After House Republican leaders insisted they were charging full steam ahead to advance the Senate-passed reconciliation bill, floor action slowed to a halt Wednesday, with Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump struggling to win over holdouts to even put the bill on the floor.
Leadership scheduled a procedural vote to advance the bill Wednesday afternoon. But after some members couldn’t get to the Capitol over travel delays — and some other Republicans appeared committed to voting down the reconciliation bill — Republicans left the House floor with no clear plan.
After leaving two previous votes open for over two hours, lawmakers headed back to their offices a little after 3 p.m. Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters that he was waiting on a few straggling Republican members to return to the Capitol Building “within the next hour” to bring lawmakers back to the floor.
But Scalise seemed to acknowledge flight delays may not be the only hang-up.
“There have been different ongoing conversations with the Freedom Caucus,” he said, “and other members, too.”
Republicans had taken about an hour to wrap-up the first vote of the series, which was a procedural motion to “order the previous question.” That vote was supposed to take 15 minutes. But the second vote, an amendment to the rule setting up debate for the reconciliation bill that was supposed to be five minutes, stalled out around 211-212, with a number of Republicans still to vote more than hour after the vote started.
While Republican leaders could have found some of their members to vote for the amendment and push it over the line, there was no use. They’d only be heading to more delays and more trouble — namely, a rule vote that may go down on the floor.
There are two GOP factions who seem unconvinced by the reconciliation bill: moderates and conservatives.
The moderates are concerned with Medicaid cuts in the bill, which now exceed $1 trillion after the Senate’s changes. But leaders seem to think they are making progress with those members.
Trump hosted a meeting with some moderates and some members of the Main Street Caucus on Wednesday, where he listened to concerns and touted the wins in the legislation, two sources told NOTUS.
But Trump still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp about what his signature legislative achievement does. According to three sources with direct knowledge of the comments, the president told Republicans at this meeting that there are three things Congress shouldn’t touch if they want to win elections: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
“But we’re touching Medicaid in this bill,” one member responded to Trump, according to the three sources.
Asked for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told NOTUS that President Trump’s reconciliation bill “takes decisive action to protect Medicaid for generations to come by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the program. President Trump is committed to protecting Medicaid for the vulnerable Americans who rely on it most.”
The president also hosted a meeting with conservatives and members of the House Freedom Caucus. House GOP leaders are skeptical the Freedom Caucus will cave and vote to pass the bill before the Fourth of July, according to a senior GOP aide, and they’re largely relying on Trump to convince those members.
But at the moment, it doesn’t seem as if conservatives plan to just accept what Trump directs them to do.
One White House meeting attendee, Rep. Tim Burchett, told NOTUS there was little the president and his team could tell him to win his vote. Although he said leadership has floated “fixes” to the bill after passage — which would ostensibly mean further legislation to undo this legislation — he said he doesn’t see the point of enacting policy he disagrees with.
“Now we’re having to once again hear the line, ‘Let’s pass this and then we’ll fix it later,’ Burchett told NOTUS. “And we never fix it later, and America knows that.”
“I’ve been here six years — whatever,” Burchett continued. “It’s the same game. And there’s enough of us now that have had enough of it.”
The Freedom Caucus released a three-page memo Wednesday laying out its concerns with the reconciliation bill. Included among their gripes are that the legislation increases the deficit, fails to terminate some subsidies for renewable energy, allows undocumented immigrants to receive Medicaid and dramatically increases the state and local tax deduction.
Republicans are rushing to get holdouts on board, but this time, Trump and Johnson are without one of their key negotiating chips: They can’t change the bill, not unless they want to send it back to the Senate for another round of approval there.
“Only in Washington is the Senate so arrogant — the House of Lords — that they say, ‘Oh well, you know, you can’t change this,’” Rep. Chip Roy told reporters ahead of the rule vote. “Every legislative body in the world does ping-pong, conferences and other ways to go about it.”
As Republicans try to flip members, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and his deputy, Guy Reschenthaler, spent considerable time on the floor Wednesday engaged in animated conversations with holdouts, including Reps. David Valadao, Dan Newhouse, Juan Ciscomani and Rob Bresnahan.
But with so many issues outstanding, some members are beginning to think GOP leaders are doing more harm than good by trying to get the reconciliation bill done before Trump’s self-imposed July 4 deadline.
“Mike’s a fool if he keeps us here,” one senior House Republican told NOTUS.
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Riley Rogerson and Reese Gorman are reporters at NOTUS.
Haley Byrd Wilt, who is a reporter at NOTUS, contributed to this report.
Em Luetkemeyer, who is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow, contributed to this report.