Several House Republicans walked away from a White House briefing Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill with the impression that the administration knows its cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs aren’t playing well in battleground states.
“The main place Republicans were underwater when messaging the bill was the Medicaid cuts,” one Republican lawmaker told NOTUS, leaving the meeting with the White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, and James Blair, a White House’s deputy chief of staff.
Blair and Leavitt came to the Hill to help House Republicans figure out how to frame President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget law. Republicans’ current push is to recast what Trump dubbed his “one big, beautiful bill” into the “working families’ tax cut.”
Lawmakers who were in the room told NOTUS that the White House’s message was to talk about the law’s tax cuts, not its social safety net cuts.
“Focus on making sure that resources get to the right people, and stop making fun of lazy folks who live in the basements,” another lawmaker said.
The Republican budget law paired tax cuts, which primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans, with cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and more. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that America’s poorest households would see their incomes drop $1,200 per year, or by about 3.1%, while the country’s wealthiest families would see their incomes increase by 2.7%.
White House staff went over polling from 22 battleground districts during the briefing, lawmakers in the room said. The polls were conducted by Trump pollster and Republican strategist Tony Fabrizio.
Multiple members said the White House has found that the tax cuts are currently polling well. Public polling from July indicated that Americans overall disapprove of Trump’s budget law.
“They did make a really good presentation about how the bill benefits a cross slice, a huge cross slice of America, not so much the wealthy; and it’s not so much about taking benefits away, making sure money goes to the right people,” the second Republican lawmaker said.
As Republicans left the meeting, lawmakers were referring to the bill almost exclusively by its new moniker: the “working families’ tax cut.”
“What I picked up from the conversation was, I think we missed an opportunity to call it the working families’ tax cut bill,” Rep. Eric Burlison said as he left the meeting.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said the White House gave “polling numbers on the working families’ tax cut.”
When asked whether that’s the new name for the bill, Emmer responded, “New? It’s the one I’ve always been using.”