Speaker Mike Johnson has a rebellion on his hands. And this is supposed to be the easy part of passing President Donald Trump’s agenda.
In the midst of crafting one of the most difficult pieces of legislation ever – not just tax cuts but massive spending cuts too – Johnson wants House Republicans to trust him to win a showdown with Senate Republicans. That’s a huge ask.
Members from across the Republican Conference are telling Johnson and his top lieutenants that they don’t support the House-Senate compromise budget resolution, throwing into doubt whether the speaker can get the votes this week to pass it.
By the House GOP leadership’s estimate, there are as many as a dozen no votes. Many House leadership sources believe there are far more. Johnson can only lose three Republicans on this party-line vote.
Their complaints are familiar. The budget resolution’s bifurcated spending targets gives Senate Republicans too much leverage to cut hundreds of billions of dollars less than the House GOP is demanding.
Johnson’s biggest problem is that the griping is coming from unfamiliar corners of the GOP conference. Members of the Budget Committee — including Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), the panel’s chair — and traditional leadership allies are saying they can’t back the compromise resolution approved by the Senate on Saturday morning.
All this comes at a critical moment for Hill Republicans. DOGE-related layoffs of tens of thousands of federal employees have spurred a gigantic public pushback. Trillions of dollars in wealth have vanished overnight as Trump tries to unilaterally remake the global trade regime, although a bounceback looks to be in the works.
The reconciliation process also gets more complex, and challenging, as it progresses. Every vote raises the stakes dramatically.
The House has to approve the resolution as is or it will have to go back to the Senate for more debate, including another vote-a-rama. House and Senate Republican leaders and the White House firmly say they’re not open to amending this resolution.
And remember, the current GOP resolution remains largely just a shell. While there are lots of spending targets, there are no policy specifics yet for Republican lawmakers to haggle over. For instance, while the House reconciliation instructions call for more than $800 billion in spending cuts by the Energy and Commerce Committee, it doesn’t say from what programs or how at this point. The Senate’s instructions are even vaguer.
What the nos sound like. One of Johnson’s chief complaints as speaker is that he’s frequently underestimated or misjudged. But the speaker and Trump have their work cut out for them this week.
Listen to these complaints from across the conference.
– Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), who whipped “no” on Monday evening: “We’ll see if there’s a vote [Wednesday]. They’re whipping it right now, and I don’t think it can pass.”
– Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.): “The leverage is right now. I just don’t believe that if we can’t set some kind of a floor for spending cuts now we’re going to get them anytime later.”
– Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who said he wants to first see “what the actual reconciliation product” will look like: “There’s no reason we have to do it this way… Show us your cards.”
The whipping process. Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise were holed up in the leadership suite Monday night meeting with different groups of House Republicans. They started with GOP moderates.
Johnson also huddled with the hardline conservatives of the House Freedom Caucus. Leaving that meeting, Johnson was adamant he could still move forward with a vote this week.
OMB Director Russ Vought, Deputy OMB Director and former HFC member Dan Bishop and James Braid, the White House’s Hill liaison, met separately with Freedom Caucus board members to make their case, according to several sources.
Why today is a gigantic day. At 9 a.m., the House Republican Conference will meet behind closed doors. “Time is not our friend here,” Johnson said Monday night.
Johnson’s pitch will be that the budget resolution is but a procedural vote that allows the House to go fight for its position in negotiations with the Senate. Here’s how the speaker sees it:
“This is all of our priorities wrapped into one big, beautiful bill, and we can’t get to the bill unless we get the resolution done…
“We’re about six months ahead of the Senate on this process. We do not have time to wait around for them to go through all the laborious effort that we’ve gone through.”
Remember: Johnson has tried to create maximum pressure at every juncture to continue forward on Trump’s agenda. His play now is to tell lawmakers that they can’t have a say on the eventual reconciliation package unless they pass this budget resolution.
White House plays the pressure game. Trump isn’t expected to attend today’s House GOP meeting in the Capitol. But the administration is playing the outside game a bit. Twenty-two Republican governors have sent Trump a letter supporting the House-Senate budget resolution.
Trump posted on Truth Social his support for the Senate budget proposal on Monday night, making it clear what he wants done: “THE HOUSE MUST PASS THIS BUDGET RESOLUTION, AND QUICKLY — MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump is speaking at the NRCC dinner tonight too. A not-so-subtle reminder that the House Republican majority revolves around him.
Markets up. The Nikkei Stock Average was up 6% on Tuesday after the White House said it would be opening trade negotiations with Japan. Dow futures, S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures were all pointing higher too.
