President Donald Trump attended the closed-door House Republican conference meeting Tuesday morning in an attempt to convince two obstinate factions to get on board with the party’s reconciliation package. One group of members has been calling for steeper spending cuts; another group of largely blue-state Republicans has been unhappy with leadership’s state and local tax offer as well as provisions of the bill that would slash Medicaid.
While Trump may have been successful in bullying many members into submission, not all lawmakers who spoke to TPM and the other reporters outside the meeting room projected as much confidence as leadership.
House Republican leadership is, of course, hoping to bring the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to a floor vote this week to meet their self-imposed deadline of passing it out of the lower chamber by Memorial Day.
A handful of members came out of the meeting indicating they think the President made significant progress with holdouts on both sides of the spectrum.
Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD), the chair of the Main Street Caucus, told reporters Trump made a “convincing case” behind closed doors.
“I think with the holdouts, he did move them,” Johnson said, later adding that the President’s speech “moved that room.”
“I would say the President’s message, fundamentally, is quit monkeying around … we have got to deliver this for the American people,” Johnson told reporters, adding that “there were a lot of nodding heads in that room.”
Despite that note of positivity, the South Dakota Republican did acknowledge that not everything is “hunky dory” and there is still some work to be done to get everyone on board.
“I don’t know that we are there yet, but that was a hugely impactful meeting,” Johnson told reporters in the House basement.
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), who was one of the holdouts that tanked the first House Budget Committee vote last Friday, also told reporters, “eventually I believe it will pass.”
Not all Republicans yielded to Trump’s arm-twisting
Norman, another right-winger calling for steeper cuts, wouldn’t directly tell reporters if the President was successful in changing his mind following the closed-door session.
“He did a great job,” Norman said, adding that the President’s “off the cuff” speech was “one of the greatest speeches” he’s ever heard.
“He said the right things,” Norman added.
Meanwhile, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) signaled he is still undecided.
“It’s like an NBA ball game, boys,” Burchett told reporters. “Wait till the last two minutes and watch it. And we’re about at two minutes and 30 seconds.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), part of the group of blue-state members who have been pushing for a higher cap on the state-and-local-tax deduction that they view as crucial to their reelection prospects, said he remained unmoved, despite Trump calling him out by name inside the room.
“While I respect the president, I’m not going to budge,” Lawler told reporters, according to Politico.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) confirmed that the President did mention Lawler by name during the meeting.
“[Trump] encouraged him that he won his race by a lot. He’s going to win again,” Boebert said, adding that the President tried to push the idea that “this isn’t political. This is about doing what’s right by the American people.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also told reporters he was still a “no” following the meeting. However, Massie said he thinks Trump “probably closed the deal in there.”
“If his job was to go in there and convince the Freedom Caucus and the blue-state Republicans, I think he did a good job,” Massie told reporters in the House basement. “And he made a decent effort at convincing me, directly.”
Massie said that Trump called him out individually, but wouldn’t get into the specifics of what he said. Others in the room indicated that Trump reportedly called Massie a “grandstander.” The Kentucky Republican said he was unbothered by the rhetoric as well as Trump’s previous calls for Republican candidates to wage primary challenges against him.
“I’m not worried,” Massie told reporters. “I’m not worried about losing. I’m not worried if I did.”
When questioned about why he thinks other House Republicans are unable to say “no” to Trump, Massie acknowledged it is mostly about their political futures.
“Because some of them want to run for governor, and they need his endorsement,” Massie said. “And some of them are freshmen who are here because of his endorsement and probably haven’t established themselves to get reelected without his endorsement. I don’t know. Some of them have never even voted against a post office naming. How are they going to vote against this bill?”
‘Don’t fuck around with Medicaid’
As cuts to Medicaid remain one of the biggest contention points between the holdouts, Trump did specifically address the social safety net program during the meeting, according to lawmakers who attended it.
“Don’t fuck around with Medicaid,” Trump reportedly told House Republicans, but he, per multiple reports, quickly undercut that point by saying the bill should deal with “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the program.
Boebert told reporters that Trump said to “leave it alone unless there is waste, fraud and abuse,” as she walked out of the meeting.
Trump, in a public press conference, later echoed that line: “There’s tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse,” he claimed.
That has become the go-to phrase for Republicans who want to justify their cuts to the largely popular program, despite the fact that rooting out supposed “waste, fraud and abuse” roughly translates to work requirements and other significant cuts to the program — policies that would lead to millions losing their health care coverage.
