President Donald Trump arrived on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning with a clear mission: sell his “big, beautiful bill” to House Republicans.
But if Trump wanted to convince the holdouts that this legislation is a winner, he may need to re-familiarize himself with the bill currently under consideration, because Trump urged Republicans to pass a very different measure from the one Speaker Mike Johnson and his conference has produced.
Trump told Republicans he didn’t want Medicaid cuts beyond rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse.”
“Don’t fuck around with Medicaid,” Trump said, according to a source in the room.
But the current bill makes dramatic Medicaid reductions, more than $700 billion over the next decade, with Republicans considering additional changes that would cut hundreds of billions more in order to get conservatives on board.
He told Republicans the bill was a choice between “the biggest tax cut in the history of our country” or “a 68% tax increase.” Neither claim is remotely true. The bill would largely extend current individual tax rates, and if the rates expired, most people would see a 2% or 3% increase in their taxes.
And, he suggested, politically, it wasn’t really wise to increase the state and local tax deduction, reasoning that blue state governors would be the big winners. The current offer from leadership, according to Punchbowl, is to quadruple the state and local tax deduction, from $10,000 to $40,000, allowing wealthy homeowners to write off their huge property tax bills on their federal returns. (SALT caucus members still want more.)
As the meeting wrapped up, one House Republican told NOTUS it was “hard to determine” what Trump was really pitching.
“He’s not a detail guy,” this GOP member said of Trump.
Once the meeting was over, NOTUS asked House Majority Whip Tom Emmer repeatedly if he felt still confident in leadership’s projected Thursday floor vote. He would not commit.
“That’s a great question,” Emmer said. “This bill will pass as soon as it hits the floor.”
Trump came to Capitol Hill at a precarious time for the bill. NOTUS has tallied at least a dozen Republicans who are publicly skeptical of the legislation, with many characterizing themselves as a “hard no.”
“I said it’s like an NBA ballgame, boys,” Rep. Tim Burchett, who’s undecided, told reporters. “Wait ‘til the last two minutes and watch it. And we’re about at two minutes and 30 seconds right now.”
The president’s job was to rally the troops. He needed to instill confidence in the reconciliation bill, pressure the holdouts and reassure Republicans that this was a politically smart leap of faith.
Instead, he seems to have cast more doubt on a bill that GOP leaders are rushing to get over the finish line this week. And he may have given the opposition more ammunition for their push to delay consideration.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris — who described himself as a “hard no” on Monday — was unconvinced by Trump’s visit.
“The President, I don’t think, convinced enough people that the bill is adequate the way it is,” Harris said after the meeting.
Harris also wants an updated Congressional Budget Office score before the House votes. A person familiar with the process told NOTUS that wouldn’t happen before Wednesday or Thursday, when Johnson is targeting a vote.
But at least one hesitant Republican seemed open to Trump’s speech this morning.
“He did a great job,” Rep. Ralph Norman, who was previously opposed to the legislation. “There’s no better speech that anybody could have given. So we have an incentive to really make this happen.”
Also ahead of the meeting, Rep. Mike Lawler maintained that he’ll vote no on the bill in its current form, despite a late-night meeting with leadership to hammer out a deal on SALT.
Still, Rep. Nick LaLota, one of the most vocal leaders on SALT, told NOTUS before the meeting that “Trump’s the closer.”
“Hopefully, he gets us to a deal today,” he said.
Unfortunately for LaLota, Trump’s idea of a “deal” is that SALT holdouts accept what’s already been offered. But he told reporters after the meeting that he interpreted Trump’s comments more as a suggestion for lawmakers to figure out the details than to just take what’s on the table.
“I’m still a no,” LaLota said. “And I hope the President’s presence here today motivates everybody, especially my leadership, to give the SALT caucus number to which we can actually say, ‘Yes.’”
Two sources told NOTUS that Trump declared he opposes increasing the SALT cap, which would disproportionately benefit high-tax blue states like New York and California.
“Any SALT to those states is never enough,” Trump said, specifically venting his frustration toward Lawler, who has led the SALT effort, according to a source in the room.
“I know your district better than you do,” Trump said to Lawler, a source told NOTUS. “If you lose because of SALT, you were going to lose anyway.”
“Let’s get a future win,” Trump said in the room, per the source. “Not even Reagan could get SALT changed.”
Trump also told reporters before walking into the meeting that increasing the SALT cap benefits Democratic governors.
“We don’t want to benefit Democrat governors,” Trump said.
SALT Caucus members — several of whom have said they are willing to stake their careers on the issue — left the meeting frustrated, but not defeated.
Rep. Andrew Garbarino said there were no specifics discussed in the meeting, adding that “If they put the bill on the floor as it is, I think there’s a lot of no votes.”
The challenge for Trump and Johnson as they try to broker a deal is that for every concession they make to conservatives, they endanger critical moderate votes. Negotiations on key issues have become a zero-sum game where both sides will have to bend to reach a deal. Both ends of the House Republican conference, however, are using all-or-nothing rhetoric to get their way.
For example, conservatives are adamant about cutting into the federal share of state Medicaid spending, known as the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, or FMAP. But moderates — who have been quick to remind leadership they would not have a majority without wins in their purple districts — insist that slashing the FMAP would amount to political suicide.
Complicating matters for conservatives, Trump seems to think any meaningful cut is wrong.
“On Medicaid, we’re not touching anything,” Trump said before the meeting. “All I want is one thing, three words. We don’t want any waste, fraud or abuse. Very simple: waste, fraud, abuse. Other than that, we’re leaving it.”
But if you ask conservatives, the definition of “waste, fraud and abuse” could still include some of the deepest proposed cuts to the program, including to FMAP. Former Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Andy Biggs suggested conservatives still see FMAP as an issue in play.
“I think waste and abuse are fairly broad terms,” Biggs told NOTUS.
Instead of selling them on the legislation, Trump seemed more interested in threatening GOP lawmakers to bend to his will.
When asked by NOTUS after the meeting if House Republicans who vote no should face primaries, Trump said, “Possibly.”
And he took particular aim at Rep. Thomas Massie, the one Republican who voted against both budgets for reconciliation.
“I think he’s a grandstander,” Trump said of Massie.
“I think he should be voted out of office,” Trump told reporters. “And I just don’t think he understands government.”
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Riley Rogerson, Reese Gorman and Daniella Diaz are reporters at NOTUS.