Trump Administration Live Updates: House Moves Ahead With President’s Policy Bill Amid G.O.P. Resistance
Trump Administration Live Updates: House Moves Ahead With President’s Policy Bill Amid G.O.P. Resistance
A vote allowing the bill to come up for debate indicated a breakthrough after Speaker Mike Johnson haggled with Republican holdouts into the early hours of Thursday.
The House took its first step early Thursday toward a final vote on President Trump’s marquee domestic policy bill, after Republicans put down a revolt by conservative holdouts that had threatened to sink it.
After a day and night of paralysis on the House floor, and haggling and uncertainty in the Capitol, Speaker Mike Johnson scored a preliminary victory in his bid to overcome resistance within his party when the House voted to allow the bill to come up for debate. The 219-to-213 vote suggested he had won the backing of recalcitrant Republicans whose resistance had stalled the measure, though the House still had to take a final vote to approve it.
Facing tight margins in the House, he could afford only a handful of defections on the measure, which would slash taxes by a total of $4.5 trillion, increase funding for the military and border security, cut about $1 trillion from Medicaid and reduce food assistance for the poor.
Dysfunction reigned on the House floor into the wee hours of Thursday morning ahead of the vote, as a handful of Republicans opposed bringing up the measure and more withheld their votes altogether, sending Mr. Johnson grasping for a way to muscle through the sweeping legislation in the face of unified Democratic opposition.
Mr. Johnson had spent all day Wednesday at the Capitol cajoling holdouts while Mr. Trump summoned some of them to the White House to twist their arms. But by early Thursday morning, they had yet to lock down the votes to move forward, particularly among a bloc of fiscally conservative Republicans who were dismayed by the bill’s cost and demanding changes that could derail it altogether.
“What are the Republicans waiting for??? What are you trying to prove???” Mr. Trump, clearly unhappy with how the events of the night were unfolding, wrote in a post on his social media platform. “MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT’S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!”
Hours before dawn, some of the defectors said they had changed their minds and were ready to vote in favor of the bill, though the revolt reflected the deep divisions that have plagued its path through Congress for months. It was not clear what had persuaded them to change course, given the harsh denunciations of the bill that many of them have made in recent days.
The Senate’s version of the legislation, which passed that chamber by a single vote on Tuesday after a similarly intensive round of G.O.P. haggling, exacerbated those rifts. Fiscal conservatives were demanding even deeper cuts to rein in deficits, while lawmakers whose seats are at risk during next year’s midterm elections have resisted the biggest reductions to popular government programs including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Members of the anti-spending faction, including in the vocal House Freedom Caucus, were furious at measures added by the Senate that increased the cost of the legislation and its effect on the national debt.
“The Senate doesn’t get to be the final say on everything. We’ve got to work this out,” said Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the Freedom Caucus. On Wednesday morning, he said there were enough Republicans “right now” who wanted to reopen the bill and were willing to blow through the July 4 recess to do so, but the vote on Wednesday evening suggesting they would not insist on doing so. After threatening not to, Mr. Roy voted to bring up the bill.
More moderate Republicans, many of them anticipating difficult re-election campaigns in swing districts, object to the deeper Medicaid cuts approved by the Senate than those passed by the House in May.
Still, conservatives have repeatedly refused to back major legislation, only to fold under pressure from Mr. Trump. Wednesday night’s vote suggested they were preparing to do so again on the sweeping domestic policy bill.
Democrats have raised a number of procedural roadblocks to register their opposition to the measure and slow its progress.
“When we say the Republican Party has turned into a cult, this is what we mean,” said Representative Seth Magaziner, Democrat of Rhode Island. “Our Republican colleagues are pushing a bill that would throw their constituents under the bus, a bill that flies in the face of everything they claim to stand for, all because Donald Trump wants a bill signing photo-op by the Fourth of July.”
Emboldened by the G.O.P. rift, Democrats have made a point to project a united front while they rail against the bill and ramp up pressure on vulnerable Republicans.
At a news conference on the House steps attended by a sizable portion of the Democratic caucus, Representative Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 House Democrat, called out Representative David Valadao of California, one of the most politically vulnerable Republicans. She questioned how he could back a bill that would slash Medicaid, a program that he has repeatedly voiced concern about, and on which many of his constituents depend.
Mr. Valadao has said he cannot support the level of Medicaid cuts included in the Senate measure. He voted to advance the bill.