A cross-section of House Republicans — from hardline conservatives to moderates — are headed to the White House on Wednesday to meet with President Trump about the party’s “big, beautiful bill” of tax cut and spending priorities.
The meetings come as GOP leaders lean on Republican holdouts who have voiced serious opposition to the bill, threatening leadership’s hopes of getting it to the president’s desk by July 4.
Hardliners are vowing to vote against the procedural rule for the bill, which would bring the House floor to a standstill.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who voted against the rule in committee early Wednesday, said he was headed to the White House to meet with Trump, along with other lawmakers in the group. A source familiar with the matter told The Hill that the White House invited Freedom Caucus members to the gathering.
Most Republican lawmakers relented on their concerns with the bill when it came up in the House the first time after Trump and the White House deployed a strong pressure campaign, cajoling the members to get on board.
This time around, however, some members are demanding changes to the Senate-passed version of the legislation to win their support.
Deficit hawks in the House Freedom Caucus and beyond are furious that the Senate version of the bill does not adhere to the House framework hammered out months ago, which called for dollar-for-dollar spending reductions to offset tax cuts.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said that without those changes, a group of members in his caucus and beyond will sink the procedural rule vote to tee up debate on the bill, dealing an embarrassing blow to GOP leaders.
“Hopefully it goes back to Rules [Committee], gets moved closer to the House position, and the Senate gets called back into town,” Harris said. “Senate never should have left town. The President asked us to stay until this issue was resolved and the Senate left town.”
Live updates: GOP leaders lean on holdouts ahead of critical Trump megabill vote
GOP sources, though, say leaders are not interested in making any changes — arguing that the Senate made the bill more conservative in some areas and more moderate in other areas, but it is overwhelmingly similar to what the House passed last month.
Asked about the White House wanting the House to pass this version of the bill, Harris said: “Well, the White House doesn’t have a voting card.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) met with a group of deficit hawks, including many in the House Freedom Caucus, Wednesday morning. He told The Hill on the way into the gathering that he planned to tell lawmakers “we gotta get this done.”
He departed the meeting more than 40 minutes later, telling The Hill it was “productive, we’re moving forward,” but being non-committal on if the House would vote on the procedural rule Wednesday, as planned.
“We’ll see,” he said.
Harris said nothing had changed in his stance after that meeting.
Norman, meanwhile, said the Freedom Caucus has “a three-point plan” of demands to win their support for the bill. In some policy debates of the past, GOP leaders have been able to win the support of 11th-hour holdouts by promising future reforms favored by the critics. But Norman said that won’t work this time.
Instead, he said conservatives will demand changes to the current bill, which would require it to return to the Senate.
“I’m done with promises,” Norman said. “The best thing is to send the bill back [to the Senate].”
“What we will add is a three-point plan that [indicates]: this is what it will take to get a yes. And it’s what the president wants.”
It is not just deficit hawks headed across Pennsylvania Avenue: A group of moderate House Republicans — Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), David Valadao (R-Calif.) and Dan Newhouse (R-Calif.) — were spotted entering the West Wing Wednesday morning, according to CNN. Centrists have raised concerns about the Medicaid cuts in the bill and the aggressive rollback of green-energy tax credits, some of which benefit their districts.
Valadao staked his opposition to the Senate’s bill over the weekend, voicing concerns about Medicaid provisions in the legislation.
“I support the reasonable provisions in H.R. 1 that protect Medicaid’s long-term viability and ensure the program continues to serve our most vulnerable, but I will not support a final bill that eliminates vital funding streams our hospitals rely on, including provider taxes and state directed payments, or any provisions that punish expansion states,” Valadao said in a statement on Saturday.
“President Trump was clear when he said to root out our waste, fraud, and abuse without cutting Medicaid and I wholeheartedly agree,” he continued. “I urge my Senate colleagues to stick to the Medicaid provisions in H.R. 1 — otherwise I will vote no.”
Valadao and Newhouse are the two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Mike Lillis contributed.
