President Donald Trump moved Tuesday to end the quarrelling among various GOP factions and move his domestic-policy megabill toward passage, telling House Republicans behind closed doors that they need to unite immediately behind the “big, beautiful bill” their leaders have assembled.
That message was delivered in equal measure to both sides of the fractious GOP conference.
To conservative hard-liners who have been pushing for deeper cuts to Medicaid, Trump made crystal clear that he did not support additional slashing.
“Don’t fuck around with Medicaid,” he said, according to two Republicans granted anonymity to describe the private meetings.
He said he was focused on “saving” Medicaid by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse — echoing comments he made to reporters outside the meeting.
Trump said in response to a question from POLITICO that the hard-liners needed to pare back their demands for deeper spending cuts: “I’m a bigger fiscal hawk,” he said. “There’s nobody like me.”
He also took aim at the SALT Republicans — the mostly blue-state members who are pushing for a higher cap on the state-and-local-tax deduction. Trump campaigned last year on the issue.
But entering the Capitol on Tuesday, he said the tax break mainly served to benefit blue-state governors and said the group of holdouts needed to accept the deal to modestly increase the existing $10,000 cap on the deduction.
He said much the same inside the closed-door meeting, telling the SALT holdouts should “leave it alone” and take the offer on the table.
Trump’s Capitol Hill visit comes less than 24 hours before Speaker Mike Johnson wants to House Rules Committee to meet and finalize the bill for a floor vote, which could take place as soon as Wednesday.
