Even after about a dozen House Republicans who were on the fence about the Senate-adopted budget met with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson still doesn’t appear to have the votes to push through the budget.
At least not yet.
While at least two members who attended the White House meeting immediately flipped their votes — Reps. Greg Steube and Ron Estes — other Republicans were less convinced.
“There are significant people who are still opposed,” one GOP member who attended the meeting told NOTUS.
The member, granted anonymity to discuss details from the meeting, said Trump and his aides guaranteed lawmakers they would push the Senate to adhere to deeper cuts than the $4 billion floor proposed in the upper chamber’s budget.
But even with those assurances, this member said they did not think the Senate-adopted blueprint could make it through the House — at least not without amendments.
Still, Johnson and his leadership team are trying to push the Senate’s budget through the House soon. Returning from the White House meeting, Johnson said he believes Trump changed some minds and plans on moving on the budget “this week.”
And even as Johnson projected confidence — “We’re making great progress right now,” he said — the speaker’s plan to put the budget up for a vote this week could be seen as a departure from his earlier timeline of adopting the budget on Wednesday.
Right now, that timeline is in doubt after Republican leaders didn’t move the Senate’s budget to the House Rules Committee on Tuesday night. And there’s good reason to question the timeline.
Enough GOP lawmakers publicly oppose the budget to tank it, and hopes that Trump would lock up the votes are — for the moment — coming up short.
Rep. Tim Burchett, who was not invited to the meeting, told NOTUS he is still opposed to the budget. Rep. Ralph Norman expressed skepticism that he would support it, saying he’s still undecided.
Even with GOP leadership aides pointing to how Trump got Republicans in line when there was opposition to the House’s budget in February, one senior GOP lawmaker expressed skepticism that Trump could ever win over holdouts on this Senate budget.
“This one feels different,” the member said.
An early indication of how that sentiment is true is House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris.
Harris told reporters he was invited to the White House meeting but declined to go, saying there was nothing Trump could say to change his mind about this budget.
Rep. Eric Burlison, another Freedom Caucus member, told reporters that, while Trump could get people to support the House’s budget, his energy would be wasted on this one.
“I love the president, but this is not what he’s asking for,” Burlison said.
“What the Senate sent over is so financially immoral that it doesn’t matter how much pressure,” Burlison said. “There’s many of us that can’t swallow it.”
Burlison reported that he also was not invited to the meeting with Trump.
Rep. Rich McCormick, who also wasn’t invited to the meeting and is undecided on the budget, told reporters the budget doesn’t have the votes to be adopted and it likely won’t get there.
“We don’t have the votes for it, so why would I be a ‘yes’ for something that’s not going to pass,” McCormick said.
There are other ideas being presented to Speaker Johnson, but he has shot them down thus far.
In a closed-door meeting with House Republicans on Tuesday, a handful of lawmakers — including Rep. Jim Jordan — pushed Johnson to conference the two budgets, according to a source in the room. Johnson has said he opposes that idea because it would take too long.
But as Johnson tries to wrangle the votes for the Senate-adopted budget, there is another larger problem for the speaker: He’s losing goodwill among House Republicans.
According to three sources, Steube went off on Johnson during Tuesday’s meeting, calling the speaker a liar and saying, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!”
While Steube’s outburst was related to how Johnson handled a discharge petition to allow new parents to vote by proxy — Steube did not agree with how Johnson tried to kill the petition — the episode illustrated an anger with Johnson that’s spreading within the conference.
Steube did not respond to a request for comment.
Johnson can only afford to lose four votes on this budget, and with the noes continuing to come, the budget’s future is looking grimmer by the minute.
Still, Johnson is maintaining that he’s committed to pushing the budget through.
During a closed-door meeting on Monday, Johnson suggested that members stay in town until the budget is adopted, which could possibly delay the two-week recess set to begin on Friday.
But with so many holdouts remaining unconvinced, Johnson has to decide whether trying to keep lawmakers in town to convince them to adopt the budget helps his cause or hurts it.
—
Reese Gorman, Riley Rogerson and Daniella Diaz are reporters at NOTUS.