get the bill through the Senate by the July 4 recess.

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“The ball has been in the Senate’s court for two weeks. I understand this process to kind of jam everybody. But let’s not do what Nancy Pelosi did, is, ‘Hey, got to pass this bill to figure out what’s in it,’” Johnson said.

“I want the Senate to take the good work the House did and make it a much better bill. And that’s going to take a little more time,” Johnson added.