WASHINGTON — Confident that passage of President Donald Trump’s signature legislation was all but assured, West Wing aides summoned holdouts in the House Republican caucus Wednesday to deliver a blunt message: Follow the president’s orders and get it done by Friday.
It was a call to action after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., directed his caucus to return to Washington from home districts around the country, braving flight delays due to storms in the capital to be back in time for a vote before the Fourth of July.
But the vote was in doubt, and signs emerged of cracks in a coalition otherwise firmly under Trump’s control.
“The president of the United States didn’t give us an assignment,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Republican from Wisconsin, told reporters, using an expletive to suggest Trump was treating lawmakers like his minions. “I’m a member of Congress. I represent almost 800,000 Wisconsinites. Is that clear?”
Frustration within the Republican Party was coming from two disparate camps of a broad-tent coalition that have their own sets of grievances: fiscal hawks who believe the bill adds too much to the national debt, and lawmakers representing districts that heavily rely on Medicaid.
One GOP lawmaker who attended the White House meeting Wednesday, Rep. David Valadao of California, represents a Central Valley district with one of the highest percentages of Medicaid enrollment in the nation.
The president’s megabill, which he calls the “Big Beautiful Bill,” levies historic cuts to the health care program that could result in up to 12 million Americans losing health coverage, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, gutting $1 trillion in funding and introducing a work requirement for enrollees of 80 hours per month until they turn 65 years old.
The legislation would also restrict state taxes on health care providers, known as the “provider tax,” an essential tool for many states in their efforts to supplement Medicaid funding. Several Republican lawmakers fear that provision could have devastating effects on rural hospitals.
A handful of Republican lawmakers from North Carolina have bristled at the president’s pressure campaign, with Rep. Chuck Edwards telling Punchbowl News that the White House meeting ” didn’t sway my opinion.” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was one of three Republicans who voted against the bill Tuesday, warning it would devastate his state. It still passed with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance.
The vote was shaping up to be narrow in the House as well, where Johnson can afford to lose only three votes in order to pass the omnibus legislation.
A daylong debate on the House floor allowed for private negotiations to continue, ahead of a crucial procedural vote on rules that would be the last step before a final vote. But it was unclear whether the expressions of frustration and doubt Wednesday amounted to performance art in anticipation of the bill’s inevitable passage, or signaled a genuine threat to the bill.
Earlier Wednesday, after taking meetings at the White House, members of the House Freedom Caucus, a bloc founded to promote fiscal responsibility, also met with Johnson. The speaker emerged with a message of tempered optimism and later said he was hoping to secure a final vote Wednesday night.
“I feel very positive about the progress, we’ve had lots of great conversations,” Johnson told reporters, “but we can’t make everyone 100 percent happy. It’s impossible.”
“This is a deliberative body. It’s a legislative process by definition — all of us have to give up on personal preferences,” he said. “I’m never going to ask anyone to compromise core principles, but preferences must be yielded for the greater good. And that’s what I think people are recognizing and coming to grips with.”
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the Freedom Caucus, had been highly critical of the Senate legislation. But he signaled an openness Wednesday afternoon to vote in favor of the bill, an indication that passage could be imminent.
Democrats are out of power across Washington and have no ability to stop the legislation. But many believe it could backfire on Republicans in the midterm elections next year.
“Every single Senate Republican is going to have to answer for these cruel and unpopular cuts this election,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said after the bill passed the Senate. “This is putting their majority at serious risk.”
Trump says the legislation encompasses his entire domestic agenda, extending tax cuts passed during his first term in 2017 and beefing up funding for border security, mass deportations and the Defense Department.
Cuts to Medicaid, as well as to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP, are intended to offset a fraction of the costs. But the CBO still estimates the legislation will add $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, and hundreds of billions to the deficit, with other nonprofit budget trackers forecasting even higher figures.
Story by Michael Wilner, Lost Angeles Times via Tribune Content Agency
